US Agencies Point Finger at Top Russian Officials for Political Cyberattacks

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Cyber attacks against the Democratic National Committee were undertaken by Russian hackers working for top officials in the Russian government, American intelligence agencies said Friday.

“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” said the statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said.

The statement was vague about the reason for Russia’s cyber attacks.

“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” the statement said. “Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there.”

The joint statement said that despite success in embarrassing the DNC, hackers would be unable to compromise America’s election system.

The statement did note that several states have detected attempts to hack into their election systems, and that servers operated by a Russian company were connected to the attempts.

“However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government,” the statement said.

The statement also sought to assure voters of the integrity of the election system.

“This assessment is based on the decentralized nature of our election system in this country and the number of protections state and local election officials have in place. States ensure that voting machines are not connected to the Internet, and there are numerous checks and balances as well as extensive oversight at multiple levels built into our election process,” the statement said.

Putin has denied any connection to the DNC hack, which caused a political embarrassment by revealing the extent to which the DNC worked to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign at the expense of rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?’’ Putin said in early September. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.’’

“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” Putin said. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.” (For more from the author of “US Agencies Point Finger at Top Russian Officials for Political Cyberattacks” please click HERE)

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15 Years of Utter Failure in Afghanistan and the Political Class Still Doesn’t Get It

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It’s hard to conjure up a worse outcome for our investment in Afghanistan than the reality that confronts us today on the fifteenth anniversary of the war. With almost 2,400 dead Americans, 20,000 wounded, and $686 billion (as of 2014) expended towards building a Sharia government in Kabul (cost is exponentially higher when non-combat expenditures factored in), the Taliban now control more territory than they did prior to the 2001 invasion. Over 70% of the casualties have been on Obama’s watch, yet because a Democrat is in the White House, it’s as if the war and its quagmire never happened. Nor do Republicans care to talk about it and hold Obama accountable.

Further disquieting is that fact that this 800-pound gorilla in the room has almost never come up during the course of the presidential election — either in the Republicans primary or general election. Those who decline to observe the failures of Afghanistan are already showing signs of repeating the mistakes elsewhere.

In 2008, Obama won the presidency largely off the coattails of incessant media coverage of the war disasters, promising to pull out of Iraq and refocus attention on Afghanistan. Eight years later, we have nothing to show for it but daily Taliban gains, continued U.S. casualties, and increased levels of troops who are encumbered by restrictive rules of engagement with no defined mission to execute. We have long passed the point in which we must fish-or-cut-bait — ‘define victory or leave.’ Yet, instead of ordering the generals to prioritize a strategic end to this 15-year dumpster fire, Obama is making our generals draw up logistical plans for transgenderism in the service and burdening the already-haggard infantry and special operations units with the most insane ‘women in combat agenda’ imaginable.

To be clear, while Obama lost Afghanistan in the worst possible manner at the worst possible cost, and is still placing our special ops in an impossible morass to this day, the war was doomed to fail already during the Bush years. The original sin of Afghanistan was the same sin that we commit in every theater in the Middle East. Rather than defining the threat doctrine as Sharia-based Islam and the strategic interest as defending only our interests, we got sucked into untenable Islamic civil wars and nation-building for unstable enemy factions.

The enduring lesson of Afghanistan and Iraq, one which must now be heeded in Syria and Libya, is that even if the case for intervention in Islamic civil wars can be reasonably articulated — a tenuous assumption to begin with — there must be specific ground that we can hold for a specific entity that will serve our interests and hold the country together in a way that doesn’t completely erase our investment within a few years. In Afghanistan, we were never going to hold the southern Pashtun areas that were aligned with the Taliban. Sure, we could keep 200,000 troops there forever and let sleeping dogs lie, but at some point the civil war would break open again. The same principle applied to Iraq, with the perennial rubber-band action-reaction crisis between the Iranian-backed Shiites and the Salafist Sunnis. If there is no realistic play for our military to make, we need not, indeed must not, place them into a meat-grinder in a theater where all of the factions hate us.

Which brings us to Syria.

The international media is engaging in yellow journalism showing sensational pictures from the civil war in Aleppo, essentially goading America into further involving our military in the insufferable conflict. Even Republican leaders direct their criticism at Obama for not involving us enough in the civil war. They want more troops on the ground. But for what? To fight for whom? For which outcome? The same people who used disturbing images depicting the rule of terror from the Islamic State to declare a vacuous policy of “we must destroy ISIS” are now using the scene from Aleppo to demand that we destroy Assad and his Russian backers. Which one is it? How about we let Allah sort it out?

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of innocent people who get killed in any civil war, certainly Islamic civil wars. There is so much misery in this world and we pray for God’s salvation. But what is our military supposed to do? The political class in both parties would have you believe we could identify a group of Thomas Jefferson Democrats in the country, vanquish ISIS, vanquish all of the Al Qaeda affiliates and splinter groups, defeat Assad and the Russians … and then have those mythical characters hold the entire ungovernable array of Islamic tribes together. Obama has already abused our special operators and resources by having them fund and train Al Qaeda splinter groups that are calling for the beheading of those troops already there!

Calling on Obama to “do more” will solve nothing but bring the misery of Islamic civil wars to our brave soldiers. It is our people and their safety who must reflect our first priority. We should not work against Russia nor should we work with them. In fact, there is nothing worse I’d wish upon the Russians than the commitment to the dumpster fire they have just forged. They will never be able to place that genie back in the bottle. Let them have another Afghanistan on their hands, not on ours.

This is not to say we shouldn’t stay engaged and don’t have strong plays we can make in the region. We should be supporting Egyptian President el-Sisi in his fight not only against ISIS, but the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia supremacism. We should support the duly-elected Libyan House of Representatives, which appointed Khalifa Haftar commander of the Libyan army. Haftar successfully took back much of eastern Libya from the radical Islamists and fought the various terrorist factions, including those associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Haftar was so feared by the Islamists that Ansar al Sharia, the group behind the Benghazi attack, accused Haftar of launching “a war against the religion and Islam backed by the West and their Arab allies.”

Unfortunately, Obama has already repeated the same mistakes in Libya, choosing to back the Faiez Serraj-led Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. The GNA has relied on Islamist militias affiliated with Ansar al Sharia to control territory and is now collapsing under its own weight. Thus, once again, Obama has expended ground troops and air power on behalf of a failed Islamist “rebel” government.

While Obama chooses to side with all of our enemies in any given theater, the Republican foreign policy establishment thinks we should invest our time and treasure on behalf of some of our enemies to defeat other enemies. It’s time for a new strategy of telegraphing the message to players in the Middle East that if you fight Islamic supremacism — the threat doctrine of our enemy — we will be with you. If not, let Allah sort it out.

Fifteen years into the Afghanistan failure, it is irresponsible to continue sacrificing our troops there for no reason. Conservatives must chart a new course on foreign policy, grounded in the reality of the threat we face and divorced from the willful blindness of the past two administrations. At the very least, we must prevent the political leadership from creating a new Afghanistan. Our country can’t afford another fifteen years. (For more from the author of “15 Years of Utter Failure in Afghanistan and the Political Class Still Doesn’t Get It” please click HERE)

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ISIS in Huge Trouble at Site of ‘Apocalyptic Battle’ After Blitz by American-Syrian Alliance

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Dabiq should have been the preordained site of an apocalyptic battle between a Muslim army and a Christian legion,, according to Islamic mythology.

That battle would be the harbinger of a new world order in which Islam will be the only religion.

Dabiq is of such great significance to Islamic State that it named its English-language online magazine after the town in northern Syria and believes the battle will bring the end of the world.

This is based on what the Prophet Mohammad foretold 1,400 years ago.

“The last hour will not come” until an Islamic army will defeat the “Romans” there, the Prophet said about Dabiq.

“The spark has been lit in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify — by Allah’s permission — until it burns the Crusader armies in Dabiq,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the liquidated founder of ISIS was quoted as saying by Dabiq Magazine last year.

In Islamic State’s version of this prophecy, the U.S.-led coalition is playing the role of the Romans while ISIS will represent the Muslim army.

However, despite Islamic State’s frantic preparations for the battle — the jihadist organization sent hundreds of its best fighters to Dabiq recently — the town is close to collapse and could spell the end of ISIS in Syria, British media reported on Wednesday.

The U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army supported by 300 U.S. Special Forces and coalition warplanes is making rapid gains on the battlefield and the town could even fall within hours, according to the British news site Express.

Mostafa Sejari, a commander of the Free Syrian Army, however, warned he expected the battle for Dabiq would be “the fiercest ever” but nevertheless expected that FSA control over the city was a matter of time.

In Islamic State’s version of this prophecy, the U.S.-led coalition is playing the role of the Romans while ISIS will represent the Muslim army.

“By controlling Dabiq, we break the myth of Daesh and open a road to reach Marea (in Turkey). Controlling Dabiq is just a matter of time, God willing,” Sejari told Express while using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The progress of the American-Syria alliance is hindered by hundreds of mines that have been planted by ISIS ahead of the battle and the expectation is that the jihadist group will use many suicide bombers to block the entrance to Dabiq.

The Obama administration believes the fall of Dabiq will deliver a devastating blow to the morale of Islamic State’s fighters and would make the recapture of more important cities such as Raqqa (ISIS’ capital in Syria) and Mosul (the second-largest city in Iraq) easier.

But the fall of Dabiq will also harm ISIS’ abilities to recruit new fighters, Kyle Orton, a Middle East analyst and research fellow with the Henry Jackson Society, told Express.

“The coming loss of the town — probably in the next fortnight — will be a blow to ISIS’s ability to recruit, and the Turkish intervention, which has closed the border and driven a wedge between the opposition and al-Qaeda by giving the rebels a realistic alternative, jihadist recruitment in general, seems set to suffer in Syria,” Orton said.

The situation in the self-declared Caliphate has become so difficult that it has caused ISIS to declare the state of emergency.

The U.K. Daily Star reported Tuesday that ISIS leaders who gathered for a crisis meeting in the Iraqi town of Mutaibija ”turned on each other with weapons after arguments broke out.”

A commander of the Shiite al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia told the British paper that “the meeting turned into a bloody massacre after exacerbated disputes between the ISIS leaders that led them to use weapons against each other.”

The Shiite rebel commander added that spies had told him that there are growing disputes among Islamic State leaders. (For more from the author of “ISIS in Huge Trouble at Site of ‘Apocalyptic Battle’ After Blitz by American-Syrian Alliance” please click HERE)

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Russia’s Information Warfare Continues

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Speculation about Russian interference in the upcoming U.S. presidential election is flowing fast in the U.S. media.

Russia was widely believed to be responsible for embarrassing email hacks at the Democratic National Convention. Speculation abounds in the media that the Russian government might try to throw the U.S. election this way or that with a boldness not even seen during Soviet days.

Speculation is all we have for now, yet, the Russian propagandists may feel they have accomplished quite enough. Sowing confusion in the West and presenting Russia as an innocent victim of U.S. political infighting are key elements in Russia’s information warfare.

On the international front, Russia is no less active. Having honed disinformation skills in the conflict with Ukraine, Russian media are now focused on Syria.

In a through-the-looking-glass maneuver, Russia has accused the United States of bombing Syrian government troops and aiding the Islamic State, while Russia itself that is bombed Syrian civilian targets, including a hospital. This leaves U.S. officials, like Secretary of State John Kerry and United Nations Ambassador Samantha Powers, constantly playing defense.

There is no sign of Russia’s information campaign abating. The campaign has successfully restored Russia as a global player, muscling in where the United States and Europe have faltered.

A recent paper published by Chatham House titled “Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West,” describes Russia as engaging in hybrid warfare, comprised of new generations of kinetic weaponry combined with a revamped information warfare strategy.

The key to understanding Russians’ strategy, writes author Keir Giles, a research fellow at Chatham House, is the consistency of Russian strategy over time. In both its use of military force and its use of disinformation, the Kremlin reveals reliance on the past as well as the ability to adapt to new tools, like the internet. And yet for all our experience in dealing with Russian propaganda in the past, we continue to be challenged by it in the present.

Two key recommendations of the report stand out:

“Russia continues to present itself as being under approaching threat from the West, and is mobilizing to address that threat. Russia’s security initiatives, even if it views or presents them as defensive measures, are likely to have severe consequences for its neighbors. Russia’s growing confidence in pursuing its objectives will make it even harder for the West to protect itself against Russian assertiveness, without the implementation of measures to resist Russian information warfare, and without the availability of significant military force to act as an immediate and present deterrent in the front-line states.”

“For Western governments and leaders, an essential first step towards more successful management of the relationship with Moscow would be to recognize that the West’s values and strategic interests and those of Russia are fundamentally incompatible.”

The underlying gap in values and goals between the United States and Russia is far too frequently underestimated by those in power in Washington. The last to fully understand it was President Ronald Reagan, who incidentally also had the best information strategy in recent history. (For more from the author of “Russia’s Information Warfare Continues” please click HERE)

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World Trade Projected to Grow at Lowest Rate Since 2009

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The World Trade Organization announced this week that it expects global trade to grow much slower than originally projected.

WTO analysts, who projected global trade would grow by 2.8 percent this year, now expect it to grow by 1.7 percent, the lowest rate since 2009.

Trade growth rates in North America contributed to the WTO’s revised projection. Analysts now expect the region’s imports to grow by 1.9 percentage points, a significant drop from the 6.5 percent growth rate in 2015.

WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo said this slow growth:

should serve as a wake-up call. It is particularly concerning in the context of growing anti-globalization sentiment. We need to make sure that this does not translate into misguided policies that could make the situation much worse, not only from the perspective of trade but also for job creation and economic growth and development which are so closely linked to an open trading system.

The benefits of trade are made clear each year in The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, echoing the World Trade Organization’s sentiments. Countries with greater trade freedom have higher per capita incomes and lower rates of poverty, and do a better job at protecting the environment.

The United States has an average tariff rate of 1.5 percent and currently is ranked 40th in the world for trade freedom. But the federal government still protects many sectors.

Special interest tariffs and nontariff barriers for domestic sugar producers, truck manufacturers, steelmakers, and footwear producers, just to name a few, hinder Americans’ freedom to trade. They are really just another tax on American consumers—just one more thing that makes it harder for average families to get by.

The United States should reject protectionism and embrace the principles of free trade, which expand economic opportunity for all Americans. (For more from the author of “World Trade Projected to Grow at Lowest Rate Since 2009” please click HERE)

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China’s Economy Is Headed for a Hard Landing

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The world’s second-largest economy is going to make a hard landing one day, China watchers have speculated for several years. The fact is, though, the Middle Kingdom already is well on its way.

Let’s first examine the “official” top-line numbers. In 2007, a year before the great global crisis, China’s real gross domestic product expanded at a 14.2 percent clip. Last year, it grew at 6.9 percent, representing a 50 percent decline.

The official GDP figures are increasingly suspect, however. China often releases its quarterly figures just two weeks after the end of the quarter.

This is remarkable, given a nation of 1.35 billion and the fact that the government doesn’t make any revisions. Growth estimates “conveniently” fall within Beijing’s target range.

Most importantly, credit growth continues to outpace real GDP growth by significant margins. In other words, China’s short-term growth is being pumped up by even more borrowing.

China’s aggregate debt (mostly corporate and government) is approximately 300 percent of GDP, a figure that surpasses that of the United States. Much of this debt is short term in nature and being used to roll over existing debt.

The corporate sector has experienced particular stress, with debt recently soaring as China has continued to prop up its state-owned enterprises. The percent of income used by China’s companies to service their debts has doubled since the 2008 global crisis.

The Bank for International Settlements, a collection of the world’s central banks, released data last week illustrating the explosion of Chinese debt. The bank stated that China’s credit-to-GDP gap stood at 30 percent, the highest of any country since it began collecting data in 1995.

Moreover, the current official GDP figures appear overstated, although the economy isn’t contracting given credit infusions. Growth in both industrial output and retail sales has slowed despite the credit stimulus.

Private investment has grown by only 2.1 percent year-to-date. It accounts for 60 percent of total domestic asset investment, the largest source of growth in the Chinese economy.

The biggest sign of the slowdown in China’s domestic growth: imports, which fell 12.5 percent in July. This definitively shows that domestic spending is shrinking quickly.

So how fast is the Chinese economy actually growing? It’s difficult to say, given the lack of transparency in the statistics. But it appears likely that growth is in the neighborhood of 4.5 to 5.5 percent.

Not quite a “hard landing” yet, but the makings of one seem well on the way. (For more from the author of “China’s Economy Is Headed for a Hard Landing” please click HERE)

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Report Confirms Russia’s Responsibility for Shooting Down Malaysian Airliner

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In interim findings, a team of investigators says Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from an area controlled by Russian-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine.

The team, comprised of investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, is conducting a criminal investigation into the downing of MH17 on July 17, 2014, which killed all 298 people on board.

The report says “the investigation also shows that the BUK-TELAR [surface-to-air missile system] was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after having shot down flight MH-17, was taken back to the Russian Federation.”

The report confirmed what has been known for some time. The day after the downing of the airliner, President Barack Obama said evidence indicated “the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from an area that is controlled by Russian-backed separatists inside of Ukraine.”

Obama also said Russia had supplied weapons, including anti-aircraft weapons, to Russian-backed forces in Ukraine. In October 2015, a report from the Dutch Safety Board concluded the plane was brought down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile.

The tragic loss of nearly 300 innocent lives over the skies of Ukraine over two years ago is emblematic of the cavalier and naked aggression Russia has undertaken against Ukraine.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2014, annexed Crimea a few weeks later, and continues to fight a war in the Donbas region against Ukrainian government forces. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cost more than 9,600 lives and resulted in over 22,000 injuries since April 2014.

The shooting down of the civilian airliner in 2014 threatened to turn worldwide public opinion further against Russia. As a result, Russian propaganda conjured up a flurry of alternative absurd conspiracy theories mostly blaming Ukraine for the shoot-down.

Russia’s disinformation campaign and trolls have targeted investigators looking into MH17, and Russia is also believed to be behind a 2015 cyberattack of the Dutch Safety Board.

The interim report findings should serve as a reminder to Americans that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not a friend that can be bargained with, rather it is a brutal regime that has brought war back to Europe, a war which continues to this day and has cost thousands of innocent lives.

Furthermore, Russia’s reaction to the shooting down of MH17 and subsequent investigations into the tragedy are clear examples of how Russia uses propaganda, cyberattacks, and obfuscation to advance its narrative of events, even when irrefutable evidence exists to prove Russian disinformation incorrect.

Whoever takes over the White House in 2017 will face an aggressive, revanchist Russia that is a threat to the United States and our allies. No amount of wishful thinking can obscure this fact.

The U.S. must approach relations with Russia from a position of strength, reassure our allies, and implement a comprehensive strategy for dealing with Russia as it currently is. The U.S. should also continue to support Ukraine as it defends itself and continues to institute necessary political and economic reforms.

MH17 was a tragic incident brought about by Russia. American leaders must not view Putin and his regime through rose-colored glasses.

Let us hope that these latest findings help clarify any misunderstandings about the nature of the Russian regime and the deadly consequences of its actions. (For more from the author of “Report Confirms Russia’s Responsibility for Shooting Down Malaysian Airliner” please click HERE)

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Obama Likely to Face Opposition After Nominating Cuban Ambassador

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President Obama nominated Jeffrey DeLaurentis Tuesday to serve as the first U.S. ambassador to Cuba in more than 50 years.

DeLaurentis has already been serving as the senior U.S. diplomat in Havana while Obama worked on restoring relations with the Communist island. Technically, he already has the rank of ambassador, but the post must still be confirmed by the Senate.

“Jeff’s leadership has been vital throughout the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, and the appointment of an ambassador is a common sense step forward toward a more normal and productive relationship between our two countries,” Obama said. “There is no public servant better suited to improve our ability to engage the Cuban people and advance U.S. interests in Cuba than Jeff.”

The decision will undoubtably face strong opposition from a Republican-controlled Senate.

Cuban-American Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas have been very vocal in their criticism of opening relations with Cuba, arguing the country and its leader have done nothing to earn American engagement.

Both senators have stated they would block any ambassador appointed by Obama.

“A U.S. ambassador is not going to influence the Cuban government, which is a dictatorial, closed regime,” Rubio said during a phone interview with Politico in July.

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told Yahoo News that he doesn’t believe having an ambassador should be a “reward” that America doles out to someone.

“We have such a basic difference on that,” Rhodes added. “To us, the concept that it’s a reward for a country to have an ambassador makes no sense. On the contrary, having an ambassador gives you a higher profile, a higher-ranked advocate for what America cares about, whether that’s bilateral cooperation or whether that’s speaking out for human rights.”

Rhodes did admit that “it will be hard” to get DeLaurentis confirmed. There is a good possibility the Senate won’t even consider his nomination before Obama leaves office in January.

The president also faces a longstanding tradition which allows an individual senator to anonymously impose a delay, and potentially end, the confirmation process.

“We have no illusions,” Rhodes said. “But we feel that it’s important to validate the good work that Jeff DeLaurentis has done while also indicating that we think the norm should be that there’s an ambassador — and put the onus on opponents to articulate why it makes any sense at all to not have such a well-qualified person in the position.”

“He is exactly the type of person we want to represent the United States in Cuba, and we only hurt ourselves by not being represented by an ambassador,” Obama said of DeLaurentis. “If confirmed by the Senate, I know Jeff will build on the changes he helped bring about to better support the Cuban people and advance America’s interests.”

Commercial flights between the U.S. and Cuba resumed in August for the first time in 55 years.

”We only hurt ourselves by not being represented by an ambassador,” the president added. (For more from the author of “Obama Likely to Face Opposition After Nominating Cuban Ambassador” please click HERE)

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Obama Administration Orders Pentagon to Quit Talking About ‘Competition’ With China

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The Obama administration has ordered the Pentagon to quit referring to the country’s response to Chinese expansion in the Asia-Pacific as a “competition,” as the word is too inflammatory, sources familiar with the directive told the Navy Times.

Over the past decade, China has aggressively expanded its military presence in the South China Sea, including creating number of fortified, man-made islands within the region.

As a result of the increased Chinese naval presence, countries, including Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and the United States — in addition to other world powers — have experienced strained relations with Beijing.

The U.S. has, in response to the increased military presence, attempted to form strategic alliances in the region to balance out the expansion.

The Navy has also sailed ships close to disputed boundaries claimed by China to exercise freedom of navigation under the rules of “innocent passage,” in an effort to deter Chinese aggression, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

A number of high-profile U.S. military commanders have also weighed in.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, have both previously referred to the American response as a “competition” or “great power competition.”

According to the Navy Times report, in a classified document directed at the Pentagon, the National Security Council recently ordered military leaders to stop using language referring to the dispute as a “competition” when discussing the issue publicly.

The news outlet reported:

[…] a recent directive from the National Security Council ordered Pentagon leaders to strike out that phrase and find something less inflammatory, according to four officials familiar with the classified document, revealed here for the first time by Navy Times.

Obama administration officials and some experts say “great power competition” inaccurately frames the U.S. and China as on a collision course, but other experts warn that China’s ship building, man-made islands and expansive claims in the South and East China seas are hostile to U.S. interests. This needlessly muddies leaders’ efforts to explain the tough measures needed to contain China’s rise, these critics say.

Bryan McGrath, a naval expert and retired destroyer skipper, told the Navy Times the White House’s explanation is “an exercise in nuance and complexity, purposely chosen by the administration to provide maximum flexibility, to prevent them from committing to a real structural approach to the most important national security challenge of our time.”

Despite an international tribunal that found this year China has no rights to waters around man-made and other island chains in the Asia-Pacific region, the country has threatened to move forward with a new island-building project that would put forces within 140 miles of the Philippines’ capital, Manila, and a nearby U.S. military base.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized China’s island-building.

“We have rebuilt China, and yet they will go in the South China Sea and build a military fortress the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen,” Trump said. “Amazing, actually. They do that, and they do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country.” (For more from the author of “Obama Administration Orders Pentagon to Quit Talking About ‘Competition’ With China” please click HERE)

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Trial Begins for Man Who Helped Ex-Lesbian Christian Mother Escape Country With Her Daughter

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Trial began last week for Philip Zodhiates, the second man being tried for conspiracy and international parental kidnapping in the case of a former lesbian turned Christian who fled the country to shield her daughter from what she felt was a dangerous homosexual lifestyle at the hands of her former lesbian partner. Zodhiates and others allegedly helped the woman and her daughter leave the country.

The Case

The case of The United States vs. Lisa Miller, et al. began years ago, even before the child, the subject of the lawsuit, was born. In December 2000, Lisa Miller and her lesbian partner Janet Jenkins were joined in a civil union in Vermont, as their home state of Virginia did not recognize same-sex marriages at the time. In 2001, they decided to have Lisa undergo fertility treatments to conceive a child.

Isabella Miller-Jenkins was born on April 16, 2002, and within a few months Lisa, Janet and Isabella moved to Vermont to be in a same-sex union-friendly state. The next year however, the couple decided to part ways. Lisa filed documents to dissolve the union, and she and Isabella moved back to Virginia.

It was at this time that Lisa became a Christian and renounced homosexuality as a sin. “It wasn’t a struggle,” Lisa told The Washington Post in 2007, “I felt peace.” She began attending a local Baptist church with Isabella and eventually enrolled Isabella in a Christian school where she taught.

Vermont Court

Initially, the court awarded custody to Lisa and visitation rights to Janet; however, in subsequent court proceedings, Lisa testified that Janet had been physically and emotionally abusive as a partner and sexually abusive with Isabella.

According to Lisa, Isabella began wetting the bed, having nightmares, touching herself inappropriately and threatening suicide following her visitations with Janet. Lisa also claimed that Janet had behaved improperly with Isabella by taking baths with the child during the visitations.

The court still ordered Lisa to produce the child for visitation and when she refused, the judge slapped her with a steep fine of $25 per day, retroactively, until she allowed Isabella to see Janet. The custody case went all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court, which ruled that Janet was Isabella’s legal parent and entitled to her visitation.

Virginia Court

Lisa then appealed to Virginia for help, filing for exclusive custody of her daughter. “I don’t see Janet as a parent, first and foremost,” Lisa said. “I don’t want to expose Isabella to Janet’s lifestyle. It goes against all my beliefs. I am raising Isabella to pattern herself after Christ. That’s my job as a Christian mom. Homosexuality is a sin.”

The lower court sided with her, awarding her sole custody. The Virginia Court of Appeals, however, ruled that Vermont had jurisdiction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, leaving the court of appeals’ ruling standing.

On November 20, 2009, Lisa was found to be in contempt of court and custody was awarded to Janet, who was scheduled to take custody on January 1, 2010.

The Escape

By the end of September, Lisa and Isabella were gone.

Lisa, with the help of several Mennonite Christians, fled the country with her daughter to Nicaragua, crossing the Rainbow Bridge from Niagara Falls, New York, to Canada, according to court documents, around September 22, 2009.

The Defendants

Timothy David “Timo” Miller (no relation to Lisa) was arrested in April 2011 for aiding and abetting the “kidnapping” of Isabella. Timothy Miller was a Mennonite missionary to Nicaragua who, authorities believed, helped Lisa travel to a “safe house” in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua.

In December of that year, the prosecution dropped the charges against him in exchange for his testimony and cooperation in their investigation against Mennonite pastor Kenneth Miller. The latest reports, however, claim that Timothy was once again arrested in Nicaragua.

Kenneth Miller (also no relation to Lisa or Timothy) was convicted for “aiding international parental kidnapping” in December 2011 and sentenced 27 months in prison, reported The Charley Project. The pastor of an Amish-Mennonite community, he helped Lisa and Isabelle by getting fellow Amish-Mennonites to purchase plane tickets for a flight from Canada to Nicaragua through Mexico and El Salvador. He also purchased the typical Mennonite dresses, which Lisa and Isabelle wore to conceal their identities.

Before he reported to prison in March of this year, Kenneth wrote on his blog about why he did what he did. “I’m going to prison today because a woman’s faith and modern society collided,” he said. “About 12 years ago Lisa Miller discovered that Jesus of Nazareth was powerful enough to take away her sins. He transformed her life and her lifestyle. In the long, winding journey since then, Lisa has sought to remain true to her Savior and her conscience.”

“I am greatly privileged to stand with Lisa in her quest for truth and freedom,” he added. “Some things can never be locked up inside prison walls. Truth. Conscience. Moral righteousness. And the saving Gospel of Jesus.”

Philip Zodhiates, the man on trial for his part in helping Lisa and Isabelle flee to Nicaragua, was indicted in October 2014. Authorities believe he drove Lisa and Isabelle to Buffalo, New York and crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. For that act, he faces five years behind bars if convicted.

RICO Lawsuit

On August 14, 2012, Janet filed a RICO suit (Violation of the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act) against not only the individuals who helped Lisa and Isabelle escape, but also multiple churches, ministries and even Lisa’s lawyers’ place of employment, Liberty University School of Law.

In the suit, Janet alleges that these organizations and individuals had a “pattern of racketeering” and “are liable for conspiring with Lisa Miller and with each other to kidnap Isabella Miller-Jenkins … [d]efendants are also liable for conspiring to violate Janet Jenkins’ and Isabella Miller-Jenkins’ rights to a parent-child relationship.”

Life on the Run

In Nicaragua, Lisa homeschooled Isabelle on an Amish-Mennonite farm in the “coffee-growing hills” of Jinotega, where they lived for two months until Lisa found an apartment in Managua, reported the New York Times. Isabelle learned Spanish and people called her “Lydia.” Lisa and Isabelle spent time with Timothy Miller and his family, reading the American Girl books and Little House on the Prairie.

Although Isabelle thrived in Managua, Lisa suffered from depression and isolation. She eventually moved Isabelle back to Jinotega. Life was full of friends, birthday parties and sleepovers for a little girl with bouncing blond hair who drew the attention of the locals.

It was around this time that Timothy was arrested at Dulles Airport as he returned for a vacation in the U.S. with his family, and was charged with aiding an international parental kidnapping in Lisa Miller’s case. Lisa and Isabella left the town of Jinotega and haven’t been seen since. According to the Times, federal agents believe the two are still in Nicaragua. Isabella is now 14 years old.

Liberty Counsel’s Rena M. Lindevaldsen, co-counsel with Mathew Staver on Lisa’s case, said that she knew Lisa could go to prison if caught and that would hurt Isabella, but she doesn’t blame Lisa. “It’s sad that in America a woman was faced with this choice,” she said. “The court overstepped its bounds, calling someone a parent who is not a parent and turning a child over to a person who lives contrary to biblical truths.” (For more from the author of “Trial Begins for Man Who Helped Ex-Lesbian Christian Mother Escape Country With Her Daughter” please click HERE)

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