And more. . .much more.
First, he’s just a cockeyed optimist, via the Guardian:
Obama confident US troop surge in Iraq will put coalition on offensive
President: new troops will focus on training local forces to fight Isis
Comments draw emerging parallel to past US military strategy in Iraq
The latest US troop surge in Iraq will allow an offensive campaign against Islamic militants, Barack Obama claimed on Sunday, as political talk shows featuring the president and his predecessor, George W Bush, underscored the growing echoes of the past in current American military strategy.
In his first public comments since doubling the number of US ground troops in Iraq to 3,000, Obama said the decision did not represent a failure of his administration’s early reliance on air strikes in Iraq and Syria. He said the deployment, announced on Friday night, “signals a new phase” in his campaign against the Islamic State – known as Isis or Isil.
“Rather than just try to halt Isil’s momentum, we are now in a position to start going on some offensive,” he told CBS.
“The air strikes have been very effective in degrading Isil’s abilities and slowing the advances they were making. Now we need some ground troops, Iraqi ground troops, to start pushing them back.”
The Guardian again, with uncertainty:
Fate of Isis leader remains unclear after US airstrike in Iraq
Monitoring of Isis communications following attack near Mosul reveals nothing to suggest Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed
Officials in Baghdad and Washington remained unclear on Sunday about the fate of the Islamic State (Isis) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after a key aide was killed in a US air strike near Mosul.
A senior Iraqi official confirmed to the Guardian that the aide, Abdur Rahman al-Athaee, also known as Abu Sajar, was killed in the the attack late on Friday night, which hit a 10-car convoy southwest of the Isis stronghold.
Athaee was known to have been in almost constant contact with Baghdadi and officials deduced that his presence in the convoy likely meant that Baghdadi was with him.
However, monitoring of the group’s communications in the aftermath of the attack has revealed nothing to suggest that Baghdadi was killed. Officials have not ruled out that he may have been injured.
A revolutionary threat in Cairo from the Egypt Independent:
Salafi Front vows ‘Islamic Revolution’ on 28 November
A Salafi leader allied with the Muslim Brotherhood has vowed to stage an “Islamic Revolution” on Friday, 28 November, across the republic.
“That day will witness a second Kandahar in all provinces,” Khaled Saeed, chief coordinator of the Salafi Front, told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
The Salafi Front, part of the Anti-Coup Alliance that supports the reinstatement of ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsy, was formed in 2011 after the 25 January revolution when it broke away from the more mainstream and pro-regime group Salafi Dawaa.
From the New York Times, corruption by any other name. . .:
Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize
The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property from suspected criminals. Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars.
In one seminar, captured on video in September, Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies.” And then Mr. Connelly described how officers in his jurisdiction could not wait to seize one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar.
“A guy drives up in a 2008 Mercedes, brand new,” he explained. “Just so beautiful, I mean, the cops were undercover and they were just like ‘Ahhhh.’ And he gets out and he’s just reeking of alcohol. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my goodness, we can hardly wait.’ “
Mr. Connelly was talking about a practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows the government, without ever securing a conviction or even filing a criminal charge, to seize property suspected of having ties to crime. The practice, expanded during the war on drugs in the 1980s, has become a staple of law enforcement agencies because it helps finance their work. It is difficult to tell how much has been seized by state and local law enforcement, but under a Justice Department program, the value of assets seized has ballooned to $4.3 billion in the 2012 fiscal year from $407 million in 2001. Much of that money is shared with local police forces.
From the Guardian, Cold War 2.0 intensification:
Close military encounters between Russia and the west ‘at cold war levels’
Report lists 40 cases of ‘brinkmanship’, including near-collision between Russian spy plane and passenger jet, in past eight months
Close military encounters between Russia and the west have jumped to cold war levels, with 40 dangerous or sensitive incidents recorded in the past eight months alone, according to a new report published on Monday.
The report, Dangerous Brinkmanship by the European Leadership Network, logs a series of “highly-disturbing” incidents since the Ukrainian crisis began earlier this year, including an alarming near-collision between a Russian reconnaissance plane and a passenger plane taking off from Denmark in March with 132 passengers on board.
What made the incident especially dangerous was that the Russian plane did not have on its transponders, the usual method of signalling its presence to other aircraft.
The report by the London-based thinktank comes after a warning from former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that the world is “on the brink of a new cold war”.
While Russia Today offers a reminder:
Winston Churchill wanted to nuke Kremlin ‘to win Cold War,’ FBI memo reveals
A secret memo from the FBI’s archives has revealed that Britain’s Winston Churchill once urged the US to drop an atomic bomb to “wipe out” the Kremlin. He reportedly thought it was the only remedy against the spread of communism to the west.
Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II and again during the Cold War 1950s, made his views known to a visiting American politician in 1947, The Daily Mail reported in a preview of a new book, “When Lions Roar: The Churchills and The Kennedys” by investigative journalist Thomas Maier. The book containing the secret FBI memo is to be published next month.
Britain and the Soviet Union had been allies during WW2. However, according to the memo written by an FBI agent, Churchill asked a Right-wing Republican senator, Styles Bridges, to help persuade then-President Harry Truman to launch a nuclear attack which would make the former USSR easy to deal with.
And the Los Angeles Times considers the costs:
Aging nuclear arsenal grows ever more costly
The nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile has shrunk by 85% since its Cold War peak half a century ago, but the Energy Department is spending nine times more on each weapon that remains. The nuclear arsenal will cost $8.3 billion this fiscal year, up 30% over the last decade.
The source of some of those costs: skyrocketing profits for contractors, increased security costs for vulnerable facilities and massive investments in projects that were later canceled or postponed.
“We are not getting enough for what we are spending, and we are spending more than what we need,” said Roger Logan, a senior nuclear scientist who retired in 2007 from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “The whole system has failed us.”
The Defense Department’s fleet of submarines, bombers and land-based missiles is also facing obsolescence and will have to be replaced over the next two decades, raising the prospect of further multibillion-dollar cost escalations.
From the Guardian, business as usual in Old Blighty:
UK condemned over arms sales to repressive states
Former Tory defence secretary Sir John Stanley says government quietly relaxed controls on arms licences to ‘countries of concern’
The government used to reject arms export licences where there was concern they might be used for “internal repression”, but now a licence will be refused only if there is a “clear risk” that military equipment might be used in violation of international law.
Former Foreign Office minister Peter Hain, who established the strict criteria on arms sales, last night demanded that the government be transparent about the change and called for parliament to be allowed a vote. He said: “The present government has run a coach and horses through our arms export controls, circumventing the legislation we put in place by putting a particular spin on it. It has enabled them to sell arms to countries and for purposes that should not be allowed under the legislation.
“There is a clear policy in the legislation that arms should only be sold to countries for defensive purposes and not for internal suppression or external aggression. In the case of Gaza over the summer, that has clearly been flouted. Bahrain is another example.”
Data from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills reveals that in the first six months of 2014 the UK granted licences worth £63.2m of arms sales to 18 of the 28 states on its official blacklist, countries about which the Foreign Office has the “most serious wide-ranging human rights concerns”. Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Central African Republic, Sri Lanka and Russia were among the countries that Britain approved military equipment for.
From the Los Angeles Times, great expectations:
Washington braces for results of Senate investigation of CIA practices
After six years and a $40-million investigation, the Democratic-led Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to release conclusions this month from its controversial probe of CIA detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects overseas during the George W. Bush administration.
The partly redacted report is likely to renew the national debate over now-banned techniques that critics decried as torture and which supporters insist were necessary to stop further terrorist plots after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
U.S. embassies in the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of the Islamic world have been told to prepare for the possibility of violent protests and threats after the report’s release, according to officials briefed on the preparations and who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The New York Times gets spooky:
Getting Close to Terror, but Not to Stop It
Port Authority Officer Kept Sources With Ties to Iran Attacks
After a car bombing in southeastern Iran killed 11 Revolutionary Guard members in 2007, a C.I.A. officer noticed something surprising in the agency’s files: an intelligence report, filed ahead of the bombing, that had warned that something big was about to happen in Iran.
Though the report had provided few specifics, the C.I.A. officer realized it meant that the United States had known in advance that a Sunni terrorist group called Jundallah was planning an operation inside Shiite-dominated Iran, two former American officials familiar with the matter recalled. Just as surprising was the source of the report. It had originated in Newark, with a detective for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The Port Authority police are responsible for patrolling bridges and tunnels and issuing airport parking tickets. But the detective, a hard-charging and occasionally brusque former ironworker named Thomas McHale, was also a member of an F.B.I. counterterrorism task force. He had traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and developed informants inside Jundallah’s leadership, who then came under the joint supervision of the F.B.I. and C.I.A.
From CBC News, antinostalgia:
Berlin Wall: East Germans lived in fear under Stasi surveillance
Network of intimidation saw a third of the population informing on neighbours and friends
The surveillance machine was enormous, including a spy network of intimidation that saw an estimated one in three people informing on neighbours, friends or loved ones.
“If you look outside of the prison, the large building … this was a factory of the Stasi,” said guide Cliewe Juritza, himself an inmate of the prison for a year after he was captured trying to reach West Germany in 1985, just four years before the wall came down.
“The production of the gadgets of espionage or observation. Altogether there were 91,000 [State Security] employees … and 2,500 were working here,” he said.
There were more than 100 interrogation rooms along the prison’s dim-lit halls, sinister by dint of their blandness: a desk, a table, a chair and a phone.
And from USA Today, blown away:
Defendants walk after FBI agent accused of snorting evidence
Program notes:
Charges against 13 defendants in a drug conspiracy case were dropped amid allegations that an FBI agent snorted some of the evidence. Some of them had already pleaded guilty and been sentenced.
After the jump it’s on to drones, with more French nuke plant drone sightings, Swiss military drones burglars, corporate-enabled hacking for the feds, Journalistic solidarity for beleaguered Egyptian colleagues, Israeli Arabs erupt over a police shooting, on to Hong Kong where Occupy protestors gets a warning from the top in Beijing, signs of limits to the growing Beijing/Moscow military alliance, a game-changing Chinese jet, a marginalized Obama confronts a growing gap with China, Obama’s silent treatment of Pyongyang, America’s new BFF, the surprisingly nostalgic beneficiary of those leaked celebrity nude selfies, and a reminder from history of the dangers of the panopticon state. . .
Droning mysteriously with the Independent:
French government on high alert after unexplained drone flights over nuclear power stations
An epidemic of mysterious – and potentially disturbing – drone flights over French nuclear power stations remains unexplained despite the recent arrests of three young model aircraft enthusiasts in central France.
The illegal flights by the tiny, pilotless helicopters, mostly at night, were initially dismissed as a nuisance. But a recent spate of five co-ordinated “visits” in one evening to nuclear reactors hundreds of miles apart has now placed the French government on high alert.
A campaign of harassment by anti-nuclear campaigners is considered the most likely explanation. Surveillance flights by a terrorist group testing the security of France’s 19 nuclear sites have not been ruled out. Then, last Wednesday, three people, two men aged 24 and 31 and a woman of 21, were arrested close to a power station at Belleville-sur-Loire in Cher. Police said the three were about to launch a relatively simple drone – a type sold on the internet for around €100 (£78).
They face possible charges but are not suspected of being responsible for the score of intrusions by much more elaborate drones in the restricted airspace over 13 nuclear power stations since early October.
Swiss military drones burglars, via TheLocal.ch:
Drone used to nab three suspected burglars
Police in the canton of Ticino arrested three Romanian men suspected of burglary after a drone from the Swiss Air Force tracked the trio at the weekend.
Officers captured the men in the Mendrisio area on Saturday night after the drone, an ADS 95 Ranger, was able to locate them through the use of an infrared camera.
A local woman earlier contacted police about the suspicious individuals south of the city.
Customs border guards, who were operating the drone for their own operations, released it to help in a search for the men, in addition a manhunt on the ground by cantonal and Mendrisio police officers.
From Techdirt, hacking for the feds:
Are Apple, Google, Microsoft And Mozilla Helping Governments Carry Out Man-In-The-Middle Attacks?
from the and-what-can-they-do-about-it? dept
Back in September, we reported on the Chinese authorities using man-in-the-middle attacks to spy on citizens who carry out Google searches over encrypted connections. That’s done by using a fake security certificate to redirect traffic to a server where the traffic is decrypted, analyzed, and blocked if necessary. A new post on the Greatfire.org Web site points out that this approach can only work if the user’s computer trusts the certificate’s issuing authority, in this case the China Internet Network Information Center, and that it’s curious that browsers from the West do so quite so readily:
Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla among others, trust CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) to protect your communications on their platforms by default, regardless of whether or not you are in China. CNNIC has implemented (and tried to mask) internet censorship, produced malware and has very bad security practices. Tech-savvy users in China have been protesting the inclusion of CNNIC as a trusted certificate authority for years. In January 2013, after Github was attacked in China, we publicly called for the the revocation of the trust certificate for CNNIC. In light of the recent spate of man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks in China, and in an effort to protect user privacy not just in China but everywhere, we again call for revocation of CNNIC Certificate Authority.
Although the logic of revoking CNNIC as a trusted certificate authority might seem inarguable, the consequences of doing so are likely to be serious. For example, the Chinese government might decide to ban the use of any browser that did not include CNNIC. That’s hard to police, but the threat alone would be enough to dissuade any software company from removing CNNIC’s certificate from its browser.
Journalistic solidarity for beleaguered Egyptian colleagues, via the Guardian:
Journalists standing in solidarity with our brave Egyptian colleagues
Last month, Egypt’s leading newspaper editors signed a declaration pledging near-blind support for the Egyptian state and vowing to ban criticism of the police, army and judiciary from the pages of their publications. In a remarkable display of both professional integrity and personal bravery, several hundred Egyptian journalists have now signed a counter-statement rejecting this attempt by their bosses to gag reporters and silence their work.
We, the undersigned journalists and media professionals, stand in solidarity with our Egyptian colleagues in their struggle for a free and independent press. Intimidation of the media has been a central tactic of every Egyptian regime in recent years, and the fight by journalists to resist such intimidation has been a vital component of the country’s broader battle against state tyranny. Egypt’s rulers must know that their attempts to repress any form of public scrutiny or dissent will be met with fierce opposition, not just by local reporters but by the wider international community of journalists as well.
Egypt today is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be working in as a journalist. Although the absurd show trial and subsequent imprisonment of three al-Jazeera English correspondents generated global headlines earlier this year, many other victims of the state’s crackdown on free speech have gone largely unreported. In total, 11 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution in 2011, and nearly 70 more, both local and foreign, have been detained since the rise to power of President el-Sisi in July 2013.
Israeli Arabs erupt over a police shooting, from the Guardian:
Violence spreads across Israel after shooting in Galilee
Video evidence shows police firing at Kheir Hamdan, 22, as he was running away from them – contradicting the police story
Months of simmering violence between Israelis and Palestinians in East Jerusalem spread to Israeli Arab towns this weekend after police shot and killed a 22-year-old man in the Galilee town of Kufr Kana, apparently as he was running away.
In their original statements about the death on Friday night police said Kheir Hamdan was shot when he tried to stab an officer during an attempt to arrest him for allegedly throwing a stun grenade in the town, near Nazareth.
However, CCTV footage of the shooting shows Hamdan tried to strike a police car several times with an object in his hand – allegedly the knife – but officers were inside, with Hamdan posing no immediate threat to them. When a police officer opens the door, Hamdan is seen retreating. It is at this point he is shot.
Police can then be seen dragging the severely injured Hamdan along the ground and bundling him into their car without offering first aid or calling for assistance. He died several hours later.
On to Hong Kong with China Daily and a major warning from the top for Occupy protestors:
President Xi lends support for HK
Central government anticipates city seizing a ‘historic opportunity’
President Xi Jinping on Sunday voiced support for Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and his government’s efforts to safeguard the rule of law and maintain social order in Hong Kong.
Xi made the remarks while meeting with Leung, who is in Beijing to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.
The recognition came as unlawful occupation of thoroughfares at three locations in Hong Kong entered the sixth week with no sign of ending. Leung, in a briefing to the president, called those protests “an assault of the rule of law”.
The central government “fully affirms and supports” the efforts of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region chief executive and the HKSAR government to govern in line with the law, especially its work to maintain social order, Xi said.
From Want China Times, signs of limits in an increasingly closer alliance:
Russia won’t sell China radar system for J-20 stealth jet: Kanwa
Russia has rejected the idea of providing China with a radar system suitable for fifth-generation stealth fighters like the Chengdu J-20, according to Kanwa Defense Review, a Chinese-language military magazine published in Canada.
China is currently testing the Type 1475 active electronically scanned array radar system designed for the still-in-development J-20 on the nose of a Tu-204 jetliner.
Yuri Guskov from Phazotron, Russia’s largest military radar developer, said Russia is working to develop the ZHUK-AE active electronically scanned array radar system for its PAK FA fifth-generation stealth fighter, more commonly known as the T-50, at a rate much faster than China is proceeding.
While the ZHUK-AE radar is ready to be tested with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s Tejas fighter for the Indian Air Force, Yuri said a naval version of the radar had been designed earlier and has already been tested on a warship in waters off the Russian Far East.
From Want China Times, claims of a game-changing jet:
‘Stolen’ J-31 can beat American jets in dogfight, says US pilot
The J-31, China’s second fifth-generation stealth fighter designed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, is capable of outperforming all US fourth-generation fighters in aerial combat, according to a US fighter pilot cited in our sister newspaper Want Daily.
With its appearance similar to the US F-22 and F-35 fighters, the J-31 was developed based on US technology stolen by Chinese spies, the pilot claimed. He gave his view that all US fourth-generation fighters including the AV-8, F-15 and F/A-18 would be unable to go head to head against the J-31 in a dogfight. The plane will be the perfect fighter for the People’s Liberation Army to carry out anti-access and area-denial strategies in the Western Pacific, he said.
The Chinese fighter will also present a challenge to the F-35 in the overseas export market, the pilot predicted. It may not be as advanced as the F-35, but it is much cheaper than its US counterpart. Putting the J-31 on display during the Zhuhai Airshow may signal that China is trying to attract attention from potential buyers, the pilot said. It will certainly be more popular among developing nations, he added.
Separation anxieties from the Guardian:
China-US gulf widens as ‘marginalised’ Obama heads for Beijing summit
Can the Asia-Pacific talks bridge growing strategic differences between the world’s largest economies?
When Barack Obama lands in Beijing for a two-day state visit this week, he will find a city of traffic-free roads, crystal blue skies, and powerful officials who have made up their minds against him.
Obama will participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday at the start of a short regional tour – later in the week, he will attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit and the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Burma and then the G20 summit in Australia.
The White House has said that Obama expects “candid and in-depth conversations” during the visit, his first to China since 2009. Yet the president will confront a widening strategic gulf between the world’s first and second largest economies; experts say that China’s leaders will probably snub him on a range of hot-button issues, including human rights, cybersecurity, and China’s rising territorial ambitions in the south and east China seas.
Obama’s silent treatment of Pyongyang, from the New York Times:
U.S. Gives North Korea the Silent Treatment
President Obama took the unusual step of sending the nation’s top spy, instead of a senior diplomat, to win the release of two American prisoners in North Korea, administration officials said Sunday, specifically to signal that he would not reward the North with sanctions relief or a new round of negotiations in return for the freedom of the latest Americans to be locked up during visits to the isolated nation.
“It was not to pursue any diplomatic opening,” a senior administration official said aboard Air Force One as Mr. Obama departed for China, and as the two Americans sentenced to hard labor in the North, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, were landing near Seattle.
The official said the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., was dispatched in response to the North’s request, made in backchannel communications with the administration, for a senior official of the United States government to oversee the release. But Mr. Clapper, a retired general whose career has spanned many conflicts with three generations of North Korean leaders, never met Kim Jong-un, the young dictator whose health, hold on power and progress in developing a deliverable nuclear weapon have all been sources of intense scrutiny to American intelligence officials.
America’s new BFF, via the Japan Times:
Americans consider Japan most important Asian country, survey suggests
Japan is regarded among the American public and opinion leaders as the most important country in Asia, according to the results of an annual survey by the Foreign Ministry.
It was the first time in four years that the survey, released Friday, found that both U.S. groups viewed Japan in such a positive light.
The ministry commissioned Nielsen Consumer Insights Inc. to conduct the survey, which found that 46 percent of the 1,003 Americans aged 18 and over who were polled consider Japan the most important Asian partner for the United States, up 11 points from last year. Twenty-six percent of them chose China, a decrease of 13 points.
From the Guardian, a nostalgic beneficiary of hacked celeb selfies:
Why stars love Polaroid’s retro chic: no risk of embarrassing uploads on the net
Revival for photo format joins other analogue passions endorsed by new celebrity generation
The Polaroid camera was once a godsend for couples interested in a spot of erotic photography. No need for that embarrassing trip to the chemist to get the developed pictures. Now, in a different age but for similar reasons, Polaroids are making a comeback as stars look to protect their privacy in the digital era.
In the wake of the recent celebrity nude photo leak, which saw photos of more than 100 female celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kirsten Dunst and Kate Upton, released on the internet, another victim, Big Bang star Kaley Cuoco, has declared: “Polaroids are the way to go. No one can get those.”
Privacy is not the only motive for a mini-boom in sales of a product that had its heyday in the 1980s. According to Creed O’Hanlon, CEO of The Impossible Project, which took over manufacturing Polaroid products in 2007, the company is growing much faster and spreading more widely than even the most passionate aficionados could have imagined.
And to close, via Slate, a reminder from history of the dangers of the panopticon state:
Big Data and the Underground Railroad
Industry and government say “collect everything.” History suggests this is a bad idea.
Last year, in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations, sociologist Kieran Healy speculated about whether the British crown could have used metadata analysis to find Paul Revere. (Spoiler alert: They find him.) In a world of ubiquitous data collection, what would have happened to American revolutionaries? What would have happened to gay and lesbian soldiers? What would have happened to runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad?
Runaway slaves lived by subterfuge and evasion. They relied on safe houses and coded letters between their hosts. Spirituals—seemingly innocent religious songs—told slaves to “wade in the water.” The imagery was actually advice on how to avoid the bloodhounds that slave catchers would use to track them.
What would have happened if geolocation were effectively a matter of public record? If any company or individual who wanted that data could get it, either from another company or through the use of a Stingray? What if every horse and carriage were monitored through an analog of today’s license plate-tracking systems? The road to freedom would have been much more difficult—particularly after 1850, when the Fugitive Slave Act forced government officials to help private slave catchers.
These examples may seem extreme. But they highlight an important and uncomfortable fact: Throughout our history, the survival of our most vulnerable communities has often turned on their ability to avoid detection.
