Ashkenazi(European)Jews are the most prevalent group amongst Israel's Jewry, however the number of Jews who trace their ancestry from Sephardic or Asian sources is significant.
The recent (last 20 years or so) influx of Jews emigrating from the former Soviet republics, including Russia and the Ukraine, likely helped the Ashkenazi Jews keep their supremacy in the government and business circles within Israel. These immigrants also have been instrumental in the proliferation of West Bank settlements.
The Ashkenazi Jews have dominated Israeli society in a political sense and the Sephardic Jewry have been relatively liberal politically but have not been included to any great extent in the political leadership - one notable exception would be Morroccan-born Amir Peretz, who had served as defense minister a few years ago.
Israel is now proceeding to have the French Consulate diplomat considered for expulsion as "persona non grata" since she purportedly provoked the incident.
My reference to Wikipedia was for the sake of brevity and convenience.
However, I would defer to the findings of the esteemed authors John Dinges and Robert Parry, who separately conducted intensive journalistic invesigations of the Chilean situation and Operation Condor and whose observations are mirrored by the facts set forth in my post.
I do agree that Operation Condor was organized in Chile in 1975 under Contreras - the condor being the national bird of Chile. But there was a very shadowy relationship between Operation Condor and our own government.
The 1973 overthrow of Allende resulted in U.S. Senate testimony from Richard Helms during his confirmation hearing as U.S. ambassador to Iran about the purportedly minimal inactive role the CIA had in the action. That testimony was rebutted by the Church Committee and Helms was later convicted of lying to Congress.
There was undoubtedly a close relationship between Operation Condor and a number of Americans who had a history of a relationship with the CIA - and Posada and Townley are prime examples of this.
(1)"Although the United States was not a member of the Condor consortium, documentation shows that the United States provided key organizational, finanacial and technical assistance to the operation.......";
(2)Manuel Contreras was a paid CIA contact until 1977;
(3)Contreras told the Chilean Supreme Court in 2005 that the CIA was involved in the Letelier assassination.
Additionally, Luis Posada Carrilles, a former CIA officer, and Michael Townley, a former CIA contract agent, were linked to Operation Condor. Posada, now in his 80s, currently lives in the Miami area as a revered anti-Castro exile activist and Townley became a federally-protected witness following his conviction in the Washington D.C. deaths of Ronni Moffit and Orlando Letelier.
Dilma Roussef is of Bulgarian descent and was a leftist activist that was held in custody by the Brazilian security forces in the early 1970s where she claims she had been tortured.
Later, in 1975, Brazil became a member of the Operation Condor intelligence network that resulted in the abduction, torture, and killing of tens of thousands of civilians for suspected anti-government activity in Brazil and other South American nations in the panhandle of that continent. Operation Condor was organized and supplied by the United States largely under the direction of CIA Associate Deputy Director of Operations Ted Shackley.
It does not suprise me, give this history, that Roussef would gravitate toward China on political or economic issues.
Re the "loopholes" that allow Syrian banks to interface with Western ones:
Consider the fact that many Western commercial corporations have had vast holdings and operations within Syria, including Ernst & Whitney, Shell Oil, Nestle, the multinational mobile telephone telephone provider MTN via its Syrian subsidiary, and the Mercedes-Benz automaker to name a few.
Syrian banks can circumvent sanctions by operating indirectly via foreign financial institutions and have historically had extensive financial ties to banking houses located in the Gulf states.
The Council on Foreign Relations has opined that financial institutions that have ties to rogue or terrorist- sponsoring states be designated as "black banks" and be shunned from participation in the international banking community and those which comply with guidelines be identified as "white banks". The theory being that this shall be an incentive for financial institutions to be wary who they transact loans and deposit transactions with.
While some have said it to be "off-the-cuff" this is actualy doubtful given the alacrity with which it bacame the basis for the accord.
@RBTL:
The Shanghai Cooperation Council has "flexed its muscles" with unprrecedented strength in the Mediteranean Sea - with a Chinese warship nearby. As Rep. John Conyers observed, Obama risked the potential of World War III by initiating aggressive military action against Syria.
Obama needed this Kerry/Lavrov accord as a face-saving measure.
The Golan Druze are considered to be the only Druze faction under Israeli occupation that are, as a group, hostile to Israel.
As a rule, Israeli Druze have been loyal to the Israeli government and have achieved substantial prominence within the Knesset and Isreal Defense Forces.
One aspect that I think could go into a little further is the Syrian business structure.
Many prominent Western corporations have substantial commercial interests in Syria, including Ernst & Young, Shell Oil Company, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Mercedes-Benz to name a few.
Syria Telecom is state-owned and is the nation's telephone company. The mobile phone services are operated by the multinational comglomerate MTN via its Syrian subsidiary - and also Syriatel. Syriatel's majority owner is Rami Makhlouf, a maternal first cousin of Pres. Assad. Makhlouf is in his early forties and is worth an estimated five billion dollars; he considered Syria's wealthiest citizen.
The Makhlouf family rose to power as financial advisers to Hafez Assad, whose wife is a member of the Makhlouf clan. The Makhoufs effectively dictate what businesses may transact operations within Syria.
Rami Makhouf once tried to get Mercedes-Benz to grant him an exclusive distributorship for its cars; the automaker declined, citing their ongoing long-time relationship with a Syrian businessman. Makhlouf got the Syrian legislature to pass a law preventing Mercedes-Benz from selling replacement parts in Syria. The auto manufacturer then stopped doing business altogether in Syria. Eventually Makhouf capitulated and the MB former distributor was reinstated.
The Shi'ite (Twelver) population in Syria is about 200,000. They have been generally pro-government in orientation and have been targets of rebels, but a number have opposed the Assad regime and been persecuted by Assad's security services.
There are about 100,000-150,000 Armenians within Syria, who speak Armenian and/or Arabic. They are primarily Apostolic Church members but some are Catholic or Evangelical in religious orientation.
If we remember the Jonathan Pollard case, the part that really ofended American interests is that Israel not only obstructed the U.S. from investigating the matter in Israel, but that Israel could not (or would not) disgorge the tremendous volume of intelligence documents that were transmitted by Polard to his contacts in the Israeli government. This series of events implies that Israel may have re-distributed that data to other would powers - some who may have interests that are hostile to America e.g. North Korea.
In other words there is absolutely no telling what happens to this vast volume of raw intelligence data once the NSA transmits it to Israel - this data has the potential to be immensely valuable in the hands of the enemies of the U.S. if Israel is willing to sell it.
White phosphorus can be legally employed in battle, however it is a war crime to carelessly expose civilian populations to this chemical agent.
The U.N. Goldstone Commission report as well as numerous human rights organizations found proof of war crimes due to the IDF deployment of white phosphorus in Gaza.
"The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb" by Gar Alperovitz is the definitive book on the Hiroshima bomb issue. The following are highlights of taht treatise.
Both Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur recognized that the A-Bomb would cause tremendous casualties of civilians and felt it violated ethics that they were taught as officers during war.
Most of the senior scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project expressed great regrets about the deployment of a nuclear device against civialian populations.
There is a reasonable case for the proposition that war crimes had been committed by the detonation of nuclear devices over both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There is also a reasnoble argument that General Curtis LeMay's ordering of incendiary raids that destroyed over half of Tokyo and devastated other Japanese population centers also constituted a war crime.
Remember Operation Northwoods? Create a false flag operation that will make it appear that Cuban forces attacked a U.S. vessel so we can then have public support to invade their country.
It would not surprise me if the radio intercepts that were clamed to confirm use of poison gas were faked with some Arabic-speaking intelligence employees of some Western intelligence group impersonating Syrian military officials to provide "proof" of war crimes to spur a U.S. attack.
Remember the July 1981 Iraqi nuclear reactor air assault by Israel? Israeli air force pilots spoke Arabic to fool Iraqi air controllers that they were a friendly force entering Iraqi airspace - then dropped their payload on the atomic energy-producing target.
Decades after the fact, Israel released dubious recorded aircraft comunications of its air force to "prove" that the USS Liberty incident was REALLY an accident.
Israel sent IDF commandos wearing Lebanese Army uniforms into Lebanon after the truce was reached ending the Second Lebanon War. This violated the Geneva Convention accords requiring soldiers to wear their nation's military uniforms. The operation was a disaster and the IDF commander leading the assault was killed in action.
Remember "Curveball" in Iraq? The code name was so ironic.
Maybe the State Department should recruit used car salesmen
to fill its highest ranks.
"....it's fun to believe Kennedy was killed by a Pentagon-CIA-Mob conspiracy instead of a single lunatic...."
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its Final Report dated January 2, 1979 found that JFK was killed by a "probable conspiracy" and cited "credible proof" that organized crime and anti-Castro Cuban exiles were involved - both groups had confirmed CIA ties at that time.
That HSCA panel also found a probable conspiracy in the MLK shooting.
"We have managed our interests in the Near East well enough for 40 years with the Assad family in power...."
True.
And the same may be said for Shah of Iran, Mubarak in Egypt and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
However, the cruel authoritarian rule of these men set in forces opposition that resulted in violent rebellions and sectarian strife. Revolution was inevitable given the repression of society in general and ethnic and religious minorities in particular.
Secretary of State Condi Rice warned Mubarak that democratic reforms were needed two years before the Arab Spring upheavals - which he abruptly rejected.
The Baathist regime that the Assad family has led were a product of French colonization efforts when the French recruited the Alawite minority to rule the Sunni majority.
There have been voices of reason among the Baathist elite families that were allies of the Assad family. The Atassi clan of Homs assisted in bringing Hafez Assad to power, yet Suheir Atassi, a feminist attorney, is vice-president of the Syrian National Coalition after being an opposition voice and arrested in Homs in 2011. She is now being touted as a possible successor to President Assad in a post-Baathist government.
The Baathists failure to institute democratic reforms has led to the violence in Syria - it was inevitable.
It has been known for a long time that the U.S. intelligence community recruits at the top universities and conducts joint research projects with these universities.
In the 1960s, a University of Miami medical school building became the largest domestic CIA station - it took over operation of the entire building with the exception of the toxicology department. It was the HQ of Operation Mongoose a joint CIA-Army project to destabilize the Castro regime.
I am sure that President Assad must have seen videos of Libyan leader Muammar Khadafy's final moments after being removed from a drain pipe - and that it was NATO (including the Americans) that made those memorable moments possible.
The spectre of U.S. aerial support of rebels no doubt has played a factor in Assad's decision to begin heeding American concerns over his chemical weapons stockpile. Assad wants to retain power and U.S. intervention could be fatal to his interests. Assad does not want to be the next Khadafy.
Assad has already seen his brother seriously wounded and his brother-in-law killed in a bombing during the rebellion. American involvement would tip the balance of power in favor of the rebels and could result in the toppling of his regime.
Red herrings are smoked and emit a pungent odor that can distract a foxhound from the hunted fox, who has a far weaker odor.
The foxhound trainer uses red herrings to teach the dogs to ignore the more powerful scent of the red herring and continue to follow the smell of the hunted fox.
The Steel Seizure Cases resulted from the filing of a lawsuit against the federal government by corporate attorneys representing steelmaking interests within 27 minutes of the issuance of the seizure order by President Truman.
A concurring opinion of Justice Jackson indicated that long-term Congressional acquiescence to assertion of presidential authority represents a gloss on the power of the Chief Executive.
Justice William O. Douglas, writing in a separate opinion of the Supreme Court in a decsion (O'Brien versus United States) upholding the conviction of a citizen convicted of buring a draft card, indicated that the real issue was the legality of the Vietnam War - which was never litigated.
It is unlikely that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 - which was passed over President Nixon's veto - will be litigated in a federal court with regard to any action Obama takes in Syria.
President Harry S Truman was rebuffed in the Steel Seizure Cases by the United States Supreme Court in 1952 when he ordered federal seizure of steel mills about to be targeted for a labor union strike. Without an Act of Congress, the Court held, Truman could not seize steel producers' property on grounds the strikes interfered with national security.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 severely curtailed the authority of the Chief Executive in authorizing armed forces to engagements.
Without an open-ended authorization for use of military force passed by Congress, there is precious little the Obama administration can do to commit forces in Syria - be it "boots on the ground" or naval or air bombardment of Syria.
Professor Bacevich has been correct to assert that there is no "moral justification" to attack a foreign state for crimes against humanity that may have occurred.
President Franklin Roosevelt never intentionally bombed Auschwitz or any other Nazi death camp, but FDR asserted that accountability would be exacted from the perpetrators - and it largely was. Few quibble today with FDR's position.
President Obama's averment that poison gas use by a foreign state against its own people justifies American military intervention has shaky legal and historical precedent. Further he has neither UN Security Council authorization nor support from the Arab League.
It should be noted it was the Arab League in 2003 that was the last entity to try to dissuade the U.S. from invading Iraq by encouraging further negotiations, which the Bush administration rebuffed.
Up to 30,000 Syrian civilians were massacred over a 27-day period in 1982 in Hama by Baathist forces with hydrogen cyanide gas deployment alleged in order to quell Muslim Brotherhood militants within the city. Where was the American outrage then?
The Detroit Free Press reports that 100 protesters appeared in Detroit's Hart Plaza to oppose the prospective Syrian intervention by the Obama administration.
Abraham Foxman and leaders of other Jewish organizations have been supporting U.S. interventiion in Syria and some have even been recruiting their membership to send correspondences to their elected representatives to encourage them to vote for such intervention:
Actually, as it relates to Syria, the mainstream (or "Twelver")Shi'ites and Alawites are separate religious entities as the Alawites do not follow the five pillars of Islam and there is a question of whether they can even be described as Muslims.
The "Twelver" Shi'ite community in Syria numbers about 200,000 and have sustained their share of casulaties at the hands of both government forces and rebels alike.
The Alawites who largely control the Syrian government received their power largely due to their alliance with the French colonial government, who recruited minorities to subdue the Syrian natives - after the French left the Alawites remained in power and the Assad family's control originates with that transfer of power to the French colonial collaborators.
Professor Bacevich correctly indicates that America cannot rely on a solely moral basis to invade another nation.
In Hama, Syria in February of 1982, the Syrian army encircled that city and killed as many of 30,000 civilians in attempting to suppress a Muslim Brotherhood insurgency. There were reports of hydrogen cyanide gas being deployed by the Baath regime.
Despite this, and the fact the siege rivalled the Black September events in Jordan in 1970 for cruelty of an Arab government against its own citizens, the massacre was virtually ignored by the American media and the U.S. Department of State.
This anomaly between U.S. government attitudes in 1982 and today suggest that these recent poison gas deaths and the supposed "moral justification" are being used as a pretext for military action where the actual motivation is to further destabilize the Assad regime due to its alliances with both Russia and Iran.
There are many scenarios that could lead to a wider war.
What if Russians still inside Syria are made casualties due to American air strikes? During the Vietnam War, only eleven Russian military personnel were killed in action although they manned SAM batteries against the U.S. Air Force and gave instructional support to the North Vietnamese Army. If Russians and Amercan forces do clash in Syria - it would be historic.
There are some accounts that Syrians near the Golan Heights are streaming into Israel and receiving medical treatment and that this includes injured al-Nusra Front fighters. There are also accounts of ordnance landing in Israel from the Golan Heights area that is a product of fighting between the Syrian government and rebels - which has led to measured Israeli responses so far. Any of these situations could draw Israel into military conflict inside Syria.
There are also questions whether America could seek an air assault against Jabhat al-Nusra. Under the post-9/11 AUMF issued by Congress against al-Qaeda, there is arguably already Congressional authority to attack the al-Nusra Front in Syria since they have declared an allegiance to al-Qaeda.
There are also questions whether the Iraqi or Iranian governments may intervene to pevent a Baathist government collapse in Syria.
U.S. House member John Conyers has wisely recognized the possibility that American military strikes against Syria may usher in World War III - although that possibility may be relatively remote, in all likelihood.
".....if he goes forward without approval from the United Nations, it would be a war crime, Noam Chomsky told the Huffington Post...."
Chomsky is a linguistics professor at MIT but has been outspoken as a leftist on Middle Eastern issues - he briefly lived on an Israeli kibbutz during the 1950s.
A recent analysis of the "Linguist Chomsky" versus the "Political Chomsky":
"The best solution for Syria would be if Bashar al-Assad steps down........"
There has been speculation - in Israel especially - that Syrian National Coalition vice-president Suheir Atassi, an attorney and feminist originally from Homs, might be the successor to Assad in the event he resigns.
Atassi is a secularist whose father was one of the founders of the Syrian Baath Party. This would make her the first female Arab head of state anywhere.
Some believe that a secularist head of state may be needed in Syria to avoid sectarian fights for power in a post-Assad regime. George Sabra is the current chairman of the Syrian National Council - he is an Orthodox Christian who had been seated as a member of the central committee of the Syrian Communist Party in 1985 - and his secularist character was a key consideration for his leadership position in the Syrian National Council, not to mention his prominent position within the Qatari-based Syrian National Coalition.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the United Nation Security Council acknowledged Iraqi deployment of chemical weapons against Iran.
The U.S. intelligence community was not only aware of Iraq's poison gas use but were furnishing satellite imagery to the Iraqi government to assist its military in revealing Iranian troop concentrations.
There are some estimiates of Iranian casualty figures in that conflict that exceed American casualties in WWII. There is no doubt that the period from 1980-88 devastated both countries. The use of poison gas against not only Iranians - but also Kurdish civilians at Halabja in March of 1988 - was met with inaction and indifference by the U.S. State Department.
Iran's remembrance of victims of chemical weapons attacks is not surprising given the horrors of the 1980s.
The Nusra Front controls swaths of Syrian territory in the north and may benefit depending where the U.S. cruise missiles and aerial bombardment falls.
As in Libya, lines of Syrian government and military comunications can be expected to be targeted.
House Representative John Conyers from Detroit, the second most senior member of Congress and a powerful Democrat, has indicated he will oppose passage of the AUMF, indicating that American intervention at this time may precipitate "World War III"
The Arab American Institute has indicated Conyers as the most pro-Arab member of Congress via analysis of his voting record.
We're likely going to see the same U.S. activity that preceded the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - dropping "bunker-busting" bombs and targeting various Baathist Party and Syrian government offices and "nerve centers" of the military.
A great irony is that Jabhat al-Nusra will likely be among those cheering on U.S. military intervention as they stand to benefit along with the Free Syrian Army from such U.S. activity.
Interesting to see also how many persons and how much funding exists for agencies outside of the 16-member "U.S. intelligence community"
At the state and local level exist intelligence sections attached to state police and local law enforcement agencies. These units often have relationships with the U.S. intelligence community via the "fusion centers" and otherwise. Almost every major American city has its own intelligence section of its police department and so do most large suburban municipalities. The investigations of these entities can be politically-motivated and often involve invasive surveillance with little or no oversight or serious justification. Many local police are "deputized" as either state police or federal agents so they can legally cross municipal or state boundaries to conduct their investigations.
The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU), a private organization, has been around for decades as a worldwide repository of intelligence information. Its records are exempt from FOIA disclosure due to LEIU's status as a private entity. Its information is derived from state, local and federal intelligence and police sources.
The recent disclosure of the NYPD as a CIA affiliate conducting surveillance on purported "terrorist" suspects are one facet of this legally questionable intelligence network.
Your state tax dollars, as well as your federal income tax, likely fund extensive intelligence activity at the federal, state and local levels of government.
Senator Rand Paul believes the AUMF proposed to justify military strike against Syria has a 50/50 chance of passing in Congress and Representative Peter King feels it will not pass at all.
Yeah, the Americans and British were never very upset by illegal chemical weapons deployment by Iraq against minority Kurds in Halabja in 1988, nor in Gaza by Israel in 2009.
Fouad Ajami is a long time member of the Council on Foreign Relations and generally has been a cheerleader for whatever the U.S. Department of State is advocating.
He is from a Lebanese Shi'ite family who have vast realty holdings there.
Research the American and British responses to the Iraq nerve gas attack in Halabja against Kurds in March of 1988. 3,200 to 5,000 Kurds were killed and many suffered permanent injuries.
It was virtually non-existent. The British expressly felt that any action against the Saddam Hussein regime would only harm its own interests; and the U.S. felt basically the same way.
The U.N. Goldstone Commission Report found credible proof that the Israel Defense Forces committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead against Gazans by its indiscriminate use of white phosphorus, a toxic chemical agent; similar findings were made by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International after diligent investigation. Yet the U.S. cast the lone deciding vote in the Security Council against taking further action against Israel. Same rationale - let us not critcize an ally or a state whose interests are aligned with ours.
Iraq and Israel got off scot-free basically for probable war crimes. Why take military action against Syria?
Saddam Hussein claimed during FBI interrogation after his capture that he never believed that the U.S. was going to invade his country over the WMD issue - he simply fely that George W. Bush would initiate an air attack as the Clinton administration had done - which was something Iraq could shrug off as a cost of doing business.
If a few cruise missiles are fired into Syria to constitute "punishment" of the Baathists, I fail to see what has been actually achieved - deterrent or otherwise. It may even lead to more cohesiveness between Assad and his supporters.
The real danger of empowering Al-Qaeda-oriented rebels in Syria by attacking the Baathists cannot be understated. If America helps to eventually topple Assad's government, the Free Syrian Army shall likely - as some of its leaders have pledged - immediately turn their guns on Jabhat Al-Nusra, thus creating a second civil war.
The Obama administration should defer to the UN Security Council and initiate any military or paramilitary action under their authorization. The spectre of potential UN intervention could force Assad to explore a diplomatic solution to the current crisis.
Identify the Syrian Defense Ministry official and the army officer transmitting and receiving the intercept.
How do we know that their conversation, presumably in Arabic, was interpreted correctly?
How do we know these individuals' actual positions in the Syrian government?
The link to the article on the British response also cited doubts by U.S. officials whether this "proof" is strong enough to rely upon in taking concret action against Assad's regime.
Back in the early 1970s I was able to legally monitor mobile telephone conversations with equipment I purchased a Radio Shack for less than eighty dollars. The frequencies were often very close to police channel communications.
Cell phone conversations are not subject to any extensive Fourth Amendment or federal statutory protections as land lines are as there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in radio wave transmissions.
I learned via practicing criminal law that police agencies often can obtain private cell phone information very easily and can also easily and legally monitor these communications - which they often do.
The National Security Agency had monitored telephone communications of Sirhan Sirhan's defense counsel Abdeen Jabara - including attorney-client communications - that resulted in a decade-long legal battle led by the ACLU in United States District Court in Detroit. That action was filed in 1972 and only a few months after Jabara succeeded in persuading the California Supreme Court to vacate Sirhan's death sentence.
The FBI, CIA, and NSA were all identified as participants in the surveillance. Jabara, a University of Michigan graduate, was never charged with a crime and the case made landmark law on the legality of federal surveillance and the right of the citizen to access of investigative files of himself under the Freedom of Information Act. The case was eventually settled with the government.
The scope of NSA surveillance today does not surprise me given what was disclosed in the Jabara case proceedings during the 1970s and 80s.
The ease upon which cell phone communications can be monitored requires great caution to those who use such communications.
Syria is one of only a handful of countries who is not a signatory to the treaty banning chemical weapons.
In June of this year, Pat Buchanan believed the "false flag" characterization and compared allegations of Baathist nerve gas use to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
More recently a former Swedish diplomat who had experience in the inspections of Iraq in 1990s found the accusations of use of chemical weapons doubtful given the fact that outside inspection teams were coming to Syria.
The Russians are not the only ones discounting the likelihood of Baathist chemical weapons deployment.
"False flag" operations are usually sophisticated projects that are conducted by a government's military or intelligence services. Such as "Operation Northwoods".
In the case at issue, the Baathists are contending that:
(A)rebels possessed poisonous Sarin gas;
(B)had the capability to deliver it in an effective manner;and
(C)create a credible perception that the government was responsible for the attack.
Most observers do not believe a false flag operation occurred here.
What is really interesting is that the Syrian government does not deny the existence of a chemical attack - but suggests that it was a "false flag" operation carried out by the rebels to discredit the Baathist government.
On a separate note, the massacre at Hama in the 1980s in which thousands were massacred by the Assad regime in response to a Muslim Brotherhood uprising went virtually unnoticed in the Western media at that time yet it seems that nowadays any suggestion of a war crime or crime against humanity occurring in Syria results in intensive international press coverage.
Also, with respect to the recent atrocities in Syria, the Arab states have suddenly "found religion" and have publicly condemned the Syrian Baathists for these chemical weapons incidents. Why not criticize the Assad regime in the past? Was it because it was not then politically expedient to do so? Just "fan the flames" and hope the outrage invites the Americans to initiate some cruise missile attacks on the Syrian Baathists.
Consider the fact that by the 1500-1600s much of the remotest areas of Western China were being traversed and their cities mapped by Western European explorers, however the Northwest Passage in Canada was not discovered until the last 100 years. Their are islands the Arctic Circle in Canada (e.g. Brock Island) which were only discovered by aerial surveys following the end of World War II.
One sad manifestattion of global warming affecting that region is the decimation of the Peary caribou. Scientists have charted hundreds of carcasses of these animals that have died as a direct result of global warming. The warming has caused ground snow to melt and later re-freeze as thick ice, thus denying these caribou access on the ground to the plant life which they graze upon - thus many die from malnutrition.
The impact such as that felt by the Peary caribou population is not generally well-known or publicized - but needs to be.
Mike Rogers, chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, has a significant family background in surveillance and intelligence.
He was an FBI special agent assigned to its Chicago office specializing in corruption and organized crime investigations. This would have undoubtedly exposed him to large-scale sophisticated electronic surveillance activities.
His wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers, was previously the president and CEO of Aegis, LLC, a contractor to the United States Department of State for intelligence-based and physical security services.
I agree with your observation with the following qualification:
"Syrian National Council" is the longtime Istanbul-based Syrian exile group headed by George Sabra, an Orthodox Christian and Central Committee member of the Syrian Communist Party since 1985.
The Syrian National Council holds about 35% of the seats in the Syrian National Coalition, a Qatar-based exile group that the Free Syria Army has professed allegiance to and whom the international community generally regards as the Syrian government-in-exile.
The turning point in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is when the Central Intelligence Agency was able to supply Islamic fundamentalist rebels with anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft missiles - these were effective in destroying Russian-made tanks and and helicopter gunships which caused Red Army casualties to mount. The Soviets withdrew and the Marxist regime collapsed shortly thereafter - Operation Cyclone was declared a success.
Whatever the Obama administration does, it should ensure the conflict ends as quickly as possible to avoid severe humanitarian crises and regional destabilization such as that which enveloped the areas contiguous to Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the largest opium producer in world accounting for 87% of international opiate products.
The United States Supreme Court has long had a "search incident to arrest" exception to the Warrant Clause requirement contained in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The exception holds that if police lawfully arrested you for criminal violation they could search any containers located on you as the arrestee. So the Obama administration's position is not that far-fetched.
It is a common law enforcement tactic nowadays to find a legal way of accessing computer hard drives, cell phones, and cell phone records. They are a great resource to learning virtually everything about a person.
The Associated Press carried a story about a federal civil rights action that has since been filed by a civil rights group claiming that hundreds if not thousands of Arab-Americans in Metro Detroit had their bank accounts closed without any stated reason.
The Foreign Assistance Act also bars aid to foreign states guilty of systematic human rights violations and has been raised as an argument to prevent funds from going to Israel.
In practice, this Act of Congress to cease aid to an offending state is almost never enforced through loopholes and bureaucratic resistance by the U.S. Department of State.
Marine Corps Sgt. Clayton Lonetree was given a 30-year sentence for revealing far less than Manning, and was released after serving nine years in a military prison.
I suspect "Chelsea" Manning will eventually be released after serving less than 10 years.
The harsh sentence he received was needed to act as a deterrent to other servicemen who may disagree with U.S. policies.
The convicted ringleader, Lt. Calley received executive clemency from President Nixon and went on to become a jewelry salesman.
I would venture most Americans today are unfamiliar with the My Lai incident.
The Haditha prosecution was a disaster.
In the incident involving Abeer Qasim Hamza the perpetrators in the U.S. Army recived long prison sentences and it inspired the Brian DePalma film "Redacted".
Poison gas was first deployed by Germany in WWI. Chlorine was the substance released into Allied lines in France. The initial success of the gas was limited as the Germans were wary of advancing and the Allied troops quickly stopped the German army. Eventually, gas masks became standard issue on the Western Front.
The use of nerve gas at Halabja against the Kurds was prosecuted as a war crime and the Iraqi official who ordered its use - "Chemical Ali" - was convicted of war crimes and executed. That war crimes prosecution sets a powerful example for government officials who consider to choose to deploy such prohibited substances against their own civilians.
America had almost no intelligence organizational activity before Pearl Harbor. It has been said it was a few file cabinets within the U.S. Department of State. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had vast and complex domestic intelligence networks going into WWII.
Reinhard Gehlen, the Nazi spymaster was not only not prosecuted, but remained as Germany's top intelligence officer until the late 1960s. He assisted in building the U.S. intelligence community to where it exists today and was revered by President Eisenhower. Klaus Barbie was an agent of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps and also was a paid operative of the West German federal intelligence services. Former Nazis like Otto Skorzeny and Alois Brunner helped establish many dictatorships in the Middle East.
It is undeniable that the U.S. and other governments saw value as anti-communists in the former leaders of Nazi Germany and attempted to emulate their prowess in intelligence activities.
The Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 requires the heads of all U.S. intelligence agencies to inform the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and its House counterpart abreast of all significant developments in intelligence.
In practice, this has not been perfect as loopholes exist which allowed operations like the Iran-Contra scandal to flourish and long go undetected by Congress.
That had been done in Michigan when its law against marijuana sale had a 20-year minimum sentence until the Michigan Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.
The Michigan Legislature in 1978 gave cocaine and heroin delivery sentences for certain amounts punishable by non-parolable life sentences and possession of 50 grams of cocaine or more punishable by a mandatory 10-20 years imprisonment.
One of the positive aspects of the statute was that it encouraged arrestees to cooperate with police to avoid that onerous life sentence.
Public outrage resulted in the mandatory life without parole law being amended to parolable life sentences.
Many of the defendants who were ensnared by the Michigan drug lifer law were welfare mothers from the inner city who became couriers to supplement their income.
The Israeli-backed attempt to establish a Maronite state in Lebanon brought years of civil war and the Shi'ite, but largely secular, Amal Party became the most powerful party in Lebanon during the late 1970s and 80s until the radical Hezbollah Party won large numbers of seats in the parliament and became a state-within-a-state. Hezbollah became an important political force within Lebanon due to its popularity in driving out Israel and Saad Haddad's South Lebanon Army.
The secular Fatah-dominated Palestinian Liberation Organization was largely ineffectual since its founding in 1964 to establish a Palestinian state. It was the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza that initiated the organized revolt against IDF occupation in Gaza that culminated in Israeli withdrawal in 2005. Much of the insurrection in the West Bank can be attributed to Islamic Jihad and Hamas actions.
When the First Intifada began in earnest over two decades ago, the Shamir government in Israel turned to Christian Arab MK Tawfiq Toubi to initiate negotiations with the P.L.O. The Israelis saw the secular P.L.O. leaders as preferable to Islamic fundamentalists as negotiating partners.
The "Deep State" is best explained by the book "The Secret Team" authored by former Air Force colonel L. Fletcher Prouty and published in 1973.
Interviews of Col. Prouty, available on YouTube, have explained how bureaucratic control mechanisms implemented within the National Security Council in the supervision of the operation of the Central Intelligence Agency failed and made the CIA essentially a primary director of covert operations, along with its intelligence-gathering apparatus, instead of a central repository of intelligence data gathered from other federal agencies, as it had intended to be following the passage of the National Security Act of 1947.
The National Security Agency has no charter by the U.S. Constitution nor any Act of Congress, but was created by an obscure executive order of the President. The Church Committee recognized this.
The U.S. Secret Service is a division of the Treasury Department.
In 1963 it was led by James Rowley, who headed it from 1961 to 1973.
The Warren Commission rebuked the Secret Service for its deficiencies in protecting the President, but there has been no seriously-accepted theory implicating the Secret Service as a conspirator in the JFK assassination.
The Gush Emunim movement that pervaded the West Bank in the 1970s and 80s and the extremist Kach Party has been subsumed into the Homeland Party led by Neftali Bennett. These represent the most ardent Zionists who favor a "one-state solution". They are part of the Netanyahu coalition
At the opposite end of the political spectrum are the ultraorthodox Jews, represented by political parties such as United Torah Judaism and Shas. For the last several decades they have been key allies of the Likud Party that has helped hawkish elements, such as Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir retain power. Their partnership in the Likud-led coalition has given them cabinet posts and power in the Israeli government that is disproportionate to their numbers in Israeli society.
One group of ultraorthodox leaders met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad when he visited New York to address the U.N. They liked his idea of destroying Israel. The ultraorthodox believe that the current State of Israel lacks legitimacy without a Jewish messianic figure.
Livia Rokach, daughter of the former mayor of Tel Aviv, authored the Book "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" which were based on the diaries of long time foreign minister Moshe Sharret who also briefly served as Israel's prime minister in the 1950s. She is quoted:
"The creation of a siege mentality in Israeli society was necessary to complement the pre-fabricated myth of the Arab threat. The two elements were intended to feed each other. Although Israeli society faced a serious risk of social and cultural disintegration under the impact of a mass imigration of Asian and North african jews into the pre-State's ideologically homogenous community, the purpose of the siege mentality was not so much that of attaining a defensive cohesiveness in Israel's Jewish society. It was principally calculated to 'eliminate the moral brakes' required for a society to fully support a policy which constituted a complete reversal of the collective ethical code on which its formal education was based and from which it was supposed to derive its vital strength. Of course, this ethical code had not been respected in the past either. Aggression and terrorism had been exercised by the Zionists before and during the 1947/48 war......."
The book describes how Israel uses the myth of "security" to justify a violent expansionist agenda and to cover it up with a policy of disseminating disinformation.
Livia Rokach committed suicide in Rome in 1984, four years after the book's publication.
That kind of reminds me of a Candid Camera episode which placed a sign on the outside of a public building warning those who read it would face criminal prosecution.
A teenager is recorded walking to the sign, reading it, then immediately running away from the sign at a very high speed - presumably fearful of being arrested.
Regarding the Pentagon Papers decision that publication prevents censorship, take it one step further in the federal court suit in which an injunction was sought by the Israeli government against St. Martin's Press in a federal court to prevent publication of a book authored by an ex-Mossad agent, "By Way of Deception."
The federal court denied an injunction simply because the book had been distributed to booksellers, even though none hade been made available to the consuming public.
The admission in the federal suit by Israel that the author had, in fact, been a one-time Mossad case officer, boosted the credibility of the author and elevated the book to a New York Times #1 best-seller.
Check out this Reuters article that came out three hours ago by John Shiffman and David Ingram that is somewhat on point about how the DEA instructs the IRS to create a false investigative trail for information that circulates between agencies to make it appear legally obtained:
It does not surprise me that there is an intelligence-sharing arrangement between the NSA and DEA.
It has been termed "narcoterrorism". The theory that terrorism is funded by drug profits and attacking drug-trafficking networks will hit terorists in the pocketbook and drying up their means of financing.
We now have "fusion centers" at the state government level that are depositories of information for dissemination between intelligence and law enforcement groups - Michigan's state government website even boasts of the program.
Almost every major city and most large suburban police departments have intelligence sections that have varying degrees of cooperation with federal agencies. These local police officers can conduct physical surveillance of individuals and pass on the information to the federal government. I have seen situations in Michigan where United Auto Workers picketers had photos taken of them by local police who shared these with management and who knows who else.
Insurance companies have "special investigations units" composed of mainly retired law enforcement personnel that investigate policyholders under the guise of fraud detection but who often have ties and closely cooperate with law enforcement agencies. They often warn policyholders that they will share investigative information with prosecutorial authorities. This often deters consumers from pressing policy claims. I have seen cases where civil lawsuit discovery has disclosed legally-protected and confidential government LEIN printout records in the hands of an insurer - which is a crime in itself. I have also seen personal medical insurance claim information of a business owner company's insurance claim turn up in the files of a commercial insurer's claim by the policyholder - which clearly violated medical privacy laws - as a product of insurers sharing data between themselves. I had one special investigations unit member boast that they had two county sheriff's deputies convicted of auto insurance fraud in their own county.
Insurance companies have databases in which they share information regarding policyholders and they can do so legally in certain situations where a fraud defense is asserted.
Remember the FBI prosecution in Detroit of the first post-9/11 terror cell indictment. While Karim Koubriti had his terror-related convictions vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct, he ended up being convicted of unrelated auto insurance fraud by the federal government before his release from prison.
Almost all American use telephones or buy insurance so there is a fertile ground for consumer personal information within these companies that the federal government wishes to "tap into" for its own benefit.
Insurance companies, telephone companies and local police intelligence units have had long cooperative relationships with the U.S. intelligence community.
The peace talks are a smokescreen to deceive Western interests that something positive is actually going on when settlement activity is being accelerated and designed to confound any reasonanble two-state solution.
These new colonies will only serve to increase the likelihood of another intifada erupting in the West Bank.
Nothing substantial is likely to be achieved from these peace negotiations.
There has been no significant accomplishment toward peace in this region since the Israeli unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005, including the unprecedented demolition of hundreds of Jewish settlers' homes in Gaza.
Offshore wind turbines can also be found in the North Sea.
In Antarctica, where wind turbines are used to power research bases, this has been a very successful alternative source of energy. It has been used at the U.S. Mc Murdo Station and the base at the South Pole. The New Zealand and Argentine stations in Antarctica are likewise powered by wind turbines.
The only death that has been attributable to wind energy technology is a worker in Wasco, Oregon in 2007 when the device was unintentionally activated as it was being maintained.
The Sabra and Shatila massacres were investigated by the Kahane Commission and blame meted out to Ariel Sharon and others in command of the Israel Defense Forces.
Consider that the number of those who died at Dasht-i-Leili approximates the deaths on 9/11 and is likely double, at least, the amount of deaths at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps - but likely 99% of the American public has never even heard of Dasht-i-Leili nor allegations of the massacre which occurred there.
Unless there is a public hue and cry over this incident - there will be no reason why the U.S. will destabilize its relationship with General Dostum or his followers.
General Dostum is an ethnic Uzbek, who has been a major figure in Afghan government since the 1970s.
Dostum had his big break when Ahmad Shah Massoud, Northern Alliance commander, was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists on September 9, 2001. Some point to this event as circumstantial proof of al-Qaeda's invovment in 9/11 hijackings.
There is little doubt that crimes against humanity occurred at Dasht-i-Leili - the question is who is culpable.
According to FoxNews, Attorney General Eric Holder assured the Russian government last week that the U.S. shall not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden.
Snowden was, according to his father, inspired by the Tunisian Bouaziz, who self-immolated in protest of his oppression by the government in that nation.
On the other hand it is possible Bradley Manning may receive 100 years imprisonment as a possible sentence.
Remember Edwin Lee Howard, the CIA officer who defected to the Soviet Union and whose information led to sixty Soviet citizens being executed for espionage. He was interviewed by David Remnick for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Lenin's Tomb. Howard later died an accident at his dacha in Russia.
I suspect that Snowden may try to seek permanent asylum and live in Russia, but it is clear that he will not be wanting to reurn to the U.S. any time soon.
Recall that Jonathan Pollard was convicted of only one count of espionage and received a sentence of life in prison here he remains today since his 1985 arrest.
Pollard has had the support of the Israeli government, the Israel Lobby, and has received a stipend from the Israeli Treasury - but he has remained in federal custody for the last 27+ years.
Ron Olive and Joseph DeGenova investigated and prosecuted the Pollard case and became national celebrities lauded for their work.
Expect the tribunal who convicted Bradley Manning to make an example of him so as to deter future behavior by our military personnel. Note how the Pollard sentence was followed by a lack of U.S. citizens reported as being Israeli spies.
"...you can't reasonably expect a right to privacy to information shared with third parties."
I guess that under that reasoning, the attorney-client, patient-physician, and accountant-client privileges, the Privacy Act, the HIPPA legislation have no public policy basis.
The government needs a subpoena to look at my bank or credit card records. Why should the NSA have the right to know who I am calling, how long I am calling and and what times? Guilt by association?
Clearly if the telephone company shared such information with the public they could expect invasion of privacy lawsuits. Congressional remedial legislation is needed here.
The Shas Party in Israel is the largest ultraorthodox political party; its co-leader is Eliyahu Yishai, who was serving in the offices of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior at the of Operation Pillar of Defense. He was quoted in the November 17, 2012 edition of Yeshiva World News regarding that military operation:
"We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure, including roads and water."
I find it interesting that the ultraorthodox party leader would be so jingoistic about invading Gaza when that religious community is so reluctant to serve in the military.
Shas currently holds eleven seats in the 120-member Knesset, however they are not included in the Netanyahu ruling coalition and hold no cabinet positions. The last elections were a stern rebuke to the privileges the ultraorthodox have traditionally held in Israeli society, especially their exemption from military conscription.
Some Metro Detroit Chaldeans recognize their biblical roots by honoring the events that occurred in their local area.
Mosul is located near the ruins of Niniveh. Chaldeans from that region honor the Jonah visit by holiday fasting for three days.
Also, Chaldeans in Iraq were allowed to engage in the commerce of alcoholic beverages where Muslims could not. They became a prosperous merchant class within Iraq. Probably over 80% of liquor stores in Metro Detroit are Chaldean-owned as they brought with them experience in liquor distribution. For many years the chairperson of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission was a Chaldean-American.
"....Detroit, MI where there is a significant Chaldean population...."
Estimates of the Chaldean population in Metro Detroit range from 100,000 to 150,000. There are additionally comparatively small numbers of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims within Metro Detroit that had increased since the Persian Gulf War, although many have returned to Iraq since the conclusion of the Second Gulf War. The Chaldean-American community had a large localized neighborhood in Detroit which received a $1,000,000 donation by Saddam Hussein to construct a community center; Mayor Coleman Young, in gratitude, awarded Hussein the "key to the city".
What was unusual in that the Detroit Catholic Church Archdiocese was closing numerous churches, but the number Chaldean-rite churches were growing with new constructions going up on a regular basis.
The Assyrian ethnic group in non-Arabic and there is a debate among Chaldeans as to whether their culture is Arabic in orientation; Flint, Michigan is considered the Assyrian-American cultural capital of North America. Chaldean churches in the Detroit area have their services typically in Aramaic and many recent immigrant Chaldean-Americans use Aramaic in conversation as their primary language although Arabic is similar and also in common use among that group.
Aramaic is spoken by only one out of 10,000 persons worldwide. It is spoken in Syria in limited areas and in a few villages within Lebanon. It is believed that this is the final generation in Israel/Palestine that will have Aramaic spoken as a native language even though it had been the most common everyday language of Palestine during the time of Christ. It is the Chaldean Catholic Church that has kept the language primarily active within the Middle East.
The Lebanese Christian militias of the 1970s and 1980s could hardly be called "fundamentalists", however could be called supremacist.
Thomas Friedman, the NY Times Jerusalem correspondent, once said calling the Lebanese Maronite clans Catholic was like "calling the Godfather Catholic". They were not known for their adherence to religious doctrine.
There were a number of Maronite ruling families that sponsored militias who were instrumental in ousting French colonialists in the 1940s. Many of these are still in power today - the Franjiehs, Gemayels, and the Mouwads - all of whom had family members serve as president.
The Maronite families often fought each other and variously allied themselves with the Syrian Baathists or Israelis. The Gemayels were pro-Israeli and the Franjiehs were, and remain, close to the Assad family.
The Civil Administration division of the Israel Defense Forces since 1981 has been the government of the Palestinians. It is led by an IDF brigadier general with colonels acting as military governors of districts. The Palestinians have no say in how it is run or particpate in its military tribunals that convict its people with a rate of in excess of 99%.
The Gaza District was dissolved in 2005. Martial law was lifted concomitant with the IDF disengagement.
When Col. Dror Weinberg, the IDF governor of the Judean military district, was killed by Islamic Jihad snipers several years ago, widespread celebrations erupted throught the Occupied Territories.
One legal theory that I have seen advanced for Israeli hegemony over the West Bank it was involntarily received in defending a war and that the prior occcupier, the Kingdom of Jordan, did not have legal control over the land when it was occupied and ruled by Jordan.
The experts that I have seen lecture at the Gerald R. Ford Scholl of Public Policy on this topic have indicated that no tribunal could ever untangle the various legal claims to the West Bank in any meaningful manner that would be enforceably acceptable - and that any resolution would have to be via consent of all interested parties.
Thomas Friedman, in his award-winning book "From Beirut to Jerusalem", stated that Likud Party adherents had an unwitten policy to keep the status quo West Bank occupation as long as possible since that scenario was the best for Israeli interests.
Roey Gilad, the Israel Consul General in Chicago,in addressing a Jewish student group in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, several months ago disclosed a peace plan to be imposed via "fear or respect" which will be eerily similar to South Africa's Bophutswana where the Palestinians will have "islands" of control in Arab population centers with roads and outlying areas continuing to be administered by the Israel Defense Forces.
According to Gilad, there will be a significant pullback of IDF control but nothing near the 1967 pre-Six-Day War borders.
This visit by Gilad was covered by the Michigan Daily.
Of course, the Palestinians would never agree to this Likud-endorsed plan. So it remains to be seen what will come of U.S. endorsed peace talks.
"...white flight was already a big phenomenon before the riot..."
Agreed. The best way to illustrate this point is the boom in population of Detroit suburbs. The City of Warren, due north of Detroit, had 42,000 residents in 1950, 89,000 in 1960 and 179,000 in 1970. As of the 1980 census it was over 99% white.
"I personally think a lot of the whites left because of the change in laws disallowing covenants..."
The Stanley vs. Kramer U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down racilly restrictive real estate covenants was handed down in 1948, however very little racial integration ever occurred in Detroit neighborhoods to that point up to the 1960s. While the 1967 riots certainly did not discourage "white flight" the most devastating phenomenon I saw was the "block-busting" real estate brokers who saw a financial windfall in introducing black families to all-white neighborhoods in Detroit and causing immediate panic selling by white households over fear the equity in their homes would be wiped out.
The real estate brokers and suburban developers and residential builders are the ones who made vast fortunes capitalizing upon this "white flight".
While Detroit's population fell from 1,600,000 in 1960 to about 700,000 today, the overall population of Metro Detroit has been steady due to the growth of its suburbs.
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Here is a corrected link:
link to theguardian.com
The tar sands deposits in Detroit are owned by Koch Carbon, a company operated by the Koch brothers.
Here's a link to photos:
link to theguardian.com
Ashkenazi(European)Jews are the most prevalent group amongst Israel's Jewry, however the number of Jews who trace their ancestry from Sephardic or Asian sources is significant.
The recent (last 20 years or so) influx of Jews emigrating from the former Soviet republics, including Russia and the Ukraine, likely helped the Ashkenazi Jews keep their supremacy in the government and business circles within Israel. These immigrants also have been instrumental in the proliferation of West Bank settlements.
The Ashkenazi Jews have dominated Israeli society in a political sense and the Sephardic Jewry have been relatively liberal politically but have not been included to any great extent in the political leadership - one notable exception would be Morroccan-born Amir Peretz, who had served as defense minister a few years ago.
Israel is now proceeding to have the French Consulate diplomat considered for expulsion as "persona non grata" since she purportedly provoked the incident.
Here is the link:
link to haaretz.com
Estimates of the number of Jews in Iran range up to 30,000.
By Iranian law, the parliament is guaranteed one Jewish representative.
Iran has the largest Jewish population of any Middle Eastern nation outside Israel.
@Bill:
My reference to Wikipedia was for the sake of brevity and convenience.
However, I would defer to the findings of the esteemed authors John Dinges and Robert Parry, who separately conducted intensive journalistic invesigations of the Chilean situation and Operation Condor and whose observations are mirrored by the facts set forth in my post.
I do agree that Operation Condor was organized in Chile in 1975 under Contreras - the condor being the national bird of Chile. But there was a very shadowy relationship between Operation Condor and our own government.
The 1973 overthrow of Allende resulted in U.S. Senate testimony from Richard Helms during his confirmation hearing as U.S. ambassador to Iran about the purportedly minimal inactive role the CIA had in the action. That testimony was rebutted by the Church Committee and Helms was later convicted of lying to Congress.
There was undoubtedly a close relationship between Operation Condor and a number of Americans who had a history of a relationship with the CIA - and Posada and Townley are prime examples of this.
From the Wikipedia site on Operation Condor:
(1)"Although the United States was not a member of the Condor consortium, documentation shows that the United States provided key organizational, finanacial and technical assistance to the operation.......";
(2)Manuel Contreras was a paid CIA contact until 1977;
(3)Contreras told the Chilean Supreme Court in 2005 that the CIA was involved in the Letelier assassination.
Additionally, Luis Posada Carrilles, a former CIA officer, and Michael Townley, a former CIA contract agent, were linked to Operation Condor. Posada, now in his 80s, currently lives in the Miami area as a revered anti-Castro exile activist and Townley became a federally-protected witness following his conviction in the Washington D.C. deaths of Ronni Moffit and Orlando Letelier.
Dilma Roussef is of Bulgarian descent and was a leftist activist that was held in custody by the Brazilian security forces in the early 1970s where she claims she had been tortured.
Later, in 1975, Brazil became a member of the Operation Condor intelligence network that resulted in the abduction, torture, and killing of tens of thousands of civilians for suspected anti-government activity in Brazil and other South American nations in the panhandle of that continent. Operation Condor was organized and supplied by the United States largely under the direction of CIA Associate Deputy Director of Operations Ted Shackley.
It does not suprise me, give this history, that Roussef would gravitate toward China on political or economic issues.
Re the "loopholes" that allow Syrian banks to interface with Western ones:
Consider the fact that many Western commercial corporations have had vast holdings and operations within Syria, including Ernst & Whitney, Shell Oil, Nestle, the multinational mobile telephone telephone provider MTN via its Syrian subsidiary, and the Mercedes-Benz automaker to name a few.
Syrian banks can circumvent sanctions by operating indirectly via foreign financial institutions and have historically had extensive financial ties to banking houses located in the Gulf states.
The Council on Foreign Relations has opined that financial institutions that have ties to rogue or terrorist- sponsoring states be designated as "black banks" and be shunned from participation in the international banking community and those which comply with guidelines be identified as "white banks". The theory being that this shall be an incentive for financial institutions to be wary who they transact loans and deposit transactions with.
@Joe from Lowell:
My source is:
link to zerohedge.com
While some have said it to be "off-the-cuff" this is actualy doubtful given the alacrity with which it bacame the basis for the accord.
@RBTL:
The Shanghai Cooperation Council has "flexed its muscles" with unprrecedented strength in the Mediteranean Sea - with a Chinese warship nearby. As Rep. John Conyers observed, Obama risked the potential of World War III by initiating aggressive military action against Syria.
Obama needed this Kerry/Lavrov accord as a face-saving measure.
Kerry initially offered the proposal and it was Russia's support and influence with Assad that iced the deal.
Also, this is a major victory for the vaunted "Shanghai Cooperation Council".
Good point.
The Golan Druze are considered to be the only Druze faction under Israeli occupation that are, as a group, hostile to Israel.
As a rule, Israeli Druze have been loyal to the Israeli government and have achieved substantial prominence within the Knesset and Isreal Defense Forces.
One aspect that I think could go into a little further is the Syrian business structure.
Many prominent Western corporations have substantial commercial interests in Syria, including Ernst & Young, Shell Oil Company, Nestle, Coca-Cola, and Mercedes-Benz to name a few.
Syria Telecom is state-owned and is the nation's telephone company. The mobile phone services are operated by the multinational comglomerate MTN via its Syrian subsidiary - and also Syriatel. Syriatel's majority owner is Rami Makhlouf, a maternal first cousin of Pres. Assad. Makhlouf is in his early forties and is worth an estimated five billion dollars; he considered Syria's wealthiest citizen.
The Makhlouf family rose to power as financial advisers to Hafez Assad, whose wife is a member of the Makhlouf clan. The Makhoufs effectively dictate what businesses may transact operations within Syria.
Rami Makhouf once tried to get Mercedes-Benz to grant him an exclusive distributorship for its cars; the automaker declined, citing their ongoing long-time relationship with a Syrian businessman. Makhlouf got the Syrian legislature to pass a law preventing Mercedes-Benz from selling replacement parts in Syria. The auto manufacturer then stopped doing business altogether in Syria. Eventually Makhouf capitulated and the MB former distributor was reinstated.
The Shi'ite (Twelver) population in Syria is about 200,000. They have been generally pro-government in orientation and have been targets of rebels, but a number have opposed the Assad regime and been persecuted by Assad's security services.
There are about 100,000-150,000 Armenians within Syria, who speak Armenian and/or Arabic. They are primarily Apostolic Church members but some are Catholic or Evangelical in religious orientation.
If we remember the Jonathan Pollard case, the part that really ofended American interests is that Israel not only obstructed the U.S. from investigating the matter in Israel, but that Israel could not (or would not) disgorge the tremendous volume of intelligence documents that were transmitted by Polard to his contacts in the Israeli government. This series of events implies that Israel may have re-distributed that data to other would powers - some who may have interests that are hostile to America e.g. North Korea.
In other words there is absolutely no telling what happens to this vast volume of raw intelligence data once the NSA transmits it to Israel - this data has the potential to be immensely valuable in the hands of the enemies of the U.S. if Israel is willing to sell it.
White phosphorus can be legally employed in battle, however it is a war crime to carelessly expose civilian populations to this chemical agent.
The U.N. Goldstone Commission report as well as numerous human rights organizations found proof of war crimes due to the IDF deployment of white phosphorus in Gaza.
"The Decision To Use The Atomic Bomb" by Gar Alperovitz is the definitive book on the Hiroshima bomb issue. The following are highlights of taht treatise.
Both Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur recognized that the A-Bomb would cause tremendous casualties of civilians and felt it violated ethics that they were taught as officers during war.
Most of the senior scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project expressed great regrets about the deployment of a nuclear device against civialian populations.
There is a reasonable case for the proposition that war crimes had been committed by the detonation of nuclear devices over both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There is also a reasnoble argument that General Curtis LeMay's ordering of incendiary raids that destroyed over half of Tokyo and devastated other Japanese population centers also constituted a war crime.
"People are so addicted to telling lies."
Remember Operation Northwoods? Create a false flag operation that will make it appear that Cuban forces attacked a U.S. vessel so we can then have public support to invade their country.
It would not surprise me if the radio intercepts that were clamed to confirm use of poison gas were faked with some Arabic-speaking intelligence employees of some Western intelligence group impersonating Syrian military officials to provide "proof" of war crimes to spur a U.S. attack.
Remember the July 1981 Iraqi nuclear reactor air assault by Israel? Israeli air force pilots spoke Arabic to fool Iraqi air controllers that they were a friendly force entering Iraqi airspace - then dropped their payload on the atomic energy-producing target.
Decades after the fact, Israel released dubious recorded aircraft comunications of its air force to "prove" that the USS Liberty incident was REALLY an accident.
Israel sent IDF commandos wearing Lebanese Army uniforms into Lebanon after the truce was reached ending the Second Lebanon War. This violated the Geneva Convention accords requiring soldiers to wear their nation's military uniforms. The operation was a disaster and the IDF commander leading the assault was killed in action.
Remember "Curveball" in Iraq? The code name was so ironic.
Maybe the State Department should recruit used car salesmen
to fill its highest ranks.
"....it's fun to believe Kennedy was killed by a Pentagon-CIA-Mob conspiracy instead of a single lunatic...."
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its Final Report dated January 2, 1979 found that JFK was killed by a "probable conspiracy" and cited "credible proof" that organized crime and anti-Castro Cuban exiles were involved - both groups had confirmed CIA ties at that time.
That HSCA panel also found a probable conspiracy in the MLK shooting.
"We have managed our interests in the Near East well enough for 40 years with the Assad family in power...."
True.
And the same may be said for Shah of Iran, Mubarak in Egypt and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
However, the cruel authoritarian rule of these men set in forces opposition that resulted in violent rebellions and sectarian strife. Revolution was inevitable given the repression of society in general and ethnic and religious minorities in particular.
Secretary of State Condi Rice warned Mubarak that democratic reforms were needed two years before the Arab Spring upheavals - which he abruptly rejected.
The Baathist regime that the Assad family has led were a product of French colonization efforts when the French recruited the Alawite minority to rule the Sunni majority.
There have been voices of reason among the Baathist elite families that were allies of the Assad family. The Atassi clan of Homs assisted in bringing Hafez Assad to power, yet Suheir Atassi, a feminist attorney, is vice-president of the Syrian National Coalition after being an opposition voice and arrested in Homs in 2011. She is now being touted as a possible successor to President Assad in a post-Baathist government.
The Baathists failure to institute democratic reforms has led to the violence in Syria - it was inevitable.
The NSA emblem is not any secret.
It is a bald eagle holding a key.
It symbolizes that the NSA holds the key to America's secrets and opens the secrets of others.
It has been known for a long time that the U.S. intelligence community recruits at the top universities and conducts joint research projects with these universities.
In the 1960s, a University of Miami medical school building became the largest domestic CIA station - it took over operation of the entire building with the exception of the toxicology department. It was the HQ of Operation Mongoose a joint CIA-Army project to destabilize the Castro regime.
I am sure that President Assad must have seen videos of Libyan leader Muammar Khadafy's final moments after being removed from a drain pipe - and that it was NATO (including the Americans) that made those memorable moments possible.
The spectre of U.S. aerial support of rebels no doubt has played a factor in Assad's decision to begin heeding American concerns over his chemical weapons stockpile. Assad wants to retain power and U.S. intervention could be fatal to his interests. Assad does not want to be the next Khadafy.
Assad has already seen his brother seriously wounded and his brother-in-law killed in a bombing during the rebellion. American involvement would tip the balance of power in favor of the rebels and could result in the toppling of his regime.
A "red herring" is used in training foxhounds.
Red herrings are smoked and emit a pungent odor that can distract a foxhound from the hunted fox, who has a far weaker odor.
The foxhound trainer uses red herrings to teach the dogs to ignore the more powerful scent of the red herring and continue to follow the smell of the hunted fox.
Agreed.
The Steel Seizure Cases resulted from the filing of a lawsuit against the federal government by corporate attorneys representing steelmaking interests within 27 minutes of the issuance of the seizure order by President Truman.
A concurring opinion of Justice Jackson indicated that long-term Congressional acquiescence to assertion of presidential authority represents a gloss on the power of the Chief Executive.
Justice William O. Douglas, writing in a separate opinion of the Supreme Court in a decsion (O'Brien versus United States) upholding the conviction of a citizen convicted of buring a draft card, indicated that the real issue was the legality of the Vietnam War - which was never litigated.
It is unlikely that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 - which was passed over President Nixon's veto - will be litigated in a federal court with regard to any action Obama takes in Syria.
Several points:
President Harry S Truman was rebuffed in the Steel Seizure Cases by the United States Supreme Court in 1952 when he ordered federal seizure of steel mills about to be targeted for a labor union strike. Without an Act of Congress, the Court held, Truman could not seize steel producers' property on grounds the strikes interfered with national security.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 severely curtailed the authority of the Chief Executive in authorizing armed forces to engagements.
Without an open-ended authorization for use of military force passed by Congress, there is precious little the Obama administration can do to commit forces in Syria - be it "boots on the ground" or naval or air bombardment of Syria.
Professor Bacevich has been correct to assert that there is no "moral justification" to attack a foreign state for crimes against humanity that may have occurred.
President Franklin Roosevelt never intentionally bombed Auschwitz or any other Nazi death camp, but FDR asserted that accountability would be exacted from the perpetrators - and it largely was. Few quibble today with FDR's position.
President Obama's averment that poison gas use by a foreign state against its own people justifies American military intervention has shaky legal and historical precedent. Further he has neither UN Security Council authorization nor support from the Arab League.
It should be noted it was the Arab League in 2003 that was the last entity to try to dissuade the U.S. from invading Iraq by encouraging further negotiations, which the Bush administration rebuffed.
Up to 30,000 Syrian civilians were massacred over a 27-day period in 1982 in Hama by Baathist forces with hydrogen cyanide gas deployment alleged in order to quell Muslim Brotherhood militants within the city. Where was the American outrage then?
The Detroit Free Press reports that 100 protesters appeared in Detroit's Hart Plaza to oppose the prospective Syrian intervention by the Obama administration.
Abraham Foxman and leaders of other Jewish organizations have been supporting U.S. interventiion in Syria and some have even been recruiting their membership to send correspondences to their elected representatives to encourage them to vote for such intervention:
link to palestinechronicle.com the-middle-east/
Actually, as it relates to Syria, the mainstream (or "Twelver")Shi'ites and Alawites are separate religious entities as the Alawites do not follow the five pillars of Islam and there is a question of whether they can even be described as Muslims.
The "Twelver" Shi'ite community in Syria numbers about 200,000 and have sustained their share of casulaties at the hands of both government forces and rebels alike.
The Alawites who largely control the Syrian government received their power largely due to their alliance with the French colonial government, who recruited minorities to subdue the Syrian natives - after the French left the Alawites remained in power and the Assad family's control originates with that transfer of power to the French colonial collaborators.
Professor Bacevich correctly indicates that America cannot rely on a solely moral basis to invade another nation.
In Hama, Syria in February of 1982, the Syrian army encircled that city and killed as many of 30,000 civilians in attempting to suppress a Muslim Brotherhood insurgency. There were reports of hydrogen cyanide gas being deployed by the Baath regime.
Despite this, and the fact the siege rivalled the Black September events in Jordan in 1970 for cruelty of an Arab government against its own citizens, the massacre was virtually ignored by the American media and the U.S. Department of State.
This anomaly between U.S. government attitudes in 1982 and today suggest that these recent poison gas deaths and the supposed "moral justification" are being used as a pretext for military action where the actual motivation is to further destabilize the Assad regime due to its alliances with both Russia and Iran.
"Such an action could lead to a wider war."
There are many scenarios that could lead to a wider war.
What if Russians still inside Syria are made casualties due to American air strikes? During the Vietnam War, only eleven Russian military personnel were killed in action although they manned SAM batteries against the U.S. Air Force and gave instructional support to the North Vietnamese Army. If Russians and Amercan forces do clash in Syria - it would be historic.
There are some accounts that Syrians near the Golan Heights are streaming into Israel and receiving medical treatment and that this includes injured al-Nusra Front fighters. There are also accounts of ordnance landing in Israel from the Golan Heights area that is a product of fighting between the Syrian government and rebels - which has led to measured Israeli responses so far. Any of these situations could draw Israel into military conflict inside Syria.
There are also questions whether America could seek an air assault against Jabhat al-Nusra. Under the post-9/11 AUMF issued by Congress against al-Qaeda, there is arguably already Congressional authority to attack the al-Nusra Front in Syria since they have declared an allegiance to al-Qaeda.
There are also questions whether the Iraqi or Iranian governments may intervene to pevent a Baathist government collapse in Syria.
U.S. House member John Conyers has wisely recognized the possibility that American military strikes against Syria may usher in World War III - although that possibility may be relatively remote, in all likelihood.
".....if he goes forward without approval from the United Nations, it would be a war crime, Noam Chomsky told the Huffington Post...."
Chomsky is a linguistics professor at MIT but has been outspoken as a leftist on Middle Eastern issues - he briefly lived on an Israeli kibbutz during the 1950s.
A recent analysis of the "Linguist Chomsky" versus the "Political Chomsky":
link to annarborchronicle.com
"The best solution for Syria would be if Bashar al-Assad steps down........"
There has been speculation - in Israel especially - that Syrian National Coalition vice-president Suheir Atassi, an attorney and feminist originally from Homs, might be the successor to Assad in the event he resigns.
Atassi is a secularist whose father was one of the founders of the Syrian Baath Party. This would make her the first female Arab head of state anywhere.
Some believe that a secularist head of state may be needed in Syria to avoid sectarian fights for power in a post-Assad regime. George Sabra is the current chairman of the Syrian National Council - he is an Orthodox Christian who had been seated as a member of the central committee of the Syrian Communist Party in 1985 - and his secularist character was a key consideration for his leadership position in the Syrian National Council, not to mention his prominent position within the Qatari-based Syrian National Coalition.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the United Nation Security Council acknowledged Iraqi deployment of chemical weapons against Iran.
The U.S. intelligence community was not only aware of Iraq's poison gas use but were furnishing satellite imagery to the Iraqi government to assist its military in revealing Iranian troop concentrations.
There are some estimiates of Iranian casualty figures in that conflict that exceed American casualties in WWII. There is no doubt that the period from 1980-88 devastated both countries. The use of poison gas against not only Iranians - but also Kurdish civilians at Halabja in March of 1988 - was met with inaction and indifference by the U.S. State Department.
Iran's remembrance of victims of chemical weapons attacks is not surprising given the horrors of the 1980s.
The Nusra Front controls swaths of Syrian territory in the north and may benefit depending where the U.S. cruise missiles and aerial bombardment falls.
As in Libya, lines of Syrian government and military comunications can be expected to be targeted.
House Representative John Conyers from Detroit, the second most senior member of Congress and a powerful Democrat, has indicated he will oppose passage of the AUMF, indicating that American intervention at this time may precipitate "World War III"
The Arab American Institute has indicated Conyers as the most pro-Arab member of Congress via analysis of his voting record.
We're likely going to see the same U.S. activity that preceded the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - dropping "bunker-busting" bombs and targeting various Baathist Party and Syrian government offices and "nerve centers" of the military.
A great irony is that Jabhat al-Nusra will likely be among those cheering on U.S. military intervention as they stand to benefit along with the Free Syrian Army from such U.S. activity.
Aluf Benn in this morning's Haaretz suggested that the Israeli right should not be engaged in pushing others "in the line of fire" over Syria.
Haaretz is a liberal news outlet of Israel.
No surprise here.
Interesting to see also how many persons and how much funding exists for agencies outside of the 16-member "U.S. intelligence community"
At the state and local level exist intelligence sections attached to state police and local law enforcement agencies. These units often have relationships with the U.S. intelligence community via the "fusion centers" and otherwise. Almost every major American city has its own intelligence section of its police department and so do most large suburban municipalities. The investigations of these entities can be politically-motivated and often involve invasive surveillance with little or no oversight or serious justification. Many local police are "deputized" as either state police or federal agents so they can legally cross municipal or state boundaries to conduct their investigations.
The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU), a private organization, has been around for decades as a worldwide repository of intelligence information. Its records are exempt from FOIA disclosure due to LEIU's status as a private entity. Its information is derived from state, local and federal intelligence and police sources.
The recent disclosure of the NYPD as a CIA affiliate conducting surveillance on purported "terrorist" suspects are one facet of this legally questionable intelligence network.
Your state tax dollars, as well as your federal income tax, likely fund extensive intelligence activity at the federal, state and local levels of government.
The ICC has convicted only one person in its 10-year existence - Thomas Lubanga of the Congo, who received a 14-year sentence.
One criticism of the court is that it only targets Africans and avoids prosecution of well-connected Western nations' citizens.
There is so much "red-tape" in bringing an ICC prosecution, almost none have occurred.
There is also no death penalty available under ICC jurisdiction.
Senator Rand Paul believes the AUMF proposed to justify military strike against Syria has a 50/50 chance of passing in Congress and Representative Peter King feels it will not pass at all.
There are serious questions whether the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is violated if the President does not seek prior Congressional authorization.
Yeah, the Americans and British were never very upset by illegal chemical weapons deployment by Iraq against minority Kurds in Halabja in 1988, nor in Gaza by Israel in 2009.
Fouad Ajami is a long time member of the Council on Foreign Relations and generally has been a cheerleader for whatever the U.S. Department of State is advocating.
He is from a Lebanese Shi'ite family who have vast realty holdings there.
Looks like Congress will be considering issuing the dreaded AUMF for Syria.
Will it pass?
Research the American and British responses to the Iraq nerve gas attack in Halabja against Kurds in March of 1988. 3,200 to 5,000 Kurds were killed and many suffered permanent injuries.
It was virtually non-existent. The British expressly felt that any action against the Saddam Hussein regime would only harm its own interests; and the U.S. felt basically the same way.
The U.N. Goldstone Commission Report found credible proof that the Israel Defense Forces committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead against Gazans by its indiscriminate use of white phosphorus, a toxic chemical agent; similar findings were made by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International after diligent investigation. Yet the U.S. cast the lone deciding vote in the Security Council against taking further action against Israel. Same rationale - let us not critcize an ally or a state whose interests are aligned with ours.
Iraq and Israel got off scot-free basically for probable war crimes. Why take military action against Syria?
Saddam Hussein claimed during FBI interrogation after his capture that he never believed that the U.S. was going to invade his country over the WMD issue - he simply fely that George W. Bush would initiate an air attack as the Clinton administration had done - which was something Iraq could shrug off as a cost of doing business.
If a few cruise missiles are fired into Syria to constitute "punishment" of the Baathists, I fail to see what has been actually achieved - deterrent or otherwise. It may even lead to more cohesiveness between Assad and his supporters.
The real danger of empowering Al-Qaeda-oriented rebels in Syria by attacking the Baathists cannot be understated. If America helps to eventually topple Assad's government, the Free Syrian Army shall likely - as some of its leaders have pledged - immediately turn their guns on Jabhat Al-Nusra, thus creating a second civil war.
The Obama administration should defer to the UN Security Council and initiate any military or paramilitary action under their authorization. The spectre of potential UN intervention could force Assad to explore a diplomatic solution to the current crisis.
Regarding the intercept:
Identify the Syrian Defense Ministry official and the army officer transmitting and receiving the intercept.
How do we know that their conversation, presumably in Arabic, was interpreted correctly?
How do we know these individuals' actual positions in the Syrian government?
The link to the article on the British response also cited doubts by U.S. officials whether this "proof" is strong enough to rely upon in taking concret action against Assad's regime.
Remember Operation Northwoods!
Another try at the complete link:
link to law.justia.com
Here is a link to one of the landmark opinions:
link to law.justia.com courts/F2/691/272/251742/
Back in the early 1970s I was able to legally monitor mobile telephone conversations with equipment I purchased a Radio Shack for less than eighty dollars. The frequencies were often very close to police channel communications.
Cell phone conversations are not subject to any extensive Fourth Amendment or federal statutory protections as land lines are as there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in radio wave transmissions.
I learned via practicing criminal law that police agencies often can obtain private cell phone information very easily and can also easily and legally monitor these communications - which they often do.
The National Security Agency had monitored telephone communications of Sirhan Sirhan's defense counsel Abdeen Jabara - including attorney-client communications - that resulted in a decade-long legal battle led by the ACLU in United States District Court in Detroit. That action was filed in 1972 and only a few months after Jabara succeeded in persuading the California Supreme Court to vacate Sirhan's death sentence.
The FBI, CIA, and NSA were all identified as participants in the surveillance. Jabara, a University of Michigan graduate, was never charged with a crime and the case made landmark law on the legality of federal surveillance and the right of the citizen to access of investigative files of himself under the Freedom of Information Act. The case was eventually settled with the government.
The scope of NSA surveillance today does not surprise me given what was disclosed in the Jabara case proceedings during the 1970s and 80s.
The ease upon which cell phone communications can be monitored requires great caution to those who use such communications.
Israel admitted using phosporous bombs in Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and was accused of violating international law:
See link to wsws.org
Where was the moral outrage by the U.S. State Department then?
Syria is one of only a handful of countries who is not a signatory to the treaty banning chemical weapons.
In June of this year, Pat Buchanan believed the "false flag" characterization and compared allegations of Baathist nerve gas use to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
More recently a former Swedish diplomat who had experience in the inspections of Iraq in 1990s found the accusations of use of chemical weapons doubtful given the fact that outside inspection teams were coming to Syria.
The Russians are not the only ones discounting the likelihood of Baathist chemical weapons deployment.
"False flag" operations are usually sophisticated projects that are conducted by a government's military or intelligence services. Such as "Operation Northwoods".
In the case at issue, the Baathists are contending that:
(A)rebels possessed poisonous Sarin gas;
(B)had the capability to deliver it in an effective manner;and
(C)create a credible perception that the government was responsible for the attack.
Most observers do not believe a false flag operation occurred here.
What is really interesting is that the Syrian government does not deny the existence of a chemical attack - but suggests that it was a "false flag" operation carried out by the rebels to discredit the Baathist government.
On a separate note, the massacre at Hama in the 1980s in which thousands were massacred by the Assad regime in response to a Muslim Brotherhood uprising went virtually unnoticed in the Western media at that time yet it seems that nowadays any suggestion of a war crime or crime against humanity occurring in Syria results in intensive international press coverage.
Also, with respect to the recent atrocities in Syria, the Arab states have suddenly "found religion" and have publicly condemned the Syrian Baathists for these chemical weapons incidents. Why not criticize the Assad regime in the past? Was it because it was not then politically expedient to do so? Just "fan the flames" and hope the outrage invites the Americans to initiate some cruise missile attacks on the Syrian Baathists.
Yes, the polar areas are truly the last frontier.
Consider the fact that by the 1500-1600s much of the remotest areas of Western China were being traversed and their cities mapped by Western European explorers, however the Northwest Passage in Canada was not discovered until the last 100 years. Their are islands the Arctic Circle in Canada (e.g. Brock Island) which were only discovered by aerial surveys following the end of World War II.
One sad manifestattion of global warming affecting that region is the decimation of the Peary caribou. Scientists have charted hundreds of carcasses of these animals that have died as a direct result of global warming. The warming has caused ground snow to melt and later re-freeze as thick ice, thus denying these caribou access on the ground to the plant life which they graze upon - thus many die from malnutrition.
The impact such as that felt by the Peary caribou population is not generally well-known or publicized - but needs to be.
Germany and Spain are the only two nations ahead of Japan in aggregate solar power capacity.
Japan's government has provided subsidies and a feed-in tariff to encourage solar power expansion.
Japan's aggregate solar power capacity has incresed from 19 megawatts in 1992 to 7,000 today.
America has been grossly laggard in its promotion and expansion of solar power as a safe and viable alternative energy source.
Mike Rogers, chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, has a significant family background in surveillance and intelligence.
He was an FBI special agent assigned to its Chicago office specializing in corruption and organized crime investigations. This would have undoubtedly exposed him to large-scale sophisticated electronic surveillance activities.
His wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers, was previously the president and CEO of Aegis, LLC, a contractor to the United States Department of State for intelligence-based and physical security services.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rogers_(Michigan_politician)
I agree with your observation with the following qualification:
"Syrian National Council" is the longtime Istanbul-based Syrian exile group headed by George Sabra, an Orthodox Christian and Central Committee member of the Syrian Communist Party since 1985.
The Syrian National Council holds about 35% of the seats in the Syrian National Coalition, a Qatar-based exile group that the Free Syria Army has professed allegiance to and whom the international community generally regards as the Syrian government-in-exile.
The turning point in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is when the Central Intelligence Agency was able to supply Islamic fundamentalist rebels with anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft missiles - these were effective in destroying Russian-made tanks and and helicopter gunships which caused Red Army casualties to mount. The Soviets withdrew and the Marxist regime collapsed shortly thereafter - Operation Cyclone was declared a success.
Whatever the Obama administration does, it should ensure the conflict ends as quickly as possible to avoid severe humanitarian crises and regional destabilization such as that which enveloped the areas contiguous to Afghanistan. Afghanistan is the largest opium producer in world accounting for 87% of international opiate products.
I meant to say September 11, 2001.
"......engaged in insider trading and effected stock movements."
In the two-week period immediately preceding September 11, 2011, there was the highest NYSE volume share trading of the year up to that date.
It is a clear and reasonable inference that some individuals were aware that the terror attacks were coming and acted accordingly.
The United States Supreme Court has long had a "search incident to arrest" exception to the Warrant Clause requirement contained in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The exception holds that if police lawfully arrested you for criminal violation they could search any containers located on you as the arrestee. So the Obama administration's position is not that far-fetched.
It is a common law enforcement tactic nowadays to find a legal way of accessing computer hard drives, cell phones, and cell phone records. They are a great resource to learning virtually everything about a person.
The Associated Press carried a story about a federal civil rights action that has since been filed by a civil rights group claiming that hundreds if not thousands of Arab-Americans in Metro Detroit had their bank accounts closed without any stated reason.
link to wilx.com
The Foreign Assistance Act also bars aid to foreign states guilty of systematic human rights violations and has been raised as an argument to prevent funds from going to Israel.
In practice, this Act of Congress to cease aid to an offending state is almost never enforced through loopholes and bureaucratic resistance by the U.S. Department of State.
Marine Corps Sgt. Clayton Lonetree was given a 30-year sentence for revealing far less than Manning, and was released after serving nine years in a military prison.
I suspect "Chelsea" Manning will eventually be released after serving less than 10 years.
The harsh sentence he received was needed to act as a deterrent to other servicemen who may disagree with U.S. policies.
In My Lai, almost nobody was punished.
The convicted ringleader, Lt. Calley received executive clemency from President Nixon and went on to become a jewelry salesman.
I would venture most Americans today are unfamiliar with the My Lai incident.
The Haditha prosecution was a disaster.
In the incident involving Abeer Qasim Hamza the perpetrators in the U.S. Army recived long prison sentences and it inspired the Brian DePalma film "Redacted".
Poison gas was first deployed by Germany in WWI. Chlorine was the substance released into Allied lines in France. The initial success of the gas was limited as the Germans were wary of advancing and the Allied troops quickly stopped the German army. Eventually, gas masks became standard issue on the Western Front.
The use of nerve gas at Halabja against the Kurds was prosecuted as a war crime and the Iraqi official who ordered its use - "Chemical Ali" - was convicted of war crimes and executed. That war crimes prosecution sets a powerful example for government officials who consider to choose to deploy such prohibited substances against their own civilians.
America had almost no intelligence organizational activity before Pearl Harbor. It has been said it was a few file cabinets within the U.S. Department of State. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had vast and complex domestic intelligence networks going into WWII.
Reinhard Gehlen, the Nazi spymaster was not only not prosecuted, but remained as Germany's top intelligence officer until the late 1960s. He assisted in building the U.S. intelligence community to where it exists today and was revered by President Eisenhower. Klaus Barbie was an agent of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps and also was a paid operative of the West German federal intelligence services. Former Nazis like Otto Skorzeny and Alois Brunner helped establish many dictatorships in the Middle East.
It is undeniable that the U.S. and other governments saw value as anti-communists in the former leaders of Nazi Germany and attempted to emulate their prowess in intelligence activities.
The Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 requires the heads of all U.S. intelligence agencies to inform the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and its House counterpart abreast of all significant developments in intelligence.
In practice, this has not been perfect as loopholes exist which allowed operations like the Iran-Contra scandal to flourish and long go undetected by Congress.
That had been done in Michigan when its law against marijuana sale had a 20-year minimum sentence until the Michigan Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.
The Michigan Legislature in 1978 gave cocaine and heroin delivery sentences for certain amounts punishable by non-parolable life sentences and possession of 50 grams of cocaine or more punishable by a mandatory 10-20 years imprisonment.
One of the positive aspects of the statute was that it encouraged arrestees to cooperate with police to avoid that onerous life sentence.
Public outrage resulted in the mandatory life without parole law being amended to parolable life sentences.
Many of the defendants who were ensnared by the Michigan drug lifer law were welfare mothers from the inner city who became couriers to supplement their income.
Lebanon and Israel are two additional examples.
The Israeli-backed attempt to establish a Maronite state in Lebanon brought years of civil war and the Shi'ite, but largely secular, Amal Party became the most powerful party in Lebanon during the late 1970s and 80s until the radical Hezbollah Party won large numbers of seats in the parliament and became a state-within-a-state. Hezbollah became an important political force within Lebanon due to its popularity in driving out Israel and Saad Haddad's South Lebanon Army.
The secular Fatah-dominated Palestinian Liberation Organization was largely ineffectual since its founding in 1964 to establish a Palestinian state. It was the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza that initiated the organized revolt against IDF occupation in Gaza that culminated in Israeli withdrawal in 2005. Much of the insurrection in the West Bank can be attributed to Islamic Jihad and Hamas actions.
When the First Intifada began in earnest over two decades ago, the Shamir government in Israel turned to Christian Arab MK Tawfiq Toubi to initiate negotiations with the P.L.O. The Israelis saw the secular P.L.O. leaders as preferable to Islamic fundamentalists as negotiating partners.
The "Deep State" is best explained by the book "The Secret Team" authored by former Air Force colonel L. Fletcher Prouty and published in 1973.
Interviews of Col. Prouty, available on YouTube, have explained how bureaucratic control mechanisms implemented within the National Security Council in the supervision of the operation of the Central Intelligence Agency failed and made the CIA essentially a primary director of covert operations, along with its intelligence-gathering apparatus, instead of a central repository of intelligence data gathered from other federal agencies, as it had intended to be following the passage of the National Security Act of 1947.
The National Security Agency has no charter by the U.S. Constitution nor any Act of Congress, but was created by an obscure executive order of the President. The Church Committee recognized this.
The U.S. Secret Service is a division of the Treasury Department.
In 1963 it was led by James Rowley, who headed it from 1961 to 1973.
The Warren Commission rebuked the Secret Service for its deficiencies in protecting the President, but there has been no seriously-accepted theory implicating the Secret Service as a conspirator in the JFK assassination.
The Gush Emunim movement that pervaded the West Bank in the 1970s and 80s and the extremist Kach Party has been subsumed into the Homeland Party led by Neftali Bennett. These represent the most ardent Zionists who favor a "one-state solution". They are part of the Netanyahu coalition
At the opposite end of the political spectrum are the ultraorthodox Jews, represented by political parties such as United Torah Judaism and Shas. For the last several decades they have been key allies of the Likud Party that has helped hawkish elements, such as Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir retain power. Their partnership in the Likud-led coalition has given them cabinet posts and power in the Israeli government that is disproportionate to their numbers in Israeli society.
One group of ultraorthodox leaders met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad when he visited New York to address the U.N. They liked his idea of destroying Israel. The ultraorthodox believe that the current State of Israel lacks legitimacy without a Jewish messianic figure.
".......(t)he Japanese had already decided to invade the Philippines.........."
Even though its largely forgotten today, the Philippines were subject to massive Japanese air assault the same day as Pearl Harbor.
Livia Rokach, daughter of the former mayor of Tel Aviv, authored the Book "Israel's Sacred Terrorism" which were based on the diaries of long time foreign minister Moshe Sharret who also briefly served as Israel's prime minister in the 1950s. She is quoted:
"The creation of a siege mentality in Israeli society was necessary to complement the pre-fabricated myth of the Arab threat. The two elements were intended to feed each other. Although Israeli society faced a serious risk of social and cultural disintegration under the impact of a mass imigration of Asian and North african jews into the pre-State's ideologically homogenous community, the purpose of the siege mentality was not so much that of attaining a defensive cohesiveness in Israel's Jewish society. It was principally calculated to 'eliminate the moral brakes' required for a society to fully support a policy which constituted a complete reversal of the collective ethical code on which its formal education was based and from which it was supposed to derive its vital strength. Of course, this ethical code had not been respected in the past either. Aggression and terrorism had been exercised by the Zionists before and during the 1947/48 war......."
The book describes how Israel uses the myth of "security" to justify a violent expansionist agenda and to cover it up with a policy of disseminating disinformation.
Livia Rokach committed suicide in Rome in 1984, four years after the book's publication.
That kind of reminds me of a Candid Camera episode which placed a sign on the outside of a public building warning those who read it would face criminal prosecution.
A teenager is recorded walking to the sign, reading it, then immediately running away from the sign at a very high speed - presumably fearful of being arrested.
Regarding the Pentagon Papers decision that publication prevents censorship, take it one step further in the federal court suit in which an injunction was sought by the Israeli government against St. Martin's Press in a federal court to prevent publication of a book authored by an ex-Mossad agent, "By Way of Deception."
The federal court denied an injunction simply because the book had been distributed to booksellers, even though none hade been made available to the consuming public.
The admission in the federal suit by Israel that the author had, in fact, been a one-time Mossad case officer, boosted the credibility of the author and elevated the book to a New York Times #1 best-seller.
Check out this Reuters article that came out three hours ago by John Shiffman and David Ingram that is somewhat on point about how the DEA instructs the IRS to create a false investigative trail for information that circulates between agencies to make it appear legally obtained:
news.yahoo.com/exclusive-irs-manual-detailed-deas-hidden-intel-evidence-005747393.html
It does not surprise me that there is an intelligence-sharing arrangement between the NSA and DEA.
It has been termed "narcoterrorism". The theory that terrorism is funded by drug profits and attacking drug-trafficking networks will hit terorists in the pocketbook and drying up their means of financing.
We now have "fusion centers" at the state government level that are depositories of information for dissemination between intelligence and law enforcement groups - Michigan's state government website even boasts of the program.
Almost every major city and most large suburban police departments have intelligence sections that have varying degrees of cooperation with federal agencies. These local police officers can conduct physical surveillance of individuals and pass on the information to the federal government. I have seen situations in Michigan where United Auto Workers picketers had photos taken of them by local police who shared these with management and who knows who else.
Insurance companies have "special investigations units" composed of mainly retired law enforcement personnel that investigate policyholders under the guise of fraud detection but who often have ties and closely cooperate with law enforcement agencies. They often warn policyholders that they will share investigative information with prosecutorial authorities. This often deters consumers from pressing policy claims. I have seen cases where civil lawsuit discovery has disclosed legally-protected and confidential government LEIN printout records in the hands of an insurer - which is a crime in itself. I have also seen personal medical insurance claim information of a business owner company's insurance claim turn up in the files of a commercial insurer's claim by the policyholder - which clearly violated medical privacy laws - as a product of insurers sharing data between themselves. I had one special investigations unit member boast that they had two county sheriff's deputies convicted of auto insurance fraud in their own county.
Insurance companies have databases in which they share information regarding policyholders and they can do so legally in certain situations where a fraud defense is asserted.
Remember the FBI prosecution in Detroit of the first post-9/11 terror cell indictment. While Karim Koubriti had his terror-related convictions vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct, he ended up being convicted of unrelated auto insurance fraud by the federal government before his release from prison.
Almost all American use telephones or buy insurance so there is a fertile ground for consumer personal information within these companies that the federal government wishes to "tap into" for its own benefit.
Insurance companies, telephone companies and local police intelligence units have had long cooperative relationships with the U.S. intelligence community.
I agree.
The peace talks are a smokescreen to deceive Western interests that something positive is actually going on when settlement activity is being accelerated and designed to confound any reasonanble two-state solution.
These new colonies will only serve to increase the likelihood of another intifada erupting in the West Bank.
Nothing substantial is likely to be achieved from these peace negotiations.
There has been no significant accomplishment toward peace in this region since the Israeli unilateral disengagement from Gaza in 2005, including the unprecedented demolition of hundreds of Jewish settlers' homes in Gaza.
Their father, Fred Koch, was one of the founders of the John Birch Society.
Offshore wind turbines can also be found in the North Sea.
In Antarctica, where wind turbines are used to power research bases, this has been a very successful alternative source of energy. It has been used at the U.S. Mc Murdo Station and the base at the South Pole. The New Zealand and Argentine stations in Antarctica are likewise powered by wind turbines.
The only death that has been attributable to wind energy technology is a worker in Wasco, Oregon in 2007 when the device was unintentionally activated as it was being maintained.
The Sabra and Shatila massacres were investigated by the Kahane Commission and blame meted out to Ariel Sharon and others in command of the Israel Defense Forces.
Consider that the number of those who died at Dasht-i-Leili approximates the deaths on 9/11 and is likely double, at least, the amount of deaths at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps - but likely 99% of the American public has never even heard of Dasht-i-Leili nor allegations of the massacre which occurred there.
Unless there is a public hue and cry over this incident - there will be no reason why the U.S. will destabilize its relationship with General Dostum or his followers.
General Dostum is an ethnic Uzbek, who has been a major figure in Afghan government since the 1970s.
Dostum had his big break when Ahmad Shah Massoud, Northern Alliance commander, was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists on September 9, 2001. Some point to this event as circumstantial proof of al-Qaeda's invovment in 9/11 hijackings.
There is little doubt that crimes against humanity occurred at Dasht-i-Leili - the question is who is culpable.
According to FoxNews, Attorney General Eric Holder assured the Russian government last week that the U.S. shall not seek the death penalty for Edward Snowden.
Snowden was, according to his father, inspired by the Tunisian Bouaziz, who self-immolated in protest of his oppression by the government in that nation.
On the other hand it is possible Bradley Manning may receive 100 years imprisonment as a possible sentence.
Remember Edwin Lee Howard, the CIA officer who defected to the Soviet Union and whose information led to sixty Soviet citizens being executed for espionage. He was interviewed by David Remnick for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning book Lenin's Tomb. Howard later died an accident at his dacha in Russia.
I suspect that Snowden may try to seek permanent asylum and live in Russia, but it is clear that he will not be wanting to reurn to the U.S. any time soon.
With respect to the Pollard situation, I was referring to Jewish-Americans serving in intelligence areas for the U.S.
However, Israeli nationals have reportedly been in the U.S. for years under clouds of suspicion:
link to salon.com
Also, industrial espionage against U.S. interests has been commonplace, especially with China:
http://www.chinathreat.com
Recall that Jonathan Pollard was convicted of only one count of espionage and received a sentence of life in prison here he remains today since his 1985 arrest.
Pollard has had the support of the Israeli government, the Israel Lobby, and has received a stipend from the Israeli Treasury - but he has remained in federal custody for the last 27+ years.
Ron Olive and Joseph DeGenova investigated and prosecuted the Pollard case and became national celebrities lauded for their work.
Expect the tribunal who convicted Bradley Manning to make an example of him so as to deter future behavior by our military personnel. Note how the Pollard sentence was followed by a lack of U.S. citizens reported as being Israeli spies.
Noam Chomsky - now well into his 80s - recently gave a speech in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan Linguistic Institute.
Afterwards, he was interviewed at the Campus Inn bar by the Ann Arbor Chronicle:
link to annarborchronicle.com
"...you can't reasonably expect a right to privacy to information shared with third parties."
I guess that under that reasoning, the attorney-client, patient-physician, and accountant-client privileges, the Privacy Act, the HIPPA legislation have no public policy basis.
The government needs a subpoena to look at my bank or credit card records. Why should the NSA have the right to know who I am calling, how long I am calling and and what times? Guilt by association?
Clearly if the telephone company shared such information with the public they could expect invasion of privacy lawsuits. Congressional remedial legislation is needed here.
The Shas Party in Israel is the largest ultraorthodox political party; its co-leader is Eliyahu Yishai, who was serving in the offices of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior at the of Operation Pillar of Defense. He was quoted in the November 17, 2012 edition of Yeshiva World News regarding that military operation:
"We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure, including roads and water."
I find it interesting that the ultraorthodox party leader would be so jingoistic about invading Gaza when that religious community is so reluctant to serve in the military.
Shas currently holds eleven seats in the 120-member Knesset, however they are not included in the Netanyahu ruling coalition and hold no cabinet positions. The last elections were a stern rebuke to the privileges the ultraorthodox have traditionally held in Israeli society, especially their exemption from military conscription.
Some Metro Detroit Chaldeans recognize their biblical roots by honoring the events that occurred in their local area.
Mosul is located near the ruins of Niniveh. Chaldeans from that region honor the Jonah visit by holiday fasting for three days.
Also, Chaldeans in Iraq were allowed to engage in the commerce of alcoholic beverages where Muslims could not. They became a prosperous merchant class within Iraq. Probably over 80% of liquor stores in Metro Detroit are Chaldean-owned as they brought with them experience in liquor distribution. For many years the chairperson of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission was a Chaldean-American.
"....Detroit, MI where there is a significant Chaldean population...."
Estimates of the Chaldean population in Metro Detroit range from 100,000 to 150,000. There are additionally comparatively small numbers of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims within Metro Detroit that had increased since the Persian Gulf War, although many have returned to Iraq since the conclusion of the Second Gulf War. The Chaldean-American community had a large localized neighborhood in Detroit which received a $1,000,000 donation by Saddam Hussein to construct a community center; Mayor Coleman Young, in gratitude, awarded Hussein the "key to the city".
What was unusual in that the Detroit Catholic Church Archdiocese was closing numerous churches, but the number Chaldean-rite churches were growing with new constructions going up on a regular basis.
The Assyrian ethnic group in non-Arabic and there is a debate among Chaldeans as to whether their culture is Arabic in orientation; Flint, Michigan is considered the Assyrian-American cultural capital of North America. Chaldean churches in the Detroit area have their services typically in Aramaic and many recent immigrant Chaldean-Americans use Aramaic in conversation as their primary language although Arabic is similar and also in common use among that group.
Aramaic is spoken by only one out of 10,000 persons worldwide. It is spoken in Syria in limited areas and in a few villages within Lebanon. It is believed that this is the final generation in Israel/Palestine that will have Aramaic spoken as a native language even though it had been the most common everyday language of Palestine during the time of Christ. It is the Chaldean Catholic Church that has kept the language primarily active within the Middle East.
The Lebanese Christian militias of the 1970s and 1980s could hardly be called "fundamentalists", however could be called supremacist.
Thomas Friedman, the NY Times Jerusalem correspondent, once said calling the Lebanese Maronite clans Catholic was like "calling the Godfather Catholic". They were not known for their adherence to religious doctrine.
There were a number of Maronite ruling families that sponsored militias who were instrumental in ousting French colonialists in the 1940s. Many of these are still in power today - the Franjiehs, Gemayels, and the Mouwads - all of whom had family members serve as president.
The Maronite families often fought each other and variously allied themselves with the Syrian Baathists or Israelis. The Gemayels were pro-Israeli and the Franjiehs were, and remain, close to the Assad family.
The Civil Administration division of the Israel Defense Forces since 1981 has been the government of the Palestinians. It is led by an IDF brigadier general with colonels acting as military governors of districts. The Palestinians have no say in how it is run or particpate in its military tribunals that convict its people with a rate of in excess of 99%.
The Gaza District was dissolved in 2005. Martial law was lifted concomitant with the IDF disengagement.
When Col. Dror Weinberg, the IDF governor of the Judean military district, was killed by Islamic Jihad snipers several years ago, widespread celebrations erupted throught the Occupied Territories.
One legal theory that I have seen advanced for Israeli hegemony over the West Bank it was involntarily received in defending a war and that the prior occcupier, the Kingdom of Jordan, did not have legal control over the land when it was occupied and ruled by Jordan.
The experts that I have seen lecture at the Gerald R. Ford Scholl of Public Policy on this topic have indicated that no tribunal could ever untangle the various legal claims to the West Bank in any meaningful manner that would be enforceably acceptable - and that any resolution would have to be via consent of all interested parties.
Thomas Friedman, in his award-winning book "From Beirut to Jerusalem", stated that Likud Party adherents had an unwitten policy to keep the status quo West Bank occupation as long as possible since that scenario was the best for Israeli interests.
Roey Gilad, the Israel Consul General in Chicago,in addressing a Jewish student group in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, several months ago disclosed a peace plan to be imposed via "fear or respect" which will be eerily similar to South Africa's Bophutswana where the Palestinians will have "islands" of control in Arab population centers with roads and outlying areas continuing to be administered by the Israel Defense Forces.
According to Gilad, there will be a significant pullback of IDF control but nothing near the 1967 pre-Six-Day War borders.
This visit by Gilad was covered by the Michigan Daily.
Of course, the Palestinians would never agree to this Likud-endorsed plan. So it remains to be seen what will come of U.S. endorsed peace talks.
The Soviet Union landed a rocket on the Moon in 1959 and also landed on Mars in 1971 - well before any other nation did so.
The Soviet Union's and U.S. space programs would not have been possible without German WWII V-2 rocket technology.
I think the reference to 1789 was the French Revolution.
"...white flight was already a big phenomenon before the riot..."
Agreed. The best way to illustrate this point is the boom in population of Detroit suburbs. The City of Warren, due north of Detroit, had 42,000 residents in 1950, 89,000 in 1960 and 179,000 in 1970. As of the 1980 census it was over 99% white.
"I personally think a lot of the whites left because of the change in laws disallowing covenants..."
The Stanley vs. Kramer U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down racilly restrictive real estate covenants was handed down in 1948, however very little racial integration ever occurred in Detroit neighborhoods to that point up to the 1960s. While the 1967 riots certainly did not discourage "white flight" the most devastating phenomenon I saw was the "block-busting" real estate brokers who saw a financial windfall in introducing black families to all-white neighborhoods in Detroit and causing immediate panic selling by white households over fear the equity in their homes would be wiped out.
The real estate brokers and suburban developers and residential builders are the ones who made vast fortunes capitalizing upon this "white flight".
While Detroit's population fell from 1,600,000 in 1960 to about 700,000 today, the overall population of Metro Detroit has been steady due to the growth of its suburbs.