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Occupy Turns 2, Rejecting American Exceptionalism, TPP Protests Escalate | Resistance Report #007
Dennis Trainor.
Read Ray McGovern's account of the neocon reaction to the announcement of a peaceful diplomatic solution.
How War on Syria Lost Its Way
The just announced U.S.-Russia agreement in Geneva on a “joint determination to ensure the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons (CW) program in the soonest and safest manner” sounds the death knell to an attempt by Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to get the U.S. into the war in Syria.
[...]
As the march toward war began meandering off in unexpected directions, I was lucky enough to observe, up-close and personal, the angry reaction of some of Israel’s top American supporters on Monday evening. That was after Russia drew Obama a new map for how to reach the desired destination of removing chemical weapons from Assad’s arsenal without going to war.
After doing an interview on CNN International, I opened the studio door and almost knocked over a small fellow named Paul Wolfowitz, President George W. Bush’s former under-secretary of defense who in 2002-2003 had helped craft the fraudulent case for invading Iraq. And there standing next to him was former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the neocon from Connecticut who was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and pretty much every other potential war in the Middle East.
Finding myself in the same room with two gentlemen responsible for so much misery in the world, I fell back on my recent training in non-violence, as we watched Piers Morgan try earnestly to spin the day’s astounding events. On the tube earlier, Anderson Cooper sought counsel from Ari Fleischer, former spokesman for George W. Bush, and David Gergen, long-time White House PR guru.
Fleischer and Gergen were alternately downright furious over the Russian initiative to give peace a chance and disconsolate at seeing the prospect for U.S. military involvement in Syria disappear when we were oh so close. After some caustic and condescending outbursts, an almost surreally disconsolate mood set in. It looked like these fellas were not going to get their war.
There is no end to the hypocrisy.
Obama Appoints Bain & Co Consultant to Top Post
The 2012 Obama campaign went after Bain for outsourcing jobs, closing plants, devastating US communities
President Obama has appointed Jeff Zients as head of the National Economic Council. A former executive of Gov. Mitt Romney’s Bain & Company investment firm—Zients worked at Bain & Co. from 1988 to 1990. Romney was running Bain Capital at the time, so the two did not work directly together.
Romney worked at Bain & Company, first from 1977-1984, and then again from 1991 and 1992, when he was the Bain & Company chief executive officer.
Bain Capital was heavily criticized by the 2012 Obama campaign as an 'outsourcing pioneer' responsible for closing plants, devastating U.S. communities, and even contributing to the deaths of disenfranchised workers.
Zients work at Bain was one of many lucrative positions at corporate management and media firms that allowed him to build a multimillion dollar fortune. He has worked as a close aid to Obama since 2009, serving twice as the president's acting budget director, among other positions. He will now ascend to head of the National Economic Council, replacing Gene Sperling, who says he is departing for personal reasons.
The appointment was leaked to the New York Times and reported by the paper Friday morning and formally announced by the White House later in the day. The article failed to mention Zients' former tenure at Bain.
Not sure how much in line with Netanyahu the Lieberman, Wolfowitz & Co. are, but Netanyahu in his public response seems cautious but optimistic. There are a number of other reactions and official responses noted in this Guardian article too.
Syria minister hails Russia over chemical weapons 'victory'
Ali Haidar pays tribute to Russian diplomacy in first comment from Damascus over deal to disarm Syria of chemical weapons
In the first comments to come out of Damascus since the accord to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons, brokered by Russia and the US, was announced, Ali Haidar, paid fulsome tribute to its longstanding ally, praising "the achievement of the Russian diplomacy and the Russian leadership".
He told the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti: "We welcome these agreements. On the one hand, they will help Syrians come out of the crisis, and on the other hand, they prevented the war against Syria by having removed a pretext for those who wanted to unleash it."
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Netanyahu was speaking before a planned meeting with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, who has flown into Israel to brief him on the deal he reached with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva on Saturday.
"We hope the understandings reached between the United States and Russia regarding the Syrian chemical weapons will yield results," said Netanyahu in a speech at a military memorial ceremony.
"These understandings will be judged on their results – the complete destruction of all of the chemical weapons stockpiles that the Syrian regime has used against its own people."
I'm ecstatic that war has been averted for now, but I am really concerned about the terms of this deal because I don't know how they are possibly going to remove and destroy these chemical weapons in a 6-9 month timeframe. And then there's the fact that Gaddafi and Saddam both agreed to destroy their WMDs and the long game was to take them down anyway a few years later. So has the long game changed? It's hard to know. What happens if it's impossible to destroy all the CW in 6-9 months? Getting rid of chemical weapons is a good thing, there's no doubt about that. The rest of it is up in the air. The extremist "rebels" are still going strong. The supposed moderate rebels are getting more weapons and training from the US. The civil war is still raging and killing many more people than were killed in the August 21 attack. Refugees are still flooding out of the country.
If History Is Any Measure, the Clock Is Ticking
When Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had to convince the world 10 years ago that he was serious about giving up his chemical weapons, he dragged warheads and bombs into the desert and flattened them with bulldozers.
When Saddam Hussein, defeated in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, had to demonstrate that he was giving up his chemical arsenal, Iraqis protected by little more than tattered cloths over their faces poured some of the agents into ditches and set them on fire — to the shock of inspectors watching in heavy “moon suits.”
Weapons experts and diplomats say that if President Bashar al-Assad is serious about complying with the landmark agreement announced in Geneva on Saturday, he will have to take similarly dramatic action in the coming weeks. Anything short of an immediate demonstration of willingness, they say, will be a sign that Mr. Assad is seeking to drag out the process, betting that time is on his side as memories fade of the attack that is said to have killed more than 1,400 people and prompted a military standoff with the United States.
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The agreement calls for the destruction of chemical agent mixing equipment by November and, perhaps most ambitious, for Syria to completely rid itself of chemical weapons and production facilities in less than a year, a timetable that would set a speed record and one that many experts doubt could be completed even with Syria’s full cooperation.
Anything for a buck.
Wall St. Exploits Ethanol Credits, and Prices Spike
It was supposed to help clean the air, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster agriculture. But a little known market in ethanol credits has also become a hot new game on Wall Street.
The federal government created the market in special credits tied to ethanol eight years ago when it required refiners to mix ethanol into gasoline or buy credits from companies that do so. The idea was to push refiners to use the cleaner, renewable fuel, or force them to buy the credits.
A few worried that Wall Street would set out to exploit this young market, fears the government dismissed. But many people believe that is what happened this year when the price of the ethanol credits skyrocketed 20-fold in just six months, according to an analysis of regulatory documents and interviews with more than 40 people involved in the market, including industry executives, brokers, traders and analysts.
Traders for big banks and other financial institutions, these people say, amassed millions of the credits just as refiners were looking to buy more of them to meet an expanding federal requirement. Industry executives familiar with JPMorgan Chase’s activities, for example, told The Times that the bank offered to sell them hundreds of millions of the credits earlier this summer. When asked how the bank had amassed such a stake, the executives said they were told by the bank that it had stockpiled the credits.
Mark Knoller tweets about Pres. Obama's interview today on ABC's Sunday morning show:
If we're talking about insider threats, these guys are an insider threat to the country IMHO. And instead of looking for ways to get a ceasefire or relief for the Syrian people, they are fueling it with more serious weapons.
McCain, Graham: Syria deal an 'act of weakness' by White House
The two Senate Republicans described the deal as "morally and strategically indefensible."
President Obama's pursuit of a Syrian disarmament deal with Russia is an "act of provocative weakness" by the White House, opening the door to further aggression by Iran and other U.S. adversaries, according to two Senate Republicans.
The deal "requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley, and the Obama Administration is being led into it" by Moscow and Damascus, GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said Saturday.
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That said, McCain and Graham reiterated the need for Washington to take a greater role in arming and equipping opposition forces in Syria, who have been fighting to topple the Assad regime for over two years.
"The only way this underlying conflict can be brought to a decent end is by significantly increasing our support to moderate opposition forces in Syria," they said.
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