Tuesday, April 04, 2017

Private militias should never be allowed to transport weapons into any region.

The landmark Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), (click here) regulating the international trade in conventional arms – from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships – entered into force on 24 December 2014.

If they are contracted by a government to assist with a justified conflict, the government needs to procure and distribute all arms into any region. These militias can cause ethnic wars for the sake of profit. It should never be allowed.

There is enough problem with sovereign countries that believe their moral obligation lies with the death of others.

MORALITY is not spelled d-e-a-t-h.

June 29, 2017
By Louis Charbonneau 

A U.N. Security Council committee (click here) has published a report on Iranian sanctions violations, including shipments of weapons to Syria in breach of a U.N. ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic.

The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its nuclear enrichment program, which the United States, European Union and their allies suspect is at the heart of a weapons program. Iran rejects the allegation and refuses to halt what it says is a peaceful energy program.

The report appeared on the committee website on Thursday, diplomats told Reuters on Friday. The report, which Reuters reported on last month, said that Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms shipments.

Iran, like Russia, is one of Syria's few allies as it presses ahead with a 16-month-old assault on opposition forces determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Western diplomats said they were pleased the report was made public. Initially they said they feared Russia would block it as it did last year's report on Iran, which has yet to be made public due to Russian objections....

There have been 26 dead Americans because of tornadoes to date in 2017.

April 4, 2017
By Faith Eberts

Following several rounds of damaging storms early this week, (click here) a new storm will bring the threat of severe weather back to the eastern United States.

The first severe weather associated with the new storm will erupt over the Central states in portions of Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri Tuesday afternoon and evening.

The storms will roughly parallel the Interstate-44 corridor from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Joplin and Springfield, Missouri....

Five of those deaths occurred with this storm. The danger is not abating. This current storm took about 24 hours to form into a vortex. In this satellite image it is easy to discern the extent of the reach of the current northern spring hemisphere as the entire ITCZ is disrupted with water vapor pulled into higher latitudes to fuel the vortexes.

4 April 2017
0130.20z
UNISYS water vapor satellite of the north and west hemisphere (12 hour loop please see below)

As the first vortex moves offshore of North America there is a second one already formed over the Midwest which took all of about 12 hours.

4 April 2017
1330.18z
UNISYS water vapor satellite of north and west hemisphere ( click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)

April 3, 2017
By Chris Dolce
The tornado death toll for 2017 (click here) has risen to 26 after an EF1 that destroyed a mobile home and killed two people in Breaux Bridge, Lousiana, Sunday morning.
Most of the fatalities from tornadoes so far this year occurred during a Jan. 21-22 outbreak that killed 20 people in the South. The other four additional tornado-related deaths were in Illinois and Missouri on Feb. 28....

You mean that good looking southern christian white boy is managing international wars now?

You can't really say he loaded the dice on bin Laden, he never received the PDA.

April 4, 2017

Washington  – The United Arab Emirates (click here) arranged a secret meeting in January between an American businessman supporting then President-elect Trump and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and the incoming president, The Washington Post reports.

Citing U.S., European and Arab officials, the Post said the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions. The full agenda remains unclear, the newspaper said.

The meeting took place nine days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration and involved businessman Erik Prince, the Post reported. Prince, the founder of the security firm Blackwater and now the head of the Hong Kong-based company Frontier Services Group, has ties to Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

U.S. officials said the FBI has been scrutinizing the meeting in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean as part of the broader probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged contacts between associates of Putin and Mr. Trump, the Post reported. The FBI declined to comment, the newspaper said....

10 August 2016

Former Blackwater CEO and U.S. Navy SEAL (click here) veteran Erik Prince joined Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos during the latest episode of The Milo Yiannopoulos Show to discuss Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and why he’s supporting him.

“You mentioned a moment ago that you hoped it would be Trump. Talk to us a little bit about your opinion of the Republican candidate,” Milo said. “I mean I’m guessing that you are, broadly speaking, a fan, and I’m guessing you think Hillary would be a disaster, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Give us your opinion on Donald Trump.”

“I like the fact that Donald Trump has been in the private sector. I like that he’s had to make a payroll. I like that he’s had to do projects” replied Prince. “I even like some of his projects that have gone bankrupt, because people that do things, and build things, and try things, sometimes fail at doing it, and that’s the strength of the American capitalist system. He sat across the table and fired people that didn’t perform in his business, and I’m not talking about the TV show, I’m talking about when hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line.”...

Business is good, huh, Erik? You have to know there is nothing like government money, is there?

April 3, 2017
By Tom McKay

Erik Prince, (click here) co-founder of notorious private military contractor Blackwater, traveled to the Seychelles islands in January to set up a secret back channel between President Donald Trump's administration and the Russian government, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

Interesting place, the Republic of Seychelles. Tropical paradise. Distant enough that a large jet liner could land and never be found, huh?

The meeting between Prince and a "confidant" of Russian President Vladimir Putin was arranged in secret by United Arab Emirates officials. According to the Post, Prince, an ardent Trump supporter, portrayed himself as an "unofficial envoy for Trump" during the meeting despite having "no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team."


The exact nature of the discussions between Prince and the unidentified Russian operative is unclear. The Post reported Russia and the UAE considered it "productive" but ultimately decided against another meeting when they determined it was "too politically risky."...

Can't deny what everyone else knows, Erik. Oh, yeah, Trump drank the Kool-Aid.

January 17, 2017
By Jeremy Scahill

In July, (click here) Prince told Trump’s senior adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon, at the time head of Breitbart News, that the Trump administration should recreate a version of the Phoenix Program, the CIA assassination ring that operated during the Vietnam War, to fight ISIS. Such a program, Prince said, could kill or capture “the funders of Islamic terror and that would even be the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East, and any of the other illicit activities they’re in.”

Prince also said that Trump would be the best force to confront “Islamic fascism.” “As for the world looking to the United States for leadership, unfortunately, I think they’re going to have to wait till January and hope Mr. Trump is elected because, clearly, our generals don’t have a stomach for a fight,” Prince said. “Our president doesn’t have a stomach for a fight and the terrorists, the fascists, are winning.”

Prince founded the notorious private security firm Blackwater, which rose to infamy in September 2007 after its operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians, including a 9-year-old boy in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.

Whistleblowers also alleged that Prince encouraged an environment in which Iraqis were killed for sport. At the height of the Blackwater scandals in 2007, another prominent Trump backer, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, praised Prince, who once worked in his congressional office. “Prince,’’ Rohrabacher said, “is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was.’’

Ultimately, Prince sold Blackwater and now heads up a Hong Kong-based company known as Frontier Services Group. The Intercept has previously reported on Prince’s efforts to build a private air force for hire and his close ties to Chinese intelligence. One of his latest schemes is a proposal to deploy private contractors to work with Libyan security forces to stop the flow of refugees to Europe....

White American boys won't be tolerated in Libya, Erik. They accept a proposal to help only to steal the munitions and remove the bodies to unmarked graves. Not a good idea.

That is so typical of Americans who just can't give up the war; they actually think others admire them as much as they admire themselves. They have an inflated ego with little character to match except for the bible they carry. They have to be sure to be on the right side of god when they die, or so they think. I don't believe arming Libyans will go over well with a christian god, will it, Erik?

How many American soldiers? Last I read they were fighting within yards of Russian soldiers.

April 4, 2017
By Anne Barnard

Beirut, Lebanon — A toxic gas attack (click here) killed dozens of people in northern Syria on Tuesday morning, including women and children, and sickened scores more, according to medics, rescuers and witnesses in the rebel-held province of Idlib, who said the gas had been delivered by a government airstrike.

A few hours later, according to several witnesses, another airstrike hit one of the clinics treating victims, who had been farmed out to smaller hospitals and maternity wards because the area’s largest hospital had been severely damaged by an airstrike two days earlier.

The European Union and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey condemned the attack and blamed the Syrian government. France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council....

March 28, 2017
By F. Brinley Bruton

Russian and American troops are within "hand-grenade range" of each other (click here) in parts of Syria, according to U.S. commanders, an overlap that highlights Moscow's efforts to bolster its footprint in the Middle East.

While the Russians and Americans have traditionally been on opposite sides of the Syrian civil war — with the Kremlin supporting President Bashar al-Assad and Washington working with rebels fighting him. But now the rivals are both backing Kurdish YPG fighters as they take on ISIS there and in neighboring Iraq....

It depends on expertise and training to determine how far is "hand grenade range."