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“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”

-- Voltaire

News and Opinion

How Obama Enables Atrocities

As the New Year dawns, the neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks remain firmly in control of Official Washington’s storylines – on Syria, Russia and elsewhere – even as their policies continue to wreak havoc across the Mideast and threaten the stability of Europe and indeed the future of civilization.

The latest proof of this dangerous reality came when Saudi Arabia’s repressive Sunni monarchy executed prominent Shiite political leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr for criticizing the nation’s kings and princes. Before the killing, the Obama administration held its tongue in public so as not to antagonize the Saudi royals. (Nimr’s nephew awaits Saudi “crucifixion” for his role as a teenager in Arab Spring protests.)

The fact that the Obama administration could not voice its revulsion over the Saudi mass head-chopping (along with some firing squads) for 47 men, including Nimr, over the weekend speaks volumes. President Barack Obama and other insiders continue to tip-toe around the unsavory U.S. “alliances” in the Mideast.

Over the past several years, Saudi Arabia sealed its impervious protection from U.S. government criticism by forming an undeclared alliance with Israel around their mutual hatred of Shiite-ruled Iran and its Shiite allies, a cause picked up by American neocons and shared by the career-oriented liberal interventionists. ...

Some more “realist-oriented” U.S. officials, reportedly including Obama and some national security aides, recognize the havoc that neocon/liberal-hawk strategies continue to wreak across the region and now spreading into Europe, but they act powerless to do anything bold to stop it. ...

Thus, the Saudis, Qataris and Turks get mostly a pass for arming and enabling radical jihadists, including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Israel also provides assistance to Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front along the Golan Heights and bombs allies of the Syrian government and, of course, faces no official U.S. criticism.

U.S. in a Bind as Saudi Actions Test a Durable Alliance

The Obama administration on Monday confronted the fundamental contradiction in its increasingly tense relationship with Saudi Arabia. It could not bring itself, at least in public, to condemn the execution of a dissident cleric who challenged the royal family, for fear of undermining the fragile Saudi leadership that it desperately needs in fighting the Islamic State and ending the conflict in Syria.

The United States has usually looked the other way or issued carefully calibrated warnings in human rights reports as the Saudi royal family cracked down on dissent and free speech and allowed its elite to fund Islamic extremists. In return, Saudi Arabia became America’s most dependable filling station, a regular supplier of intelligence, and a valuable counterweight to Iran.

For years it was oil that provided the glue for a relationship between two nations that share few common values.

Today, with American oil production surging and the Saudi leadership fractured, the mutual dependency that goes back to the early 1930s, with the first American investment in the kingdom’s oil fields, no longer binds the nations as it once did.

But the political upheaval in the Middle East and the American perception that the Saudis are critical to stability in the region continue to hold together an increasingly fractious marriage. So when Saudi Arabia executed 47 people, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the dissident cleric, on Saturday, beheading many of them in a style that most Americans associate with the Islamic State rather than a close American partner, the administration’s efforts to explain the relationship became more strained than ever.

Middle-East: Tensions rise among people, governments after Riyadh & Tehran ruptured relations

US Sees Saudi-Iran Tensions as Trouble for Syria Talks, ISIS Fight

White House and State Department officials are scrambling to do damage control today after the weekend Saudi execution of top Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, which they fear could escalate sectarian tensions and create problems in efforts to kick-start Syrian peace talks.

Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia were already an obstacle to the efforts, and US officials confirmed they’d warned the Saudis against executing Nimr explicitly because it was going to deepen the sectarian divide and imperil the process. ...

Analysis in the New York Times went so far as to suggest the Saudis executed Nimr specifically to provoke a reaction from Iran that they could exploit, and are trying to parlay Iranian criticism of the killing into more anti-Iran sentiment.

So far the US media is biting, but the US government is not, and the administration is too focused on trying to clean up the mess the Saudis have created to be mistaken about who made the mess in the first place, and how.

Will the U.S. fall for Saudi Arabia’s deliberate provocation in killing of Shi’ite cleric?

There should be little doubt that Saudi Arabia wanted to escalate regional tensions into a crisis by executing Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. On the same day, Riyadh also unilaterally withdrew from the ceasefire agreement in Yemen. By allowing protestors to torch the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response, Iran seems to have walked right into the Saudi trap. If Saudi Arabia succeeds in forcing the United States into the conflict by siding with the kingdom, then its objectives will have been met.

t is difficult to see that Saudi Arabia did not know that its decision to execute Nimr would not cause uproar in the region and wouldn’t put additional strains on its already tense relations with Iran. The inexcusable torching of the Saudi embassy in Iran — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemned it and called it “totally unjustifiable,” though footage shows that Iranian security forces did little to prevent the attack — in turn provided Riyadh with the perfect pretext to cut diplomatic ties with Tehran. With that, Riyadh significantly undermined U.S.-led regional diplomacy on both Syria and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has long opposed diplomatic initiatives that Iran participated in– be it in Syria or on the nuclear issue — and that risked normalizing Tehran’s regional role and influence. Earlier, Riyadh had successfully ensured Iran’s exclusion from Syria talks in Geneva by threatening to boycott them if Iran was present, U.S. officials have told me. In fact, according to White House sources, President Barack Obama had to personally call King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to force the Saudis to take part in the Vienna talks on Syria this past fall.

Now, by having cut its diplomatic relations with Iran, the Saudis have the perfect excuse to slow down, undermine and possibly completely scuttle these U.S.-led negotiations, if they should choose to do so.

Kuwait Has Now Withdrawn Its Ambassador from Iran

Kuwait became the latest country to recall its ambassador from Iran on Tuesday, as protesters in Iran and Iraq marched for a third day in protest at Saudi Arabia's execution of a dissident Shia cleric.

"An official source at the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry said that the ministry recalled the Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to the Islamic Republic of Iran on Tuesday morning... against the backdrop of the attacks carried out by crowds of demonstrators," reported state news agency KUNA.

Saudi Arabia cut all diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday after Iranian protesters stormed its embassy in Tehran to denounce the killing of Sheikh Nimr al Nimr. The cleric was among 47 people executed for terrorism offenses by beheading or firing squad by the kingdom on Saturday.

Bahrain and Sudan followed suit on Monday.

If you keep saying Saudi Arabia is like ISIS, you might get sued

Reports in the Saudi press suggest that authorities have a new tactic for those who compare them to the Islamic State: taking them to court. According to a report in pro-government newspaper Al Riyadh, the Saudi justice ministry is planning to sue a Twitter user who suggested that a death sentence recently handed out to a Palestinian artist for apostasy was "ISIS-like."

"Questioning the fairness of the courts is to question the justice of the Kingdom and its judicial system based on Islamic law, which guarantees rights and ensures human dignity," a source in the justice ministry told the newspaper, according to a translation by Reuters. The ministry would not hesitate to sue "any media that slandered the religious judiciary of the Kingdom," the source added. ...

Speaking to NBC News earlier this year, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki justified the use of capital punishments such as beheadings in the kingdom by saying the country's Shariah-based legal system ensures fairness. "ISIS has no legitimate way to decide to decide to kill people," Al-Turki said, adding that "the difference is clear."

Canada Condemns Saudi Executions, But Arms Sales Speak Louder Than Words

In immediate aftermath of mass executions, Canada confirms that mega-sale of arms to Gulf state will proceed

Despite condemning Saudi Arabia's recent mass executions and raising concerns about human rights abuses, the Canadian government said this week it is moving forward with a controversial $15 billion weapons sale to the Gulf state.

Reportedly Canada's largest-ever arms export contract, critics say that the deal was confirmed amid growing condemnation of ongoing western support for Saudi Arabia, despite mounting evidence of atrocities committed by the state, from neighboring Yemen to its own soil. ...

Under federal policies, the Department of Foreign Affairs must ensure that military exports will not be used against civilian populations. According to the research of the Canadian peace NGO Project Ploughshares, "there is video evidence that Canadian-built armored vehicles supplied to Saudi Arabia were used in 2011 to support the repression of peaceful civilian demonstrations by Bahrain security forces."

Canada is not alone in continuing massive arms sales to the Saudi kingdom amid growing tensions and despite global calls for an arms embargo.

Is the Islamic state group expanding in Libya?

ISIS Attacks Oil Port in Libya’s Sidra

At least 12 people were reported killed and a 420,000 barrel oil tank is ablaze tonight after ISIS forces moved against the oil port in the Libyan coastal city of Sidra, attacking guards at the outskirts of the facility.

ISIS has been expanding from the city of Sirte toward the facilities at Ras Lanauf and Sidra, aiming to expand not just their territory but their control over Libyan oil wealth. In years past, Libya was a major source of oil to Europe, but wars since the NATO-imposed regime change have left those shipments intermittent, at best.

Days of Revolt: America's Death Squads

A Redaction Re-Visited: NSA Targeted “The Two Leading” Encryption Chips

On September 5, 2013, The Guardian, the New York Times and ProPublica jointly reported — based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden — that the National Security Agency had compromised some of the encryption that is most commonly used to secure internet transactions. ...

All three outlets, while reporting the anti-encryption efforts, redacted portions of the documents they published or described. One redaction in particular, found in the NYT documents, from the FY 2013 “black budget,” proved to be especially controversial among tech and security experts, as they believed that the specific identity of compromised encryption standards was being concealed by the redaction. ...

The issue of this specific redaction was raised again by security researchers last month in the wake of news of a backdoor found on Juniper systems, followed by The Intercept’s reporting that the NSA and GCHQ had targeted Juniper. In light of that news, we examined the documents referenced by those 2013 articles with particular attention to that controversial redaction, and decided that it was warranted to un-redact that passage.

[Graphic containing un-redacted text is here. Revealed text does not identify specific products by name, rather it refers to the "two leading" encryption chip products. - js]

The reference to “the two leading encryption chips” provides some hints, but no definitive proof, as to which ones were successfully targeted. Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins, declined to speculate on which companies this might reference. But he said that “the damage has already been done. From what I’ve heard, many foreign purchasers have already begun to look at all U.S.-manufactured encryption technology with a much more skeptical eye as a result of what the NSA has done. That’s too bad, because I suspect only a minority of products have been compromised this way.”

Violent deaths in El Salvador spiked 70% in 2015, figures reveal

El Salvador saw a 70% spike in violent deaths in 2015, making last year the bloodiest since the country’s civil war, according to figures released on Monday by the country’s authorities.

At least 6,657 people were violently killed in 2015, amid a rise in mass killings and escalating violence between alleged gang members and police in the Central American country.

The overall murder rate rose to 104 per 100,000 habitants, compared to 1 per 100,000 in the UK and 90 per 100,000 in Venezuela – the second most murderous country in 2015. El Salvador has a population of approximately 6.4 million. ...

Last year’s death toll is the highest recorded since 1983, at the height of a 12-year civil war that pitted a US-backed military dictatorship against leftwing guerrilla groups. ...

A peace deal in 1992 led the guerrillas to disband but never resolved underlying problems of inequality and weak institutions, and the violence has continued.

These Aren't the First Armed Whites to Take Over That Oregon Land: Just Ask the Native Paiute People

'We Are Going to Light Up the Whole Country on Fire': The Arson That Led to the Oregon Militia Standoff

The case that prompted the ongoing occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon by armed militiamen dates back to September 30, 2001. ... According to the Department of Justice, the 2001 incident started with rancher Dwight Hammond and his son Steven hunting on federal land adjacent to their property near the city of Burns in a remote stretch of eastern Oregon. The feds allege that the Hammonds "led an unauthorized hunting expedition" and "illegally shot several deer."

When a district manager from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approached the younger Hammond to confront him about the poaching, he "ducked into the brush to hide," according to a Supreme Court brief filed by the government in February 2014. The district manager said he then encountered four men armed with hunting rifles, which made him "very uncomfortable with the situation" — to the point that he felt unsafe and decided to leave the scene.

Soon afterwards, according to the court brief, Steven Hammond handed out boxes of matches to his fellow hunters. "We are going to light up the whole country on fire," the rancher, now 46, reportedly said. He allegedly gave one box of matches to his then 13-year-old nephew, Dusty Hammond, and instructed the boy to walk along the fence line that separated the Hammond property from federal land and drop the lit matches "until he ran out."

In 2012, the Hammonds were found guilty of starting the 2001 fire and another one in 2006 on the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, also in Oregon. ...

The Hammonds' beef with the BLM dates back nearly three decades, and has to do with a dispute over cattle grazing on the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, which the family feels they are entitled to use. The feud — part of a long-standing conflict between ranchers and the federal government dubbed "the Sagebrush Rebellion" — has pitted the influential family, which owns 12,000 acres of ranchland in eastern Oregon's Diamond Valley, against the federal agencies in charge of conservation on public lands.

In 1994, according to High Country News, Dwight and Steven Hammond were charged with two counts each of felony "disturbing and interfering with" federal officials or federal contractors when they tried to stop a crew from building a fence to keep the family's cattle out of the wildlife refuge.  ...

The Hammonds were accused of setting other fires — including a one known as "the Granddad" that scorched 46,000 acres — and were charged with multiple counts of arson, conspiracy, and witness tampering. The jury in their case ended up deadlocked, and the Hammonds only admitted involvement in the two blazes as part of a plea deal.

Amid Armed Oregon Standoff, Report Finds "Skyrocketing" Number of Anti-Gov't Militia Groups

Oregon armed occupiers include prominent anti-Islam activist

The Bundy militia claim to be simple patriots guarding the US constitution. But 48 hours into their occupation of a wildlife refuge in rural Oregon, it has emerged that the band of armed protesters includes at least one prominent anti-Islam activist.

Jon Ritzheimer, a former US marine, was one of the guards posted at the gate of the Malheur wildlife reserve on Monday, and he was happy to espouse his virulent opposition to the Islamic faith.

“I am very outspoken against it because I see the threat that it poses,” he said of his opposition to Islam. “There’s a lot of people out there [who say] ‘Hey you’re an infidel whether you like it or not’ if you don’t believe in Islam.” ...

A prolific creator of online propaganda against Islam, Ritzheimer came to the attention of the FBI in December after he reportedly posted a video of himself holding a gun and threatening to drive to Hancock, New York, to confront journalists at a Muslim publication that had criticised him. The FBI, after initially dissuading him from the confrontation, notified state police of his potential arrival, according to reports.

Earlier in the year Ritzheimer also courted controversy when he organised an armed protest outside a mosque in Phoenix, Arizona, his home town.

Ritzheimer’s presence is indicative of the potential appeal of the occupation among a rag-tag bag of fringe rightwing actors.

Wisconsin's public-sector unions plot fightback as supreme court case looms

Wisconsin’s labor leaders cheered when their nemesis, Scott Walker, dropped out of the presidential campaign last September. Walker’s anti-union message failed to catch fire the way it did four years ago, when he pushed through legislation that hobbled public-employee unions. But while Walker’s political ambitions may have been thwarted, four years on Wisconsin’s public-sector unions remain humbled too.

With Walker’s hard-won 2011 law crippling their ability to bargain and diminishing their ranks, the state’s public-employee unions are struggling to figure out how to increase their strength, membership and collective voice. The plight of Wisconsin’s unions could point the way for public-employee unions nationwide if the supreme court, in a closely watched case to be heard on 11 January, prohibits any requirement that government workers pay any fees to the unions that represent them.

Paul Spink, president of the Wisconsin branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said his union (Afscme) is pushing hard to reverse its Walker-induced slide by explaining to workers how much unions can help them and why they should join and pay dues. For Spink’s Madison-based union, this is not a minor matter – it has lost two-thirds of its members and funding since the Republican-controlled state legislature enacted the anti-union bill, Act 10, notwithstanding protests by tens of thousands of union members. ...

Spink, a 39-year-old state worker who inspects childcare centers, said public employees have become “easy scapegoats” for governors and mayors grappling with budget deficits. “We don’t have very good public relations, we don’t have a very good public image,” Spink said. “We don’t know how to talk to our members about what a union is for. All that has to change.”

'Break Em Up': Sanders Speech To Take Direct Aim at Big Bank Greed

Speaking just blocks away from the belly of the beast, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Tuesday is expected give a major policy speech during which he will lay out his plan to take on Wall Street and end the era of "too big to fail" banking.

"To those on Wall Street who may be listening today, let me be very clear," Sanders will say, according to advanced reporting on the prepared remarks. "Greed is not good. Wall Street and corporate greed is destroying the fabric of our nation. And, here is a New Year’s Resolution that we will keep: If you do not end your greed we will end it for you."

If elected president, Sanders will ask his Treasury secretary to create a "'too big to fail' list of commercial banks, shadow banks and insurance companies whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk to the United States economy without a taxpayer bailout"—and within a year, he vows, he will break up those entities. ...

Among other proposals, the Vermont senator is expected to throw his support behind a measure introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking.

The Clintons’ Paid-Speech Bonanza

Hillary Clinton is said to be buoyant over her prospects to become the next U.S. President, as Republicans feud over Donald Trump’s disruptive campaign and Sen. Bernie Sanders fails to articulate a clear foreign policy, but perhaps the biggest obstacle still confronting the ex-Secretary of State is her own record as a beneficiary of rich and powerful corporate interests.

“The truth is, you can’t change a corrupt system by taking its money,” says a Sanders’s television commercial.  And Clinton has left herself open to that charge by profiting off her government experience, racking up $11.8 million in 51 speaking fees in the 14-month period from January 2014 to May 2015 before she became an official candidate for President, according to disclosure records.

For speeches usually lasting between 30 minutes and one hour, Clinton was paid from $100,000 to $335,000, an average around $230,000. Many of her paid speeches were delivered to Wall Street, Big Pharma, Tech and other industries with interests in influencing government policies.

Payments crossing the $300,000 mark came from Qualcomm Inc. ($335,000), the Biotechnology Industry Organization ($335,000), the National Automobile Dealers Association ($325,500), Cisco ($325,000), eBay ($315,000) and Nexenta Systems, Inc. ($300,000). Those amounts are each roughly equivalent to six times the typical American middle-class earnings in an entire year. ...

That nearly 38 percent of Hillary Clinton’s current personal wealth of approximately $31.3 million was accumulated during the brief period between her departure from the State Department and her run for the presidency underscores the extent to which she is a beneficiary of big-business’ financial largesse.

The close proximity between Hillary Clinton’s last paid speaking engagement on March 19, 2015 – to the New York section of the American Camping Association for $260,000 – and her announcement as a candidate for president on April 12, 2015, adds further fuel to a suspicion of impropriety.

Since Clinton knew that she would be announcing her candidacy, squeezing in paid speeches almost to the last minute gives the appearance that she was profiting off her possible rise to arguably the most powerful political position on earth. ...

Regardless of whether Hillary Clinton has violated the spirit of government ethics laws by accepting these speaking fees, she faces a challenge trying to convince voters that she will be a champion of middle- and working-class Americans rather than a defender of Wall Street and other corporate interests.

Southern US prepares for flooding surge as waters move down Mississippi river

Warnings issued in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana after flooding from heavy December rainfall caused death and destruction in Missouri and Illinois

Southern US states are bracing themselves for major flooding as surging waters that have inundated parts of Missouri and Illinois head south down the Mississippi river.

Heavy rainfall at the end of December, the largest deluge since May 2011, has caused the Mississippi, Meramec and Missouri rivers to burst their banks. In some areas, the Mississippi is 40ft above its flood mark, causing at least 24 deaths in several states. ...

The unusual winter flood is expected to affect people farther down the Mississippi over the coming weeks, with officials in Memphis, Vicksburg and New Orleans among those attempting to prepare residents for expected flooding. Hundreds have already been evacuated from towns in eastern Missouri.

'Unlawful Pollution': Volkswagen Charged With Crimes Against Climate

The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday filed suit against Volkswagen, charging that the German auto-maker deliberately rigged cars to cheat emissions tests resulting in potentially millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and untold damage to the atmosphere.

The civil suit, filed on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, alleges that nearly 600,000 diesel engine vehicles had illegal defeat devices installed that impair their emission control systems and cause emissions to exceed EPA’s standards. Further, the complaint states that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act by bringing to U.S. market vehicles that were designed differently than the company had stated in applications for certification to EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB). ...

Environmental groups have estimated that the cheating scandal caused at least 32.2 million tons of extra carbon pollution into the atmosphere, equal to roughly 6.8 million cars.

"What Volkswagen did wasn’t just consumer fraud, it was a crime against our climate and against future generations relying on us for a livable planet," Peter Galvin, director of programs at the Center of Biological Diversity, said after the scandal first erupted in September when the EPA sent a Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act to the manufacturer and its subsidiaries.

Even Tumbling Fossil Fuel Prices Can't Deter Clean Energy Revolution

One of the biggest stories of 2015 was the sharp decline of oil prices, which fell this year to levels not seen in more than a decade.

"After plunging from more than $100 a barrel to nearly $50 a barrel last year, U.S. oil prices fell 30 percent in 2015 to $37.04 a barrel," the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. ...

Yet surprisingly, even "amid a worldwide glut of cheap fossil fuels," the Washington Post's Joby Warrick reported on Friday, "business is blowing strong" for the renewable energy industry as well.

Indeed, Warrick writes, 2015 saw "a global surge for wind and solar energy, which occurred despite oil, coal and natural gas selling at bargain rates." He points to "massive new projects" under construction from China and India to Texas, as well as growing capacity in the U.S., which recently "crossed the 70-gigawatt threshold in wind-generated electricity, with 50,000 spinning turbines producing enough power to light up 19 million homes."

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Chris Hedges: The American Empire: Murder Inc.

After Executing Regime Critic, Saudi Arabia Fires Up American PR Machine

With ISIS In Retreat Saudi Arabia Launches New Shia Provocation

Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

Invitation to a Beheading: Saudi Arabia’s Enablers

US Military Leadership Resisted Obama’s Bid for Regime Change in Syria, Libya

Wall Street Kicks Off 2016 With a Faceplant

Another Reason Economists Don't Know Much About the Economy: The Story of the Robots

A Little Night Music

Louis Armstrong - Basin Street Blues

Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash - Blue Yodel No 9

Louis Armstrong - Country Medley

Louis Armstrong - Potato head blues

Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary

King Oliver's Jazz Band w/Louis Armstrong - Dipper Mouth Blues

Louis Armstrong - Got No Blues

Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong - The Blues Are Brewin

Louis Armstrong - Black And Blue

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Learnin' The Blues

Louis Armstrong - Dixie Music Man

Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World

Louis Armstrong - Knockin' A Jug

Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington - Duke's Place