Nikki Haley to UN on North Korea Jan 18, 2018 UN Security Council meeting on non proliferation of Mass Destruction via YouTube, January 18, 2018
Nikki Haley to UN on North Korea Jan 18, 2018 UN Security Council meeting on non proliferation of Mass Destruction
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Assad, Iran - human rights, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Nikki Haley, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Russia, Syria - mass murder, UN Security Council, Weapons of mass destruction - proliferation
Tags: Assad, Iran - human rights, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Nikki Haley, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Russia, Syria - mass murder, UN Security Council, Weapons of mass destruction - proliferation
PM Netanyahu’s remarks at an event with Bollywood film industry leaders
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Netanyahu on Israel - India relationship
Tags: Netanyahu on Israel - India relationship
PM Netanyahu’s remarks at an event with Bollywood film industry leaders, IsraeliPM, January 18, 2018
(Displaying my ignorance, I did not know what Bollywood is. Here’s a brief description:
Bollywood, formally known as Hindi cinema, is the Indian Hindi language film industry, based in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Maharashtra, India. Bollywood is part of the larger cinema of India (also known as Indywood),[4] which includes other production centers producing films in other Indian languages.[5][6] Linguistically, Bollywood films tend to use a colloquial dialect of Hindi-Urdu, or Hindustani, mutually intelligible to both Hindi and Urdu speakers,[7][8][9] while modern Bollywood films also increasingly incorporate elements of Hinglish.[7]
— DM)
The Soviet-Style Push to Paint Trump as Mentally Ill
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Media and Trump, Trump's mental health, Trump's physical health
Tags: Media and Trump, Trump's mental health, Trump's physical health
The Soviet-Style Push to Paint Trump as Mentally Ill, FrontPage Magazine, Matthew Vadum, January 18, 2018
(Please see also, Satire | After Physical, Media Crushed That Trump Not on Deathbed. — DM)
Powerless to dislodge the duly elected 45th president from office, desperate left-wingers and their media allies are borrowing a page from Soviet Communism by dishonestly portraying President Trump as mentally unfit.
This is a coup attempt in progress and there is no indication it will go away anytime soon. In an earlier age, it might have been called high treason. The difference is that in the Soviet Union it was the government doing the smearing in order to maintain power. In America today, it is the opposition that is doing the smearing in the hope of removing its enemy from power and becoming the government.
Decades ago Moscow set the example that Trump-haters are now following. (Former Soviet propagandist Oleg Atbashian wrote an excellent piece at FrontPage last week on Soviet-style psychiatry.)
“The Soviets devised a system that allowed for political figures — especially those who posed a threat to party leaders — to be declared mentally unfit for office,” Jordan Schachtel writes at Conservative Review.
To combat unsavory political opinions, Soviet leaders from Nikita Khrushchev to Yuri Andropov called on friendly psychiatrists to diagnose dissidents as mentally incapacitated. Some dissidents were then sent to a psikhushka (mental hospital), where they were imprisoned and removed from political life. The pseudo-psychiatry establishment — which in effect acted as an ideological policing agency — continued until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Pseudo-psychiatrists, along with some actual psychiatrists and psychologists, now smear President Trump daily. “Without evidence that there is anything [in] particular wrong, CNN’s Jake Tapper, NBC’s Chuck Todd, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, and other media figures are now regularly asking about the president’s mental health,” Schachtel writes.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who wants the 25th Amendment invoked and Trump impeached, tweeted Jan. 9: “We have a president who is intellectually ill-equipped for the job. … He is the antithesis of what we should have as a moral leader in our country.”
Left-wing bloviator Keith Olbermann tweeted Jan. 11:
This man has to go. Now. I don’t care if it’s the 25th Amendment, Impeachment, Arrest, Resignation, something “coming up” at his physical tomorrow, General Strike, or we all crash the stock market by selling off. We must Make America AMERICA Again. #MAAA
It’s not that Trump is actually mentally ill. His true failing is that he doesn’t see things the way they do and they cannot handle it.
Leftists are psychiatrizing, stigmatizing, and gaslighting to make sure the Trump presidency is never, in their words, “normalized.” When Trump does things that presidents normally do, like firing the U.S. attorneys appointed by his predecessor, he is treated as a threat to the republic.
Democrats have done the same thing to all modern Republican presidents to varying degrees, labeling, for example, both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as dimwitted or sociopathic depending on their propaganda needs, but they have never attacked any Chief Executive with the ferociousness they reserve for President Trump. To them, Trump is a singular evil devoid of any political legitimacy whatsoever. The 63 million Americans who voted for him were deceived, they claim, so their votes don’t count.
Casual character-assassination is easy for the Left. They have to lie to others and themselves in order to remain left-wing. Reality is not kind to so-called idealists who deny human nature. The leftist worldview is a funhouse mirror view of reality, or as the recently popular saying goes, facts don’t care about your feelings, and feelings are the glue that holds their twisted belief structure together.
Those on the Left seem to be realizing that the ridiculous Trump-Russia electoral collusion conspiracy theory manufactured and paid for by Democrats isn’t going anywhere. The Obama-orchestrated Deep State attacks on Trump that began even before he was inaugurated, and which overlap to an extent with the conspiracy theory, can only move the ball forward so much. All-too-convenient allegations of sexual impropriety, many of which have been underwritten by left-wingers, bounce off Trump thanks in part to the Left’s long-running defense of sexual predator Bill Clinton which set a precedent of sorts. This is hardly an exhaustive list of the deceitful, malicious campaigns the Left has waged thus far against Trump.
Those on the Left watched the hour-long live televised briefing Tuesday on Trump’s health in horror as it failed to culminate in a finding that he was mentally or physically unfit to be president of the United States.
Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, personal physician to both Presidents Trump and Obama, gave Trump a clean bill of health that reporters present and leftists online could not accept. Reporters at the White House asked 22 questions about his mental state and repeatedly pressed Jackson to just come out with it and say Trump was nuts, a “fact” reporters know already.
As Schachtel writes:
It’s unclear why these questions are warranted in the first place. Sure, the president has a unique personality and has a flair for drama, but he has shown no signs of any type of mental illness that would stop the duly elected president from carrying out his executive duties. Time and again, Dr. Jackson had to repeat himself in declaring that President Trump was fully fit for office, both cognitively and physically.
But Jackson patiently indulged the media at length.
He told the world that Trump’s brain, eyes, lungs, muscles, arteries, bones, genitals, and intestines were healthy and functioning normally. The briefing was exhaustive and exhausting, as Schachtel notes, especially because an exasperated Jackson had to keep telling reporters the same facts over and over again. On the positive side, with all the personal information released, Trump, whose “overall health is excellent” Jackson said, continues his streak as the most transparent U.S. president in modern times.
That Trump is mentally well was hotly disputed. It was as if Jackson’s statement that Trump scored 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which screens for Alzheimer’s and dementia, fell on deaf ears.
That Trump is 75 inches, or 6 feet and 3 inches tall, was disputed. That Trump weighs 239 pounds was disputed, leading to a fun neologism – girthers – to describe doubters like logorrheic leftist Matthew Yglesias of Vox. That Trump, who is 71 years old, has a healthy heart was disputed. That Trump only sleeps a few hours each night was disputed.
But how could a man who eats fast food and “never exercises” be “in as good as shape as you say he’s in?” asked one shocked-sounding reporter.
“It’s called genetics,” said Jackson, who added that lifelong abstinence from tobacco and alcohol have also contributed to Trump’s well-being.
I don’t know. Some people have just great genes. I told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old. I don’t know. He has incredible genes, I just assume. I mean, if I didn’t watch what I ate, I wouldn’t have the cardiac and overall health that he has.
Meanwhile, returning to the topic of Soviet Communism, retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) delivered his much-hyped speech absurdly comparing Trump to a mass-murdering dictator Wednesday to a near-empty Senate chamber.
It is a fact that Trump has referred to the media as the “enemy of the American People.” Except for the descriptor American, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin used the same phrase in his time. The Romans used it about 2,000 years before that.
But only Stalin’s use of the expression counts, according to Flake, and Trump is therefore similar to one of history’s most prolific homicidal maniacs even though he hasn’t sent anyone to a gulag or had secret police liquidate his opponents.
“It’s a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Joseph Stalin to describe his enemies,” the senator said.
Flake, who spoke nary a nasty word about Obama during his presidency, didn’t bother to acknowledge that the 44th president came close to the same phrasing, calling Republicans “enemies.”
When you’re a Trump-hater, you don’t have to make sense.
Bringing it All Back Home
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: U.S. economy
Tags: U.S. economy
Bringing it All Back Home, Power Line,
Has there ever been a quicker boost to the economy than the one we have experienced under President Trump over the past year? As Joel Kotkin puts it in this City Journal column: “New job numbers are robust, GDP and wages continue to rise, stocks are soaring, unemployment continues to decline, and overall growth is at its highest in 13 years. And this salutary picture is not exclusive to big business; the index of small business optimism, as measured by the National Federation of Independent Business, has reached its highest level in the 45-year history of the survey.”
As the Trump administration has done its best to remove the foot placed on the neck of various sectors of the American economy by the Obama administration, we have had something like a controlled experiment in two economic theories. One economic theory (Obama’s) held that we were to reconcile ourselves to historically low GDP growth of 2 percent at best and one of which (Trump’s) held that normal growth was possible again with policies intended to foster it.
The immediate effects of the tax reform enacted last year are at least as striking. Indeed, they are almost shocking. Even before the effective date of the law, companies started announcing that they would pay $1,000 bonuses to employees as a result of the new law. AT&T led the parade with its December 20 press release specifying that the bonus would be paid to “all union-represented, non-management and front-line managers.” That is more than 200,000 employees. The company also announced that it would invest an additional $1 billion in the United States in 2018. Many companies have followed suit, attributing their actions to the new law.
Some large companies — Well Fargo and USBank, to take two examples — have also announced wage increases at the bottom of their wage scales. I should think that these increases will have ripple effects benefiting other hourly workers. In the first news story I have seen on the new law’s possible impact on wages, however, CNBC has thrown a dash of cold water. Taking the CNBC story at face value, I think it’s fair to say that the early returns are promising (see the listing of “those with detailed announcements” at the bottom of the CNBC story), but that it’s too soon to tell on this important point.
Yesterday’s announcement by Apple puts an exclamation point on these developments. Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker puts it this way in his 10-point guide to the day’s news (from which I have borrowed the heading of this post):
Apple announced it would pay a one-time tax of $38 billion on its overseas cash holdings and ramp up spending in the U.S. to emphasize its contributions to the American economy and counter criticism it outsourced manufacturing to China. The tech giant said it would invest $30 billion in the country over five years. It plans to build a new campus and create more than 20,000 jobs, as well as expand investment in advanced manufacturing in the country. The tax-code overhaul signed into law late last year by President Trump included an incentive for U.S. companies to bring home offshore holdings, with companies required to pay a one-time tax of 15.5% on overseas profits held in cash and other liquid assets. Apple didn’t say how much of its $252.3 billion offshore cash pile it plans to bring home. The tax payment by the world’s most valuable company may signal a tipping point for U.S. corporate offshore cash hoards and set off a trend.
CNBC’s headline derives this notable point from Apple’s announcement: “It looks like Apple is bringing back home nearly all of its $250 billion in foreign cash.”
If only President Trump could maintain a discreet silence for a day or two word might — I say might — get out.
Persecution of Alevis in Turkey: Threats, Arbitrary Arrests
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Alevis, Islamic supremacy, Muslem persecution of Alevis
Tags: Alevis, Islamic supremacy, Muslim persecution of Alevis
Persecution of Alevis in Turkey: Threats, Arbitrary Arrests, Gatestone Institute, Uzay Bulut, January 18, 2018
Alevis are a religious minority Turkey with a distinct faith, philosophy, and culture that largely upholds secularism and humanism. Turkey’s Alevi community is estimated in the tens of millions — up to 25% of the population, making up the country’s largest minority. But the number is only an approximation, because legally, Alevis in Turkey are “non-existent”. The Turkish government does not officially recognize them, so it does not include them in a census and counts them as “Muslims.
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Just like the Christian, Jewish, and Yazidi communities in Turkey, Alevis have also been victims of Islamic supremacism for centuries — both in the Ottoman Empire and in the Republic of Turkey.
In Istanbul, the door of an Alevi family was vandalized with a red symbol. “Get out, heathen” and “Islam” were written on the door.
Turkey’s membership in the NATO since 1952, its negotiations for full membership to the EU since 2005, and its countless military, economic, and diplomatic agreements with the West, have done nothing to reduce the persecution against religious minorities in the country.
Pressures against the Alevi community in Turkey are becoming alarmingly commonplace.
Just like the Christian, Jewish, and Yazidi communities in Turkey, Alevis have also been victims of Islamic supremacism for centuries — both in the Ottoman Empire and in the Republic of Turkey.
Alevis are a religious minority Turkey with a distinct faith, philosophy, and culture that largely upholds secularism and humanism. Turkey’s Alevi community is estimated in the tens of millions — up to 25% of the population, making up the country’s largest minority. But the number is only an approximation, because legally, Alevis in Turkey are “non-existent”. The Turkish government does not officially recognize them, so it does not include them in a census and counts them as “Muslims.”
Recently, officials at the Istanbul airport seized the passport of Fatma Tunç, the wife of a dissident author, Aziz Tunç. Mrs. Tunç was preparing to board a plane to Germany when she was told by officials that her passport has been cancelled because “there are dangerous people in her family” and that for her to travel outside of Turkey, her husband and son would have to return. Aziz Tunç’s passport has also been cancelled due to his being prosecuted at a political trial in Turkey.
Mr. Tunç, a columnist and the author of two books about the 1978 Alevi massacre in the city of Maraş in southeastern Turkey, and his son, have been living in exile in Germany for the past two years, as a result of government persecution. “This is downright hostage-taking,” he said.
“It is illegal, immoral, and inhumane. This has not only been done to me. This has been done to many people in Turkey… As can be seen, there is… unrestrained tyranny [in Turkey]. And we are forced to live in exile because we express these things. And we are punished like this.”
Pressures against the Alevi community in Turkey take several forms — such as mass murders, the lack of official recognition of their places of worship, and arbitrary arrests. Particularly since the failed coup d’état against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016, many Alevis have been arrested for allegedly having ties with something the Turkish government calls the “Fethullah Terrorist Organization” (FETO), naming it after Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, who has for years been living in exile in Pennsylvania since 1999. The Turkish government after accuses Gülen of organizing the attempted coup.
Other examples of the persecution of Alevis include:
Erkan Topçu, a high school teacher and the head of the Mürteza Alevi Bektashi Education and Culture Association in the city of Isparta, for example, was arrested within the investigation of the coup for “being a member of FETO” in October 2016.
Also in October, 2016, Hasan Ateş, an Alevi dede (faith leader) in the city of Izmir, was also arrested for being a member of FETO and for “using Bylock”, an encrypted messaging app, which has been linked to FETO by the government.
Unfortunately, the government’s crackdown on Alevis has been escalating; now, Alevi journalists are also targeted. TV10, the television channel known as “the voice of Alevis”, was closed down in September 2016 after the failed coup, allegedly “for threatening national security and belonging to a terror organization.”
Two officials of the Alevi-run TV10, Veli Büyükşahin and Veli Haydar Güleç were arrested on January 10. Recently, Kemal Demir, an employee of TV10, was also arrested.
“These detentions and the government’s intentional harassment of the Alevi media have no meaning other than attempting to shape the Alevi media,” said Şükrü Yıldız, former chairman of TV10, and called the arrests “an attack against the Alevi faith and resistance.”
Alevi citizens are also threatened inside their homes: red crosses and threatening graffiti are drawn on their doors and walls.
Last November, unknown perpetrators painted red crosses on the front doors of 13 Alevi homes.
A week later, in Bahçelievler district of Istanbul, the door of another Alevi family was marked with a similar red symbol. “Get out, heathen” and “Islam” were also written on the door.
The vandalism of Alevi homes concern the Alevi community, to say the least; they have been exposed to many massacres and pogroms in Turkey. These include but are not limited to the 1921 Kocgiri Massacre, 1937-1938 Dersim (Tunceli) Massacres, 1938 Erzincan Zini Gedigi Massacre, 1978 Malatya Massacre, 1978 Sivas Massacre, 1978 Maras Massacre, 1980 Corum Massacre, 1993 Sivas Massacre and 1995 Istanbul, Gazi Quarter Massacre.
The faces of many of the victims who were murdered in the 1993 Sivas massacre are featured on this poster, used in a 2012 commemoration in Germany. (Image source: Bernd Schwabe, Wikimedia Commons)
Alevis were victims of other physical attacks in Ortaca, Mugla in 1966, in Elbistan, Maras in 1967, in Hekimhan, Malatya in 1968, and in Kirikhan, Hatay in 1971, among others. During these massacres or pogroms, many Alevi residents were murdered or had to flee their cities.
“If you go to the Kizilay city center in Ankara today and ask people if they are Alevis, the majority will deny it,” said Kemal Bulbul, an Alevi author and rights activist, explaining that Alevis hide their identity due to the systematic persecution and discrimination Alevis they have suffered.
“For what has been experienced cannot be erased from memories. Alevis were not only massacred in Yozgat, Tokat, Amasya, but also in Thrace and the Mediterranean. The Alevi dargahs (shrines built over the graves of revered religious figures) have been raided, plundered, burnt down, and destroyed.”
Alevism: A faith outside Islam
The founding government of the Republic of Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, banned Alevism and its places of worship in 1925, while institutionalizing Sunni Islam through the establishment of Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs) in 1924. The Diyanet was, and still is, a major violation of secularism. Since that ban, Alevism has not been officially recognized; Alevis have been deprived of religious liberty and freedom of expression regarding their faith.
Alevism is a distinct religion, philosophy and culture, the existence of which predates Islam. Alevism upholds secularism and humanism. A common misconception about Alevism is that it is a sect or an interpretation of Islam.
A group of Alevi dedes and pirs (faith leaders) carried out a workshop on Alevism in the city of Dersim (Tunceli) in 2015; there, they agreed that Alevism is a faith outside Islam.
Mustafa Genç, an Alevi dede (faith leader), one of the Alevi representatives who attended the workshop, said that Alevism and Sunni Islam “are never on the same line”:
“In Sunnism, they pray five times a day and fast for a month. These things do not exist in the Alevi faith. According to our faith, God is in the human and not in the sky. In the Alevi faith, women are sacred and to divorce a woman is the most difficult thing. This is not the case in Sunnism. Sunni Muslims think a man can marry four women.”
The prominent Alevi scholar Mehmet Bayrak also emphasizes that Alevism is a distinct religion, separate from Islam.
“As our people [in Turkey] only think of divine religions when religion is discussed, they cannot comprehend that Alevism is a distinct religion. They immediately ask ‘Who is the Allah and prophet of Alevism?’. However, there is a category called natural religions and they still exist. And Alevism is one of them.”
Bayrak explains that Alevism took certain things from other religions and gave certain things to them and is much closer to Christianity than to Islam.
“For example, one cannot see one tenth of the similarity between Alevism and Christianity in the similarity between Alevism and Islam…. Islam has a history of at least 1400-1500 years and they [Alevis and Muslims] have lived side by side or with one another in this area. So, Alevism took some motifs from Islam and melted them within itself. For example, there is a massive difference between the culture of Ali in Alevism and the Ali in Islam. Alevism created a new, distinctive cult of Ali.”
Bayrak lists some of the differences between Alevism and Islam:
“Islam has five pillars. Alevism do not practice any of them. For example, Alevis fast but it is completely different from the fasting in Islam. Alevis do not do pilgrimage [to Mecca], they do not say shahada[the Islamic declaration of faith]. And Alevis do not do salah [five daily prayers] … For someone to be a Muslim, they should also accept the requirements of faith (iman). Muslims say, ‘I believe in the God of Islam and its prophet; I believe in the book of Islam; I believe in the afterlife; I believe benevolence and evil come from Allah.’ Alevis do not believe any of these things. They carry out neither the pillars nor the requirements of faith of Islam. So, Alevism is a distinct faith. And it is completely wrong to see Alevism as an entity, version, denomination or sect of Islam.”
According to Bayrak, one of the reasons why some Alevis say they are Muslim is their misconceptions about their own religion. “Due to the centuries-long propaganda they have been exposed to, some of them think that they are true Muslims,” says Bayrak, and adds that a more alarming reason for their denial is fear of persecution.
“As Alevis are still under political, social, and cultural pressures, they are still scared of saying that Alevism is outside of Islam. It is impossible for them to express themselves freely.”
Turkey’s membership in the NATO since 1952, its negotiations for full membership to the EU since 2005, and its countless military, economic, and diplomatic agreements with the West, have done nothing to reduce the persecution against religious minorities in the country.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist born and raised in Turkey. She is presently based in Washington D.C.
Syria Responds to Tillerson’s US Military Engagement Pledge
Posted January 18, 2018 by Louisiana SteveCategories: Post-war Syria
Tags: Bashar Assad
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., Jan. 17, 2018.
By Cindy Saine January 18, 2018 VoaNews
Source: Syria Responds to Tillerson’s US Military Engagement Pledge
{The endgame for Syria must address regime change. – LS}
STATE DEPARTMENT —
Syria’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday the U.S. military’s presence in Syria is an act of aggression and a violation of sovereignty.
The comments came after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson outlined plans in a speech Wednesday for the United States to remain engaged diplomatically and militarily in Syria long after the defeat of the radical Islamic State group.
The United States has led a coalition carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq since 2014, and the Pentagon said last month there are about 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria.
Tillerson discussed the way forward for the United States in Syria at an event at the conservative leaning Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He listed a number of reasons why it is crucial for the U.S. to remain in the troubled country, including preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State and al-Qaida terrorist groups.
“ISIS has one foot in the grave, and by maintaining an American military presence in Syria until the full and complete defeat of ISIS is achieved, it will soon have two,” Tillerson said, using an acronym for the militant group.
“We cannot allow history to repeat itself in Syria,” he said, referring to what he described as mistakes made by the Obama administration in withdrawing U.S. troops prematurely from Iraq and failing to stabilize Libya after NATO airstrikes that led to the ousting of the late President Moammar Gadhafi.
Reasons to remain engaged
Tillerson said there are also other reasons for the United States to remain engaged in Syria.
“A total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would help [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad. A stable, unified and independent Syria ultimately requires post-Assad leadership in order to be successful. Continued U.S. presence to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS will also help pave the way for legitimate local civil authorities to exercise responsible governance of their own liberated areas.”
Tillerson told former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who asked him questions at the event, that the lives of Syrian civilians are still at stake.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, right, and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice speak to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, right, and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice speak to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018.
“The priority right now in Syria is to stop people being killed,” he said, adding they are still being killed by the thousands. He called President Assad a brutal murderer of his own people who can never provide long-term stability.
Tillerson said the main goals of U.S. stabilization efforts in Syria are to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to the country, to curb Iranian influence in the region and to pave the way for U.N.-supervised elections aimed at securing new leadership in Damascus.
The Wilson Center’s Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert and a former adviser to a number of secretaries of state, told VOA he sees a number of similarities between the policy outlined by Tillerson and Obama administration policy on Syria.
“Here’s how they’re same: other-worldly goals without the will or capacity to achieve them … [an insistence on] no nation-building,” Miller said.
He said the Trump administration’s policy differs from the previous administration in that Tillerson is advocating staying in Syria for a very long time.
UN-backed Geneva process
Tillerson’s plan relies on the U.N.-backed Geneva process aimed at brokering a political solution to the civil war in Syria. United Nations special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday that the U.N. would host the Syrian government and opposition for peace talks in Vienna on January 25 and 26.
De Mistura’s office said in a statement the meeting will focus largely on constitutional issues.
“The special envoy looks forward to the participation of both delegations in this special meeting. He expects that delegations will be coming to Vienna prepared for substantive engagement with him and his team with a specific focus on the constitutional basket of the agenda towards the full implementation of Security Council resolution 2254,” the statement read, referring to a 2015 resolution demanding an end to attacks against civilian targets.
The scheduled talks will occur days before a slated peace congress in Russia aimed at finding a settlement to the civil war that began in March 2011.
Donald Trump Corrects John Kelly: ‘The Wall Is the Wall, It Has Never Changed or Evolved’
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: John F. Kelly, Trump's wall
Tags: John F. Kelly, Trump's wall
Donald Trump Corrects John Kelly: ‘The Wall Is the Wall, It Has Never Changed or Evolved’, Breitbart, Charlie Spiering, January 18, 2018
(Please see also, FULL MEASURE: January 14th 2018- The Other Wall. — DM)
AP/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump corrected his Chief of Staff John Kelly after he said that the president had “evolved” on the wall.
“There’s been an evolutionary process that this president has gone through,” Kelly said in an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier, pointing out that Trump had “very definitely changed his attitude” towards DACA recipients and the wall.
But Trump pushed back on Twitter against the suggestion that he had evolved on the wall.
“The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it,” Trump said.
The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water…..
He explained that parts of the wall would be “see-through” and that it was never meant to stretch across the whole 2,000-mile border where there were already natural barriers.
Kelly said that he and border experts told Trump that 800 miles of wall would “suffice” which included 600 miles of existing fencing.
“He has evolved in the way he’s looked at things,” Kelly said. “Campaign to governing are two different things and this president has been very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realm of the possible.”
Kelly also suggested that the wall would not be paid “directly” by Mexico, something that Trump also corrected.
“The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico, which has a ridiculous $71 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.S.,” he wrote. “The $20 billion dollar Wall is ‘peanuts’ compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!”
….The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico, which has a ridiculous $71 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.S. The $20 billion dollar Wall is “peanuts” compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!
Trump added that without wall funding there would be no DACA deal.
“We need the Wall for the safety and security of our country,” he wrote. “We need the Wall to help stop the massive inflow of drugs from Mexico, now rated the number one most dangerous country in the world. If there is no Wall, there is no Deal!”
We need the Wall for the safety and security of our country. We need the Wall to help stop the massive inflow of drugs from Mexico, now rated the number one most dangerous country in the world. If there is no Wall, there is no Deal!
3 Out of 4 Convicted Terrorists Came to U.S. Legally Via Current Immigration System
Posted January 18, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Immigration reform, Terrorism
Tags: Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Immigration reform, Terrorism
3 Out of 4 Convicted Terrorists Came to U.S. Legally Via Current Immigration System, Judicial Watch, January 17, 2018
“The United States faces a serious and persistent terror threat, and individuals with ties to terror can and will use any pathway to enter our country,” the new DHS/DOJ report states. “Accordingly, DHS has taken significant steps to improve the security of all potential routes used by known or suspected terrorists (KST) to travel to the United States to ensure that individuals who would do harm to Americans are identified and detected, and their plots are disrupted. These figures reflect the challenges faced by the United States and demonstrate the necessity to remain vigilant and proactive in our counterterrorism posture.”
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Illustrating the national security threats created by the nation’s immigration system, the overwhelming majority of individuals convicted of terrorism are foreigners who entered the United States legally through various federal programs. Three out of every four convicted terrorists between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2016 are foreign born and came to the United States through our immigration system, according to a new report issued jointly by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
At least 549 individuals were convicted of terrorism-related charges in American federal courts since 2001 and 402 of them—approximately 73%–were foreign-born, the report says. Here’s the breakdown by citizenship at the time of their convictions; 254 were not U.S. citizens, 148 were naturalized and received American citizenship and 147 were U.S. born. Additionally, 1,716 foreigners with national security concerns were removed from the United States. The Trump administration stresses that figures include only those aliens who were convicted or removed and therefore do not represent the total measure of foreign terrorist infiltration of the United States. Statistics on individuals facing terrorism charges who have not yet been convicted will be provided in follow-up reports that will be made available to the public.
This DHS/DOJ report, issued this month, is disturbing enough and reveals that a significant number of terrorists entered the country through immigration programs that use family ties and extended-family chain migration as a basis for entry. Among them is Mufid Elfgeeh, a national of Yemen who benefitted from chain migration in 1997 and was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison for attempting to recruit fighters for ISIS. Sudanese Mahmoud Amin Mohamed Elhassan came to the U.S. in 2012 as a relative of a lawful permanent resident and eventually pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS. Pakistani Uzair Paracha was admitted to the U.S. in 1980 as a family member of a lawful permanent resident and in 2006 was sentenced to more than three decades in prison for providing material support to Al Qaeda. Khaleel Ahmed, a national of India, was admitted to the United States in 1998 as a family member of a naturalized United States citizen. Ahmed eventually became an American citizen and in 2010 was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
Other convicted terrorists came to the U.S. through the controversial visa lottery program, the multi-agency probe found. Among them is Abdurasaul Hasanovich Juraboev, a national of Uzbekistan who was admitted into the country as a diversity visa lottery recipient in 2011. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to support ISIS and in 2017 Juraboev was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Sudanese Ali Shukri Amin was admitted to the U.S. in 1999 as the child of a diversity visa lottery recipient and subsequently obtained American citizenship through naturalization. In 2015, he was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support and resources to ISIS. Amin admitted to using social media to provide advice and encouragement to ISIS and its supporters and facilitated ISIS supporters seeking to travel to Syria to join the terrorist group. Amin also helped a Virginia teen named Reza Niknejad get to Syria to join ISIS in 2015.
“The United States faces a serious and persistent terror threat, and individuals with ties to terror can and will use any pathway to enter our country,” the new DHS/DOJ report states. “Accordingly, DHS has taken significant steps to improve the security of all potential routes used by known or suspected terrorists (KST) to travel to the United States to ensure that individuals who would do harm to Americans are identified and detected, and their plots are disrupted. These figures reflect the challenges faced by the United States and demonstrate the necessity to remain vigilant and proactive in our counterterrorism posture.”
Exclusive: the House Republican plan to toughen the Iran deal
Posted January 18, 2018 by Louisiana SteveCategories: Iran nuclear deal
Tags: Tighten Up
Peter Roskam is spearheading the bill. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
By Jonathan Swan January 18, 2018 Axios
Source: House Republican plan to toughen the Iran deal
{Deal with it! – LS}
I’ve got my hands on a copy of the bill that House Republicans will drop Thursday to amend the Iran deal. Conservative Iran hawks tell me they are going to rally around this bill — spearheaded by Reps. Peter Roskam, Liz Cheney and others — because they don’t like what they’re hearing about the Senate version being drafted by Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Ben Cardin.
Why this matters: Last Friday, President Trump waived sanctions on Iran for what he said was the last time. He said it was a “last chance” for Congress and the Europeans to fix the deal. Trump wants a tougher international inspection regime, an end to Iranian ballistic missile research and development and a permanent nuclear ban to replace the current temporary deal that expires within a decade.
- If Trump follows through on his threat to reimpose sanctions on Iran in four months— and many close to him believe he will — he’ll blow up Obama’s nuclear deal.
- A senior administration official told Iran experts on a call last week that there is “no wiggle room.”
Highlights of the “Iran Freedom Policy and Sanctions Act”, per the bill summary and text:
- Indefinite zero tolerance for Iranian ballistic missiles: U.S. sanctions would immediately “snap back” against Iran if they take any action “related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”
- Indefinite zero tolerance for Iran even approaching a nuclear weapon: U.S. sanctions would immediately “snap back” against Iran if the regime does anything “to enable Iran to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium or plutonium for a nuclear weapon in under 12 months.”
- Anytime, anywhere inspections: U.S. sanctions would immediately “snap back” against Iran if they do anything “to deny the international community unfettered, unannounced, and indefinite access to Iran’s nuclear program, including ‘anywhere, anytime’ access and inspections of military sites.”
The bill also goes further, to whack Iran for its support for terrorism and human rights abuses:
- New sanctions: “To combat Iran’s support for human rights abuses and support for terrorism, this bill expands sanctions upon responsible regime entities such as the IRGC, and the Basij Force, by imposing sanctions on entities in which they own, directly or indirectly, a 20% or greater interest, lowering the threshold from 50% to encapture more entities.”
Bottom line: This is Congress’ last chance to stop Trump from blowing up the Iran deal. The four-month clock is ticking, and people who’ve heard Trump share his feelings about Iran don’t think he’s bluffing. Democrats and Republican moderates — especially in the Senate — are going to hate this Roskam bill. But Iran hawks are already telling me it’s their baby — far preferable to what they’re hearing about the Corker-Cardin draft, which they believe will be too weak to be worth supporting.
Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who was a chief architect of previous sanctions against Iran, on why hawks support this bill:
“The Roskam legislation is the gold standard for how to fix the Iran deal when it comes to ballistic missiles. The UN Security Council called on Iran to halt any activity related to nuclear capable ballistic missiles — and this legislation mandates a snapback of all our toughest sanctions if Iran violates that Security Council directive. It’s a stark contrast to the draft circulating in the Senate, which legitimizes Iranian ballistic missiles that could wipe out US bases and allies in the region.”
Congress Concerned Another Obama ‘Secret Deal’ With Iran Derailed New Sanctions on Tehran
Posted January 17, 2018 by danmillerinpanamaCategories: Iran - sanctions, Iran - secret agreements, Iranian broadcasting agency, State Department, Trump and Iranian protests, US Congress
Tags: Iran - secret agreements, Iran sanctions, Iranian broadcasting agency, State Department, Trump and Iranian protests, US Congress
Iranian students protest at the University of Tehran during a demonstration driven by anger over economic problems / Getty Images
Sources familiar with internal discussions over the IRIB issue told the Free Beacon that State Department officials have supported waiving sanctions on the Iranian broadcasting agency in order to uphold the 2013 agreement.
Officials claim there is no evidence Iran is jamming broadcasts and censoring content, despite repeated claims of such activity by Iranian protesters in the country, sources said.
However, there is mounting evidence that Iran continues to jam certain broadcasts and commit human rights abuses, according to experts.
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The Trump administration State Department is working to suppress new sanctions on Iran’s propaganda network that were promised to be implemented by the White House in response to a wave of protests that have gripped the Islamic Republic for weeks, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the matter.
The White House vowed in the opening days of Iran’s countrywide protests against the ruling government that it would take steps to level sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB, a satellite service that disseminates propaganda across Iran and routinely censors content.
While Iranian protesters and opponents of the country’s hardline government welcomed the White House’s decision, the State Department is believed to be working against the effort in order to uphold a little-known deal with Iran that was struck during the Obama administration.
The apparent reversal has raised questions in Congress about the nature of the agreement between the Obama administration and Iran that prevents new sanctions on the IRIB. It also has sparked criticism from regional experts who view the move as part of a bid by the State Department to continue appeasing the Iranian ruling regime at a time when dissidents are pleading for help from the United States.
The Obama administration struck a deal in 2013 with Iran that waived existing sanctions on the IRIB as part of an agreement reached under the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, or ITSO.
Since that agreement, the United States has waived sanctions every 180 days on the IRIB, despite evidence it continues to censor content and jam broadcasts the hardline ruling regime finds unacceptable, sources said.
The little-known ITSO agreement with Iran is receiving new scrutiny as lawmakers try to determine how the Obama administration reached this deal and why many in Congress were never briefed on the matter.
“At such an important inflection point in Iranian history as brave Iranians are protesting an illegitimate tyranny, it defies logic that the State Department could be waiving sanctions to assist the Iranian regime,” Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees told the Free Beacon.
DeSantis is exploring avenues to obtain further information about the 2013 agreement and the context in which it was struck.
“Congress needs to get more information about this specific waiver and why waiving such sanctions is necessary at this moment given that the protesters are calling for more sanctions against the regime,” DeSantis said.
The White House signaled earlier this month, as the protests in Iran erupted, that it would no longer waive sanctions on the IRIB to boost the demonstrators and cut off the Islamic Republic’s chief propaganda organ.
However, the State Department favors continuing the waivers in order to uphold the Obama-era deal with Iran, according to multiple sources.
A State Department official acknowledged the existence of the deal, but would not provide the Free Beacon with details of the agreement, information on how it was struck, and whether Congress had a say in the matter.
This has raised even more questions with lawmakers and experts tracking the situation.
“The administration periodically renews the relevant sanctions waivers to allow international satellite companies to provide satellite broadcast service to IRIB in accordance with an understanding reached with the Iranian government under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (ITSO) in 2013, where Iran committed to ensure that harmful interference does not emanate from its territory,” a State Department official, speaking on background, told the Free Beacon.
This waiver must be renewed every 180 days, the official said.
It also remains unclear if the deal with Iran was struck under the auspices of the landmark nuclear agreement or the negotiations that led to it.
A Treasury Department official directed questions about the IRIB sanctions to the State Department, but told the Free Beacon the entity is still subject to some sanctions by the United States
“Treasury can confirm that IRIB is still designated pursuant to Executive Order 13628 and remains on our SDN [Specially Designated Nationals] List,” the official said, pointing to a 2013 announcement of actions against the broadcaster. “IRIB is subject to secondary sanctions for activity outside the scope of the State Department-issued waiver.”
Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iran expert who tracks sanctions with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, expressed concern the Trump State Department is operating as if the Obama administration was still in power.
“The Iranian protesters specifically asked the Trump administration to ban the IRIB,” Ghasseminejad said. “Issuing a waiver for an entity whose job is to broadcast lies and promote violence against the protesters and pro-democracy movement in Iran and to prepare the ground for their arrest, torture, and execution is a slap in the protesters’ face.”
Former Secretary of State “John Kerry is gone and the United States has a new Iran policy but Foggy Bottom still follows the Obama era policy of appeasement,” he said.
Sources familiar with internal discussions over the IRIB issue told the Free Beacon that State Department officials have supported waiving sanctions on the Iranian broadcasting agency in order to uphold the 2013 agreement.
Officials claim there is no evidence Iran is jamming broadcasts and censoring content, despite repeated claims of such activity by Iranian protesters in the country, sources said.
However, there is mounting evidence that Iran continues to jam certain broadcasts and commit human rights abuses, according to experts.
Mahmood Enayat, director of the Small Media Foundation, an organization that advocates for the free flow of information in Iran, said satellite broadcasts are routinely jammed by the Iranian regime.
“Iran has certainly stopped orbital jamming but it has been continuing with terrestrial jamming, making it impossible for millions of Iranians to watch satellite TV channels broadcast from outside Iran, including VOA and BBC” said Enayat, who recently published a report on the matter.
Some insiders familiar with the agreement, which has not been mentioned in federal records since 2015, view it as another secret deal with Iran that was hidden from the American public, much like a series of secret side deals reached between the Obama administration and Iran as part of the nuclear deal.
One senior congressional official tracking the situation told the Free Beacon that lawmakers would try to scrap any previously unearthed secret agreements with Iran.
“As Iranians are protesting in the streets, our State Department is really considering waiving sanctions against the regime’s mouth piece?” the source asked. “We should be exerting maximum pressure on the regime and its backers, not letting them off the hook.”
“If this decision to take it easy on the regime’s broadcasting arm is pursuant to some secret side deal reached under the Obama administration, it’s time to expose this arrangement and terminate it, not abide by it,” added the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “The State Department needs to get on the same page as the White House and start rolling out coherent Iran policy to push back against the regime.”
WarSclerotic 
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