Victor Sharpe: “Never Again” is now “Again and Again”

From: Canada Free Press

When, after the end of World War Two, the extent of Nazi Germany’s systematic extermination of the 6 million Jews of Europe became horribly apparent, including the slaughter of 1.5 million babies and children, there arose the cry: “Never Again.”

It was assumed that a unique horror of such magnitude must never again occur in the world. The Holocaust resulted in one third of the world’s Jewish population being systematically murdered - perpetrated as it was by millions of Adolf Hitler’s obedient and willing executioners using all the tools of the central state and of perverted science. But the cataclysmic lesson of that genocide has been shamefully ignored.

After the war the United Nations was founded – a body designed to create world peace and primarily at first consisting of democracies along with a few autocratic regimes, which nevertheless acted in rational ways. And as delegates entered the UN building they passed by the wall on which they could read the biblical words of the Jewish prophet, Isaiah:

“They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.” - Isaiah 2:4.

But now the UN has become a cesspool of competing blocs of nations that are not always concerned about justice and peace between nations but more interested in pushing narrow and hostile agendas. And few, if any, delegates ever bother to read that inscription on the wall of the United Nations. Instead the world body has become a veritable Temple of Hypocrisy filled with a cynical priesthood.

And so much of humanity becomes more and more inured to the present day horrors that increasingly proliferate around the globe and whose ghastly images are daily flashed on our television screens.

Civilians are routinely butchered, and genocide in South Sudan continues as it does in Somalia and, in particular, throughout the ever violent Middle East. As I write, butchery on a grand scale is taking place throughout Syria, governed as it is by Bashar Assad; a scion of the minority Alawite tribe.

According to Ammar Abdulhamid, a member of the Free Syrian Army, which is one of the rebel groups battling the regime, Bashar Assad’s strategy is to create a de facto partition of Syria. This is, he says, taking place with the ethnic cleansing of factions and populations deemed hostile to the regime.

Syria may degenerate into dozens of fiefdoms, each one at its neighbor’s throat, or an Alawite state will emerge along Syria’s coastline, incorporating other areas of the country. This state, if it emerged, would include the strategic city of Homs, which straddles all the main Syrian highways and communication routes.

Of immense concern should be Assad’s warehouses in which are stored Syria’s weapons of mass destruction consisting of thousands of missiles tipped with Sarin and Mustard gas and God knows what other hellish ingredients.

In the present internecine conflict that is tearing Syria apart, these missiles – some already in silos – may well fall into the hands of a host of Islamic terrorist groups - including Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood - fighting inside the country. If they do, a Pandora’s Box will open and the entire world will lurch further into a nightmare scenario almost unbearable to contemplate.

And behind the ethnic cleansing, the massacres, and the butchery of thousands of civilians, lies the dread hand of Iran, with its fanatical Mullahocracy and its evil clown president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ever spinning their web of terror and fear.

Since 1979, when Americans during the failed Carter presidency were taken hostage at our embassy in Teheran, Iran has been involved in anti-American activities and crimes against humanity including complicity in the 9/11 atrocities. Iran, through its Hezbollah proxy, was also directly responsible for the deaths and maiming of hundreds of our marines in Beirut. And Iran’s bloody fingerprints were all over the killings of scores of Jewish children in the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina.

Iran produced the infamous IEDs provided to Iraqi insurgents that have killed hundreds of U.S. troops and the Iranian regime has directly supported terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond. The United States has ample cause to target the mullahs. As Lee Smith from the Weekly Standard recently opined. “Iran is the problem.”

Putin Lectures Obama At Tense Meeting

Obama begs Russians for 'space' on missile defense talks

From: Washington Times

Unaware that a microphone was recording him, President Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday for breathing room until after Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign to negotiate on missile defense.

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev at the end of their 90-minute meeting, apparently referring to incoming Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Medvedev replied, “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”

“This is my last election,” Mr. Obama said. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”

The Russian leader responded, “I understand. I transmit this information to Vladimir.”

The exchange was picked up by microphone of a Russian reporter as journalists were allowed into the meeting room for remarks by the two leaders. It was first reported by ABC News, which said it verified the conversation. A Washington Times reporter heard a portion of the tape that begins with Mr. Obama saying, “This is my last election.”

The two leaders are in Seoul for a nuclear security summit involving the heads of more than 50 nations. Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev were huddling close together in their respective chairs when the conversation took place.

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who attended the meeting, at first said he didn’t hear the exchange and couldn’t comment on it. Within an hour, however, Mr. Rhodes issued a statement via email that said the U.S. “is committed to implementing our missile defense system, which we’ve repeatedly said is not aimed at Russia.”

“However, given the longstanding difference between the U.S. and Russia on this issue, it will take time and technical work before we can try to reach an agreement,” Mr. Rhodes said. “Since 2012 is an election year in both countries, with an election and leadership transition in Russia and an election in the United States, it is clearly not a year in which we are going to achieve a breakthrough. Therefore, President Obama and President Medvedev agreed that it was best to instruct our technical experts to do the work of better understanding our respective positions, providing space for continued discussions on missile defense cooperation going forward.”

The image of Mr. Obama putting off a difficult national security question due to re-election concerns is the opposite of what the White House intended for this trip. Mr. Obama’s first event upon landing in Korea on Sunday was to visit the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea for a photo-op of him gazing across no-man’s land at a forward Army observation post.

Mr. Medvedev told reporters that he believes missile defense talks between the two countries “could be more active.”

“I believe we still have time; time hasn’t run out,” Mr. Medvedev said. “And now we need to discuss and cooperate on various aspects on European missile defense. Now, in my view, time has come for discussions between technical aspects and, of course, we remain at our own positions, both the United States and Russian Federation.”

When he knew he was speaking for the microphones, Mr. Obama said only, “We’ve got more work to do between our two countries. Dmitry identified some areas of continued friction — missile defense being an example. And what we’ve agreed to is to make sure that our teams, at a technical level, are in discussions about how some of these issues can be resolved.”

The U.S. and its NATO allies are pursuing a missile defense shield, while Russia objects that it would compromise its security. Mr. Rhodes said the U.S. has continuously told the Russians that the shield is not being developed as a defense against Russia, and that the two nations should move forward on a broad range of nuclear weapons issues rather than bog down over the shield issue.

Obama Wants To Share U.S. Missile Defense Secrets With Vladimir Putin's Russia

From: Washington Times

President Obama signaled Congress this week that he is prepared to share U.S. missile defense secrets with Russia.

In the president’s signing statement issued Saturday in passing into law the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, Mr. Obama said restrictions aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on U.S. Standard Missile-3 velocity burnout parameters might impinge on his constitutional foreign policy authority.

As first disclosed in this space several weeks ago, U.S. officials are planning to provide Moscow with the SM-3 data, despite reservations from security officials who say that doing so could compromise the effectiveness of the system by allowing Russian weapons technicians to counter the missile. The weapons are considered some of the most effective high-speed interceptors in the U.S. missile defense arsenal.

There are also concerns that Russia could share the secret data with China and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to help their missile programs defeat U.S. missile defenses.

Officials from the State Department and Missile Defense Agency have discussed the idea of providing the SM-3 data to the Russians as part of the so-far fruitless missile-defense talks with Moscow, headed in part of by Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher, who defense officials say is a critic of U.S. missile defenses.

Their thinking is that if the Russians know the technical data, it will help allay Moscow’s fears that the planned missile defenses in Europe would be used against Russian ICBMs. Officials said current SM-3s are not fast enough to catch long-range Russian missiles, but a future variant may have some anti-ICBM capabilities.

Ms. Tauscher has repeatedly denied that her talks with the Russians are secret. However, the administration has provided almost no briefings about the talks to Congress, which prompted critics of the talks to include language in the new defense spending law limiting data-sharing.

Section 1227 of the defense law prohibits spending any funds that would be used to give Russian officials access to sensitive missile-defense technology, as part of a cooperation agreement without first sending Congress a report identifying the specific secrets, how they would be used and steps to protect the data from compromise.

The president also must certify to Congress that Russia will not share the secrets with other states and that it will not help Russia “to develop countermeasures” to U.S. defenses.

The certification also must show whether Russia is providing equal access to its missile defense technologies, which are mainly nuclear-tipped anti-missile interceptors.

Mr. Obama said in the signing statement that he would treat the legal restrictions as “non-binding.”

“While my administration intends to keep the Congress fully informed of the status of U.S. efforts to cooperate with the Russian Federation on ballistic missile defense, my administration will also interpret and implement section 1244 in a manner that does not interfere with the president’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs and avoids the undue disclosure of sensitive diplomatic communications,” Mr. Obama said, incorrectly identifying the section of the law containing the restrictions.

PUTIN vs. MEDVEDEV

From: National Review Online

President Medvedev chose the futuristic Skolkovo Business School campus outside of Moscow for his first-ever televised question-and-answer session last Wednesday. He was greeted by applause from the eight hundred journalists in attendance. They were hoping for the announcement. It did not come, but Medvedev did not pass up the opportunity to indirectly advance the case that he should be reelected president in 2012.

Putin’s camp was less subtle. Over the weekend, “sources close to Putin” disclosed that he intended to run in the 2012 presidential election.

Over the past half year, Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin have “announced” competing platforms for the presidential “campaign.” It’s a bit different from an American political campaign. Russia’s 2012 presidential election will be resolved behind closed doors in a byzantine process that no outsider can understand. There will emerge one candidate, who will run against token opposition, and who will be Russia’s president for the next four years.

Neither Medvedev nor Putin has declared his candidacy or openly presented his political platform. Both instead use imagery, veiled language, and other indirect communications with the public, their supporters and their opponents alike. Both Putin and Medvedev transmit symbolic messages. Putin pilots helicopters, treks through rugged terrain, hurls judo opponents to the floor, and generally shows that he is a tough guy despite his Napoleonic height. Medvedev wears business suits, travels to Silicon Valley, and speaks in lawyerly tones about the rule of law and increasing foreign investment. In one respect, though, Medvedev has become rather brazen: He has taken to wearing a bomber jacket emblazoned with the words “Russia’s Commander-in-Chief.” Among the commander-in-chief’s powers is the power to fire the prime minister.

As Putin Crushes Russia’s Internet, Obama Stands By

From: Pajamas Media

Both the United States and Russia began gearing up over the past few weeks for their coming presidential elections next year. As with most things, the course of events in the two countries was rather different.

In America, the opposition party candidates began jockeying for position and the incumbent declared his intentions. In Russia, where there is no opposition party and the incumbent is a mere figurehead, the corrupt dictatorial regime began systematically eradicating political dissent on the Internet.

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, there are three significant sources of dissent, all based mainly on the Internet: bloggers on the LiveJournal (LJ) host, the website of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and the website of shareholder rights activist Alexei Navalny, who is something like the Russian Ralph Nader.

Between March 24 and April 8, all three came under a vicious, determined, and overwhelming DDOS attack from a powerful, shadowy enemy — and all three faltered and fell from their Internet perches. One of the LJ bloggers who disappeared was Dmitry Medvedev, the so-called “president” of Russia. Another LJ blogger, Timur_nechaev77, asked: “Who ordered the attack on LiveJournal is a rhetorical question. Who has been carrying out a mop-up operation of the mass media and the Internet for the last 10 years?”

In Russia today, nobody has any doubts about the answer to that question. In Washington, D.C., though, it seems our government remains very much in the dark.

Both Navalny and Anton Nosik, the éminence grise of the Russian-language internet (or RuNet), were blunt and clear in pointing the finger of blame for the attacks at the Kremlin. Everyone in Russia understands that the next national election is likely to be the last, with Putin returning to power in essence as “president for life” and a final neo-Soviet crackdown on civil liberties to follow soon after. The Internet is a complicated thing, hard to control, and practice makes perfect.

Russians seek hit-to-kill

From: Washington Times


Russia's government plans to exploit the Obama administration’s eagerness to conclude a missile defense deal as a way to obtain valuable technology from advanced U.S. missile defenses, according to U.S. national security officials.

The Russians specifically are seeking a defense technology cooperation deal with the Pentagon that will permit them to gain access to U.S. hit-to-kill missile defense know-how, the key technology for the most current strategic long-range and tactical short-range defenses that were developed at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars over the past two decades.
The reason, the officials said, is that Moscow knows it can offer very little in the way of cooperative missile defense with the U.S. The current strategic anti-missile interceptors around Moscow are armed with nuclear warheads — tactical weapons that Moscow is not expected to use against an Iranian missile attack.

Additionally, the nuclear-tipped interceptors are supposed to be the subject of follow-on U.S.-Russian tactical nuclear arms reduction talks based on the recently ratified New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The notion that Moscow will share sensor data also is doubtful. Missile defense experts say Russia’s key radar are designed and deployed to detect U.S. submarine-launched missiles and are not useful in detecting Iranian missile launches, the main goal of the administration’s European-based missile defense plan.

Moscow also has problems getting U.S. technology because current law limits the transfer of technology under U.S. anti-proliferation law, specifically related to Iran, that bars Russia's government from access to U.S. high-tech exports based on its past and ongoing arms proliferation to Iran.

The Obama administration is loosening export controls as part of a major reform effort, and administration arms-control officials, including Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher, are hoping the reforms will make it easier to reach her long-sought goal of concluding a missile defense or defense technology deal with Moscow.

“It’s the perfect storm: loosened export controls, reset with Russia and arms control fever by the administration,” said one official concerned about the pending Russian technology cooperation.

The Pentagon is said to be lukewarm at best over missile defense cooperation because of concerns the technology will be used to counter U.S. systems or sold covertly to U.S. adversaries.

Ms. Tauscher did not respond to emails seeking comment, and her spokesman, Jonathan E. Kaplan, declined to comment.

Ms. Tauscher, undersecretary of state for international security, told a conference Monday that talks with Russia on missile defense cooperation were progressing but that a final agreement was not assured.

According to the U.S. officials, Russians close to the government stated in recent talks that their main interest in any U.S. deal is getting access to military technology generally and missile-defense know how specifically.

The interest in U.S. technology followed a sharp turnaround in Moscow policy several months ago, when the Russians said they were no longer opposed to U.S. missile defenses. The Russian military hopes its engagement and a missile defense agreement will lead to obtaining strategic hit-to-kill missile technology.

Hit-to-kill involves ultra-high-speed, non-explosive guided warheads that destroy targets [-] such as missile warheads in flight — by slamming into them.

Gates visits Russia as Putin decries UN action on Libya

From: Christian Science Monitor

Moscow

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will probably get an earful of Russia's objections to the United Nations-sanctioned military operation in Libya when he meets Tuesday with President Dmitry Medvedev.

A taste of what he might expect was unleashed Monday by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who compared the Western assault against Muammar Qaddafi's offensive capabilities to a medieval crusade.

"The [UN resolution authorizing the action] is defective and flawed," Mr. Putin said during a visit to a Russian missile factory. "It allows everything. It resembles medieval calls for crusades."

Qaddafi: A look back

Russia signaled a new willingness to compromise with Western powers by abstaining on last week's UN Security Council resolution authorizing "all necessary measures" to protect Libyan civilians from forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi – the former Soviet Union would have vetoed it in a heartbeat – but Moscow has since become harshly critical of what it sees as an excessive and ill-focused exercise of military power. And it's not only Russia.

Common BRIC policy?

Experts say the similar doubt being publicly raised by all the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) suggests that the informal bloc of emerging economic tigers might be starting to coordinate their foreign policies to stage a collective pushback against the dominance of the old-line powers that are leading the charge in Libya.

"As of today, we see serious reservations about the way the Libya operation is being conducted coming from Russia, Brazil, China, India, and Germany," says Vladimir Davidov, an expert on BRIC and director of the official Institute of Latin American Studies in Moscow.

"Germany is the odd man out here, but the others constitute a group that has been consulting among themselves on foreign policy positions for about five years. They want to expand their influence on global affairs, to make changes in the system to reflect their common interests. I think this is going to be a growing factor in years to come."

Indian External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna said Monday that India "regrets that the air strikes are taking place," because they could potentially "harm innocent civilians, foreign nationals, diplomatic missions, and their personnel in Libya."

A spokesperson for the foreign ministry of China, which also abstained on the UN resolution, said Sunday that "China, as always, does not agree with the use of force in international relations." Brazil, a nonvoting member of the Security Council, abstained from voting on the resolution after making clear that it opposed international militarization of the crisis in Libya.

The Arab League, which first called for imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to hobble Qaddafi, has also been expressing second thoughts as they watch the swift and destructive Western air campaign. But on Monday Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, said, "We respect the UN resolution and there is no conflict with it, especially as it indicated there would be no invasion but that it would protect civilians from what they are subject to in Benghazi."

Impact on Moscow politics

Russia's decision not to block the UN resolution was probably the result of a tough compromise between Mr. Medvedev, who favors greater cooperation with the West, and more hard-line forces in the foreign and defense ministries, analysts say.

"Russia's leadership is clearly split over this issue, with Medvedev being most interested in seeing Russia become a member of the Western group of democratic countries," says Alexander Konovalov, president of the independent Institute for Strategic Assessments in Moscow. "The Kremlin's view is that we have a long list of good reasons to cooperate with the West, so why jeopardize our improving relations with the US and European Union over Libya?"

But Russia's Foreign Ministry has already expressed anger over reports that dozens of civilians may have been killed in the first wave of Libya air strikes, and called upon the West to "halt the indiscriminate use of force." Analysts say the longer the operation goes on, and the messier it becomes, the more political damage it's likely to do to Medvedev.

"The liberal wing of Russia's establishment is winning so far," says Dmitry Babich, an expert with the official RIA-Novosti agency. "But if difficulties arise, the supporters of the Arab world are going to push harder [for condemnation of Western intervention]. Medvedev sympathizes with the West, but not to the extent that he will risk losing his power over it."

US still optimistic about Russian relations

Addressing Russian officers at the Kuznetsov Naval Academy in St. Petersburg Monday, Mr. Gates, who is on his last official visit to Russia, took an optimistic view of the often-bumpy US-Russia relationship.

"We’ve disagreed before, and Russia still has uncertainties" about missile defense and other thorny issues, he said. "However, we’ve mutually committed to resolving these difficulties."

Though ongoing US-Russian differences over plans to build a Eurasian antimissile shield were supposed to top Gates's agenda in Russia, the mayhem in Libya and wider Middle East turmoil could eclipse those plans.

"Events in the Middle East are going to deeply affect the whole calculus about missile defense, and what to do about Iran, and many other common problems," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a leading Moscow foreign policy journal.

"It may be that [Gates and Medvedev] will put off that conversation and focus on what's going on in Libya and other Arab countries. Until the dust settles there, it makes no sense to talk about things in the same old way since nobody can say what the world is going to look like," after these revolutions end, he says.

One More Reason Russia Is Not A Real Democracy

From: The Economist
Putin's victory

Dec 30th 2010, 17:25 by T.N. and A.O. | LONDON AND MOSCOW

ANY dwindling hope among the supporters of Mikhail Khodorkovsky that the full force of Vladimir Putin's fury would not be brought to bear on the imprisoned oil tycoon ended earlier today, when he and his co-defendant Platon Lebedev received the maximum 14-year prison sentence, as prosecutors had demanded, following their conviction earlier this week for stealing oil from their company, Yukos, and laundering the proceeds. Likewise, anyone still believing that the prospects for liberalisation in Russia remained alive will find it difficult to maintain their optimism today.

Today's sentence was delivered by a judge in a courtroom but decided by Mr Putin, Russia's prime minister. It is retrospectively applied back to 2003, when the two men were first arrested, meaning they face a further seven years in prison. This is a firm indication that Mr Putin will remain at the top of Russian politics until and beyond the next presidential election in 2012.

As an article in the new edition of the print magazine explains, the persecution of Mr Khodorkovsky and the subsequent state appropriation of Yukos form a linchpin of the system constructed by Mr Putin. One effect of today's ruling will be to damage the credibility of Dmitry Medvedev, inside and outside Russia. The president has tried to disassociate himself from the case. But unlike the first Khodorkovsky trial, in which the two defendants were convicted of underpaying taxes on oil, this one occurred on the president's watch. The verdict and the sentence make a mockery of his soothing utterances about modernisation and the importance of the rule of law.

The German and American governments have expressed their concern over the sentence and its implications for Russian justice, as they did earlier in the week when the judge delivered his verdict. But Mr Putin is unlikely to allow his victory to be soured.

The defendants' legal team have said they will appeal against the verdict.