Gangs, Intelligence Services, and Politics
M.N.: It would be unforgivably naive to suppose that the U.S. criminal Underworld is not controlled these days by the Russian Mafia, and, in turn, by the Russian Intelligence Services. It would also be unforgivably naive to suppose that there are no messages contained in the various criminal acts, and that there are no connections between the Underworld's recent operations and the present situation in the U.S., including the present investigations.As a matter of facts and the investigative leads, they might hold and provide the most easily accessible clues.
На заседании Высшего Евразийского экономического совета.
Vovchick, "The Great Eurasian Tiger"...
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Accidents - 4.14.17
- Bodies of 4 men, apparent homicide victims, discovered in Central Islip | abc7ny.com
- central islip: "Central, I slip..."?
- They were found at the intersection of Lowell Avenue and Clayton Street in Central Islip, and Suffolk County police say...
- Relatives of Jorge Tigre, 18, left, of Bellport, shown in an undated image from Facebook, and Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue, said cops told them the pair were among 4 bodies found in a Central Islip Park. (Credit: Family photographs)
Etc., etc. ...
Zee alzo:
MS-13 gang
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) - Wikipedia:
is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles, California. It has spread to other parts of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. The majority of the gang is ethnically composed of Central Americans (mostly Salvadorans) and active in urban and suburban areas.
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) - GS
-
Family of missing teens fear they are among 4 people found dead in Long Island park | New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV
Police ID 2 victims of quadruple homicide to relatives, families say | Newsday
News - central islip - Google Search
central islip: "Central, I slip..."? - Google Search
Jorge Tigre and Justin Llivicura - Google Search
Four found dead in Long Island park...
Three dead in San Bernardino after husband kills wife and student in special needs class
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
%20celebrate%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post&refr=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2F&eid=610ab78c-65c9-4181-bd14-1b6b183c4f46)
&eid=99efb047-dca5-4bbd-8744-d1bb7f97d33b)
President Trump walks to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, March. 20, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
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What is MS-13? The 'transnational' street gang on the FBI's radar - CNN
Mara Salvatrucha: The New Face of Organized Crime? - Stratfor - 3.30.06
(you overslept this warning... - M.N.)
"An Al Qaeda Connection?
Many reports have claimed that MS-13 somehow has entered into an alliance with al Qaeda, though we believe there are too many ideological and practical obstacles for an actual al Qaeda/MS-13 confederation ever to be established. For one thing, MS-13 is a criminal organization dedicated to making money, and helping al Qaeda would bring unnecessary attention to its members — putting a big dent in the bottom line. Doing business with al Qaeda would simply be bad business. Of course, al Qaeda could make use of MS-13's human-smuggling network to try to cross operatives into the United States. In that case, MS-13 might enter into a simple business transaction without knowing that its client is a terrorist organization."
4.14.17
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3:17 PM 4/13/2017
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Current Reviews
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Deaths of 4 men in Central Islip possible MS-13 gang retaliation ...
New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV-10 hours ago
The news conference came hours after distraught family and friends of two missing Long Island teens — Jorge Tigre, 18, and Justin Llivicura, ...
Police: Four Found Dead In Park In Central Islip 'Suffered Significant ...
Highly Cited-CBS New York-17 hours ago
Highly Cited-CBS New York-17 hours ago
Police ID 2 victims of quadruple homicide to relatives, families say
Newsday-8 hours ago
Relatives of Jorge Tigre, 18, left, of Bellport, shown in an undated image from Facebook, and Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue, said cops ...
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Relatives of Jorge Tigre, 18, left, of Bellport, shown in an undated image from Facebook, and Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue, said cops told them the pair were among 4 bodies found in a Central Islip Park. (Credit: Family photographs)
They ranged in age from 16 to 20 — teenagers and young men — their lives ended this week in what police called a single burst of brutality in Central Islip.
The families of two of the dead said they both attended Bellport High School and neither was a gang member.
Police have not identified the four victims whose bodies were found Wednesday night in a park bounded by Clayton Street...
Bodies of 4 men, apparent homicide victims, discovered in Central Islip
WABC-TV-13 hours ago
They were found at the intersection of Lowell Avenue and Clayton Street in Central Islip, and Suffolk County police say there was "significant ...
Quadruple-homicide in Central Islip park appears to be gang related ...
Highly Cited-Newsday-21 hours ago
Highly Cited-Newsday-21 hours ago
Teen Victims ID'd In Quadruple Homicide; MS-13 Suspected Culprits
Local Source-<a href="http://Patch.com" rel="nofollow">Patch.com</a>-12 hours ago
Local Source-<a href="http://Patch.com" rel="nofollow">Patch.com</a>-12 hours ago
Police: Four Found Dead In Park In Central Islip 'Suffered Significant ...
Highly Cited-CBS New York-17 hours ago
Highly Cited-CBS New York-17 hours ago
Pedestrian struck and killed in Central Islip, police say
Newsday-Apr 9, 2017
Investigators at the scene where Suffolk police said a man was fatally struck by a Lexus as he crossed East Suffolk Avenue in Central Islip ...
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· · · ·
CENTRAL ISLIP, Long Island (WABC) --
The bodies of four men, apparent homicide victims, were discovered in Long Island park Wednesday night.
They were found at the intersection of Lowell Avenue and Clayton Street in Central Islip, and Suffolk County police say there was "significant trauma" on the victims. They were not immediately identified, but authorities said they were a 16-year-old, two 18-year-olds and a 20-year-old.
There was no vigil Thursday night because parents say they've become prisoners in their own homes, and don't let their kids walk home alone because gangs have taken over the streets.
The Guardian Angels, Suffolk County police, and the FBI were the only ones out on the streets, after four bodies were found in a heavily wooded area, right by a soccer field in Central Islip.
More gruesome casualties in a community plagued by gang violence.
"This is a long term war. Make no mistake about it, it's a war. This is a sad day in Suffolk County," said Commissioner Tim Sini, Suffolk County Police Department.
The bodies were discovered Wednesday night. The victims were viciously stabbed all over their bodies, a manner consistent with gang violence.
Police believe they were murdered where they were found.
"We are not releasing the date or time they were killed, but these homicides occurred within the past few days. This is one incident," Sini said. "He was beaten to death. Brutally. It wasn't like they shot him and left it. They beat him to death brutally."
The murders are all too familiar for one teen who says he lost his brother to gang violence a year ago.
He plays basketball by this soccer field, but when the sun goes down he knows not to be out. "I pray for those families because I know the pain that they're going through. That pain it hurts. I can feel their pain. It's nothing new to me," he said.
"It's a cycle. It's a cycle," Elizabeth Alvarado said. Her daughter, Nisa Mickens, was murdered last year in Brentwood in a similar attack.
She's now left with a scar that never heals. "It's the worst pain that any mother could feel," Alvarado said.
A mother told Eyewitness News she was too afraid to hold a vigil. She said they've had enough.
These gang members, she says, the kill for excitement.
Gang violence has been a problem in Central Islip, Brentwood and other Long Island communities for more than a decade, and eight arrests last month in deaths of Mickins and Kayla Cuevas were the culmination of a long-term sweep by federal officials and Suffolk police targeting gang members.
Earlier Thursday, a group waiting at the scene in Central Islip was hoping for some news about their loved ones.
William Tigre, of Bellport, said he got a phone call Wednesday night from a friend who said he saw Tigre's brother George murdered. That friend, Tigre said, is also missing now.
"He is the one who called me and (said), 'I see your brother getting killed. I'm the one who escaped,'" Tigre said. "How did he escape? I show all that to the detective."
Frany Novoa said her 21-year-old son William is missing.
"They're kids," she said. "I don't know what they're involved in, who they're around."
The family of 16-year-old Justin Llidicura told Eyewitness News that detectives informed them they are investigating whether he is among the dead. His cousin, who didn't want to be identified, said Llidicura told him Wednesday he was going to the park. No one has heard from him since.
"When his parents woke up, he wasn't at home," he said. "So they called his phone multiple times. He never answered. It just went straight to voicemail. The phone was cut off. That's when they got worried, because it was almost like a full day."
A $25,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to arrests.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(Copyright ©2017 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.)
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British intelligence and security agency GCHQ was the first to intercept messages and establish a link between Russia and US President Donald Trump's aides way back in 2015.
The UK intelligence agency, well known for its advanced cyberspying methods, is said to have become aware of suspicious "interactions" between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents in 2015, according to a report in the Guardian. The information was then passed on to US as part of a routine exchange of information.
More from IBTimes UK
A number of foreign spy agencies also reportedly passed on similar information to the Central Intelligence Agency. The countries that sent electronic intelligence to US included Germany, Estonia, Poland, France, the Netherlands and even Australia.
The messages were picked up merely through a routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets, and were not part of any targeted campaign towards Trump as the President had claimed sometime back. Different foreign agencies targeting these same agents began noticing a pattern of connections that were raised to the CIA.
Both the FBI and the CIA were reportedly slow to appreciate the seriousness of these links ahead of the US election. The reason behind the lukewarm response was that the US law prohibits its agencies from examining private communications of American citizens without warrants.
"It looks like the US agencies were asleep," a source was quoted saying about the CIA and other intelligence officers. "They European agencies were saying: 'There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.' The message was - Watch out. There's something not right here." said the source.
How did Trump know?
GCHQ's former head Robert Hannigan, has reportedly passed concrete evidence establishing links between Trump aides and Russia to CIA chief John Brennan in the summer of 2016. Brennan used this GCHQ proof and intelligence from other partners to begin an inter-agency investigation. He, in late August and September, gave a series of classified briefings to the Gang of Eight, the top-ranking Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate.
Although Brennan did not reveal the source of his findings, he did say that America's intelligence allies had provided information. It was at this time Trump and his aides reportedly learned of GCHQ's involvement.
Subsequently, Trump and some members of his administration, most notably Sean Spicer, accused former US President Barack Obama of asking GCHQ's help to wire tap the current President. These accusations were rubbished by the British government particularly the GCHQ who called it "utterly ridiculous".
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North Korea blames Trump and his 'aggressive' tweets for tensions
Washington Post - 2 hours ago
TOKYO — North Korea hit out at President Trump Friday, accusing him “making trouble” with his “aggressive” tweets, amid concerns that tensions between the two countries could escalate into military action. Tensions have been steadily mounting in ...
North Korean Nuclear Test Will Be When Leaders See Fit, Vice Minister Says
<a href="http://NBCNews.com" rel="nofollow">NBCNews.com</a> - 1 hour ago
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea's vice foreign minister says it will conduct its next nuclear test whenever its supreme headquarters sees fit. Vice Minister Han Song Ryol made the comments in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in ...
Why is April 15 such a big deal in North Korea?
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North Korea: Trump's "aggressive" tweets "making trouble"
CBS News - 5 hours ago
PYONGYANG, North Korea -- North Korea's vice foreign minister on Friday blamed President Trump for building up a “vicious cycle” of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, saying his “aggressive” tweets were “making trouble.” In an exclusive interview with ...
North Korea 'will go to war' if US chooses, Pyongyang official says
MarketWatch - 40 minutes ago
North Korea's vice foreign minister said on Friday that the nuclear-armed country was prepared for war in the wake of reports about a possible preemptive strike against them. “We will go to war — if they choose,” Vice Minister Han Song Ryol told The ...
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· · ·
Trump, Then And Now: What His Shifting Positions Say About What He Believes
WAMC - 1 hour ago
President Trump walks up the stairs to Air Force One on Thursday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The president has recently made a series of apparent policy reversals. Alex Brandon / AP ...
Trump: Flip, flop or flexibility?
CNN - 10 hours ago
Washington (CNN) One of Donald Trump's many memorable lines on the campaign trail was about ISIS. "I would bomb the s**t out of 'em. I would just bomb those suckers," he said. Given that, launching the so-called "mother of all bombs" against an ISIS ...
Jules Witcover: Take charge Trump? He's still impulsive and mercurial
Baltimore Sun - 42 minutes ago
In Donald Trump's continuing attempt to look more presidential, his assertions of military and staff control may be having limited success. But his long record of impulsive and impetuous behavior based on impressions rather than established fact ...
President Trump's policy shifts
CBS News - 7 hours ago
April 13, 2017, 9:34 PM | In what some have referred to as "political whiplash," President Trump has reversed his position on a range of issues. For example, he retracted his stance that China is a currency manipulator and his claims that NATO is obsolete.
Trump changes stance on several campaign promises early in presidency
CBS News - 10 hours ago
WASHINGTON -- About two weeks before the election, candidate Donald Trump put out what he called a contract with the American voter -- a list of actions he said he would take in his first day and in his first 100 days. He wrote, “this is my pledge to ...
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· ·
Long before he became Donald Trump’s feared attack dog, or began to visit the White House as the president’s personal attorney, or took a position with the Republican National Committee, or partnered with powerhouse lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs, Michael Cohen ran a small legal practice in Hell’s Kitchen.
He was a one-man show and handled a little bit of everything, from personal injury cases to a Ukrainian investment fund to a fleet of taxis to a trust account he managed for clients.
One day in 1999, a check for $350,000 was deposited into that trust account, to be disbursed to a woman living in South Florida. As the lawyer in charge of the account, Cohen was supposed to ensure that she got the money.
But he didn’t.
Why not? And what ultimately happened to all that money?
“I don’t recall,” Cohen said in a deposition.
The missing $350,000 — which has never been recovered — became the centerpiece of a 2009 lawsuit in Miami, where Cohen was accused of civil fraud. After years of litigation, Cohen prevailed, in part because the suit was filed past the statute of limitations.
Cohen, in an interview with BuzzFeed News, said he was first questioned about the money eight years after it was deposited, by which time he said he could not recall much about it. “I honestly don’t remember who gave me the deposit at the time,” he said. “This is another poor attempt to malign my impeccable reputation and attempt to connect me to a Russian conspiracy.”
But Cohen’s own testimony in the case reveals that the man who is now the president’s personal lawyer failed to execute one of the core duties of an attorney — properly handling money placed in his trust — and was cavalier about that failure.
“One of the things lawyers are most likely to be disciplined for is misusing clients’ funds,” said Deborah Rhode, a legal ethics expert from Stanford University, who said that properly accounting for and disbursing funds is a critically important obligation for many attorneys.
“A lawyer who, incident to his law practice, comes into possession of funds belonging to a client (or third person), has very clear obligations,” Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University, wrote in an email. Like Rhode, he declined to comment on the particulars of Cohen’s case, which he was not familiar with, but said that in general a lawyer “may not commingle the funds with his own. He must keep them in a separate account, sometimes called an escrow or special account. He must ‘promptly’ notify the client or third person of his receipt of the funds and ‘promptly’ deliver them.”
New York State Bar Association records show that Cohen has never been disciplined. A spokesman for the association said cases that were investigated but resulted in no discipline are kept secret.
The $350,000 mystery involves four other important characters: Vladimir Malakhov, a professional hockey player who wrote the original check; Yulia Fomina, a Russian woman who asked Malakhov to loan her the money and put her condominium up as collateral; Vitaly Buslaev, a Russian businessperson who was Fomina’s boyfriend; and Symon Garber, a Ukrainian-born taxi baron who was Cohen’s business partner.
In 1999, Malakhov was playing defense for the Montreal Canadiens. He would play in the NHL for a decade, win a Stanley Cup and collect about $30 million in salary. Along the way, he attracted the attention of Russian organized crime. During Senate hearings, a former gangster testified that someone tried to shake down Malakhov at a restaurant in Brooklyn’s heavily Russian neighborhood of Brighton Beach. The man who made the threats reportedly worked for Vyacheslav Ivankov, a notorious Russian mafia boss who was later assassinated in 2009.
“Malakhov spent the next months in fear,” according to the testimony, “looking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, avoiding restaurants and clubs where Russian criminals hang out.”
Malakhov was playing for Montreal in 1999 when Buslaev and Fomina entered the picture.
Yuri Felshtinsky, a Russian-American historian, reports that Buslaev was dating Fomina and supported her in the United States, helping her purchase a condominium, an Aston Martin, and a Mercedes-Benz. There are few public records available on Buslaev, but Russian business registrations show him as a manager of at least three companies near Moscow.
Court records show that around that time, Buslaev encouraged her to ask Malakhov and his wife, with whom she was friendly, for a loan.
Buslaev was looking for a hedge against “the instability of the Russian ruble on the foreign exchange market,” Malakhov’s sports agent wrote in an affidavit. At the agent’s suggestion, Malakhov demanded some collateral. (The agent, Paul Theofanus, did not return a message left at his office last week.)
So Fomina put up the deed to her condo and Malakhov wrote the check.
But he didn’t write it to her. At what he would later say was Fomina’s request, Malakhov wrote it to the trust account that Cohen controlled.
Two years later, claiming that Fomina failed to repay the loan, Malakhov’s wife went to court to take possession of the condo.
Fomina was in Russia at the time. When she returned to Florida, she filed suit, claiming she had been taken advantage of and didn’t speak enough English to understand the loan documents she signed. She and the Malakhovs did not return phone calls seeking comment, and Buslaev could not be reached. But Fomina’s lawsuit set off more than five years of litigation, and Malakhov’s lawyers eventually questioned Cohen about his role in the matter.
During a deposition, they showed him the check that Malakhov wrote, which had been endorsed with what appeared to be Cohen’s signature. Cohen declined to say whether it really was his.
“It could be,” he allowed.
He said that he didn’t know Malakhov, Fomina, or Buslaev.
The trust account, he explained, was used for “negligence settlements” or “property damage claims.” Perhaps the money was meant for the Ukrainian investment fund he managed, Cohen said.
Again and again — at least six times — Cohen said he didn’t recall why the $350,000 was deposited or what became of it.
Because many of the players in this deal were Russian or Ukrainian, lawyers pressed Cohen about his connections to those countries. He said that he had visited “Russia or the Ukraine” in the past but that he never sent money from one of his business accounts to anyone living there. He said that he had foreign clients and partners, including Garber, who helped him manage a fleet of taxis in America. Garber was listed as a witness in the case but was not interviewed by attorneys. Visited recently by reporters at his taxi headquarters in Queens, Garber declined comment.
“Somewhere along the line, I was asked to hold somebody’s funds for whatever the purpose was,” Cohen said during his deposition in 2007. “Whether it was A, B or C, I don’t know the reasons and I can’t even begin to guess.”
The money, according to court filings, has never been found.
Anthony Cormier is an investigative reporter/editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. While working for the Tampa Bay Times, Cormier won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Contact Anthony Cormier at anthony.cormier@buzzfeed.com.
Got a confidential tip? Submit it here.
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· · · · ·
Four found dead in Long Island park may be victims of gang violence
The Spokesman-Review - 6 hours ago
William Tigre talks to reporters at a crime scene where the bodies of four men were found in Central Islip, N.Y., Thursday, April 13, 2017. Tigre said an acquaintance told him Wednesday night that his 18-year-old brother, Jorge, was one of the victims.
Police commissioner on homicide: 'We are in the midst of a war'
Newsday - 7 hours ago
On Thursday, April 13, 2017, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini held a news conference to talk about four bodies that were found behind a park on Clayton Street in Central Islip on Wednesday night. Sini suspects the MS-13 gang is ...
Central Islip homicides: What we know and don't know
Newsday - 18 hours ago
A mobile command for Suffolk County police is parked on Clayton Street in Central Islip on Thursday, April 13, 2017, as homicide investigators probed the death of four males found in nearby woods. Photo Credit: James Carbone. advertisement | advertise ...
MS-13 gangsters suspected in Long Island quadruple murder
New York Daily News - 12 hours ago
Members of the MS-13 street gang, already blamed for six Long Island slayings, emerged Thursday as the leading suspects in the execution of four young men. The butchered corpses were quickly linked to the violent crew because of the brutality of the ...
Police: Four bodies found in NY may be work of MS-13
<a href="http://FOX43.com" rel="nofollow">FOX43.com</a> - 9 hours ago
Police on Long Island, New York, have discovered the bodies of four young people authorities suspect may have been killed by members of the international MS-13 gang, officials said Thursday. Authorities believe the four males, ranging from ages 16 to ...
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MOSCOW—The American airstrike on the Shayrat air base in Syria didn’t do all that much. A day and 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles later, Bashar al-Assad was still in power, his planes were still taking off from Shayrat, still flying and still dropping bombs and killing people in the same areas of Idlib Province where a sarin gas attack killed more than 80 people last week. What the strike did do, though, was radically alter the power dynamic between Moscow and Washington that Vladimir Putin had spent the last three years establishing: one in which Putin acts and Washington, gobsmacked, scrambles to react.
By the time Secretary of State Rex Tillerson landed here on Tuesday night, it was Moscow that was trying to find the right response to an American administration that, in 63 hours, completely inverted an isolationist message it had stuck to for nearly two years, a message it had been trumpeting just days prior. And by the time Tillerson wrapped up his meetings in Moscow, Trump was singing hosannas to Xi Jinping, leader of a country he had previously vowed to label a currency manipulator, while taking the stage with NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg and declaring that, suddenly, NATO was “no longer obsolete,” as Trump had maintained during the campaign.
“We have to figure out what this country’s strategy is,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on a political talk show on TVRain, an independent Russian channel, just hours after Tillerson touched down in Moscow, and hours before meetings were set to begin. “No one understands it right now. If you do, share your appraisal with us,” she said, flustered, to us journalists interviewing her. “We don’t understand what they’re going to do in Syria, and not only there. No one understands what they’re going to do in the Middle East, which is a very complicated region. … No one understands what they’re going to do with Iran, no one understands what they’re going to do with Afghanistan. Excuse me, and I still haven’t said anything about Iraq.”
Moreover, she complained, who were the Russians supposed to talk to to find out? “Just look, the team … is not fully formed,” Zakharova said. “Even if the key people, the heads of the agencies have been named … there’s no layer between them and the work horses. It’s just not there.” Her boss, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, pointedly told the National Interest two weeks ago that close cooperation with Tillerson “could only be done when the team in the State Department is complete.”
As for Tillerson’s sudden transformation from a friend of Russia, decorated by Putin with an Order of Friendship, to someone who publicly chastises its leadership for being “complicit or simply incompetent” in its guarantee of helping Assad dispose of his chemical weapons, Russians are trying to be understanding. “We’re surprised by the change of rhetoric and policy of Trump,” said Igor Korotchenko, the editor of National Defense Magazine, who has close connections to the Russian defense ministry. “Tillerson is just the executor of his boss’s policy. And that’s what really does surprise us. We understand that things in America change quickly, but this is … he’s jumping from one extreme to the other. We’re ready for dialogue. We just have to understand what they want.”
“Tillerson has to explain what Trump’s foreign policy is. What is Trump’s foreign policy?” said political scientist Andranik Migranyan, an old classmate of Lavrov’s who ran a Russian think tank in New York that worked on defending Moscow’s position. Lavrov’s thinking on confronting this new twist, Migranyan told me, is “‘You explain to us what it is you want, and then we can talk.’ The whole world is waiting for them to figure this out and stop messing with us.”
But there is no end to that in sight. So while Trump gradually discovers the world’s complexities, in the process flipping the script on his own dogmas, Moscow has apparently decided to take the position of the forbearing parent who is waiting out the tumultuous teenage years.
Sitting next to a stern, terse Tillerson, who looked straight ahead and never at his Russian counterpart, Lavrov was all suave patience. “As far as I’m concerned, I’d just like to say that we do not consider that we are miles apart on many questions on the agenda,” he said. He insisted on underlining the issues on which there is agreement—terrorism must be fought together, for instance. When it came to the areas where there was disagreement, he blamed another, unnamed party.
As the self-appointed adult, Lavrov of course had to remind Tillerson that he has been at this much longer, and remembered much more. “As far as Syria is concerned and Bashar al-Assad, we talked today about the history, and Rex said that he was a new man and is not interested so much in history; he wants to deal with today’s problems. But the world is so constructed that unless we look at what’s happened in the past, we won’t be able to deal with the present.” There followed a familiar history lecture on all of America’s foreign-policy failures of the last 20 years. (“Maybe it’s time to ask Moscow’s advice if you get it wrong so many times?” said Migranyan.)
And, of course, Lavrov tried hard to get the trigger-happy, too-young-to-remember Americans back on a calm and steady course. Yes, what happened on April 4 was terrible, but how does anyone know what really happened? While Tillerson and Lavrov met, for instance, Putin said in an interview that he had heard several versions of the chemical-attack story, including that it was a false-flag operation to discredit Assad. And while Tillerson told a Russian reporter yesterday that Assad “brought upon himself” all the mean things Trump said about him, Lavrov tried to play the part of the impartial referee: Let’s not fight until we know what happened. “We have insisted that … we have a very thorough investigation of all that,” Lavrov said. And whoever doesn’t want to have a very thorough investigation, “this will mean that they simply don’t want to establish the truth.” (That said, while Lavrov was in Moscow calling for an investigation, the Russians in New York were busy vetoing a UN resolution that called for an investigation, saying it already presupposed the culprit.)
This was classic Russia, but it was also the only thing left to Russian decision-makers in the face of such a stunning and unexpected reversal. Taken by surprise, Lavrov had to steer everything back onto the playing field in which Russia excels: bureaucracy. If a terrible thing occurred, who could be against an investigation? Don’t you want to know the truth? Of course you do. But Russia means something very different than its Western counterparts do when it says “investigation” and “truth,” as it did when it insisted on an investigation after the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. That investigation took years, during which the memory of children’s toys and vacation guides and limbs scattered among sunflowers faded, and years during which Russia conducted its own investigation anyway, which predictably absolved it of any blame.
And if America claims that it stands for international law and order, why not take the matter to the international legal bodies, like the United Nations, who can adjudicate this fight? You are for law and order, aren’t you? But Russians are bureaucratic ninjas—their strongest rulers, Putin and Stalin, were strong in large part because of their bureaucratic prowess—and they will find every way to slow down, obfuscate, and slowly bleed of life any initiative. A Russian journalist once told me of reporting from the European parliament in Strasbourg, where the Russian emissary—not a member of the parliament himself—ground the proceedings to a halt by pointing out that, because different copies of the resolution were printed on paper of different colors, it was impossible to go forward, because how could anyone know that the pink copy and the yellow copy had the exact same wording?
The point, in other words, is to freeze Trump’s unexpectedly hot temper by herding it into a labyrinth of procedure for procedure’s sake, where, while it dies a slow and frustrating bureaucratic death, Russia will have the time and breathing room to continue giving Assad cover to reconquer Syria. “Our current goal is to end the civil war, and to get the terrorists anyway while we’re there, so there’s a single, secular Syria,” says Korotchenko. “We’ll never leave Syria. We have two bases there. We’ll be there for the nearest 50 years, at least.”
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How the Syria Strike Flipped the US-Russia Power Dynamic
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Despite his largely symbolic strike on a Syrian airfield in response to the April 4 nerve gas attack by the Assad regime, President Donald Trump has given no serious indication that he wants to make a broader intervention in Syria. As a candidate, and even as a president, Trump has pledged to leave the region to sort out its own troubles, apart from a stepped-up effort to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS). He may quickly learn, though, that one-off military actions driven by domestic politics have a way of turning into something far more substantial.
Already, tensions with Syria’s close ally, Russia, have been escalating, with little sign that the US administration can bring about a change toward Damascus. Bashar al-Assad long ago learned he can operate with impunity. But even larger questions surround another Assad ally, Iran, which, though less conspicuous, has had a crucial part in the changing course of the war and in the overall balance of power in the region. While the Trump administration regards Iran as enemy, it has yet to articulate a clear policy toward it—or even to take account of its growing influence in Iraq and Syria.
If the Syrian leader ignores the warning conveyed by the Tomahawk missile strike, what will be Trump’s next move? Will he be able to resist the temptation to deepen US involvement in Syria to counter a resurgent Iran? How might this affect the battle against the Islamic State—a battle that has already created an intricate power struggle between the many parties hoping to enjoy the spoils?
Consider the array of forces now in play: in Syria, the war on ISIS has been led by Syrian Kurds affiliated with the PKK, the militant Kurdish party in Turkey, which is also in conflict with the Turkish state—another US ally. In Iraq, there are the peshmerga, the fighters of a rival Kurdish party, who are competing both with the PKK and with Iraqi Shia militias for control over former ISIS territory. There is Turkey, an avowed enemy of Assad that is currently at war with the PKK and its Syrian affiliates, and has moved troops into both northern Syria and northern Iraq in order to thwart the PKK. There is Russia, which, in intervening on behalf of Assad, has created a major shift in the conflict.
And finally, there is Iran, which has made various alliances with Assad, Shia militias, and Kurdish groups in an effort to expand its control of Iraq and, together with Hezbollah, re-establish a dominant position in the Levant. Moreover, Iran has also benefited from another tactical, if unofficial, alliance—with the United States itself, in their efforts to defeat ISIS in neighboring Iraq.
Given all this, the US strike does nothing so much as complicate an already explosive situation. The loudest cheerleader of Trump’s action last week was Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been especially concerned as Iran and its ally Hezbollah benefit from their tactical military alliance with Russia to prop up the Syrian regime. But whatever advantages some may see in the recent US stand against Assad, it makes it even less likely that a stable postwar order can be achieved.
As my own trip to northern Iraq and northern Syria last month revealed, even as the international coalition makes major gains against the Islamic State, the region’s crises are multiplying. Worse, they are also, increasingly, intersecting, sucking in outside powers with a centrifugal force that has proved impossible to withstand.
Four years since its emergence in eastern Syria and subsequent lightning conquest of western Iraq, ISIS is quickly losing ground. After months of encirclement by coalition forces, backed by the airpower of the US, ISIS now finds itself increasingly overwhelmed in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and once one of the group’s strongholds. Its fighters are exhausted, its ranks depleted, but its remaining forces are clearly prepared to fight to the bitter end. The battle for Mosul has caused high casualties on both sides and especially among trapped civilians, including from American bombings in the old city’s dense warren of streets and alleyways. It has also caused extensive destruction, though important infrastructure has mostly been left intact: the power and water supply, as well as the cell phone network, still function. As Iraqi army and elite US-trained counter-terrorism forces push deeper into the old city, they take neighborhoods street by street. Civilians adapt, moving their markets on both sides of the line accordingly as it creeps northward.
It is striking that, throughout the region, both states and non-state groups like ISIS and the Kurds draw on language of encirclement and victimhood in their struggles for power. Perceptions can often count more than reality, leading to tensions and military actions that might otherwise be easily avoided. For example, Saudi Arabia sees a revolutionary and ascendant Iran gaining power and increasingly encircling it, in a region the Saudis thought they dominated—in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, the Red Sea. As a result, Saudi leadership has not only backed various rebel groups fighting the Assad regime, but also launched a war against the Houthis in Yemen—which it regards as proxies of Iran.
For its part, Iran says it is surrounded by pro-American states—including Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, Afghanistan, Turkey, and, further afield, Israel—which are intent on keeping it isolated and under sanctions, and preventing it from fulfilling its enormous potential. Meanwhile, it fears being cut off from its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon in a post-Assad Syria.
The human cost of these rivalries has been extraordinary. Over 3.3 million people are currently displaced in Iraq, a population that suffers from shortages of food, clothes, shelter, and basic services while contending with a variety of forces hostile to them. In Mosul, another major threat to civilian life is the Mosul dam just upstream on the Tigris, which has been dangerously weakened by structural flaws and years of neglect. It has held while engineers feverishly add grout to all the necessary places. Those with knowledge of the matter anxiously watch the sky, praying for no rain: it takes a damaging drought to prevent a killer flood.
Meanwhile, a new set of conflicts may be about to begin. These are of two kinds. The first kind of conflict is a political and sectarian one. The various forces aligned against ISIS know that they can defeat the group on the battlefield. But they lack the tools to suppress “Daeshism,” the group’s ideology (after Daesh, the way the group is referred to in Arabic), which will remain attractive to Sunni Muslims as long as they feel politically excluded and as long as the various powers in the region continue to exploit sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shia.
Moreover, since ISIS is in many ways an Iraqi organization—its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdad is an Iraqi, and a number of its senior commanders (many now dead) served in the Saddam regime’s security services—the challenge of Daeshism will be most acutely felt in Iraq. The problem is all the more intractable given that Shia Islamist parties dominate the government in Baghdad, and the offensive against Mosul was largely spearheaded by Iran-backed Shia militias, notwithstanding the fact that the local population in Mosul and surrounding areas are overwhelmingly Sunni. These militias are more powerful than the army and have become a virtual state within a state.
Already, local ISIS recruits are blending in with civilians who are taking refuge in camps—lying low, waiting for more opportune times. This threat could be addressed, in part, by giving local Sunni populations a say in municipal councils and by giving local and federal forces joint control of security, but few Iraqi politicians in Baghdad have demonstrated either aptitude or appetite for such an inclusive approach. Instead, they and the militias they support (and that effectively control them) seem motivated by revenge, and so the problem of Daeshism will fester. ISIS remnants will continue to create havoc at every opportunity, and one can expect there will be many. This is a challenge in Syria as much as it is in Iraq: many of the people living in areas vacated by ISIS reject the alternative, be it rule by the central government or by Shia or various Kurdish militias. This will enable ISIS fighters, currently hiding out in plain sight, to make a comeback if fighting continues among the various contenders for power.
These local conflicts are cross-cut by the standoff, mainly rhetorical but fought by proxy, and involving nuclear politics, between Israel and Iran. “It’s like a game of Risk,” an academic and political go-between in northern Syria told my colleagues and me last month. To forestall an Israeli attack on its nuclear program or an attempt at regime change in Tehran, Iran has long backed regional proxies that extend its power across the region. Foremost among these is Hezbollah, the Lebanese “Party of God,” which has been an integral part of what Iran calls its “forward defense,” taking the place of missiles that could effectively target Israel, which Tehran still lacks. Through Hezbollah, Iran can use Lebanon as a launching pad within fifty miles of major Israeli cities.
Yet Iran’s strategic posture is only as strong as the supply line that supports it. Until now, this has been an air route connecting Iran to Hezbollah via Iraq and Syria, but the Iranian government wants to consolidate this with a land corridor running from its own borders to the Mediterranean. This is not merely an accusation one hears in Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyadh, Amman, or Abu Dhabi, but an aim that is acknowledged by Iranian analysts themselves, who describe it as a strategic necessity. It needs these routes to get arms to Hezbollah. That explains the importance of Iran’s alliance with the Assad government in Syria, and also why Iran and Hezbollah were in such a hurry after 2011 to prop up the Syrian regime when it was threatened with imminent collapse. (Iran has also long wanted to diversify its energy export routes, and has mooted plans to construct an east-west pipeline across Iraq to the Syrian coast.)
Two events have enabled the execution of Tehran’s plan: the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and dismantling of the Iraqi army, which swung the balance of power in Baghdad toward Shia Islamist parties susceptible to Iranian influence; and ISIS’s rapid rise to power in 2013 and 2014, in part precipitated by then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s overt sectarianism and lethal suppression of peaceful Sunni protests. Using Iraqi militias it has recruited and trained since 2003, Iran has piggybacked on the US-supported effort by the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga to confront ISIS. These militias have rapaciously taken over the Sunni towns they and the army wrested control of from ISIS. Soon they will be able to stretch westward from Mosul toward the Syrian border. Only ISIS holdouts in Mosul and adjacent areas stand in their way; these will soon be gone.
This is particularly unnerving to Iran’s enemies and rivals, and not only Israel. For one thing, the envisioned Iranian land corridor threatens to cut off Iraq’s own north-south oil pipeline. Northern Iraq’s oil, concentrated around the town of Kirkuk, is important to Turkey, which levies transit fees. But Kirkuk oil passed through territory that was seized by ISIS. This left Iraq’s leaders in Baghdad with no alternative other than to divert the flow through a new pipeline crossing the Kurdish region to Turkey. The Iraqi government realized that this would strengthen Kurdish autonomy, but it was a cost they were willing to incur if it meant continued revenue at a time of low oil prices. A disruption of the pipeline by Iran or the PKK would have consequences for Iraqi Kurds, for Turkey, and for European consumers—leverage that could potentially be a strategic asset for Iran in time of war.
Turkey, with which Iran has had a fixed border and stable diplomatic and trading relationship for over five hundred years, also feels threatened because the envisioned Iranian corridor skirts Turkey’s border with both Syria and Iraq. This tension is most visible in Sinjar, a remote but strategically crucial Iraqi district and border town that connects Mosul with Syria. Sinjar was the site of ISIS’s August 2014 genocidal attack on the local Yazidi community; it also has been the focal point, more recently, of the conflict that has emerged between the two main Kurdish groups: the PKK and its Syrian affiliates, on the one hand, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which is allied with Turkey, dominates the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq (KRG), and has its own fighting forces.
In the 2014 attack, ISIS used a joint force of local and outside fighters to abduct at least five thousand women and girls, and killed an even greater number of men and boys after the precipitous, pre-emptive withdrawal of the KDP peshmerga, who had previously controlled the area. Many Yazidis were rescued—not by the Iraqi army or returning peshmerga, however, but by PKK fighters rushing in from Syria and from their mountain redoubt of Qandil on the Iraq-Iran border, hundreds of miles away. These PKK units shepherded civilians to safety in Syria, who were then resettled in displaced people camps in the Iraqi Kurdish region.
The PKK covets Sinjar because its presence allows it to control part of the Syrian border and smuggle goods to its Syrian affiliate, the Syrian Kurdish PYD, whose four-year-old experiment in self rule has come under increasing threat. After rebranding their units in an attempt to hide their PKK origin, the PKK fighters who had rescued the Yazidis claimed to be a local force and stayed in Sinjar. No independent observer I know has fallen for the ruse; the Turkish government, which is locked in a deadly conflict with the PKK in southeastern Turkey, certainly has not. In recent months, Turkey has taken military action against the PKK’s local affiliates in northern Syria and has imposed an economic blockade on the territory under these groups’ control.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Kurdish KDP sees the PKK as a foreign intruder in Sinjar, and fears both its fighting prowess and its pan-Kurdish ambitions. (PKK fighters have also deployed in other parts of northern Iraq, including Amedi, Makhmour, and Kirkuk.) In northern Syria, the PKK and its local affiliates seek to connect non-contiguous Kurdish districts while putting pressure on Turkey. Last month, a senior Iraqi Kurdish official told me, “The PKK wants to control the border with Syria and our border with Turkey, from the mountains down into the lowlands, and become leader of all Kurds.”
For Turkey, the PKK’s presence in Sinjar is especially threatening because there the interests of Iran and the PKK coincide. To consolidate its land corridor, Iran needs one other crucial link: the Turkmen town of Tel Afar, which is part-Sunni, part-Shia and is situated directly between Sinjar and Mosul. As part of the fight against ISIS in Mosul, driving up from the south and circumnavigating the city, Iran-backed Shia militias made a beeline for Tel Afar and seized its airport. As of early April, some ISIS fighters remained in the town but their defeat is imminent. Once the Shia militias control Tel Afar, they can connect with the PKK in Sinjar, and Iran will have accomplished much of its goal. Iran in 2011 had forged a tactical alliance with the PKK and its Syrian affiliates. Since then, the PKK has relied on Iranian support in Syria and Iraq in return for agreeing to halt the insurgency, carried out by another affiliate, inside Iran (which is home to a large Kurdish population of its own).
The KDP retains a small military presence on the road from Sinjar to Tel Afar and, backed by Turkey, appears ready to block both Iran and the PKK, and regain ground it lost to the PKK three years ago, especially along the Syrian border. On March 3, a KDP-backed brigade of Syrian Kurdish fighters, the so-called Rojava Peshmerga (“Rojava” denoting “western” or Syrian Kurdistan), moved from the Mosul area toward a PKK garrison in Khanasur, a village on the border, provoking a fire fight in which a number of fighters on both sides were killed and injured. Then, on March 14, the PKK retaliated with a provocation of its own, busing hundreds of Syrian civilians into the area, who started a demonstration in Khanasur. Unable to push back the throng, the Rojava Peshmerga opened fire. In the melee, a young woman operating a video camera was killed and several other protesters were injured.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders have dismissed these skirmishes as a PKK attempt to test the commitment of their forces, and say they do not seek a broader conflict. But wars are not always started by deliberate actions. The potential for escalation in Khanasur or elsewhere in Sinjar is significant, given the close proximity in which the two sides’ fighters have deployed, the mutual enmity between them, and the complete lack of trust among their leaders. There is also the problem that Turkey’s tolerance of PKK activity on its borders with Iraq and Syria appears to have reached a breaking point. How it will act next may depend on whether its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, never less than mercurial, wins an April 16 national referendum that would give him sweeping new executive powers.
A Kurdish opposition politician in Suleimaniya described to me what he saw as the worst-case, doomsday scenario in Iraqi Kurdistan:
The KDP attacks the PKK in Sinjar; Turkey sends more of its forces into Iraq to support the KDP; PKK fighters start moving down from Qandil toward Erbil, attacking KDP positions and threatening President Barzani’s palace at Sari Rash; the KDP calls on the PUK [the other Iraqi Kurdish party with peshmerga forces, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan] to block the PKK’s path, which it controls; the PUK, which harbors sympathies toward the PKK, decides to stay neutral; PUK-KDP relations take a nosedive, and we will have civil war again.
This politician was not the only one warning of the dark consequences of renewed fighting between the Kurds; officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil raised similar fears. They all can recall an earlier round of such conflict, in the 1990s, when the KDP and PUK faced off for four years over disputed customs fees and deep political differences. That conflict was also precipitated by the PKK, and involved a similar Iranian effort to use the PKK to gain control of a corridor across northern Iraq, in that case from Haj Omran in the east to Fish Khabour on the Tigris in the west, using the PKK as enabler. Somehow every recent development in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq seems to have a precedent to which it bears a striking resemblance. Is the region condemned to never-ending cycles of ethnic and sectarian bloodletting fed by historic grievances, unfulfilled ambitions, and mutual rancor?
Local leaders have learned that when your ambitions are stymied, you can call on external powers to come to your aid. While the Syrian conflict is the most powerful recent example of this phenomenon, Kurdish parties have a long history of it. They have not been averse even to offering to trade away resources—for example, access to Kirkuk’s oil—to achieve their larger goals. These include everything from getting weapons and guarantees of protection to obtaining pledges of support for greater autonomy and a path to independence. Ultimately, they seek international recognition of their status. The Kurds’ first port of call has tended to be the United States, but they have found that while US support can be critical to their fortunes, it is also fickle, and bound to evaporate as soon as Washington shifts its attention or decides to throw its weight behind its crucial NATO partner Turkey, with its large army and bases for US military activity in the region. The US also persists in its commitment to post-Ottoman national borders; it may express sympathy for Kurdish aspirations, but it doesn’t support an independent Iraqi Kurdistan and it knows that Kurdish independence is a function of Turkish and Iranian consent, which both have withheld. This is not likely to change anytime soon.
The Trump administration has the potential to tamp down the conflict over Sinjar and to prevent an intra-Kurdish war, just as the Clinton administration mediated a peaceful end to Kurdish fighting in the 1990s. The US has strong bonds with the KDP, forged in Iraq’s post-2003 chaos and reinforced in the current fight against ISIS. Paradoxically, at the same time, the US has also developed an effective military relationship with the YPG, the military wing of the PKK in Syria, which has used US weapons and military advice to wrest several Syrian towns from ISIS control. Backed by US support, the YPG is now poised to capture ISIS’s self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa, which could deal the jihadist group a death blow.
The problem with this US-YPG alliance, apart from the fact that the YPG is a branch of an organization that is on the US terrorism list, is that the US commitment to these Kurdish fighters is wafer thin: it could well come to an end the moment the YPG achieves victory in Raqqa. The US has yet to articulate a vision for a post-ISIS governance of Raqqa and other areas; it is possible that these could fall into local Arab or even regime control. The Trump administration’s backing for Iraqi Kurdistan is not much more certain. The White House seems disinterested in the use of diplomacy in faraway battlefields and is showing scant regard for even some of its staunchest allies.
So will the US betray the Kurds’ hopes, as it has been accused of doing before? It is not uncommon to hear even US officials decry Washington’s “short-termism,” which is informed by electoral cycles and adjustments in foreign policy priorities, and express grudging admiration for Iran’s planning and strategic patience. To Iran, the US has a fly-by-night approach to the region, and is easily deterred from apparent commitments that suddenly look costly or do not clearly connect with deeper US interests.
But recent events in Syria may drag a reluctant Trump administration back in, because if anything energizes Washington, it is the possibility of a growing Iranian threat to Israel and US interests in the region. And Russia is unlikely to accede to US demands to distance itself from Assad. It will continue to support the Syrian regime, and it needs Iranian help to do so.
The window for American mediation in Sinjar is bound to close within the next year as the battle against ISIS winds down. The Trump administration has the option to use its leverage with both PKK and KDP to reduce tensions there. This will require an arrangement that sees the departure of non-Iraqis from the area (both PKK commanders and the Rojava Peshmerga); the deployment of a security force consisting of local Yazidis in Sinjar and surrounding areas, protected by a joint perimeter force of Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish peshmerga; and local Yazidi self-government. This may appease Turkey and could bring a temporary peace to the area, but it will hardly address the matter of Iranian ambitions.
The question is how Trump will respond: through confrontation or containment? If the latter, the way forward will be through a negotiated settlement of the Syrian conflict—one that would have to include not only Russia but also Iran, the Syrian regime itself, and, on the other side, Turkey and Syrian insurgents. At the same time, the US and its allies would need to persuade Turkey and the PKK to resume peace talks. Both these goals seem distressingly far-off. But if Trump decides on confrontation, then the region is likely to lose what little stability it has left.
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NATO deploys troops to Poland near Russian border
<a href="http://Aljazeera.com" rel="nofollow">Aljazeera.com</a> - 1 hour ago
More than 1,100 soldiers to be stationed in Orzysz, about 57km south of Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. 13 Apr 2017 21:50 GMT. Listen to this page using ReadSpeaker. 0; All Social. Polish and US soldiers attend a welcoming ceremony for NATO ...
NATO deploys troops to Poland while concerns about country's army rise
Reuters - 5 hours ago
U.S. soldiers attend welcoming ceremony for U.S.-led NATO troops at polygon near Orzysz, Poland, April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel. 1/18. left. right. REFILE- CORRECTING DATE U.S. soldiers arrive to the welcoming ceremony at polygon near ...
Polish defense minister's aide resigns to help party image
ABC News - 6 hours ago
Bartlomiej Misiewicz, assistant to Poland's Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, speaks to the press prior to testifying before a party commission in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, April 13, 2017. Misiewicz is at the center of a dispute between Jaroslaw ...
Poland welcomes NATO multinational battle group
Xinhua - 5 hours ago
WARSAW, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Polish President Andrzej Duda attended a welcoming ceremony for NATO's multinational battalion battle group in Orzysz, northeastern Poland on Thursday. The decision to send four multinational battle groups to Poland and the ...
Polish leader welcomes NATO troops, hails 'historic moment'
ABC News - 7 hours ago
U.S. troops, part of a NATO mission to enhance Poland's defence, are getting ready for an official welcoming ceremony in Orzysz, northeastern Poland, Thursday, April 13, 2017. Poland's Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz and NATO Supreme Allied ...
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What Did Rex Tillerson Accomplish in Moscow?
The New Yorker On Thursday morning, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson left Moscow after a two-day visit. Not too long ago, the trip had been expected to signal a kind of grand rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia—but after President Trump ordered a missile ... and more » |
WASHINGTON — CIA Director Mike Pompeo made his first public appearance as the agency’s spy leader Thursday, issuing a blistering indictment of the website Wikileaks, Russia, and its wide-ranging operation to influence the US election — criticisms that signaled a clear divide between Langley and the White House.
“We at CIA find the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling,” Pompeo told a packed room at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a foreign-policy think-tank in downtown DC.
President Donald Trump, Pompeo’s boss, famously praised Wikileaks in 2016 for publishing the emails of his then-Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and publicly encouraged Russia to release more of her hacked emails.
Despite that, the relationship between the intelligence community and the White House, Pompeo said, is “fantastic.”
A former congressman from Kansas who briefly served on the House Intelligence Committee before being nominated by Trump to lead the nation’s top spy agency, Pompeo has almost entirely withdrawn from the public spotlight since taking over the helm at the CIA. He made clear Thursday afternoon that his penchant for biting, opinionated criticism in Congress was not going to change just because he now worked across the river in Virginia.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Pompeo spoke on everything from Russia to North Korea to cybersecurity. But his harshest comments were reserved for people like former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who in 2014 passed top-secret information on domestic US surveillance efforts to journalists, and sites like Wikileaks.
To an overflowing crowd, Pompeo practically spat blistering criticisms of US intelligence community leakers like Snowden and former intelligence officer Chelsea Manning. He also took aim at Wikileaks’ controversial head, Julian Assange, calling him a “narcissist.”
He unequivocally condemned Wikileaks’ publishing of thousands of stolen Ddemocratic national committee emails during the 2016 presidential campaign, which according to the SUS intelligence community, were provided to the website by Russian-government backed hackers as part of an effort to influence the US election.
“Wikileaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,” Pompeo said, adding the website is “often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
“This man knows nothing of America and ideals,” Pompeo said of Assange. “They champion nothing but their own celebrity.”
Pompeo was not as hostile to Wikileaks in his days as a congressman — from his now-defunct Twitter, he reportedly tweeted Wikileaks documents as recently as last year.
He also called The New York Times and The Washington Post — on which Trump has hurled a wide range of insults over the last year — “legitimate news organizations.”
The wide-ranging public remarks created noticeable breathing room between the Pompeo’s CIA and the White House, whose current occupants came into office openly criticizing and questioning the intelligence community of which Pompeo is now a part.
“It’s fantastic,” Pompeo said, as the room chuckled. “No, don’t laugh, I mean that.”
Pompeo said he often gives Trump his presidential daily briefing — a wide-ranging morning meeting where Trump receives the top intelligence billings of the day — and that the White House is “voracious consumers of the product we develop.”
“They ask really hard questions,” he said.
How closely the spy agency’s leader aligns him or herself with its White House bosses is one of the proverbial challenges and defining question of any CIA director’s career. Pompeo, particularly in his January confirmation hearing, sought to actively distance himself from Trump’s criticisms of the workforce — something that appeared to sit well with the intelligence community.
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President Trump walks to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, March. 20, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT
by Allan J. Lichtman. Dey St. Books. 290 pp. $24.99
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Any discussion of presidential impeachment that arrives before journalists have even embarked on their ritualistic “first hundred days” coverage could rightly be deemed premature, and to publish an entire book arguing the case, the height of partisanship. Yet, given our new president’s disdain for constitutional checks and balances, the investigations already underway, and the turmoil knifing through this White House, it doesn’t seem entirely unrealistic, either.
This is a young administration that at times feels not just exhausting but exhausted. Airstrikes may give it a quick boost of pundit-powered presidentialism, but that high doesn’t last.
Allan J. Lichtman, the American University historian who in September predicted Donald Trump’s electoral victory (earning a “Professor — Congrats — good call” note from the candidate) is issuing another bold forecast: Trump will be impeached. Unlike his election pick, which was based on a systematic evaluation of 13 political indicators that have helped Lichtman call every presidential contest since 1984, the professor’s views on impeachment are more impressionistic. He bases his conclusion on Trump’s questionable practices throughout his real estate and entertainment career, his early overreach in office, the conflicts between his financial interests and public obligations, and his soft spot for verifiable falsehoods. “A president who seems to have learned nothing from history is abusing and violating the public trust and setting the stage for a myriad of impeachable offenses,” the author writes.
Much of what Lichtman compiles in these pages is by now excruciatingly familiar — a one-stop shop for #NeverTrump diehards and resistance marchers — and there are moments when he stretches his rationalizations so far that they snap back and smack him. But it is still striking to see the full argument unfold and realize that you don’t have to be a zealot to imagine some version of it happening.
“The Case for Impeachment” is hardly airtight. I’d sooner bet on reelection than impeachment, and a full, single term seems likelier than either. Yet there is power in plausibility, especially when impeachment may hinge, more than anything, on Trump remaining true to himself.
***
Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton are the only presidents ever impeached by the House of Representatives — although both survived in the Senate — but Lichtman fixates on the parallels between Trump and President Richard Nixon, who opted to resign rather than be fired. “Even early in his presidency, Donald Trump exhibits the same tendencies that led Nixon to violate the most basic standards of morality and threaten the foundations of our democracy,” he writes. “They also shared a compulsion to deflect blame, and they were riddled with insecurities. They exploited the resentments of white working class Americans and split the world into enemies and loyalists. . . . Neither man allowed the law, the truth, the free press, or the potential for collateral damage to others to impede their personal agendas. . . . They obsessed over secrecy and thirsted for control without dissent.” Lichtman likens press secretary Sean Spicer’s M.O. to that of Nixon’s Ron Ziegler (“Deny. Lie. Threaten. And blame the messengers.”) and believes that Nixonian abuses of power will provoke Trump’s downfall.
Prof. Allan Lichtman was one of the few professional prognosticators to call a Donald Trump win – and now he has another prediction. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Prof. Allan Lichtman was one of the few professional prognosticators to call a Donald Trump win – and now he has another prediction. Professor predicts Trump will be impeached (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Under the premise that impeachment “need not be limited to violations that occur during the president’s term in office,” Lichtman devotes much space to Trump’s pre-presidential misdeeds, including alleged breaches of the Fair Housing Act in the 1970s, the scams of Trump University, the exploitation of undocumented immigrants in his construction business and modeling agency, and his decidedly uncharitable giving. Morally and legally, Lichtman may be right to cover this ground, but politically, his stronger case involves the clash between Trump’s vast business dealings — which the president has neither fully divulged nor relinquished — and his duties to the public.
“A president’s family should not be profiting from his public office, whether through a lawsuit or a branded enterprise,” Lichtman writes. “It’s impossible to disentangle Trump’s financial interests from those of his family.” He provides the obligatory tutorial on the emoluments clause of the Constitution, then delves into Trump’s licensing deals in the Philippines, trademark contracts in China, the debts his businesses have incurred — the sort of links that give foreign and commercial interests potential leverage over this president.
Lichtman spins some dubious scenarios, too. He imagines that Trump could be ousted, for instance, if the International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity for opposing policies and accords that combat climate change. He admits the idea is “far-fetched” but contends that, though it would lack legal standing domestically, an ICC prosecution “would have the moral force to raise calls for President Trump’s impeachment.”
Hmm. Yes, other than the spread of nuclear weapons, there may be no graver long-term threat to the planet than climate change. But the notion that the House would impeach Trump because of the environmental concerns of some globocrats in The Hague . . . well, that’ll happen when the Arctic refreezes over.
The Trump administration’s Russia controversies offer a less-fanciful route to ruin. What began as revelations of interference by a foreign power in the 2016 U.S. election has become an exploration of ties between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign. Lichtman does not hesitate to go there: Trump, he contends, “stands a chance of becoming the first American president charged with treason or the failure to report treason by agents and associates.” Investigations by the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees mean that “a Russian sword of Damocles hangs over Trump’s head,” Lichtman writes. “If it falls, his presidency is over. Neither Republicans nor Democrats in Congress will tolerate a compromised or treacherous president. Impeachment and trial will be quick and decisive.”
Of course, quick and decisive are not what we’ve come to expect from the legislative branch of late. The author imagines a “wave of popular revulsion” against the president restoring Democratic control of the House in the 2018 midterm vote, though he acknowledges the tough odds. And when pondering whether a Republican House would move forward on impeachment — recall Gerald Ford’s definition of an impeachable offense as “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment” — Lichtman posits, not quite convincingly, that Trump could prove vulnerable no matter what he accomplishes as president.
If the GOP manages to pass all the tax cuts, deregulation and reforms on its to-do list and feels it no longer needs Trump, lawmakers could drop the president should he become a liability, he writes. And if their agenda falters, House members could ditch the president in favor of the more conventional Vice President Pence, whom Lichtman considers a “dream president” for conservatives. Either way, he assumes, Trump is gone.
For Lichtman, Trump’s personality aggravates the risks to his presidency. He displays “extreme narcissism,” the author argues, and he lies compulsively, with deceit as “an ingrained way of life.” Lichtman suggests that these tendencies could lead to a Clinton-style “impeachment trap,” in which Trump is tempted to speak untruthfully while under oath in, say, a sexual harassment legal proceeding. He might also lie to cover up his campaign’s ties to Moscow. “The response of Trump and his team to allegations of communications with Russian officials fits the classic pattern of a cover-up,” Lichtman suggests. “First conceal and deny, then when outed by press claim that the communications were routine, innocuous, or incidental — kind of like a ‘third-rate burglary.’ ”
Lichtman points to the fiasco of the executive order banning entry into the United States by people from several Muslim-majority countries as exemplifying Trump’s impeachment-friendly impulses. “Through the drafting, implementation, and defense of his first travel ban, Trump trampled on core American traditions and principles,” he writes. “He has effectively claimed absolute presidential authority and breached the separation of powers that the framers established as a check against tyranny.” Trump’s knee-jerk disparagement of judges blocking the ban also “preemptively piled blame on the courts for any future terrorist attack against the United States,” Lichtman cautions, suggesting ominously that in the event of a major attack, Trump could blame the courts and other political enemies “as a pretext for taking charge under martial law.”
Lies. Abuse of power. Treason. Crimes against humanity. Martial law. Lichtman throws everything Trump’s way, and after a while, it is hard to tell when the historian is predicting, hoping, or just reprimanding.
***
It is possible that incompetence, more than malevolence, will prove this administration’s legacy. So in case the president just doesn’t know any better, Lichtman halfheartedly recommends some moves Trump could make to hang on: Divest yourself from all your business interests. Have all your speeches and tweets fact-checked beforehand. Treat women with respect. Stop demeaning immigrants and delegitimizing judges. Abandon your war on the press. Cut out the Mussolini act. He even urges Trump to hire an official White House shrink. All things, in other words, that involve President Trump ceasing to behave anything like President Trump. Lichtman also encourages Trump to fire chief strategist Steve Bannon — the most realistic item on this docket.
“Justice will be realized in today’s America not through revolution, but by the Constitution’s peaceful remedy of impeachment — but only if the people demand it,” Lichtman concludes. He seems to want them to, stoking fears of global annihilation, saying that Trump’s “hair-trigger outbursts are frightening in a man who controls a nuclear arsenal with the power to end civilization. . . . Americans have a right to ask whether the impulsive Trump would have the calm deliberation needed to respond to seemingly hostile blips on a radar screen.”
Yes, Americans absolutely have the right to ask that question and many others Lichtman raises — and they asked them plenty of times during an interminable 2016 race packed with revelations about Trump’s career, ideas and values. You can be disappointed, even horrified, by this president, but what you really can’t be is surprised. And impeachment is not a gift receipt for citizens suddenly feeling buyer’s remorse.
This book joins the campaign for Trump’s removal that started as early as Inauguration Day. Lichtman’s case for impeachment is plausible, certainly, but it is far stronger as an argument for why Americans never should have elected Trump in the first place. Yet we did.
So it may not be too soon for this book, after all. It may be too late.
Follow Carlos Lozada on Twitter and read his latest reviews, including:
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· · · · · · · · · · · ·
British spy agencies knew about Trump-Russia connections back in 2015
Salon - 2 hours ago
While the British intelligence agency GCHQ never wiretapped Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign — despite what press secretary Sean Spicer claimed last month — it appears that British intelligence had known for a while that members of ...
'There's something not right here': British spies warned the US about 'extensive' contact between Trump team and Russia
Business Insider - 4 hours ago
Britain's Government Communications Headquarters became aware of suspicious "interactions" between associates of Donald Trump and suspected or known Russian operatives in late 2015, The Guardian reported on Thursday. The Guardian's report ...
Report: British spies first spotted Trump-Russia links in 2015
The Hill - 1 hour ago
Britain's spy agencies helped alert U.S. intelligence officials to possible links between President Trump's campaign and Russia after first noticing interactions in late 2015, The Guardian reported Thursday. The report said Britain's Government ...
Trump Idiots DEFINITELY Colluded With Russia To Hack Election, According To NOBODY KNOWS WHO
Wonkette (blog) - 1 hour ago
Oh hey, The Guardian British English newspaper thingie, do you have a scoop you'd like to bury in a really long article? You do???? TELL US IT! One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and ...
UK Intel First Detected Alleged Ties Between Trump's Team, Moscow - Reports
Sputnik International - 1 hour ago
The United Kingdom's intelligence organization was the first to spot alleged ties between the US President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russian intelligence, the Guardian newspaper reported Thursday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Toward the end of 2015, ...
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Wonkette (blog) |
Trump Idiots DEFINITELY Colluded With Russia To Hack Election, According To NOBODY KNOWS WHO
Wonkette (blog) Oh hey, The Guardian British English newspaper thingie, do you have a scoop you'd like to bury in a really long article? You do???? TELL US IT! One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and ... and more » |
The Hill |
Report: British spies first spotted Trump-Russia links in 2015
The Hill Britain's spy agencies helped alert U.S. intelligence officials to possible links between President Trump's campaign and Russia after first noticing interactions in late 2015, The Guardian reported Thursday. The report said Britain's Government ... and more » |
A former FBI agent who is now a private counterterrorism analyst told the Senate committee investigating the connections between Donald Trump and Russia that their investigation needs to “follow the trail of dead Russians.” Senate Intelligence Committee witness Clinton Watts told the senators that Russians who may have knowledge of the Trump Russia connections have been dying in mysterious ways at an alarming rate in recent months.
“There have been more dead Russians in the past three months that are tied to this investigation, who have assets in banks all over world,” Watts testified. “They are dropping dead even in Western countries.”
According to a CNN report last week, eight “prominent Russians,” some with possible connections to the Trump Russia scandal, have died over the past five months alone. In one instance, former top KGB official Oleg Erovinkin was found dead in the back seat of his own car. Erovinkin is widely believed to have acted as a source for the “Steele Dossier,” a report compiled by a former British intelligence agent.
The Steele Dossier contains numerous allegations about Trump’s connections to the Kremlin — but it gained international notoriety for the claim that in 2013, Trump hired two Russian prostitutes to perform a “golden shower” urination show for him, on the same bed in a luxury hotel where President Barack Obama had recently slept.
Watts added that he, himself, expected to be the target of Russian cyber-attacks and may even be in physical danger following his testimony on Thursday — but that unlike under previous administrations, he could not count on the Trump administration to protect him, due to Trump’s connections to Moscow.
“My biggest fear isn’t being on Putin’s hit list or psychological warfare targeting me — I’ve been doing that for two years,” Watts told the committee.
“My biggest concern right now is I don’t know what the American stance is on Russia, on who is going to take care of me. After years in the Army and the FBI, working in the intel community — today, I’m going to walk out of here and ain’t nobody going to be covering my back. I’m going to be on my own, and so that’s very disconcerting.”
Watch highlights of Watts’ dramatic testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in the videos below.
Watch the entire hearing held Thursday in the following video.
Watts is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Program on the Middle East and Senior Fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University. He is also a former United States Army infantry officer and West Point graduate.
In his testimony, he also noted that Russian propaganda specialists targeted Trump and the Trump 2016 presidential campaign with “fake news” stories because they knew that Trump — for some reason — could be counted upon to repeat the propaganda, which in turn caused the Russian disinformation to spread throughout the American mainstream media.
“He (Trump) has made claims about voter fraud, that President Obama is not a citizen, that Congressman [Ted] Cruz is not a citizen,” Watts stated. “So part of the reason these active measures work, and it does today in terms of Trump Tower being wiretapped, is because they [the Trump team] parrot the same lines.”
Watts also cited Trump’s then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, who last August in a CNN interview complained that the U.S. media ignored “the NATO base in Turkey being under attack by terrorists.”
But in fact, there was no terrorist attack on any NATO base in Turkey. The story was a hoax spread by the state-owned Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik.
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[Featured Image by Win McNamee/Getty Images]
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· · · ·
British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russiaby Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins
Exclusive: GCHQ is said to have alerted US agencies after becoming aware of contacts in 2015
Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.
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The United States congressional investigations into possible collusion between Donald Trump and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election now possess “concrete” evidence that there was indeed a conspiracy between the Trump team and Russian officials to use hacked emails and documents in a way that could alter the course of the race, a new report in The Guardian newspaper said on Thursday.
Quoting a source, the Guardian report filed by correspondents Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins says that the evidence is “specific.”
“They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the newspaper quoted its source as stating. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”
The Guardian report follows a report by The New York Times last month, in which the Times revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies “began picking up conversations in which Russian officials were discussing contacts with Trump associates,” at the same time that hacked documents from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee began appearing online via the Wikileaks site.
The Guardian report came on the same day as a separate report in a British magazine quoting former British spymaster Richard Dearlove claiming that Trump, even today, is still struggling to pay off loans from Russian banks that kept his family business afloat in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.
“What lingers for Trump may be what deals — on what terms — he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money when others in the west apparently would not lend to him,” Dearlove, the 72-year-old retired head of Britain’s Special Intelligence Service — a spy agency better known as “MI6” — told Prospect Magazine in an interview published on Thursday.
Earlier media reports as far back as the summer of last year revealed that Trump had borrowed massive sums from Russian lenders, and Trump collaborated on real estate projects with a Russian businessman, Felix Slater, with strong links to organized crime.
While Dearlove’s position as leader of Britain’s spy network allowed him inside knowledge of some of the world’s most secret and often sinister clandestine operations, he nonetheless called the alleged contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia “unprecedented.”
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Dearlove also dismissed Trump’s allegations that President Barack Obama had ordered the wiretapping of Trump’s headquarters in Trump Tower in New York, calling Trump’s claims “deeply embarrassing” for the U.S. administration — especially Trump’s claim that Obama had relied on the British electronic spy agency, the Government Communications Headquartersm or GCHQ — Britain’s equivalent of the American National Security Agency.
“The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works,” Dearlove said.
On the other hand, according to the Guardian report, it was GCHQ that first discovered the links between Trump and his associates and Russia — all the way back in 2015.
“GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious ‘interactions’ between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said,” according the Guardian article on Thursday. “This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information.”
But it wasn’t only the British electronic surveillance agency that picked up and passed on information about the Trump contacts with Russia. Information also poured in from electronic eavesdrops carried out by Australia, Canada and New Zealand — as well as from the United States NSA itself, according to the report.
And that wasn’t all. Dutch and French surveillance teams also spotted communications between the Trump team and Russia, passing that data along to the United States during the first six months of 2016, The Guardian reported.
The GCHQ, however, was the main “whistleblower” regarding the suspicious “interactions” between the Trump presidential campaign and Russian agents, the new report says.
[Featured Images By Chip Somodevilla, Pool/Getty Images]
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GCHQ 'told US security services about meetings between Donald Trump's team and Russia'
Telegraph.co.uk - 1 hour ago
GCHQ tipped-off security services in the US about alleged meetings between Donald Trump's presidential campaign team and potential Russian spies, it has been claimed. A source close to UK intelligence said that the listening post had become aware at ...
Donald Trump may have borrowed Russian money, claims ex-MI6 chief
Belfast Telegraph - 8 hours ago
A British former spy chief has suggested Donald Trump borrowed money from Russian lenders to keep his property empire afloat. Ex-MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove said financial links with Moscow may "linger" for the US president. Mr Trump has strenuously ...
Trump Russia Collusion: 'Concrete Evidence' Trump Team, Russia Conspired On Election Hacks, New Report Says
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The United States congressional investigations into possible collusion between Donald Trump and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election now possess “concrete” evidence that there was indeed a conspiracy between the Trump team and Russian ...
British spy chief claims Trump borrowed Russian cash to rescue business
The New European - 6 hours ago
File photo dated 27/01/17 of Donald Trump who will snub the White House press corps and not attend the annual correspondents' dinner traditionally addressed by US presidents. PA Wire/PA Images ...
Interview: Richard Dearlove—I spy nationalism
Prospect - 16 hours ago
Richard Dearlove frowned at the coffee pot on the table before him, as he pondered the phenomenon of Donald Trump. “I think he's very strongly nationalist,” he said, pouring himself a small cup. The room, at a discreet location in central London, was ...
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Los Angeles Times |
US drops 'mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan
Los Angeles Times The U.S. military dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal on a cave and tunnel complex that it said was used by Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan. The GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, a 30-foot-long, 21,600-pound ... US military drops 'mother of all bombs on IS' in AfghanistanBBC News The US just dropped the 'mother of all bombs' on an ISIS target in AfghanistanBusiness Insider US drops "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan, marking weapon's first useCBS News CNN -NBCNews.com -AirForceTimes.com -Washington Times all 170 news articles |
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