Peter Van Buren on Edward Snowden

We Meant Well on Edward Snowden:

The Washington Post published “Five ways to stop the NSA from spying on you,” a set of how-to tips for the average public to use Tor, remove the battery from your smart phone to prevent tracking and some software for private phone calls. It is not comprehensive, but it would serve as a guide to learning more.

Leaving aside the question of whether any of these methods work, has it come to this? A major newspaper publishing tips on how you can make it harder for your own government to spy on you?

The Fourth Amendment clearly states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Read it again: no exceptions, no free pass for terrorism, no provision for secret courts.

Read it again: No allowances for blanket vacuuming up of all internet media for all persons. The Fourth unambiguously requires that a warrant be issued that includes the name of the person and things to be seized.

The National Security Agency acknowledged that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls. Meanwhile, a constitutional law professor who is not Barack Obama schools you on why the NSA surveillance is unconstitutional. As Snowden left for Russia, the U.S. had the nerve to lecture Hong Kong about following the rule of law.

Here’s what happened one time ago when the government went looking into someone with nothing to hide.

We have fallen and can’t get up.

Barry Rubin on Insane American Foreign Policy

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2013/06/new-moderates-syrian-rebels-iranian.html?m=1

Eliyho Matz on the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Peter Bergson's 1943 Washington Campaign

MERED GHETTO WASHINGTON 1943

(THE REVOLT IN WASHINGTON 1943)

                                                                        Great Barrington, MA

                                                                        April 2013

                        In every serious philosophical question uncertainty extends to

                        the very roots of the problem.

                        We must always be prepared to learn something totally new.

                                                                                                Ludwig Wittgenstein

                                                                                                Remarks on Color

            My mother, Zahava, just passed away in Israel.  She was 100-years-old.  Even though her last fifteen years were rough and miserable as a result of illness, she had at least fifty good years in Israel; fifty years of trying to become an Israeli.  She did not exactly become one, but I, her son Eliyho, did become one, although I now live in America.  During WWII, she and my dad, Moshe, managed to run away from their home in Eastern Europe to the far east of the Soviet Union.  There, she worked in a military hospital, while my dad joined the Russian military where he eventually became the commander of a platoon of sharpshooters.  In 1945, his military unit was at the gates of Berlin.  Part of his Russian military march to Berlin was done by foot.  (As a result of it, his son Eliyho has flat feet!)  From Berlin, he returned to the far eastern region of Russia to reunite with Zahava.  From there, my parents made their way to Israel.  They settled in Rishonlezion, where I grew up.

            What does this story about my parents have to do with Washington, DC?  Now, I have to explain.  Ever since my childhood, I used to get into trouble, and my mother, Zahava, often had to protect me from getting into all sorts of dangerous situations.  Both my parents had to deal with this restless, difficult child.  At the age of sixteen I finally left home and went to a kibbutz in the far north of Israel, and I returned home only after completing my crazy military service a few years later.  Next, I went to work for a year in the Sinai Desert, where I almost got killed near the Suez Canal.  The only reflection I have of this experience at the Suez Canal is summed up in a story I heard from Abram Sorramello, the Israeli horse-and-buggy owner who became a famous folklorist:

            Two Egyptian soldiers were caught by their commander spying for

            Israel.  The Egyptian commander instructed his sergeant to hang them

            on a eucalyptus tree hanging over the Suez Canal.  The sergeant, who

            had just eaten lunch with them and was their friend, loosened the rope.

             As a result, when he hanged the first soldier the rope slipped, allowing

             the soldier to fall into the water and swim to freedom on the Israeli

            side.  When the second soldier saw what happened, he begged the

             sergeant not to do the same thing to him, because he did not know

            how to swim!

I happened to meet the first soldier….

            Finally, in October 1972, I entered the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  My stay at the University was short-lived; before the end of 1973 I rejoined my military unit to participate in the Yom Kippur War.  Our mission was to observe the Israeli activities on the Suez Canal.  When I finally returned to the University in April, 1974, I had by then lost interest in continuing my studies in Jerusalem.  So I left for America.  Once established, I met Hillel Kook – that was where my real troubles began, and actually never ended, and I am only sixty-five years old by now!

            Most Israelis do not know, or simply have forgotten, many issues relating to the creation of the Israeli nation.  This story is evolving, and will be developing in the years to come.  In the meantime, I will try to explain, as best as I know or remember, some of the more complex aspects of the history of the birth of Israel.   

            We have all heard about the Holocaust and the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis during WWII.  This topic engulfs Israeli society today, and its repercussions inflict enormous damage on the Israeli people.  The fact is, during the Holocaust years, the Palestinian Jewish leadership, though concerned about Jewish lives, did very to save or help the victims.  I hope this does not surprise anybody, or confuse the subject matter.  Ben Gurion, who, contrary to what most people think, was probably among the worst Jewish leaders in modern times, along with his confidants, almost ignored the plight of European Jews.  However, after the Holocaust, he and the Israeli leadership jumped on the Holocaust wagon and started all kinds of memorials and other theatrical exercises to memorialize the Holocaust and its “Heroism.”  As part of this effort, state institutions created educational tools, and thus the whole Israeli nation became involved in the memory business, or rather what one might call the “Holocaust business.”  Israeli ideas on this subject have penetrated into every nation in the world and every television station, and supposedly the world now knows more than it needs to know about the Holocaust event.  But the Israeli perspective and interpretation of the Holocaust are misleading, and historically inaccurate.  Perhaps the reader has already grasped Eliyho Matz’s conflicts and problems resulting from the above interpretation.

            Well, as an Israeli kid, I accepted the official Israeli explanation of the Holocaust, but I did meditate on these events since I was a child, a child of parents who lost most of their family in that event.  But then, I came to America in 1974, and I soon encountered Hillel Kook, better known in the US as Peter Bergson.  I will never forget my first meeting with him in Manhattan.  This individual was so angry with me, he actually came very close to asking me to leave his office.  His anger came from his deep frustration; he said that basically all he ever met were ignorant Israelis, and he figured I was just another one of them.  Perhaps at the time I was.  It took him awhile to cool off from his anger.  When I offered him some documents he had never seen before on American Jewish leadership and the Holocaust that I had found in my research, he finally realized that I had done some research and was attempting to understand the subject matter.  I had given him some new hope that finally someone was making an honest attempt to tackle the subject matter.  Kook was mentally worn down by his frustrations.  I stayed on working with him for at least ten years.  During those years, I tried to understand the reaction of Jewish leadership to the Holocaust.  It was not a pleasant story.  The Israelis have diverted the focus of Holocaust understanding by teaching the heroic events of the Warsaw Ghetto: that is, focusing on the heroism of a few of the victims -- most of this story is a historical fraud, and sadly a story that cannot teach anything about Jewish survival.  But this is the Israeli story.

            As opposed to the Israeli story, my story is an attempt to explain what happened to Hillel Kook during the year 1943 in Washington, DC.  It is not such a pleasant story to hear, and not one without complexity.  But again I am not heeding the warnings of my mom that often replay in my head, my mom who died a few weeks ago and who had always warned me and tried to protect me from unseen danger.  Rather, I am telling the facts as I can best reconstruct them, for the benefit of future generations.

            Hillel Kook, a.k.a. Peter Bergson, came from Europe in 1940 via Warsaw, via Jerusalem, to New York.  In his early twenties, he was already a senior commander in the Palestinian Jewish underground and one of the leading individuals in the Irgun Zvai Leumi.  His arrival in American created a storm among some of his friends and supporters of the Irgun in America.  He arrived poor, not connected, and unable to speak English well.  While in America he overcame those three obstacles.  How he did so is worth a movie or two.  The focus of my story will be his activities between November, 1942, when he first heard in Washington, DC, the official announcement confirming the news of the extermination of European Jews, and his raising of the Israeli flag in Washington in early 1944 (four years before the establishment of an Israeli nation).   

By November 1942, Hillel Kook was very familiar with many of the Representatives and Senators in the US Congress, as well as with many officials in the State Department, the War Department and the Interior Department, and scores of other government officials working in Washington.  The news of the Holocaust arrived in Washington in the middle of July, 1942, and was confirmed by the US government in November 1942.  The period between November, 1942, and May, 1944, represented Hillel Kook’s finest hours.  One must recognize that he was the leader who responded to the Nazi atrocities in the US capital.  His activities began in New York City, where, with the help of playwright Ben Hecht, he managed to organize a pageant called, “We Will Never Die,” which was performed later in other cities around America.  The purpose of this pageant was to bring to the public eye the Nazi plan to exterminate European Jews.  Later on, in July, 1943, he organized a conference in New York City that was attended by many important Americans and dealt with options of how to save European Jews.  By mid-1943, it became clear to Kook that in order to save European Jews, he needed the support of the American government, so his next move was to try to convince Congress.  Congressman Will Rogers, Jr., a Democrat from California, along with several other Congressman and Senators, became interested in backing a resolution that would call for the US Government to enter into the business of rescue.  As part of this effort,  Will Rogers, Jr., a descendant of Cherokee Indians, flew to London in late 1943 to explore possibilities with the British on how to save Jews.  But he came back disappointed.  It was clear to Kook from early November 1942, that unless the US government became actively involved in saving Jews, there would be little chance for any rescue.  Backed by allies in Congress as well as friends in the Treasury, State and War Departments, Kook worked ceaselessly to place pressure on the FDR Administration to act on behalf of European Jews.  In retrospective analysis of his activities, one must recognize Kook’s enormous energy and determination to do the right thing to save Jews.  With great difficulties Kook convinced Orthodox Jewish rabbis to come and protest in Washington on the eve of Yom Kippur in 1943.  In that case, he had to invoke his uncle’s name (Rabbi A. Kook) and put all sorts of pressure on those Orthodox rabbis.  Today, Orthodox Jewish leaders praise that event, but as Hillel told me, it was one heck of an effort to convince them.   

Despite enormous efforts, FDR was not yet convinced.  At the time of the War, his closest advisors were American Jews.  The Zionists in America were receiving their cues from Ben Gurion: not only were they not taking much action themselves toward rescue, but they were also creating Congressional obstacles behind Kook’s efforts to exact pressure for government action to save Jews.  Sol Bloom, a Zionist Jewish Congressman from NY, along with distinguished Reform Rabbi Stephan Wise, both pressured to kill the resolution in Congress.  I hope that, with the distance of seventy years, American Jews take note of this today.   

As a member of the Jewish Palestinian underground, Kook also had to deal with a number of issues happening in Palestine.  Towards the middle of 1943, he sent Irgun member Arie Ben Eliezer to Palestine to reorganize the collapsing Irgun.  During this year of terrible tragedy for European Jews, Kook also thought about the future of a Hebrew Republic in Palestine, later called the Israeli nation, and today being attempted to be called the Jewish nation.  Kook purchased a building in Washington, and in May, 1944, he boldly raised the flag of the future Israeli nation on the front porch.  One would think that smart Israelis, or sophisticated American Jews, would pay attention to their past history and might reach some constructive conclusion surrounding these past events.  Regrettably, that has not yet been the case.  Monuments of Hillel Kook are no where to be found; his name does not appear in the history books; his activities are unknown to the majority of Israelis and American Jews.

            My mom, who raised me, always warned me against getting into trouble.  I guess I did not listen to her.  I have not been able to stop telling this story of the revolt in Washington.  Mom, I hope you forgive me.

Don't Find Snowden Guilty Before Trial...

I really must comment on the unholy number of pundits and politicians calling Edward Snowden a "traitor" before he has had his chance for a day in court.
The only honest answer is: It is too soon to tell.
The American people need to know what is going on before we can decide who to blame. Perhaps President Obama is at fault, and Snowden a hero of civil disobedience?
In my opinion, it is manifestly un-American to prejudge such a case before the defendant has had his day in court.
From what we know so far, Snowden was not motivated by a desire to help enemies of the United States, rather to call the attention of the American public to what he believed was unconstitutional (and therefore illegal, even if sanctioned by law) behavior by the NSA in violation of at least the First and Fourth Amendments in the Bill of Rights. He may have been naive, he may have been misguided, he may have broken his signed pledge of employment--or he may have been right. But nothing presented so far in any way suggests he is guilty of espionage--especially since his target audience was the American People.
The public right to know is a bedrock of democracy.
Without it, a representative democracy such as ours cannot function. Checks and balances become meaningless. Which is why the press had been seen as a "Fourth Estate" designed to keep the other three branches in check and balanced when they overreached.
To see Dick Cheney poke his cowardly head out from his undisclosed location--after he presided over 9/11, the worst attack on the US since Pearl Harbor, and then failed to defeat either Bin Laden or Al Qaeda despite eight years of warfare and trillions of dollars spent on his cronies (including appointing his daughter as head of US Public Relations in the State Department, at a time when the job required a professional with unimpeachable credibility)--is beyond irony. (BTW, Cheney also lost the Vietnam War.)
If anyone should be tried for treason, it might be Bush, Cheney, and the entire GOP establishment who literally let Al Qaeda get away with murder--and smeared the name of American democracy around the world by institutionalizing torture and concentration camps to no measurable effect. Every time I'm patted down or scanned at an airport, I think: "This is another small victory for Al Qaeda." Of course, Booz Allen has made a lot of money for its partners (and lost the Global War on Terror in the meantime). But I guess Booz is too big to fail...as is Dick Cheney--and Barack Obama.
Unfortunately, instead of changing course, the Obama administration transformed the Bush Doctrine of Islamist appeasement into an Obama Doctrine of Islamist collaboration.
Rather than Osama Bin Laden as capo di tutti cappi for worldwide Islamist fundamentalism, Obama seemed to take pride in that role, bumping off his minor rival...then giving a green light to Islamist takeovers across the Arab world. How anyone with a conscience could justify this policy in the name of human rights or democracy has been difficult to understand, but perhaps no one in the Obama administration has a conscience.
At this point, Vladimir Putin looks more humane than any American leader. A sad commentary.
Luckily, Edward Snowden does seem to have a conscience. Perhaps because he did not graduate from college and so was spared the Kool-aid of moral relativism and sophistry that has come to be called "higher education" in the United States since the arrival of Political Correctness. Snowden says he acted out of conscience, let us test that sentiment.
Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he was right, but he deserves at the very least the decency of a trial and a defense before sentence is pronounced.
The rabid foaming of the mouth of the mad-dog Republican leadership of Boehner, McConnell and Cheney serves only to provide political cover for a corrupt and suspect administration that should be thoroughly investigated. Like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden could bring down an administration through his courageous actions to call public attention to the historical record. If the GOP were a normal party, it would bring down the Obama administration over NSA spying on ordinary Americans and its support for Islamist terrorists--in Boston, in Syria, in Libya, in Chechnya and around the world.
Ironically, American dissidents like Snowden are now fleeing to China for freedom of speech, so degraded have our media, courts, and politics become by Bush and Obama administration policies.
Given the pathetic reaction in America to Snowden's stand, at this point, it seems that unless Rand Paul somehow becomes President in 2016, the USA may no longer remain either the land of the free, nor the home of the brave.

Peter Van Buren on US State Department Sleaze

We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren

The reasons to care about this are many, and all the Hillary-love and attempts to just call it (just) a Republican witch hunt are a smokescreen. The obvious reason to care is that these people represent America abroad, and we need to ask what image they are projecting. In addition, such crimes and personal traits as alleged below make them vulnerable to blackmail, either by other members of the USG (promote me, give me a better assignment, or else…) or foreign intelligence (turn over the secrets or the photos go to the press). The fact that the organization apparently cannot police itself internally raises questions about competence (and the former SecState saying she was wholly ignorant of all this sludge is not a defense that actually makes her look presidential), and about what if anything it is accomplishing on America’s behalf. Here’s a roundup to date: – As a special shout-out to We Meant Well regulars, USA Today claims it has a memo detailing how Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, allegedly interceded in an investigation by Diplomatic Security into an affair between failed-Iraq ambassador-designate Brett McGurk and Wall Street Journal reporter Gina Chon. – Cheryl Mills again: Mills, a longtime confidante of Hillary, reportedly played a key role in the State Department’s damage-control efforts on the Benghazi attack last year and was also named in accusations that department higher-ups quashed investigations into diplomats’ potential criminal activity. Cheryl Mills, who served in a dual capacity in recent years as general counsel and chief of staff to Clinton, was accused of attempting to stifle congressional access to a diplomat who held a senior post in Libya at the time of the attack. – U.S. ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman accused of soliciting “sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.” The ambassador “routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” according to documents obtained by NBC News. State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy ordered an end to the investigation. “The ambassador’s protective detail and the embassy’s surveillance detection team [Note: A State Department team that conducts counterespionage surveillance, watching State Department officials to see if they are being watched by foreign spies] . . . were well aware of the behavior.” The ambassador explained that sometimes he fights with his wife, needs air and he goes for a walk in the park because he likes it. The Atlantic reported that the park Gutman trolled, Parc Royal Warandepark, was well-known as a place to pick up adult homosexual and adolescent boy prostitutes. A Belgian newspaper described the park: “I see young children go to adult waiting. Later, another adult waits, often to extort money from the victim after. I’ve been awakened by cries and my terrace, I saw someone being beaten. I had my legs were shaking. Time to call the police, I saw the victim painfully get up and go.” – A State Department security official in Beirut “engaged in sexual assaults” with foreign nationals hired as embassy guards. State’s former regional security officer in Beirut, Chuck Lisenbee, allegedly sexually assaulted guards and was accused of similar assaults in Baghdad, Khartoum and Monrovia. Justine Sincavage, then-director of Diplomatic Security Service, called the allegations a “witch hunt” and gave agents “only three days” to investigate, and no charges were brought, according to USA Today. – Members of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security detail “engaged prostitutes while on official trips in foreign countries,” a problem the report says was “endemic.” Three members of Clinton’s security detail admitted to hiring prostitutes while on foreign trips and were given suspensions of one day. An investigator for Diplomatic Security launched an investigation into similar allegations against four other members of Clinton’s security detail but was ordered by Kimber Davidson, chief of the special investigations division, and Rob Kelty, his deputy, to shut down the investigation. – The State Department has hired an “alarming number of law-enforcement agents with criminal or checkered backgrounds” because of a flawed hiring process, a stunning memo obtained by The New York Post reveals. “Too many people entering the [Diplomatic Security and Information Management] communities end up as subjects of [Special Investigation Division] investigations and HR adjudications, become Giglio-impaired and can play only limited roles thereafter,” according to the memo. “Giglio” refers to a US Supreme Court case dealing with jury notification that witnesses have made deals with the government to induce testimony. Some Diplomatic Security field offices “have major problems just waiting to be discovered,” the memo adds. – In one case, aggressive interrogation techniques by Diplomatic Service agents “drove an employee to attempt suicide” when accused of raping his maid in Bangkok, Thailand, a memo suggests. “After “being told he would end up in a Thai prison, his wife would lose her job and his children would be pulled out of school, [the man] attempted suicide by jumping out of the 16th-story window at a hotel in Bangkok.” The guy lived, and was flown back to Washington for in-patient psychiatric care, where the agents continued to harass him. The rape charges were ultimately dropped. – The same Diplomatic Security memo cites eight cases involving Diplomatic Security agents who resorted to “false, misleading or incomplete statements in reports,” “privacy-act violations” or “lack of objectivity” in investigations. – Diplomatic security agents learned that James Combs, a senior diplomatic security agent in Baghdad and formerly of the DS Office of Professional Standards, was having an extramarital affair with a subordinate and had numerous affairs with men over a 30-year span without the knowledge of his wife. This presented “counterintelligence concerns,” but the investigation never reached a conclusion. – A security contractor in Baghdad died of an overdose of methadone, which he was taking to counteract an addiction to the painkiller oxycodone. An underground drug ring may have been supplying the drugs, but State’s regional security officer did not allow a special investigations agent to pursue that possibility. – In Miami, agents investigating a car accident by diplomatic security agent Evelyn Kittinger learned that she had been claiming full pay for several years “but had actually only worked very few hours.” State Department supervisors told the investigator to advise her to resign to avoid facing criminal charges and a major fine. – Another report states that a top State Department official stymied investigators trying to get to the bottom of four killings in Honduras involving DEA agents and local police. The incident ended in the deaths of two pregnant women and two men last year, after Honduran national police opened fire from a State Department-owned helicopter on a small boat. Honduran police said drugs were involved, but locals said the boat was full of fishermen. - See more at: http://wemeantwell.com/#sthash.wQYXZzhC.dpuf

Dana Rohbacher's Letter To The Editor...

http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/engaging-russia-the-enemy-of-our-enemy/2013/06/11/4b219fd2-d1fc-11e2-9577-df9f1c3348f5_story.html

One can only assume based on the June 4 editorial “Our ‘friends’ in Moscow?,” that The Post’s editorial board doesn’t believe radical Islam is at our throats or at the throats of the Russian people. History suggests, and the future will confirm, that The Post is wrong.

Radical Islamic terrorists continue to commit acts of mayhem and murder against the people of the Western world, including the people of Russia. But The Post nonetheless portrayed my call for closer cooperation with Russia as accepting Russia’s human rights abuses. That is not the case. I suggest that magnifying Russian government transgressions distorts the greater picture of what is happening in that part of the world.

In contrast to my modest desire not to demonize and isolate Russian leaders, U.S. leaders wine and dine the tyrannical Chinese Communist Party bosses and pay homage to terrorist-supporting elites in countries like Saudi Arabia.

I’ll let the American people, who have been victimized at the hands of radical Islamists, decide whether it is naive of me not to hammer the enemy of my enemy. This doesn’t excuse human rights abuses in Russia, but rather recognizes the need for a working alliance if tragedies like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the attack at the Boston Marathon are to be prevented.

Dana Rohrabacher, Washington

The writer, a Republican, represents California’s 46th District in the House.

Mark Steyn on the NSA Scandal

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/350695/blizzard-snowdens-mark-steyn

John Yoo writes below about prosecuting NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and observes en passant: If he is a spy — it is amazing that someone with such little education and background was given such extensive security clearance — he may well continue running abroad. John knows government from the inside as well as anyone, so I don’t know why it would be “amazing” at all. Over 4 million people hold US security clearances: That’s the equivalent of giving security clearances to the entire population of New Zealand. According to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, a total of 642,831 people were approved for Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret clearances in FY 2010 alone (scroll down to page five). You know the way the bureaucracy works, John: How seriously do you think those two-thirds-of-a-million people were looked at? The report seems to suggest a turnover of about 600,000 in a typical year, which means that the actual number of Americans with some kind of security clearance from the last half-decade alone could be closer to seven million. Even more amazing are the words immediately preceding that: The number of clearances approved could not be obtained for FY 2009 . . . So the same government that presumes the right to know my phone calls, my emails and my MasterCard purchases doesn’t know how many security clearances it issued in a given year. The rationale given by defenders of this system over the last few days — oh, relax; there are over 300 million of us; the government doesn’t have time to comb through all the stuff it’s got on you — would seem to apply here: When 4 million people have security clearances, and another 1,800 people are getting new security clearances every day, the government doesn’t even have time to comb through them before it lets them comb through you. Over at Powerline, Scott Johnson writes of Mr Snowden: Read the Guardian profile and the Post articles and you will see that Snowden professes no loyalty to the United States. He conceives of himself as a citizen of the world, or of the realm of Digitalia. He does not sound like anyone to be trusted with an assessment on our behalf the costs and benefits of the course of action he has undertaken. Just so. One reason for the citizenry not to entrust its personal information to the government is that the big, bloated, blundering government is stupid enough to entrust it to Edward Snowden, as it was previously stupid enough to entrust it to Bradley Manning (the Wikileaks leaker). It’s only a matter of time before the halfwit leviathan entrusts it to a Major Hasan or a Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Robert Spencer on the NSA Scandal

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/06/the-surveillance-scandal-is-a-direct-result-of-our-national-denial-about-jihad.html

The surveillance scandal is a direct result of our national denial about jihad This surveillance scandal arises out of our national bipartisan unwillingness to face the reality of Islamic jihad. Because we all agree that Islam is a religion of peace, we can't possibly address where the threat is really coming from, and monitor mosques or subject Muslims with Islamic supremacist ties to greater surveillance. Instead, we have to pretend that anyone and everyone is a potential terrorist, and surveil everyone. Our freedoms and privacy are now at risk because of our refusal to admit the truth about Islam. People who leak classified information need to be punished, but Snowden is more of a whistleblower, akin to a Soviet dissident working against an all-encompassing government. It is good that it came out that they're watching our every move, reading all our emails, etc. It needed to come out because it needs to stop if we are going to have any chance of surviving as a free people and not becoming a totalitarian state in which every slave of the authoritarian rulers is under constant surveillance. "White House disputes comparisons to Bush amid leak scandal," by Dave Boyer for The Washington Times, June 10: Embarrassed by national-security leaks of historic proportions, the White House rebutted accusations Monday by the disillusioned former government contractor who leaked the surveillance secrets that President Obama is no different than President George W. Bush in his anti-terrorism tactics. Obviously Obama is far worse, but actually the two are on a continuum. As a debate raged over whether the leaker, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, is a hero or a criminal, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said there was no reason for Mr. Snowden to have been disappointed in Mr. Obama. “The president’s record on making the kinds of changes that he promised he would make to the ways that we pursue our fight against al Qaeda and our fight against terrorists and extremists, he has lived up to,” Mr. Carney said.... How? By pretending that everyone in the country is a member of al-Qaeda?

Peter van Buren on NSA Scandal

http://wemeantwell.com/blog/

I’m not doing anything wrong, so why should I care? If you’re doing nothing wrong, then you’ve got nothing to hide! See above. The definition of “wrong” can change very quickly. I trust Obama on this. All of your personal data is in the hands of the same people that run the TSA, the IRS and likely the DMV. Do you trust all of them all the time to never make mistakes or act on personal grudges or political biases? Do you believe none of them would ever sell your data for personal profit ever? In fact, the NSA is already sharing your data with, at minimum, British intelligence. That’s a foreign government that your American government is informing on you to, FYI. Also, the alleged leaker, Edward Snowden, worked for a private contracting company and had access to your data. I really trust Obama on this. OK, let’s stipulate that Obama will never do anything bad with the data. But once collected, your personal data exists forever, and is available to whomever in the future can access it, using whatever technologies come to exist. Trusting anyone with such power is foolish.

Barry Rubin on the NSA Scandal

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2013/06/by-barry-rubin-what-is-most-important.html

Vast amounts of money and resources, though, are being spent in preparing for an exact replay of September 11. And remember that the number of terrorists caught by the TSA hovers around the zero level. The shoe, underpants, and Times Square bombers weren’t even caught by security at all and many other such cases can be listed. In addition to this, the U.S.-Mexico border is practically open. The ultimate problem is that the number of terrorists is very low and the fact is that for anyone who isn’t insane their characteristics are pretty clear, that is they are about 99 percent revolutionary and violent Islamists. Obama has now admitted three very important things. First, the war on terrorism has not been won. Second, the war on al-Qaida has not really been won, since its continued campaigning is undeniable and it has even grown in Syria, partly thanks to U.S. policy. Third, the biggest threat on the American homeland is autonomous terrorists who have been inspired by al-Qaida but are not technically part of the nomination. (That allows Obama to claim to be winning the war on al-Qaida). What he has not yet admitted is that the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist groups or sponsors are controlling Egypt, Tunisia, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Turkey, Sudan, Syria, and Iran, while terrorists run free in the Palestinian Authority, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, is not conducive to the protection of America against terrorism. The fact that his policy promotes some of these problems makes things even worse.    Yet the new, expensive, expansive, and time-consuming technological methods are relatively ineffective against the current priorities of anti-American terrorist groups. Incidentally, Obama policy has been disastrous against a four factor, radical Islamists—though not al-Qaida taking over places. Compared to the time Obama came to office, the Islamists who support violence against America now rule Egypt, Tunisia, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and perhaps soon Syria. Offenses have been stepped up in Somalia, Yemen; are being maintained in Iraq; and of course still rule over Syria and Iran. In Turkey, an Islamist terror-supporting regime has been embraced by Obama. This represents a massive retreat even if it is a largely unnoticed one. So the problem of growing government spying is three-fold. --First, it is against the American system and reduces liberty. --Second, it is a misapplication of resources, in other words money is being spent and liberty sacrificed for no real gain. --Third, since government decisionmaking and policy about international terrorism is very bad the threat is increasing. If you don’t get value for money or enhanced security while freedom is being reduced and the enemy is getting stronger it certainly isn’t a bargain.

RubinReports on Obama's Middle East

RubinReports

In the Middle East, to paraphrase President Barack Obama's mentor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the dodo birds are coming home to roost. At this moment, the administration's policy team consists of CIA director John Brennan, father of the ""moderate" Islamism-and-the-Muslim Brotherhood-are-good school; the Secretary of State John Kerry who thinks he is going to make Israel-Palestinian peace in one month;  the know-nothing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel; the chilling ideologue Samantha Powers as UN ambassador; and the dupe of the Benghazi scandal Susan Rice rewarded by being made national security adviser. Can things get any  more Alice in Wonderland? But what's really happening in the region?

US Government Reportedly Protected Terror Groups

http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/06/the-u-s-governments-disastrous-muslim-outreach-efforts-and-the-impact-on-u-s-middle-east-policy-blind-to-terror1/

Patrick S. Poole writes: "Why has the U.S. government called certain Islamic groups supporters of terror in federal court, and then turned around and called these same organizations “moderates” and embraced them as outreach partners? In a number of cases from the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, the leaders of these organizations (some of whom are now in federal prison) were under active investigation at the same time they were meeting with senior U.S. leaders at the White House and the Capitol and helping develop U.S. policy. Now these same Islamic organizations and leaders have openly encouraged a purge of counterterrorism training that have effectively blinded law enforcement, homeland security, and intelligence agencies to active terror threats as seen in the inaction of the FBI concerning the Boston bombing suspects and other terror cases. This study poses serious questions as to the efficacy and even security concerns about U.S. government outreach to Islamic groups, which often turn out to be Islamist militants, enemies of Islamic moderation, and even supporters of terrorism."

Heck of a Job, Freedom House...

This is what you get when you turn US foreign policy over to NGOs...

(Reuters) - An Egyptian court convicted 43 Americans, Europeans, Egyptians and other Arabs on Tuesday in a case against democracy promotion groups that plunged U.S.-Egyptian ties into their worst crisis in decades. Judge Makram Awad gave five-year sentences to 27 defendants tried in absentia including 15 U.S. citizens. Another American who stayed for trial was given a two-year sentence but left Egypt on Tuesday on the advice of his lawyers.

It was entirely predictable: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003043870700004X.

Chilean President Piñera Goes To Washington

I had a chance to see Pres. Sebastian Piñera speak at CSIS yesterday before his meeting with Pres. Obama. He gave a good talk about Chilean economic development...and received deserved applause for the rescue of 33 trapped Chilean miners. When I googled him, he turned out to be the richest man in Chile, a cross between Bloomberg, Berlusconi & Richard Branson (he owned a big chunk of LAN Chile airlines as well as a TV network). He's also a descendant of two former presidents and an Incan emperor. But the most remarkable thing about him was this quote, which resonated in the context of Senate hearings on alleged sexual harassment in the US military, per Wikipedia: 

"In December 2011 during a state visit to Mexico a joke made by Piñera where he compared women with politicians caused uproar in Chile sparking even criticism from his own minister Carolina Schmidt who said of the joke that it was "hurting to many women".

"In the joke Piñera said that"when a lady says "no" it means maybe, when she says maybe it means yes and when she says yes she is not a lady."

"The Chilean Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence called the joke "misogynic" and "a shame for the whole country..."

COMMENT NO LONGER FREE at UK Guardian Newspaper

Obviously, George Orwell wasn't making up his "Ministry of Truth." Guardian "Comment is Free" editor Natalie Hanman's post is actually headlined: "COMMENT IS FREE> Woolwich attack: why we have decided to turn off comments..."

There has been some confusion from commenters as to why we have turned off the ability to comment on Comment is free articles about the Woolwich attack. In an ideal world, we would allow our readers to debate all of the articles we run on the site, but we felt it was sensible for us to restrict comments on these pieces because once people have been arrested there is a risk of contempt of court if users post prejudicial remarks about the case. Following consultation with our lawyers and community moderators, we will endeavour from now on, where resources allow, to have one premoderated thread on the topic open each day. Today's article from Boya Dee is here.

Boya Dee's Orwellian headline: "Despite witnessing the Woolwich murder, I still have faith in humanity..."

Barry Rubin on America's Mistaken Middle East Policies

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2013/05/can-us-government-buy-moderation-in.html#comment-form

Can the Obama Administration turn radicals into moderates with money? Way back in 1979, shortly after the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said that people in the West didn't understand revolutionary Islamism. "They think," he explained, "the revolution is all about the price of watermelons. It isn't." In other words, this is an ideological cause not a money-making attempt where people can be bribed.

The Diplomad on 99% of Islam

http://thediplomad.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-many-times-do-we-have-to-hear-about.html

I was--big mistake--reading CNN and BBC reporting on the Religion of Peace's activities in London and Stockholm when I saw that the benefits of Islam's Peaceful Activities also have made themselves manifest in Paris, where a French soldier has been stabbed. I love the cautious, oh so very delicate reporting by BBC on this latest demonstration of Love of Peace,
President Hollande also responded cautiously while on a visit to Ethiopia, telling reporters: "I do not think at this point that there may be a link" [with the London attack] French reports said police were hunting a bearded man of North African origin about 30 years of age. He was wearing a light-coloured robe called a djellaba. "We still don't know the exact circumstances of the attack or the identity of the attacker, but we are exploring all options."
Oh yes, that description is undoubtedly of a Mormon missionary, or perhaps a Hasidic Jew or a slightly disheveled Amish tourist?
I also adore the breathless reporting (here and here, for example) re the alarming "rise" in anti-Muslim "attacks." Note the source for the reports and take a grain of salt, a spoonful would be better, then let me know how many Muslims have been beheaded on the streets of London in the middle of day. How about zero for a number? How many Muslim immigrants in the UK are packing up, turning in their assistance cards, and moving back to Nigeria, Pakistan, Morocco, Bangladesh, etc? I'll bet that zero number remains a pretty accurate estimate for that, too.
I enjoy reading the comments from readers around the world on the BBC and CNN stories. There, and elsewhere, we see another number, a rather tired one: the "statistic" that "99% of Muslims" are not terrorists. Is that true? I don't know. From where does that number come? I don't know. Let's, however, go along with the gag. Let's assume it is accurate, and come up with our own equally valid "99%" statistics. Some samples follow; I am sure you can turn this into a drinking game--but not around Muslims because drinking offends them (unless they are Saudi diplomats in Islamabad).
Did you know that, -- 99% of the Japanese did not attack Pearl Harbor? -- 99% of the Nazis did not kill Jews or Gypsies, or invade Poland? -- 99% of the Communists did not engage in Stalin's or Mao's purges? -- 99% of the Germans killed in Dresden had never bombed England? -- 99% of the Italians did not invade Ethiopia? -- 99% of the Iranians did not occupy the US embassy in Teheran? -- 99% of the Al Qaeda membership did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon?
And so on, and on, and so what? What does that "99%" prove? Just one thing: There are consequences in the real world to belonging to organizations or following ideologies and leaders that commit atrocities. That's the way it works. If 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, and do not support terrorism (that's the big "if") where are they? Why can't they control the crazies and murderers and rioters in their midst? If they can't they will find that they might just pay the price, even if they did not pull the trigger, or drop the cyanide gas. The Germans and the Japanese discovered that during World War II.
We see Britain's foolish PM Cameron making the typical foolish Western politician statement after the murder of the young British soldier (and let's not forget he is just following in the path of nonsense about Islam blazed by our own President Bush),
"This was not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life, it was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country. There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act."
No, Mr. Prime Minister. Everything in Islam justifies this truly dreadful act and so many more. That is why the "99%" cannot condemn, isolate, or punish the murderers. That violence, that "extremism" is Islam; that is the real item. We need to deal with that hard and unpleasant fact. Islam has not gone through an enlightenment, and what "reformation" has taken place has moved it backwards, ever deeper into the thinking prevalent in the dark ages and places from whence it came.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Islamic Terror in The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323475304578503613890263762.html

I've seen this before. A Muslim terrorist slays a non-Muslim citizen in the West, and representatives of the Muslim community rush to dissociate themselves and their faith from the horror. After British soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death last week in Woolwich in south London, Julie Siddiqi, representing the Islamic Society of Britain, quickly stepped before the microphones to attest that all good Muslims were "sickened" by the attack, "just like everyone else." This happens every time. Muslim men wearing suits and ties, or women wearing stylish headscarves, are sent out to reassure the world that these attacks have no place in real Islam, that they are aberrations and corruptions of the true faith. But then what to make of Omar Bakri? He too claims to speak for the true faith, though he was unavailable for cameras in England last week because the Islamist group he founded, Al-Muhajiroun, was banned in Britain in 2010. Instead, he talked to the media from Tripoli in northern Lebanon, where he now lives. Michael Adebolajo—the accused Woolwich killer who was seen on a video at the scene of the murder, talking to the camera while displaying his bloody hands and a meat cleaver—was Bakri's student a decade ago, before his group was banned. "A quiet man, very shy, asking lots of questions about Islam," Bakri recalled last week. The teacher was impressed to see in the grisly video how far his shy disciple had come, "standing firm, courageous, brave. Not running away." Bakri also told the press: "The Prophet said an infidel and his killer will not meet in Hell. That's a beautiful saying. May God reward [Adebolajo] for his actions . . . I don't see it as a crime as far as Islam is concerned." The question requiring an answer at this moment in history is clear: Which group of leaders really speaks for Islam? The officially approved spokesmen for the "Muslim community"? Or the manic street preachers of political Islam, who indoctrinate, encourage and train the killers—and then bless their bloodshed?

RubinReports on Obama's Seven Points

RubinReports

So you want to understand Obama foreign policy? Ok, here is an explanation in clear, simple, and accurate form based on Obama's recent speech at Fort McNair about terrorism...

Peter Van Buren on Colonel Davis's Patriotism

We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People by Peter Van Buren

Morris Davis is not some dour civil servant, and for most of his career, unlikely to have been a guest at the Playboy Mansion. Prior to joining the Library of Congress, he spent more than 25 years as an Air Force colonel. He was, in fact, the chief military prosecutor at Guantánamo and showed enormous courage in October 2007 when he resigned from that position and left the Air Force. Davis stated he would not use evidence obtained through torture. When a torture advocate was named his boss, Davis quit rather than face the inevitable order to reverse his position. Morris Davis then got fired from his research job at the Library of Congress for writing an article in the Wall Street Journal about the evils of justice perverted at Guantanamo, and a similar letter to the editor of the Washington Post. (The irony of being fired for exercising free speech while employed at Thomas Jefferson’s library evidently escaped his bosses.) With the help of the ACLU, Davis demanded his job back. On January 8, 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Library of Congress on his behalf. In March 2011 a federal court ruled against the Obama Administration’s objections that the suit could go forward (You can read more about Davis’ struggle.) Justice Postponed is Justice Denied Moving “forward” is however a somewhat awkward term to use in regards to this case. In the past two years, forward has meant very little in terms of actual justice done. At about the same time in 2011 that Colonel Davis notified the government that he was going to be called as a defense witness for Bradley Manning, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss Davis’ lawsuit against the government, actually seeking to make him pay the government’s court costs, and hinted at potential criminal charges because he copied some unclassified files from his office computer. Of course three years had passed since these alleged 2010 criminal acts and DOJ’s 2013 threats, so perhaps the timing was coincidence, but Colonel Davis said in an interview with me that he believes it was an attempt to discredit him and thus negate any help he could offer Manning. Despite DOJ’s clumsy efforts, the good news is that at a hearing about a month ago a federal judge denied the government’s stalling motion and the case is moving “forward” again. However, DOJ is again seeking to stall things with multiple delaying motions that require multiple responses, and the motions alone won’t be heard by a court until August. After that comes a lengthy discovery period that will likely take the case to the four year mark. Colonel Davis hopes he’ll get to trial before the five year point. He is a strong man, navigating more successfully between the empowering anger and the consuming bitterness than most people struggling against the government of the United States can manage. Still, it is hard for him to rationalize the amount of time and effort his own government is spending to limit the free speech rights of federal employees. Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards The government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face. If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it might well be a story of how, issue by issue, the government freed itself from legal and constitutional bounds when it came to torture, the assassination of U.S. citizens, the holding of prisoners without trial or access to a court of law, the illegal surveillance of American citizens, and so on. In the process, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in. All that stands in counter to the government’s actions is the First Amendment, exactly as the Founders designed it to be. The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards were established in 1979 to honor individuals who make significant contributions to protect First Amendment rights for Americans. Since the inception of the awards, more than 100 individuals including high school students, lawyers, librarians, journalists and educators have been honored. I am very proud that two of last year’s winners, whistleblowers Tom Drake and Jesselyn Radack, are my friends, and that Radack helped defend my right to speak against the Department of State. So congratulations to Colonel Davis. He earned this award and I’ll be proud to watch him receive it from Christie Hefner on May 22. He is in good company, as Daniel Ellsberg, the Vietnam War era’s version of Bradley Manning, is also being honored. By standing up against a government that is doing wrong, and seeking to bring those wrongs into daylight, both men have earned the privilege to be called patriots. All that said, it is an odd state of things. The only mainstream introspection of the government takes place on Comedy Central. Of all the possible ways I dreamed of getting into the Playboy Mansion over the years, this was not one of them. Nasty business, fighting for one’s First Amendment rights these days. Strange times make for strange bedfellows, even at the Playboy Mansion.