Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Obama to seek permission for world war......on ISIS?
I hope your country does not have a handkerchief of isis on the floor....
President Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only months after he was inaugurated but quickly became a war president, responsible for nearly 75 percent of U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, now is preparing to formally ask Congress to take the fight against ISIS worldwide.
That’s according to Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin, who said two senior congressional aides shared details with him.
Obama has been operating under authorizations created more than a decade ago when circumstances were vastly different and ISIS didn’t exist in the form that now threatens nations and beheads journalists and aide workers.
“The president has crafted the bill so it can engender bipartisan support on Capitol Hill while still preserving an enormous amount of flexibility on the battlefield without micromanagement from Congress, one senior Republican Senate aide said,” Rogin reported.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said recently he believed it would “require substantial effort” to get through Congress, but “Obama is already engaged in the fight against Islamic State” and his political advisory team “genuinely wants congressional buy-in.”
Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at a time when critics pointed out he had virtually no accomplishments. Since then, polls have indicated 55 percent of Americans believe he does not deserve such recognition.
“Not only does Obama not deserve the global peace award now, but Americans also think that he never should have received it in the first place,” the Daily Caller said.
There even have been assorted demands for Obama to return the 2009 prize, but the rules set up by the Nobel Foundation forbid revocation.
CNS News reported last year that of the 2,232 American fatalities in the Afghan war, 1,663 – 74.5 percent – happened on Obama’s watch.
The report from Rogin addressed White House strategy to propose to Congress new legislation that would formally give him the authority to pursue war.
He noted one of the factors is that there are “no geographic limitations, so the administration would be free to expand the war to other countries.”
But Rogin reported it would place limits on the types and numbers of U.S. ground forces that can be deployed.
The request, Rogin reported, is being prepared under pressure from Capitol Hill.
Previously, the White House has cited a 2001 authorization regarding al-Qaida and another from 2002 regarding Iraq.
Rogin reported: “If enacted, the president’s AUMF could effectively constrain the next president from waging a ground war against the Islamic State group until at least 2018. Aides warned that the White House may tweak the final details before releasing the document publicly. In advance of the release, top White House and State Department officials have been briefing lawmakers and Congressional staffers about their proposed legislation. Two senior congressional aides relayed the details to me.”
The authorization would, the report said, allow Obama to send advisers, special operations forces and search and rescue teams.
It also would allow Obama to attack al-Nusra Front or Baathist elements in Iraq, the report said.
Rogin said the White House didn’t comment on the details.
Credit to WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/obama-seeks-permission-to-go-global-against-isis/#EQf3CPGg8qy34CQx.99
President Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize only months after he was inaugurated but quickly became a war president, responsible for nearly 75 percent of U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, now is preparing to formally ask Congress to take the fight against ISIS worldwide.
That’s according to Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin, who said two senior congressional aides shared details with him.
Obama has been operating under authorizations created more than a decade ago when circumstances were vastly different and ISIS didn’t exist in the form that now threatens nations and beheads journalists and aide workers.
“The president has crafted the bill so it can engender bipartisan support on Capitol Hill while still preserving an enormous amount of flexibility on the battlefield without micromanagement from Congress, one senior Republican Senate aide said,” Rogin reported.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said recently he believed it would “require substantial effort” to get through Congress, but “Obama is already engaged in the fight against Islamic State” and his political advisory team “genuinely wants congressional buy-in.”
Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at a time when critics pointed out he had virtually no accomplishments. Since then, polls have indicated 55 percent of Americans believe he does not deserve such recognition.
“Not only does Obama not deserve the global peace award now, but Americans also think that he never should have received it in the first place,” the Daily Caller said.
There even have been assorted demands for Obama to return the 2009 prize, but the rules set up by the Nobel Foundation forbid revocation.
CNS News reported last year that of the 2,232 American fatalities in the Afghan war, 1,663 – 74.5 percent – happened on Obama’s watch.
The report from Rogin addressed White House strategy to propose to Congress new legislation that would formally give him the authority to pursue war.
He noted one of the factors is that there are “no geographic limitations, so the administration would be free to expand the war to other countries.”
But Rogin reported it would place limits on the types and numbers of U.S. ground forces that can be deployed.
The request, Rogin reported, is being prepared under pressure from Capitol Hill.
Previously, the White House has cited a 2001 authorization regarding al-Qaida and another from 2002 regarding Iraq.
Rogin reported: “If enacted, the president’s AUMF could effectively constrain the next president from waging a ground war against the Islamic State group until at least 2018. Aides warned that the White House may tweak the final details before releasing the document publicly. In advance of the release, top White House and State Department officials have been briefing lawmakers and Congressional staffers about their proposed legislation. Two senior congressional aides relayed the details to me.”
The authorization would, the report said, allow Obama to send advisers, special operations forces and search and rescue teams.
It also would allow Obama to attack al-Nusra Front or Baathist elements in Iraq, the report said.
Rogin said the White House didn’t comment on the details.
Credit to WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/obama-seeks-permission-to-go-global-against-isis/#EQf3CPGg8qy34CQx.99
Obama: 'We have to twist arms when countries don't do what we need them to'
President Barack Obama has said the reality of “American leadership” at times entails “twisting the arms” of states which “don’t do what we need them to do,” and that the US relied on its military strength and other leverage to achieve its goals.
In a broad-ranging interview with Vox, which Obama himself described as a venue "for the brainiac-nerd types," the US president both denied the efficacy of a purely “realist” foreign policy but also arguing that at times the US, which has a defense budget that exceeds the next 10 countries combined, needed to rely on its military muscle and other levers of power.
Lauding the rule-based system to emerge in the post-World War II era, Obama admitted it wasn’t perfect, but argued “the UN, the IMF, and a whole host of treaties and rules and norms that were established really helped to stabilize the world in ways that it wouldn't otherwise be.”
He argued, however, that the efficacy of this idealistic, Wilsonian, rule-based system was severely tested by the fact that “there are bad people out there who are trying to do us harm.”
In the president’s view, the reality of those threats has compelled the US to have “the strongest military in the world.” Obama further says that “we occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn't do what we need them to do if it weren't for the various economic or diplomatic or, in some cases, military leverage that we had — if we didn't have that dose of realism, we wouldn't get anything done, either.”
'We occasionally have to twist the arms of countries that wouldn't do what we need them to do'
Obama argues that the US doesn’t have “military solutions” to all the challenges in the modern world, though he goes on to add that “we don’t have a peer” in terms of states that could attack or provoke the United States.
“The closest we have, obviously, is Russia, with its nuclear arsenal, but generally speaking they can't project the way we can around the world. China can't, either. We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined,” he said.
Within this context, Obama said that “disorder” stemming from “failed states” and “asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations” were the biggest challenges facing the international community today.
Obama also argued that tackling these and other problems entailed “leveraging other countries” and “other resources” whenever possible, while also recognizing that Washington is “the lead partner because we have capabilities that other folks don't have.”
'We spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined'
Credit to RT
It Is Now Possible to Predict When Putin Will Attack the United States
German leader, Angela Merkel is saying all the right things as she professes to be attempting to shore up western unity with regard to the crisis in Ukraine. However, Merkel is caught between a rock and a hard place. Germany receives a substantial portion of its gas from Russia and the majority of that gas flows through Ukraine. Currently, there is no nation on the face of the planet, outside of Ukraine, that needs this crisis brought to a conclusion than Germany. And this crisis needs to be resolved, sooner rather than later.
Putin has made overtures to Germany in the past which would encourage Germany to forsake its Western alliances (i.e. the EU and NATO) and strike a beneficial deal with regard to obtaining its gas supplies from Russia at bargain basement prices.
An examination of the following “tale of the tape” shows that the loss of Germany to Russia would significantly change the military balance of power. China has already been lost to Russia and now it appears that Turkey will soon follow suit.
Please note how highly dependent France and Italy are on Russian gas. France is a major player in NATO and Italy plays home to important NATO basis. If Germany acquiesces and partners with Russia, I would expect France and Italy to follow suit. How long could the UK remain a close ally of the U.S. when the rest of Europe shifts its allegiances?
More Bad News
The U.S. should be quaking in its boots. Putin has already proven to be a master of signing favorable energy deals in order to block the U.S. sphere of influence. Last November, Russia signed the world’s largest energy deal worth nearly $400 billion dollars with China. This move signals a shift away from China partnering with America so long as China controlled and owned U.S. debt. This energy deal also signaled a dramatic foreign policy shift in China’s move away from the United States and aligning with Russia.
Less than one month after Russia signed its $400 billion dollar energy deal with China, on Dec. 1, 2014, the fifth summit of the Turkey-Russia High Level Cooperation Council, culminated with the signing of agreements and an amazing announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin stated that the South Stream pipeline project, which was to carry Russian natural gas to Europe through a conduit running under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and then Austria, had been terminated and the new gas route would run through Turkey. This makes Turkey extremely dependent upon Russia. Turkey is the home of several NATO military facilities including nuclear weapons.
If Russia is to successfully turn Germany and Turkey away from NATO, America would see the breakup of NATO.
BRIC Nations Conventional Military Strength
Most Likely to Fight
Men Planes Tanks Carriers Subs Rockets
Russia 766,000 3,082 1,550 1 62 3,781
China 2,825,000 2,788 9,150 1 69 1,770
India 1,325,000 1,785 3,569 2 17 292
Total 4,916, 000 7,655 14,261 4 148 5,843
(NOTE: The forces of North Korea would be absorbed by China
Ukraine and Belarus have a combined military strength of 200,000 men)
USA Allied Nations Conventional Military Strength
Men Planes Tanks Carriers Subs Rockets
USA 1,430,000 13,685 8,325 10 72 1,330
UK 205,330 900 400 1 11 60
FR 230,000 1,200 420 1 10 60
GRM 180,000 710 410 0 4 250
TURK 410,500 990 3,660 0 14 650
S KOR 640,000 1,400 2,350 0 14 250
JAP 250,000 1,600 770 1 16 100
TOT 3,345,830 20,475 8,325 13 141 2,700
Source: Global Fire Power
Conclusion
In order to measure the impact of these Russian energy deals, begin to subtract out Turkey, Germany and France’s contribution to NATO. Then consider, in a nightmarish scenario, if Turkey, Germany and France don’t just withdraw from NATO, but militarily align with Russia, the United States would not have a prayer of winning World War III.
Does anyone believe that Putin does not have the capacity and the motivation to break up NATO?
“The Ukrainian crisis was not caused by the Russian Federation,” said Putin in remarks posted on the Kremlin website. “It emerged in response to the attempts of the US and its western allies – who consider themselves ‘winners’ of the cold war – to impose their will everywhere.”
Putin’s remarks make it quite clear that the outcome of the Cold War is personal to him. And when emotions get involved, logic can quickly disappear. That would be the logic that a leader needs to avoid war.
The only question remains is will Putin wait to attack the United States when the U.S. is isolated and out of options? It is not likely that Putin would give away the strategic advantage of a first strike. If Putin waits until the U.S. is out of options, he would negate the element of surprise and risk an American first strike. Logic would dictate that Putin will strike when Germany leaves NATO.
Credit to Common Sense
Pope Petrus Romanus Will Address Joint Session Of US Congress during red blood moon
Pope Francis is set to become the first leader of the Catholic church to address both chambers of Congress, during his trip to the US later this year.
The House speaker, John Boehner, said on Thursday that the pope will visit the US Capitol in Washington on 24 September, where he is scheduled to be the first pontiff to address a joint meeting of Congress. “It will be a historic visit, and we are truly grateful that His Holiness has accepted our invitation,” Boehner said in a statement.
Last month, Francis announced that he would be visiting Washington DC, New York and Philadelphia in September. It is his first trip to the US since becoming the pontiff.
“In a time of global upheaval, the Holy Father’s message of compassion and human dignity has moved people of all faiths and backgrounds,” said Boehner. “His teachings, prayers and very example bring us back to the blessings of simple things and our obligations to one another. We look forward to warmly welcoming His Holiness to our Capitol and hearing his address on behalf of the American people.”
Last month, Boehner announced that Congress had invited another world leader to address a joint session of Congress – the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Neither Boehner nor Netanyahu cleared the trip with the White House.
Though the details of Francis’s itinerary are not yet known, in Congress he will face an audience grappling with issues Francis has championed, like immigration, climate change and relations between the US and Cuba.
The immigration battle in Congress took on new urgency after Obama announced executive actions to help protect undocumented migrants in the US. Republicans are hoping to undo these actions, while the White House has threatened to veto legislation that tries to block them.
Francis, meanwhile, has decried conditions at the US-Mexico border and said that he would have liked to enter the US through the Mexico border as a “sign of brotherhood and of help to the immigrants”, but his schedule does not have enough space for such a trip.
He is also hoping to influence this year’s UN climate meeting in Paris, according to papal representatives. Delegates from around the globe are gathering in Paris as part of a UN-led attempt to end 20 years of negotiations on how to reduce emissions and better address climate change.
In 2015, the pope is due to speak about the issue in an address to the 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide and the UN general assembly. He is also to call a summit of the main global religions to discuss the climate.
Francis is expected to meet with Obama at the White House. At the national prayer breakfast on Thursday, Obama said he is looking forward to welcoming him to the US.
“Like so many people around the world, I’ve been touched by his call to relieve suffering, and to show justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable,” Obama said. “He challenges us to press on in what he calls our ‘march of living hope’.”
And along with his address to Congress, he plans to hold a controversial sainthood ceremony for JunÃpero Serra, the 18th-century Spanish Franciscan priest who set up a mission in California.
Credit to propheciesoftheendtimes.com
Greek FinMin Varoufakis Warns "Be Ready For A Clash"
Germany's Steinmeier reiterated that "Greece needs to respect its bailout pledges," but Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis told lawmakers that "the post-bailout period for Greece begins today," warning that...
- *GREECE WON'T ACCEPT BAILOUT TERMS DEEPENING CRISIS: VAROUFAKIS
- *VAROUFAKIS: WE DON'T SEEK A CLASH, WE ARE AWARE OF PROSPECT
Demanding a new loan contract with partners, Varoufakis concluded that Greece "seeks an honest anti-bailout agreement." Not what the EU wants to hear...
Varoufakis added:
- *GREECE WANTS A NEW LOAN CONTRACT WITH PARTNERS, VAROUFAKIS SAYS
- *VAROUFAKIS: ONE SHOULD BE READY FOR CLASH IN ORDER TO NEGOTIATE
- *VAROUFAKIS: I WON'T PLAY GAME THEORY WITH GREECE'S FATE
- *GREEK FINANCE MINISTER SAYS 30 PCT OF BAILOUT IS TOXIC AND WE WILL REJECT IT
- *VAROUFAKIS: GREECE WON'T REJECT TAX SYSTEM REFORM
- *VAROUFAKIS: GREECE TO SEEK HONEST ANTI-BAILOUT AGREEMENT
Credit to Zero Hedge
148 seconds of awkward uncomfortable truthiness...
And now for something completely unexpected: 2 minutes of pure truth (courtesy of Mizuho's Steve Ricchiuto) on CNBC...
148 seconds of awkward uncomfortable truthiness...
While Steve had a number of hard to hear quotes for the CNBC anchors - such as:
"There is no acceleration in underlying economic activity," and"There's this wrong concept that I keep on hearing about in the financial press about the acceleration in economic growth... It's not happening!"A stunned Simon Hobbs rebuffs, "That's a long list of non-ideal situations we find ourselves in," to which Ricchiuto snaps back "and we can keep on going!""After a string of dismal data on durable goods, retail spending, and inventories, we get a good jobs number and everyone saying the economy's good - it's not good!"
It was Sara Eisen that had the quote of the brief clip... (which has unbelievably been edited out since we posted it seems at around the 1:40 mark) when faced Steve's barrage of facts about the real economy, replied:
"but the key is that's not what The Fed is telling us."
Summing up the unbelievable 'faith' (misplaced beyond all reputational loss) that so many have in the central planners of the world.
Credit to Zero Hedge
Ukrainians Rage Against Military Draft: "We're Sick Of This War"
When Ukrainian army officers came to the Ukrainian village of Velikaya Znamenka to tell the men to prepare to be drafted, they weren’t prepared for what happened next. As the commanding officer was speaking, a woman seized the microphone and proceeded to tell him off: "We’re sick of this war! Our husbands and sons aren’t going anywhere!" She then launched into a passionate speech, denouncing the war, and the coup leaders in Kiev, to the cheers of the crowd.
What she did is now a crime in Ukraine: the only reason she wasn’t arrested on the spot is that the villagers wouldn’t have permitted it. But in Ukrainian Transcarpathia, well-known journalist for Ukrainian Channel 112 Ruslan Kotsaba has beenarrested and charged with "treason" and "espionage" for making a video in which he declared: "I would rather sit in jail for three to five years than go to the east to kill my Ukrainian brothers. This fear-mongering must be stopped." Kotsaba may sit in jail fortwenty-three years, the prescribed term for the charges filed against him.
Kotsaba’s arrest is part of a desperate effort by the Ukrainian government to intimidate the growing antiwar and anti-draft movement, which threatens to upend Kiev’s dreams of conquering the rebellious eastern provinces.Kotsaba’s particular crime, according to prosecutors, was in describing the conflict as a civil war rather than a Russian "invasion." This is a point the authorities cannot tolerate: the same meme being relentlessly broadcast by the Western media – that an indigenous rebellion with substantial support is really a Russian plotto "subvert" Ukraine and reestablish the Warsaw Pact – now has the force of law in Ukraine. Anyone who contradicts it is subject to arrest.
Also subject to arrest, and worse: the thousands who are fleeing the country in order to avoid being conscripted into the military. In a Facebook post that was quickly deleted, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak wrote: “According to unofficial sources, hostels and motels in border regions of neighboring Romania are completely filled with draft dodgers.” President Petro Poroshenko, the Chocolate Oligarch, is readying a decree imposing possible restrictions on foreign travelfor those of draft age – which means anyone from age 25 to 60. Ukrainians may soon be prisoners in their own country – but they aren’t taking it lying down.
Draft resistance is at an all-time high: a mere 6 percent of those called up have reported voluntarily. This has forced the Kiev authorities to go knocking on doors – where they are met either with a mass of angry villagers, who refuse to let them take anyone, or else ghost towns where virtually everyone has fled. In the Transcarpathia region of western Ukraine, entire villages have been emptied, the inhabitants fleeing to Russia to wait out the war – or the fall of the Kiev regime, whichever comes first. "It may seem a paradox," says Transcarpathia’s chief recruitment officer, "but from the western Ukrainian region of Ternopyl people havefled to Russia in order to escape army conscription." The frantic Ukrainian regime is now contemplating conscripting women over 20.
Poroshenko’s military mobilization is due not only to numerous setbacks in the east – Ukrainian troops are being pushed back on all fronts by highly motivated rebels defending their own towns and villages – but also because thousands are deserting, throwing down their arms and fleeing to Russia. In response, the Ukrainian parliament has passed a law authorizing local commanders to shoot deserters on the spot.
With Poroshenko’s war looking like a major disaster, one that could easily topple his EU/US-installed regime, the War Party in the US is turning up the heat, demanding that Washington provide Kiev with arms. Sen. John McCain is – naturally – leading the charge, but prominent liberals are also in the front ranks, with leading scholars of the Brookings Institution recently calling for heavy weapons to be sent. That provoked a response from a dissident within Brookings, former State Department official Jeremy Shapiro, who argues that the Ukrainian conflict is a civil war that cannot have a military solution, and is more than likely to provoke a dangerous military confrontation with Russia.
The Obama administration is under considerable pressure from within the President’s own party to start arming the Ukrainian army, but America’s European allies are reluctant to let this war go on much longer, especially now that their sock puppet Poroshenko is increasingly unpopular. With protests erupting all over western Ukraine, Germany’s Angela Merkel is openly opposing escalation of the war. She made that clear at a recent conference in Munich, where Merkel spoke after returning from talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, McCain was telling reporters: "If we had provided Ukraine with weapons they wouldn’t have had to use cluster bombs."
They don’t call him "Mad John" for nothing.
The United States is providing the Kiev regime with military training, and we already have American boots on the ground there, ostensibly to "strengthen the rule of law." What that means in practice is that we are bolstering a government that has declared war on its own people, and is rapidly closing off all legal means of dissent – charging political opponents with "treason," banning political parties, and unleashing ultra-nationalist mobs on anyone who dares dissent. While the US State Department regularly canoodles with Russian "dissidents" who defile Orthodox churches and bare their breasts for the Western cameras, you won’t hear Marie Harf so much as mention Ruslan Kotsaba’s name. As far as I know, the Global Post is the only Western media outlet that has noted his existence – and I’ve not seen a single mention in English about his arrest.
Ukraine is a tripwire that could easily set off World War III – and US provocations are edging closer to that by the day. The crisis was initiated by Washington’s regime-change campaign which succeeded in violently overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose electoral victory was made possible by the criminal incompetence and outright thievery of his predecessor, US-supported Viktor Yushchenko. The so-called "Orange Revolution" led to economic chaos, rampant corruption, and the unleashing of a virulent nationalist current that has culminated in the rise of open neo-Nazis taking seats in the Ukrainian parliament. We are seeing its openly fascistic culmination in the current gang lording over Kiev.
All this was done in the name of sticking a finger in Vladimir Putin’s eye, whose great sin has been kicking out thieving oligarchs and opposing US pretensions to global hegemony.Washington’s ultimate goal is regime-change in the Kremlin, and the reinstallation of a Yeltsin-like sock puppet who, when Washington says "Jump!", will answer: "How high?"
That they’re willing to risk World War III in order to achieve their goal underscores the sheer craziness of US foreign policy. The latest official US "National Security Strategy" puts the new cold war at the center of Washington’s military-diplomatic vision – an emphasis so monstrously misplaced that it’s hard to believe they’re serious. Yet you had better believe it: this is what we can expect from a future Democratic administration, if one should come to pass, with Hillary Clinton taking her husband’s Slavophobia – remember the Kosovo war? – to new heights of unreason.
The US has no business interfering in Ukraine’s civil war, and no legitimate security interest in the question of who gets to administer Crimea – which has been Russian since the days of Catherine the Great. The idea that we are going to confront Russia over this issue is dangerous nonsense – and, unfortunately, it is just the sort of nonsense politicians of both parties find hard to resist.
There are even some ostensible "libertarians" who can’t resist the temptation to refight the cold war, notably the voluble and well-placed NATO-tarian faction of "Students for Liberty" (SFL), who denounced Ron Paul for his supposedly "pro-Putin" (i.e. anti-interventionist) statements on Ukraine.Ron is appearing at their upcoming "International Conference," with several of the loudest NATO-tarians in attendance: one hopes he’ll give them a good talking to, although perhaps a spanking is more appropriate for these noisy brats. These juvenile blatherskites claim "Compelling arguments can be made for both advocates of globalist and noninterventionist foreign policy positions," but aver that "Ron Paul has crossed the line." It is they who have crossed the line: no libertarian is or can be an advocate of a "globalist" foreign policy – because conquering the globe is, you know, a statist thing.
Of course now that Ukraine – where SFL held a conference – is jailing draft-resisters and clamping down on all dissent, we don’t hear a peep from these adolescent cold warriors. They talk a lot about "liberty," but not in places where it can get them into trouble.
The main danger to liberty and peace in the world isn’t in the Kremlin, or Peking, or North Korea – it’s right here in these United States of America, in the global epicenter of evil otherwise known as Washington, D.C. This, our "libertarian internationalists" claim, is vulgar "anti-Americanism," but these foreigners have little conception of what true Americanism is all about. The Founding Fathers of this country are rolling in their graves as the usurpers in Washington sully the good name of America with the blood of innocents worldwide and defile the Constitution in the process. True Americanism means opposing these monsters as they rampage over the earth and destroy our civil liberties at home – not dutifully echoing their rationalizations for endless wars of aggression.
Credit to Zero Hedge
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