Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel Will Be Attacked

HOW WORLD WARS ARE STARTED

Events are happening quickly and as it stands, the United States, Britain and other western allies are preparing a missile strike on Syria.

Russia has been the most critical opponent of the possibility of Mid East military action, but now China has also stepped in.

Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have “catastrophic consequences” for the region.

BBC via Zero Hedge

 And moments ago the Interfax new agency announced that China and Russia have left the negotiating table in response to a proposal for Britain’s David Cameron on pending intervention in Syria.

UN-SECURITY/COUNCIL-RUSSIA-CHINA DUBAI. Aug 28 (Interfax)

Russian and Chinese representatives have left the UN Security Council session that discussed the draft resolution on Syria proposed by Great Britain.

 We could be days away from the start of a conflict the likes of which the world has never seen before.

The United States and Britain are pushing forward with plans to execute a “brief and limited” strike on Syrian targets, but all signs suggest it will turn into much more than that. In January of 2012 the United States positioned 100,000 soldiers off the coast of Iran, and just last weekend it was reported that hundreds of US soldiers and intelligence assets had moved into Syria ahead of the attack.

In response, Syria has warned it will immediately target Israel with Russian supplied advanced weaponry. Syria’s closest ally in the region, Iran, has echoed the threat and warned that it, too, will turn its military capabilities on Israel.

This is a game changer. Any response by Israel against Arab nations would turn the entire Middle East against the U.S. led coalition.

According to a report from the LA Times, that’s exactly what Israel intends to do.

“We are not part of the civil war in Syria, but if we identify any attempt whatsoever to harm us, we will respond with great force,” Netanyahu said after huddling for a second consecutive day with key Cabinet members to discuss the possible ramifications of a U.S. strike against Syria.

Armies are mobilizing, and that includes Russian troops, who are reportedly now being deployed in Syria to help Assad defend against “rebel forces,” which adds additional strength to the 160,000 Russian troops mobilized in the region earlier this summer. Furthermore, the Russian Navy deployed nearly its entire Pacific fleet to the Mediterranean in May.

Moreover, after a meeting with Saudi Arabia in which the Saudi head of intelligence directly threatened Vladimir Putin with terrorist attacks during the coming winter Olympic games in Russia if they didn’t let the U.S. move forward with their plans in Syria, President Putin has reportedly responded with the threat of a massive counter-strike against the Saudi Arabian monarchy.

This isn’t an exercise.

The writing is on the wall.

The militaries of the most powerful nations on Earth are preparing to engage.

If President Obama initiates a missile strike on Syria, however limited in scope, it could set the whole world ablaze.

written by Mac Slavo

Ridley-Thomas and Molina Lead LA County to Demand Voting Rights

On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors VOTED to call on Congress to update 

Section 4 of the Civil Rights Act to enable the Department of Justice to review changes in voting laws that threaten the ability of citizens to cast a ballot for candidates of their choice.
The 1963 March on Washington was a watershed event that set the stage for Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965, giving the federal government the power to enforce the 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution.

But earlier this summer, on June 25th, in Shelby County v. Holder,
a divided Supreme Court struck down a key provision 
of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional. Section 4,
known as the coverage formula, identifies the regions of
the country that permit the U.S. Department of Justice
to review and pre-clear changes to voting laws within
those jurisdictions that may have a discriminatory
impact or effect.

Testifying before the board on the importance of maintaining
strong voter protection laws were local and nationally
recognized civil rights leaders, including Rev. James 
Lawson Jr., a key tactician and teacher of nonviolence
who worked closely with the Martin Luther King Jr.,
Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute
for Public Affairs at California State University,
Northridge, Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund,
Virginia Lee, of the Advancement Project, Eugene Lee,
Voting Rights Project Director, Asian Americans
Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, Rick Davis, Regional
Director, Lambda Legal and Lola Ungar, Vice President
and Action Chair, League of Women Voters. The
motion, sponsored by Supervisors Mark Ridley-
Thomas and Gloria Molina, sends a
message from the largest County in the nation that
a revision of the Voting Rights Act must be
done by Congress.

“Nobody should ever use voter suppression as 
an ordinary tool of politics,” said Sonenshein.
“If those who represent California make clear that
the Voting Rights Act, admired and supported by
both parties, must be made whole, this will send
a message that will resound across the nation.”

Saenz said that the Voting Rights Act played a 
central role in diversifying Los Angeles County 
government as well.

“The composition of this board changed, in my view,
for the better and helped to ensure representation
of the entirety of the County and its diversity,”
noted Saenz.

Chairman Ridley-Thomas emphasized that the 
freedom to vote is a centerpiece of democracy.

“The hallmark of a democratic society is the healthy
exchange of views,” said Ridley-Thomas. “We want
to make sure that those who wish to participate
do participate.”

James Lawson noted that civil rights are entwined
with voting rights.

“At this stage of the game in the United States we
should have national and local leadership committed
to the universal right to vote,” he said. “This motion
asks Congress, Republican and Democrats alike, to
move swiftly so that this right is not abdicated in
many parts of the country.”

Fed Chair: YELLEN Way Better than SUMMMERS

LARRY SUMMERS CROOK WHO KILLED GLASS-STEAGALL

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Posted on Aug 25, 2013

Greg Palast

A 1997 memo retrieved from the filing cabinet of investigative reporter Greg Palast shows the involvement of Lawrence Summers—Obama’s current favorite for chairman of the Federal Reserve—in a successful plan to help big bank CEOs “rip apart financial regulation across the planet.”

In the memo, future Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reminds “his boss to call the then most powerful CEOs on the planet and get them to order their lobbyist armies to march” to tear down financial safety regulations in all 156 nations party to the World Trade Organization.

“As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations,” the memo begins, “I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch bas- with the CEOs….”

Regarding the purpose of the “end-game,” Palast writes:

The year was 1997.  US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks.  That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks.  It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game:  “derivatives trading.”  JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as “assets.”

But their work wouldn’t end there. Prudent financial controllers who wanted to protect their wealth rather than just get rich could simply move their investments to countries with safer banking laws. That would have to be changed. So the leaders of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citibank and Chase Manhattan sought to “eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet — in one single move.”

To do this, Palast writes, they used “the Financial Services Agreement, an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organization.”

“Until the bankers began their play,” Palast continues, “the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods—that is, my cars for your bananas. The new rules ginned-up by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in ‘bads’—toxic assets like financial derivatives.”

“Until the bankers’ re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders. The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives ‘products.’ ”

“And all 156 nations in the WTO would have to smash down their own Glass-Steagall divisions between commercial savings banks and the investment banks that gamble with derivatives.”

The banks then strong-armed the member nations into abandoning their previous trade-in-goods deals by threatening to block international sales of the nations’ key exports. Every single bullied nation signed.

Why is this obscure deal made 16 years ago important? Because Summers, the man directly involved in destroying the financial protections previously held by all these countries—to the effect of “26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece [and] riots in Indonesia”—is the man President Obama wants to appoint as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

Syrian War Bombing Needs Congress OK

President Obama, 

Don't Strike Syria Without Congressional Approval

Monday, 26 August 2013 15:05By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed

Tell President Obama and Congress 

• (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The White House, isafmedia)

On Sunday, Republican Sen. Bob Corker and Rep. Eliot Engel - a Democrat who voted for the Iraq war - told Fox News that President Obama should strike Syria first and get Congressional approval afterwards.

That's not how the US Constitution says it should go. That's not how the War Powers Resolution (which, despite the name "resolution," is binding US law) says it should go. The Constitution and the War Powers Resolution say that absent an attack on the United States, Congress must approve military action before it takes place. There is a common misconception about the War Powers Resolution that it allows the President to do whatever he or she wants for 60 days. This confuses one provision of the War Powers Resolution with the whole. In section 2c, the War Powers Resolution affirms that:

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

There's another common misconception that because presidents have claimed that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional, it can be ignored. First, the president doesn't get to declare things unconstitutional on his or her own say-so - the president is entitled to his or her opinion, but that's all it is, an opinion. Second, while the constitutionality of some provisions of the War Powers Resolution has been disputed, the constitutionality of section 2c has never been in serious dispute. If other parts of the War Powers Resolution were to fall to a constitutional challenge - which they haven't - section 2c would still be good law.

According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria's sectarian civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Obama should intervene. Even if Assad's forces used chemical weapons to attack civilians - at this point, an allegation which has not been proved and an allegation that has a track record of being made without being borne out - only 25 percent of Americans would support US intervention, while 46 percent would oppose it.

On July 24, the House approved an amendment by voice vote that would prohibit funding of any military action that violates the War Powers Resolution.

If President Obama can get us into war in Syria without prior Congressional approval, it will set a terrible precedent: A future president could get us more easily into War in Iran without prior Congressional approval.

Tell President Obama and Congress: There must be no US military action in Syria without Congressional debate and authorization.

Congress is out of session right now. But there is no emergency that requires immediate, unconstitutional, illegal action. If there were an emergency that required immediate action, Congress could be called back into session. If there's no emergency that requires immediate action, then action can wait until Congress reconvenes.

Syria's sectarian civil war has been going on for years. If President Obama wanted to intervene militarily, he's had ample opportunities to put the proposition to Congressional debate and vote.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that when President Obama intervened militarily in Libya - also without Congressional authorization - Congress was out of session.

There is no provision in the Constitution or the War Powers Resolution for a "recess war." If the precedent is set that the President can do whatever he or she wants so long as Congress is out of session, the War powers provisions of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution will be substantially undermined. And the prospect of War with Iran will get much closer, because a key speed bump on the road to war will be removed.

If Congress doesn't count, then the American people don't count. It's no accident that the permanent war party wants the president to go around Congress when the majority of Americans are strongly opposed to a new war. If Congress and the American people can be evaded in this case, it's a body blow to the principle that US foreign policy should be subordinate to democracy and the rule of law.

It should not go unnoted that a US military strike on Syria under present circumstances would be a grave breach of the UN Charter, because Syria has not attacked the United States, and the UN Security Council has not approved military action in Syria.

Of course, there is a widespread belief in Washington and the country at large that the UN Charter and international law generally don't apply to the United States: "That's not for us to follow, that's for the little people to follow."

But even if this is your view - that the UN Charter doesn't apply to the United States - note that it is generally accepted in Washington that the fact that the United States would be in breach of the UN Charter if it strikes Syria without being attacked and without Security Council authorization has significant implications for whether US military action is legal under the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution.

In past cases where an Administration has deployed force without Congressional authorization, and which supporters of military action without Congressional authorization cite as precedents - Kosovo and Libya - the Administration cited international action as justification: NATO action in the former case, UN action in the latter case.

Now, in fact, there's nothing in the Constitution or US law that says that the administration can act without Congressional approval because there's a UN resolution or a NATO agreement. But because Administrations have argued in the past that a UN resolution or NATO action can help justify US military action in the absence of Congressional authorization, it matters that there is no UN resolution and no NATO action:  The Administration's legal case for unilateral action is even weaker than in the Kosovo case or the Libya case.

Unfortunately, the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution are not self-enforcing when it comes to protecting Congressional War powers, democracy and the rule of law. The enforcement is political. The Constitution and the War Powers Resolution are enforced when members of Congress insist that they be enforced, and members of Congress insist that the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution be enforced when they hear from the public that they want the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution to be enforced.

That's why it's important for the public to speak up. Tell President Obama and Congress to comply with the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution: no military intervention in Syria without prior Congressional approval.

Google, Yahoo, others Made Millions from NSA

Wasatch Range in Bluffdale, Utah. (photo: Jesse Lenz) Mom's Recipes?

Edward Snowden Files: 

NSA Paid Millions to Cover Prism 

Compliance Costs for Tech Companies

By Ewen MacAskill, Guardian UK

23 August 13

Top-secret files show first evidence of financial relationship 

Prism companies include Google and Yahoo, says NSA

• Costs were incurred after 2011 FISA Court ruling

he National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a Court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unConstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian.

The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court.

The October 2011 judgment, which was declassified on Wednesday by the Obama administration

While the ruling did not concern the Prism program directly, documents passed to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden describe the problems the decision created for the agency and the efforts required to bring operations into compliance. The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA.

The intelligence agency requires the FISA Court to sign annual "certifications" that provide the legal framework for surveillance operations. But in the wake of the court judgment these were only being renewed on a temporary basis while the agency worked on a solution to the processes that had been ruled illegal.

An NSA newsletter entry, marked top secret and dated December 2012, discloses the huge costs this entailed. "Last year's problems resulted in multiple extensions to the certifications' expiration dates which cost millions of dollars for Prism providers to implement each successive extension - costs covered by Special Source Operations," it says.

 

An NSA newsletter entry dated December 2012 disclosing the costs of new certification demands. Photograph: guardian.co.uk

Special Source Operations, described by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the NSA, handles all surveillance programs, such as Prism, that rely on "corporate partnerships" with telecoms and internet providers to access communications data.

The disclosure that Taxpayers' money was used to cover the companies' compliance costs raises new questions over the relationship between Silicon Valley and the NSA. Since the existence of the program was first revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post on June 6, the companies have repeatedly denied all knowledge of it and insisted they only hand over user data in response to specific legal requests from the authorities.

An earlier newsletter, which is undated, states that the Prism providers were all given new certifications within days of the FISA court ruling. "All Prism providers, except Yahoo and Google, were successfully transitioned to the new certifications. We expect Yahoo and Google to complete transitioning by Friday 6 October."

An earlier undated newsletter after the Fisa court ruling on certifications. Photograph: guardian.co.uk

The Guardian invited the companies to respond to the new material and asked each one specific questions about the scale of the costs they incurred, the form of the reimbursement and whether they had received any other payments from the NSA in relation to the Prism program.

A Yahoo spokesperson said: "Federal law requires the US Government to reimburse providers for costs incurred to respond to compulsory legal process imposed by the Government. We have requested reimbursement consistent with this law."

Asked about the reimbursement of costs relating to compliance with FISA court certifications, Facebook responded by saying it had "never received any compensation in connection with responding to a government data request".

Google did not answer any of the specific questions put to it, and provided only a general statement denying it had joined Prism or any other surveillance program. It added: "We await the US government's response to our petition to publish more national security request data, which will show that our compliance with American national security laws falls far short of the wild claims still being made in the press today."

Microsoft declined to give a response on the record.

The responses further expose the gap between how the NSA describes the operation of its Prism collection program and what the companies themselves say.

Prism operates under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which authorises the NSA to target without a warrant the communications of foreign nationals believed to be not on US soil.

But Snowden's revelations have shown that US emails and calls are collected in large quantities in the course of these 702 operations, either deliberately because the individual has been in contact with a foreign intelligence target or inadvertently because the NSA is unable to separate out purely domestic communications.

Last week, the Washington Post revealed documents from Snowden that showed the NSA breached privacy rules thousands of times a year, in the face of repeated assurances from Barack Obama and other senior intelligence figures that there was no evidence of unauthorised surveillance of Americans.

The newly declassified court ruling, by then chief FISA Chief Judge John Bates, also revealed serious issues with how the NSA handled the US communications it was sweeping up under its foreign intelligence authorisations.

The judgment revealed that the NSA was collecting up to 56,000 wholly US internet communications per year in the three years until the court intervened. Bates also rebuked the agency for misrepresenting the true scope of a major collection program for the third time in three years.

The NSA newsletters say the agency's response to the ruling was to work on a "conservative solution in which higher-risk collection would be sequestered". At the same time, one entry states, the NSA's General Counsel was considering filing an appeal.

The Guardian informed the White House, the NSA and the office of the director of national intelligence that it planned to publish the documents and asked whether the spy agency routinely covered all the costs of the Prism providers and what the annual cost was to the US.

The NSA declined to comment beyond requesting the redaction of the name of an individual staffer in one of the documents.