Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday, 6 August 2014

The European Union Times


Posted: 05 Aug 2014 10:31 AM PDT

The turmoil gripping the Middle East is a direct result of the provision of cash, weapons and surveillance to Israel by the US, the latest Snowden leak illustrates. Obama’s “helpless detachment” is just for show, the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald writes.
In a bold examination, the former Guardian journalist reveals the amazing contrast between what the United States says publicly, and what it does behind the curtain. This involves President Barack Obama’s apparent heartbreak over the Middle Eastern region, as well as the American love for publicly listing Israel as a threat to regional peace at a time when billions of dollars’ worth of its weaponry and intelligence were being supplied to the Jewish state since the 1960s.
Greenwald has published his analysis of the latest leaked Edward Snowden document of April 12, 2013, wherein it’s explained just how false the notion that the US is a bystander to the Middle Eastern crisis really is.
In fact, “the single largest exchange between NSA and ISNU is on targets in the Middle East which constitute strategic threats to US and Israeli interests,” the leaked paper reveals.
“The mutually agreed upon geographic targets include the countries of North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union. Within that set of countries, cooperation covers the exploitation of internal governmental, military, civil and diplomatic communications; and external security/intelligence organizations.”
One of the “key priorities” of this cooperation is “the Iranian nuclear development program, followed by Syrian nuclear efforts, Lebanese Hizbullah plans and intentions, Palestinian terrorism, and Global Jihad.” The paper talks about “targeting and exploiting” these.
It goes on to show that both intelligence services have liaison officers in each other’s embassies, enjoy a “cryptanalytic” partnership, and that Israel has direct access to the highest American military technology. Greenwald supplements this with proof of millions in emergency US funds stockpiled in the Middle East, which Israel can use for its own strategic purposes by simply writing a request.
Over the last decade, Greenwald writes, the NSA has upped the ante greatly on surveillance technology, funding of operations and weapons to its Israeli counterpart, the SIGINT National Unit. A bulk of this assistance has been used to fight its battles with occupied Palestine, including the Gaza operation, as well as other regional players.
On at least one occasion, a covert transaction of a massive payment in cash to Israeli operatives was carried out as part of the American initiative of using Israel and other US-sponsored actors (including Arab monarchies) to do its surveillance on Palestinian targets for it.
“The new documents underscore the indispensable, direct involvement of the US government and its key allies in Israeli aggression against its neighbors. That covert support is squarely at odds with the posture of helpless detachment typically adopted by Obama officials and their supporters,” Greenwald bluntly states.
That is despite the US president’s statement on how “heartbreaking” it is to see the Gaza crisis unravel, “as if he’s just a bystander, watching it all unfold”, wrote Corey Robin, a Brooklyn College Professor. “Obama talks about Gaza as if it were a natural disaster, an uncontrollable biological event.”
Greenwald goes on to list the occasions on which the US has been exposed as supplying arms to Israel; the last such occasion was just before the start of the operation in Gaza, wherein a $1 billion stockpile of ammunition the US stored in Israel specifically for situations like these was used. The origins of this particular stockpile date back to the 1990’s, when the US European Command allegedly stocked it there for future use.
What was not known to many is that Israel only had to make an emergency request to have access to it. One such case was the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Further support involved multiple UN resolutions shielding Israel from international condemnation and enabling it – something Greenwald sees as peculiar, given the American media’s shocked reaction at how the Middle East situation supposedly takes on a life of its own, despite everyone’s best efforts.
“The new Snowden documents illustrate a crucial fact: Israeli aggression would be impossible without the constant, lavish support and protection of the US government, which is anything but a neutral, peace-brokering party in these attacks. And the relationship between the NSA and its partners on the one hand, and the Israeli spying agency on the other, is at the center of that enabling,” Greenwald writes.
Numerous evidence of this includes the Guardian’s September 2013 disclosure of American “routine” sharing of raw intelligence with Israel without bothering to remove data on US citizens. But the new Snowden leak, published this Monday by the Intercept, details also how the “NSA maintains a far-reaching technical and analytical relationship with” Israeli intelligence, involving all types of data from communications intercepts to targets, language and analysis.
Israeli defense intelligence and Mossad are exposed as key partners in this relationship, under which access to “geographic targets [that] include the countries of North Africa, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union” is freely provided by the US.
Further to that, Israel’s intelligence has access to advanced American military technology and equipment for use against what Israel candidly calls “Palestinian terrorism.”
And this cooperation dates back to the late 1960s, while expanded greatly in 2003.
It is therefore unclear to Greenwald how the NSA then lists Israel among the number of threats to Middle Eastern regional security. The public statements made by American and British officials are in stark contrast to what the latest Snowden leak reveals.
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Posted: 05 Aug 2014 10:08 AM PDT

There’s no doubt Feds are shipping illegals from Ebola-struck countries across U.S. at taxpayer expense.
After Customs and Border Protection reported that its agents caught nearly 1,000 illegals from Ebola-struck countries this year, meaning many more have not been apprehended, the question remains whether President Barack Obama will secure the border and stop shipping illegals across the U.S. to prevent a major pandemic from killing Americans.
Ebola, an incurable disease which can kill up to 90% of those it affects, is spreading throughout West Africa, hitting the countries of Nigeria, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone the hardest, and right now citizens from these countries are flooding across America’s wide open border, according to a secret CBP report obtained by Breitbart.
Yet instead of stopping illegal immigration, the Obama administration is outright encouraging it and has even went as far as allowing Ebola patients to enter the United States, an unprecedented move which raises the risk of an outbreak even higher as the hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where the patients are being treated doesn’t follow a high level of biocontainment precautions.
“All it takes is one cough, one sneeze, one drop of saliva, and the virus is loose in one of the main transportation centers of the U.S.,” journalist Paul Craig Roberts wrote.
And for months, the federal government has been shipping thousands of illegals through the country’s main transportation centers at taxpayer expense.
Typically, when illegals are captured by CBP, such as the 1,000 from Ebola-struck nations, the federal government will shelter them before shipping them by Greyhound or other bus lines to their relatives in other parts of the U.S. under the pretense that the illegals will show up for an immigration hearing, but 90% of them never do.
And these illegals are not checked for a variety of diseases before being released.
“We do get our isolated cases of people with tuberculosis,” an Immigration and Customs Enforcement whistleblower told Infowars. “There may be a couple that come through that admit to having a communicable disease, but really we don’t check for communicable diseases, that’s not part of the screening process.”
So by shipping illegals to various regions of the U.S., the Obama administration could also be spreading Ebola or another deadly disease carried by an illegal immigrant right now across America.
“A public health crisis, the likes of which I have not seen in my lifetime, is looming,” wrote Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet. “Hardest hit by exposures to these difficult-to-treat diseases will be elderly, children, immunosuppressed cancer-patients, patients with chronic lung disease or congestive heart failure.”
“Drug-resistant tuberculosis is the most serious risk, but even diseases like measles can cause severe complications and death in older or immunocompromised patients.”
Will President Obama attempt to stop this looming public health crisis which could kill millions of Americans? If his orchestrated collapse of America’s border is any indication, the answer is a resounding no.
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Posted: 05 Aug 2014 09:44 AM PDT

A dozen men were seized and stripped naked before they were forced to undergo circumcisions in western Kenya as part of a ‘ceremony’, it has been reported.
The 12 men, from the Luo, Turkana, Iteso and Luhyia communities, were reportedly subjected to the procedure after their wives revealed they had not had it done previously.
A number of women in the town of Moi’s Bridge, in western Kenya, where the incident took place, said they were pleased the men went through the procedure because it made them cleaner and perform better in bed.
According to Kenyan radio station West FM, the men who underwent the procedure had either previously avoided having it done or had come from a Luhyia sub-tribe which did not carry it out.
A crowd reportedly sung circumcision songs as they gathered the men up before taking them to a nearby medical centre where the operations were carried out.
One of the wives, Anne Njeri, who witnessed the incident on Friday, told the radio station: ‘We are happy with the move to have such men cut because uncircumcised men are dirty and do not perform well in bed and thus we are sure their wives will now enjoy their marriages.’
Each of the men have been provided with money by others in the town for treatment, according to the report.
The men who carried out the procedure have said all the men who have not been circumcised will undergo the procedure in what has been dubbed ‘circumcision season’, according to the Kenyan Daily Post
The season is said to last for the first three weeks of August, the International Business Times has reported.
About 50 men have now reportedly asked police for help to protect them from the forced procedure.
In January this year it was reported that three teenage boys were hospitalised following a circumcision ceremony in the Northern Territory of Australia.
The boys were evacuated to Darwin from a remote community near Borroloola, 700km away in the Gulf of Carpentaria, after suffering severe cuts during the ceremony.
The incident sparked anger and debate in the community over safety procedures surrounding indigenous initiation ceremonies.
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Posted: 05 Aug 2014 09:28 AM PDT

Israeli Knesset’s deputy speaker Moshe Feiglin has called for the “annihilation” of the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip.
Feiglin, who is also a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, wrote about the plans in a post on his Facebook page at the weekend, the British Daily Mail reported on Monday.
The Israeli official also called for “the conquest of the entire Gaza Strip.” He spoke of plans for the destruction of Gaza, which would include expelling residents and shipping them across the world.
Feiglin also wrote about his plans in a letter addressed to Netanyahu, in which he said he wanted the measures to be enforced as soon as possible.
In the letter, Feiglin said he wanted Israeli military forces to find areas on the Sinai border to set up “tent encampments… until relevant emigration destinations are determined.” Furthermore, he wants Gaza’s electricity and water supplies to be disconnected before shelling the besieged area “with maximum fire power.”
The Israeli forces would then “exterminate” resistance centers and Israeli law would be extended to cover the entire Gaza Strip and “the city of Gaza and its suburbs will be rebuilt as true Israeli touristic and commercial cities.”
The Israeli military launched its recent offensive against the Gaza Strip on July 8. At least 1,867 Palestinians, including around 430 children, have so far been killed and over 9,500 others injured during the onslaught. Tel Aviv says 64 Israelis have been killed in the war, while Hamas puts the number at more than 150.
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Posted: 05 Aug 2014 08:32 AM PDT

The command in Kiev has blatantly abandoned a group of more than 400 soldiers encircled by the self-defense forces, the senior Ukrainian officer who requested sanctuary in Russia with his men has revealed.
Lack of ammunition, food, fuel and clear orders from the command on how to act in the condition of encirclement has made the Ukrainian troops cross the border, Major Vitaly Dubinyak, a battalion commander, told Itar-Tass news agency.
“For two weeks, we were fighting back without ammunition and fuel. I didn’t have the opportunity to feed my men for almost two weeks. We even ran out of first strike ration. The personnel were more exhausted by despair than by the actual shelling,” Dubinyak said.
“Other than giving us a command to ‘hold on,’ Kiev provided us with no other assistance. And during the last week, they’ve aborted all communication. They’ve simply given up on us,” he added.
A total of 438 soldiers, including 164 Ukrainian border guards, were allowed into Russia on Sunday night.
The troops have been housed in a tent camp deployed near the checkpoint via which they entered Russian territory.

“In order to save the people, the commanders of units have made a decision to cross the border with Russia. All the equipment and weaponry had to be left on the Ukrainian side. The main thing was to save the people,” the commander stressed.
‘This civil war must be stopped’
Dubinyak said that he was surprised by “almost brotherly” treatment his men had received from Russian colleagues.
“Those, who give order to us are lying that we are in war with Russia. None of the Russian’s even gave a wry look. They understand that we are hostages in this troubled situation,” he said.
“A medical check-up was organized for us here. The wounded received assistance. We were fed. We showered for the first time in a month. We were given clothes, with conditions required for recreation created for us,” the commanded added.
According to Dubinyak, his men went through “a meat grinder” and they won’t return to battle again.
He urged the decision makers in Kiev to “fight on their own and send their own children to die.”
The commander also admitted that the fighting in south-eastern Ukraine has turned into a full-scale civil war.
“I don’t know how I’ll look into the eyes of the mothers of those of my boys, who died. But I know for sure that this civil war must be stopped. I’ve seen enough tears of the locals and enough suffering of my men. I’m sick of it. The main thing is that we’re alive. We’ll deal with the rest after we get home,” Dubinyak concluded.

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Posted: 04 Aug 2014 10:34 AM PDT


A remarkable video captured by a truck driver passing through a Texas checkpoint summarizes the sad situation on the border, as the influx of illegal immigrants continues to explode in number.
Trucker Travis Pope of Dayton, Texas, captured footage of a border patrol agent last week revealing utter frustration, as the crisis continues to swell.
As Pope approached the checkpoint, the agent greeted him and asked “how many people on board?”
“Me” Pope replied. The agent then routinely asked if Pope is a U.S. citizen, to which the trucker replied “Yeah, but does it really matter?”
“Not anymore, unfortunately.” replied the border agent before thanking Pope and allowing him on his way.
The response may have been so brutally honest owing to the fact that it was captured on I-CAM video glasses, meaning that the agent was most likely unaware he was being filmed.
It succinctly summarizes what the border patrol and people living on the borders are facing up to.
A leaked Customs and Border Protection report, details of which emerged this past weekend, provides some context. The document, leaked to Breitbart, notes that individuals from more than 75 countries have recently attempted to enter the U.S. over the borders.
The figures were compiled via the Office of Field Operations (OFO) and the Office of Border Patrol (OBP) and comprise anyone either turning themselves in at official U.S. points of entry, or anyone caught while being smuggled at the points of entry.
The figures obviously do not reflect those who have entered the country undetected, nor do they account for data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is unavailable at this time.
Countries from which detained immigrants came from include China, Syria, Albania, Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, and Somalia.
Breitbart also reports that at least 71 individuals from the three nations affected by the current Ebola outbreak have either turned themselves in or been caught attempting to illegally enter the U.S. within the past half year.
Over the weekend, Republicans continued calls to begin impeachment proceedings against President Obama, should he use executive action to expand deferrals for illegal immigrants.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told reporters Sunday “I think Congress has to sit down and have a serious look at the rest of this Constitution and that includes that ‘I’ word that we don’t want to say.”
“I want to encourage the president, please don’t put America into a constitutional crisis, please don’t do that,” King added. “There’s too much at stake in this country to be decided that you can take over the Constitution and write it at will.”
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Posted: 04 Aug 2014 09:54 AM PDT
Coins shown from the Greek colony Akragas, Circa 409-406 B.C.
A collection of ancient coins dating back to 500 B.C. are being returned to Greece after the New York prosecution of a prominent collector from Rhode Island.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and Greek officials scheduled a ceremony today in New York marking the repatriation of the coins.
The coins were part of a case against noted Rhode Island hand surgeon and coin aficionado Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss, whose January 2012 arrest during a coin auction at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel roiled the numismatic world.
An orthopedics professor at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School and author of a hand-surgery textbook, Weiss also had been on a coin collector and investor for 35 years and had served as on the board of the American Numismatic Society.
He later pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of stolen property. Those charges involved three coins he thought were fourth century B.C. Greek pieces that had been illegally taken from Italy, but were actually forgeries, prosecutors said.
Rare Greek silver coins of Katane, Sicily date back to Circa 405-403/2 B.C.
Weiss was aiming to sell one of them for about $350,000 and two others for about $1.2 million apiece, prosecutors said.
Weiss also forfeited his interest in about 20 other coins as part of his plea agreement, which also required him to do 70 hours of community service and write an article about the problem of trading in coins of uncertain origin.
His prosecution furthered a series of court cases and disputes over collecting and trading in objects that Italy and other countries consider looted pieces of their cultural patrimony.
Institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have agreed to return various items to Italy.
A former Getty assistant curator was criminally prosecuted in Rome, but the trial ended in 2010 with a judge saying the statute of limitations had expired.
Other countries, including Turkey and Greece, also have taken action in recent years to reclaim antiquities.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 09:14