Category: Middle East,

The Last Diplomat – WSJ

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Media and Culture,, Middle East,Leave a comment

As Robin Raphel worked for the State Department in Pakistan, her brand of traditional diplomacy ran into the new realities of covert surveillance. The collision turned her life upside down.

…Added together, the interviews undercut the notion that Raphel was working on behalf of Pakistan. Two senior law enforcement officials who were involved in the case said the bureau had misconstrued her conversations with Lodhi and others, and incorrectly identified her as a spy. The bureau had not fully understood Raphel’s role within the State Department and her bosses’ expectations of her. The critical distinction, many officials said, was in how differently the FBI and the State Department operate.

…In the meantime, the FBI had ignited a wider debate about how the State Department handles secrets. In 2016, several diplomats who worked closely with Raphel were questioned by the FBI for sending vaguely worded emails related to U.S. drone strikes that were found on Hillary Clinton ’s private email server when she was secretary of state. Some of Raphel’s emails were included in the trove that was reviewed by the FBI during their now-closed investigation.

In July, FBI Director James Comey decried the “security culture” within the State Department as “generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.”

State Department officials, in turn, said it was the FBI probe that damaged national security.

…To law enforcement and intelligence officials, the loss of her government job was justified by the discovery of the documents in her house and by the signals intelligence that showed her allegedly discussing topics that the FBI considered off limits, this official said.

Raphel’s lawyer, Amy Jeffress, called it “deeply disturbing’’ that law enforcement officials “continue to make anonymous and self-serving allegations about her conduct,’’ adding that “there was no evidence she ever provided classified information to anyone without authority.’’

…State Department officials …think the FBI went off half-cocked and boxed them in by overstating the facts of the case.

…State Department officials briefed on the investigation …suspect the FBI agents wrongly assumed the information Raphel was exchanging with Lodhi and others came from classified intelligence reports, rather than from her own conversations with her contacts, according to officials.

It was a mistake, they said, to assume U.S. spy agencies had a monopoly on information in a place like Pakistan, where “secret” U.S. efforts were openly discussed in parliament, at dinner parties and in the press.

Source: The Last Diplomat – WSJ

US law enforcement is so incompetent that they are actually evil.

…And the intelligence community in its new form is just fucking stupid.

Hundreds flee homes in occupied West Bank as wildfires continue 

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Wildfires near Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank have forced hundreds to flee their homes, after mass evacuations in Israel and more than a dozen arrests.

Israeli and Palestinian firefighters, helped by foreign aircraft, have been battling dozens of bush blazes fed by drought and high winds that have seen tens of thousands of people evacuated.

About 1,000 residents had to leave the Halamish settlement near Ramallah as 45 homes were damaged or destroyed by fire, a police spokeswoman said on Saturday. Blazes were also reported near the West Bank settlements of Dolev, Alfei Menashe and Karnei Shomron, although there were no evacuations there.

Hundreds flee homes in occupied West Bank as wildfires continue | World news | The Guardian

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Arab-Kurd tensions simmer in shadow of Mosul campaign

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Tensions between KRG and Baghdad could fuel a proxy war between regional powers, analysts warn.

…The Kurdistan Regional Government has changed course, declaring its commitment to Baghdad to retreat from territory that Kurdish forces have taken from ISIL.

On November 16, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, said in a press conference that his soldiers would not retreat from the land “liberated with their blood” from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant group, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

“There will be no negotiations about the territories liberated by Peshmerga before the Mosul offensive,” Barzani declared. “This is a new chapter. ISIS is on the path to defeat. Peshmerga shed their blood to free Kurdistan’s land and end the suffering of our people.”

But the Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, later retracted Barazani remarks, saying that his comments, originally made in Kurdish, were taken out of context and “mistranslated”.

Nevertheless, Barzani’s comments revived long-standing fears among many Iraqis that the country’s Kurds are using the Mosul battle to seize land to incorporate into a future independent state.

Arab-Kurd tensions simmer in shadow of Mosul campaign – News from Al Jazeera

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Shiite and Kurdish forces to coordinate west of Mosul, reports

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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Shiite and Kurdish forces have reportedly reached an agreement on mutual movements in future operations against ISIS in the Tal Afar and Shingal area though Sunni civilians fear sectarian violence from the Hashd al-Shaabi.  

The move comes as Hadi Amiri, leader of the paramilitary, declared the Mosul-Tal Afar road cut as his forces took control of a portion of the route on Wednesday and linked up with Kurdish Peshmerga forces based in the Yezidi town of Shingal. 

Amiri came to Shingal “in order to coordinate with us,” Reuters quoted Mahma Xelil, the mayor of Shingal, as saying. 

Thousands of civilians, mostly Sunnis, have fled the ISIS-held Sunni Turkmen town of Tal Afar west of Mosul as Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary forces continue to close in on the town .

Civilians are fleeing Tal Afar in large numbers as they “fear Hashd al-Shaabi will take revenge on them” for alleged links to ISIS, a former Iraqi MP, Nabil Harbo, told Rudaw.

Shiite and Kurdish forces to coordinate west of Mosul, reports

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Pakistan Names New Military Leader 

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Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan on Saturday chose Lt. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, a military commander with a solid soldierly reputation and a firm belief in civilian supremacy, to lead the country’s powerful army.

General Bajwa replaces Gen. Raheel Sharif, an immensely popular commander in Pakistan for his successes against Taliban militants.

Pakistan Names New Military Leader – The New York Times

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Israel’s ‘imminent’ village demolition leaves 700 Bedouin residents in limbo 

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The planned demolition comes following a 13-year legal battle in which the Israeli Supreme Court authorized the razing of the village to build the Jewish town of “Hiran” in its place in 2015.

Despite acknowledging the villagers are not there illegally, as claimed by Israeli authorities, but had been moved to Umm al-Hiran by the state itself, the Supreme Court ruled that because the village is on state land, the state can do with it what it likes.

Israel’s ‘imminent’ village demolition leaves 700 Bedouin residents in limbo (VIDEOS, PHOTOS) — RT News

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