TBR News December 3, 2016

The Voice of the White House  

Washington, D.C.  December 3, 2016:”One notes that instead of further harassing, and physically assaulting the Indian pipeline protestors, the state and federal officials are backing off. This is probably a wise move because the general public is becoming highly annoyed by governmental repressions, perceived or imaginary, and annoyed factions can easily unite with unfortunate consequences for a sitting government.”

A World to Win

The anti-globalist movement is going global

December 2, 2016

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

The political class is in a panic, and not just in this country. From the hollowed out cities of the Rust Belt to the vineyards of France and Italy, a new nationalism is on the rise, threatening not only the perks and privileges of the managerial elites but also challenging the parameters of the post-World War II international order. Trump’s revolution in the US is but the latest and most dramatic example of an international trend that we saw manifested in the victory of the Brexit campaign, and now in the stunning transformation of the political landscape in France and Italy.

In France, the political parties of the left are in disarray, as the triumph of Francois Fillon – a populist figure who rejects the traditional statism and internationalism of the sclerotic Socialists and their conservative doppelgangers – in France’s Republican party primary dramatically illustrates. The polls are telling us that the French will face a general election choice of Fillon versus Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Front, a hard-line nationalist party. Both are anti-EU, and are hostile to NATO’s anti-Russian campaign.

In Italy, the government of Prime Minister Mateo Renzi is seeking “reforms” that would turn the Italian Senate into a consultative body, with no real power, and impose super-centralizing legislation that would take authority away from local governments and hand it to Rome. Renzi has said he will resign if these “reforms” aren’t approved by the electorate – and the rising populist party known as Five Stars has taken up his challenge.

Subjected to a smear campaign by all the usual suspects, Five Star is anti-EU, anti-open borders, and wants peace with Russia – a stance media outlets like BuzzFeed find intolerable. Fresh from a smear campaign purporting to show that the stars of the popular HGTV show “Fixer Upper” are “homophobes,” one wonders when editor @BuzzFeedBen and his crew will start telling us HGTV is a Russian plot to infiltrate American culture with Putinesque design ideas. Is shiplap subversive? Stay tuned, folks!

The Establishment media is naturally hostile to these populist movements, but that only fuels their momentum. Like Russians of the Soviet era, who simply took everything they read in Pravda to be a lie, the awakened masses of Europe and America simply disregard – or invert — everything outlets like CNN and BuzzFeed “report” as news.

In the Netherlands, the anti-EU party of Geert Wilders – who is on trial for daring to question the propriety of importing tens of thousands of immigrant Muslims – is slated to come in first in the upcoming elections. In Austria, the Freedom Party, which is anti-statist, pro-business, and anti-EU, is also leading or tied in the polls. In Poland and Hungary, nationalist parties hostile to the EU are currently in power. Even in Germany, which has long been the epicenter of pro-EU sentiment, we see the rise of nationalist parties that threaten the status quo: Angela Merkel’s opening of Germany to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East is enormously unpopular, and the anti-Russian foreign policy imposed on the Merkel government by Washington is also being questioned on the right as well as the left.

These parties and movements all have their national particularities, but they have one thing in common: they uphold the primacy of national sovereignty, a concept that has been anathema to the transnational elites that have been making policy in much of the West since the end of the cold war. And in Western Europe, they are uniformly opposed to the resumption of the cold war, which is the latest international crusade being pushed by the War Party.

This reluctance to get on board the cold war train is a source of much of the Establishment’s ire: a recent piece in the New York Times reporting on the rise of nationalism in France focuses on this aspect of the new trend. The headline reads: “French Election Hints at a European Shift Toward Russia.” For the Times, it’s all about the alleged threat emanating from the east:

“The victory of François Fillon in France’s center-right presidential primary is the latest sign that a tectonic shift is coming to the European order: toward accommodating, rather than countering, a resurgent Russia.

“Since the end of World War II, European leaders have maintained their ever-growing alliance as a bulwark against Russian power. Through decades of ups and downs in Russian-European relations, in periods of estrangement or reconciliation, their balance of power has kept the continent stable.

“But a growing movement within Europe that includes Mr. Fillon, along with others of a more populist bent, is pushing a new policy: instead of standing up to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, stand with him.”

Note how this is all framed by the “resurgent Russia” trope. Yet as John Mearsheimer points out:

“The good news is that no country is strong enough to dominate Europe or the Gulf for the foreseeable future. Germany’s power will decline over time, mainly because of its shrinking population, while Russia has similar demographic problems and an economy that is too dependent on gas and oil revenues. Even if Russia modernizes its economy and its population grows in the years ahead – big ifs – it will still be unable to project significant military power beyond eastern Europe. And even then, the Europeans themselves can afford to build the military forces necessary to check Moscow’s ambitions. Thus, the Trump administration should encourage the Europeans to take responsibility for their own security, while gradually reducing the remaining U.S. troops there.”

The US and Russia have common interests: fighting terrorism, solving the Syria imbroglio, and successfully integrating both Iran and China into the international community. The Europeans recognize this: the Americans are beginning to recognize it. The nationalist tides that are battering the liberal internationalist order don’t require an enemy, i.e. “resurgent Russia.”

That’s because these nationalist movements are not expansionist, for the most part: they don’t dream of empire-building, but rather of maintaining and strengthening their respective homelands. France for the French – Britain first – Austria for the Austrians – America first: these are the bywords of the new rebels who are challenging the “New World Order” of our transnational elites.

And isn’t it about time?

I’ve been predicting this, in one form or another, since the inception of this web site. In 2001, I wrote: “Something’s in the wind. From the rocky shores of the Sea of Japan to the sandy beaches of the Adriatic, a new and benevolent form of nationalism is on the rise: not the dark irredentism that infected prewar Germany and the comic-opera totalitarianism of Mussolini’s Italy, but an international trend on the right” that I called “market nationalism.” In one of my first postings, published sometime in 1995, I foretold the reaction of the elites to this rising trend:

“The builders of a “New World Order” may have their little disagreements: left-wing internationalists want to redistribute America’s wealth to the Third World and worship at the shrine of the UN, while their “right-wing” counterparts of the neo-conservative variety, call for global intervention under our own flag. But on one issue they are united: all agree that nationalism, of whatever hue, is the enemy and must be utterly crushed.”

No, I didn’t predict the rise of Trump, but in 2000 I came close:

“The whole post-Cold War trend of conservative thought in the foreign policy realm is away from the aggressive internationalism of the Reagan era and toward something closer to the original vision of the Founders….

“Opposition to internationalism run amok, and the desire to return, at long last, to the foreign policy of the Founders, is the inevitable result of the end of the Cold War. It is not isolationism, but a new nationalism which is sweeping the country That it is threatening the hegemony of the two-party monopoly is cause for celebration, and hope.”

There’s a lot more of that in the archives, but you get the idea: if you want tomorrow’s news today, you’ve come to the right web site.

Yes, there are dangers as well as opportunities in this new international trend: nationalism can turn ugly, especially some of the European varieties, which can easily degenerate into primitive tribalism. In America, it’s a different story: since the American revolution established the foundations of the first fully free society on earth, in this context consistent nationalism is inherently libertarian.

The new nationalism is succeeding in one important sense: it is neutralizing the efforts of our elites, and their European counterparts, to re-start the cold war with Russia. This has been the principal danger to world peace since the end of the George W. Bush administration, and the War Party is not pleased with recent developments, to say the least.

Review: the Blackphone 2 is ‘private by design’ but how does it handle?

December 2, 2016 Mobile security and privacy are important – hacks and surveillance are on the rise. But with the two main phone makers, Apple and Samsung, on the slip, where to turn? Well, you could try joining the Silent Circle.

DW

Full disclosure: I’ve been using Apple devices since the mid-1990s. My first was a grey plastic laptop with a 3.5 inch floppy drive. I am so locked-in, I think I must have thrown away the key myself. But I have an open mind. Which is good, because I’ve grown increasingly weary of the Cupertino mob’s focus on consumer whizz-bangery. And its music app … aaah! Stop syncing what ain’t there.

So I’ve been wondering: what would be my alternatives?

The iPhone 7 is pretty ordinary as new technology goes, and perhaps the slow sales prove it. A Samsung, running Android? No, thanks. Not after the Galaxy Note 7 burnout, and Android is a “fragmented” operating system (everyone’s running a different version) – and it’s just too Google for me. What about a Huawei, HTC, Blackberry, Sony, or even a Fairphone? No. I want something that’s fit for work, low on frills, and secure. A “Merkel phone” perhaps? Yes, perhaps. That’s a Blackberry running SecuSUITE encryption software. The German government uses more than 10,000 of them. All right.

But then I remembered the Blackphone 2 (BP2). It’s made by Silent Circle, whose co-founder and chief scientist is Phil Zimmermann. Zimmermann created PGP and ZRTP, two standard bits of encryption software.

Their Silent Phone and Silent Text apps scored seven out of seven on the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s original “Secure Messaging Scoreboard,” and the phone itself looks fairly no-nonsense. Nice.

So I’ve run a few basic user tests.

First impressions

If you’re wondering, Blackphone? What’s that? The BP2 is an “enterprise” device – it’s aimed at businesses more than the average consumer. In the US, Silent Circle has targeted business, government and military users. It is, as the slogan goes, “Private by design.”

Out of the box, the BP2 is a lot less slippery than my iPhone. Nice again. But it feels a little too light to be true. The power adapter even feels hollow.

The BP2 takes a nano SIM, which is handy, as so does the iPhone.

So the first thing I did was insert my SIM card. The tray is similar, too, but flimsy. It looked like the plastic was about to break off. That said, it has room for a microSD.

The phone turns on and delights with a 5.5″ FullHD Gorilla Glass display and nerdy, networky graphics.

Other key specs include: LTE and Worldwide 3G/HSPA+ connectivity, Qualcomm Snapdragon Octa-Core Processor, (a mere) 32GB internal storage, 13 MP backside-illuminated camera sensor (with 5 MP front), and a 3060 mAh Battery with Quick Charge 2.0.

The silent system

Blackphone 2 runs Silent OS on top of Android v6.0.1 – which means it probably dodged the Gooligan malware, which went for earlier versions. Silent OS is what they call a “hardened” version of Android. It’s made for the Enterprise market, with secure, encrypted end-to-end communication its calling card.

Once you’re through the basic setup, you’re faced with a “Home Space,” where the Silent Phone app and Google services are pre-installed. If you want to make calls with Silent Phone, you have to set up an account, and you can only call other members of the “Silent Circle.” And you’ll need to pay for a monthly plan. But there is a normal phone app as well.

You can set up multiple spaces, with only the apps you want. I created one without Google services – a Silent Space – it’s the most secure you can get. And there’s a Security Center for managing your various spaces. You may, for instance, want to keep your work and private lives apart and lock them with different passwords, passcodes or patterns – but only one or the other. Silent Circle missed an opportunity for two-step authentication here. But you can share files between spaces, and switching between them is simple.

The function is not entirely unique to the BP2. Samsung Knox also has a “sandboxing” feature that allows you to keep different layers of the device separate from each other and thereby reduce vulnerabilities.

But I still don’t understand how the BP2 handles permissions. When you open an app, it asks you for a string of permissions – allow or deny. Okay. But say you open the camera and you deny permission for it to use location services, the app simply closes. No camera.

And my question is, why ask for my permission if I have to agree to everything anyway? I asked two sales execs at Silent Circle and I’m still waiting on an answer.

Making encrypted calls

Open up Silent Phone to call another Silent Circler. Search for their username in the app and start a call. You’ll both see a message to verify your IDs. You get two words. The call initiator says one, and the recipient says the other. Then you talk or video conference, with end-to-end encryption. You can “drag” other people into the conference. It’s easy in theory. But in practice I found the experience fiddly and unintuitive. The line over WiFi seemed to drop for split-seconds here and there and the front camera produced unimpressive video. The back camera, despite its 13 megapixel rating, is not that hot either. My pictures looked dull.

To drag other people into the call, you put existing callers on hold – and everything goes totally silent. But not how I imagine Silent Circle wants. It feels like the call is dead. If you’re on a business call, that silence would be deafening.

Other connectivity

Messaging is neat on the BP2. It includes an auto-destruct function like the Wickr app. You can set them to burn from 1 minute to 90 days. If you burn a message on your device, it burns on the recipient’s device too.

I tried pairing the BP2 to my Mac, but they repeatedly failed to find each other – even though they were side-by-side. It comes with tiny headphone buds, of which I’m no fan generally, and these don’t sound great either.

It’s good they still have faith in headphones, though, and the plug fits well, which is more than can be said for older iPhones. As for the charger, the mini USB plug feels too tight for comfort. You might do some damage trying to get it out. Oh, and it does seem the fast charge battery de-charges pretty fast, too, on standby. I didn’t test this specifically, so I may be wrong, but it certainly looked that way.

Full circle

You can try Silent Phone on an iPhone or other Android devices. And don’t forget there are other encryption apps, like Signal. So try and compare.

The BP2 is not consumer gear and Silent Circle says this means it can avoid typical consumer product cycles. They don’t feel they have to release new hardware every year. But perhaps in 2017, we’ll see a BP3, and it may be the one for me. Alas, the BP2, is not.

German BND-NSA Inquiry Exhibits

December 1, 2016

Wikileaks

Today, 1 December 2016, WikiLeaks releases 90 gigabytes of information relating to the German parliamentary inquiry into the surveillance activities of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and its cooperation with the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA).

The 2,420 documents originate from various agencies of the German government including the BND and Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) and were submitted to the inquiry last year in response to questions posed by the committee. They include administrative documents, correspondence, agreements and press reactions. They also include 125 documents from the BND, 33 from the BfVand 72 from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

The collection offers a detailed insight, not just into the agencies themselves, but also into the mechanics of the inquiry. Several documents detail how the agency in question collated the information that was requested of them. For example, a BND document shows its preparations for collecting internal information on which private US companies are operating in the security sector in Germany. Such internal processes are particularly pertinent to the inquiry. The committee has been trying (unsuccessfully so far) to gain access to the full selector list that the BND holds regarding who they spy on at the behest of the US. The BND is withholding this list from the inquiry on the grounds that releasing it could imperil the BND’s relationship with the NSA.

Whilst a number of facts have already come to light as a result of the inquiry including WikiLeaks’ publication of inquiry transcripts last year this substantial new collection of primary source documents provides significant new evidence. The collection contains early agreements between the BND and the NSA and internal processes at the BND, but also more recent details on the close collaboration between the two agencies. For example, one document from the BND states that a BND employee will be tasked to use and write software for XKeyscore, an NSA system for searching and analysing data collected through mass surveillance.

A number of the documents show how intelligence agencies find ways to work around their own government. Documents pertaining to an audit visit by Germany’s data protection agency to the BND’s offices show that BND officers withheld the notes made by the auditors during their visit. The BND would only release the notes to the auditors once they had checked the content for themselves.

The inquiry was established in 2014 in the wake of the Snowden revelations, which showed that not only was the NSA spying on the whole world, but it had also partnered with the intelligence services of particular states to spy on their citizens and those of the surrounding regions. One of these countries is Germany, which has had a close relationship with the US in military and intelligence matters since its occupation by US forces in WWII. The US has been shown to use its bases in Germany and its relationship with German intelligence to spy on German citizens as well as European Union institutions.

WikiLeaks revelations of NSA spying on Angela Merkel and top officials at German ministries, the EU and France also contributed to the political impetus of the inquiry.

The depth of this relationship had been unknown to the German public and much of its government. The outrage that was sparked by the Snowden NSA revelations led to the establishment of the inquiry, which later called for Mr Snowden to testify at it. Whereas there was initially unanimity among German political parties in 2014 for Snowden to provide expert testimony, the government deemed that guaranteeing that he would not be handed over to the US (a condition imposed by Snowden for testifying) would damage Germany’s political relationship with the United States. Subsequently, the Greens and the left-wing party (Die Linke) filed an official complaint to force the German Parliament to hear Mr Snowden.

Last week, on 21 November 2016, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice upheld the complaint and ruled that the committee was obliged to hear Edward Snowden in person. However, at the next inquiry hearing three days after the ruling, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Union bloc and the Social Democrats removed Snowden’s invitation from the agenda of the inquiry and are contesting the Court’s decision.

Julian Assange said: “This substantial body of evidence proves that the inquiry has been using documents from Mr Snowden and yet it has been too cowardly to permit him to testify. Germany can not take a leadership role within the EU if it’s own parliamentary processes are subservient to the wishes of a non EU state.”

The End of the Affair? The BND, CIA and Kosovo’s Deep State

by Tom Burghardt

Wikileaks

When three officers of Germany’s foreign intelligence service the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), were arrested in Pristina November 19, it exposed that country’s extensive covert operations in the heart of the Balkans.

On November 14, a bomb planted at the office of the European Union Special Representative was detonated in downtown Pristina. While damage was light and there were no injuries, U.N. “peacekeepers” detained one of the BND officers hours after the blast when he was observed taking photos of the damaged building. Two of his colleagues waited in a car and acted as lookouts. The officer named these two colleagues as witnesses that he was in his office at the time of the attack.

That office, identified by the press as the “private security firm” Logistics-Coordination & Assessment Service or LCAS, in reality was a front company for BND operations. Its premises were searched three days later and the trio were subsequently arrested and accused by Kosovan authorities of responsibility for bombing the EU building. As a result of the arrests, the BND was forced to admit the real identities of their agents and the true nature of LCAS.

A scandal erupted leading to a diplomatic row between Berlin and Pristina. The German government labeled the accusations “absurd” and threatened a cut-off of funds to the Kosovo government. A circus atmosphere prevailed as photos of the trio were shown on Kosovan TV and splashed across the front pages of the press. Rumors and dark tales abounded, based on leaks believed by observers to have emanated from the office of Kosovo’s Prime Minister, the “former” warlord Hashim Thaci, nominal leader of the statelet’s organized crime-tainted government.

When seized by authorities one of the BND officers, Andreas J., demonstrated very poor tradecraft indeed. Among the items recovered by police, the operative’s passport along with a notebook containing confidential and highly incriminating information on the situation in Kosovo were examined. According to media reports, the notebook contained the names of well-placed BND informants in the Prime Minister’s entourage. According to this reading, the arrests were an act of revenge by Thaci meant to embarrass the German government.

But things aren’t always as they seem.

On November 29, the trio–Robert Z., Andreas J. and Andreas D.–departed Kosovo on a special flight bound for Berlin where they “will face a committee of German parliamentarians who have taken an interest in their case,” according to an account in Spiegel Online.

More curious than a violent attack on the streets of Pristina, a city wracked by gangland killings, car hijackings, kidnappings and assaults is the provenance of the bomb itself. In other words, why would German intelligence agents attack their own? But before attempting to answer this question, a grim backstory to the affair rears its ugly head.

An Agency Mired in Scandal

This latest scandal comes as yet another blow to the BND considering August’s revelations by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks that Germany’s external intelligence agency had extensively spied on journalists. Like their counterparts at the CIA, the BND is forbidden by law from carrying out domestic operations.

According to Wikileaks documents, journalists working for Focus Magazine and Der Spiegel were collaborators in a scheme by the agency to learn their sources as well as obtaining information on left-wing politicians, including Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) leaders Gregor Gysi and Andreas Lederer.

Indeed Focus Magazine journalist Josef Hufelschulte, code name ‘Jerez, wrote articles based on reports provided by the BND “intended to produce favorable coverage.” Wikileaks correspondent Daniel Schmitt and investigations editor Julian Assange comment that, “The document in general shows the extent to which the collaboration of journalists with intelligence agencies has become common and to what dimensions consent is manufactured in the interests of those involved.”

In November, Wikileaks published a subsequent document obtained from the telecommunications giant T-Systems. In addition to revealing two dozen secret IP addresses used by the BND for surveillance operations, the document provides “Evidence of a secret out of control BND robot scanning selected web-sites. In 2006 system administrators had to ban the “BVOE” IP addresses to prevent servers from being destroyed.” Additionally, Wikileaks revealed the “activity on a Berlin prostitution service website–evidence that intelligence seductions, the famed cold-war ‘honeytrap’, is alive and well?”

While the document does not spell out who was running the sex-for-hire website, one can’t help but wonder whether Balkan-linked organized crime syndicates, including Kosovan and Albanian sex traffickers are working in tandem with the BND in return for that agency turning a blind eye to the sordid trade in kidnapped women.

Kosovo: A European Narco State

When Kosovo proclaimed its “independence” in February, the Western media hailed the provocative dismemberment of Serbia, a move that completed the destruction of Yugoslavia by the United States, the European Union and NATO, as an exemplary means to bring “peace and stability” to the region.

If by “peace” one means impunity for rampaging crime syndicates or by “stability,” the freedom of action with no questions asked by U.S. and NATO military and intelligence agencies, not to mention economic looting on a grand scale by freewheeling multinational corporations, then Kosovo has it all!

From its inception, the breakaway Serb province has served as a militarized outpost for Western capitalist powers intent on spreading their tentacles East, encircling Russia and penetrating the former spheres of influence of the ex-Soviet Union. As a template for contemporary CIA destabilization operations in Georgia and Ukraine, prospective EU members and NATO “partners,” Kosovo should serve as a warning for those foolish enough to believe American clichs about “freedom” or the dubious benefits of “globalization.”

Camp Bondsteel, located on rolling hills and farmland near the city of Ferizaj/Urosevac,is the largest U.S. military installation on the European continent. Visible from space, in addition to serving as an NSA listening post pointed at Russia and as the CIA’s operational hub in the Balkans and beyond, some observers believe that Andreas J.’s notebook may have contained information that Camp Bondsteel continues to serve as a CIA “black site.” One motive for rolling up the BND intelligence operation may have been U.S. fears that this toxic information would become public, putting paid U.S. claims that it no longer kidnaps and tortures suspected “terrorists.”

When NATO partners Germany and the U.S. decided to drive a stake through Yugoslavia’s heart in the early 1990s during the heady days of post-Cold War triumphalism, their geopolitical strategy could not have achieved “success” without the connivance, indeed active partnership amongst Yugoslavia’s nationalist rivals. As investigative journalist Misha Glenny documented,

Most shocking of all, however, is how the gangsters and politicians fueling war between their peoples were in private cooperating as friends and close business partners. The Croat, Bosnian, Albanian, Macedonian, and Serb moneymen and mobsters were truly thick as thieves. They bought, sold, and exchanged all manner of commodities, knowing that the high levels of personal trust between them were much stronger than the transitory bonds of hysterical nationalism. They fomented this ideology among ordinary folk in essence to mask their own venality. As one commentator described it, the new republics were ruled by “a parastate Cartel which had emerged from political institutions, the ruling Communist Party and its satellites, the military, a variety of police forces, the Mafia, court intellectuals and with the president of the Republic at the center of the spider web…Tribal nationalism was indispensable for the cartel as a means to pacify its subordinates and as a cover for the uninterrupted privatization of the state apparatus. (McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008, p. 27)

Glenny’s description of the 1990s convergence of political, economic and security elites with organized crime syndicates in Western intelligence operations is the quintessential definition of the capitalist deep state.

In Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Peter Dale Scott describes how the deep state can be characterized by “the symbiosis between governments (and in particular their intelligence agencies) and criminal associations, particularly drug traffickers, in the stabilization of right-wing terror in Vietnam, Italy, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and other parts of the world.” Indeed, “revelations in the 1970s and 1980s about the ‘strategy of tension,’ whereby government intelligence agencies, working in international conjunction, strengthened the case for their survival by actually fomenting violence, recurringly in alliance with drug-trafficking elements.”

Scott’s analysis is perhaps even more relevant today as “failed states” such as Kosovo, characterized by economic looting on an industrial scale, the absence of the rule of law, reliance on far-right terrorists (of both the “religious” and “secular” varieties) to achieve policy goals, organized crime syndicates, as both assets and executors of Western policy, and comprador elites are Washington’s preferred international partners.

For the ruling elites of the former Yugoslavia and their Western allies, Kosovo is a veritable goldmine. Situated in the heart of the Balkans, Kosovo’s government is deeply tied to organized crime structures: narcotrafficking, arms smuggling, car theft rings and human trafficking that feeds the sex slave “industry.” These operations are intimately linked to American destabilization campaigns and their cosy ties to on-again, off-again intelligence assets that include al-Qaeda and other far-right terror gangs. As investigative journalist Peter Klebnikov documented in 2000,

The Kosovar traffickers ship heroin exclusively from Asia’s Golden Crescent. It’s an apparently inexhaustible source. At one end of the crescent lies Afghanistan, which in 1999 surpassed Burma as the world’s largest producer of opium poppies. From there, the heroin base passes through Iran to Turkey, where it is refined, and then into the hands of the 15 Families, which operate out of the lawless border towns linking Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia. Not surprisingly, the KLA has also flourished there. According to the State Department, four to six tons of heroin move through Turkey every month. “Not very much is stopped,” says one official. “We get just a fraction of the total.” (“Heroin Heroes,” Mother Jones, January-February 2000)

Not much has changed since then. Indeed, the CIA’s intelligence model for covert destabilization operations is a continuing formula for “success.” Beginning in the 1940s, when the Corsican Mafia was pegged by the Agency to smash the French Communist Party, down to today’s bloody headlines coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, global drug lords and intelligence operators go hand in hand. It is hardly surprising then, that according to a report by the Berlin Institute for European Policy, organized crime is the only profitable sector of the Kosovan economy. Nearly a quarter of the country’s economic output, some <82>550 million, is derived from criminal activities.

Though the role of the United States and their NATO partners are central to the drama unfolding today, the BND affair also reveals that beneath the carefully-constructed faade of Western “unity” in “Freedom Land,” deep inter-imperialist rivalries simmer. As the socialist journalist Peter Schwarz reports,

Speculation has since been rife about the background to the case, but it is doubtful whether it will ever be clarified. Kosovo is a jungle of rival secret services. In this regard, it resembles Berlin before the fall of the Wall. The US, Germany, Britain, Italy and France all have considerable intelligence operations in the country, which work both with and against one another. Moreover, in this country of just 2.1 million inhabitants, some 15,000 NATO soldiers and 1,500 UN police officers are stationed, as well as 400 judges, police officers and security officers belonging to the UN’s EULEX mission. (Peter Schwarz, “Kosovo’s Dirty Secret: The Background to Germany’s Secret Service Affair,” World Socialist Web Site, December 1, 2008)

Into this jungle of conflicting loyalties and interests, international crime syndicates in close proximity–and fleeting alliance–with this or that security service rule the roost. It is all the more ironic that the Thaci government has targeted the BND considering, as Balkan analyst Christopher Deliso revealed:

In 1996, Germany’s BND established a major station in Tirana…and another in Rome to select and train future KLA fighters. According to Le Monde Diplomatique, “special forces in Berlin provided the operational training and supplied arms and transmission equipment from ex-East German Stasi stocks as well as Black uniforms.” The Italian headquarters recruited Albanian immigrants passing through ports such as Brindisi and Trieste, while German military intelligence, the Militaramschirmdienst, and the Kommando Spezialkrfte Special Forces (KSK), offered military training and provisions to the KLA in the remote Mirdita Mountains of northern Albania controlled by the deposed president, Sali Berisha. (The Coming Balkan Caliphate, Westport: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 37)

But as Schwarz observed, why would the Thaci government risk alienating the German state, given the fact that after the U.S., Germany “is the second largest financial backer of Kosovo and ranks among the most important advocates of its independence.” Why indeed?

According to Balkan Analysis, the International Crisis Group (ICG) funded by billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) and closely aligned with “liberal interventionists” in the United States, were instrumental in arguing that the United States and Germany, should guarantee “future stability,” by building up the Kosovo Protection Corps (TMK), the KLA’s successor organization, into a well-equipped army. Towards this end, the U.S. and Germany, in addition to arming the organized crime-linked statelet, have provided funds and equipment for a sophisticated military communications center in the capital.

Speculation is rife and conflicting accounts proliferate like mushrooms after a warm rain. One theory has it that senior Kosovan politicians were angered by BND criticisms linking KLA functionaries, including personal associates of Thaci and the Prime Minister himself, with organized crime. Tellingly, Schwarz reports, this “is contrary to the position taken by the CIA.”

Is the affair then, merely a falling-out among thieves on how the spoils will be divided?

The CIA: Drugs & Thugs International

As noted above, U.S. destabilization programs and covert operations rely on far-flung networks of far-right provocateurs and drug lords (often interchangeable players) to facilitate the dirty work for U.S. policy elites and American multinational corporations. Throughout its Balkan adventure the CIA made liberal use of these preexisting narcotics networks to arm the KLA and provide them with targets. In their public pronouncements and analyses however, nary a harsh word is spoken.

According to the CIA, by any standard Kosovo’s economy is a disaster, but that doesn’t prevent the Agency from seeing “significant progress”!

Over the past few years Kosovo’s economy has shown significant progress in transitioning to a market-based system, but it is still highly dependent on the international community and the diaspora for financial and technical assistance. Remittances from the diaspora–located mainly in Germany and Switzerland–account for about 30% of GDP. Kosovo’s citizens are the poorest in Europe with an average annual per capita income of only $1800–about one-third the level of neighboring Albania. Unemployment–at more than 40% of the population–is a severe problem that encourages outward migration. (Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, November 20, 2008)

Needless to say, one unmentionable “fact” disappeared from the CIA’s country profile is the statelet’s overwhelming dependence on the black economy. I suppose this is what the Agency means when it lauds Kosovo’s transition to a “market-based system”!But as former DEA investigator and whistleblower Michael Levine, author of The Big White Lie, told B92, one of the wings of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was “linked with every known narco-cartel in the Middle East and the Far East”, and that almost every European intelligence service and police has files on “connections between ethnic Albanian rebels and drug trafficking”. And dare I say by extension, the CIA itself.

One bone of contention which could have led Thaci and his henchmen to seek revenge against his erstwhile German allies was a 67-page BND analysis about organized crime in Kosovo. As Schwarz noted the dossier, produced in February 2005 and subsequently leaked to the press, “accuses Ramush Haradinaj (head of government from December 2004 to March 2005), Hashim Thaci (prime minister since January 2008) and Xhavit Haliti, who sits in the parliament presidium, of being deeply implicated in the drugs trade.”

According to the BND report, “Regarding the key players (e.g., Haliti, Thaci, Haradinaj), there exists the closest ties between politics, business and internationally operating OC [organized crime] structures in Kosovo. The criminal networks behind this are encouraging political instability. They have no interest in building a functioning state, which could impair their flourishing trade.” (WSWS, op. cit.)

Haradinaj, an American protegee, became Prime Minister in 2004. However, he was forced to resign his post in March 2005 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted him for crimes against humanity. Among other things, Haradinaj was accused of abducting civilians, unlawful detention, torture, murder and rape. Schwarz notes he was acquitted in April 2008 “for lack of evidence, after nine out of ten prosecution witnesses died violently and the tenth withdrew his statement after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt.” Talk about friends in high places!

Mirroring evidence uncovered by journalists and investigators regarding the control of the drugs trade by 15 Albanian crime families, the Berlin Institute for European Policy laid similar charges against Thaci, stating that real power in Kosovo is wielded by 15 to 20 family clans who control “almost all substantial key social positions” and are “closely linked to prominent political decision makers.”

According to Spiegel, when the BND operation was run to ground with the possible connivance of the CIA, its secret network of informants, instrumental to gaining insight into the interconnections amongst state actors and organized crime were compromised. The BND’s Department Five, responsible for organized crime wrote a confidential report linking Thaci as “a key figure in a Kosovar-Albanian mafia network.”

Department Two, according to Spiegel, was responsible for telecommunications surveillance. In 1999, the BND launched operation “Mofa99,” a wiretap intercept program that targeted high-ranking members of the KLA–and exposed their links to dodgy criminal syndicates and Islamist allies, al-Qaeda. The program was so successful according to Spiegel that since then, “the BND has maintained an extensive network of informants among high-ranking functionaries of the KLA and the Kosovar administration.”

Functionaries in possession of many dangerous secrets and inconvenient truths!

As researcher and analyst Michel Chossudovsky wrote back in 2001, among the “inconvenient truths” unexplored by Western media is the close proximity of far-right Islamist terror gangs and planetary U.S. destabilization operations.

Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin (“holy warriors”) to fight covert wars on Washington’s behest has become an integral part of US foreign policy. A report of the US Congress has revealed how the US administration–under advice from the National Security Council headed by Anthony Lake–had “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.

The “Bosnian pattern” has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting with the KLA-NLA are Mujahedin from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union as well as “soldiers of fortune” from several NATO countries including Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. (Michel Chossudovsky, “Washington Behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia,” Global Research, September 10, 2001)

Fast forward seven years and one can hypothesize that the BND, stepping on the CIA’s toes and that agency’s cosy intelligence “understanding” with Mafia-linked KLA fighters and al-Qaeda assets, would have every reason to sabotage the BND’s organized crime operations–not that the German military intelligence service’s hands are any cleaner!

While we may never know all the facts surrounding this curious affair, one thing is certain: the role played by powerful Mafia gangs as a source for black funds, intelligence assets and CIA “agents of influence” will continue. Administrations come and go, but like motherhood and apple pie the shadowy workings of America’s deep state is an eternal verity you can count on!

Trump speaks with Taiwanese president, a major break with decades of U.S. policy on China

December 3, 2016

by Anne Gearan

Washington Post

President-elect Donald Trump spoke Friday with Taiwan’s president, a major departure from decades of U.S. policy in Asia and a breach of diplomatic protocol with ramifications for the incoming president’s relations with China.

The call is the first known contact between a U.S. president or president-elect with a Taiwanese leader since before the United States broke diplomatic relations with the island in 1979. China considers Taiwan a province, and news of the official outreach by Trump is likely to infuriate the regional military and economic power.

The exchange is one of a string of unorthodox conversations with foreign leaders that Trump has held since his election. It comes at a particularly tense time between China and Taiwan, which earlier this year elected a president, ­­­Tsai Ing-wen, who has not endorsed the notion of a unified China. Her election angered Beijing to the point of cutting off all official communication with the island government.

It is not clear whether Trump intends a more formal shift in U.S. relations with Taiwan or China. On the call, Trump and Tsai congratulated each other on winning their elections, a statement from Trump’s transition office said.

“During the discussion, they noted the close economic, political, and security ties . . . between Taiwan and the United States,” the statement said.

A statement from the Taiwanese president’s office said the call lasted more than 10 minutes and included discussion of economic development and national security, and about “strengthening bilateral relations.”

Tsai expressed admiration for Trump’s success in a highly competitive election, the statement said.

The Trump-Tsai conversation was first reported by the Financial Times and the Taipei Times.

Ned Price, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on reports that Beijing contacted the White House on Friday. Price emphasized: “There is no change to our long-standing policy on cross-Strait issues. We remain firmly committed to our ‘One China’ policy based on the three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act. Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations.”

Asked about Trump’s call during a conference on international affairs in Beijing early Saturday, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, called it a “petty action” that “cannot change China’s standing in international society.”

The breach of protocol will “not change the One China policy that the U.S. government has supported for many years,” he said. “The One China principle is the foundation for healthy development of ­Sino-U.S. relations. We don’t wish for anything to obstruct or ruin this foundation.”

China later Saturday said it had lodged an official complaint with the United States over the Trump chat with Tsai.

The president-elect tweeted out Friday evening, “The president of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency.”

Later, Trump sent another tweet, apparently in response to criticism of the Taiwan call as potentially reckless: “Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.”

A senior adviser to Trump suggested that he knew about the long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan when the call occurred.

“He’s well aware of what U.S. policy has been,” Kellyanne Conway said in an interview with CNN on Friday night.

Conway bristled when asked whether Trump was properly briefed before the call on the government’s long-standing policy, questioning why President Obama did not receive similar queries about his knowledge of foreign affairs.

“President-elect Trump is fully briefed and fully knowledgeable about these issues . . . regardless of who’s on the other end of the phone,” she said.

Ric Grenell, a former George W. Bush administration spokesman at the United Nations, who was spotted visiting with Trump transition team officials at Trump Tower on Friday, said the president-elect’s call was planned in advance and that Trump took the call on purpose.

“It was totally planned,” Grenell said. “It was a simple courtesy call. People need to calm down. The ‘One China’ policy wasn’t changed. Washington, D.C., types need to lighten up.”

The United States has pursued the “One China” policy since 1972, when then-President Richard M. Nixon visited China. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter recognized Beijing as the legitimate government of China, and Washington closed its embassy in Taiwan a year later. A deliberately ambiguous relationship between Washington and Taiwan has existed since.

China guards the structures of its formal relationship with the United States very carefully — especially the founding document that established the One China policy. U.S. officials typically tiptoe around any mention of Taiwan or the Chinese goal of full reunification.

“This phone call calls into question whether or not Trump adheres to the basic foundation of the U.S.-China relationship,” said Evan Medeiros, a former top China adviser to President Obama who is now an adviser at the ­Eurasia Group. “This action guarantees that U.S.-China relations under Trump will get off to a very rocky start.”

Trump’s growing team of national-security and foreign-policy advisers includes several people who have been strong supporters of Taiwan in Republican administrations. They include Stephen Yates, deputy national security adviser under Vice President Richard B. Cheney, who was reported to be visiting Taiwan when the call occurred.

Trump apparently considered hotel investments in Taiwan earlier this year. The mayor of Taoyuan said last month that a representative from the Trump Organization had visited and was interested in constructing hotels in the northwestern Taiwanese city, according to China Times. Trump has said he will separate himself from his businesses before he is inaugurated.

In recent years, in the face of Taiwan’s waning economic power and decreasing international recognition as a separate entity from mainland China, Taiwanese diplomatic representatives in Washington have been trying to raise their stature. They have courted government officials and journalists with Taiwanese film screenings, expensive soirees and other cultural events around town.

For years it has looked like a losing battle. But the Trump call could constitute a major and unexpected coup for Taiwan’s new administration by showing the island’s continued relevance.

Michael J. Green, a senior Asia adviser to Bush, said the call will not necessarily lead to lasting bad blood with China.

“Taiwan is a very good friend, and it is good to let the world know that,” Green said, adding, “The president-elect’s phone call may have been unconventional, but it’s not completely unprecedented.”

President Ronald Reagan infuriated the Chinese by inviting a ­Taiwanese delegation to his inaugural ball, and his administration included a long-running tussle over whether to “re-prioritize ­Taiwan,” Green said.

Bush caused a kerfuffle when he suggested the United States might defend Taiwan militarily, but that, too, blew over, Green noted.

Republican reaction was mostly cautious but approving.

“America’s policy toward Taiwan is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act, under which we maintain close ties with Taiwan and support its democratic system,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) “I commend President-elect Trump for his conversation with President Tsai Ing-wen, which reaffirms our commitment to the only democracy on Chinese soil.”

The Democratic National Committee said the call may mean the businessman is “prioritizing his personal fortune over the security interests of the nation.”

“Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets,” said DNC spokesman Eric Walker.

Earlier Friday, Trump reportedly extended an invitation for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to visit the United States next year. That would mark a startling turnabout for a foreign leader who famously called Obama a “son of a whore.”

Trump transition officials confirmed the Duterte call but did not say whether Trump had issued the invitation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the mold-breaking Republican has infused the usually banal routine of congratulatory calls from foreign leaders with drama.

Most of the more than 50 calls held by Trump or Vice President-elect Mike Pence came without the knowledge or guidance of the State Department. That means no government talking points about issues of particular importance — or land mines to avoid.

“We stand by to assist and facilitate and support communication that the transition team is having with foreign leaders,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Friday.

The calls have appeared haphazard and out of order — Russia and Ireland before close ally Britain, for example — and the conversations have a casual tone that the British press sniffed is ­“un-presidential.”

Some calls, as described by Trump aides or the other country, have elicited a raised eyebrow or two.

There was Trump’s offhand suggestion to British Prime Minister Theresa May to “let me know” if she happened to be coming to town. A state visit typically takes months of planning and involves a numbing amount of diplomatic protocol of the who-sits-where variety.

And there was the conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin in which the two agreed, according to the Kremlin, “on the absolutely unsatisfactory state of bilateral relations” and committed to “normalize” the relationship. The United States and Russia maintain cordial official ties — Secretary of State John F. Kerry met with the Russian foreign minister Friday — but both countries have accused the other of meddling.

Some Trump communications have yielded questions and worries among U.S. diplomats and foreign powers, most notably a call Wednesday between Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A vivid account of the conversation released by Pakistan has Trump heaping praise on Sharif as “a terrific guy” and Pakistanis as “one of the most intelligent people.”

The United States — and Trump when he was a candidate — have said Pakistan has not done enough to combat terrorism, and the majority-Muslim country would be heavily affected by Trump’s proposed restrictions on Muslim immigration.

Nonetheless, when Sharif invited him to visit Pakistan, Trump replied that he would “love to come to a fantastic country, fantastic place of fantastic people,” the Pakistani statement said.

A Trump statement came with no such color, but transition officials did not disavow the quotes.

Most disturbing to diplomats in the United States and elsewhere was the Pakistani account of Trump pledging partnership that could suggest favoritism in Pakistan’s eternal — and nuclear armed — rivalry with India.

Trump told Sharif he would “play any role you want me to play to address and find solutions to the country’s problems,” according to the Pakistani account.

China, North Korea and Russia, as well as India, are likely to take note of that, diplomats said.

“The one thing you learn is, you’ve got to be very careful what you say because everything you say or tweet matters,” said William Danvers, a former senior official in the Obama State Department, Pentagon and CIA.

“You have a grace period when you’re president and you deserve it, but it’s mostly a domestic grace period,” Danvers said. “It’s not as if Kim Jong Un is going to say, ‘Oh you just became president, so I’ll hold off on my missile test.’ It kind of makes us look like we don’t know what we’re doing.”

As for Duterte, who had announced a public “breakup” with the United States before the election, the State Department’s Kirby said little.

“I don’t know of any specific support that was provided for that call,” he said. “Our job is to make sure they know we are a ready resource. How they make decisions and how they conduct dialogue and communication with foreign leaders is really for them to decide.”

Trump communications director Jason Miller told reporters Friday that the calls are not off the cuff.

Trump and Pence “are briefed in advance of their calls, obviously working with the teams that we have put together,” Miller said before news of the Duterte call had broken.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest urged Trump to take advantage of diplomatic know-how as he contacts foreign leaders ahead of his inauguration in January.

“I’m confident that as President-elect Trump takes office, those same State Department employees will stand ready to offer him advice as he conducts the business of the United States overseas,” Earnest said. “Hopefully he’ll take it.”

Trump’s outreach to Duterte could echo Obama’s election pledge to try to talk to adversaries, although Trump has denounced Obama’s main claims to success in that effort — openings to Iran and Cuba.

Obama presided over a reversal of the U.S. relationship with the Philippines and its new leader. Duterte’s denunciations of the longtime alliance between the two nations and personal insults of Obama prompted the president to cancel a planned meeting with Duterte in China in September.

Duterte has said U.S. troops should leave his country within two years. He also cozied up to Chinese President Xi Jinping, alarming the Obama administration, which had backed the Philippines’ challenge at an international tribunal last summer over China’s maritime claims in waters used by Filipino fishermen. The tribunal ruled against China, but Duterte has signaled a willingness to negotiate a deal with Beijing that could allow the Chinese navy to remain in control of the region.

Carol Morello, John Wagner, David Nakamura, Philip Rucker, William Wan and Mark Berman in Washington and Emily Rauhala in Beijing contributed to this report.

WikiLeaks releases more than half a million US diplomatic cables from the momentous year of 1979

November 28 2016

by Julian Assange

Wikileaks

Today, 28 November 2016, marking the six-year anniversary of “Cablegate”, WikiLeaks expands its Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD) with more than half a million (531,525) diplomatic cables from 1979.

If any year could be said to be the “year zero” of our modern era, 1979 is it.

In the Middle East, the Iranian revolution, the Saudi Islamic uprising and the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords led not only to the present regional power dynamic but decisively changed the relationship between oil, militant Islam and the world.

The uprising at Mecca permanently shifted Saudi Arabia towards Wahhabism, leading to the transnational spread of Islamic fundamentalism and the US-Saudi destabilisation of Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden would leave his native Saudi Arabia for Pakistan to support the Afghan Mujahideen.

The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR would see Saudi Arabia and the CIA push billions of dollars to Mujahideen fighters as part of Operation Cyclone, fomenting the rise of al-Qaeda and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

The 1979 current of Islamification spread to Pakistan where the US embassy was burned to the ground and Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed.

The Iranian hostage crisis would go on to fatally undermine Jimmy Carter’s presidency and see the election of Ronald Reagan.

Saddam Hussein? Took power in 1979.

The rise of al-Qaeda eventually bore the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, enabling the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and over a decade of war, leaving, at its end, the ideological, financial and geographic basis for ISIS.

The Iranian revolution and Saddam Hussein’s rise to power and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War would connect with the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua to produce the Iran-Contra affair and the indictment of 12 US administration officials including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

Elsewhere, Thatcher won in the UK, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Idi Amin fled Uganda and the ANC made the decision to militarily resist Apartheid.

In the United States, the Three Mile Island nuclear incident led to a turning away from the construction and development of new nuclear reactors, increasing the reliance on oil and coal for decades.

While the 1979 SALT II agreements made some progress in reducing the risk of nuclear war, nuclear preparations and testing were stepped up elsewhere. The US decided to place Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe and a South African/Israeli nuclear test was detected by US early warning satellites.

China officially came in from the cold and Deng Xiaoping visited the United States in a defining strategic re-orientation by both states.

In 1979 it seemed as if the blood would never stop. Dozens of countries saw assassinations, coups, revolts, bombings, political kidnappings and wars of liberation.

In the extremes and contestations of the Cold War, 1979 saw some grim culture to go with the times: ACDC produced “Highway to Hell”, Francis Ford Coppola gave us Apocalypse Now, while for Pink Floyd it was just “Another Brick in the Wall”.

The Carter Cables III bring WikiLeaks’ total published US diplomatic cable collection to 3.3 million documents.

What follows are some example areas of events from 1979 covered in the new documents.

January

1 US and China resume diplomatic relations

7 Pol Pot deposed following Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia

16 Shah flees Iran

28 China’s leader Deng Xiaoping visits US

February

1 Khomeni returns to Iran

3 Khomeni creates Council of Islamic Revolution

10 Iranian Revolution

17 China invades northern Vietnam

18 Snow in the Sahara

25 Rhodesia bombs Angola ZIPRA camps in Operation Vanity

March

13 Coup in Grenada

15 Herat uprising in Afghanistan

26 Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin sign Egypt-Israel peace treaty

28 Three Mile Island nuclear incident

30 British Conservative MP Airey Neave assassinated with car bomb

April

1 Iran overthrows Shah officially: Iran becomes the Islamic Republic through national referendum

2 Anthrax epidemic in Russia following biological weapons plant accident

4 Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed

11 Tanzanian invasion of Uganda; revolt against Idi Amin; fall of Kampala

17 IRA bombing kills four Ulster Constabulary at Bessbrook, Northern Ireland

May

1 Greenland granted partial autonomy from Denmark

4 Margaret Thatcher elected UK Prime Minister

25 American Airlines flight 191 explodes near Chicago

June

4 Canada’s Pierre Trudeau defeated; Coup in Ghana

18 Carter and Brezhnev sign Salt II arms treaty

25 Baader-Meinhof assassination attempt in Belgium of NATO Supreme Allied Commander

July

16 Saddam Hussein takes power in Iraq

21 Sandinistas defeat Samoza in Nicaragua

28 Indian PM Charan Singh elected

August

3 Equatorial Guinea coup

5 Polisario Front signs peace agreement with Mauritania

11 Morocco annexes Western Sahara territory previously controlled by Mauritania

23 South Africa bombs ZIPRA camps in Zambia in Operation Motel

27 Eighteen UK soldiers killed by IRA at Warrenpoint in County Down, Northern Ireland

September

3-9 Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement

14 USColombia extradition treaty negotiated, opposed by Pablo Escobar cartel

20 Bokassa overthrown in Central African Republic via France’s Operation Barracuda

22 South African and Israeli nuclear test detected by US Vela satellite in southern Atlantic Ocean

29 President Nguema of Equatorial Guinea executed

October

1 First democratic elections in Nigeria; the birth of the second republic

15 Coup in El Salvador

16 French town of Nice hit by tsunami

26 President of South Korea Park Chung-hee assassinated

November

4 Iranian hostage crisis begins; 3,000 Iranian students raid US embassy, 66 hostages taken

14 Carter issues Executive Order 12170 freezing all Iranian assets

15 Anthony Blunt outed as the “Fourth Man” in Cambridge spy ring

20 Hajj hostage crisis in Saudi Arabia

21 US embassy in Islamabad set afire after false reports from Khomeni that US occupied Mecca

December

11 Three of the ANC’s “Pretoria Six” escape from Pretoria Central Prison (Moumbaris, Jenkin and Lee)

12 Decision to locate US Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe

12 South Korea military coup

21 Lancaster House agreement signed, leading to the creation of Zimbabwe and the election of Mugabe

24 USSR invasion of Afghanistan

 

Search the Carter Cables III here.