Category: America

  • Linguist claims US intelligence spied on Blair

    Linguist claims US intelligence spied on Blair

    By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

    Published: November 25 2008 02:00 | Last updated: November 25 2008 02:00

    The US government eavesdropped on Tony Blair while he was British prime minister, according to claims made by a former employee of the National Security Agency.

    ABC News yesterday reported that the NSA had eavesdropped on Mr Blair and Ghazi al-Yawer, the first Iraqi president following the 2003 invasion. The White House did not respond to inquiries.

    Making the allegations to ABC, David Faulk, a former NSA Arabic linguist who worked for the spy agency at Fort Gordon, Georgia, claimed to have had access to a top secret database called “Anchory” in 2006 that included personal details about Mr Blair.

    While the US government routinely spies on foreign governments and their leaders, the US and UK are long understood to have had a more trusting relationship. The revelations could damage the “special relationship” with Washington that London prizes so highly. Mr Blair was one of President George W. Bush’s closest allies over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Mr Faulk also claimed to have read secret NSA files on Mr Ghazr, including “pillow talk” phone calls, between 2003 and 2007. Bob Woodward, the veteran Washington Post reporter, this year reported in The War Within that the US had also eavesdropped on Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister.

    Last month, Mr Faulk and another former NSA employee provided a rare glimpse into the veiled world of the NSA, by revealing that the spy agency had spied on journalists, soldiers, and non-governmental organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. They told ABC that the NSA routinely spied on Americans by listening to private conversations, including pillow talk and, in some cases, phone sex.

    The revelations have provided glimpses into the secret and warrantless domestic spying programme that Mr Bush approved in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the US.

    When that domestic spying programme first came to light in 2005, the White House provided a vigorous defence, arguing that it was necessary to protect the US from terrorism.

    Michael Hayden, the former NSA director who now heads the Central Intelligence Agency, insisted that the programme did not violate the rights of ordinary Americans.

  • “THE START OF A NEW ERA IN US-TURKISH RELATIONS”

    “THE START OF A NEW ERA IN US-TURKISH RELATIONS”

    GWU Turkish Student Association cordially invites you to

    “THE START OF A NEW ERA IN US-TURKISH RELATIONS”

    A Panel Discussion with
    Dr. Ian Lesser,
    Senior Transatlantic Fellow
    of the German Marshall Fund of
    the United States (GMF)
    and
    Mr. Jonathan Katz,
    Staff Director of
    the Subcommittee on Europe
    U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs

    Date: Tuesday, November 25
    Time: 6:00-7:00pm(reception)
    7:00-8:00pm (lecture)
    Location: Marvin Center
    Dorothy Betts Theatre(1st floor)
    800 21st Street, NW
    Washington, Dc 20015

    * Please send yout RSVPs via email at turkish@gwu.edu or via phone at 202.725.0273


    Esra Alemdar
    President, GWU TSA

    2140 L Street, NW Apt.602
    Washington, DC 20037
    Tel. (202) 725-0273
    alemdar@gwmail.gwu.edu

  • Middle East Priorities For Jan. 21

    Middle East Priorities For Jan. 21

    By Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski

    Friday, November 21, 2008; Page A23

    The election of Barack Obama to be the 44th president is profoundly historic. We have at long last been able to come together in a way that has eluded us in the long history of our great country. We should celebrate this triumph of the true spirit of America.

    Election Day celebrations were replicated in time zones around the world, something we have not seen in a long time. While euphoria is ephemeral, we must endeavor to use its energy to bring us all together as Americans to cope with the urgent problems that beset us.

    When Obama takes office in two months, he will find a number of difficult foreign policy issues competing for his attention, each with strong advocates among his advisers. We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention.

    In perhaps no other region was the election of Obama more favorably received than the Middle East. Immediate attention to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would help cement the goodwill that Obama’s election engendered. Not everyone in the Middle East views the Palestinian issue as the greatest regional challenge, but the deep sense of injustice it stimulates is genuine and pervasive.

    Unfortunately, the current administration’s intense efforts over the past year will not resolve the issue by Jan. 20. But to let attention lapse would reinforce the feelings of injustice and neglect in the region. That could spur another eruption of violence between the warring parties or in places such as Lebanon or Gaza, reversing what progress has been made and sending the parties back to square one. Lurking in the background is the possibility that the quest for a two-state solution may be abandoned by the Palestinians, the Israelis, or both — with unfortunate consequences for all.

    Resolution of the Palestinian issue would have a positive impact on the region. It would liberate Arab governments to support U.S. leadership in dealing with regional problems, as they did before the Iraq invasion. It would dissipate much of the appeal of Hezbollah and Hamas, dependent as it is on the Palestinians’ plight. It would change the region’s psychological climate, putting Iran back on the defensive and putting a stop to its swagger.

    The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.

    Something more might be needed to deal with Israeli security concerns about turning over territory to a Palestinian government incapable of securing Israel against terrorist activity. That could be dealt with by deploying an international peacekeeping force, such as one from NATO, which could not only replace Israeli security but train Palestinian troops to become effective.

    To date, the weakness of the negotiating parties has limited their ability to come to an agreement by themselves. The elections in Israel scheduled for February are certainly a complicating factor, as is the deep split among Palestinians between Fatah and Hamas. But if the peace process begins to gain momentum, it is difficult to imagine that Hamas will want to be left out, and that same momentum would provide the Israeli people a unique chance to register their views on the future of their country.

    This weakness can be overcome by the president speaking out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process; he also must press the case with steady determination. That initiative should then be followed — not preceded — by the appointment of a high-level dignitary to pursue the process on the president’s behalf, a process based on the enunciated presidential guidelines. Such a presidential initiative should instantly galvanize support, both domestic and international, and provide great encouragement to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

    To say that achieving a successful resolution of this critical issue is a simple task would be to scoff at history. But in many ways the current situation is such that the opportunity for success has never been greater, or the costs of failure more severe.

    Brent Scowcroft was national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. He is president of the Forum for International Policy and the Scowcroft Group. Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. He is trustee and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The two are authors of “America and The World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy.”

    Source: www.washingtonpost.com, November 21, 2008

  • Obama Adviser Brzezinski’s Off-the-record Speech to British Elites

    Obama Adviser Brzezinski’s Off-the-record Speech to British Elites

    Written by William F. Jasper

    Friday, 21 November 2008 13:31

    Zbigniew Brzezinski, a senior adviser to President-elect Barack Obama on matters of national security and foreign policy, was the featured speaker at Chatham House in London on November 17, 2008. The title of his lecture was “Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President.” Although Chatham House events are known to attract “the great and the good” of England’s political, financial, and academic elites — as well as many of its top media representatives — there has been virtually no word as to what Brzezinski had to say in any of the world’s press.

    Type “Brzezinski” and “Chatham” into your Internet search engines and you will come up with … virtually zilch, nada, nothing.

    The esteemed Times of London had only this to say on November 16, the day before the lecture: “Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat former national security adviser … will give an address tomorrow at Chatham House, the international relations think tank, in London.” No report on the event the day after — or since. Ditto for the Telegraph, the BBC, and other British media. Same for the U.S. media: no reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CNS, CNN, Fox, etc.

    This is but the latest example of the hermetic seal known as the “Chatham House Rule,” which states:

    When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.

    Chatham House, in St. James Square, London, is the headquarters of the powerful Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), founded in 1920 as the principal front organization of the secret Round Table network of Cecil Rhodes, famous for his fabulous wealth from Africa’s gold and diamond mines. The RIIA was founded in conjunction with its sister organization in the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which is headquartered at the Pratt House in New York. Pratt House also has formally adopted the Chatham House Rule, as has the U.S. State Department (which has been dominated by CFR members for seven decades) and other U.S. agencies.

    Thus, we frequently have top U.S. officials speaking privately to audiences of American and foreign elites concerning matters of great importance to the American people, but the content of those talks is off-limits to the American public. This especially should be a matter of concern if the matters these elites are discussing involve plans that will dramatically impact our society, our economy, and our political system.

    Brzezinski and his friends at the RIIA and CFR assure us that nothing of the sort ever happens at these gatherings. However, I did attend one of Brzezinski’s lectures at a globalist conference, where the content certainly was disturbing. It was Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1995 State of the World Forum in San Francisco, and Brzezinski was one of the key speakers. He was frustrated that the new millennium was only five years away, but his long-sought goal of world government was still far off.  “We do not have a new world order,” he told the audience, a veritable Who’s Who of world finance, business, politics, media, and academia. “We cannot leap into world government in one quick step,” Brzezinski noted. Attaining that objective, he explained, would require a gradual process of “globalization,” building the new world order “step by step, stone by stone” through “progressive regionalization.”

    Through his writings — as well as his policies while President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser — Brzezinski has demonstrated that he is committed to the globalist world view of the RIIA/CFR and the Trilateral Commission (which he helped found, becoming its first director) rather than the constitutionalist view of our Founding Fathers. Rather than a sovereign, independent, constitutional republic, he is committed to a “new world order” that proposes steadily encroaching international controls and institutions, leading gradually, steadily to an America that is submerged and subsumed in a world government.

    Those familiar with the writings, speeches, policies, and public records of the many public figures who attend (and speak before) these globalist gatherings understand that Brzezinski’s views on these matters are not his alone; they are shared by many (if not most) of those in attendance. They are the people who set policies and determine the course our nation will take. They prattle regularly about their commitment to “transparency” in government. Yet they themselves speak at off-the-record gatherings such as the recent Chatham House event where Brzezinski was the featured speaker.

    Source: www.thenewamerican.com, 21 November 2008

    [This is what Chatham House website has about the event -h]

    The Whitehead Lecture: Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President

    Monday 17 November 2008 18:30 to 19:30

    Location

    Held at Chatham House

    Participants

    Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor and Trustee, Center for Strategic and International Studies; National Security Advisor to the President of the United States (1977-81)


    Type: Members event

    In the wake of the US election the speaker will discuss the major foreign policy issues which will confront the incoming President from the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the competitive pursuit of resources.

    This event will be followed by an open reception.

    Resources:

    Meeting Recording
    Q&A Recording

    Source: www.chathamhouse.org.uk

  • 2025: The End of US Dominance

    2025: The End of US Dominance

    • US intelligence: ‘We can no longer call shots alone’
    • European Union will be ‘hobbled giant’ by 2025
    • Triumph of western democracy not certain

    The country Obama inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to 'call the shots' alone in an increasingly multipolar world.

    The United States‘ leading intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an increasingly unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of western-style democracy is no longer assured, and some states are in danger of being “taken over and run by criminal networks”.

    The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) every four years, represents sobering reading in Barack Obama‘s intray as he prepares to take office in January. The country he inherits, the report warns, will no longer be able to “call the shots” alone, as its power over an increasingly multipolar world begins to wane.

    Looking ahead to 2025, the NIC (which coordinates analysis from all the US intelligence agencies), foresees a fragmented world, where conflict over scarce resources is on the rise, poorly contained by “ramshackle” international institutions, while nuclear proliferation, particularly in the Middle East, and even nuclear conflict grow more likely.

    “Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed” warns that the spread of western democratic capitalism cannot be taken for granted, as it was by George Bush and America’s neoconservatives.

    “No single outcome seems preordained: the Western model of economic liberalism, democracy and secularism, for example, which many assumed to be inevitable, may lose its lustre – at least in the medium term,” the report warns.

    It adds: “Today wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control,” giving the examples of China and Russia.

    “In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the state’s role in the economy may be gaining more appeal throughout the world.”

    At the same time, the US will become “less dominant” in the world – no longer the unrivalled superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War, but a “first among equals” in a more fluid and evenly balanced world, making the unilateralism of the Bush era no longer tenable.

    The report predicts that over the next two decades “the multiplicity of influential actors and distrust of vast power means less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships.”

    It is a conclusion that meshes with president elect Obama’s stated preference for multilateralism, but the NIC findings suggest that as the years go by it could be harder for Washington to put together “coalitions of the willing” to pursue its agenda.

    International organisations, like the UN, seem ill-prepared to fill the vacuum left by receding American power, at a time of multiple potential crises driven by climate change the increasing scarcity of resources like oil, food and water. Those institutions “appear incapable of rising to the challenges without concerted efforts from their leaders” it says.

    In an unusually graphic illustration of a possible future, the report presents an imaginary “presidential diary entry” from October 1, 2020, that recounts a devastating hurricane, fuelled by global warming, hitting New York in the middle of the UN’s annual general assembly.

    “I guess we had it coming, but it was a rude shock,” the unnamed president writes. “Some of the scenes were like the stuff from the World War II newsreels, only this time it was not Europe but Manhattan. Those images of the US aircraft carriers and transport ships evacuating thousands in the wake of the flooding still stick in my mind.”

    As he flies off for an improvised UN reception on board an aircraft carrier, the imaginary future president admits: “The cumulation of disasters, permafrost melting, lower agricultural yields, growing health problems, and the like are taking a terrible toll, much greater than we anticipated 20 years ago.”

    The last time the NIC published its quadrennial glimpse into the future was December 2004. President Bush had just been re-elected and was preparing his triumphal second inauguration that was to mark the high-water mark for neoconservatism. That report matched the mood of the times.

    It was called Mapping the Global Future, and looked forward as far as 2020 when it projected “continued US dominance, positing that most major powers have forsaken the idea of balancing the US”.

    That confidence is entirely lacking from this far more sober assessment. Also gone is the belief that oil and gas supplies “in the ground” were “sufficient to meet global demand”. The new report views a transition to cleaner fuels as inevitable. It is just the speed that is in question.

    The NIC believes it is most likely that technology will lag behind the depletion of oil and gas reserves. A sudden transition, however, will bring problems of its own, creating instability in the Gulf and Russia.

    While emerging economies like China, India and Brazil are likely to grow in influence at America’s expense, the same cannot be said of the European Union. The NIC appears relatively certain the EU will be “losing clout” by 2025. Internal bickering and a “democracy gap” separating Brussels from European voters will leave the EU “a hobbled giant”, unable to translate its economic clout into global influence.

    Disaster diary

    An imaginary diary entry written by a future US president, produced to illustrate a climate-change disaster:

    Those images of US aircraft carriers evacuating thousands in the wake of flooding stick in my mind. Why must the hurricane season coincide with the UN general assembly in New York?

    It’s bad enough that this had to happen; it was doubly embarrassing that half the world’s leaders were here to witness it. I guess the problem is we had counted on this not happening, at least not yet.

    • Read the full National Intelligence Council global trends review (pdf)

     

    Guardian

  • LECTURE- Rebiya Kadeer, Human Rights in Xinjiang, MSU, East Lansing, Nov. 20

    LECTURE- Rebiya Kadeer, Human Rights in Xinjiang, MSU, East Lansing, Nov. 20

    Talk Announcement:

    Human Rights in Xinjiang and the Plight of Uyghurs

    A talk by Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress and a
    Nobel Peace Prize candidate

    Time: 3:30 pm
    Date: Thursday, November 20, 2008
    Place: 201 International Center
    Michigan State University

    East Lansing, Michigan

    Sponsored by the Michigan State University (MSU)
    Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies
    and the Muslim Studies Program

    For more information contact:
    Timur Kocaoglu, office phone: 517-884-2169
    E-mail: timur@msu.edu