Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Thursday, 3 March 2016

The European Union Times



Posted: 03 Mar 2016 06:02 AM PST

Saudi Arabia has acknowledged that the US-led anti-ISIS coalition has held a “political” discussion about a potential ground troop deployment in Syria. Riyadh’s statements have been criticized by Damascus as destructive and a threat to regional security.
In an interview with Reuters, an aide to Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, confirmed that defense ministers from the anti-Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) coalition debated placing ground troops on the ground in Syria during a ministerial meeting in Brussels last month.
“It was discussed two weeks ago in Brussels,” Asseri said, clarifying that the discussions took place on the “political” level only without going into details of a potential “military mission.”
The general stressed that if the decision is made, Saudis would be more than willing to contribute troops – a move that Syria strongly warned against on a number of occasions. Asseri also acknowledged that Riyadh has been working on the military implementation of a possible Syria invasion.
“Once this is organized, and decided how many troops and how they will go and where they will go, we will participate in that,” he said.
“We need to discuss at the military level very extensively with the military experts to make sure that we have a plan.”
The Saudi general stressed that for the time being, the Kingdom’s air force is ready to strike Islamic State targets from Turkey’s Incirlik air base, where four Saudi fighter jets were deployed last month.
Washington also confirmed Saudi Arabia’s’ willingness to strike targets in Syria, with State Department spokesman John Kirby saying that the US would welcome the Kingdom’s participation.
“But there’s a lot that needs to be discussed in terms of what they would do, what their makeup would be, how they would need to be supported by the coalition going forward. So there’s a lot of homework that needs to be done,” Kirby said.
Saudi Arabia’s push for ground incursion into Syria comes at a time when Moscow warned that Turkey is strengthening its military positions on the border with Syria at a time when US and Russia are doing their best to cement a fragile ceasefire in the country.
On Monday, an official source at the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry told Syria’s official SANA news agency that Saudi Arabia is playing a “destructive role” in the peace process while “threatening security and stability” of the world.
The statement came in reply to Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir comments that he made on Sunday, accusing Syrian troops of violating the ceasefire brokered by Russia and the US, and reiterating the Kingdom’s position that Bashar Assad has no place in the future of Syria.
The Syrian official stressed that Al-Jubeir’s statements violate UN Security Council resolution 2268 that endorses the ceasefire. The resolution specifically demands that all parties to the agreement use their influence to ensure that parties to the Syrian conflict fulfill their commitments and create the conditions for a durable ceasefire.
In this regards, the source told SANA that Damascus requests that the UN Secretary-General form a committee to examine the possibility of “crimes that were committed and are still being committed by the Saudi regime and in the Arab world.”
Meanwhile, a US defense official told Reuters that Washington will continue to support forces on the ground in Syria that fight against Islamic State terrorists.
“We will continue to provide equipment packages to vetted leaders and their units so that over time they can make a concerted push into territory still controlled,” the official said. “As a matter of policy, we won’t comment or speculate on potential future operations.”
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Posted: 03 Mar 2016 05:49 AM PST

A number of prominent neocons calling themselves “GOP national security leaders”—including Michael Chertoff, Max Boot, Eric Edelman and Robert Kagan—have penned an open letter stating their opposition to the candidacy of Donald Trump.
“We the undersigned, members of the Republican national security community, represent a broad spectrum of opinion on America’s role in the world and what is necessary to keep us safe and prosperous. We have disagreed with one another on many issues, including the Iraq war and intervention in Syria. But we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency,” the letter, posted at the War on the Rocks website, states.
“Mr. Trump’s own statements lead us to conclude that as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world. Furthermore, his expansive view of how presidential power should be wielded against his detractors poses a distinct threat to civil liberty in the United States. Therefore, as committed and loyal Republicans, we are unable to support a Party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head. We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office.”
On Wednesday Politico ran an article titled “Neocons declare war on Trump” and linked to the open letter.
Politico quotes Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department official under Bush “and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad.”
“Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” says Cohen, signaling that neocons and Republicans may abandon the party.
Infowars.com ran an article early Tuesday covering the flight of the neocons from the Republican to the Democrat party (the neocons began in the Democrat party).
The Intercept also covered the spectacle.
“Trump has done much to trigger the scorn of neocon pundits. He denounced the Iraq War as a mistake based on Bush administration lies, just prior to scoring a sizable victory in the South Carolina GOP primary. In last week’s contentious GOP presidential debate, he defended the concept of neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is utterly taboo on the neocon right,” writes Zaid Jilani.
Politico continues:
Several other neocons said they find themselves in an impossible position, constitutionally incapable of voting for Clinton but repelled by a Republican whose foreign policy views they consider somewhere between nonexistent and dangerous — and disconnected from their views about American power and values abroad.
Max Boot, a leading neocon and CFR member, tweeted his disagreement.
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Posted: 03 Mar 2016 05:08 AM PST

New light is being shed on the role presidential candidate Hillary Clinton played, as Secretary of State, in the 2011 military intervention in Libya, with over 50 officials from the US, Europe, and Libya speaking out in interviews with The New York Times.
The report features many of those directly involved in the mission that overthrew the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, portraying Clinton as a catalyst in the decision to go to war.
Beginning in Spring 2011, NATO carried out a bombing campaign for seven months, leaving Libya a failed state overrun by extremist groups. The official government now only controls the eastern portion of the country, with ISIS, Ansar al-Sharia and local militant groups controlling other areas.
In the run-up to the intervention, however, Clinton became convinced that overthrowing Gaddafi would lead to a democracy, according to multiple sources interviewed by The Times.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Clinton was a major influence in President Barack Obama’s decision to go to war. Gates recounted Obama once telling him debate in the Oval Office on the issue was split “51-49.”
“I’ve always thought that Hillary’s support for the broader mission in Libya put the president on the 51 side of the line for a more aggressive approach,” Gates said.
Gates urged for the opposite, he told The Times, telling Obama and others that the Pentagon already had enough on their plate.
“Can I finish the two wars I’m already in before you guys go looking for a third one?” Gates recalled saying.
After a United Nations resolution for military intervention in Libya was secured, which five countries including Russia abstained from, Clinton ordered the Pentagon to end contact with the Libyan regime, and ignored Gaddafi’s call for a ceasefire.
Charles R. Kubic, a retired rear admiral, told The Times that a senior Libyan military officer offered direct talks with the US military with the goal of agreeing to a 72-hour ceasefire, which would allow Gaddafi and his family to escape the war with their lives.
Upon passing along the message, however, Admiral Kubic remembered the US Africa Command relaying orders to him from “outside the Pentagon” to end the talks with the Libyan official. Neither Obama nor Clinton aides acknowledged to The Times that such a cease-fire proposal had ever reached their offices.
Clinton also escalated the intervention in winning the debate over whether to arm the rebels.
“Humvees, counterbattery radar, TOW missiles was the highest end we talked about. We were definitely giving them lethal assistance. We’d crossed that line,” a State Department official told The Times.
While Clinton’s Democratic presidential primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has repeatedly brought up her vote to authorize the Iraq War, it remains to be seen how prominent the Libya policy will become during the 2016 election cycle.
In an interview with RT, investigative journalist Gareth Porter called The New York Times report and Clinton’s push for regime change in Libya “part of a broader story in which she was really positioning herself to run for president.”
“So, we have both Libya and Syria on her secretaryship as indications of just how seriously we need to take her penchant for adventurism in foreign policy,” Porter added.
Libya remains in chaos today with ISIS pockets in the north and the US again dropping bombs on the region. The UN estimates 400,000 people have been displaced as a result of the intervention.
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Posted: 03 Mar 2016 04:19 AM PST

A top US military official, who is NATO’s military commander, says Russia is an “existential threat” to Washington and its European allies.
In testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove accused Russia of choosing to be an adversary and seeking to exert influence over its neighboring states.
“Russia has chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential threat to the United States and to our European allies and partners,” Breedlove said.
“Russia is eager to exert unquestioned influence over its neighboring states in its buffer zone… so has used military force to violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, Georgia and others, like Moldova,” he added.
Breedlove stressed that Washington needs additional resources in Europe to counter a “resurgent, aggressive Russia.”
“Russia seeks to re-establish a leading role on the world stage. Russia does not just want to challenge the agreed rules of the international order, it wants to re-write them,” he said.
The four-star general, who also heads the US military’s European Command, said he asked for a substantial boost in resources for Europe in the budget for the 2017 fiscal year.
Relations between Washington and Moscow are at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War in 1991, largely due to the Ukraine crisis.
The ties deteriorated after US-backed forces ousted Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014.
The US and its allies accuse Moscow of sending troops into eastern Ukraine in support of the pro-Russian forces. Moscow has long denied involvement in Ukraine’s crisis.
Moscow says Washington is responsible for the escalating tension in Ukraine through sending arms in support of the Ukrainian army.
The US-led military buildup in NATO member states bordering Russia has drawn strong objections from Moscow, followed by warnings of a well-measured response.
The US military deployed hundreds of tanks and thousands of troops to the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in order to deter what it described as “Russian aggression.”
US-Russian ties worsen over Syria
Relations between the US and Russia further deteriorated when Moscow launched an air offensive against Daesh terrorists, many of whom were initially trained by the CIA to fight against the Syrian government.
The Russian campaign, analysts say, has broken the backbone of ISIL and other militants, and has provided the government of President Bashar al-Assad an opportunity to defeat the foreign-sponsored terrorist onslaught.
Since March 2011, the United States and its regional allies have been conducting a proxy war against Syria. The years-long conflict has left somewhere between 270,000 to 470,000 Syrians dead and half of the country’s population displaced.
In his testimony on Tuesday, General Breedlove accused Russia of helping President Assad turn the refugee crisis into a “weapon” against the West.
“Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve,” Breedlove told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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Posted: 03 Mar 2016 04:06 AM PST


According to Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, the Republican establishment may give tacit support to Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump wins the nomination.
King said Clinton is somebody “they can do business with” if Cruz or Trump come out on top.
“We’re going to have something like 70 percent of the vote that comes in here today, and they’re going to be anti-Establishment votes,” King told Breitbart News Daily. He characterized the 2016 primary as a “revolt against the Establishment in the Republican Party.”
King said he believes Republicans will support Clinton “because I’m watching them throw a tantrum right now in Iowa, and they have put, I will say, millions of dollars on the table to recruit a primary opponent against me, because they are sore losers in the Iowa caucus,” King explained. “When Cruz won the Iowa caucus, they decided, we’re going to teach Steve King a lesson.”
Crossover Republicans
In October a Quinnipiac poll found Clinton narrowly ahead of Trump, thanks in part to 10 percent of self-identified Republicans backing her.
In November WND reported a lunch hosted by former US Ambassador to the European Union Rockwell Schnabel.
“In attendance in a private dining room of the Hotel Bel-Air were powerful donors said to include Ronald Spogli, the venture capitalist and former ambassador to Italy under President George W. Bush; his business partner Bradford Freeman” and former Los Angeles Mayor Dick Riordan.
The donors were reportedly asked a hypothetical question: “If it was Donald Trump running against Hillary Clinton, who would you vote for?”
“One version has it that most of the Republicans at the table put their hands up for Clinton,” The Hill reported.
The Republican establishment is so horrified they “will do anything they can to stop Mr. Trump from being the GOP nominee,” according to Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager.
Beyond social issues there is little substantive difference between Democrats and Republicans. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state has been roundly praised by many Republicans and those who served Republican presidents, including Henry Kissinger.
Clinton’s predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, believes “Hillary Clinton, is an extremely talented woman. She is a woman of integrity” and has “done a fine job” at the State Department.
Former Secretary of Homeland Security under Bush, Tom Ridge, “offered some praise for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, saying he always had ‘productive’ meetings with her when he was in the Cabinet and she was a senator,”The Hill reported.
“Hillary Rodham Clinton, who many believe can win the 2016 Democratic nomination for president, if she wants it, is the winner of the 2013 Liberty Medal,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2013. “The award is to be presented Sept. 10 to Clinton by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, chairman of the National Constitution Center and a possible contender for the 2016 Republican nomination. Politics aside, Bush praised Clinton in a statement released Thursday announcing her selection. ‘Former Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy,’ Bush said. ‘These efforts as a citizen, an activist, and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year’s Liberty Medal.’”
In 2014 Mike Huckabee, who recently dropped his candidacy for the Republican nomination, described Clinton as “smart” and “tough” and said she is “a policy genius.”
“I know her. I like her. I’ve worked with her,” said John Kasich, who is remains in the race despite dismal numbers.
Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who failed to gain support for the nomination, “agrees with Hillary Clinton. Or at least, pretty close to it. Asked [on August 12, 2014] at the Iowa State Fair whether he agreed with the former secretary of state’s assessment that a lack of prior U.S. intervention in Syria emboldened jihadists to penetrate Iraq, the GOP governor of Texas found some daylight with the potential future presidential rival. ‘I think on that issue she was closer to being right than she has been on some other ones,’ he replied,” according to US News & World Report.
Other miscellaneous Republicans also praise Clinton (see Correct the Record), revealing there is very little difference between establishment Republicans and Democrats, at least on foreign policy.
The Establishment’s Final Solution
Donald Trump threatens to upset the establishment apple cart and disrupt its decades-long control over who sits not only in the White House, but also Congress.
As a wrecking ball Trump will likely swing the election in Clinton’s corner, although many observers are convinced he will beat her and become the next president.
This underestimates the control the establishment has over the “democratic” election process. On Tuesday in Texas voters complained votes for Trump were flipped to Rubio.
Election “irregularities” are now common. In 2015 a mathematician at Wichita State University said “some voting systems were being sabotaged” while Princeton researchers conducted a demonstration showing how it’s possible to steal an election with a Diebold voting machine in under a minute.
“In Republican primaries, the bias has been toward the establishment candidates over tea partiers. In general elections, it has favored Republican candidates over Democrats, even when the demographics of the precincts in question suggested that the opposite should have been true,” writes Jon Green.
Judy Frankel believes we cannot trust Diebold voting machines or the establishment.
“The 2014 midterm election results may have been a complete farce. All it takes is one insider who knows how to flip a switch and the outcome changes. When it comes to voting, should we trust our votes to a computer that doesn’t even spit out a receipt for confirmation? Do you trust your voting machine manufacturer?” she writes.
Vote fraud may be the final solution for the establishment in their desperate effort to defeat Trump and put favored insider Clinton in the White House.
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