WarSclerotic

Not just the NSA: US spies rent a Jerusalem hotel suite to watch a secret Israeli site.

Uncle Sam is listening

Many Israelis were scandalized when documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that their best friend, America, had in 2009 targeted a former prime minister and defense minister for secret surveillance. But their political leaders were not surprised. For years, the United States has been running a complex eavesdropping and surveillance web to spy on friends and foes alike, including Israel. Satellites gather and transmit data to command centers, “informers” operate in the field and the most fertile sources of all are not human but the instruments which bug cell phones, tablets and social networks.

The US National Security Agency, NSA, exposed by its former agent the whistleblower Edward Snowden, can monitor these devices whenever it wants, just by beaming its instruments at a defined country, location, group of people or topics.
If, for instance, NSA electronically obtains a list of Israeli servicemen, their cell phone numbers and credit cards, its monitors can keep each one under constant surveillance.

The same applies to the personnel of Israel’s Air Force, Aerospace industry and other high-tech military manufacturers, such as Elbit and Rafael. Those lists may safely be assumed to be already in the agency’s hands.
To collect videos and images, American spy agencies only have to pan through such data gold mines as YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest, the last of which was recently crowned Content Curation. This is because Pinterest does much of the intelligence watchers’ work for them by assorting the material according to subject and field of interest and so unknowingly providing them with neat data packages.

The network catching on like wildfire of late is WhatsApp.

It is also a favorite of Israel’s elementary schoolchildren for swapping their thoughts and news.
A child may explain he or she can’t join the gang that afternoon because his or her father, an Air Force colonel or captain of a naval vessel, is just home from Crete or Sardinia. This will tell the eavesdropper that Israeli crews have been changed at those bases.

An Israeli officer driving his car only has to consult Waze for a short cut to his secret destination to reveal it to a clandestine watcher.

So who controls these armies of spies and directs their focus?

Those are murky waters which are virtually uncharted, as President Barack Obama implied obliquely in the comments he made at his end-of-year news conference Friday, Dec. 20. To still the uproar against indiscriminate spying on Americans, he promised a review and possibly reforms of the NSA, adding tellingly: “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we necessarily should.”

Snowden’s revelations about the spies sitting on the phones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazilian President Dilma Roussef have got Washington into hot water. They also revealed the negligence of their own security services.

However, Israel, to our certain knowledge, has lived with this unwanted American attention from its earliest days. In the 1980s, when the late Menahem Begin was prime minister, an odd-looking vehicle sprouting a forest of antennae stood permanently and quite visibly beneath his office window in Jerusalem.
His staff identified it quite frankly as a mobile American listening station. The measures used later were a lot more sophisticated. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other Israeli officials, in their turn, had their e-mails intercepted regularly.

But after 2009, Washington introduced a high-powered, multilayered system of intelligence-gathering – especially against Israel, about which neither Snowden nor the Israelis have been forthcoming. This system had a single narrow focus: to pick up the slightest murmur or clue suggesting that Israel was about to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, which it had threatened to do without prior notice to Washington.

Listening in on the laconic conversations Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held with Ehud Barak was not enough. What the spies were told to look for was out-of-the-way conduct, such as an order placed suddenly for a large quantity of aircraft fuel, or the import of an unusual amount of emergency medical equipment.

At the high noon of this period of mistrust, US officers of the highest ranks began dropping in on Israel with increasingly frequency. Every week to ten days, some many-starred general or fast-talking Pentagon official arrived for a visit. They were told to ferret out any signs of Israel getting ready for an attack on Iran in time for Washington to step in and stop it.

These emissaries had two directives:

1. To maintain a tight grip on the prime minister, defense minister and chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and other IDF generals and keep them in sight at all times;

2. To pick up on their every nuance of speech or behavior for signals of hidden activity too subtle for monitoring devices to register.
The tempo of these visits tapered off when Washington concluded that Israel had given up on a military strike on Iran at that stage.

However, the spying did not.

debkafile’s intelligence sources report that in recent months Israeli complained to the Obama administration about hotel suites which undercover agents had rented in Jerusalem at sites overlooking a secret military installation frequented by high Israeli officials for their most private consultations. The Netanyahu government asked Washington to stop this underhand surveillance. But meanwhile certain other – less friendly – Western spy agencies had caught on and took suites at the same location.
The conclusion from these incidents is that US clandestine surveillance of Israel is unlikely to stop in the foreseeable future – and not just against key figures and military personnel, but also involving economic and industrial espionage.

To combat the expanding exposure of its secrets, Israel has been introducing “sterile spaces” impenetrable to illicit penetration as well as using tricks to misdirect attention. However, the Americans and other interested parties keep on looking for holes in these barriers – and so the contest goes on.

Wake Up and Smell the Stench | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

Earl Cox

Recent foreign “policy” decisions made by the Obama Administration have left most Americans and our allies wondering why all of his decisions seem to favor Islam.  

Those in the know fear the worst – that those in power in America are changing their alliances and goals.  In addition, heads of state appear scrambling to realign themselves for their own protection and according to their own needs.  Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran exemplify the struggle inside the Muslim world.  In the end they will be in collusion, but for now, Sunnis and Shiites are at odds due to Islam’s ultimate goal of a world-wide Caliphate and each wants to prevail.

Is the U.S. government naive or are there evil forces behind the scenes helping craft policy for the administration that is causing the rift and favoring Islam? Is there a plan that ordinary Americans and our allies do not know about that will eventually destroy America as we know it and our faithful allies?

Americans must be disappointed and dismayed that Afghanistan’s president recently chose Iran to be its security partner instead of the U. S.  Is it that Muslim blood is thicker than water?  How much American blood was shed to bring “democracy” to Afghanistan?  Where is the “thank you” for the United States?  What has been happening in Iraq since Saddam’s fall?  The terrorists are taking over the country.  What was the administration really hiding in Libya?  Why did we just give Syria over to Russia and Iran?  Why did the military aid stop in Egypt after Morsi was removed and the Muslim Brotherhood was being disbursed?

Why do Americans stand by and watch as treasure and lives are spent on a lost cause – democracy in countries run by despots who want to devour the world with the “Big Satan” America as their ultimate prize and the “Little Satan” Israel as their target to wipe off the world map?  Why?  Who is changing minds inside America’s government?  Who is really writing and directing Middle East policy?

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” said George Bush.  “That’s not what Islam is all about.  Islam is peace.  These terrorists do not represent peace.  They represent evil and war.”  George Bush timidly, but definitely, expressed these words immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.  Yet, not quite a year later, it was revealed in the Holy Land Foundation trial that influential Muslims, on stage with President Bush after 9/11, were exposed as unindicted terrorists co-conspirators in the 9/11 attacks.  Was Bush naïve or was he misinformed by his Muslim advisors?

The Muslim Brotherhood is recognized as an organization that terrorizes its opposition and funds enemies of the U. S.  Yet, even after the Holy Land trial, groups affiliated with the Brotherhood since the 1990s and the Clinton Administration, and after the 9/11 attacks, are continuing to operate freely in America.  In fact, powerful Muslim Brotherhood affiliated individuals have successfully infiltrated key areas of American society, getting key positions in law enforcements, the military, government, the CIA, the FBI, local and state police and the current presidential administration.  This is in spite of the fact that federal courts have deemed these numerous Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups to be criminal and hostile to the U.S.

Is has been said that the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and individual inside American society and other Western societies around the world is likened to termites.  Erick Stakelback in his book, The Brotherhood – America’s Next Great Enemy, described the “Strategy of Termites.”  The Muslim Brotherhood Islamists burrow into a society and eat away at it until they are ready to make their move.  An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America outlines the intentions of Islamists in America.  It is about a 30-year plan.  A sign that they could be getting closer to making their move in America is this headline from a September 11, 2012 Press Release, “National Security Advisor Stresses Muslim as Part of American Family During Speech by Islamic Society of North America” (ISNA – indicted co-conspirator in Holy Land Trial).

Consider that the U. S. military training manuals and other official documents have eliminated training regarding Muslim extremists, that it took this long for the Fort Hood shooting at the Texas military base to be termed a terror attack, that the United Nations is on the cusp of making it illegal to disparage Islam in any way, and the uncanny fact that there are Muslim Brotherhood personages advising the White House and leading the Department of Homeland Security, it must be stated clearly that the United States homeland and national security are at risk.  Israel and the rest of the world are also at serious risk.

I wish it were time to wake up and smell the roses.  However, it is time to wake up and smell the stench.  No, the United States government is not naïve.  Nor is it stupid.  Whether public officials are aware or not aware, from deep inside the bowels of American government, Middle East policy is being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood inside America’s institutions.  That is extremely troubling and it is putting us all in danger.

Analysis: Congress and the role of diplomat | JPost | Israel News.

By MICHAEL WILNER, BENJAMIN WEINTHAL

12/23/2013 09:28

American lawmakers’ bill on new round of Iran sanctions send clear message to US President Barack Obama: We don’t trust your administration to handle the Islamic Republic on its own.

WASHINGTON – Introducing a controversial bill last week long in the works, Senator Robert Menendez and a bipartisan group of 25 senators sent a clear message to US President Barack Obama: We don’t trust your administration to handle Iran on its own.

The bill, called the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, would trigger a new round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic should a six-month interim agreement, forged last month in Geneva, expire without a comprehensive deal ending their nuclear program.

The Geneva deal agreed upon by Iran and the P5+1 powers – the US, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany – effectively halts Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for modest sanctions relief. But the deal includes a provision that was made available to Senate members well in advance of its signing: that “the US administration, acting consistent with the respective roles of the President and the Congress, will refrain from imposing new nuclear-related sanctions.”

Opponents of the deal in Congress do not believe Treasury Secretary Jack Lew when he insists, repeatedly, that the core sanctions regime – passed by Congress itself or independently ordered by the president – will remain unaffected by the deal.

Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative The Weekly Standard magazine, called the Geneva agreement “unfortunate” in an interview.

“It’s a bad deal,” Kristol said.

“It gives up the sanctions in a way that would be very hard to reverse, in return for no real dismantling or even setback of the Iranian nuclear program.”

Nor do conservatives trust US Secretary of State John Kerry when he speaks of alliance management. Kerry says that China, Russia and the European Union will no longer believe the US is genuinely working toward a peaceful diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis if it appears interested only in inflicting punishment; yet the US has already eroded the trust of other allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel, opponents retort.

It may be that the standard for these members of Congress, and the allies they speak of, is a form of Persian capitulation that will never realistically come to pass.

One consistent line from the Iranians has been that they will never forgo their right to a civilian nuclear program.

And to support diplomacy, a deal must be had; compromise must be made.

Congress led the way on sanctioning Iran throughout 2010 and 2011. But if Kerry is correct, then Menendez’s new bill could risk fraying a coalition put together not by Congress, but by the Obama White House.

“When the president says a major foreign policy priority would be torpedoed if it acted, it’s very hard for Congress to act,” said Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“I don’t think Democrats want to embarrass the president,” Clawson added, “and Republicans don’t want to give the president an opportunity to say that his strategy would have succeeded without Republican obstructionism.”

And yet Menendez seems to believe his bill will not violate the Geneva agreement any more than has the designation of new companies as sanctions violators, as was done last week by the departments of State and Treasury.

The Iranians have explicitly said otherwise. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has warned that passage of this bill would render the Geneva agreement “entirely dead.”

No doubt, testing Iran’s threats and lighting fire under the deal are risks these senators are taking with eyes wide open.

Kristol, a leading conservative voice calling for robust penalties against Iran, sees a “desperate desire” on the part of the Obama administration “to have a deal to avoid facing real choices” that compel Iran to end its nuclear program.

The US should “make much clearer that we are willing to use force,” Kristol said, advocating tougher sanctions legislation.

He noted that Iran pulled the plug on its nuclear program after the US invaded Iraq. “They [Iranians] were scared.”

“We are hitting the fork in the road,” he added.