monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

The CIA had nothing to do with recruitment of mercenaries in Afghanistan.

The CIA has never had anything to do with al-Qa'ida anywhere ever.

al-Qa'ida was recruited and backed by the Saudis.

The year was 1979. The country, of course, was Afghanistan. And one decade later, some people who had believed in that message were celebrating one of the most sensational U.S. victories in the history of the Cold War: the withdrawal of 100,000 demoralized Soviet troops from Afghanistan, marking the first time that the Red Army had withdrawn under fire from a nation it had occupied since World War II. The Afghan socialist revolution, it seemed, had failed.

At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Director William Webster and his euphoric "Afghan Team" toasted ten years of effort and a multi-billion dollar project to support the anti-communist, Muslim Afghan rebels, in what had become the CIA’s largest and "most successful" covert operation ever. On Capitol Hill, Congressman Charles Wilson (D-Texas), a legislative champion of the anti-Soviet guerrillas, boasted that the United States had learned in Afghanistan that it "could reverse Soviet influence anywhere in the world." And at the White House, President George Bush hailed the withdrawal as a "watershed" in U.S.-Soviet relations.

What stimulated the United States to develop a sophisticated insurgency support operation for a rebellion led by Islamic religious leaders and fought by mountain tribesmen? What was the nature of the debate among U.S. officials and congressmen as to what the rebels, beset with ethnic, tribal and personal rivalries, could accomplish against the armed forces of the Soviet Union? What effect did this war have on Pakistan, the most important U.S. ally in South Asia, which played a crucial role in the war by providing sanctuary for the rebels and 3 million Afghan refugees? And what lessons have the U.S. intelligence and defense communities drawn from the Afghan conflict and applied to the emerging U.S. strategic doctrine of "Low-Intensity Warfare"?

A review of FBI Director James Comey’s professional history and relationships shows that the Obama cabinet leader — now under fire for his handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton — is deeply entrenched in the big-money cronyism culture of Washington, D.C. His personal and professional relationships — all undisclosed as he announced the Bureau would not prosecute Clinton — reinforce bipartisan concerns that he may have politicized the criminal probe.

These concerns focus on millions of dollars that Comey accepted from a Clinton Foundation defense contractor, Comey’s former membership on a Clinton Foundation corporate partner’s board, and his surprising financial relationship with his brother Peter Comey, who works at the law firm that does the Clinton Foundation’s taxes.

Lockheed Martin

When President Obama nominated Comey to become FBI director in 2013, Comey promised the United States Senate that he would recuse himself on all cases involving former employers.

But Comey earned $6 million in one year alone from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin became a Clinton Foundation donor that very year.

Comey served as deputy attorney general under John Ashcroft for two years of the Bush administration. When he left the Bush administration,he went directly to Lockheed Martin and became vice president, acting as a general counsel.

How much money did James Comey make from Lockheed Martin in his last year with the company, which he left in 2010? More than $6 million in compensation.

Lockheed Martin is a Clinton Foundation donor. The company admitted to becoming a Clinton Global Initiative member in 2010.

According to records, Lockheed Martin is also a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, which paid Bill Clinton $250,000 to deliver a speech in 2010.

Egyptian forces and militants in the Sinai might both be responsible for crimes against humanity, human rights campaigners say.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses the government of carrying out enforced disappearances, killings, torture and other illegal acts.

It says militants who the government is fighting have kidnapped, tortured and murdered hundreds of Sinai residents.

The two sides have long been battling in the northern part of the peninsula.

The government has declared the Northern Sinai a closed military zone, meaning independent reporting is not possible from there.

A military spokesman, Col Tamer al-Rifai, dismissed the HRW report as biased.

"It is based on unverified sources," he told AFP news agency, adding that "some politicised organisations are intent on tarnishing Egypt's image and its armed forces with baseless claims".

Egypt has vowed to wipe out militants in the Sinai, where some are linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

According to the HRW report, adults and children as young as 12 have been detained and held in secret prisons, sometimes for months at a time.

It documents cases where detainees are said to have been physically abused by soldiers, including beatings and given electric shocks.

Three of those held died from ill-treatment, the report cites former detainees as saying.

It says that since the conflict escalated in 2013, tens of thousands of residents have been forcibly evicted from their homes or have fled because of the fighting.

The report also accuses the government of carrying out possibly illegal air and ground attacks which have killed an undetermined number of civilians.

HRW says militants in Sinai have also carried out criminal abuses, including the kidnap, torture and murder of hundreds of residents. It says hangings and floggings are among punishments meted out as part of legal proceedings which do not correspond to any international standards.

The report identifies the IS-linked Sinai Province group as having committed what it calls "horrific crimes".

"Some of the abuses carried out by government forces and the militants," the report says, "are war crimes, and their widespread and systematic nature could amount to crimes against humanity.

"Both war crimes and crimes against humanity are not subject to any statute of limitation, and the latter could be prosecuted before international tribunals."

Northern Sinai, which is home to about half a million people, became increasingly lawless following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Violence escalated following the ousting of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi two years later, but a large-scale military offensive has so far failed to crush the militants.

I am sure he consulted an expert and we all know what a quick study he is. In less than two years he already plays the game better than the sleaze that has been in politics for decades.

Joshua A. Geltzer and Mary B. McCord - Slate - Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Opinion: Barr’s new authority a national security threat

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump suggested that he trusted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to “keep his promise” to Trump about the country’s nuclear program more than he trusted his own national security officials who have warned him about that program. It was just the latest example of Trump demonstrating disdain for the U.S. intelligence community and broader national security apparatus, but it came on the heels of a perhaps even scarier one. Trump’s decision last week to hand over unilateral authority to declassify America’s intelligence secrets to an attorney general who continues to act as if he’s Trump’s personal lawyer threatens to endanger intelligence sources, frighten our allies, and irreparably harm our national security.

Late Thursday, at Attorney General William Barr’s request, the president granted him carte blanche not only to obtain all “assistance and information” he desires from the intelligence community in support of his “review” of intelligence activities related to the 2016 election, but also to declassify any information he chooses to—even if that information was originally classified not by the Justice Department but by, say, the Central Intelligence Agency or National Security Agency. Barr doesn’t even have to consult with the head of the intelligence agency or department whose information is at stake unless he deems it “practicable.” Trump’s approach is out of sync with proper executive branch leadership and, more importantly, dangerous to American security.

Barr was not in government in early 2016 when red flags started to flutter about Russia’s successful attempts to meddle in our election, warnings that included Russian efforts to contact people associated with Trump. And he wasn’t in government when those red flags were straining against their moorings. He wasn’t part of any discussions or decisions, made in real time, about how to address the threat posed to the core of this country’s very democracy: free and fair elections without foreign influence. Now, rather than respectful deference to the women and men who had to make those decisions in the moment, Barr has demanded—and been handed—the power to rummage through classified materials, second-guessing the judgment calls of those who have spent decades combating foreign intelligence threats. It’s clear he intends to use that power for the benefit of his political patron, Donald Trump.

Barr, in his first three months as attorney general, has demonstrated that he is more interested in being Trump’s lawyer than he is in being the American people’s lawyer. He released a four-page letter to Congress misleadingly summarizing the “principal conclusions” of the Mueller report, which even the circumspect Robert Mueller objected to as threatening a central purpose of his probe. On the morning of the redacted report’s release, he held an unprecedented press conference defending the president’s obstructive abuses described in the Mueller report as the reasonable actions of a “frustrated” man. He did everything he could to lend the authority of the Justice Department to Trump’s main political talking points of “no collusion” and “no obstruction.” And he stoked the “witch hunt” flames long fanned by Trump by telling Congress he thought that “spying” on the president’s campaign had occurred and promising to interrogate the origins of that intelligence inquiry. Now he appears prepared to fulfill that promise using the unprecedented and dangerous new powers given to him by Trump.

To be clear, oversight of the intelligence community’s activities is critical. But that oversight has happened. Indeed, it continues to happen. Both the Senate and House have reviewed extensively the origins of the investigation into Russian election interference, and their probes continue. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General is nearing completion of its review of the investigation, especially as related to U.S. persons such as Carter Page, who briefly was a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. If the inspector general’s report turns up something worthy of continued investigation, then a decision about next steps should be made at that time. But what need could there be for Barr to get ahead of his own Justice Department’s inspector general? It’s hard to fathom a reason other than the purely partisan one of keeping alive the president’s “witch hunt” theme amid an ongoing oversight battle with Congress and heading into the 2020 election. Now, it seems, Trump’s efforts in both arenas will be supported by selectively declassifying and disclosing whatever materials might tend to make the president look a bit better, while withholding those that don’t.

This is just the latest manifestation of Trump’s dismal view of our nation’s intelligence community. Time and again, he has shown disregard and disrespect for the assessments of intelligence professionals. Recall the president’s Helsinki meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when Trump publicly embraced the position of the Russian leader that no interference had occurred, over the contrary opinions of his own intelligence community. Or remember his bizarre personal letters exchanged with Kim Jong-un. To its credit, the intelligence community has generally stood firm in its views despite Trump’s preference for the promises of foreign dictators.

That history underscores what last week’s order reveals about Trump’s view of Barr. As a practical matter, the order gives Barr supremacy over the intelligence community by allowing him to declassify its secrets at will. As a conceptual matter, the order may be even more extraordinary by empowering Barr to “direct the declassification” of the intelligence community’s secrets. Trump is thus making one Cabinet member—Barr—superior to his fellow Cabinet members on the matters of their own agencies. If this involved the exercise of their statutory authorities, it would be clearly unlawful. However, because this is a delegation of the president’s own authority to classify and declassify—as implemented via earlier executive orders—it may be lawful. But it’s a terrible and dangerous approach to governance. Trump is rewarding the Cabinet member who’s been most political, most “loyal,” most obedient, by elevating him over other Cabinet members who have been providing nonpartisan intelligence assessments to keep our country safe.

As alarming as last week’s order must have been to the U.S. intelligence community, imagine what our foreign allies must think. On Friday, Trump made clear that he wants Barr to use his review to “look at” the role British and Australian intelligence services played in the Russia probe, “because there was a hoax that was perpetrated on our country.” This represents an extraordinary threat to the intelligence these and other countries share with us and often help us to acquire and protect as well as to the people gathering that intelligence. It—quite reasonably—seems certain to decrease their trust in Washington’s will to protect sources, methods, and intelligence; in turn, it’s likely to decrease how much they share. Ultimately, politically driven declassification and a decrease in intelligence sharing by U.S. partners—and especially the combination—could endanger the lives of Americans. Although Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has expressed confidence that the attorney general “will work with the IC in accordance with the long-established standards to protect highly-sensitive classified information that, if publicly released, would put our national security at risk,” it’s unclear if those standards will in fact be respected by Barr, given that the order requires him to consult with the intelligence community about declassification only, as noted above, if Barr himself deems it “practicable.”

To our closest allies, and to the women and men who have risked their lives—and in some cases, died—to acquire intelligence to protect our nation, the president’s order says a lot about his view of national security: not as a sacred responsibility of an American president, but as something that can be exploited for political advantage. That’s a terrible price for the rest of us to pay.

INSTITUTE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL ADVOCACY AND PROTECTION GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER

Too true, but, he has ways and really not much to lose at this point with Trump all but accusing him of conducting a witch-hunt and Barr abetting him.

Does he loose ends to tie up? Is that reason he is still under the Justice Department? Most of the cases pending have been sent off to other prosecutors. Lastly doubt he would say anything unless he has something to say.


In any event, I have to be out most of the day into the evening. Have to catch up on the moble news.

as borne out by physical and auditory evidence.

On average, how long does it take to design a battleship?

need treatmenr inconsistent with claimed multiple pounding of his head on ground.

Re-designing a carrier on a stupid, uneducated whim is expensive