Ralph Peters Blasts Clinton over Emails: Petraeus Stole a Candy Bar, Clinton Stole Fort Knox, Washington Free Beacon via YouTube, June 10, 2016
Posted tagged ‘national security’
Ralph Peters Blasts Clinton over Emails: Petraeus Stole a Candy Bar, Clinton Stole Fort Knox
June 11, 2016Brexit is the Only Way to Secure Great Britain
June 4, 2016Brexit is the Only Way to Secure Great Britain, Breitbart, Christopher Carter, June 4, 2016
A few weeks ago David Cameron made contemptible warnings over Brexit and its implications for UK security. He even went so far as to suggest the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “might be happy” if the country votes to Leave the EU.
It is rather telling that since this intervention the PM has chosen to focus on prophesizing economic collapse and hardship rather than discussing this vital issue of Britain’s national security. It is not surprising – considering the recent interventions and revelations concerning how the UK’s membership of the EU impacts on our security.
A report by the EU itself has revealed how there will be a greater risk of terrorist attacks as a result of the Turkey visa-waiver scheme. This has been supported by the ex-head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, who strongly criticised the EU’s attempt to solve the migrant crisis by offering visa-free access to millions of Turks, saying it was “like storing gasoline next to the fire one is trying to extinguish”.
Added to the short-term security threat posed by 77 million Turks having access to all the countries within the EU, there are the long-term political ramifications of the deal, which has the potential to accelerate the resurgence of the far-Right across Europe.
The fact President Erdogan is willing to simply pocket the €3 billion he has demanded the EU send Turkey in aid is hardly going to improve the mood of governments currently forcing through major austerity measures.
He is even threatening to renege on the deal he made over the Greek borders if he doesn’t get his way. His recent warning to the German Parliament not to pass a resolution declaring the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide are typical of his despotic interventions.
It is clear the EU’s deal with Turkey will have lasting consequences for the whole of the EU, and only by Leaving can we protect the UK.
Of huge concern are the rulings of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the official court of the EU. Not content with simply supporting the European Commission in its drive to create a federal superstate, its interventions are now putting UK citizens at risk.
Particularly worrying is the recent ruling by the ECJ on freedom of movement. The ECJ is now insisting if a Member State wants to restrict a citizen’s right to ‘free movement’ if they suspect the person has been involved in terrorist activities for example, it must explain exactly why – even though this would endanger national security.
This raises the prospect of British Intelligence officials being forced to hand over highly sensitive documents to people they suspect of terrorism. The UK’s own Court of Appeal has since ruled the rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union “cannot yield to the demands of national security”.
Yesterday the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove spoke of his frustration at the inability of the UK Government to refuse entry to EU citizens who are suspected of terrorist links. It is clear the European elite are perfectly happy to put the lives of the people of Europe at risk in order to protect the deeply flawed principle of ‘free movement’.
These revelations completely undermine the claims of the Remain campaign that we are safer inside the EU. It is not at all surprising the Prime Minister has now backtracked, choosing to orchestrate a smear campaign against his Leave opponents, rather than addressing the important issue of our national security.
Whilst David Cameron is happy making ludicrous claims about Brexit causing a World War 3, he is clearly uncomfortable addressing the very real threats we will face if we vote to Remain inside the EU.
There is only one way to regain control of our borders and our security and this is to Vote to Leave, to Get Britain Out of the EU.
CAIR to Muslims: Defy Customs Agents
June 3, 2016CAIR to Muslims: Defy Customs Agents, Breitbart, June 2, 2016
(THE UNITED WEST) The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on Muslims to openly defy U.S. Customs Agents when questioned on travel from Islamic controlled countries by saying, “None of your Damn Business.”
Hassan Shibly (Executive Director CAIR, Florida) also encourages Muslims to agitate Customs Agents by saying Islamic prayers “very loudly” when questioned. Shibly also stated that he was, “Asked to do this by our friends from within the government.” Hassan Shibly was awarded by Nihad Awad (CAIR co-founder and National Executive Director) as “CAIR Chapter of the Year” in 2013.
CAIR’s open defiance of law enforcement has been well documented. In 2011 CAIR, California posted flyers on their website featuring a sinister looking FBI agent with the headlines, “Build a Wall of Resistance,” and “Don’t Talk to the FBI.”
The FBI has reportedly cut ties to CAIR after the Holy Land Foundation trial during which CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator along with its co-founder Omar Achmad as supporters of the terrorist group HAMAS.
In November 2014 the United Arab Emirates specifically listed CAIR as a “terrorist organization,” saying the group is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, promotes extremism and incites and finances terrorism, adding that it wears “a cloak of democracy and liberalism.”
In July 2014, Breitbart released a story showing video of Shibly’s CAIR, FL group sponsoring an pro HAMAS rally in Miami where members were chanting, “We are HAMAS. We are Jihad.”
Stephen K. Bannon to Obama: Why Don’t You Go to Pearl Harbor and Apologize to the Dead Still Buried There?
May 28, 2016Stephen K. Bannon to Obama: Why Don’t You Go to Pearl Harbor and Apologize to the Dead Still Buried There?
Breitbart Executive Chairman and SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon opened his Breitbart News Daily radio show on Friday expressing outrage at Barack Obama’s apology tour of Hiroshima.
Below is a partial transcript:
I had Japanese partners. I was a partner with Nissho Iwa for a while. They financed my merchant bank for a while when I left Goldman Sachs. I have many, many dear friends in Japan. I’ve spent many years in Japan. I have sailed with the Japanese Navy when I was a Naval officer off of Korea. I have the highest regard for the Japanese, but guess what? They were devils during World War II. Okay? And we beat ’em. And it took a nuclear weapon.
I want everybody in this audience today who’s grandparents or parents were one of the potential 1 million landing force in Japan — we planned that for three years. One million men to land in Japan, and they thought the minimum casualties would be 5 million people. You have to remember something, folks. It took two nuclear weapons to bring the military junta in Japan to their knees after fire bombing them for 6 months. Two nuclear weapons. And he’s over there to start Memorial Day Weekend.
Why doesn’t he go to Saipan or Peleliu or Tarawa or Guadalcanal or the Coral Sea or Midway or Wake. I got a better idea. Why don’t they take that presidential plane and fly into Pearl Harbor and have the President of Japan, who’s lecturing a President of the United States in front of the world, why don’t you go to Pearl Harbor and sit there and apologize to the dead that are still at the USS Arizona today! They’ve never been brought out. They’re down there right now. Why don’t we get him to come over and apologize?
This guy makes me sick to my stomach! And any of you Never Trump people out there, I want you to embrace that. Because that is what you’re fighting against. That is what Hillary Clinton, that is what this entire Democratic apparatus represents. And you have not a shred of honor. And I want you to all call in today, you Never Trump people, and I want you to say, “Oh no, the Constitution! The Constitution!” I want you to watch what he is doing in Hiroshima.
And I want the President to get on Air Force One right now and fly to Pearl Harbor, stand over that monument where the bridge — the bridge of the Arizona is. Admiral Kidd is still down there. Nine-hundred men are still in the Arizona entombed 75 years afterwards, and he has the audacity to go to Hiroshima.
Listen to the full monologue and the subsequent discussion below:
GOP Congress, Pentagon Accelerate Recruitment of Illegals As Military Shrinks
May 26, 2016GOP Congress, Pentagon Accelerate Recruitment of Illegals As Military Shrinks
Source: GOP Congress, Pentagon Accelerate Recruitment of Illegals As Military Shrinks – Breitbart
AFP
The Pentagon is accelerating its program to recruit younger illegals and put them on a fast-track to citizenship, and the GOP leadership just blocked an amendment to stop the recruitment.
From October 2015 through April 2016, the military’s program inducted 136 enlistees covered by the president’s 2012 Oval Office amnesty, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Marine Lt. Col. Gabrielle Hermes.
That’s up from five DACA recruits in fiscal year 2015, she said.
The recruitment is growing even as U.S. Army is shrinking by roughly 10,000 troops each year from 2015 to 2018.
The so-called ‘Dreamers’ were inducted through the Pentagon’s Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, which was adapted to accept illegals covered by Obama’s DACA program, which provides illegal with two-year exemptions from possible repatriation, plus work-permits.
The MAVNI program was established to facilitate the military’s recruitment into critical job specialties, such as interpreters and medical professionals.
To block the recruitment of the illegals instead of young Americans, Freedom Caucus member Rep. Paul Gosar (R.-Ariz.) filed an recruitment-reform amendment to the House’s version of the Pentagon budget. Gosar called the recruitment program a “backdoor amnesty,” because it quickly grants citizenship to the illegals.
But the congressman is not a member of the House Armed Services Committee, so he had get to approval from the House Rules Committee to schedule a vote on his amendment. That committee is controlled by House Speaker Paul Ryan, and it blocked Gosar’s pro-American amendment from being debated.
The leading advocate for the illegals on the House Armed Services Committee is Rep. Ruben Gallego (D.-Ariz.). He said he was thrilled that his committee chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R.-Texas), and the Republican leadership sided with him against Gosar and his fellow Freedom Caucus co-sponsors.
“I am pleased that Congressman Gosar’s attempt to irresponsibly revise compromise language that could enable Dreamers to serve was rejected by cooler heads in the House GOP Leadership,” he said. “Dreamers” is the term used by Democrats to describe younger illegals.
“This shouldn’t be a controversial issue. The Secretary of Defense has the statutory authority to allow any immigrant to enlist if it’s in our national interest – including DACA recipients who want to fight for our country. It’s about defense and what is in the best interest of our nation and our military,” Gallego said.
In June 2012, when President Barack Obama announced his DACA program for illegal immigrants brought into the U.S. as children, he blamed Republicans for blocking the amnesty legislation in Congress. But rather than compromise with the Republican-controlled Congress, he directed his deputies to cease enforcing immigration law against many classes of illegals, including younger illegals.
The point of the Gosar amendment was to assert congressional control over military policy.
Now that the National Defense Authorization Act passed the House and has been sent over to the Senate, the question is whether Republicans will go after the Pentagon’s backdoor amnesty themselves.
But the Senate Armed Services Chairman is Sen. John S. McCain (R.-Ariz.), a strong supporter of amnesty. Breitbart News asked for a comment, but his office said it would declined to comment on actions taken in the House.
Rosemary Jenks, who leads government affairs at the Washington-based NumbersUSA, said it has always been legal for permanent residents to enlist in the military on the same terms as citizens.
In a Sept. 25, 2014 memo, Jessica L. Wright, the undersecretary of defense for personnel, asserted that illegal immigrants awaiting legal action through the DACA program are eligible for MAVNI.
“Now, let’s be clear — this is not amnesty, this is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix,” the president said in 2012. “This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”
Four years later the DACA program is still in place.
Jenks said the issue goes far beyond Obama and the Pentagon flaunting the law.
Jenks said the issue goes far beyond Obama and the Pentagon flaunting the law. As the military shrinks, illegals are being recruited in place of younger American recruits, so “President Obama is forcing so many Americans out of the military only to replace them with illegal aliens,” she said.
Soros-Backed J Street Received Over $500,000 To Push Iran Nuclear Deal To Pro-Israel Community
May 24, 2016Soros-Backed J Street Received Over $500,000 To Push Iran Nuclear Deal To Pro-Israel Community
23 May 2016
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
TEL AVIV – The pro-Palestinian lobby group J Street stated that it was “proud” of its role in pushing the controversial Iran nuclear agreement amid reports that it received $576,500 to promote the deal from a group tied to White House efforts to sell the agreement to the public.
“J Street worked to advance the nuclear agreement with Iran out of the belief that this is an important agreement which contributes mightily to Israel’s security,” J Street said, without denying that it received the funds.
“This is a belief that is shared with many officials in both the Obama administration as well as the Israeli defense establishment and among many in the American Jewish community, most of which supports the agreement,” the organization said.
“The nuclear agreement with Iran blocked Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon for years to come,” J Street added. “As of now, Iran has abided by the terms of the deal.”
J Street’s financing to advocate for the deal came from the Ploughshares Fund, a group that advocates a nuclear-free world and was identified earlier this month by the White House as central in helping to market the Iran nuclear deal to the news media.
On Friday, the Associated Press reported that Ploughshares has also funded National Public Radio since 2005, and has provided financing to U.S.-based foreign policy think tanks.
Unmentioned by the AP is that the Ploughshares Fund is financed by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Soros is also a top donor to J Street.
The Jerusalem Post summarized the extent of the Ploughshares funding to J Street, reportedly to lobby for the deal within the pro-Israel community.
J Street was the single largest beneficiary last year of the Ploughshares Fund, a group that seeks to eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles, with over $575,000 in grants that funded advocacy for the Iran nuclear deal.
Ploughshares’ annual report, first reported last week by the Associated Press, emphasizes the foundation’s role in helping to bring about support for sanctions relief for the nuclear rollback deal last year. …
The amount of funding for J Street underscores the significance deal proponents attached to garnering American Jewish support for the deal. J Street and J Street Education Fund received a total of $576,500, making it by far the largest recipient of funds. One goal of the funding was “to mobilize Jewish support for a final deal.”
The involvement of Ploughshares in selling the Iran agreement to the public was revealed in an extensive New York Times Magazine profile of Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes titled, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru.” The article contains interviews with Rhodes and scores of top Obama administration officials.
Robert Malley, senior director at the National Security Council, explained the genesis and execution of the marketing plan to sell the Iran deal.
Malley said “experts” were utilized to create an “echo chamber” that disseminated administration claims about Iran to “hundreds of often-clueless reporters” in the news media.
In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. “We created an echo chamber,” he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”
Rhodes told Times reporter David Samuels that the marketing strategy took advantage of the “absence of rational discourse” and utilized outside groups, including Ploughshares.
When I suggested that all this dark metafictional play seemed a bit removed from rational debate over America’s future role in the world, Rhodes nodded. “In the absence of rational discourse, we are going to discourse the [expletive] out of this,” he said. “We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project, and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.” He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. “We drove them crazy,” he said of the deal’s opponents.
Now the AP has revealed the extent of Ploughshares funding to NPR and to influential foreign policy U.S. think tanks.
Besides $100,000 to NPR last year, the AP reports:
Ploughshares has funded NPR’s coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.
“It’s a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation,” NPR said in an emailed statement. “As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests.”
Ploughshare’s president was interviewed on NPR, the AP reports:
Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares’ president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn’t.
Cirincione was an adviser on nuclear issues to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Ploughshares documents show funding last year to other groups to “advance its nonproliferation agenda,” according to the AP.
The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings, and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.
Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.
J Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.
Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian’s “analysis, publications, and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Ploughshares says it has awarded hundreds of grants “whose aggregate value exceeded $60 million.”
A previous investigation by this reporter showed Ploughshares has partnered with a who’s who of the radical left, including Code Pink, the pro-Palestinian J Street, United for Peace & Justice, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and Demo, a progressive economic advisory group where President Obama’s controversial former green jobs czar, Van Jones, has served on the board.
The group says its mission is to support the “smartest minds and most effective organizations to reduce nuclear stockpiles, prevent new nuclear states, and increase global security.”
Ploughshares is in turn financed by Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Buffett Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Another Ploughshares donor is the Tides Foundation, which is one of the largest funders of the radical left. Tides is funded by Soros.
Ploughshares has donated to the Institute for Policy Studies, which calls for massive slashes in the U.S. defense budget.
It has also financed the International Crisis Group, a small organization that boasts Soros on its board.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Bob Graham: 9/11 Support Goes To The Top Of Saudi Government
May 19, 2016Bob Graham: 9/11 Support Goes To The Top Of Saudi Government
19 May 2016
Source: Bob Graham: 9/11 Support Goes To The Top Of Saudi Government
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
From Yahoo News:
Is there a smoking gun in the 28 pages that were redacted from the congressional joint inquiry on intelligence from before and after the 9/11 attacks that links the Saudi Arabian government to the attacks? A co-chair of that inquiry, former Forida Sen. Bob Graham thinks there is one. He also says the link goes all the way to the top of the Saudi government and that the government’s funding of terrorist groups continues to this day.
Graham, who has been advocating for the release of those pages for over a decade, sat down with Yahoo News host Stephanie Sy on “Yahoo News Live” to discuss when that might happen, the Senate’s passage of a bill allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government and what he says are the Saudi government’s continued links to terrorism.
On the 28 pages, he said: “I think [they’re] a smoking gun. I think the linkages are so multiple and strong and reinforcing that it’s hard to come away from reading all this material and not feel that there was a support network and that support network came from Saudi Arabia.”
He said it goes beyond the pages though: “They will also open the path to other materials. There are thousands of pages of documents, which speak to the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers.” He continued, “Could those 19 people have carried out a plot as complex as 9/11 while maintaining anonymity in some cases for more than a year and a half while they were in the United States without having some support?”
As for the bill, which still has to be passed by the House of Representatives and signed by President Obama, he said, “It not only is going to open up the courts of justice to the families and the victims of 9/11. It also has the potential of exposing a tremendous amount of information relative to Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 9/11.” He called the bill “a very big victory.”
After meeting with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Tuesday about the 28 pages, Graham also indicated that the release of those pages could happen soon. He said, “The general has been reviewing these pages closely for a year or more. He told us that before the end of this week, he would probably have his review completed. Then it goes to a panel that’s made up of several agencies [FBI, the Department of State] who will look at the 28 pages for their issues of concern, and then it goes to the president for his determination as to whether to declassify these papers.”
He also told Sy that withholding the documents goes beyond 9/11. He said it could lead to current links between the Saudi government and terrorist groups. He said, “This has been a long time that this information has been withheld from the American people, but there’s also a recognition of the consequences of withholding. Not only the consequences that justice is being denied to the Americans who suffered grievously by 9/11 because they lost a loved one.” He continued, “I think that the Saudis who know what they did and have a pretty good idea that the United States, at least at the highest levels, knows what they did and then nothing’s happened… They’ve interpreted this as being impunity and have continued to fund terrorist organizations and to train the next generation of recruits in their mosques and madrasas.” He said those groups include al-Qaida and ISIS.
Does he consider the withholding of the 28 pages a cover-up? “I have used the term ‘aggressive deception.’”
Read the rest of Alex Bregman’s piece about Bob Graham here.
PM: Terror Attack ‘Not Ruled Out’ in Egypt Air Disaster
May 19, 2016PM: Terror Attack ‘Not Ruled Out’ in Egypt Air Disaster
19 May 2016
Source: PM: Terror Attack ‘Not Ruled Out’ in Egypt Air Disaster
An EgyptAir flight carrying 66 people from Paris to Cairo went down into the Mediterranean Sea during the night in a mysterious crash that the Egyptian Prime Minister says may have been due to a terrorist attack.
No possibilities, including that of a terrorist attack, can be ruled out, according to Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, who stated that as yet very little information is available.
Sources from EgyptAir reported that at 2:26am, shortly before its disappearance from radar, the aircraft sent out an SOS signal, whereas another emergency signal was picked up two hours later at 4:26am. This later signal, according to the company, could have been sent by the automated location devices installed on the aircraft.
The captain of a mercantile ship claims to have witnessed flames on the sky during the night some 150 miles south of the Greek Island of Karpathos. His testimony led to the discovery of the plane’s wreckage in the area he described, just ten miles inside Egyptian territorial waters.
Flight MS804 left Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:09pm yesterday and disappeared from radar at 2:45am, just as it entered Egyptian airspace. The aircraft, an Airbus A320, was carrying 56 passengers, three security personnel and seven crew members. The majority of the passengers were Egyptians, as well as 15 French, a British, a Belgian, two Iraqis, a Kuwaiti, a Saudi, a Sudanese, a Portuguese, an Algerian, a Canadian and a citizen of Chad.
Experts have ruled out the use of portable surface-to-air missiles noting that the Airbus was out of the range of these weapons.
A possible scenario being advanced is that of a suicide bomber who could have placed a small explosive devise near one of the plane’s windows. The explosion at that altitude would cause a rapid decompression and easily result in the destruction of the aircraft.
Jean-Paul Troadec, former president of the French air accident investigation bureau (BEA), said there is “a strong possibility of an explosion on board from a bomb or a suicide bomber. The idea of a technical accident when weather conditions were good, seems also possible but not that likely.”
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that at this moment “no hypothesis” is excluded as to the possible causes of the crash.
French President, Francois Hollande, spoke Thursday morning by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi, and the two reportedly agreed on a “close cooperation” to ascertain the circumstances of the disaster.
Inside the Pro-Iran ‘Echo Chamber’
May 16, 2016Inside the Pro-Iran ‘Echo Chamber’ Washington Free Beacon,
A White House-allied group funded a private email listserv that pushed out pro-Iran talking points and anti-Israel conspiracy theories to hundreds of influential policy experts, government officials, and journalists during the Iran nuclear debate.
The contents of the invite-only listserv, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, could give a glimpse inside the “echo chamber” used by White House aide Ben Rhodes and allied lobbying groups to promote the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Members of the list included an Obama White House adviser, senior officials at the State Department, journalists for the New York Times and the Washington Post, and fellows at prominent think tanks.
The email forum, known as “Gulf/2000,” was originally created by Columbia University professor and former Jimmy Carter aide Gary Sick in 1993.
Since 2010, Gulf/2000’s operations have been funded by the Ploughshares Fund, a group that worked closely with the White House to promote the Iran nuclear deal.
In a New York Times article earlier this month, President Obama’s foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes said the Ploughshares Fund was part of the administration’s spin operation to sell the public on the agreement.
“We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else,” Rhodes said. “So we knew the tactics that worked.”
Gulf/2000 is still run out of Columbia University, where it is curated by Sick. Over the last two decades, Sick built the group into the predominant email list for Gulf State policy experts across the ideological spectrum.
The vast majority of posts on the forum are news articles, but occasionally members weigh in with their own comments. Posts are pre-approved by Sick or his assistants, and insiders say the forum is “dominated” by pro-Iran talking points.
One former member, who left Gulf/2000 several years ago because “90 percent of the traffic was either useless or promoting the official lines,” said the comments that were approved for posting seemed to follow an ideological slant.
“Gary [Sick] was the moderator, and the moderator is supposed to moderate,” said the former member. “And I learned after awhile, it was quite obvious, that Gary was filtering and navigating more toward his views of the world on all these issues.”
Sick said he was unable to discuss Gulf/2000 because he was traveling for the next few weeks. He declined to answer questions by email.
Joe Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, did not respond to a request for comment. In a column last week, Cirincione disputed allegations that the Ploughshares Fund took orders from the White House about how to sell the Iran deal.
Gulf/2000 members said the forum posts, which are supposed to focus on Gulf State policy issues, often veer into defenses of the Iranian regime or conspiracy theories about Israel. Another member, speaking on background to theWashington Free Beacon, compared the group to a pro-Iran “info-op”—military jargon for a campaign to influence policy decisions.
“The most significant forum for scholars of Iranian studies to exchange ideas and views was dominated by apologists for the Iranian regime and was dominated by people who would reflexively push back on any argument that the Iranian regime was involved in what we would call ‘malign activities’ or ‘illicit activities,’” said the member, who added that the majority of his colleagues who work on Gulf issues belong to the forum.
The Ploughshares Fund said it finances Gulf/2000 in order to “inform the debate over Iran’s nuclear program in the media and among policymakers by assessing and reporting on events, generating viable solutions and refuting false stories,” according to its annual reports. The foundation has given the email list $75,000 a year since 2010.
Gulf/2000 is linked to a larger messaging effort on the Iran deal that has been reported on by the Free Beacon and other outlets.
In October 2014, the Free Beacon published audio recordings from a since-discontinued strategy meeting between the White House and activist groups lobbying for the nuclear deal. During the session, Rhodes stressed that the agreement was “the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy.”
Last summer, the Free Beacon posted tapes from a private conference call with progressive groups organized by the Ploughshares Fund that discussed how to sell the Iran deal to congressional Democrats.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are calling on Rhodes to testify about his comments to the Times, which seemed to suggest the administration misled the public and created an “echo chamber” in order to get the deal through.
Members of Gulf/2000 include activists and writers who worked closely with the Obama administration on Iran issues. One is Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group working to repeal Iran sanctions. Another is Al-Monitor reporter Laura Rozen, who a White House aide described as her “RSS feed” on Iran in the Timesarticle. Cirincione is also on the list.
Other members have included Puneet Talwar, a senior State Department official and former advisor to Joe Biden in the Senate and White House; John Limbert, Obama’s former deputy assistant secretary of state for Iran; and Tamara Cofman Wittes, Obama’s former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
Many of the email list’s regular contributors are bloggers and academics: Jim Lobe and Marsha Cohen, writers for the anti-Israel website LobeLog; Flynt and Hillary Leverett, authors of the book “Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran”; Truthout writer Gareth Porter; and Cyrus Safdari, a commentator at Iran Review. Gulf/2000 also includes a number of current and former Iranian scholars who work at state-controlled universities or think tanks.
The Free Beacon reviewed hundreds of posts sent to the listserv between 2010 and 2015. Many contain theories about the “Israel Lobby’s” destructive influence over U.S. foreign policy and politicians, defenses of the Iranian government, and comments downplaying news stories that cast the regime in a negative light.
Although some Gulf/2000 members are strong critics of the Iranian government, particularly on human rights, many of the most active posters are vocal defenders of the regime.
“Perhaps above all, one of the greatest benefits of this [Iran] deal has been to put some limits, at least for the time being, on the Israeli Lobby and their rightwing supporters in the Congress,” wrote Farhang Jahanpour, a former dean at a state-run Iranian university, in 2013.
Other posts talked about the necessity of “breaking the power of the domestic Israel lobby” and the “neo-con cabal” that were allegedly the main threats to the Iran deal.
“The Neo-Cons have convinced themselves that no costs of human life outweigh the moral benefits they see of ridding Israel of any perceived military threat by pre-active lethal military force,” wrote David Long in January 2013.
The forum is also littered with conspiracy theories about the Israeli government and foreign affairs. In one post, retired journalist Richard Sale claimed the CIA told him that pro-Israel Christian groups were “secretly funded by Mossad.” In another, Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich speculated that the Iranian-backed bombing of the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center was actually a false flag operation by the Argentine government to cover up its complicity with the Nazis.
Although Gulf/2000 is ostensibly a forum to discuss Gulf policy issues, the listserv’s fixation with “neocons” and the “Israel lobby” is not new. In 2003, a Lebanese columnist named Jihad Al Khazen published a series of lengthy posts on Gulf/2000 that purported to tell the “Biographies of the Neo-Cons.” His subjects included Bill Kristol, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, and Robert Kagan.
At the time, members also debated the correlation between “neo-cons” and Jews.
“It is certainly true that not every supporter of the [Iraq] war is Jewish, but it is definitely true that every supporter of the war with Iraq is a supporter of the most extreme Israeli right-wing. The coincidence is hard to ignore,” noted William Beeman.
Occasionally a contributor would push back on the forum’s general consensus.
“I am puzzled by the consistent tone of dismissal of any allegations of wrongdoing on the part of Iran by members of this list,” wrote one poster in 2003. “These charges are lumped together as either the baseless allegations of the US government, or worse, the product of a secret Jewish-neocon plot to discredit an Iran which would never, ever participate in terrorism.”
But a former forum member said Sick would often cut off conversations as “off-topic” when commenters tried to defend Israel against charges.
“There were clearly cases where there were things that were said about Israel, or written, posted about Israel, that were false, defamatory, absurd,” said the former member.
On March 5, 2014, the day the Israeli military announced it had intercepted an Iranian shipment of advanced rockets to Gaza, the news was greeted with typical suspicion in the forum.
“Call me a cynic, but it does seem like amazingly fortuitous timing: just when the IAEA have resisted Israel’s call to publish the claims (probably) Israel leaked, and while Bibi is tub-thumping to AIPAC in Washington ,” wrote James Spencer, a blogger for LobeLog.
“[S]omething did not jibe with this story. It is just a little bit too convenient,” agreed another poster.
“I can’t take that narrative at face value,” added Thomas Lippman, former Middle East bureau chief of the Washington Post.
“As James Spencer and Walter Posch noted the timing is suspicious, occurring as the AIPAC conference convened with Netanyahu in Washington,” wrote Charles Smith, a professor at the University of Arizona.
When the Iranian government weighed in on the arms seizure the day after the story broke, its response was similar.
“An Iranian ship carrying arms for Gaza. Captured just in time for annual AIPAC anti Iran campaign. Amazing Coincidence! Or same failed lies,” wrote Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Twitter.
Another common refrain in posts is that there is no evidence Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
“Like other counter-factual mythologies (President Obama’s birthplace, the identity of the Kennedy assassin, Jimmy Hoffa’s killer), this one seemingly will never die–at least as long as the neo-cons are alive to fan the last of its faint sparks,” wrote William O. Beeman, an anthropology professor at the University of Minnesota.
An official at an Iranian university, whose name was withheld, claimed the notion that Iran was seeking a bomb was driven by “Iranophobia.”
“Iran repeatedly has said that it doesn’t pursue the way of reaching to Atomic bomb,” said the poster. “What makes the US doesn’t believe this is exactly rooted to what Mr. Aboutalebi described it in his interview as Iranophobia.”
Posts also defend Iran against allegations of human rights violations by suggesting the claims are intended to undermine moderates or denying the charges altogether.
“[A]s the nuclear issue has become effectively – for now – insulated due to the support of Khamenei, critics are seeking to undermine Rouhani through other issues,” wrote Parsi in March 2014. “Human rights – due to the impact it has on Rouhani’s external image and the impact that can have on negotiations – appears to be one such issue.”
Other commenters were less subtle than Parsi.
“The Leveretts said it best: Ahmadinejad won those elections; get over it already,” argued blogger Safdari in December 2013.
One former member expressed concern that the influential listserv was being used to whitewash the Iranian government.
“If the Iranian regime wanted to push back on any assertion against it … it could not do a better job itself than the American academics and pundits who do it on Gulf/2000,” he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry Urges Europeans to Do Business with Iran
May 12, 2016Secretary of State John Kerry Urges Europeans to Do Business with Iran
11 May 2016
Source: Secretary of State John Kerry Urges Europeans to Do Business with Iran – Breitbart
Critics have accused the Obama administration of effectively acting as Iran’s law firm during the nuclear negotiations, but now Secretary of State John Kerry seems determined to volunteer as Iran’s marketing director.
As part of what the Wall Street Journal describes as “the Obama Administration’s moves recently to help integrate Iran into the global economic system after decades of punitive sanctions,” Kerry urged European businesses not to use the remaining U.S. sanctions on Iran as an excuse to avoid doing business with Tehran.
According to the Journal, Kerry told reporters, who were traveling with him to London for an anticorruption summit, that the United States “sometimes gets used as an excuse in this process” by business executives, who claim the American government would disapprove of Iranian deals.
“If they don’t see a good business deal, they shouldn’t say, ‘Oh, we can’t do it because of the United States.’ That’s just not fair. That’s not accurate,” said Kerry.
“Iran has a right to the benefits of the agreement they signed up to and if people, by confusion or misinterpretation or in some cases disinformation, are being misled, it’s appropriate for us to try to clarify that,” he added.
Kerry stressed that European institutions are “are absolutely free to open accounts for Iran, trade and exchange money, facilitate a legitimate business agreement, bankroll it, lend money — all those things are absolutely open,” aside from a few specific individuals and firms that remain under U.S. sanctions.
“Some specific Iranian entities, including companies associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, are still off-limits under sanctions punishing Iran for other behavior,” notes the Associated Press. “And the U.S. maintains a prohibition on Iran accessing the American financial system or directly conducting transactions in U.S. dollars, fueling confusion and practical impediments given that international transactions routinely cross through the U.S. banking system.”
The Secretary of State evidently did not explain why European businessmen would be looking for phony excuses to avoid profitable business deals with the regime in Tehran.
The situation is more complicated than Kerry makes it out to be, according to the Associated Press, which reports that foreign investors are worried about Iran’s “antiquated financial system that fails to meet modern international standards,” its ongoing support for terrorism, its dismal human-rights history, and the fact that the Obama administration has been reluctant to provide written clarification of which business transactions are allowed.
The WSJ suggests two reasons for Kerry’s enthusiasm as an investment counselor for the Iranian theocracy: the Iranians have been loudly complaining that the Obama administration isn’t holding up its end of the nuclear deal, and the outcome of the U.S. presidential election could put the future of the deal in doubt.
At a minimum, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton claims she would add more sanctions if Iran comes too close to developing nuclear weapons, while presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said he wants to re-negotiate the deal.
WarSclerotic 
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