EXCLUSIVE New riddle of San Bernardino massacre: Russian sisters married to shooters' 'terrorist' neighbor and brother have links to Israel - and murderer's brother was quizzed about domestic violence just before attacks

·         Shooter Syed Farook's brother and his neighbor - who is accused of buying guns used in the massacre - are married to Russian sisters 

·         Mariya and Tatiana Chernykh can be revealed to have strong links to Israel with their parents owning a home there 

·         Tatiyana married Syed Raheel Farook, shooter's brother after brief marriage to man whose family say it was 'mistake'

·         Mariya has two 'anchor babies' with her Hispanic boyfriend, a petty criminal - but she married Enrique Marquez between having them

·         His immigration status is unclear but her visa is set to be revoked - although with two US citizen children, she can fight deportation 

·         Raheel Farook and his wife have been visited by police over claims of domestic violence - most recently just before the terrorist murders 

By RUTH STYLES IN SAN BERNARDINO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and WILL STEWART IN MOSCOW FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

DAILY MAIL 24 DECEMBER 2015                                                                                    

They came in search of the American dream but nine years after Tatiana Chernykh arrived, she and sister Mariya have instead found themselves at the heart of a nightmare.

The pair are at the center of a complex web of personal relationships, with Tatiana married to Syed Raheel Farook, the brother of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan, 28.

Mariya, meanwhile, is in what the FBI say is a sham marriage with Farook's friend and accomplice Enrique Marquez, 24, but lives with her boyfriend Oscar Romero, 33, in Ontario, California.

So how did a pair of Russian sisters with close ties to Israel end up at the heart of the worst terrorist atrocity in the US since 9/11?

Daily Mail Online can now disclose the full story of the Chernykh sisters and their journey from a tiny Jewish village in remote south-western Russia to their role in the California massacre earlier this month.

Born to Anatole, 53, and Valentina, 51, in the 950-strong village of Vysokiy, the two appear to have been model students with Tatiana, now 31, achieving a silver medal for her achievements at school.

It is unknown if the family is itself Jewish and friends and neighbors were reticent on the subject when approached by Daily Mail Online in Voronezh.

Although both Chernykh parents are now thought to live in Beit Shemesh, a mid-sized city of 94,000 people in Israel, their eldest daughter chose to come to the US in the third year of her studies at Voronezh Pedagogical University.

She told her parents that she was taking part in a student exchange program although that claim has been disputed by one of her professors.

'We did have a student called Tatiana Chernykh,' said Lyudmila Solodovchenko, deputy head of the English language department.

She was expelled for academic failures. And she was definitely not sent to America by us as part of a student exchange program.'

Nevertheless, what is certain is that by 2006, Tatiana was in the US - leaving her parents and sister Mariya, now 25, behind in Russia.

On arrival, she met and married 46-year-old Peter Gigliotti, briefly moving in with him at his Richmond, Virginia home before relocating to California.

Gigliotti, a drifter who has moved from dead end job to dead end job and worked in a pizza restaurant while in Richmond, now lives in Portland, Oregon.

His sister Maria, 50, lives in a ramshackle home in Beaverton and, when approached by Daily Mail Online last week, insisted her brother, who has been living nearby since September, was guilty only of an error.

He was unavailable for comment, and she would not address the question of whether the marriage was a sham or not.

'It happened many years ago,' she said of the relationship. 'It was a huge mistake.'

Meanwhile Tatiana, by now divorced, had moved to Corona, California where she met and married Syed Raheel Farook,

Like younger brother Syed Rizwan, Farook spent much of his early life in Chicago, Illinois, before moving to California with parents Rafia, 62, and Syed Sr., 66, in 1993.

He served in the US Navy between 2003 and 2007 - earning among other awards, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal - before meeting Tatiana, a beautician, and moving into a modest home in Corona with his wife.

The home, which is a short drive from the Redlands property where Syed Rizwan and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, plotted the December 2 massacre, is shared with their infant daughter and Raheel's father Syed Sr.

She also set up a beauty salon in the garage, with friend Kristen Lowe, 29, telling Daily Mail Online that the room had been painted pink.

'It looked like a little salon in there for someone to do hair,' said Lowe, adding: 'I thought they were just a normal family.'

Tatiana's social media pages, now deleted, paint a portrait of a happy family life with the two seen posing together with their daughter and relaxing at the beach.

But neighbors have offered up a very different picture of the couple's life together and say the police are regular visitors to the house.

The most recent visit, said 47-year-old Shery Medina, came on the Saturday prior to the San Bernardino shooting.

She also told Daily Mail Online that the visit was far from being an isolated occurrence and pointed to another two incidents earlier this year.

'There have been at least three incidents since January with the cops,' she said. 'Domestic violence. They argue. I'm like, 'oh God the cops are there again'.

'I saw them [the police] on the Saturday night [before the killings]. They were here and parked up the road. They never park right in front of the house. They sit further up the road and walk down.

'When they [Tatiana and Raheel] have issues, you see the cops show up.'

She added: 'I see him [Raheel] most days. He leaves with his shoulder strap briefcase. She doesn't leave too much but he does. He leaves at 5am every day. He comes home at 6:30 every time.

'He goes into the house and then he doesn't come out too much. They don't come out a lot. They don't do much.'

Further inquiries revealed that although police attended the home and Tatiana spent the following Monday being interviewed at the Corona police department, cops declined to press charges due to insufficient evidence.

For all Tatiana's domestic troubles, recent years have brought her an extra source of support in the shape of her sister Mariya who arrived in the US in 2009.

Initially just intending to visit, she soon got a job selling mobile phone cases and found herself a boyfriend in the shape of 5'7'' Romero, with whom she has a daughter.

Hoping to cement her immigration status, in November 2014, she married 24-year-old Enrique Marquez in a sham wedding and, until recently, paid him $200-a-month for the privilege.

'It's easy to check that Enrique Marquez is not her real husband. Mariya's social networks show that her husband is called Romero, and they have a daughter,' a source told Russian channel NTV.

They added: 'The black market price on bogus marriages meant that Mariya needed to pay several thousand dollars to arrange the deal.

'How could she know that her kind relatives that helped her cover the costs would turn into religious fanatics?'

Marquez, a childhood friend of Farook's, converted to Islam in 2007 and checked himself into a mental health facility in Long Beach, California immediately after the shooting.

He has since been extracted from the facility and charged with plotting terror attacks, as well as purchasing the AR-15 assault rifles used to massacre 14 people innocently enjoying an office Christmas party.

Marquez is also thought to have helped Farook formulate plans for an attack in 2012 which would have seen the pair target the SR-91 highway from Riverside to Long Beach with pipe bombs and automatic weapons

Photos obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Online show that the former security guard appeared outwardly normal, posing with a pestle and mortar and showing off his new fluorescent yellow bike helmet on social media.

However, sources say that the 24-year-old, who told the FBI he was radicalized by hate preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, was also a loner who was often reluctant to engage in conversation.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online, neighbor Lorena Aguirre said: 'He's very shy but he would wave to me,' she said. 'He would smile but I would have to initiate conversation. He didn't make small talk.'

He and Farook became a familiar sight on Tomlinson Avenue in Riverside, where both spent their teenage years and where the Marquez family still lives, and, according to Aguirre, bonded over their mutual love of cars.

'He [Marquez] didn't socialize much with the kids nearby. The only person I ever saw him with was Syed but I never spoke to them when they were together.

'Syed was obsessive about cars,' she continued. 'He would be there tinkering with cars all the time and sometimes Enrique would be with him.'

Marquez, who has no previous criminal record, was also described as a 'nerd' and a 'weirdo' by others who knew him, while more still emphasized that he 'liked to keep himself to himself'.

His relationship with Mariya appears to have been distant, although the pair exchanged text messages concerning a meeting with immigration in the run-up to the attack.

The two had been scheduled to meet with customs and immigration officials the day after the San Bernardino attacks but were declared a 'no-show' and Mariya's visa has since been revoked.

The existence of the messages was revealed in court documents filed ahead of Marquez' initial appearance on a panoply of charges, among them providing material support for terrorism and immigration fraud.

Attempting to soothe Marquez' fears in the run-up to the meeting, Mariya wrote: 'Omg!! [sic] Enrique I'm the one freaking out here!!! Relax I'll see u [sic] Monday and we'll talk.'

She also tells him: '[i]f they decline me its [sic] my problem not yours.'

Yesterday, Marquez was denied bail on the grounds that he is 'a danger to the community' - even though his family offered to put up $100,000 equity on their home in exchange for his release. 

Mariya, who lives in a cul-de-sac in Ontario, a small town close to Los Angeles, with Romero, has not been seen since the shooting and could not be reached for comment.

Romero, who has remained at the couple's home, also declined to speak when approached by Daily Mail Online on Saturday and asked about Mariya's $200-a-month sham marriage to Marquez.

The 33-year-old, who became aggressive after being approached, possesses a criminal record featuring multiple counts of DUI, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Although Romero's immigration status is unclear, Mariyah faces having her visa revoked, although with a child who is an American citizen - so-called 'anchor babies' - she will be able to fight any attempt to remove her.

Tatiana has also proved similarly elusive since the shooting, making a brief appearance with her husband outside her sister-in-law Saira's home with the rest of the family in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

Since then, she and father-in-law Syed Sr. have remained out of sight, while husband Raheel was seen visiting Farook and Malik's Redlands home on Saturday to collect his mother Rafia's possessions.

Despite her close connections to terror, friends in Russia remain unwilling to countenance the prospect that the woman they knew could have had anything to do with the shooting.

'There is no way that she [Tatiana] could have converted to Islam,' Lyudmila Gridneva who once taught the Chernykh sisters history at the village school, told NTV.

'Her parents live in Israel, and as you know relations between Arabs and Jews are...'

When informed that Tatiana had married a Muslim, she said: 'So what? He must be a secular person.'

A distant relative of the sisters and director of the local school, Zoya Gridneva, said: 'If they were married to friends of the terrorists, it has nothing to with them, does it?'

'They were never fanatics of any religion.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3369393/EXCLUSIVE-New-riddle-San-Bernardino-massacre-Russian-sisters-married-shooters-terrorist-neighbor-brother-links-Israel-murderer-s-brother-quizzed-domestic-violence-just-attacks.html#ixzz3vouAidx8
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Salen de México más de 55 mil 800 mdd de ORIGEN OSCURO 

Juan Antonio Zúñiga e Israel Rodríguez

Periódico La Jornada
Lunes 28 de diciembre de 2015, p. 25

Más de 55 mil 800 millones de dólares de origen oscuro salieron del país en los primeros tres años de la actual administración gubernamental, indican informes de la balanza de pagos elaborada por el Banco de México, el más acabado instrumento de registro sobre ingresos y salidas de divisas del país por los conductos formales e informales de la economía.

Presumiblemente relacionados con actividades ilícitas y hasta criminales, como lavado de dinero, contrabando, narcotráfico y trata de personas, el monto de esos capitales detectado por omisión ha sido de unos 18 mil 600 millones de dólares en promedio anual entre 2013 y el tercer trimestre de 2015, cantidad que representa 83 por ciento del pago de los intereses generados por el endeudamiento de los sectores público y privado del país en el mismo lapso, cuyo monto conjunto fue de 22 mil 372 millones de dólares.

Durante las pasadas dos décadas la evolución del renglón de errores y omisiones de la balanza de pagos mexicana muestra una evolución ascendente y similar a la seguida por actividades ilícitas, sobre todo relacionadas con los opiáceos, como goma de opio, morfina y heroína. En particular, durante los dos gobiernos federales formados con integrantes del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN).

Las cifras de la balanza de pagos indican que en el sexenio presidido por Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León el renglón de errores y omisiones mostró ingresos en cuatro años y retiros en dos, con una salida neta de divisas de mil 780 millones de dólares entre 1995 y 2000.

Pero de 2001 a 2006, en el transcurso del gobierno presidido por Vicente Fox, la salida neta de divisas de origen oscuro fue de 12 mil 470 millones de dólares, cantidad 600.5 por ciento superior a la de su antecesor, después de que en cinco de los seis años de la primer administración panista el renglón de errores y omisiones detectó salidas de divisas de origen incierto.

En el primer año de gobierno de la segunda administración del Partido Acción Nacional, presidida por Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, el sistema contable de la balanza de pagos de México detectó el ingreso de mil 947.2 millones de dólares, pero en los cinco años siguientes se registraron salidas anuales consecutivas por 62 mil 220.1 millones de dólares.

De manera tal que de 2007 a 2012 el envío neto de divisas de México al exterior procedentes de actividades no identificadas con claridad se elevó a 60 mil 272.9 millones de dólares, cantidad 383.3 por ciento superior a la de su antecesor panista y 33 veces más grande que la registrada en el gobierno de Zedillo Ponce de León.

Según datos de la organización InSight-Crime, citados por el periodista José Reveles en su más reciente libro Échale la culpa a la heroína, México pasó de tener 5 mil 50 hectáreas sembradas de amapola en 1995 a 19 mil 500 en 2009, lo cual implica un crecimiento de 286 por ciento en ese periodo.

Por su parte, el Banco de México detectó, en el renglón de errores y omisiones de la balanza de pagos, salidas netas de divisas de origen desconocido en 12 de los pasados 15 años, los cuales corresponden a los dos sexenios de las administraciones gubernamentales panistas y al trienio del gobierno en curso, encabezado por el presidente Enrique Peña Nieto. Los registros oficiales indican que de 2008 a la fecha suman siete años consecutivos en los que las salidas de esos capitales, de los que sólo se sabe que estuvieron en México, suman 118 mil millones de dólares, cantidad que rebasa la totalidad del endeudamiento externo de las empresas privadas que operan en el país.

Firma 'favorita' del PAN obtuvo obras millonarias sin licitar

Por Enrique Méndez

La Jornada 26 de Diciembre de 2015

A pesar de que la Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF) investigó y pidió que el Grupo Tradeco devolviera recursos pagados irregularmente en la construcción de carreteras, la Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes (SCT) afirmó que no cuenta con información respecto de auditorías u observaciones a las obras que, por contratos otorgados, realizó esa empresa en los gobiernos de Vicente Fox y Felipe Calderón, época en la que legisladores de distintos partidos documentaron que recibió 57 mil millones de pesos.

Cinco meses después de que la Comisión Permanente le pidió hacer públicos los contratos otorgados por la dependencia a esa empresa, considerada la favorita de los gobiernos panistas y que participó en obras como la Estela de Luz –que de un costo original de 300 millones de pesos subió a mil 400 millones–, la SCT detalló que se le entregaron ocho contratos por 4 mil 787 millones para carreteras y túneles.

Entre éstos se encuentra la construcción de la carretera Durango-Mazatlán, por 2 mil 56 millones 689 mil 291 pesos, de los que la ASF realizó observaciones por pagos improcedentes y ordenó su recuperación. No obstante, la SCT sostuvo que no cuenta con el estado que guarda la recuperación de dichos recursos, en el supuesto de existir las mencionadas auditorías.

Se trata de un oficio suscrito por el director de Contratación de la dirección general de Carreteras de la SCT, Juan Manuel Carrillo Baena, documento que fue recibido esta semana por la Comisión Permanente y que se turnó al Senado para su revisión, debido a que la petición original surgió de la bancada del PRI en esa cámara. Aún no existe un monto de los recursos que la empresa tendría que regresar al erario.

En julio, la Comisión Permanente aprobó un punto de acuerdo, a solicitud de senadores del PRI, para que la SCT hiciera públicos los contratos con Tradeco, y que tanto la Secretaría de la Función Pública como la Procuraduría General de la República investigaran, denunciaran y, en su caso, procedieran en contra de quien resulte responsable, derivado de las irregularidades evidenciadas por la ASF en las obras adjudicadas a esa constructora.

La investigación solicitada se debió a que la mayoría de los contratos se le otorgaron de manera directa, es decir, sin licitación pública o invitación restringida, entre otros para la autopista Durango-Mazatlán y el puente Baluarte Bicentenario, que merecieron observaciones de la ASF por incumplimiento de normatividad.

Entre las irregularidades detectadas por el órgano fiscalizador están la entrega de un anticipo de 258 millones de parte de la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional para la ampliación de la base aérea de Santa Lucía, que debía terminar entre 2012 y 2013, pero que debido a una prórroga fue terminada en agosto de 2014.

También encontró irregularidades en las nuevas instalaciones del Colegio del Aire; en la ampliación de la base aérea en Zapopan, Jalisco; en la construcción del penal de Papantla –otorgado por la Secretaría de Gobernación–, y en la construcción de hospitales en Chiapas, entre otros.

Según las investigaciones realizadas por senadores y diputados, los contratos originales entregados a Tradeco sumaban 17 mil millones de pesos, pero las sucesivas ampliaciones a los mismos sumaron otros 40 mil millones.

Los senadores del PRI que presentaron el punto de acuerdo señalaron que las autoridades debían ejercer las acciones necesarias para fincar posibles responsabilidades tanto administrativas como penales por el uso indebido e ineficiente de los recursos del erario, así como coadyuvar al esclarecimiento del posible uso ineficiente o indebido de recursos públicos, tanto en el pasado, como en la actualidad.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------NOTA DEL BLOG; AHÍ ESTÁ UNA VEZ MÁS EL CORRUPTO CALDERÓN; Y QUIERE REGRESAR USANDO A SU ESPOSA COMO PANTALLA PARA SEGUIR SAQUEANDO AL PAÍS.

War Is Realizing the Israelizing of the World

Toward an Occupation Writ Global

by Dan Sanchez, December 22, 2015

Antiwar.com

As US-driven wars plummet the Muslim world ever deeper into jihadi-ridden failed state chaos, events seem to be careening toward a tipping point. Eventually, the region will become so profuse a font of terrorists and refugees, that Western popular resistance to “boots on the ground” will finally be overcome. Then, the US-led empire will finally have the public mandate it needs to thoroughly and permanently colonize the Greater Middle East.

It is easy to see how the Military Industrial Complex and crony energy industry would profit from such an outcome. But what about America’s “best friend” in the region? How could Israel stand to benefit from being surrounded by such chaos?

Tel Aviv has long pursued a strategy of “divide and conquer”: both directly, and indirectly through the tremendous influence of the Israel lobby and neocons over US foreign policy.

A famous article from the early 1980s by Israeli diplomat and journalist Oded Yinon is most explicit in this regard. The “Yinon Plan” calls for the “dissolution” of “the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula.” Each country was to be made to “fall apart along sectarian and ethnic lines,” after which each resulting fragment would be “hostile” to its neighbors.” Yinon incredibly claimed that:

“This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run”

According to Yinon, this goal should be realized through fomenting discord and war among the Arabs:

“Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon.”

Sowing discord among Arabs had already been part of Israeli policy years before Yinon’s paper.

To counter the secular-Arab nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Israel supported an Islamist movement in the Occupied Territories, beginning in the late 70s (around the same time that the US began directly supporting the Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen in Afghanistan). The Israel-sponsored Palestinian Islamist movement eventually resulted in the creation of Hamas, which Israel also supported and helped to rise.

Also in the late 70s, Israel began fomenting inter-Arab strife in Lebanon. Beginning in 1976, Israel militarily supported Maronite Christian Arabs, aggravating a the Lebanese Civil War that had recently begun. In 1978, Israel invaded Lebanon, and recruited locals to create a proxy force called the “South Lebanon Army.”

Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982, and tried to install a Christian Fascist organization called the Phalange in power. This was foiled when the new Phalangist ruler was assassinated. In reprisal, the Phalange perpetrated, with Israeli connivance, the massacre of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Palestinian refugees and Lebanese Shiites. (See Murray Rothbard’s moving contemporary coverage of the atrocity.)

The civil war that Israel helped foster fractured Lebanon for a decade and a half. It was Lebanon’s chaotic fragmentation that Yinon cited as the model for the rest of the Arab world.

The US has also long pit Muslim nations, sects, and ethnic groups against each other. Throughout the 80s, in addition to sponsoring the Afghan jihad and civil war, the US armed Iraq (including with chemical weapons) in its invasion of and war against Iran. At the very same time, the US was also secretly selling arms to the Iranian side of that same conflict. It is worth noting that two officials involved in the Iran-Contra Affair were Israel-first neocons Elliot Abrams and Michael Ledeen. Abrams was convicted (though later pardoned) on criminal charges.

This theme can also be seen in “A Clean Break”: a strategy document written in 1996 for the Israeli government by a neocon “study group” led by future Bush administration officials and Iraq War architects. In that document, “divide and conquer” went under the euphemism of “a strategy based on balance of power.” This strategy involved allying with some Muslim powers (Turkey and Jordan) to roll back and eventually overthrow others. Particularly it called for regime change in Iraq in order to destabilize Syria. And destabilizing both Syria and Iran was chiefly for the sake of countering the “challenges” those countries posed to Israel’s interests in Lebanon.

The primary author of “A Clean Break,” David Wurmser, also wrote another strategy document in 1996, this one for American audiences, called “Coping with Crumbling States.” Wurmser argued that “tribalism, sectarianism, and gang/clan-like competition” were what truly defined Arab politics. He claimed that secular-Arab nationalist regimes like Iraq’s and Syria’s tried to defy that reality, but would ultimately fail and be torn apart by it. Wurmser therefore called for “expediting” and controlling that inevitable “chaotic collapse” through regime change in Iraq.

Especially thanks to the incredibly effective efforts of the neocon Project for a New American Century (PNAC), regime change in Iraq became official US policy in 1998. Iraq’s fate was sealed when 9/11 struck while the US Presidency was dominated by neocons (including many Clean Break signatories and PNAC members) and their close allies.

Beginning with the ensuing Iraq War, the Yinon/Wurmser “divide and conquer” strategy went into permanent overdrive.

Following the overthrow of secular-Arab nationalist ruler Saddam Hussein, the policies of the American invaders could hardly have been better designed to instigate a civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias. The “de-Baathification” of the Iraqi government sent countless secular Sunnis into unemployed desperation. This was compounded with total disenfranchisement when the US-orchestrated first election handed total power over to the Shias. And it was further compounded with persecution when the US-armed (and Iran-backed) Shiite militias began ethnically cleansing Baghdad and other cities of Sunnis. All this was the perfect recipe for civil war. And when that civil war did break out, the US armed forces made reconciliation impossible by completely taking the Shiite side.

Now in neighboring Syria, the US has been fueling a civil war for the past four years bysponsoring international Sunni jihadis fighting alongside ISIS and Syrian Al Qaeda in their war to overthrow the secular-Arab nationalist ruler Bashar al-Assad, and to “purify” the land of Shias, Druze, Christians, and other non-Salafist “apostates.” Key co-sponsors of this jihad include the Muslim regimes of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. And key allies and defenders of Assad include such Muslim forces as Hezbollah, Iranian troops, and Iraqi militias. In some battles in Syria, Iraqi soldiers and Syrian rebels may each be shooting at the other with American weapons.

Many of the weapons and recruits that were poured into Syria by the US and its allies ended up going over to ISIS or Al Qaeda. So strengthened, ISIS then burst into Iraq (where it first emerged during the chaotic US occupation) and drove the Shiite Iraqi forces out of the Sunni-populated northwest of the country.

Today’s “divide and conquer” seems to be the 80s “divide and conquer” in reverse. In the 80s, the US armed a Sunni-led Iraqi invasion of Iran. Now, by arming the Iran-led militias that dominate the new Iraqi military, the US has effectively armed a Shia-led Iranian invasion of Iraq. Moreover, in the 80s, the US covertly armed the Shiite Iranian resistance to the Iraqi invasion. Now the US is covertly arming (through its conduits in the Syrian insurgency) the Sunni Iraqi resistance to the Iranian invasion.

Jihadi-ridden civil wars have also been fomented in Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya, the latter following the American overthrow of yet another secular-Arab nationalist ruler.

In these catastrophes we see virtually everything Yinon and Wurmser called for. We see Yinon’s “inter-Arab confrontation,” the “dissolution” of Arab countries which are “fall[ing] apart along ethnic and sectarian lines,” and “hostility” among “neighbors.” And we see Wurmser’s “chaotic collapse” expedited by the smashing of secular-Arab nationalist regimes. It should also be noted that Wurmser gave short shrift to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, especially as compared to that of Arab nationalism.

But, aside from Wurmser’s far-fetched fantasies of Israel-beholden Hashemite monarchies emerging from the chaos, how could being surrounded by such a hellscape possibly “secure” Israel? Sheldon Richman incisively posited that:

“Inter-Arab confrontation promoted by the United States and Israel … would suit expansionist Israelis who have no wish to deal justly with the Palestinians and the Occupied Territories. The more dangerous the Middle East appears, the more Israeli leaders can count on the United States not to push for a fair settlement with the Palestinians. The American people, moreover, are likely to be more lenient toward Israel’s brutality if chaos prevails in the neighboring states.”

Another line of strategic thinking was revealed by the New York Times in 2013:

“More quietly, Israelis have increasingly argued that the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome.

For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.

“’This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,’ said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York.

‘Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.’”

As menacing as jihadi terrorists are to civilians, and as horrific as civil war is for those directly afflicted, the Israeli regime would rather be surrounded by both than to be neighbored by even a single stable Muslim or Arab state not subject to Washington’s and Tel Aviv’s will.

This is partly due to simple imperialism, made especially aggressive by Israel’s Zionist ideology. Israel wants lebensraum, which includes both additional territory for itself and coerced access to resources and markets in foreign territories in the region. Non-client Muslim and Arab states are simply standing in the way of that. Every state lusts for lebenraum. What makes Israel’s lust particularly dangerous is its blank-check backing by the American superpower.

But there is also the more particular issue of maintaining a particular bit of already-conquered lebensraum: the Israeli occupation of Palestine. No matter how weak (like Saddam) and meek (like Assad) Arab rulers are on the subject, the very notion of Arab nationalism is a standing threat to the Israelis as systematic dispossessors and permanent occupiers of Arabs. Israel hates Baathism for the same reason it hated the PLO before the latter was tamed. A nationally-conscious Arab world will never fully accept the Occupation.

Israel is prejudiced against regional stability, because a stable, coherent Arab state is more likely to have both the motivation and the wherewithal to resist Israeli designs on its country, and possibly even to stand up for the Palestinians.

One might wonder how jihadis and civil war are any better in these regards. It’s not like the natural resources under Assad’s barrel bombs or ISIS’s sneakers are any more readily available to Israel. And, setting aside Mossad-related theories about ISIS and Al Qaeda, it’s not like Islamist extremists are necessarily much more forgiving of the Occupation than Arab nationalists.

But the jihadis are preferred by Israel, not as permanent neighbors, but as catalysts for military escalation. By overthrowing moderates to the benefit of extremists, the Israeli-occupied US foreign policy is accelerating further war by polarizing the world. This isISIS’s own strategy as well. Israeli hawks prefer ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Hamas to Saddam, Assad, and Arafat, because the people of the West are less likely to be willing to co-exist with the former than the latter. Especially as terrorist attacks and refugee crises mount in the West, the rise and reign of the terrorists may finally overcome public opposition to troop commitment, and necessitate the Western invasion and permanent occupation of the Greater Middle East, followed, of course, by its perpetual exploitation by, among other Washington favorites, Israel and Israeli corporations.

The West may become a Global Israel, forever occupying, forever dispossessing, forever bombing, and forever insecure. And the Middle East may become a Global Palestine, forever occupied, forever dispossessed, forever bombed, and forever desperately violent. That is how war is realizing the Israelizing of the world.

Elecciones en España: mucho ruido y pocas nueces

Marcos Roitman Rosenmann

LA JORNADA 21 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2015

Nunca en estos 40 años de monarquía parlamentaria los medios de comunicación han jugado un papel tan determinante en el proceso electoral. Han condicionado –hasta el extremo de ignorar candidatos, coaliciones, formaciones políticas e invisibilizar opciones– para favorecer una visión manipulada e interesada de quienes se jugaban ser alternativa de gobierno. En este sentido ninguno de ellos constituye una amenaza para el sistema. Los cuatro están de acuerdo en lo fundamental y gozan del beneplácito de los empresarios, la banca y las instituciones europeas, más allá de los discursos estridentes.

Por hacer memoria. En el plazo de un año de vida Podemos ha pasado de promover el sí a la renta básica, el impago de la deuda, la salida del euro, la nacionalización de las compañías eléctricas, las telecomunicaciones, la banca, los transportes, el sector sanitario, a un no sin paliativos. Ya no defiende la jubilación a los 60 años y se suma a la reforma laboral del PSOE y del PP.

Asimismo, del no a la OTAN pasa a un sí. Igualmente, de rechazar las empresas de trabajo temporal a reconocer su valía. Y en política internacional no ha sido menos su transformación. No es de extrañar que el presidente de la Cámara de Comercio y la presidenta del consejo de administración del Santander señalen que no hay por qué temer a Podemos. Ahora ellos mismos han pasado a definirse como nuevos socialdemócratas, continuadores de la labor progresista de los primeros gobiernos de Felipe González y Rodríguez Zapatero.

En otro orden de cosas, tampoco habíamos asistido a una mentira construida para hacer creíble un discurso falaz y maniqueo: presentar la realidad política de España como un sistema bipartidista, imperfecto, pero al fin y al cabo bipartidismo. En España nunca ha existido tal situación; cuestión diferente es la existencia de partidos hegemónicos, Partido Popular y Partido Socialista. Ambas organizaciones, en momentos determinados, han conseguido la mayoría absoluta, lo cual les ha permitido gobernar en solitario.

No es lo mismo partidos hegemónicos que bipartidismo. Mientras uno de los dos partidos gozó de la mayoría absoluta, aplicó la política del rastrillo. Así aprobaron recortes, la guerra del Golfo, privatizaciones, rescates bancarios y concesiones de soberanía y seguridad, sin olvidar las leyes mordaza y de restricción a las libertades ciudadanas.

Sin embargo, cuando tal situación no se ha producido, Partido Popular y PSOE han sido obligados a pactar, negociar, llegar a acuerdos y construir legislaturas abiertas y con coaliciones de coyuntura. Para estos fines han servido las minorías vasca, catalana, navarra o partidos regionales con uno o dos diputados.

La situación que hoy se presenta como novedad no lo es tanto; la diferencia estriba en la emergencia de nuevos actores que sustituyen a otros o, mejor dicho, expresan nuevas voluntades, que en nada suponen desestabilizar el régimen, más bien lo apuntalan. Bien es cierto que parte de los votos de los partidos hegemónicos han ido a parar, mayoritariamente, a sus hermanos de sangre: Podemos, con respecto al PSOE, y Ciudadanos, en relación con el Partido Popular. En este sentido los datos son elocuentes: con 96.2 por ciento de los votos escrutados, según cifras oficiales del Ministerio del Interior, el PP logra 123 diputados y el PSOE 90. Entre ambos conservan 50 por ciento de los votos emitidos, el equivalente a 13 millones de votos de los 25 millones que acudieron a las urnas (73.6 por ciento de participación).

Por otro lado, Ciudadanos alcanza 13.9 por ciento, 3 millones y medio de votos, y 40 diputados; Podemos se sitúa con 12.6 por ciento de los votos y 42 diputados. Constituye una manipulación mal intencionada concederle como suyos los diputados electos pertenecientes a las coaliciones de las cuales forma parte junto con movimientos sociales y partidos de izquierda. Anove, en Galicia; Compromis, en Valencia, e Izquierda Unida, Iniciativa, PSUC e independientes, en Cataluña. Lo cual no supone desconocer un porcentaje mayor si fuese posible desagregar a quienes votaron a Podemos dentro de las coaliciones. En otras palabras, no todos los diputados electos de estas listas pertenecen a Podemos.

Lo cierto es que el mapa electoral se rediseña y un gobierno de coalición se advierte como resultado de la fragmentación del voto. Pero no será viable a cuatro bandas. Se intuye una legislatura inestable, a lo cual hay que agregar una hipotética convocatoria de elecciones anticipadas a medio plazo. Salvo sorpresas de última hora, acuerdos a tres bandas, entre los cuatro primeros más votados, se antojan improbables. Unos y otros han mostrado su reticencia bien a Podemos, al Partido Popular o Ciudadanos. Recordemos que el congreso lo conforman 350 diputados, situándose la mayoría para formar gobierno estable en 176 curules.

La casi desaparición de la izquierda política en el parlamento, por el descalabro de Izquierda Unida, acosada por una campaña espuria llamando al voto útil para traspasarlo a Podemos y el PSOE, le hace perder 800 mil votos. Ayer, con dos diputados, alcanza 3.7 por ciento de los votos. Unión Progreso y Democracia (UPD) desaparece. La que sí mantienen su fuerza con altos y bajos es la derecha vasca y catalana. El voto nacionalista se decanta mayoritariamente hacia el PNV, Ezquerra Republicana y la nueva derecha salida de la ruptura de Convergencia y UPD, con el proyecto independentista.

En conclusión, mucho ruido y pocas nueces. No habrá crisis de régimen, gobiernos de izquierda, cambios constitucionales de gran calado o un cuestionamiento de lacasta. Ahora se antoja un tiempo de espera en el cual, lo más probable, será una restructuración de los dos grandes partidos hegemónicos bajo la atenta mirada de Estados Unidos, la Troika y el Ibex 35.

SIRIA EN LA ENCRUCIJADA

El 2016 será fundamental para el futuro de este país devastado por la guerra del gobierno de Assad contra los grupos terroristas creados y financiados por Occidente, Israel y los países mayoritariamente sunnitas de la región.

Por un lado está la coalición anti-Assad, en donde se ubican Estados Unidos, Gran Bretaña, Francia, Israel, Arabia Saudita, Turquía, Qatar, Bahrein, los Emiratos Arabes Unidos, Kuwait, Jordania y Egipto, más los grupos irregulares armados por estos países (Al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham, el Ejército de Conquista, el Ejército Libre de Siria, entre otros), más el Estado Islámico; y por el otro lado está la coalición pro-Assad con Rusia, Irán, Irak y el Hezbollah. Al mismo tiempo se supone que todos estos países y grupos (más los Kurdos) están en lucha contra el Estado Islámico.

Se presenta así una doble dinámica, pues la prioridad para algunos de estos países y grupos armados es derrocar a Assad (Arabia, Turquía, Qatar, Israel, Al Nusra, Aharar al Sham, el Ejército de Conquista, el Ejército Libre de Siria y el mismo Estado Islámico), mientras que para otros la prioridad debe ser destruir al Estado Islámico (coalición pro Assad y los Kurdos).

Estados Unidos, Francia y Gran Bretaña se han quedado en medio de estas dos dinámicas, sin poder definir una prioridad, lo que ha afectado seriamente su efectividad en el terreno, y por lo mismo la posibilidad de lograr alguno de los dos objetivos.

De ahí que Rusia insista en que la prioridad debe ser destruir al Estado Islámico, conformando una coalición amplia, y al mismo tiempo ir desarrollando un proceso de negociación entre las coaliciones anti y pro Assad, para pacificar al país y permitir que se conforme un gobierno legítimo, en elecciones supervisadas por la comunidad internacional. Lo más probable es que las elecciones se realizaran sin la participación de Assad, quien en todo caso quedaría al frente del gobierno en tanto se destruye al Estado Islámico y se desarrolla un proceso de transición política ordenada en el país.

Por supuesto que esta propuesta rusa y de la coalición pro Assad no gusta a los "halcones" neoconservadores del establecimiento político-militar de Estados Unidos que insisten en formar un gran ejército, que incluya miles de tropas estadounidenses y de otros países de la coalición anti Assad, para derrotar al Estado Islàmico, pero al mismo tiempo ello les permitiría colocar en medio de Siria e Irak una cuña que partiría en dos la que denominan la "creciente chiíta" que va de Teherán hasta Damasco, con lo que podrían aprovechar esa circunstancia para iniciar el asalto final contra el gobierno de Assad y así lograr su objetivo de subyugar a Siria. Lo que seguiría sería la destrucción de Hezbollah en el sur de Líbano y la desaparición de la influencia iraní y rusa en esa parte del Medio Oriente.

Por ello es tan importante quien será el candidato republicano para las elecciones presidenciales del próximo año, pues de ser uno de los favoritos de los "halcones" quien ganara la nominación y la elección general, esto es Rubio, Carson, Fiorina, Chrstie o Bush, la posibilidad de que el conflicto escale con la participación de tropas estadounidenses y el establecimiento de medidas provocadoras hacia Rusia e Irán (zona de no vuelo, amenazas de derribo de aviones rusos que no acaten dicha medida, etc.), se incrementaría, y se debilitaría la posibilidad de lograr algún acuerdo para pacificar al país y lograr un gobierno sirio legítimo mediante elecciones.

En caso de que el ganador fuera Trump o Cruz, existirían algunas posibilidades de que la propuesta rusa pudiera materializarse, dado que estos dos precandidatos quieren priorizar la destrucción del Estado Islámico y están dispuestos a diferir la probable salida de Assad del poder, pues no lo consideran lo más importante.

En caso de que la candidata demócrata, Hillary Clinton triunfe en la elección general, es muy probable que su opción para Siria se acerque a la de los "halcones" neoconservadores republicanos.

Por lo pronto, el conflicto esencialmente militar entre el gobierno de Assad y los múltiples grupos armados que lo combaten, parece haber llegado a un punto muerto, en donde las pequeñas ganancias que obtienen unos, son rápidamente revertidas por sus enemigos, lo que no ha permitido capitalizar las victorias militares en ventajas políticas en la mesa de negociación.

Así también, a pesar de la gran cantidad de bombardeos que recibe continuamente el Estado Islámico por parte de sus enemigos, hasta ahora, no ha sido posible establecer que haya perdido terreno y sigue en pie de lucha en el territorio en el que está asentado.

De ahí que si militarmente en ninguno de los frentes se puede hablar de una tendencia clara en favor de alguno de los contendientes, no queda otro camino que comenzar a lograr avances diplomáticos en la mesa de negociación, a riesgo de que el conflicto se complique más con la llegada a la presidencia de Estados Unidos de un super "halcón" que pueda provocar un conflicto bélico mayor, de incalculables consecuencias.

GOP Debate: The Triumph of ‘Isolationism’

Rubio humbled, and Rand Paul makes a comeback

by Justin Raimondo, December 17, 2015

Antiwar.com

The two frontrunners for the GOP presidential nomination aren’t drinking the neocon Kool-Aid, and this became readily apparent on the stage of the GOP presidential debate.

Donald Trump opposed the Iraq war, thinks we should be happy Putin is taking on ISIS in Syria, and more recently called Charles Krauthammer a “warmonger.” This last alone would be enough to provoke his excommunication from the ranks of acceptable GOP nominees, but to make matters worse The Donald is horning in on the neocons’ hate-all-Muslims shtick while combining it with heretical “isolationist” views. You can hear the teeth-grinding all the way from Washington and the West side of Manhattan.

Ted Cruz is another highly problematic candidate from the neocon point of view. His major sin in their eyes is his co-sponsoring of the USA Freedom Act, which kinda-sorta(but not really) reined in collection of bulk meta-data by US government agencies. Aside from that, however, there’s his deviation from the neocon party line on Syria, “democracy” promotion, and the whole “regime change” policy, which has been nothing but a disaster for both the United States and its targets.

What we saw on the stage was prefigured in the days leading up to the debate. In a recent speech to the Heritage Foundation, Cruz said

“More data from millions of law abiding Americans is not always better data. Hoarding tens of billions of records of ordinary citizens didn’t stop Fort Hood. It didn’t stop Boston. It didn’t stop Chattanooga. It didn’t stop Garland. And it failed to detect the San Bernardino plot.”

Neocon favorite Rubio has been running attacks ads aimed at Cruz, claiming his support for the USA Freedom Act has put the nation in peril, but Cruz didn’t back down. And Rand Paul came to his defense:

“Marco gets it completely wrong. We are not any safer through the bulk collection of all Americans’ records. In fact, I think we’re less safe. We get so distracted by all of the information, we’re not spending enough time getting specific immigration – specific information on terrorists.

“The other thing is, is the one thing that might have stopped San Bernardino, that might have stopped 9/11 would have been stricter controls on those who came here. And Marco has opposed at every point increased security – border security for those who come to our country.”

In an election in which protecting the nation’s borders is at the center of the political debate, the Cruz-Paul beat-down of Rubio on this issue has effectively put him out of the running. Rubio can repeat the “radical Islamic terrorism” mantra until he’s blue in the face, but he’ll never get over this huge contradiction.

The argument over regime-change in Syria, Libya and throughout the Middle East was substantial – and resulted in a clear victory for the anti-regime changers, namely Cruz and Paul. Cruz told the audience that we shouldn’t intervene in Syria’s civil war and that “as bad as [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad was and is, radical jihadis controlling Syria would be a significant turn for the worse.” He skewered not only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on this question, but also “the Washington Republicans,” a trenchant phrase.

The Libyan intervention, says Cruz, was a “disaster,” and replacing authoritarian leaders like Qaddafi and Assad with radical jihadists is inimical to US interests. He challenged Rubio on his support for the Hillary-Obama policy of regime change in Libya – which led to chaos and jihadist dominance of that unfortunate country.

This is not to say Cruz is an anti-interventionist: not by a country mile. He wants to “carpet-bomb” ISIS, and deploy “whatever ground troops are necessary.” However, he also denounces the obsession with “boots on the ground” as “a talismanic demonstration of strength. That is getting the deployment of military force precisely backwards. This is not a game of risk, where politicians move armies around to demonstrate their machismo.”

When he said this in his Heritage speech, this was rightly interpreted as a frontal assault on Marco Rubio, the neocon poster boy, and the reference to “machismo” was – again, rightly – seen as a hit on the chickenhawkish tendency of laptop bombardiers with impeccable neoconservative credentials but no military experience or knowledge. This provoked lots of incoming fire from such worthies as Bret Stephens, Stephen Hayes, and Max Boot. The neocons are particularly perturbed that Cruz has had the gumption to attack them by name, and their anger was channeled in this piece by Eliana Johnson and Tim Alberta in National Review:

“[W]hen Ted Cruz, on the campaign trail in Iowa and again in an interview with Bloomberg News, recently pointed the finger at ‘neocons’ in an attempt to defend his own understanding of American interests abroad, the response among some conservative foreign-policy experts – many of whom the term has been used to disparage — was of shock, anger, and dismay. ‘He knows that the term in the usual far-left and far-right parlance means warmonger, if not warmongering Jewish advisers, so it is not something he should’ve done,’ says Elliott Abrams, a former Bush administration National Security Council official and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ‘It’s an epithet. It’s always used pejoratively. And the main thing I resent about it is, it’s a label, it’s a way of avoiding arguments,’ says Eliot Cohen, a Bush administration State Department official and a professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.”

We aren’t allowed to utter the word “neoconservative,” unless of course we’re Irving Kristol, who wrote a whole book about neoconservatism, or unless we’re Eliana Johnson, one of the authors of the article cited above, who last year wrote a piecedeclaring “the neocons are back”!

We aren’t allowed to talk about the neocons because to do so would expose them for what they are: a political cult that glories in war, and has infused American politics with its toxic ideology of perpetual conflict and unmitigated statism. Talk of “neocons” also brings to the surface the neoconservative institutions that have been key to pushing America into one disastrous military adventure after another.

All this was the run-up to the Rubio-Cruz battle on the debate stage, which Rubio lost decisively – with help from Rand Paul, who effectively attacked the Florida Senator on border security. As Cruz and Paul went after him, you could see the neocons’ poster boy looking visibly thrown off balance, that bland airbrushed façade pierced by an arrow shot directly into his Achilles’ heel. Rubio fought back by arguing that Cruz voted against the defense authorization bill – because it allowed the government to hold Americans without trial – but Cruz pointed out that when it comes to actually defending the nation’s borders, Rubio would have allowed people to pour into this country without any vetting.

Paul made the same point:

“I think that by arming the allies of ISIS, the Islamic rebels against Assad, that we created a safe space or made that space bigger for ISIS to grow. I think those who have wanted regime change have made a mistake. When we toppled Gadhafi in Libya, I think that was a mistake. I think ISIS grew stronger, we had a failed state, and we were more at risk.”

Paul, by the way, not only had a great night, but he also managed to land the only blow on frontrunner Trump:

“I’d like to also go back to, though, another question, which is, is Donald Trump a serious candidate? The reason I ask this is, if you’re going to close the Internet, realize, America, what that entails. That entails getting rid of the First amendment, OK? It’s no small feat. If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realize that there’s something called the Geneva Convention we’re going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America. So when you ask yourself, whoever you are, that think you’re going to support Donald Trump, think, do you believe in the Constitution? Are you going to change the Constitution?”

Trump’s answer was incoherent, and grimaces he made while Paul was skewering him didn’t help either.

Rand Paul scored another bull’s eye in his confrontation with Chris Christie, who declared he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot down a Russian plane over Syria (because he’s from New Joisey!) “If you want World War III,” said Paul turning to Christie, “you’ve found your candidate.”

That was a knockout punch.

And Rand had a great – even inspiring – opening statement, which had the advantage of being the first on deck:

“The question is, how do we keep America safe from terrorism? Trump says we ought to close that Internet thing. The question really is, what does he mean by that? Like they do in North Korea? Like they do in China?

“Rubio says we should collect all Americans’ records all of the time. The Constitution says otherwise. I think they’re both wrong. I think we defeat terrorism by showing them that we do not fear them. I think if we ban certain religions, if we censor the Internet, I think that at that point the terrorists will have won. Regime change hasn’t won. Toppling secular dictators in the Middle East has only led to chaos and the rise of radical Islam. I think if we want to defeat terrorism, I think if we truly are sincere about defeating terrorism, we need to quit arming the allies of ISIS. If we want to defeat terrorism, the boots on the ground – the boots on the ground need to be Arab boots on the ground.

“As commander-in-chief, I will do whatever it takes to defend America. But in defending America, we cannot lose what America stands for. Today is the Bill of Rights’ anniversary. I hope we will remember that and cherish that in the fight on terrorism.”

It would be hard to imagine a better summation of the libertarian position on foreign policy and its connection to civil liberties. Rand gave voice to it with eloquence and an eye for the weaknesses of his opponents.

So who won the debate? There’s no clear answer to that question. But what’s clear is who lost: Rubio got creamed, and Christie (who, as I write, is being touted by the clueless she-devil Megyn Kelly as having “scored big”!) is a close runner-up. The icing on the cake is the marginalization of the nearly forgotten Carly Fiorina, who was reduced to screaming from the sidelines like an out-of-control bag lady.

What was striking about this debate, which was entirely devoted to foreign policy and national security, is that Cruz, who represents the hardcore conservative “movement” voters, felt compelled to court – and echo – the “isolationist”-realist component of the party. Trump, for all his belligerent bombast, made a point of repudiating the entire record of the Bush years: “What have we got to show for it? The Middle East is a mess – a mess!” Everyone else is miles behind these two in the polls – and the War Party isn’t happy about that. They’re losing control of the Republican party – and they’re losing the battle of ideas. This in spite of the San Bernardino attacks, the Paris massacre, the constant fearmongering of the national media, and the relentless neocon propaganda machine.

The power of anti-interventionist sentiment in this country is a force to be reckoned with. It may manifest itself in a distorted, contradictory, and inarticulate form – as is the case with Trump – or in a more sophisticated, albeit dodgy character like Cruz, but anyone running for office in this country is forced to deal with it, and appeal to it. Or, like Lindsey Graham, they can take it on, denounce it (as he did several times in the undercard debate, specifically attacking Cruz and Paul), and be relegated to the margins: Graham is now at under one percent in the polls.