December 23, 2013

The Netherlands Is Too Small To Fight the NSA

http://watchingamerica.com/News/228352/the-netherlands-is-too-small-to-fight-the-nsa/

The Netherlands Is Too Small To Fight the NSA
By Anouk van Kampen
Translated By Daniel Baker
15 December 2013
Edited by Gillian Palmer

“The Netherlands is too small to fight the NSA.” These were the words of Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch Data Protection Authority, during an interview with the Dutch news website nu.nl.

To deal effectively with American spying, cooperation is needed at a European level; the Netherlands cannot do it on its own. "The dominance of corporate America is such that Europe-wide privacy laws are needed in order to reduce the threat as much as possible."

Kohnstamm believes that the EU needs to issue threats; it could, for example threaten to cancel agreements with the U.S.

Europe might also work on its own stimulus package and look to develop its own cloud computing capacity, in order to reduce the dominance of Silicon Valley and of American companies. “Then America would be forced to listen to Europe's economic and financial voice,” argues Kohnstamm.

December 23, 2013

Commentary on the US Budget Dispute: Main Issue Is the Military

http://watchingamerica.com/News/228363/commentary-on-the-us-budget-dispute-main-issue-is-the-military/

The Republicans have not managed to achieve everything they wanted, given their popularity slump following the recent government shutdown; however, they have made good progress.

Commentary on the US Budget Dispute: Main Issue Is the Military
die Tageszeitung, Germany
By Bernd Pickert
Translated By Amy Baker
11 December 2013
Edited by Gillian Palmer

The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ budget committee and his Democratic Senate colleague have reached a compromise which makes a very good impression at first glance. If their plan were to be sanctioned by the Senate, the government would not be forced to face any further shutdowns from the Republicans until the year 2015. If their plan were to be approved, the frantic countermeasures used to stagger from one self-made crisis to the next would be a thing of the past.

However, if one were to look closer, the deal does not look quite so convincing. The newly agreed upon funds will be divided equally between military spending on the one hand and all nonmilitary spending on the other. Therefore, the Pentagon appears to be almost the only institution that has remained virtually unscathed by the sequestration since the beginning of the budget cuts.

This division of funds is in accordance with the Republicans, who for many years have wanted to cut all expenses except for those related to military spending. The new budget will be financed through cuts in Medicare (the health care provision for the elderly), a reduction in funds for the unemployed — affecting approximately 1.3 million long-term unemployed citizens — and through a few new sources of revenue. Regarding the prioritization of investment in infrastructure — a venture that was heavily publicized by Barack Obama — nothing is left in the pot.

The Republicans have not managed to achieve everything they wanted, given their popularity slump following the recent government shutdown; however, they have made good progress. It is questionable whether they could manage to achieve everything they hoped to, considering the pressure they will face during the 2014 Congressional election. Even their most stubborn party members are enraged by this compromise. However, this opposition appears to be just a lot of noise. The U.S. will become much easier to govern following implementation of this plan. It will not, however, be more socially sensitive.

December 23, 2013

Battleships: The Navy Is To Intensify Its Sonar Testing, to the Detriment of the Cetaceans

http://watchingamerica.com/News/228291/battleships-the-navy-is-to-intensify-its-sonar-testing-to-the-detriment-of-the-cetaceans/

Battleships: The Navy Is To Intensify Its Sonar Testing, to the Detriment of the Cetaceans
Le Monde, France
Translated By Clare Durif
16 December 2103
Edited by Brent Landon

The U.S. Navy has planned to increase its sonar testing over the next five years. And that’s just too bad for different types of whales and dolphins, who are threatened by these little military experiments.

The problem is nothing new, the Associated Press reminds us, and first arose in the United States about 100 years ago when the Navy began to use sonar. Sonar is a technique which is particularly harmful to these cetaceans; the intensity of the sound which is emitted is so powerful that it disorientates them completely — to such an extent that the noise pollution can drive them to shallow waters, where they can get stuck in the sand or end up beached. This is particularly the case of the bottlenose whale, which is very sensitive to sound. However, scientists warn that the largest living mammal, the blue whale, could also be affected.

“This result has to be taken into consideration by regulators and those planning naval exercises," warned Stacy DeRuiter, who took part in the studies carried out by the University of St. Andrews in Scotland on the impact of sonar on several species of whales.

These studies reproduced the sound of sonar at 200 decibels around whales. In a diameter of 3 to 10 kilometers, all of the species present stopped feeding and swimming before adopting very unusual behavior which was dangerous for their survival.

December 23, 2013

US: Who Shall We Buy in Syria?

http://watchingamerica.com/News/228353/us-who-shall-we-buy-in-syria/

How is it possible that with the United States having so many think tanks dedicated to the study of the Middle East, the White House still makes mistakes in that region?

US: Who Shall We Buy in Syria?
Juventud Rebelde, Cuba
By Jorge L. Rodriguez Gonzalez
Translated By Mayra Reiter
13 December 2013
Edited by Jane Lee

Once again things backfired. Many analysts issued warnings, but sometimes I ask myself how it is possible that with the United States having so many think tanks dedicated to the study of the Middle East, the White House still makes mistakes in that region. It was to be expected that terrorist groups, after receiving financing from Washington and Arab countries in the Persian Gulf to overthrow the Syrian government by force, would be out of control and ignoring their sponsors.

Therefore, Washington and London decided to suspend their aid to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), but only in the country in conflict’s north after a radical group, the Islamic Front, attacked FSA arsenals on the border with Turkey and seized anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.

The attitude of the foreign powers, fundamentally the U.S., is due to the fear that the war material may fall into the hands of jihadi groups, something they say they have tried to avoid since the start of the conflict, identifying moderate elements to whom they could offer their assistance.

Everybody knew that those groups were there, that they arrived from Iraq, Libya, Turkey, the Persian Gulf and other parts of the world, Western countries included, but they did not care because they served their interests and their goal of regime change.

December 23, 2013

NSA leaks sink US business deals

http://atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/CBIZ-01-231213.html



NSA leaks sink US business deals
By Andrew M Johnson
Dec 23, '13

~snip~

US tech titans face tough times in China

NSA spying has sent chills across the ranks of US technology companies operating abroad. From Brazil, Russia, and China to Germany and the Middle East, US tech giants are feeling the pain from a slimmed customer base and the prospect of new regulatory compliance costs that may squeeze profit margins.

(Indeed, that concern is expanding beyond information technology companies. Saab of Sweden this month won a US$4.5 billion order to supply 36 jet fighters to Brazil, beating Boeing of the United States for the deal, just a few weeks after President Dilma Rousseff said that alleged US spying on her government was an affront to her country.

"Boeing only didn't win the deal because of the lack of trust created by the spying incident, Welber Barral, Brazil's trade secretary from 2007 to 2011, told Bloomberg. "Had the decision been last year, Boeing would have won.&quot

With over an 80% share of the non-US cloud-computing market, US companies have dominated the industry since its inception in the late 1990s. But a recent report published by the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) estimates that the revenue losses facing US cloud providers will reach anywhere from $21 billion as a low estimate to $35 billion as a high estimate by 2016. [11] In addition to this report, the Cloud Security Alliance recently estimated that 10% of non-US companies have canceled their contracts with US-based providers since May. [12]

December 23, 2013

Washington's 'Fashoda' moment

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-04-231213.html

The US reversal of alliances: Comparative perspectives

Washington's 'Fashoda' moment
By Robert M Cutler
Dec 23, '13

It is rare that a great power in world politics, after decades of hostility with another country, turns around and suddenly seeks to embrace that country as a friend, if not an ally. Yet this is what the recent United States demarche towards Iran represents, unilaterally overturning years of carefully crafted economic sanctions laboriously conceived and implemented, and breaching numerous UN Security Council resolutions voted following Iran's repeated violations over the years, in bad faith, of its obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The term of art for such a turn of events in diplomatic and military history is renversement des alliances (reversal or overturning of alliances), and it is so rare that one can find only a few examples in the last three centuries. This essay seeks to comprehend the present, still-evolving situation, by reason of such historical analogies. Analogies can never prove anything, but they can point in directions fruitful for understanding.

Historians canonically divide the "modern era" into the "early modern" (from the early 16th to the early 19th century) and the "late modern" (from the early 19th to the mid-20th century). Before the modern era, such reversals of alliances were not altogether unusual, whether in the consecutive systems of Mongol and Central Asian conquerors or in those of the Italian city-states, or elsewhere and at other times.

With the Treaty of Utrecht (1715), however, the European States system, formerly an unintegrated collection of international systems, became a truly comprehensive international system. This meant not just that any change in power relations in one geographic region entailed implications for power relations in other geographic regions, but moreover that every state became involved in every conflict among the members of the system. As a result, reversals of alliances became less frequent. In the modern era there are still two examples that are most notable.

December 23, 2013

Pepe Escobar: All in play in the New Great Game

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-03-231213.html



All in play in the New Great Game
By Pepe Escobar
Dec 23, '13

The big story of 2014 will be Iran. Of course, the big story of the early 21st century will never stop being US-China, but it's in 2014 that we will know whether a comprehensive accord transcending the Iranian nuclear program is attainable; and in this case the myriad ramifications will affect all that's in play in the New Great Game in Eurasia, including US-China.

As it stands, we have an interim deal of the P5+1 (the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany) with Iran, and no deal between the US and Afghanistan. So, once again, we have Afghanistan configured as a battleground between Iran and the House of Saud, part of a geopolitical game played out in overdrive since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 along the northern rim of the Middle East all the way to Khorasan and South Asia.

Then there's the element of Saudi paranoia, extrapolating from the future of Afghanistan to the prospect of a fully "rehabilitated" Iran becoming accepted by Western political/financial elites. This, by the way, has nothing to do with that fiction, the "international community"; after all, Iran was never banished by the BRICS, (ie Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Non-Aligned Movement and the bulk of the developing world.

Every major player in the Barack Obama administration has warned Afghan President Hamid Karzai that either he signs a bilateral "security agreement" authorizing some ersatz of the US occupation or Washington will withdraw all of its troops by the end of 2014.

December 23, 2013

Erase that war with China 'in 2014'

http://atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-02-231213.html



Erase that war with China 'in 2014'
By Peter Lee
Dec 23, '13

At the end of 2011, in an article on this site titled "Maybe that war with China isn't so far off after all", I drew that gloomy conclusion because the United States, thanks to the justifications, excuses, and pretexts surrounding its desire to "pivot to Asia", had created the doctrinal and public relations justification and institutional incentives for military hostilities with the PRC. [1]

The slowly developing pivot has certainly created problems for the People's Republic in 2013, energizing its antagonists, marginalizing its supporters, and turning China's search for advantage in its East Asian environment into a grinding, costly slog, marked by incessant friction between Japan and China, the escalating defiance of the Philippines, and the alarming emergence of India as Japan's explicit security partner.

Despite talk of a "new model" of US-China relations, the new regime of Xi Jinping has not hit many of the conciliatory marks that the United States pointedly set for it (and, in the case of Syria, its resistance to the Obama administration's policies have been rather clearly vindicated).

In East Asia, China continues to claim objectionable security prerogatives, particularly in its maritime zone. Western elite opinion is set against the country as an assertive, uncooperative, and disturbing force - witness the media uproar against the PRC for failing to supply the level of typhoon aid to the Philippines that might validate China's legitimacy as a benign regional power, at least in the eyes of the West - and the outlook for 2014 is more complaints and more coercion.

December 23, 2013

From Tahrir to New Orleans: Hope has not Failed, it has only Begun

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/tahrir-orleans-failed.html

From Tahrir to New Orleans: Hope has not Failed, it has only Begun
By Juan Cole | Dec. 23, 2013

Hope, History, and Unpredictability
By Rebecca Solnit

North American cicada nymphs live underground for 17 years before they emerge as adults. Many seeds stay dormant far longer than that before some disturbance makes them germinate. Some trees bear fruit long after the people who have planted them have died, and one Massachusetts pear tree, planted by a Puritan in 1630, is still bearing fruit far sweeter than most of what those fundamentalists brought to this continent. Sometimes cause and effect are centuries apart; sometimes Martin Luther King’s arc of the moral universe that bends toward justice is so long few see its curve; sometimes hope lies not in looking forward but backward to study the line of that arc.

Three years ago at this time, after a young Tunisian set himself on fire to protest injustice, the Arab Spring was on the cusp of erupting. An even younger man, a rapper who went by the name El Général, was on the verge of being arrested for “Rais Lebled” (a tweaked version of the phrase “head of state”), a song that would help launch the revolution in Tunisia.

Weeks before either the Tunisian or Egyptian revolutions erupted, no one imagined they were going to happen. No one foresaw them. No one was talking about the Arab world or northern Africa as places with a fierce appetite for justice and democracy. No one was saying much about unarmed popular power as a force in that corner of the world. No one knew that the seeds were germinating.

A small but striking aspect of the Arab Spring was the role of hip-hop in it. Though the U.S. government often exports repression — its billions in aid to the Egyptian military over the decades, for example — American culture can be something else altogether, and often has been.

December 23, 2013

War Crime: Syrian Regime Killed Hundreds of Civilians, including Children, with Airstrikes on Aleppo

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/civilians-including-airstrikes.html

War Crime: Syrian Regime Killed Hundreds of Civilians, including Children, with Airstrikes on Aleppo
By Juan Cole | Dec. 23, 2013
(By Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher, Human Rights Watch)

Dozens of government airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians, including children, in Aleppo governorate in the last month were unlawful. After months of stalemate between government and opposition forces in Aleppo, Human Rights Watch documented an intensification of government attacks starting on November 23. December 15 to 18 saw the most intense aerial attacks in Aleppo to date.

The attacks have hit residential and shopping areas, often killing dozens of civilians, either missing possible military targets or with little indication of any intended military objective in the vicinity. Human Rights Watch interviewed victims, witnesses, local activists, and medical personnel by phone and corroborated their statements by analyzing video and photographs posted on the Internet. A Human Rights Watch consultant visited three attack sites and interviewed eight victims and witnesses.

“Government forces have really been wreaking disaster on Aleppo in the last month, killing men, women, and children alike,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Syrian Air Force is either criminally incompetent, doesn’t care whether it kills scores of civilians – or deliberately targets civilian areas.”

The London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), which investigated deaths that occurred between December 15 and 18, documented the deaths of 232 civilians, the vast majority from airstrikes. Another Syria-based monitoring group that systematically collects information about deaths in the conflict, the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), collected the names of 206 killed in aerial attacks between December 15 and 18, including two fighters.