A lede appearing today in FrontPage Magazine (online) stepped off this way:
WikiLeaks released an August 2014 e-mail from Hillary Clinton to John Podesta, who currently serves as her campaign chairman, stating that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” Evidently President Obama has not heeded Hillary’s concern, or chose to ignore it.
Now check out that link and test it against the claim, “. . . that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region” —
>> 2. It is important that once we engage ISIL, as we have now >> done in a limited manner, we and our allies should carry on until they are >> driven back suffering a tangible defeat. Anything short of this will be >> seen by other fighters in the region, Libya, Lebanon, and even Jordan, as >> an American defeat. However, if we provide advisors and planners, as well >> as increased close air support for the Peshmerga, these soldiers can defeat >> ISIL. They will give the new Iraqi Government a chance to organize itself, >> and restructure the Sunni resistance in Syria, moving the center of power >> toward moderate forces like the Free Syrian Army (FSA). In addition to air >> support, the Peshmerga also need artillery and armored vehicles to deal >> with the tanks and other heavy equipment captured from the Iraqi army by >> ISIL.
Unless “Leaks” changes — too late now!? — the claim made about the URL doesn’t jive.
There’s more than one explanation, including simply having provided the wrong URL. However, BackChannels has no inclination to chase the potential “red herring” of a WikiLeaks URL that fits the lede.
I would expect Americans to vote their judgment of character and their ideals, and neither candidate has appeal in character. That may be a function of this election’s relentless negative campaigning.
Think about it a moment.
The campaigners are the kind of people who would go microscopically digging in the past to scrape up a few moments of locker room braggadocio with which to scuttle a presidential contender’s campaign.
Vote Donald J. Trump!
But then . . . what does one do with Trump’s bankruptcies, “tax freedom” (one might call it), and the near routine stiffing of vendors who have delivered their work and then have had to sue to hold Trump’s side to its contract obligations?!
Vote Hillary Clinton!
Then li’l ol’ me goes dredging up — I’m a humble blogger, lowest of the low in journalism, a bum, so I’m allowed to go dredging (or is it “Drudging”?) — something out of Bill’s past, and there’s the Moscow connection.
Vote Donald J. Trump!
But Trump had the temerity or naivete to hire Paul Manafort, consultant to the world’s bloodiest dictators and political mafia, including Viktor Yanukovych whom Ukrainians ousted from power, so disgusted were they with the corruption associated with the regime. Yanukovych went crying to Moscow; Moscow sent in the “Little Green Men” and annexed Crimea against old agreements to leave Ukraine independent . . . .
Vote Hillary Clinton!
Feeling screwed either way?
Many of my fellow Americans may feel the same way.
On the 2016 American Elections, BackChannels has striven to either stay out of it or stay balanced, and it has possibly succeeded at both.
Come the day, many voters may feel they’re not voting for Clinton or Trump but rather voting against one or the other, i.e., blocking a perceived threat to America’s “domestic tranquility” — perhaps the entire election should be perceived as and rendered unconstitutional! — and its independent foreign affairs policies and practices.
While the surface may look calm — and in the above video positively modern and multicultural — here’s additional reference to what appears to lie beneath.
The president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at a mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die.
Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.
Earlier this month, the leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, informed his more than one million followers on social networks that he had become “the happiest man in this land.” Something had come to pass that he never could have dreamed of, he said. He had had a transfusion, he said, from a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, so now he has the Prophet’s blood flowing through his veins.
RAMZAN KADYROV has few inhibitions. Last week, just before the first anniversary of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, a liberal Russian opposition leader, by a member of Mr Kadyrov’s security services, the Chechen strongman posted a video on his Instagram page. It depicted Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. “Kasyanov is in Strasbourg to get money for the opposition,” Mr Kadyrov commented under the video, in a clear warning to opposition politicians. “Whoever still doesn’t get it, will.”
Vladimir Putin said when he first ran for president in 2000 that his “historic mission” was to resolve the situation in the North Caucasus. To do so, he oversaw a second war in Chechnya, already devastated by Russia’s failed attempt to subdue the republic in 1994-1996.
Instead of solving the North Caucasus issue, however, Putin created a monster. To end the fighting, he cut a deal with Chechnya’s rebel Kadyrov clan: In exchange for loyalty to the Kremlin, they received power and reconstruction aid.
This was a medieval deal that made Akhmad Kadyrov, a rebel commander and Sufi mufti, Putin’s feudal liege. The aim was to co-opt the more religiously moderate Sufis among Chechnya’s rebel fighters, marginalize the Salafist jihadists who appear to have fascinated the Boston bombers, and enable the Russian military to declare victory and draw down.
This subject is complicated by “Hizb ut-Tahrir”, a Tatar organization supportive of the Chechen rebels (presumably against affiliates of warlord Kadyrov) but not active itself with terrorism and, apparently, acting in the open.
The Pentagon has identified eight staging areas in Russia where large numbers of military forces appear to be preparing for incursions into Ukraine, according to U.S. defense officials.
As many as 40,000 Russian troops, including tanks, armored vehicles, and air force units, are now arrayed along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia.
One could research and read through the many themes, but I like Ben Judah’s comment best regarding the compact between Putin and Kadyrov: “This was a medieval deal that made Akhmad Kadyrov, a rebel commander and Sufi mufti, Putin’s feudal liege. The aim was to co-opt the more religiously moderate Sufis among Chechnya’s rebel fighters, marginalize the Salafist jihadists who appear to have fascinated the Boston bombers, and enable the Russian military to declare victory and draw down.”
BackChannels has been singing medieval about “Putin, Assad, and Khamenei (and Baghdadi)” for ages, but the observation now begs another question: how modern is the west?
If we call what we have been witnessing in Syria a “New Medievalism”, we may well ask where is NATO on the timeline of political conventions?
BackChannels hopes there is such a thing as “Modern” in governance and that it is supported by the bravery in arms, integrity in character, and the honest research of the thoughtful.
He has previously served Jewish communities in France and Israel, and, according to the report, has been instrumental in aiding Jews of the former Soviet Union. He is believed to have been in Haditch at the gravesite over Rosh Hashanah.
The motive for the attack remains unknown. According to the report, violent antisemitic attacks in Ukraine are rare, and there is no indication at this time that the assault was antisemitic in nature.
BackChannels wishes not to become “Yellow Press”, but given the mysterious elements in the crime described in The Algemeiner, both Ukrainian detectives and global public now need to be aware of the possibility of being fooled by old KGB method in placing a cooked-up image before “the masses”.
Let the detectives do their work, and may they do it with exemplary conscience and integrity.
This is the stuff of political thrillers in films and novels.
In general, both Hezbollah and Hamas may be interpreted as the advanced troops of Tehran as ultimately backed by Moscow. Again, the prize: political absolute power and destruction of democracies and the decimation of the concept — as demonstrated in Syria — of human rights.
To achieve its objectives — getting Washington’s undivided attention, diplomatic recognition and aid — all North Korea really has to do is hide a few nukes and leave Americans to wonder what they’ve got, and whether they are offering it to customers like Al Qaeda or Hamas. Call it the virtual nuclear deterrent.
To Mr. Bush’s mind, this is why it makes sense to take on Iraq first — before it gets what North Korea already has. Yet if confronting Iraq is the first step in Mr. Bush’s war on rogue states with nuclear ambitions, North Korea is the first in his war against nuclear blackmail. And those are very different campaigns.
In the above quoted piece from 2003, journalist David E. Sanger will go on to note, ” . . . the United States right now has an opportunity to reorder the world so that it will never again face these kinds of threats.”
That was then.
This is now:
Russia wants the United States to cancel all sanctions and pay compensation for the damage they have caused if Moscow is to resume an agreement on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium, according to a draft law submitted by President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Reuters report.
Next: Volker is Kurt Volker, a former ambassador to NATO —
Volker said the suspension of uranium cleanup is meant to sound like a threat against the United States, and meant to get Washington to react.
“The best answer from Washington would be: ‘if you are not going to destroy it, I certainly hope you can control it. Because there are plenty of people in your neighbourhood who would like to use it against you, and plenty of corrupt officials who would be all too happy to sell it to them. We are happy to help you get rid of it — but that is a mutual interest, not a favour you are doing for us. If you don’t want our help, we wish you good luck,” Volker said.
Even China, which is North Korea’s main ally, slammed the nuclear tests.
But in response the ruling party’s newspaper Rodong Sinmun said: “Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK.
The PRC is narrowing the conventional military disparity with the US and it seems most likely sooner or later, maybe around 2025, the US is going to have to bring nukes into the equation to make sure it can win a war with China.
That’s what we had to do with the Soviet Union—that’s why we’ve still got those nukes at Incirlik in Turkey—and I don’t see any reason why this wouldn’t happen in Asia.
Iranian officials have claimed that they are preparing to fully restart their nuclear program should the deal fall apart due to inadequate sanctions relief. Atomic Energy Organization of Iran chief Ali Akbar Salehi announced in July that Iran was preparing to reverse its concession if the West violated the nuclear deal. A spokesman later clarified that Iran could reinstall all of its disabled centrifuges in just 45 days. “Tehran feels it can get even more merely by hinting it might walk away,” Ben Taleblu and Toumaj wrote.
Because this election is so divisive, so rancorous, and so fundamentally besmirches American ideals and values with some of the worst trespasses known boy and girl scouts as behaviors to avoid in life’s great adventure, BackChannels will reserve its own opinion of the two.
As you read, take into consideration Moscow’s sustained relationships with terrorist organizations Hamas, Hezbollah, and PFLP, emerging history involving the PLO (both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas have had association with the KGB) and possibly al-Qaeda (reference: blogger Kyle Orton’s year-old analysis from London: “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism”, The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015).
Read and read more!
Not one of the sixteen other 2016 Republican presidential candidates would have thought to ban all Muslim immigrants; bully and insult dozens of leaders on all sides as if imitating the most selfish and immature children of elementary school age; pour praise on terrible demagogues like Muammar Gaddafi, Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong Un and Saddam Hussein; aggressively promote forms of torture worse than waterboarding; advocate for killing terrorist’s families; constantly talk about building a wall across our southern border; display fiercely authoritarian and sociopathic tendencies against anyone who challenges them or if it increases their celebrity in even the tiniest manner; make a wide range of outlandishly racist, misogynist and bigoted statements repeatedly; denigrate Mexicans in a sweeping damnation; sympathize with KKK members and other hate groups; overtly incite violence at campaign rallies and promise to pay legal fees for supporters who act on his pleas; suggest dropping a nuclear bomb on ISIS; deeply question a federal judge’s ability to do their job fairly because of their ethnic background; invoke numerous wild conspiracy theories about other candidates; and effusively and narcissistically praise themselves daily as if worshiping a supernatural god. It’s true that many of those types of things (with the notable exception of the self-aggrandizing techniques) were encouraged and said in hyper-macho, alienating and fear-mongering ways by a whole lot of Republican leaders in recent decades (which puts much culpability on their shoulders for what has happened in this campaign), but no one had ever taken it to the Trumpesque extreme.
With Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for president, every Clinton scandal—from Whitewater to the State Department emails—will be under the microscope. (No other American politicians—even ones as corrupt as Richard Nixon, or as hated by partisans as George W. Bush—have fostered the creation of a permanent multimillion-dollar cottage industry devoted to attacking them.) Keeping track of each controversy, where it came from, and how serious it is, is no small task, so here’s a primer. We’ll update it as new information emerges.
I sat Trump beside Vendela, thinking that she would get a kick out of him. This was not the case. After 45 minutes she came over to my table, almost in tears, and pleaded with me to move her. It seems that Trump had spent his entire time with her assaying the “tits” and legs of the other female guests and asking how they measured up to those of other women, including his wife. “He is,” she told me, in words that seemed familiar, “the most vulgar man I have ever met.”
Mr Clinton should ‘level with the American people on the draft, on whether he went to Moscow, how many demonstrations he led against his own country from foreign soil,’ Mr Bush declared on the Larry King television show.
‘I don’t have the facts, but to go to Moscow one year after Russia crushed Czechoslovakia, and not remember who you saw – I think the answer is, level with the American people,’ Mr Bush repeated.
BackChannels 