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Monthly Archives: March 2017
Tennant: Freedom of speech crucial for health of nation – Reno Gazette Journal
Posted: March 9, 2017 at 3:04 am
Laura Tennant, news@masonvalleynews.com Published 10:32 a.m. PT March 8, 2017 | Updated 13 hours ago
Laura Tennant is a columnist for the Mason Valley News.(Photo: Provided to the Mason Valley News)
I was flabbergasted a few years ago to learn that administrators and students at some American colleges and universities were protesting free speech and the students were obtaining petition signatures to eliminate the First Amendment because a lecturer with different political views had been scheduled to speak at the school. I was more than flabbergasted when the president of the college upheld their views. I had thought the radical anti-free speech movement would fade away but it is now becoming violent with lawlessness occurring and no one suffering the consequences but innocent people.
America is a nation of laws and always has been for more than 200 years. I guess young people who have never had rules at home think they dont have to obey the laws of the land go try it in some other country.
The opponents of the First Amendment must believe, if the amendment were scratched from the U.S. Constitution, they would be the only ones who had the right to voice an opinion because, of course, their political views are superior to those of other citizens. Sounds scary that is what Adolph Hitlers brown shirts believed. If German citizens dared to express their opinion, they were immediately hauled off to a prison camp or murdered on the spot!
I cannot believe any American of any political party favors this type of a government.
The First Amendment is one of the most important freedoms we Americans have. I truly believe that everyone has a right to hold and express a political or other type of opinion in this society and to do it without fearing physical abuse from citizens who disagree.
In my younger years, I loved reading the classic authors of the 18th and 19th centuries, who often wrote about their gatherings where they socialized and respectfully discussed the worlds problems with their friends who were famous artists or statesmen.
Antagonists are our helpers
A quote by British statesman Edmund Burke reflects why I think that citizens open exchange of viewpoints on any subject is a positive force in America.
Burke said, He who struggles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. I believe this, so with whom shall I discuss politics if everybody is forced to think alike? That form of government is called a dictatorship and citizens of those countries are so controlled there is no freedom of speech.
Burke was an 18th-century Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who eventually moved to London and served in the House of Commons with the Whig Party and many of his quotes have become famous.
By the time students get to college, I would think that they could stand to be civil to someone who does not share their opinions.
So far, President Donald Trump has not tried to stop the deadly antics of the opposing side, but he might have to step in if communities, colleges or universities cannot get the situation remedied before someone gets killed.
Snow globe world
I woke up last Sunday morning to see and hear a howling blizzard blustering through our yard. We have not seen one of these storms for years. I honestly enjoy wild weather if I am warm and toasty inside the house by the fire and I do not have to drive anywhere.
This morning, I was unable to resist so I grabbed my camera and went outside barefooted to capture the moment. When the wind hit me, it felt like the storm had blown in from the Artic Circle but it was blowing from the usual southeasterly direction. Getting a good picture of wind and snow flitting through our yard was difficult. But I did get a couple of video shots that tell the story. The snow quit for a while until this afternoon and now the snowflakes are slowly drifting down and it feels like we are in a musical snowglobe.
Laura Tennant is a Silver City native, Dayton historian and the Leader-Couriers former editor. Comments are welcomed. Call 775-246-03256, e-mail L10ant38@gmail.com or write P.O. Box 143, Dayton, NV 89403.
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Tennant: Freedom of speech crucial for health of nation - Reno Gazette Journal
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NATO marks International Women’s Day – NATO HQ (press release)
Posted: at 3:00 am
An organisation, society or country can only succeed if it uses the full potential of all of its members men and women, said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, marking the occasion of International Womens Day on Wednesday (8 March 2017). He stressed that equal participation of men and women is a core security requirement, essential to the resilience of societies, to the effectiveness of NATO forces and to achieving and preserving peace.
NATO strongly supports the global women, peace and security agenda. The Alliance has integrated gender perspectives in its three core tasks collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security. NATO works to promote womens rights in training and operations, and in our assistance for partners, such as Jordan, Georgia and Ukraine. The appointment of NATOs Special Representative on Women, Peace and Security Ambassador Marriet Schuurman demonstrates the importance of these issues.
Today, NATO has more women in leadership positions than ever before as ministers, senior officials and military commanders. A quarter of NATO Defence Ministers are women, six of 28 NATO Ambassadors are women, and last year, the Alliance welcomed its first female Deputy Secretary General, Rose Gottemoeller. NATOs Joint Force Command in Naples is also led by US Admiral Michelle Howard, a four-star officer, and US Army Brigadier General Giselle Wilz is the first woman to head NATO HQ Sarajevo. Canadas most senior female military officer, Lt.-Gen. Christine Whitecross, is currently commandant of the NATO Defense College in Rome.
The Secretary General has highlighted that making the best potential of both men and woman makes NATO stronger and better prepared to deal with current security challenges. I look forward to the day when not just a quarter but half of NATO ministers are women; I am sure that time will come, said the Secretary General.
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NATO Deputy Secretary General thanks Iceland for its contribution to European security – NATO HQ (press release)
Posted: at 3:00 am
NATO Deputy Secretary General, Rose Gottemoeller, ended a two day visit to Iceland on Wednesday (8 March 2017) by addressing students at the University of Iceland on how NATO is adapting to a new security environment. Ms Gottemoeller explained how NATO represents the gold standard in multilateral security cooperation and how it is strengthening its collective defence in Europe and doing more to fight terrorism.
Iceland, a founding member of NATO, is a highly valued Ally and although the country has no standing army, it has made important financial and civilian contributions to NATO missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan.
Ms Gottemoeller arrived in Iceland on Tuesday (7 March 2017) evening for talks with Icelands Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson. The two discussed the current security situation and Icelands contribution to NATO.
On Wednesday (8 March 2017), the Deputy Secretary General met with the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. She also gave a speech at a NATO Resources Conference in Reykjavik, which has been discussing how the Alliance can best use its financial resources to adapt to the new security environment. Ms Gottemoeller stressed the importance of common funding, which enables Allies to join together to boost their defence capabilities, such as with NATOs fleet of AWACS surveillance aircraft.
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NATO Deputy Secretary General thanks Iceland for its contribution to European security - NATO HQ (press release)
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Trump’s rumored pick for NATO ambassador doesn’t seem to agree with him about NATO – Vox
Posted: at 3:00 am
Richard Grenell, a well-known conservative communications professional, will reportedly soon be announced as the Trump administrations ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Its an important job given the alliances mission of standing up to Russia and a tough one given President Trumps harsh criticism of the organization.
Which makes it interesting that Grenell, unlike his potential boss, is a strong supporter of maintaining the NATO alliance and using it as a counterweight to Russias efforts to expand its influence in Eastern Europe. Grenell, who served as a foreign policy spokesperson in the George W. Bush administration, seems more aligned with the moderate wing of the administration (represented by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis) than the radical revisionist one (represented by senior strategist Steve Bannon).
[Its] confusing, Steve Saideman, a professor at Carleton University who studies NATO, tells me. As far as I know, Grenell does not hate NATO or want to burn it down.
Grenell is also somewhat controversial in conservative circles, owing to the fact that hes openly gay and a supporter of same-sex marriage. The Romney campaign picked him to be its foreign policy spokesperson in 2012, but a social conservative backlash ended his tenure very quickly. This time around, Grenell is less likely to get into trouble for who he is than what hes tweeted: The tone of his comments about Trump during the primary, especially on Twitter, was highly critical.
If you think Trump knows foreign policy issues then absolutely yes, you are stupid, Grenell tweeted in March 2016.
He changed his tune during the general election, once referring to a Trump statement on NATO, where he said he refocused the alliance on terrorism, as fantastic. But past criticism of Trump has gotten potential administration nominees into trouble before. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly wanted former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams for his top deputy but Trump nixed the pick, reportedly because Abrams had written harshly about Trump in the past.
The Grenell pick is thus an interesting test for the Trump administration: How much internal dissent can it tolerate, and what kind of dissent is acceptable? Washingtons closest allies, and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, will be waiting anxiously for the answers.
The US ambassador to NATO, also called the permanent representative, sits on the North Atlantic Council, the alliances decision-making body. The council is where NATO countries vote on key issues like whether to undertake collective military missions such as NATOs involvement in the Afghanistan war. The ambassador votes on behalf of the US, and also plays a role in negotiating the text of any NATO-wide agreement.
These are important tasks, but typically the person doing them doesnt have a lot of freedom. Historically, the ambassadors job is more to do what his bosses tell him than make independent decisions. The [ambassador] is both a very important position as the US representative in the room when big decisions are being made and also not so important since they are very closely guided/managed by DC, Saideman explains.
That may be less true in the Trump administration, given its deep internal divisions over foreign policy and well-earned reputation for disorganization. In this environment, clear guidance could be lacking, leaving the ambassador with a lot more discretion. That would make Grenells personal background and views, if hes confirmed by the Senate, a whole lot more important than those of previous NATO ambassadors.
Grenell does have a lot of experience in conservative foreign policy land. Prior to his job with Romney, he served as the spokesperson for the US mission to the United Nations under George W. Bush, holding that job longer than any other individual.
As you might expect from someone with this background, he holds fairly conventional conservative views on foreign policy including on issues relating to NATO, which he has called the worlds greatest alliance. When Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in July 2014, he called for an immediate and forceful response.
The US leads NATO ... they should have been on the ground in Ukraine immediately, he tweeted. We should sell Ukraine arms immediately.
In a March 2016 appearance on the Fox Business Channel, Grenell defended the alliance against the fact that its not spending enough on its own defense a charge that President Trump has made repeatedly. NATO countries are supposed to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, but only five countries hit that target in 2016.
In Grenells view, the issue is that the Obama administration has been too disengaged from the alliance, weakening it as an institution.
You cant blame NATO, Grenell told host Charles Payne. I would say the reason why were having this debate about NATO right now ... is because you dont have US leadership.
Grenell had also been a tough critic of Putin, attacking his intervention in Ukraine and meddling with foreign elections in a number of op-eds and numerous tweets published in the past several years. Once again, Grenell saw this as a product of Obamas weakness.
If Grenell gets the NATO job, half the reporters in DC (including me) will have to unblock him
The Russian president has successfully used propaganda, natural gas, intimidation, money laundering, military hardware, corruption, and his opponents weaknesses to chip away at the Wests influence throughout Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, he wrote in the conservative tabloid Newsmax last year. Russia is calculating how best to continue its offense undeterred by the West and President Obama.
The point, then, is that Grenell seems to have broadly conventional foreign policy views: He sees NATO as a vital alliance and bulwark against an expansionist Russia. His critique of the Obama administration was that it was too withdrawn, too disengaged from allies and unwilling to come to their aid when theyre threatened.
Trump, by contrast, has cast doubt on Americas commitment to NATO and described Russia as a potential partner. His critique of the Obama administration was that it was too beholden to outdated international institutions like NATO and too willing to use force when Americas direct national security interests were not at stake.
This kind of tension is becoming fairly normal in the administration. Secretary Mattis, for example, more or less disavowed past Trump statements on NATO and Russia in his confirmation hearing. During a trip to Brussels for a NATO summit, Mattis openly ruled out Trumps proposal to cooperate with Russia on military matters. Vice President Mike Pence, during a speech in Germany, said that America strongly supports NATO and is unwavering in our commitment to our transatlantic alliance.
This kind of sub-presidential diplomacy can make it difficult to figure out what the administrations actual position is or would be in a crisis. Do Mattis and Pence speak for Trump, or will the president overrule them when their views come into direct conflict, especially over Russia?
Right now, its too soon to tell. But Grenell, if confirmed, will be thrown into the middle of this conflict on one of the most important points of internal tension, the NATO alliance, inside the administration.
Grenell is not shy about expressing his opinions. He appears on Fox News regularly, and has attacked a fairly large percentage of the Washington press corps on Twitter.
If Grenell gets the NATO job, half the reporters in DC (including me) will have to unblock him, New York Times political reporter Glenn Thrush tweeted when the news of Grenells nomination first broke.
So its no surprise that Grenell has had a lot of things to say about Donald Trump. Since roughly last summer, most of those things have been positive Grenell has vigorously defended Trumps record both on foreign policy and LGBTQ rights.
But prior to Trumps victory in the primary, Grenells Twitter tone was about as hostile to Trump as it was to reporters. He described candidate Trump as dangerously ignorant, and seemingly called on the Republican Party to block him from taking the nomination:
All of this raises the question of whether Grenell will go the way of Abrams, the Tillerson deputy who never was.
There is a key difference between Grenell and Abrams. Abrams was #NeverTrump, and never apologized or withdrew his attacks. Grenell, by contrast, appears to have recanted his anti-Trump faith after the primary, spending the past several months vocally defending the candidate and the new administration on Twitter and TV.
So what were about to see assuming the reports of Grenells nomination are true is a test of the loyalty component of a Trump nominee. How much criticism of the president and his policies is acceptable in a high-profile nominee? And is withdrawing the attacks enough to make things better?
If Grenell gets past the trial balloon stage, and is formally announced as the administrations NATO ambassador pick, then well have our answer. If he doesnt get picked well, then well have learned something too.
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Trump's rumored pick for NATO ambassador doesn't seem to agree with him about NATO - Vox
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US general says Russia deploys cruise missile, threatens NATO – Reuters
Posted: at 3:00 am
By Idrees Ali | WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON Russia has deployed a land-based cruise missile that violates the "spirit and intent" of an arms control treaty and poses a threat to NATO, Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff General Paul Selva said on Wednesday.
It was the first public accusation by the U.S. military of the deployment after reports said last month that Russia had secretly deployed the ground-launched SSC-8 cruise missile that Moscow has been developing and testing for several years, despite U.S. complaints that it violated sections of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.
"The system itself presents a risk to most of our facilities in Europe and we believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility," Selva said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing. The Air Force general did not say whether the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear weapon.
Selva said the United States had brought up the issue with Russia. He did not say what options were being considered if the discussions did not lead to results, but added that "we have been asked to incorporate a set of options into the nuclear posture review."
"I don't have enough information on their intent to conclude other than they do not intend to return to compliance," he added.
In an interview with Reuters last month, President Donald Trump said he would raise the issue of the deployment with Russian President Vladimir Putin "if and when we meet."
In 2014, the United States made a similar accusation. The State Department concluded in a report that Russia was in violation of its obligations under the INF treaty.
Russia accused Washington of conducting "megaphone diplomacy" after the accusation was repeated by the State Department in 2015. Moscow also denied it had violated the treaty, which helped end the Cold War.
Questions have been raised about U.S. commitment to another nuclear weapons deal, the New START agreement, which caps U.S. and Russian deployment of nuclear warheads after Reuters reported that Trump told Putin it was a bad deal for the United States.
During the Wednesday hearing, senior military officials strongly backed the treaty.
"I have stated for the record in the past, now I'll state again that I am a big supporter of the New START agreement," said Air Force General John Hyten, the head of U.S. Strategic Command.
"The risk would be an arms race, we are not in an arms race now," Hyten said.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)
KUALA LUMPUR Two U.N. employees who were among 11 Malaysian nationals stranded in North Korea following a travel ban have left the country, a Malaysian government source said on Thursday.
UNITED NATIONS Malaysia has warned that an investigation into the murder of the North Korean leader's half brother "may take longer than what we hope," as Pyongyang ally China said on Wednesday that no international action should be considered until it is finished.
PARIS Centrist Emmanuel Macron would come out ahead of far right leader Marine Le Pen in the first round of France's presidential election before going on to win a runoff vote against her, a Harris Interactive poll showed on Thursday.
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Trump Picks Hawkish Critic of Russia as NATO Ambassador, Veering From One Extreme to the Other – The Intercept
Posted: at 3:00 am
President Trump has reportedly tappedas his ambassador tothe North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a hawkish critic of Russia who wants the U.S. to arm Ukraine. Its the latest sign that the administration isreacting to criticism that it is too soft on Russiabypivoting to the other extreme.
Richard Grennell is a former Bush-era U.S. spokesperson at the United Nations who also served as a foreign policy spokesperson forMitt Romneys presidential campaign. He frequently appears on Fox News and other conservative outlets saying President Obama appeased Russia.
Following Russias annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Obama resistedpolitical pressure from hawks in Congress to provide lethal arms to the Ukranian government, fearing that doing so would only cause Russia to escalate its own military involvement.
Writing in The New York Timess Room for Debate section in 2014, Grenell said that Obamas belief that the U.S. could support Ukraine but not antagonize Russia represented a nave and dangerous world view.In aFox News op-ed, he proposed military escalation: Offer advice and training to Ukraine, and sell it the lethal weapons required to contend with Russian armored personnel carriers, tanks and missiles, he wrote,adding that the U.S. should also restart missile defense shield programs in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Grennellalso counseled Obama to leave directly military confrontation with Russia over Ukraine on the table.
The Obama doctrine only persuades Putin that he need never fear the U.S. military the worlds most powerful deterrent, he wrote. Even if Obama would never start a war with Russia, he should stop swearing off military action in public. Instead, President Obama, through his inexhaustible number of speeches and statements, should rhetorically leave military action on the table.
Although his support for arming Ukraine stretches back years, Grenell was continuing to advocate for lethal aid for Ukraine as recently as Tuesday via his Twitter account, which he frequently uses to opine on world affairs:
Grenell is not the only Russia hawk to step into Trumps orbit recently.
His new national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, holds more moderate views on Islam than his bigoted predecessor Michael Flynn but also has a more adversarial view of Russia. In May, he described the Russian annexation of Crimea as an attempt to collapse the post-World War Two, certainly the post-Cold War, security, economic, and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests. While Trump has been critical of NATO at one point in early January calling it obsolete McMaster is a strong supporter of the alliance.
Trumps UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has also taken a tough line with Russia during her first month on the job. The dire situation in eastern Ukraine is one that demands clear and strong condemnation of Russian actions, she said of Russian-allied forces there. She also affirmed continued support for U.S. sanctions on Russia that were enacted in response to the annexation of Crimea, saying: The United States continues to condemn and calls for an immediate end to the Russian occupation of Crimea. Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.
Some Russian government officials, including those who were initially openly supportive of Trump, are starting to grow uneasy with the presidents approach, reportedMoscow-based journalist Amie-Ferris Rotman for Foreign Policy.We were too early in our decision, made with absolute sympathy towards President Trumps constructive rhetoric, that he would somehow be pro-Russian,Leonid Slutsky, who is head of the Russian parliaments foreign affairs committee, said in February. But he turned out to be pro-American.
Top photo: A Ukrainian soldier stands at the front line of the ATO operation in Artemovsk, Ukraine, in 2015.
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Trump Picks Hawkish Critic of Russia as NATO Ambassador, Veering From One Extreme to the Other - The Intercept
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Chairman of the NATO Military Committee visits Egypt – NATO HQ (press release)
Posted: at 3:00 am
General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee visited Cairo, Egypt on 6-7 March 17. During his visit he met with the Chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, General Mahmoud Hegazy.
The Generals discussed global security and regional challenges, with a special focus on the current situation in Libya. They also exchanged views on furthering practical military-to-military cooperation and increasing coordination between NATO and Egypt. General Pavel stated Egypt is a valuable and active Mediterranean Dialogue partner. Meetings such as these are important as they improve our situational awareness of the regional security challenges while also allowing the Alliance to explain firsthand its current policies and activities.
Egypt joined the Mediterranean Dialogue in 1994 and signed a Security Agreement with NATO in 2009. The Dialogue reflects the Alliances view that security in Europe is closely linked to security and stability in the Mediterranean.
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Chairman of the NATO Military Committee visits Egypt - NATO HQ (press release)
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The US-NATO Plan for Macedonia: Keep Serbia Down and Russia Out – Center for Research on Globalization
Posted: at 3:00 am
The role of the United States in the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is often overlooked by people who are critical of Washingtons intervention in the internal affairs of independent, sovereign countries.
For it was in the former Yugoslavia that the precedent was set for future American intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo provided the launch pad for the Wests concept of humanitarian intervention, which, in reality, is a pretext for safeguarding and enhancing US global hegemony.
However, intervention by Washington in the Balkans in the 1990s served a more immediate objective for the Americans. While Otto von Bismarck, the legendary first Chancellor of Germany, scoffed at the notion of intervening in the Balkans, having said that the region isnot worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier,the US took a decidedly different view on the matter.
For Washington, helping to break up Yugoslavia would not only create client states for the US but would also, at best, keep Russia out of the Balkans, or, at worst, limit Russian influence in the region (historically, Russia has close connections there based on pan-Slavism and the Orthodox faith). An American presence in the Balkans would also allow US policy-makers to project American power beyond the region, as Camp Bondsteel, in Kosovo, has been helping to do for nearly twenty years now. Incidentally, it is one of the largest overseas US military bases in the world, hosting up to seven thousand soldiers and an array of military equipment.
Today, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo are American client states. But the process of Washington colonizing the Balkans is not yet complete. Standing in the way of the US achieving full mastery over the region are Serbia and Russia.
Throughout its history, Serbia has resisted foreign occupiers, from the Ottoman Empire to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the German Empire to the Third Reich. However, since the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, in 2000, in an election which the Americans played a decisive role in, Serbia has begun to be colonized by the US. Today, there are NATO supervisory offices in key Serbian institutions, from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the judiciary to the civil service. The former is all the more ironic and humiliating for Serbs given that NATO representatives sit in the very building that NATO partly destroyed during its bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.
Further to that, to weaken Serbia and ensure that it does not resist the diktats of Washington, the US encouraged and recognized Kosovos unilateral declaration of independence in 2008, as well as having instigated and overseen the fraudulent independence referendum result in Montenegro in 2006. As a consequence of both illegal actions, Belgrade lost control of Kosovo and Montenegro, reducing Serbia in size and in clout.
But despite Washingtons penetration of Serbia, assisted by the European Union, and accelerated under the current prime minister, Alexander Vucic, more and more ordinary Serbs are coming to realize the tremendously damaging effects of American influence in their country politically, economically, militarily and socially and thus anti-Western sentiment in Serbia is now widespread.
Buoyed by its emphatic return to the international arena, and by its foreign policy successes in the Crimea and in Syria, Russia has begun to show increasing interest in the Balkans. Moscow understands the geostrategic importance of the Balkans for Russian national security and, like Tsarist Russia is starting to capitalize on pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia, Montenegro, the Republika Srpska (the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Macedonia. And it is Macedonia that today the US regards as constituting an effective means of keeping the Americans in the Balkans, the Serbs down in the Balkans and the Russians out of the Balkans.
Washington, which is actively seeking both NATO and EU membership for Macedonia, is acutely aware that political, economic and cultural relations between Russia and Macedonia have been steadily progressing in recent years, demonstrated by the construction of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in Skopje, in 2015. That groundbreaking event was presided over by Archbishop Stefan, the head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, who also blessed the site.
While Macedonia has been independent for 26 years now, it is a very fragile country, and this is due in large part to its restless Albanian community, which makes up a quarter of Macedonians population. Enter the US.
Since the US bombed Serbia in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian terrorist organization with powerful links to organized crime, Washington has cultivated an extremely strong relationship with Albanians in the Balkans in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. US pre-eminence in the region rests, to a large extent, on the fervent support it receives from Albanians there (indeed, Albanians are one of the staunchest supporters of America in the world). It is a mutually beneficial relationship, too, as the Albanian goal of wrestling Kosovo away from Serbia has been realized, due to the NATO bombing of Serbia and the subsequent withdrawal by Belgrade of its army and police from the Serbian province, while the immense political power which ethnic Albanians in Macedonia today wield, is due to the Ohrid Agreement which NATO imposed on Skopje in 2001, following an Albanian terrorist campaign in the country.
Under American patronage, the foundations for a Greater Albania have begun to take shape. And the areas which fall under a Greater Albania include Kosovo, parts of Macedonia, such as Tetovo, the Presevo Valley in Serbia, and parts of Montenegro, such as Malesia.
With historic ties between Serbia and Macedonia (pan-Slavism, the Orthodox faith and a wariness of Albanian territorial ambitions in the Balkans), and developing ties between Russia and Macedonia, and with anti-Western sentiment rapidly increasing in Serbia, and with a resurgent Russian on the international stage, the US has begun to take action to preserve its dominance in the Balkans. And by what means? By playing its trump card in the region: the Albanians.
Currently, in Macedonia, there is an internal crisis, in which the two opposing sides are the Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and the leader of the opposition Zoran Zaev, who is backed by ethnic Albanian political parties. Mr. Ivanov will not grant permission to Mr. Zaev to form a government, rightly fearing that Albanian secessionists in Macedonia will take advantage of this and sever links with Skopje in pursuit of a Greater Albania.
Outside proponents of a Greater Albania have clearly demonstrated their involvement in the crisis in Macedonia. The self-proclaimed president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, has called on ethnic Albanians in Macedonia totake the destiny of their rights into their own hands.
Responding to the crisis in Macedonia, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the US and EU of interfering in the internal affairs of the country and of supportingthe Greater Albania project which includes vast areas in a number of Balkan states.
By Washington playing the Albanian card in Macedonia, the country could cease to exist or could be reduced significantly in size, thus limiting any future Russian presence there. The Albanian-dominated parts of Macedonia could unify under a single entity and replicate what Kosovo did: become de facto independent and then one day unilaterally declares itself independent. That would also serve as a warning to Serbia: namely, if the Serbs continue with their current anti-Western sentiments, then Greater Albania could extend into Serbia, by the Americans encouraging and arming secessionists in the Presevo Valley, which could reduce the country even further in size.
Despite there being a new US administration, there is very little chance of President Donald Trump changing Washingtons policy in the Balkans and abandoning the Albanians there. Indeed, Mr. Trump demonstrated his full support to Kosovo this February when he sent a message to the self-proclaimed Kosovan President Thaci (a man with historical links to organized crime) congratulating Kosovo on its so-called independence.
In the letter, the US President wrote that:On behalf of the United States, I am pleased to congratulate the people of Kosovo on your independence day on February 17. The partnership between our countries is based on shared values and common interests. A sovereign, multi-ethnic, democratic Kosovos future lies in a stable and prosperous Balkan region that is fully integrated into the international communityWe look forward to continuing our broad and deep cooperation.
Mr Trump, who, like Thaci, has links to organized crime, is not going to relinquish Americas hold on the Balkans, for continued American dominance of the region will help to achieve the US Presidents goal of ensuring American global power remains preeminent, together with his pledge to increase the already bloated US defense budget and to make the American nuclear arsenal the largest in the world.
Macedonia is the country where Washingtons determination to remain dominant in the Balkans is beginning to play out in. The American-Albanian alliance is a lethal one for the security and stability of that historically volatile region. Yet, for the Americans and the Albanians, it is a win-win situation. With the help of the Albanians, the US will remain the leading outside power in the Balkans. And with the help of the Americans, the Albanian goal of realizing a Greater Albania will take another leap forward.
President Trump is starting to play Washingtons trump card the Albanians in Macedonia. MakingAmerica great againis beginning to take on another dimension.
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Leaked docs suggest NSA and CIA behind Equation … – PCWorld – PCWorld
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Purported CIA documents leaked Tuesday appear to confirm that the U.S. National Security Agency and one of CIA's own divisions were responsible for the malware tools and operations attributed to a group that security researchers have dubbed the Equation.
The Equation's cyberespionage activities were documented in February 2015 by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab. It is widely considered to be the most advanced cyberespionage group in the world based on the sophistication of its tools and the length of its operations, some possibly dating as far back as 1996.
From the start, the tools and techniques used by the Equation bore a striking similarity to those described in secret documents leaked in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. This relationship was further strengthened by the similarity between various code names found in the Equation malware and those in the NSA files.
The new CIA documents leakedby WikiLeaks include a 2015 discussion between members of the agency's Technical Advisory Council following Kaspersky's analysis of the Equation group.
The discussion focused mostly on what the Equation did wrong that allowed Kaspersky's researchers to establish relationships between various tools and link them to the group. The goal was for the CIA's own cyber teams to learn from those mistakes and avoid them in their own tools and operations.
The Equation's errors identified during the discussion included the use of custom cryptographic implementations instead of relying on standard libraries like OpenSSL or Microsoft's CryptoAPI, leaving identifying strings in the program database (PDB), the use of unique mutexes, and the reuse of exploits.
"The 'custom' crypto is more of NSA falling to its own internal policies/standards which came about in response to prior problems," one team member said during the discussion. "In the past, there were crypto issues where people used 0 [initialization vectors] and other miss-configurations. As a result, the NSA crypto guys blessed one library as the correct implementation and everyone was told to use that."
"The Equation Group as labeled in the report does not relate to a specific group but rather a collection of tools (mostly TAO some IOC)," another member wrote.
TAO is a reference to the NSA's Office of Tailored Access Operations, a large division that specializes in the creation of hacking tools for infiltrating foreign computer systems. Meanwhile, IOC refers to the Information Operations Center, a CIA division that, according to a leaked 2013 budget justification for intelligence agencies, has shifted focus from counterterrorism to cyberespionage in recent years.
The CIA analysis of Kaspersky's Equation report highlights how hackers can learn to better hide their attacks based on research published by security companies. This raises the question of whether security vendors and independent researchers should be so forthcoming with the methods they use to establish links between malware tools.
It is a proven fact that attackers learn from public analyses, and this is something that all researchers consider when publishing material," researchers from Kaspersky Lab said in an emailed statement. "It is a calculated risk. Of course, not all companies choose to disclose all their findings. Some companies prefer to keep some of the details for private reports, or not to create a report at all."
"We believe that, going forward, a balance will be achieved between the amount of publicly disclosed information (just enough to highlight the risks and raise awareness) and the amount of information kept private (to allow for the discovery of future attacks)," the Kaspersky researchers said.
According to them, this new information ties into the escalating cyber arms race that has been going on since 2012 and shows no signs of slowing down.
Lucian Constantin is an IDG News Service correspondent. He writes about information security, privacy, and data protection.
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Leaked docs suggest NSA and CIA behind Equation ... - PCWorld - PCWorld
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Controversial NSA Surveillance Programs Up for Renewal at Year’s End – Government Technology
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(TNS) -- WASHINGTON Nearly four years after National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid off domestic spying, the vast surveillance programs cherished as the crown jewels of the U.S. intelligence establishment are about to spring back into public debate and not just because of Donald Trumps allegation that hes been the subject of wiretaps.
The legal framework for some of the broadest U.S. surveillance programs, authorized for a five-year period in 2012, will expire Dec. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes it. Already, the debate about those programs has begun, with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee focused on finding an answer to a simple question: How many Americans have emails, text messages and telephone conversations picked up in the governments electronic sweep?
Is it a few thousand? Or is it a lot higher?
We need that number, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told Dan Coats, Trumps nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, at a confirmation hearing Feb. 28. We have sought it for years and years. More and more Americans are getting swept up in these searches.
Wyden pressed Coats on whether he would nail down a number. Coats hedged.
It has been extremely hard to come up with that number for various reasons which I dont fully understand, said Coats, a former member of the Intelligence Committee now weighing his nomination. I will do my best to work to try to find out if we can get that number, but I need first to talk find out about why we cant get it.
Trumps allegation that President Barack Obama ordered his phones tapped last fall, a claim for which he has offered no evidence, has little to do with the coming debate. But it is an indication of the sensitivities surrounding surveillance practices that do not cleave easily along party lines.
While the issue is often cast as a balance of privacy vs. national security, many Republicans, especially those with libertarian streaks, are troubled by what they see as invasive practices. And many Democrats offer strong support of the intelligence community.
At a separate hearing before a House of Representatives committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who earns a perfect score from the American Conservative Union, read incredulously a response he had gotten to his official query to the U.S. intelligence director in which he was told it would be difficult if not impossible to calculate the number of Americans whose communications are intercepted.
That seems like baloney to me, Jordan said. Were talking about the greatest intelligence service on the planet. Youd think they would be able to know that, right?
Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat far to Jordans political left, said, The government can, and does, collect massive amounts of information about our citizens under this authority.
At hearings, Snowdens name hardly arises. But few doubt that his revelations in 2013 helped mold the current debate. Worldwide, Snowden is seen from sharply distinct angles traitor and villain, or global celebrity for data privacy. From his exile in Moscow, where he fled after spilling the secrets, Snowden continues to cast a long shadow.
It was his disclosures that let Americans and people around the world learn of NSA programs like PRISM, Dishfire and XKeyscore, which, respectively, allowed for the monitoring of electronic data retrieved from nine large tech companies, grabbed 200 million text messages a day and saw nearly everything a targeted user did on the internet.
Leaders of allied nations like Germany and Brazil bristled when they learned from Snowdens disclosures that their officials were among dozens of leaders tapped by the NSA.
Much of the bulk collection of data by the NSA was rolled back or halted in 2015 under the USA Freedom Act.
On Capitol Hill, Snowdens name is sometimes uttered with revulsion mixed with recognition that his actions accelerated change.
What he exposed, Im glad that we learned about it. It allowed us to make reforms that were necessary, said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. But the way that he did it was so reckless. He exposed information that put our troops at risk and hurt important relationships with our allies.
Trump called Snowden a terrible traitor in a 2013 television interview and suggested he should be executed.
Digital rights activists credit Snowden with forcing major intelligence agencies to talk more openly about surveillance.
What Snowden did was enable the debate and provide more disclosures by the intelligence community when it saw the debate move in a direction it didnt like, said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington research group that advocates for an open and free internet.
Civil rights activists voice concern over what they describe as gaps in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides the legal framework for the NSA to monitor non-U.S. persons without warrants.
As of 2015, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that 94,368 foreigners or entities abroad were targets of U.S. surveillance for intelligence purposes. The NSA is presumed to vacuum up hundreds of millions of electronic communications a year from those foreign targets, including any they may have had with Americans.
The impact is actually much greater than 94,000 because each of these individuals talks to potentially hundreds of people, said Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union.
How many Americans have their communications monitored in so-called incidental collection remains a guess. In the House hearing last week, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, pressed Elizabeth Goitein, an expert on surveillance at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, for an estimate.
If you conservatively assume that even 1 out of 100 of every foreign targets communications was with an American that would still be millions of American communications, Goitein said.
Pressed further at another point, Goitein said: I had said millions earlier, which I think is conservative. Potentially tens of millions. I dont know. I really hesitate to speculate.
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act regulations require the NSA, CIA and FBI all of which have access to the database of collected communications to minimize information about U.S. citizens or green card holders when it is incidentally swept up.
But the databases are widely available one report on how the FBI handles searches of the databases monitored use in 13 FBI field offices and agents in those offices can query the databases even when they have no suspicion of wrongdoing, said David Medine, who until July 1 was chair of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, a bipartisan watchdog that seeks to ensure government compliance with privacy and civil liberties rules.
They are just sort of entitled to poke around and see if something is going on, Medine told a Senate panel in May.
Critics of Section 702 say that sort of backdoor search allows authorities to snoop on citizens without having to show probable cause and obtain constitutionally required warrants.
You have this authority, and the government says the goal is national security and to help us prevent terrorism. The reality is that they can collect information that has no connection to terrorism, national security or weapons of mass destruction, Guliani said.
Defenders of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance said they hoped legislators reauthorized its use. They say evidence of abuse is minimal.
Throughout my time at NSA, I routinely saw analysts self-report if they ran an improper query, April Doss, a former assistant general counsel at the agency, wrote in her submitted testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on March 1.
Auditors review logs for signs of improper queries, Doss said in an interview, calling existing laws robust and effective and noting the oversight of three branches of government.
Doss and other supporters of the status quo make an unusual argument: Simply trying to satisfy legislators who want to know how many U.S. citizens turn up in the electronic sweeping would require the NSA to act intrusively, would divert analysts from hunting terrorists and would possibly even break the law by actively tracking the Americans they find, raising new privacy concerns.
It would prompt intelligence analysts to look for communications that they would not otherwise see, communications that have no intelligence value, Doss said.
For his part, Swalwell, the California legislator, said convincing the citizenry that surveillance was being done properly was vital to the health of the intelligence community.
The more transparent we are about 702, the better, he said. When Americans understand how their government is protecting them, theyre more willing, I think, to go along with whats necessary to keep us safe.
2017 McClatchy Washington Bureau Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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Controversial NSA Surveillance Programs Up for Renewal at Year's End - Government Technology
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