Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.

Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal material, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

Material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border. Opposition activists who two months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said this week that the flow of weapons — most still bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military — has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.

Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood also said it has opened its own supply channel to the rebels, using resources from wealthy private individuals and money from gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, said Mulham al-Drobi, a member of the Brotherhood’s executive committee.

Administration officials also held talks in Washington this week with a delegation of Kurds from sparsely populated eastern Syria, where little violence has occurred. The talks included discussion of what one U.S. official said remained the “theoretical” possibility of opening a second front against Assad’s forces that would compel him to move resources from the west.

The Pentagon has prepared options for Syria extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation’s air defenses. U.S. officials, however, have said that such involvement remains very unlikely. Instead, they said, the United States and others are moving forward toward increased coordination of intelligence and arming for the rebel forces.

Third, Brennan’s general discussion of capture (if feasible) was couched as a policy preference, not an obligation under international law. He was clear that there is no obligation under international law to attempt capture first (a bit of a contentious point with some human rights lawyers). I think there was some confusion on this point after Holder’s speech at Northwestern, where Holder discussed the duty to capture. If I understood Brennan correctly, the duty to capture (if feasible) only applies to citizens, like Anwar al-Awlaki, though he neither identified the source of this requirement nor did he explicitly state that the duty to capture applies as a Constitutional matter to citizens. But presumably it is a constitutional norm stemming from Tennessee v. Garner and its progeny. And presumably the requirement only applies outside of a traditional hot battlefield. For my part, I wish he had been more explicit on these points.

ISIS also found considerable support, although not unanimity, that the regime made a strategic decision many years ago to obtain nuclear weapons. There was little support for the view that Iran’s goal of acquiring nuclear weapons ended in 2003, when Iran suddenly ended or cut back drastically its nuclear weaponization program and suspended its uranium enrichment program.

The focus on the question of restart risks missing an important dimension to the debate about an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran’s reported decision to halt the organized weaponization program but maintain the in-house capability and know-how to weaponize within various centers and universities permits a latent, dispersed weaponization capability that could be called up if the regime decided to construct nuclear weapons. In the meantime, Iran could continue to improve, expand, and diversify its fissile material production capabilities within the confines of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

A senior U.S. official who would not speak for attribution because of the sensitivity of the information confirmed Albright's assessment. "We know explosive compression was done at this chamber. This is where explosives are," the official said.

The officials also said Assad’s inner circle is “remaining steadfast,” with little indication that senior figures in the regime are inclined to peel off, despite efforts by the Obama administration and its allies to use sanctions and other measures to create a wave of defections that would undermine Assad.

Assad “is very much in charge,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official responsible for tracking the conflict, adding that Assad and his inner circle seem convinced that the rebellion is being driven by external foes and that they are equipped to withstand all but a large-scale military intervention.

“That leadership is going to fight very hard,” the official said. Over the long term, “the odds are against them,” he said, “but they are going to fight very hard.”

U.S. intelligence has also detected an escalation in lethal support from Syria’s closest ally, Iran. Officials said that Iran had previously been supplying mainly training and equipment to suppress opposition forces but has recently begun sending small arms and sophisticated equipment for monitoring and penetrating rebel groups.

Iran has shared equipment and expertise developed during its efforts to put down its own internal rebellion in 2009. Syria also has a small fleet of unarmed drones that appear to have been supplied by Iran before the uprising began, the officials said.

They portrayed the political opposition to Assad as disorganized and hobbled by a lack of experienced leadership. The officials described efforts to unify and attract a broader following among Syria’s minority groups — another objective of U.S. policy — as having limited success. The Syrian National Council, dominated by exiles who are mainly Sunni Muslims, has been trying to attract Christians, Druze and Kurds away from Assad.

Over the long term, the officials said, economic hardships may be the most effective tool for unseating Assad. Still, the first U.S. intelligence official said, “to this point, we have not seen that having an effect on the regime’s ability to prosecute the war.”

"Our sense is right now he's very much in charge," of their military operations, one U.S. official said. Another noted, "He (Assad) might survive this." The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

"The main problem is SNC has gotten ... bigger each and every day. We started with 80 people, now we are 340 people, and every high-ranking official defecting from the Syrian regime wants to have a big role," he said.

For now, Iran is the primary supporter of Assad's regime, helping it shut down and monitor social media and protests as well as supplying weapons. The U.S. officials said they believed the arms being supplied were mostly light weapons: small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades.

The Syrian army could continue bombarding opposition enclaves for "a long, long time" with current artillery supplies, one official said.

"This was an army built for a ground war with Israel," one official said. "They have approached that level of commitment" in terms of its military arsenal and personnel in the fight against the rebels.

על פי סקר של מאגר מוחות, רוב הציבור בישראל מתנגד למהלך צבאי חד-צדדי מול טהרן - 65% מהציבור בישראל נגד תקיפה ישראלית לבד, כשהדגש הוא על ה"לבד", דהיינו ללא תיאום או השתתפות של כוחות אמריקנים.

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad's charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad's regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

CAIRO — The Islamist party that leads the new Egyptian Parliament is threatening to review the 1979 peace treaty with Israel if the United States cuts off aid to the country over a crackdown on American-backed nonprofit groups here.

The Obama administration and Congressional leaders have already warned Egypt that the United States might cut off its annual aid to the country, which in the most recent budget came to $1.3 billion in military supplies and about $250 million in other subsidies, including some money directed to the nonprofit groups under investigation. At least two senators have introduced legislation that could curtail the aid, and the Brotherhood released its statements on Thursday as the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on the matter.

An Oklahoma Republican is pushing a bill to outlaw the use of human fetuses in food, because, as he says, “there is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors.”

The President's self-image plays a disproportionate role in policy formulation and diplomatic activity. Meetings, visits, trips abroad that enhance his respectability and prestige are pursued; encounters that may involve negotiations or difficult debate are declined or delegated to subordinates. The President responds with anger if he finds himself challenged by visitors, but not until after the meeting. He
seems to avoid direct confrontation. When engaged in summit diplomacy, he often seeks to include allies to bolster his confidence (e.g., Quadripartite Summit in September 2008, Riyadh Summit in April 2009). His foreign policy subordinates are all "employees" without constituencies or influence independent of the President's favor. Their overriding concern when engaging foreigners is to avoid the appearance of overstepping or violating their instructions. They are particularly cautious in the presence of other Syrians; requests to meet one-on-one often yield more expansive and candid responses.

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

In February 2006, when relations with Damascus were at a nadir, the Bush administration announced that it would award $5 million in grants to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”

But no dissidents inside Syria were willing to take the money, for fear it would lead to their arrest or execution for treason, according to a 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy, which reported that “no bona fide opposition member will be courageous enough to accept funding.”

Around the same time, Syrian exiles in Europe founded the Movement for Justice and Development. The group, which is banned in Syria, openly advocates for Assad’s removal. U.S. cables describe its leaders as “liberal, moderate Islamists” who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Despite the government's promise to Washington to stop giving financial incentives for construction in West Bank settlements, the Housing Ministry recently published a tender for 213 new housing units in Efrat under a program that offers substantial discounts on the land.

U.S. sailors from a carrier strike group whose recent presence in the Persian Gulf drew the ire of Iranian military officials have rescued 13 of the Middle Eastern country's sailors from a hijacked fishing boat, a military spokesman said Friday.

The destroyer USS Kidd came to the aid of the ship Thursday in the North Arabian sea, near the crucial Strait of Hormuz, according to the Navy.

The rescue prompted the captain of the freed ship to offer his "sincere gratitude," according to Josh Schminky, a Navy Criminal Investigative Service agent aboard the Kidd.

"He was afraid that without our help, they could have been there for months," Schminky said.

The rescue Thursday came two days after Iran said the United States should not send any more warships into the Persian Gulf.

A rare recent visit to Zinjibar, the first by a Western journalist since the Islamist fighters swept into the city, revealed just how entrenched the militants have become here.

“They’ve attacked us three times already today,” Katib said, his emotions rising.

The Islamists emerged in March, taking over the town of Jaar and nearby areas. By the end of May, they had entered Zinjibar. They seized government buildings and looted banks and military depots.

Most troops, police officers and local officials fled Zinjibar, an ancient city that was once a major trading center with the Far East. Tens of thousands of residents fled as well, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

According to Yemeni military commanders and residents, the militants number only 700 to 1,000, and include fighters from Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria. Some wear long hair and thick beards. They call themselves Ansar al-Sharia, or supporters of Sharia — Islamic law. AQAP leaders said this year that they were operating under that name.

Wadhan Ali Said, a slim 20-year-old soldier, bears the scars of a sniper’s bullet in his back. He said he and his fellow troops lived on rice and well water for more than two months before U.S. planes dropped parcels of food into the base in September. On one day, the militants killed 10 soldiers inside the base, he said.

Later in September, after reinforcements arrived, the soldiers managed to lift the siege. But the militants have kept up the pressure, moving in highly organized cells. They use loudspeakers outside the base in a psychological assault on the soldiers.

“They say they are the followers of Osama bin Laden,” Said said. “They give us lectures on Islam. Then, they tell us they will enter the base tonight.”

Arab views of the United States improved over the past year, but still have a long way to go according to the 2011 edition of the annual survey of six Arab countries conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland this October. And Arab publics remain broadly supportive of uprisings around the region, and guardedly optimistic about the future.

The Obama administration's efforts to grapple with the Arab spring seem to have improved Arab views of the United States to some extent, but the survey shows the steep obstacles to such engagement. America's image rebounded from 10% favorable in 2010 to 26% favorable, largely among those who see that it has played a positive role in responding to the Arab uprisings. That compares to 12% favorable in 2006 and 15% in 2008. The jump to 26% is a significant increase, but it's obviously still a very low number.

Meanwhile, Turkey remains broadly popular, and its Prime Minister Recep Erdogan the single most popular statesman in the survey for the second year running. The survey found little Iranian appeal as a political model, but it did reveal a decline in Arab enthusiasm for containing Iran as 64% now say that Iran has a right to its nuclear program, up from 53% last year.

Lebanese banks have adopted strict measures to ensure compliance with international sanctions against neighboring Syria and are scrutinizing transfers of existing Syrian clients, banking officials said on Thursday.

"Banks are taking extremely strong precautions to avoid bad surprises regarding people or institutions under sanctions," said one official who works at one of Lebanon's top banks. "No one wants to expose himself to pressure or problems.

"Banks are running away from anything that has to do with Syria like it's a disease because the U.S. is closely watching."

"All accounts held by Syrians are under surveillance so that banks themselves don't end up facing punitive measures," said an official at another top bank who also requested anonymity.

"No transfers from accounts held by Syrian clients are being made in dollars and other transactions need special approval," she added.

According to the secret documents released by the State Department, back in 1972 Kissinger wished to put economic and ethical pressure on Israel, calling American Jewish groups lobbying the Nixon White House self-serving "bastards."

"The Pentagon is considering a significant sale of [4,900] Joint Direct Attack Munitions [JDAMs] made by Boeing Co, adding to other recent arms deals with the UAE. These include the sale of 500 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles about which U.S. lawmakers were notified in September."

"The sale of Boeing-built "bunker-buster" bombs and other munitions to UAE, a key Gulf ally, is part of an ongoing U.S. effort to build a regional coalition to counter Iran."

The extension of sanctions returns us to an issue I wrote about in June, when I asked what leverage the US has over Khartoum. Sudan specialist Bec Hamilton said at the time that the potential “carrot” of normalized relations with the US was “no longer leverage since Khartoum doesn’t believe it will ever happen (and they are probably right).” Assuming Hamilton is right about the mood in Khartoum, Washington’s decision to extend sanctions likely confirms and deepens Sudan’s pessimism regarding the possibility of normalization. That pessimism, in turn, could ultimately lead the regime of President Omar al Bashir to conclude that it is not worthwhile to halt violence in the border areas or Darfur in the hope of winning acceptance from Washington. That pessimism could also push Sudan even closer to China – Beijing, after all, was Bashir’s destination on the eve of Southern independence.

[Criticism of the Guardian piece]
It's not clear, though, whether those charges will make it into the IAEA report -- China and Russia are lobbying against what they see as an attempt to enlist the nuclear watchdog in the service of a U.S. agenda -- but even if they're in the report, Moscow and Beijing are unlikely to join the sanctions push. It wouldn't be the first time the U.S. had assumed that some new 'gotcha' piece of intelligence would change the game, only to be disappointed.

Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.

They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East.

They made clear that Barack Obama, has no wish to embark on a new and provocative military venture before next November's presidential election.

But they warned the calculations could change because of mounting anxiety over intelligence gathered by western agencies, and the more belligerent posture that Iran appears to have been taking.

Another Whitehall official, with knowledge of Britain's military planning, said that within the next 12 months Iran may have hidden all the material it needs to continue a covert weapons programme inside fortified bunkers. He said this had necessitated the UK's planning being taken to a new level.

"Beyond [12 months], we couldn't be sure our missiles could reach them," the source said. "So the window is closing, and the UK needs to do some sensible forward planning. The US could do this on their own but they won't.

"So we need to anticipate being asked to contribute. We had thought this would wait until after the US election next year, but now we are not so sure.

As if there were not already enough domestic and international scrutiny making life (not to mention neutrality) difficult for Bahrain's BICI, the United States via its inept legislature has succeeded in adding more, by making the proposed U.S.-Bahrain arms sale conditional on its findings. The latter will be revealed privately to King Hamad and presumably others on October 30 and thereafter publicly

In the first place, the BICI is at bottom a U.S. initiative. (I have it on good information that the ruling family had first proposed a Bahraini-staffed inquiry that was rejected by U.S. diplomats on grounds that it would be viewed as inherently biased. King Hamad was personally convinced of the BICI arrangement.)

The first parliamentary elections since Mubarak’s fall are scheduled for 28 November, but NGO leaders say the transitional government led by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has mounted a “smear campaign” against them by accusing them of receiving millions of dollars from foreign donors to destabilize the country - going so far as to say the violence on the streets of Cairo during and after the revolution was supported by foreign funding channelled through NGOs.

Even so, the government’s campaign against NGOs seems to have changed the way ordinary Egyptians view civil society. Activists talk about people who approach them not asking about their development programmes or their political awareness campaigns, but about where they get their funding.

The Libyan intervention was considerably more controversial than media coverage often let on. The positions of countries aside from the United States and NATO countries were often caricatured or ignored from March through August. Opposition or skepticism of the NATO intervention was often interpreted as ‘support’ for the Qadhafi regime or a cynical attempt to avoid precedent-setting as it might relate to small states with ‘internal issues’ relative to big ones.

The Libyan crisis illustrated where agency and power lay as the world drags on into a new iteration of jargon about multi-polarity, poly-polarity, responsibilities to protect and multiple sovereignties. And it has illustrated the kinds of prejudices and predilections and ambitions states and their peoples live with in the early twenty-first century. And Libya has shown how similar to the old world order is to the present one, how very much alike the great and middle-sized powers are.

“It became a crony capitalism,” Magda Kandil, the think tank’s new executive director, said of the privatization program advocated by its founders. Because of the corruption, the center now estimates, the assets that Egypt has sold off since 1991 have netted only about $10 billion, $90 billion less than their estimated worth.

“The privatization and economic opening of recent years have created new opportunities for ‘vertical corruption’ at upper levels of government affecting state resources,” said one confidential State Department cable written by an unidentified diplomat in 2006, quoting Hitler Tantawi, a former chief of an internal government financial watchdog called the Administrative Control Authority.

ATFP, a non-profit, moderate pro-Palestinian organization that has been in existence since 2003, has only five permanent staff members in its downtown D.C. office, but has managed to vault itself to the fore of the Washington foreign policy discussion over the Middle East peace process. "They've been critical in getting sustained and high levels of support from both Republican and Democratic administrations," an administration official told The Cable. "They have pretty high access, they can pass messages, they can work quietly with the Hill, they're not media attention seekers, they are trusted and they try to work behind the scenes."

The downside of their strategy, however, has been a notable absence of grassroots Palestinian support and a recent backlash from parts of the Palestinian establishment, including a break in relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission in Washington.

According to a report released on Wednesday by London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International, in the five years preceding the Arab Spring, a host of at least 20 governments - including Italy, the United Kingdom, France, Serbia, Switzerland and South Korea - sold more than $2.4 billion worth of small arms, tear gas, armoured vehicles and other security equipment to the the five countries that have faced - and violently combated - popular uprisings: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

what is remarkable is the centrality of statehood, and by extension state sovereignty, in the capacity of Palestinians to pursue international justice. Surely, to many readers this will be unsurprising – the ICC’s Rome Statute, after all, was negotiated by states and nations only come under the Court’s jurisdiction if they refer themselves or ratify the Statute. In other words, the Court continues to privilege statehood, at most marking a negotiation between state politics and the liberal cosmopolitan protection of human rights. However, with the case of Palestine the importance of the state-based power-politics has come only more forcefully into light.

In 2009, Palestine filed an official declaration at the Court recognizing its jurisdiction. However, despite having accepted arguments on the question of Palestinian statehood, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has simply decided to sit on the case.

The case of Palestine perhaps exposes the hidden power inequalities within global liberalism and liberal cosmopolitanism

The United States Congress has blocked nearly $200m in aid for the Palestinians, threatening projects such as food aid, health care, and support for efforts to build a functioning state.

The decision to delay the payments runs counter to the wishes of the Obama administration and reflects Congressional anger at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's so far unrealised pursuit of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation and statehood recognition at the UN.

With the opposition movement showing little incentive to compromise, after so many of its members were jailed, attacked, fired, humiliated or killed, the crackdown is likely to drag on. As it does, Western friendliness with the Bahraini regime - and lack of support for those suffering under it - will become another narrative that weakens the credibility of the West's words and deeds.

b) Under the section "Recent developments: Marriage and birth certificates" point number 9, the Bidun do not only have to do a lot of paper work to get marriage certificates, but they also have to stage their marriages as "adultery" so they can get a paper from the police station "forcing the marriage" according to the law that forces adulterers to get married or otherwise face court and get jailed for it. This is a trick that Bidun invented so they can ease the process of getting marriage certificates. 

Not long ago, a political party seeking to change U.S. policy would try to achieve that goal by building popular support for its ideas, then implementing those ideas through legislation. That, after all, is how our political system was designed to work. But today’s G.O.P. has decided to bypass all that and go for a quicker route. Never mind getting enough votes to pass legislation; it gets what it wants by threatening to hurt America if its demands aren’t met.

This is the way any number of unstable, undemocratic Third World countries work, in which political outcomes are determined by whoever is best able to inflict or threaten to inflict harm on his countrymen if he does not get his way.

No police report has been filed, but a spokesman for Hinkle said that "a shakedown" had taken place, and did not deny that the emails had been sent by Hinkle.

The tentative agreement calls for at least $2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, a new Congressional committee to recommend a deficit-reduction proposal by Thanksgiving, and a two-step increase in the debt ceiling.

If the deal clears Congress, with its new special joint committee to explore deficit reduction, it will ensure that the size and scope of the federal government and the tension between spending and taxes will remain front and center in the Washington debate headed into the 2012 election.

As is clear from the cable, the French were very uneasy about seeing Syria destabilized as a result of the Mehlis Report. If they were that anxious about the political fallout of a humble UN investigation report, I can only imagine what kinds of conversations are taking place today between French and American diplomats about the situation in Syria. For anyone still puzzled about the double standard of the Obama administration on Libya vs. Syria, these cables offer a sobering reminder of the fact that for all the bluster about the Axis of Evil, Hizbullah, Iran, yada yada yada, the prospect of an Assad-less Syria is even more problematic to the West than the “nuisance capacity” of the current regime.

* A small deal: Negotiations between the administration and congressional Republicans uncovered between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in spending cuts that both the Democrats and the Republicans could accept. The Democrats would like to see these spending cuts accompanied by new revenues, but there have been some intimations that the Obama administration could accept a deal with $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and no new revenues. The most specific look we’ve gotten at these cuts came in a slideshow presented by Eric Cantor and leaked to the press.

"Obviously, we don't want to rush to consensus on whether it is or isn't a good idea to save the American economy and all our respective livelihoods from certain peril until we've examined this thorny dilemma from every angle. And if we’re still discussing this matter on Aug. 2, well, then, so be it.” At press time, President Obama said he personally believed the country should not be economically ruined.

For months, the Republican leaders have emphatically pledged that there will be no increase in the federal debt ceiling absent huge cuts in government spending and fundamental changes in popular social programs, all without the whiff of a tax increase.

Now, with negotiations stalled and a potential default by the United States government just over the horizon, they are being held to those promises by their own rank-and-file, leaving them in a bind that is defying easy resolution and putting them at risk of being blamed if things end badly.

Recounting how the 1995 government shutdown helped President Bill Clinton win re-election the following year, Mr. McConnell said any impasse that drove down the nation’s credit rating and led to government checks being delayed could have the same result for Mr. Obama.

Other protesters threw eggs and tomatoes at our embassy. If they cared about their fellow Syrians the protesters would stop throwing this food at us and donate it to those Syrians who don’t have enough to eat. And how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere.

2- Ironically, the pro-democracy tweeps condemning the visit because of US’s hypocrisy are using the same worldview that regime propaganda tries to nurture: a single duality of good and evil. There is no space for nuance or complexity. Because it is the American ambassador, then the motives are bad.

Lenient U.S. gun laws aren't helping. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which had blocked certain types of semi-automatic weapons from commercial sale, expired in 2004. Today, while multiple handgun purchases must be reported within 48 hours, American citizens can purchase multiple military-style rifles at a time without the sale being reported. Nor are there limits on how many firearms can be purchased in a given time period. Law enforcement has no way to track an individual's acquisitions and is instead reliant on gun shops -- which have a clear vested interest selling guns -- to report suspicious purchases.

Congress as a whole has historically been reluctant to face either the NRA or the firearms industry, which relies on military-style weapons for its only source of growth.

As the CIA homed in on al-Kuwaiti, John's team continually updated the memo with fresh information. Everyone knew that anything with bin Laden's name on it would shoot right to the director's desk and invite scrutiny, so the early drafts played down hopes that the courier would lead to bin Laden. But John saw the bigger picture. The hunt for al-Kuwaiti was effectively the hunt for bin Laden, and he was not afraid to say so.

But John said it wasn't that far-fetched. Drawing on what he knew about bin Laden's earlier hideouts, he said it made sense that bin Laden had surrounded himself only with his couriers and family and did not use phones or the Internet. The CIA knew that top al-Qaida operatives had lived in urban areas before.

These, often unchecked, financial and military contributions to the Yemeni government and security services contributed to the entrenchment of unofficial security-military hybrid organizations, and to the growth of an elite power struggle that has been brewing within the country for several years. Because of this security assistance, President Saleh was able to control the military, and strengthen elite units under the command of his son Ahmed and three nephews Tareq, Yahya, and Ammar, at the expense of the traditional military forces. The sum total of U.S. and Western government involvement in the Yemen has, therefore, been to indirectly bolster the military power and political legitimacy of patronage circles linked to President Saleh, and to intensify the President’s informal authoritarian power networks.

And the way to create this "quarantine" was by engineering a military coup. According to Copeland, Keeley believed that America should get rid of the present elected leaders, bring in a short period of dictatorship which would protect the Syrian people and thus allow them to develop self-confidence and stronger personalities, and within a few years a real independent democracy would emerge.

As a result Syria was torn apart by miltary coups throughout the early 1950s. Then in 1954 the parliamentary system was restored. The politicians - and most of the Syrian people - were now terrified of America, not just because of the interventions and the coup, but also because of their support for Israel. In response the new government turned to the Soviet Union for economic aid and friendship.

Insisting on the implementation of neoliberal economic policies will back US policymakers into a familiar corner in which they find refuge in authoritarian elites who can “insulate” technocratic decision-makers while waiting for the economic reforms to work their magic…a magic which never seems to come.

What this narrative forecloses is the possibility of alternative ways of imagining ourselves as bound to others (whether along dimensions of class or gender solidarity, or a cosmopolitan commitment to global citizenship). In short, when we are cajoled into accepting a policy that supports Libyan rebels and renegotiates debt in Egypt but leaves Bahrainis to the wolves and shrugs its shoulders at that incomprehensible Yemen, it is because we have tacitly accepted a narrow definition of “ourselves” – as Americans principally interested in the projection of US power and the cultivation of regimes that we can influence, irrespective of how they are constituted.

Al Wasat, the onetime opposition paper now under direct control of the Sunni minority government, carried an editorial with possible racial overtones Monday that claimed that "American black fingers are aiming to weaken the Gulf" states so the U.S. can create its own "Greater Middle East."

Media attacks have also been directed against individuals at the U.S. Embassy, first the human rights officer, who departed early, and now against the acting head of mission, Stephanie Williams, a foreign service officer.

Another paper, Al Ayyam, charged in a column Monday that the U.S. is in an "evil alliance" with the opposition group.

I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after -- they should be deported or put in prison.

Since the summer of 2009, President Obama, by way of the Pentagon and with State Department approval, has regularly notified Congress of his intent to sell advanced weaponry to governments across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE

Last October, the Pentagon started secretly lobbying financial analysts and large institutional investors on behalf of weapons makers and other military contractors. The idea was to bolster their long-term financial viability in the face of a possible future slowdown in Defense Department spending.

Since then, Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn and other Pentagon power brokers have made regular trips to New York City to shore up Wall Street’s support for weapons manufacturers. “

The Obama administration has been quietly putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to allow women to drive, according to leaked US embassy cables. But the jailing of a woman protester, Manal al-Sharif, after she posted online a video of herself at the wheel of a car in Khobar reveals the extent of the US diplomatic failure.

Obama's envoy, Richard Erdman, privately scolded Saudi ministers to little effect. He "pointedly" told the notoriously reactionary interior minister, Prince Naif, that "no nation could prosper without the intellectual contributions and talent of all its citizens ... (ie women)". He said the same to the deputy foreign minister, who responded wryly that "customs were a hard nut to crack".

הממשל האמריקאי מאשים את חברת הספנות של האחים עופר בסחר עם איראן, ובכך גם בסיוע בעקיפין לתכנית הגרעין שלה. האשמה זו כלולה בהודעה שפרסם היום (שלישי) משרד החוץ האמריקאי ובה רשימה של חברות מכמה מדינות בעולם הסוחרות עם איראן בעיקר בתחום האנרגיה. חברת הספנות של האחים עופר חשודה במכירת מיכלית לחברת הספנות הלאומית של איראן. המכירה בוצעה באמצעות חברת טנקר פסיפיק שהיא בבעלות של האחים עופר או אחד מהם - סמי עופר - שפועלת בסינגפור.

A bill passed Friday by the Tennessee Senate would forbid public school teachers and students in grades kindergarten through eight from discussing the fact that some people are gay.

US relations with regional states are inversely proportional to US–Kurdish relations, because the Kurds appear to be ‘trapped’ in the ideologies and interests of both the regional and international powers, as well as in inter-regional interactions, and those between them and the US which, in turn, drive the latter’s Kurdish policies.

Ultimately, US–Kurdish relations cannot be placed into any specific frame. While US relations with Iraq’s Kurds may have been initiated on the basis of hostile US relations with the Iraqi regime, the frostiness between the US and the Alawi regime in Syria has not led to stronger ties with the Kurds of that country. Even today, despite hostile US–Iranian relations, developments in Iran’s Kurdish Issue appear sluggish.
At the same time, close US–Turkish relations have actually impeded any development in Turkey’s Kurdish Issue.

But in an exclusive interview today, Kerry said he no longer saw the Syrian government as willing to reform. "He obviously is not a reformer now," he said, while also defending his previous stance. "I've always said the top goal of Assad is to perpetuate his own regime."

When pressed by The Cable about his earlier, rosier view of Assad, Kerry denied he had expected the Syrian regime would come around.

"I said there was a chance he could be a reformer if certain things were done. I wasn't wrong about if those things were done. They weren't done," Kerry said. "I didn't hold out hope. I said there were a series of things that if he engaged in them, there was a chance he would be able to produce a different paradigm. But he didn't."

Her FBI file, which she obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, makes it clear the surveillance was part of a nationwide investigation of activists connected to Earth First, the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front — groups the FBI considered “left-wing anarchists” whose members sometimes advocated criminal activity to further their aims.

Thomas, who provided Threat Level with only a handful of the 800 redacted pages she received in her request, says she organized activities with Earth First and participated in animal rights activities, but never belonged to the two other groups. Instead, she was a member of Food Not Bombs.

Previously unreleased U.S. diplomatic communications, obtained through WikiLeaks, reveal that the U.N. and France have been deeply skeptical of Western Sahara's prospects for self-rule, and have yielded to intense pressure from Morocco to limit outside scrutiny of its human rights conduct.

The April 6, 2009 cable recounts that the previous year the U.N.'s former special envoy, the Dutch diplomat Peter Van Walsum, publicly dismissed Polisario's independence drive as "not realistic, because Morocco would never relinquish its control of the territory and the international community would never force it to do so." The United States -- which favored autonomy -- "explicitly" backed Walsum's position, even though "no other member did, not even traditionally pro-Moroccan France." The U.S. position has subsequently shifted away from that public position.

Carter rankled U.S. officials this week after accusing the United States and South Korea of human rights violations by withholding food aide. He made the comments at the end of a three-day visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, a visit that had been intended to promote north-south dialogue on the Korean peninsula, revive a denuclearization process and assess food shortages.

"As you know well, the North Koreans were the ones who abruptly suspended the aid program in 2009, ordering our humanitarian personnel to leave the country and leave behind 20,000 metric tons of U.S. food," the State Department's Director of Policy Planning, Jacob Sullivan, told reporters in Washington.

The Treasury Department is finalizing an executive order empowering President Barack Obama to begin freezing the U.S. assets of senior Syrian officials and members of Mr. Assad’s inner circle. U.S. officials said these designations could be made public within days. European governments have announced that they’ll take similar steps if Mr. Assad doesn’t push forward with political reforms.

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria.

In February 2006, when relations with Damascus were at a nadir, the Bush administration announced that it would award $5 million in grants to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”

But no dissidents inside Syria were willing to take the money, for fear it would lead to their arrest or execution for treason, according to a 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy, which reported that “no bona fide opposition member will be courageous enough to accept funding.”

he United States is slated to provide Israel with $430 million worth of security aid in the near future which will include $205 million allocated for the development of Iron Dome batteries.

According to an agreement between the US and Israel for the next 10 years, 2011 aid was slated to grow to $3 billion (from $2.77 billion) in addition to an extra $205 million for the development of the Iron Dome system.

Here’s what the Republicans are demanding, in convenient and infuriating bullet point form, thanks to the New York Times:

• No federal financing for Planned Parenthood because it performs abortions. Instead, state administration of federal family planning funds, which means that Republican governors and legislatures will not spend them.
• No local financing for abortion services in the District of Columbia.
• No foreign aid to countries that might use the money for abortion or family planning. And no aid to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports family-planning services.

Yemeni negotiators hashing out a transfer of power that would have longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh resign within days are stuck on crucial details concerning the fate of his relatives who lead the country's elite counterterrorism units, a key concern of the embattled leader as well as of international allies like America and Saudi Arabia, according to people familiar with the discussions.

People familiar with the negotiations say that President Saleh is trying to insist on guarantees of immunity from prosecution for him and his family and that a transitional authority contain figures he considers allies, like the current vice president or the prime minister. One person close to the talks said that the leader does not want to end up like former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is now facing a corruption investigation after being forced from office in February.

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.

Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.

An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men.

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media using fake online personas designed to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with the US Central Command (Centcom) to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities at once.

He said none of the interventions was in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Western diplomatic sources said many or most of the navy's Fifth Fleet has left Manama. They said many of the U.S. naval personnel were transferred to Oman, where a naval exercise was taking place.

"There is a skeleton crew left," a diplomatic source said.
[report includes several dubious claims]

Yet our leaders are even more at ease among the Saudi autocracy than they were in the court of Colonel Gaddafi. The number of export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom has risen roughly fourfold since 2003. The last government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudi despots that it derailed British justice by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the al-Yamamah deals.

Oil dependency means dependency on Saudi Arabia. Dependency on Saudi Arabia means empowerment of its despotic monarchy. Forget, if you must, the trifling issue of climate breakdown. Forget the incidental matter of economic depression. An oil-dependent economy means an impregnable tyranny in Saudi Arabia. That alone should prompt us to rethink the way we travel.

A new NIE on Iran’s nuclear program will remain classified, but reportedly walks back the conclusions of the controversial 2007 NIE, which stated that Iran had ceased its nuclear weapons activities in 2003. Reports indicate that while Iran may not have made the ultimate decision to build a nuclear weapon, due to internal politics and external pressure, it is likely working on the components of such a device.

"We believe Iran is moving to the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability," Robert Einhorn, the State Department's senior adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, said at a briefing today. Due to the inefficient nature of Iran’s uranium enrichment technology, though, Einhorn says that "it would make no sense" for Iran to make the decision to build a nuclear weapon at this point.

While the gesture was warmly welcomed, the message from the Shi’ite protesters was a serious one. Sheikh Mohamad Hassan Ibrahim, a member of the Islamic Action Society said: ‘‘We hope to come here again and share sweets with you after the fall of this regime.’‘

Barack Obama has directed the US Treasury to block $30bn (£18.45bn) in assets held by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his officials. The move came as world leaders moved to isolate the Libyan regime for its violent crackdown on protesters.

The action to seize assets began over the weekend and is the largest ever undertaken by the US, said Treasury officials. The Libyan government and its leaders are believed to have stashed billions of US dollars in foreign bank accounts – money generated by the country's vast oil wealth.

On Sunday, Britain froze the assets of Gaddafi, his daughter and four sons, including a £10mn Hampstead home of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's second son. Last week the UK foiled an attempt to move hundreds of millions of dollars of funds out of Britain before sanctions could be imposed.

Factors contributing to Vietnam's behavior predate the signing of a bilateral trade agreement, Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization or even the resumption of diplomatic relations with Washington. At each juncture, Vietnam has promised to respect human rights and comply with international law. Each time, however, Vietnam has learned that it can reap all the benefits without honoring any of its promises.

And if Washington is looking to Vietnam for a long-term partner for peace and regional stability, America would do well to recognize publicly that only a Vietnam that is free and democratic can provide one.

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

It exempts peaceful practice of Islam but labels any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices such as feet washing and prayers — as treasonous. It claims Shariah adherents want to replace the Constitution with their religious law.

[imperial conspiracy theories, unrelated jabs at Israel, but valid regarding the military]
The chiefs of two oppressive Arab regimes are gone, but their actual regimes still remain in one form or another. Mubarak and Ben Ali were dominant actors within the power structure of the regimes in Tunis and Cairo. Yet, there is still an oligarchic supporting structure which remains intact. Both Mubarak and Ben Ali could almost be thought of in terms of the firsts amongst a set of peers or primus inter pares. Both dictators were members of a cast of oligarchs within their respective authoritarian republics.

The regime structures remain. Also, the external forces that supported the Tunisian and Egyptian regime structures persist. These external forces are the United States and the European Union.

“The problem has been that we have been doing everything we can to cuddle up to the Khalifas and have been consciously ignoring at best the situation of Bahraini Shiites,” said Gwenyth Todd, a former political adviser... “We could find ourselves in a very bad situation if the regime has to make major concessions to the Shia, unless we change our tone.”

The government advisers and Nabil Rajab of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said that over the years, the United States military was reluctant to believe the degree of the royal family’s discrimination against Shiites in politics, employment, housing and human rights.

The United States Embassy in Bahrain is working hard behind the scenes to ease the crisis, and American officials say their pressure persuaded the Bahraini government to consider political reforms and halt the use of lethal force that killed seven demonstrators and wounded many more.

The State Department's Office of the Inspector General looked into six contracts at the U.S. embassies in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates and at two consulates general in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. It found what it referred to as indicators of coercion (confiscation of documents at the work destination), indicators of exploitation (bad living conditions and payment issues), and indicators of abuse of vulnerability (absence of language education and general abuse of a lack of information).

Vermont Sen. Pat Leahy, who chairs the subcommittee that determines foreign aid, threatened to withhold some of that money if Mr. Mubarak doesn’t move fast enough. The U.S. spends more than $1 billion in aid to Egypt each year.