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by Dana Gabriel, BYOL

Through a series of bilateral meetings, U.S. and Canadian officials are busy working out the details of the perimeter security action plan. This includes a recent joint crime forum that dealt with border and law enforcement issues. These various discussions are part of the implementation process which when finished would bring about the complete transformation of the northern border and another step closer in the creation of a fully integrated North American security perimeter.

In early March, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano met with Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews as part of the Cross-Border Crime Forum. On the agenda was, “transnational crime issues such as organized crime, counter-terrorism, smuggling, economic crime and other emerging cross-border threats.” Both countries also signed a memorandum of understanding on the Dissemination and Exchange of Informationto combat human smuggling and trafficking. The meetings were used as an opportunity to further advance U.S.-Canada cooperation in areas of law enforcement, criminal justice and intelligence. This ties in with my previous article which detailedthe Obama administration’s new counter-narcotics strategy for the northern border that includes closer collaboration with Canada in the war on drugs. Much of the joint crime forum discussions focused around the progress being made on thePerimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan, announced in December 2011. 

A readout of Attorney General Holder and Secretary Napolitano’s visit to Ottawa explained that talks with their Canadian counterparts centered largely around promoting the perimeter security agreement. It highlighted, “efforts to develop the next-generation of integrated cross-border law enforcement operations, and improve information sharing practices.” Attorney General Holder stated, “Our productive discussions today at the Cross Border Crime Forum go a long way toward advancing a key pillar of the Beyond the Border initiative that President Obama and Prime Minister Harper announced last year: integrated law enforcement that adds value to our relationship by leveraging shared resources, improving information sharing and increasing coordination of efforts.” Secretary Napolitano emphasized that, “We will continue to work with Canada to further enhance information sharing and integrate our cross border law enforcement operations, strengthening the national and economic security of both our nations.” As part of the perimeter security deal, both countries are moving ahead with harmonizing intelligence sharing capabilities.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently hosted stakeholder meetings regarding programs and initiatives found in the Beyond the Border action plan. CBP Acting Deputy Commissioner Thomas Winkowski confirmed that the, “agreement forged by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper is about strengthening and expediting trade and travel between our countries.” He went on to say, “It’s about finding common-sense solutions to our most complicated problems. And it’s about extending national security for both of our nations, well away from the border.” CBSA President Luc Portelance acknowledged, “As these joint meetings with stakeholders indicate, we are committed to working with our U.S. partners to bring about greater consistency, efficiency and predictability in the management of our shared border.” The perimeter security deal will mean deeper integration between both border agencies. Some have warned that it might force Canada to harmonize its immigration and refugee policies with U.S. practices. Over a period of time, this could lead to the creation of a binational institution that would manage the northern border.

Steven Chase of the Globe and Mail reported that during recent border security discussions, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary of International Affairs, Alan Bersin commented on how, “he believes the time will come when Canada and the United States have a joint organization to handle border controls – what he described as a NORAD border.” Bersin is quoted as saying, “Why should we have separate admissibility processes … if, in fact, North American security would suggest that a Canadian and a U.S. immigrations and customs official ought to be working together to clear people in Frankfurt who are coming into Canada, to clear them such that they would be able then to come seamlessly across (the joint border into) the United States.” An article by Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute also included another top level Homeland Security official using the same NORAD analogy to describe future joint border controls. David Heyman explained that this, “could be a model for how the two countries might handle the protection of citizens against 21st-century threats from terrorism, pandemics, cyberattacks, and organized crime.”

On February 16, the Conservative government introduced theProtecting Canada’s Immigration System Act. The legislation proposed, “reforms to the asylum system to make it faster and fairer, measures to address human smuggling, and the authority to make it mandatory to provide biometric data.” The new changes would put Canada in line with the U.S. and other international partners. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney praised the use of biometrics as an, “important new tool to help protect the safety and security of Canadians by reducing identity fraud and identity theft.” He added, it “will improve our ability to keep violent criminals and those who pose a threat to Canada out. In short, biometrics will strengthen the integrity of Canada’s immigration system while helping facilitate legitimate travel.” Under the section about sharing relevant information to improve immigration and border determinations, the U.S.-Canada action plan calls for implementing, “systematic and automated biographic information-sharing capability by 2013 and biometric information-sharing capability by 2014.” There are fears that a joint biometric identification system would be used to track Canadians and Americans alike.

U.S.-Canada bilateral dialogue on strategic issues concerning the Beyond the Border deal continues as the action plan lays out deadlines where initiatives will be incrementally implemented over the next several years. The proposed changes promise to bring about a radical transformation of the northern border. This will further bring Canadian security practices in line with American ones and under the reach of the Department of Homeland Security.

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by Tony Cartalucci, BLN

The corporate media has recently portrayed a narrative where we see the West apparently warning Israel against a unilateral attack on Iran. It appears that Israel is intent on “going it alone” despite the wishes of its “more rational” Western sponsors. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported in their article, “U.S., Israel Pull Closer on Iran,” that, “Israeli officials, meanwhile, said that President Barack Obama’s public and private acknowledgment of the Jewish state’s sovereign right to defend itself was a crucial gain as the two countries seek to deter Tehran,” in regards to Iran’s alleged nuclear program.

To the average reader, it would seem that both the US and Israel agree that Iran is an imminent threat against which Israel and the United States simply have differing views on how to counter. In reality, this is a premeditated, deceitful act, already clearly articulated since 2009 in a signed document, on how both nations plan on duping the world into accepting an unnecessary war.

Which Path to Persia? .pdf
….

The document, “Which Path to Persia?” published by the corporate-funded Brookings Institute, and signed by Kenneth Pollack, Daniel Byman, Martin Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael O’Hanlon, and Bruce Riedel, who often make their way onto corporate-media networks as “experts,” clearly states that Iran is neither reckless nor likely to deploy nuclear weapons in any way but as a deterrence to Western-led military intervention. The fear is not of waking up one day to a nuclear holocaust with Israel “wiped off the map,” but rather waking up one day and realizing the US and Israel no longer hold uncontested hegemony across the Middle East.

On page 24 of the Brookings Institute report, it is stated, “most of Iran’s foreign policy decisionmaking since the fall of the Shah could probably be characterized as “aggressive but not reckless,”” before adding the baseless caveat, “but Washington cannot categorically rule out the possibility that there are truly insane or ideologically possessed Iranian leaders who would attempt far worse if they were ever in a position to do so.” Such a comment could be just as easily said about US leadership, where Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Congressman Steve Buyer of Indiana at one point suggested the use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan against cave-dwelling militants using 30 year-old Soviet weapons.

Other US think-tanks, including the RAND Corporation , in assessing the threat of a nuclear Iran, noted that Iran has had chemical weapons in its inventory for decades, andother reports from RAND describe the strict control elite military units exercise over these weapons, making it unlikely they would end up in the hands of “terrorists.” The fact that Iran’s extensive chemical weapon stockpile has yet to be disseminated into the hands of non-state actors, along with the fact that these same elite units would in turn handle any Iranian nuclear weapons, lends further evidence to the conclusion that Iran poses a risk only to US-Israeli hegemony, not their national security.

The Brookings report would then go on to admit it was the intention of US-Israeli policy toward Iran to provoke a war they knew Iran would neither want, nor benefit from. The goal was to create such a provocation without the world recognizing it was indeed the West triggering hostilities:

“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) ”

-Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, pages 84-85.

The same report would go on to say:

“In a similar vein, any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it. The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.”

-Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, page 52.

Clearly those in the West intent on striking Iran realize both the difficulty of obtaining a plausible justification, and the utter lack of support they have globally to carry out an attack even if they manage to find a suitable pretext. Brookings would continue throughout their report enumerating methods of provoking Iran, including conspiring to fund opposition groups to overthrow the Iranian government, crippling Iran’s economy, and funding US State Department-listed terrorist organizations to carry deadly attacks within Iran itself. Despite these overt acts of war, and even considering an option to unilaterally conduct limited airstrikes against Iranian targets, Brookings noted there was still the strong possibility Iran would not allow itself to be sufficiently provoked:

“It would not be inevitable that Iran would lash out violently in response to an American air campaign, but no American president should blithely assume that it would not.”

The report continues:

“However, because many Iranian leaders would likely be looking to emerge from the fighting in as advantageous a strategic position as possible, and because they would likely calculate that playing the victim would be their best route to that goal, they might well refrain from such retaliatory missile attacks.”

-Brookings Institution’s 2009 “Which Path to Persia?” report, page 95.

Finally, the Brookings report clearly states another option in dealing with Iran is to have Israel carry out what appears to be a “unilateral attack,” but would require sufficient preparations by both nations to make it appear as if there were some sort of political bifurcation between Tel Aviv and the West in the lead up to such an operation:

“An Israeli air campaign against Iran would have a number of very important differences from an American campaign. First, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has the problem of overflight transit from Israel to Iran. Israel has no aircraft carriers, so its planes must take off from Israeli air bases. It also does not possess long-range bombers like the B-1 or B-2, or huge fleets of refueling tankers, all of which means that unlike the United States, Israel cannot avoid flying through someone’s air space. The most direct route from Israel to Iran’s Natanz facility is roughly 1,750 kilometers across Jordan and Iraq. As the occupying power in Iraq, the United States is responsible for defending Iraqi airspace. “ Which Path to Persia?-page 105 (.pdf)

“From the American perspective, this negates the whole point of the option—distancing the United States from culpability—and it could jeopardize American efforts in Iraq, thus making it a possible nonstarter for Washington. Finally, Israeli violation of Jordanian airspace would likely create political problems for King Abdullah of Jordan, one of America’s (and Israel’s) closest Arab friends in the region. Thus it is exceedingly unlikely that the United States would allow Israel to overfly Iraq, and because of the problems it would create for Washington and Amman, it is unlikely that Israel would try to fly over Jordan.” Which Path to Perisa?-page 106 (.pdf)

“An Israeli attack on Iran would directly affect key American strategic interests. If Israel were to overfly iraq, both the Iranians and the vast majority of people around the world would see the strike as abetted, if not authorized, by the United States. Even if Israel were to use another route, many Iranians would still see the attack as American supported or even American orchestrated. After all, the aircraft in any strike would be American produced, supplied, and funded F-15s and F-16s, and much of the ordnance would be American made. In fact, $3 billion dollars in U.S. assistance annually sustains the IDF’s conventional superiority in the region.” Which Path to Persia-page 106 (.pdf)

The US withdrawal from Iraq is being done in tandem with NATO operations to destabilize Syria and in turn disrupt Hezbollah’s capacity to retaliate against Israel in the event of a strike on Iran – a concern also duly noted within the Brookings report.

“…the Israelis may want to hold off until they have a peace deal with Syria in hand (assuming that Jerusalem believes that one is within reach), which would help them mitigate blowback from Hizballah and potentially Hamas. Consequently, they might want Washington to push hard in mediating between Jerusalem and Damascus.” -page 109 (.pdf)

It is quite clear that eliminating Syria entirely as an obstacle has been instead attempted,and with NATO standing by and a continuous influx of foreign fighters being armed and sent across the border to mire Syrian forces in asymmetrical warfare, any coordinated retaliation against Israel by Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah has been at the very least blunted significantly.

John McCain, who chairs the US State Department-funded International Republican Institute, credited by the New York Times for fueling the “Arab Spring” unrest to begin with, is now calling for US airstrikes on Syria to speed this process up before Russia’s Vladimir Putin begins an expected process of rolling back Wall Street-London gains over the past year.

The recent charade played out by both Israel and the United States in regards with “what to do about Iran,” is merely premeditated playacting, carrying out the directives clearly laid out in the Brookings Institute report, which have been systematically carried out, verbatim, even as it was being published in 2009. There is no real bifurcation between the West and Israel, only an attempt to compartmentalize responsibility for an unwarranted, unjustified, and ultimately unpopular, criminal act of war that may end with millions maimed, killed, or otherwise affected.

We are witnessing an open conspiracy to commit vast crimes against humanity playing out before our eyes, and it is our daily capitulation, our daily sponsorship of the corporations and financier interests driving this abhorrent agenda that allows it to continue on in earnest. Simply “protesting” a war long since decided will not be enough. We must also strike at the very source of power behind Wall Street and London, and it can be done with an act as simple as exposing and boycotting the corporations and financier interests which constitute this murderous global menace.

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by Scott Morgan, StopTheDrugWar

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has a message for everyone who thinks the drug war is bad: you’re wrong, it’s awesome.

(Reuters) – Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano defended Washington’s drug war strategy on Monday despite calls by some Latin American leaders to consider decriminalizing narcotics.
…
“I would not agree with the premise that the drug war is a failure,” Napolitano said. “It is a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs.” [Reuters]

Okay, but what do these two sentences have to do with one another? Yes, we know the drug war is “a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs [and marijuana],” but I don’t understand what that has to do with whether or not it’s been a failure. This is like saying, “I would not agree with premise that asbestos is toxic. It is a material used to insulate buildings.”

So in a metaphorical sense, you could say that American drug policy is made of asbestos, and Janet Napolitano has been given the fun assignment of convincing a bunch of frustrated foreign leaders that the sickness and death presently surrounding them was caused by something other than the one thing that’s obviously causing it.

It’s a ridiculous situation that lends itself to some really ridiculous arguments, such as Napolitano preposterously comparing Mexican Drug Kingpin Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman to Osama Bin Laden:

“It took us 10 years to find (al Qaeda chief) Osama bin Laden and we found him, and you know what happened there,” Napolitano said.

Yeah, but the fact that these drug lords are as slippery as Osama f#$king Bin Laden ought not to inspire confidence. Seriously, I don’t even know what her point is supposed to be, because it’s gotta be pretty damn obvious to Latin American leaders that we don’t have enough SEAL teams to track down and kill every wannabe drug boss all over the globe. Their services, unlike Bin Laden’s, are actually popular with much of the American public.

Calls for legalization in Latin America are going to get louder the longer this idiocy continues, and it should surprise no one that the U.S. government’s latest attempts to suppress it are utterly and predictably devoid of substance as always.

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Last week, the president of Guatemala joined former and current presidents of Colombia and Mexico in expressing interest in considering the regional legalization of the drug trade. The U.S. State Department immediately expressed its disfavor, but the question is out in the open now. The issue of whether to legalize drugs — and thus reject the U.S. model of “war” against drugs — threatens to consume the next Summit of the Americas, an April meeting of Western Hemisphere Heads of State in Colombia.

It is easy to see why. The drug war has been a disaster for the Latin American countries fighting it, especially Mexico, and Central Americans’ suspicion that legalization could be less painful and costly is reasonable. Whether or not legalization would in fact be a good thing for Central America, the situation is desperate enough that they must at least consider their options.

Since Mexico declared its own war against drugs and drug cartels in 2006, over 50,000 civilians, police, journalists, judges, and soldiers have died. Several cartel kingpins have been arrested or killed, but organized crime is as potent as ever, and there’s no indication of a significant drop in the volume of narcotics flowing into the United States. And the Mexican state is suffering mightily for its effort. Despite years of training and hundreds of millions of dollars in police and military modernization and professionalization, there are still episodes like Tuesday’s jail break in Nuevo Laredo, where prison officials appear to have helped Zetas cartel gunmen kill 44 inmates — all members of a rival cartel — and help 30 Zetas escape. It’s depressing.

Read More…

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