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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Trump admitted to being an investor in the companies building the Canadian tar sands oil pipeline to American refineries. He has since claimed to divested his portfolio of this investment. The oil will be sold to China and other foreign countries. When completed there will be no more than 40 employees who will be expected to monitor thousand of miles of pipeline. |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:55 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Newsweek
Tech & Science
The Dakota Access Pipeline Isn't About Climate Change—It's About Profit
By Jonathan Thompson On 12/3/16 at 9:13 AM
This story originally appeared on High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
As the weather gets colder, the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline is heating up, in rather ugly ways. Just days before Thanksgiving, law enforcement officers tried to blast the protesters away with water cannons in 25-degree weather and employed other “less than lethal,” though still harmful, dispersal methods. One protester may lose her arm as a result of injuries suffered during the violence. And to top it off, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to close one of the camps of "water protectors" next week, which may embolden law enforcement to take a more forceful approach.
High Country News has reported what’s at stake for the Standing Rock Sioux tribal members and their allies trying to stop or re-route the project: Tribal sovereignty, water, environmental justice, holy lands, treaty-rights and antiquities. Add to that the prospect of more carbon spewing into the atmosphere, and one can see why activists are risking so much to stand in the pipeline’s way.
Less clear is what the $3.78 billion, 1,172-mile-long crude oil pipeline offers in return if and when construction is completed and it goes into operation. Energy Transfer Partners, the project’s main proponent, says that the pipeline will offer jobs, economic relief to a struggling region and, by spurring production of North Dakota Crude, it will take the U.S. closer to the lofty ideal of energy independence.
Construction on the pipeline is about 85 percent complete and it has, indeed, put people to work. Yet it is not clear how many new jobs have been created since the jobs are spread out over 1,000 miles. Rural towns along the pipeline’s corridor have reported a boost in hotel and campground occupancy rates as the contractors move through. That, in turn, generates sales and lodging tax revenues for the local governments. The boost, however, won't last. In a few months, when (and if) construction is complete, the workers and their spending money will depart. The finished pipeline will require just 40 permanent maintenance and operational jobs along its entire stretch.
12_02_dapl_02 People donate food and equipment to campers inside of the Oceti Sakowin camp as "water protectors" continue to demonstrate against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, December 2. Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Once oil is flowing, property tax revenues—an estimated total of $55 million annually—will kick in. While it’s a big chunk of change, the impacts will be diffused, shared by four states. North and South Dakota are expected to receive about $13 million each, divided between several counties, a drop in the budget bucket (Colorado generates nearly $20 million per month from taxes and fees on marijuana). That said, it might be enough to buy the county sheriffs some more military gear from the Pentagon in order to squelch the next pipeline protest. It will not, however, cover the costs of such squelching: The current law enforcement effort has reportedly cost $15 million so far.
The fact is, pipelines, like transmission lines, don't have a major economic impact except when they’re built. They otherwise go mostly unnoticed until they spill, burst or explode.
The bigger-picture impact, whether on climate change or energy independence, is more difficult to suss out. Both proponents and opponents seem to be working on the “build-it-and-they’ll-fill-it” premise. That is, if you expand pipeline capacity for North Dakota crude, it will encourage more oil drilling and thus more oil production. If more domestic oil is produced, the logic goes, then we have less need to import foreign oil and we achieve greater energy independence. The flip side to that is, the more oil we drill, the more we consume, resulting in greater carbon emissions. It's summed up in this nifty formula:
More Pipeline Capacity —> More Oil Production —> More Energy Independence and Carbon Emissions
This formula, however, holds only if lack of pipeline capacity is a major hindrance to oil development. It's not. We can move crude oil not only through pipelines, but also with trucks, trains and tankers. Oil’s mobility (along with its relative fungibility) help make it a global commodity in a way that natural gas, for example, is not. The lack of pipeline capacity is not a major limiting factor in oil development and production; when the North Dakota boom was on, no one opted out of drilling because of lack of transportation options. In fact, prices were so high, no one opted out of drilling at all.
Just as the biggest driver of oil development is a high oil price, the biggest hindrance, particularly for expensive-to-drill North Dakota crude, is a low oil price. That relationship has been on display in North Dakota, and across the West, for the last decade: Oil prices went up, thanks to burgeoning demand in China and the developing world, so drilling intensified and production went bananas. Oil prices crashed as China's economic growth slowed, the drill rigs were stored away and production has decreased.
Very few wells have been “shut-in” or plugged up. Most of the already-drilled wells continue to produce, but at lower and lower rates, a phenomenon known as the “decline curve.” Wells that produced 220 barrels per day when they were drilled in 2005, for example, now only produce about 20 barrels per day.
12_02_dapl_03 High Country News
Plug these critical factors—global supply vs. demand and price—into the aforementioned formula and the outcome becomes far murkier. No longer does more pipeline capacity directly lead to more production; it must first either raise the price of oil, or induce demand. The latter's not going to happen. A pipeline across the upper Midwest will not inspire the masses in China to buy cars and drive them all over the country. It will not affect global demand.
So how about price? The Dakota Access Pipeline is expected to carry half-a-million barrels of oil per day to refineries and market hubs in Illinois. Moving a barrel of oil on the pipeline is expected to cost about $8, compared to approximately $15 for shipping it via rail. That is, if the producer would have received $34 per barrel for rail-shipped oil, it will get $41 per barrel for Dakota Access Pipeline-shipped oil.
This $7-per-barrel bonus could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue for the producer over the well’s life, and could certainly keep wells from being shut-in. Yet it's doubtful that it's enough to push the producer to dust off the rigs and start drilling again. It costs anywhere from $5 million to $15 million to drill a well in North Dakota's Bakken formation. After the last bust, producers and their investors are unlikely to fork out that kind of cash until oil prices go up considerably and stay there, which will only happen if Saudi Arabiacommits to a long-term slash in its production. Unless new wells are drilled in North Dakota at a furious rate, production will continue to decrease, thanks to the decline curve.
There is one other way the pipeline could impact oil prices, at least for the oil flowing through the line. Some oil customers reportedly entered into contracts with producers prior to construction to buy DAPL oil at or near 2014 prices. If those contracts remain in place despite the protest-caused construction delay, it could, theoretically, push producers to drill a few more wells to produce enough oil to fetch the higher price. But probably not. It's more likely that those producers will simply divert oil now shipped by rail to the pipeline, thus increasing profit without increasing production.
If, somehow, the pipeline were able to increase oil production, then we'd still have another variable to plug into our equation. I'll call it the T. Greg Merrion factor, for the New Mexico oil executive who told me about it: “Nothing helps low prices like low prices, and nothing hurts high prices like high prices.” That is, the increased supply delivered by the pipeline (without a consequent increase in demand) would increase the amount of oil supply on a market where demand can’t keep up with supply. The glut grows. Prices slide further downward. There's even less drilling. Production slides. The cycle continues.
The Dakota Access Pipeline, on its own, is not likely to result in increased production of North Dakota Crude, because More Pipeline Capacity ≠ More Demand;
Therefore the pipeline will not create more oilfield jobs or result in higher severance tax revenues to North Dakota;
If there is any uptick in production thanks to the pipeline, it won't be enough to put a dent in the 5.2 million barrels of oil the U.S. continues to import each and every day;
Since the pipeline won't push more production, it also will not result in more consumption. Therefore, it will not directly lead to a significant increase in carbon emissions.
Which is to say, the pipeline will be neither the economic boon, nor the climate bane, it's been made out to be. Nor will it get the U.S. any closer to energy independence.
12_02_dapl_01 Veterans have a demonstration on Backwater bridge during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, December 1. Stephanie Keith/Reuters
Why, then, is Energy Transfer Partners so intent on building this thing? The equation that answers that one is far simpler. If the pipeline indeed carries 470,000 barrels per day, at a rate of $8 per barrel, the company should gross about $1.37 billion per year. Operating costs are low (remember, there are just 40 employees running this thing), so it shouldn’t take long to recoup the capital costs. That leaves a lot for the investors, like Energy Transfer Partners' billionaire CEO Kelcy Warren, or reputed billionaire and President-elect Donald Trump.
Yes, Trump is invested in the companies behind the pipeline, though the amount of his stake decreased substantially between 2015 and 2016. Meanwhile, Warren donated more than $100,000 to Trump’s campaign, clearly hoping he would remove federal obstacles to the pipeline.
These numbers are worth considering when you see the images of the “water protectors” getting pummeled with water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas. They’re not being attacked in the name of jobs, the economy or energy independence. They’re being attacked in the name of profit.[url][/url] |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 4:26 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Intercept
Photo: AP Photo/Nati Harnik
Though Promised for Domestic Use, Dakota Access Pipeline May Fuel Oil Exports
Lee Fang
September 1 2016, 8:36 a.m.
Proponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which will connect fracked crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota to markets across the country — claim the controversial project will enhance energy independence. But at least a portion of the oil may well end up as exports to foreign markets, either as crude or as a refined product.
Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, has built public support and pressured regulators to approve the project by asserting that the oil will enhance energy independence, because it will be used exclusively by U.S. consumers.
The company claimed in a presentation in Iowa, a state that granted approval for the project this year, that the pipeline will feature “100% Domestic produced crude” that “supports 100% domestic consumption.”
The domestic energy claim, which has been touted by company brochures and a pro-pipeline website, has also been used to criticize hundreds of demonstrators in North Dakota who say the Dakota Access endangers drinking water and threatens sites that are sacred to a number of Native American nations and tribes.
“It’s a shameful act by a group of people trying to disrupt our energy security and independence,” Dakota Access officials told the Associated Press in the response to the protests, which have blocked construction of the pipeline near the city of Cannon Ball, N.D.
WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 24: Members of the Red Lake Nation participate during a rally on Dakota Access Pipeline August 24, 2016 outside U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. Activists held a rally in support of a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers "to protect water and land from the Dakota Access Pipeline," and to call for "a full halt to all construction activities and repeal of all pipeline permits until formal tribal consultation and environmental review are conducted." (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Members of the Red Lake Nation during a rally on Dakota Access Pipeline August 24, 2016 outside U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
But rather than serving the exclusive interests of American consumers, critics point to evidence the oil will go abroad. In December, Congress lifted the 40-year ban on crude oil exports.
“We track [Dakota Access Pipeline] and the export dynamics closely,” says Bernadette Johnson, the managing partner at Ponderosa Advisors, an energy advisory firm. Johnson notes that the pipeline provides a “competitive option” to bring Bakken barrels to the Gulf Coast, where “some of it may be exported.”
The Intercept also reviewed regulatory filings that suggest some of the oil transported by the Dakota Access Pipeline will be shipped overseas.
When reached for a comment, a spokesperson with the pipeline project declined to defend the firm’s earlier statements about “100% domestic consumption.”
“We will not own the oil that is transported through the pipeline. We are like FedEx. We will deliver the oil to the refineries for the producers,” said Vicki Granado, Energy Transfer Partner’s spokesperson.
The Dakota Access Pipeline route brings oil from the Bakken fields to a hub in Illinois, from which it will connect to existing pipelines that lead to the Nederland, Texas, terminal on the Gulf Coast, a facility owned by Sunoco Logistics, a partner to the Dakota Access project, capable of crude oil exports.
Energy Transfer Partners’ 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, notes that low crude oil price are a challenge for the company due to “general oversupply,” but that “export projects” under construction, including at Nederland, will “balance this market by 2018.” The filing also lists the Bakken pipeline in a section about positioning the company as a “leader in the export of hydrocarbons.”
Earlier this month, Energy Transfer Partners presented at an infrastructure conference sponsored by Citibank, highlighting the Dakota Access Pipeline as a “growth project” under a section about how the company is “exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on U.S. energy exports.”
Opponents of the pipeline in Iowa and South Dakota raised concerns that the project might not serve the public interest the recent decision to lift the ban on exporting crude would mean oil transported by the pipeline might be destined for foreign markets.
“We are certain that this oil will be sent to the Gulf of Mexico and sold to the highest bidder,” says Jonas Magram, an Iowa resident who lives in a county along the path of the Dakota Access pipeline, who has protested the construction. Magram says the claim that the Dakota Access is designed to boost energy independence is “absolutely baseless,” especially since the unrefined oil can now be exported.
Attorneys for the Dakota Access project have repeatedly dismissed those concerns, calling them “irrelevant.”
But the firm had more than a passive role in the decision to repeal the export ban.
Former Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, urged lawmakers to lift the ban on crude oil only one month after joining the board of Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Filings reveal that Energy Transfer Partners also directly lobbied on H.R. 2029, the legislation that lifted the export ban on crude oil last December.
Top photo: Pipes for the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline at a staging area in Worthing, S.D. , on May 9, 2015.
Contact the author:
Lee Fang
✉lee.fang@theintercept.com
t@lhfang |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 4:44 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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How to process the tide of Trump news
Petraeus Warns That Divisive Actions on Muslims Strengthen Extremists
The former general appeared to undercut President Trump's early national security moves.
AJ VicensFeb. 1, 2017 2:11 PM
Anthony Behar/Zuma
President Donald Trump has faced criticism from across the political spectrum after signing an executive order last Friday restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. On Wednesday, one of Trump's favorite military minds appeared to add his voice to the public condemnation.
General David Petraeus, a finalist for secretary of state in the Trump administration despite his disgraced exit from the CIA, told the House Armed Services Committee that broad-brush statements from Trump and others in his administration about Islam and Muslims complicate the fight against groups like ISIS.
"We must also remember that Islamic extremists want to portray this fight as a clash of civilizations, with America at war against Islam," Petraeus said at a hearing on national security threats and challenges. "We must not let them do that. Indeed, we must be very sensitive to actions that might give them ammunition in such an effort."
Trump's executive order grew out of his campaign promise to implement a "Muslim ban." It followed reports that the Trump administration was considering reopening CIA black sites, based on a draft executive order that replaced phrases like "global war on terrorism" and "jihadist" with "radical Islamic terrorism" and "Islamist." This weekend, Trump also elevated adviser Steve Bannon by giving him a seat on the National Security Council's Principals Committee. Bannon has said that Islam is a "religion of submission" and frequently hosted and praised guests on his radio show who disparaged Islam.
At Wednesday's hearing, Petraeus also pushed back on Trump's suggestions that NATO alliances might be weakened and Russian aggression tolerated. Trump has called NATO "obsolete" and has worried leaders across the world with his seemingly soft stance on Russia.
"Americans should not take the current international order for granted," the retired general said. "It did not will itself into existence. We created it. Likewise, it is not naturally self-sustaining. We have sustained it. If we stop doing so it will fray and eventually collapse. This is precisely what some of our adversaries seek to encourage.”
Petraeus told the committee that "conventional aggression" may get US adversaries like Russia "a bit of land on its periphery," but the real fight is more fundamental. "The real center of gravity is the political will of the major democratic powers to defend Euro-Atlantic institutions like NATO and the [European Union]," Petraeus said. "That is why Russia is working tenaciously to sow doubt in the legitimacy of these institutions and our entire democratic way of life." |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:06 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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KTEP - El Paso, Texas
Matinee Musicale
KTEP - El Paso, Texas
Petraeus Warns Of Giving Ammunition To Extremists, 'Revisionist Powers'
By Bill Chappell • 2 hours ago
Retired Gen. David Petraeus warned the U.S. not to be complacent in protecting its place in the world order Wednesday. He's seen here in a photo from last summer.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus warned the U.S. not to be complacent in protecting its place in the world order Wednesday. He's seen here in a photo from last summer.
Bryan R. Smith / AFP/Getty Images
Originally published on February 1, 2017 3:17 pm
Stressing the importance of America's Muslim allies in the fight against Islamic extremism, retired Gen. David Petraeus says it's important for the U.S. to avoid portraying the conflict as "a clash of civilizations." His comments came in a House Armed Services Committee hearing titled "The State of the World: National Security Threats and Challenges."
Asked about President Trump's recent immigration ban, Petraeus said he hopes the security review that was given as a reason for the ban is carried out quickly, saying that the long-term effects of the order targeting Iraq and six other Muslim-majority countries will depend on how long the ban lasts.
"We must also remember that Islamic extremists want to portray this fight as a clash of civilizations, with America at war against Islam," Petraeus said Wednesday. "We must not let them do that. Indeed, we must be very sensitive to actions that might give them ammunition in such an effort."
Mentioning Iraqis who have worked with the U.S. to fight terrorists and bring stability to their country, Petraeus said that many of them are now in limbo, after undergoing a years-long process of being cleared to travel to the U.S. As an example, he cited Gen. Talib Shaghati Mshari al-Kenani, who heads Iraq's counterterrorism service, who is now "prevented from coming here to coordinate with Central Command" and visit his family, who was moved to the U.S. for its own safety.
The general's response came to a question from Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., about how the U.S. travel ban would be interpreted in Iraq and what its long-term effects might be.
Petraeus testified along with a former colleague at the CIA, John McLaughlin, the agency's former deputy director and acting director.
When Davis then asked McLaughlin if he agreed that the travel ban would give ammunition to America's enemies, he answered, "Almost everything we do gives the Islamic extremists ammunition. They can take almost anything, any American policy, and turn it into propaganda. And they will do that with this."
Lasting for several hours, the hearing touched on a wide range of topics, from the ambitions of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, to the complexities of dealing with China. But the fight against terrorism, and the unique threat posed by ISIS, were a recurring theme.
"Our most important ally in this war is the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject al-Qaida, Daesh, and their fanatical, barbaric worldview," Petraeus said. "Indeed, it is millions of Muslims who are fighting and dying in the greatest numbers on the front lines of this war."
At that point, Petraeus ran down a list of places where Muslims are fighting extremists, from Iraq, Yemen and Somalia to Libya — all of which are named in the controversial immigration order.
The former general then discussed the dangers to America posed by technologies and strategies that undermine its traditional strengths. And he cited "revisionist powers" such as Russia and China that are seeking to sap America's power and influence.
After America's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan showed the might of America's military, Petraeus said, "our adversaries responded with strategies that, for a fraction of the cost, nullified many of our advantages."
Petraeus said:
"What Islamist extremists demonstrated through insurgency and terrorism, revisionist powers like Russia, China and Iran promise to take to a whole new level of sophistication — and with much more sophisticated weaponry, as well."
Describing those threats, Petraeus listed weapons such as "anti-access area denial weapons" (which military experts say range from missile bases to mines); cyberweapons that can be deployed on their own or as part of a larger campaign; and a "renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons and threats to U.S. primacy in space."
Even as those threats have grown, Petraeus said, American resolve about its defense has become somewhat ambivalent — and he warned that the U.S. shouldn't take the current world order for granted.
Both Petraeus and McLaughlin identified Putin's Russia as a destabilizing force, with Petraeus saying, "Russia is tenaciously working to sow doubt about the legitimacy of these institutions and our entire democratic way of life."
Trump and Putin have pledged their mutual admiration and intentions to thaw relations between the U.S. and Russia — a move that could include the easing of sanctions that the Obama administration used to punish the country for what it deemed a campaign to meddle with the recent presidential election.
McLaughlin, who mentioned Russia 26 times in his prepared remarks, said Putin will seek to have those sanctions lifted. Here's what he had to say about U.S.-Russia relations:
"There is nothing at all wrong with aiming for an improved relationship with Russia, but the U.S. must be aware that Russia calculates its interests in a cold-eyed clinical way and Washington will have to be equally dispassionate in dealing with Putin. Historically, when Russia encounters weakness or hesitation, it demands more, then blames the opponent for escalation when the opponent resists — then calls for discussions, which it uses to consolidate its gains. Deals don't come easily." |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:39 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 5:45 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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T
TheHill.com
Giuliani: Trump asked me how to do a Muslim ban 'legally'
By Rebecca Savransky - 01/29/17 08:48 AM EST
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said in an interview on Saturday that President Trump had previously asked him about legally implementing a "Muslim ban."
But Giuliani then disputed the notion that the president's sweeping executive order barring refugees and people from seven predominantly Muslim nations amounts to a ban on Muslims.
"I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News.
"He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’"
Giuliani said he then put together a commission that included lawmakers and expert lawyers.
"And what we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger," Giuliani said.
"The areas of the world that create danger for us, which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible."
Giuliani reiterated that the ban is "not based on religion."
"It's based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country," he said.
The president on Friday signed an order that bars Syrian refugees indefinitely and halts the country's refugee resettlement program for four months. It also denies entry for 90 days to people from seven majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya.
The president on Saturday denied that the executive order was a Muslim ban. He also insisted his new administration was "totally prepared" to carry out the refugee and travel ban.
A federal judge in New York on Saturday night granted an emergency stay temporarily halting the removal of immigrants and refugees detained following Trump's order. |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:01 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Yahoo and the Washington Post both reported Petraeus indicating how the immigration order is preventing a senior Iraqi expert from coming to America for meeting with officers from the US Command in Tampa, Florida, who oversee US military operations against against ISIS. General Talib Al-Kenani is the commander of the Iraqi counter terrorism forces. The general's family is in the US for protection. |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:09 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Trump adopts aggressive posture toward Iran after missile launch
[Reuters]
By Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton
ReutersFebruary 1, 2017
By Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump took an aggressive posture toward Iran on Wednesday for test-firing a ballistic missile, with his national security adviser declaring "we are officially putting Iran on notice" for what he called a provocation.
The warning from Michael Flynn marked an abrupt change in policy and tone toward Iran from that of Trump's predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, who had negotiated a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
It was Trump's sharpest threat against a U.S adversary since taking office on Jan. 20, a warning that could foreshadow more aggressive economic and diplomatic measures against Iran.
Flynn told reporters that, instead of being thankful to the United States for the nuclear deal, "Iran is now feeling emboldened. As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.”
Iran confirmed on Wednesday it had tested a new missile but said it did not breach a nuclear accord reached with world powers or a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the pact. The Islamic Republic carried out the test of a medium-range missile on Sunday, a U.S. official said on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Flynn said on Wednesday that the missile launch was in defiance of the 2015 Security Council resolution.
While signaling a more muscular U.S. foreign policy that Trump has said he would pursue, the meaning of Flynn's comment was unclear.
Three senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters at the White House said a range of options, including economic sanctions, was being considered on how to respond and that a broad review was being conducted of the U.S. posture toward Iran.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to say whether a military option was on the table.
"We are in the process of evaluating the strategic options and the framework for how we want to approach these issues," one official said. "We do not want to be premature or rash or take any action that would foreclose options or unnecessarily contribute to a negative response."
Crude oil futures rallied on Wednesday, jumping more than $1 a barrel on geopolitical concerns after Iran confirmed the missile test and bulls found support in reports on production cuts.
The Islamic Republic has test-fired several ballistic missiles since the nuclear deal in 2015, but the latest test was the first since Trump became president.
Flynn, in his first appearance in the White House press briefing room, said the missile launch and an attack against a Saudi naval vessel by Iran-allied Houthi militants off the coast of Yemen underscored "Iran’s destabilizing behavior across the Middle East."
Richard Nephew, a former Obama administration official who was a U.S. negotiator with Iran on the deal, said Flynn's comment could backfire.
"I think this will create an impetus for the Iranians to 'resist' and 'defy' more, and that could well create an escalatory cycle with Iran," he said. "Being tough with Iran is one thing, but you have to back it up and bring partners with you. Is Flynn prepared to deal with what comes from that?”
Trump has frequently criticized the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, calling the agreement weak and ineffective.
While campaigning in September, then-candidate Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy would be "shot out of the water" if he is elected.
A section of U.N. resolution 2231 calls on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."
Trump and Saudi Arabia's ruler, King Salman, spoke by phone on Sunday and were described by the White House as agreeing on the importance of enforcing the deal and "addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities."
Mark Dubowitz, head of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based policy group that advised Trump during the campaign and has continued to consult with the new administration on Iran, said the missile test was the 12th since the 2015 Iran deal.
"It’s going to provide further justification for what we expect over the coming months, which is new congressional sanctions, new administration sanctions and a message ... that Iranian aggression needs to be punished and deterred,” Dubowitz told Reuters on Tuesday.
Trump is due to hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a strident critic of the Iran deal, at the White House on Feb. 15. The two leaders are expected to try to coordinate strategy on Iran, Israel’s regional archfoe.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Yeganeh Torbati, Lesley Wroughton, Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Tom Brown and Jonathan Oatis) |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:41 pm |
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TruthTalk
F L I N T O I D
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| Sorry I didn't read your pages of copy and past articles I just don't have the time. Trump trains going 110 mph and we don't slow down! |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 7:27 pm |
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TruthTalk
F L I N T O I D
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| Sorry I didn't read your pages of copy and past articles I just don't have the time. Trump trains going 110 mph and we don't slow down! |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 7:27 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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ALTERNATIVE MEDIA SYNDICATE
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Police Raid Standing Rock Camp, Destroy Tipis and Are Burning What Remains
February 2, 2017 Admin DAPL, Environment 0
Following our earlier report from Standing Rock on the police raid of the Last Child camp, reports began to roll in that police had taken down tipis and burned whatever remained.
Some of the livestreaming of these incidences was blocked, but what we have been given is as follows. |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 8:06 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 8:37 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Daily Comment
The Many Dangers of Donald Trump’s Executive Order
By Steve Coll February 1, 2017
Trump’s team has argued that his executive order on immigration built on Obama Administration policy after the Paris attacks. This is a slightly complicated form of nonsense.
Trump’s team has argued that his executive order on immigration built on Obama Administration policy after the Paris attacks. This is a slightly complicated form of nonsense. Photograph by Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty
In November, 2015, the Islamic State mounted devastating attacks in Paris, gunning down more than a hundred people at a rock concert, in restaurants, and outside a soccer stadium. In response, Donald Trump, then preparing for the Iowa caucuses, fulminated about the radical measures he would impose on Muslims seeking to enter the United States, if he were elected President. Trump was hardly alone in announcing rash proposals; on the subject of counterterrorism, it was a time of competitive opportunism among Republican Presidential candidates. Yet, in his nativism and bellicosity, Trump was already separating from his opponents. He began by making a series of loose comments during television interviews, including a suggestion that he might force American Muslims to register in a database. The following month, after a mass shooting in San Bernardino, he issued a formal statement promising “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
It would likely be unconstitutional to ban people from America on the basis of their religious faith, and so, as the campaign progressed, Trump refined this proposal, or at least the terms he used to describe it. (Rudolph Giuliani has said that he advised Trump on how to make a Muslim ban more difficult to overturn on constitutional grounds.) Last June, following a massacre carried out at an Orlando night club by Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent, Trump promised to “suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats.” He said he would lift the ban “when, as a nation, we are in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country.” Muddying his prospective constitutional defense, he told Bloomberg, “I want terrorists out. I want people that have bad thoughts out.” He did not elaborate about how his thought police might operate.
A few days later, Politico asked retired Marine General James Mattis, then a private citizen, what he thought about the talk of a Muslim ban. Mattis said that it had caused allies of the United States in the Islamic world to think “we have lost faith in reason…. They think we’ve completely lost it. This kind of thing is causing us great damage right now, and it’s sending shock waves through this international system.”
Last Friday, as Mattis, now the Secretary of Defense, stood behind him, Trump signed an executive order suspending travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. According to many news accounts, Trump relied on the views of a small group of White House advisers, including his senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, and his senior counsellor, Stephen Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News. They have relished the opportunity to “shock the system,” as another adviser, Kellyanne Conway, put it last week. Bannon has made plain that he seeks upheaval; in that respect, he once mentioned Lenin as a model, however facetiously.
Bannon is like the sorcerer’s apprentice; he may want chaos, but he doesn’t know how to control the chaos he creates. He may not care. Since Friday, Trump’s travel order has caused large public protests; forced the White House chief of staff to go on television and announce major changes to the policy’s scope less than two days after it was enacted; attracted criticism from world leaders and allies; and led to the defiance, on principle, of acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who had been appointed by Obama. Trump fired her on Monday night.
In its furious efforts to spin a defense, the Trump Administration has argued that it was just building on Obama Administration policy after the Paris attacks. This is a slightly complicated form of nonsense. To understand the scale of Trump’s departure from past policy, however, requires a short tour through recent visa-policy history.
In 1986, Congress established the Visa Waiver Program. It allows citizens from approved countries to travel to the United States without a visa, for business or pleasure, for as long as ninety days. Britain was the first country to join. Today, there are thirty-eight participants, mainly in Europe, but also including Asian allies such as Japan and Australia. No Muslim-majority country is a participant. Neither is Israel.
After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush Administration tightened scrutiny of Visa Waiver travellers, mainly by deploying technology. It required Visa Waiver travellers to have machine-readable or biometric passports. Later, the Bush Administration set up an online registry system that allowed for screening of such travellers before they flew to America.
In December, 2015, after the Paris attacks, President Obama signed into law the Visa Waiver Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act. The law sought to address the problem of Belgian, French, and other European-passport holders, who had volunteered by the hundreds to fight for ISIS, and who might be able to fly into the United States, under Visa Waiver, without being noticed.
The new law said that if a traveller from a Visa Waiver nation had, at any time since March, 2011, visited a country compromised by terrorism he or she would have to attend an American consulate to apply for a regular visa and submit to an interview, as many other travellers to America from the around the world do routinely, rather than simply entering visa-free. Early in 2016, the Obama Administration named seven countries as destinations that would disallow subsequent use of the Visa Waiver program. They were Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, and Yemen—the same seven named in President Trump’s order, as Trump’s spokespeople have often pointed out this week.
The Obama list, though, was not a ban but a chance to ask more questions. Syria, Iraq, and Libya host significant numbers of Islamic State volunteers from Europe. If a Belgian kid travelled to those places, it would be prudent to ask why he had done so before he turned up in New York. Somalia is the home of Al-Shabaab, a regional terrorist group that has attracted international volunteers. Yemen hosts an Al Qaeda branch that has attempted attacks on U.S. soil. The inclusion of Iran and Sudan was less persuasive, yet both countries, along with Syria, are on the State Department’s official list of state sponsors of terrorism, so that provided a rationale for including them. The most notable omission was perhaps Pakistan, the locus of a number of terrorist groups with records of cross-border attacks, including a fizzled attempt to set off a car bomb in Times Square, in 2010.
Donald Trump and his advisers received this inheritance not as counterterrorism technocrats but as political opportunists. Trump’s order on Friday went far beyond the policy set last year. First, Trump’s order was not limited to Visa Waiver travellers from Europe or Asia who might have visited the flagged countries. In its initial formulation, the order apparently covered everyone born in those seven countries who was not a U.S. citizen. Nor did it merely require the designated travellers to attend a consulate to apply for a regular visa. It banned all travel to the U.S. for at least ninety days, while the Trump Administration worked out its plans for “extreme vetting.”
After the weekend’s furious reaction, the Administration has now said it will not halt travel by permanent residents of the United States, unless they are thought to pose a specific security risk. British and Canadian leaders announced they had won exemptions for their citizens. But it is doubtful that Customs and Border Protection officers will have a clear idea anytime soon about how they are supposed to proceed, given the contradictory statements by the Trump Administration.
Back in 2015, Mattis outlined the greatest failings of Trump’s proposal as counterterrorism policy. Its blanket exclusions—of women, children, the elderly, and the disabled—were all but scripted for the Islamic State’s propagandists. These elements remain in the executive order. Trump’s statements that he will prioritize Christian travellers over Muslim ones are likely to have a similar effect. An initiative so reviled and so easily caricatured across the Islamic world will inspire terrorists to action and invite various forms of retaliation against Americans. It will make shaky governments in Muslim-majority countries that coöperate with the United States—from Morocco to Indonesia—vulnerable to domestic protests and political pressure to break ties with American counterterrorism programs. The policy’s rollout has combined, in one act, all of the features of the Trump Administration’s startling first eleven days: it places political theatre before considered policy; it threatens constitutional principles; it reflects incompetent and hasty decision-making; and it is plainly dangerous.
Steve Coll, a staff writer, is the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and reports on issues of intelligence and national security in the United States and abroad. |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 8:40 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?tid=sm_fb
President Trump speaks on the phone with Australia Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office on Jan. 28, 2017. (Pete Marovich/Pool photo via European Pressphoto Agency)
By Greg Miller and Philip Rucker February 1 at 8:29 PM
It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.
Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.
At one point Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that “This was the worst call by far.”
Trump’s behavior suggests that he is capable of subjecting world leaders, including close allies, to a version of the vitriol he frequently employs against political adversaries and news organizations in speeches and on Twitter.
Mexico’s president cancels U.S. visit to meet with Trump
Play Video2:13
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has canceled an upcoming visit to the United States as tensions are brewing between both governments over President Trump’s plans to construct a border wall at the financial expense of Mexico. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admissions of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”
U.S. officials said that Trump has behaved similarly in conversations with leaders of other countries, including Mexico. But his treatment of Turnbull was particularly striking because of the tight bond between the United States and Australia — countries that share intelligence, support one another diplomatically and have fought together in wars including in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The characterizations provide insight into Trump’s temperament and approach to the diplomatic requirements of his job as the nation’s chief executive, a role in which he continues to employ both the uncompromising negotiating tactics he honed as a real estate developer and the bombastic style he exhibited as a reality television personality.
The depictions of Trump’s calls are also at odds with sanitized White House accounts. The official read-out of his conversation with Turnbull, for example, said that the two had “emphasized the enduring strength and closeness of the U.S.-Australia relationship that is critical for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and globally.”
A White House spokesman declined to comment. A senior administration official acknowledged that the conversation with Turnbull had been hostile and charged, but emphasized that most of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders — including the heads of Japan, Germany, France and Russia — have been both productive and pleasant.
[Trump orders ISIS plan, talks with Putin and gives Bannon national security role]
Trump also vented anger and touted his political accomplishments in a tense conversation with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, officials said. The two have sparred for months over Trump’s vow to force Mexico to pay for construction of a border wall between the two countries, a conflict that prompted Peña Nieto to cancel a planned meeting with Trump.
Trump announces executive actions on military, 'new vetting measures' for refugees
Play Video5:24
President Trump announced two executive actions, one relating to vetting refugees, the other to increased military funding, on Jan. 27 at the Pentagon. (The Washington Post)
Trump told Peña Nieto in last Friday’s call, according to the Associated Press, which said it reviewed a transcript of part of the conversation, “You have a bunch of bad hombres down there. You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”
Even in conversations marred by hostile exchanges, Trump manages to work in references to his election accomplishments. U.S. officials said that he used his calls with both Turnbull and Peña Nieto to mention his election win or the size of the crowd at his inauguration.
One official said that it may be Trump’s way of “speaking about the mandate he has and why he has the backing for decisions he makes.” But Trump is also notoriously thin-skinned and has used platforms including social-media accounts, meetings with lawmakers and even a speech at CIA headquarters to depict his victory as an achievement of historic proportions, rather than a narrow outcome in which his opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote.
The friction with Turnbull reflected Trump’s anger over being bound by an agreement reached by the Obama administration to accept refugees from Australian detention sites even while Trump was issuing an executive order suspending such arrivals from elsewhere in the world.
The issue centers on a population of roughly 2,500 people who have sought asylum in Australia but were diverted to facilities off that country’s coast at Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Deplorable conditions at those sites prompted intervention from the United Nations and a pledge from the United States to accept about half of those refugees, provided they passed U.S. security screening.
[After years of hosting a notorious refugee camp for Australia, Papua New Guinea says, enough]
Many of the refugees came from Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia, countries now listed in Trump’s order temporarily barring their citizens entry to the United States. A special provision in the Trump order allows for exceptions to honor “a preexisting international agreement,” a line that was inserted to cover the Australia deal.
But U.S. officials said that Trump continued to fume about the arrangement even after signing the order in a ceremony at the Pentagon.
“I don’t want these people,” Trump said. He repeatedly misstated the number of refugees called for in the agreement as 2,000 rather than 1,250, and told Turnbull that it was “my intention” to honor the agreement, a phrase designed to leave the U.S. president wiggle room to back out of the deal in the future, according to a senior U.S. official.
Turnbull told Trump that to honor the agreement, the United States would not have to accept all of the refugees but only to allow them each through the normal vetting procedures. At that, Trump vowed to subject each refugee to “extreme vetting,” the senior U.S. official said.
Trump was also skeptical because he did not see a specific advantage the United States would gain by honoring the deal, officials said.
Trump’s position appears to reflect the transactional view he takes of relationships, even when it comes to diplomatic ties with long-standing allies. Australia has sent troops to fight alongside U.S. forces for decades and maintains close cooperation with Washington on trade and economic issues.
Australia is seen as such a trusted ally that it is one of only four countries that the United States includes in the “Five Eyes” arrangement for cooperation on espionage matters. Members share extensively what their intelligence services gather and generally refrain from spying on one another.
There also is a significant amount of tourism between the two countries.
Trump made the call to Turnbull about 5 p.m. Saturday from his desk in the Oval Office, where he was joined by chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, national security adviser Michael Flynn and White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
At one point, Turnbull suggested that the two leaders move on from their impasse over refugees to discuss the conflict in Syria and other pressing foreign issues. But Trump demurred and ended the call, making it far shorter than his conversations with Shinzo Abe of Japan, Angela Merkel of Germany, François Hollande of France or Putin.
The Australian Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Read more:
Officials worry that U.S counterterrorism defenses will be weakened by Trump actions
‘Cruel in the extreme’: Australia accused of ignoring ‘appalling’ abuse of refugees |
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Wed Feb 01, 2017 8:45 pm |
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