Zero Hedge — Unsealed CIA Memos Provide Shocking 'Salt Pit' Black Site Details

No wonder the deep state is doing everything possible to keep the details of torture secret. Fortunately, legal discovery has made some of the story available. 

Two surviving prisoners and the family of a detainee who died at the Colbalt site reached an out-of-court settlement with the CIA psychologists in August after a lawsuit was brought for their role in the torture. As was hoped, the CIA and Pentagon were forced to declassify the documents related to the case in pretrial discovery.

But no prosecutions to date.

A further black mark on the reputation of the United States, and a further erosion of US soft power.

Zero Hedge
Unsealed CIA Memos Provide Shocking 'Salt Pit' Black Site Details

Tyler Durden

Jim Lobe — Bannon Down, Pentagon Up, Neocons In?

Balanced article on US politics relative to international relations and foreign and military policy.

LobeLog
Bannon Down, Pentagon Up, Neocons In?

Jim Lobe

Larry Johnson — What is Going On in Syria?

Looks like Trump is reversing Obama's policy on Syria and focusing on destroying ISIS rather than "Assad must go," just like he said he would. This means that the DoD now has control rather than the CIA. Under Obama the Pentagon was furious because the CIA was arming "moderate rebels" that turned many of their weapons over to Al Qaeda and ISIS,  the terrorists that the military was fighting. That seems to have abated.

No Quarter Usa Net
What is Going On in Syria?
Larry Johnson

Nafeez Ahmed — Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS

A declassified secret US government document obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.

The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.”

According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of this strategy, and warned that it could destabilize Iraq. Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the “Syrian opposition” — which included al-Qaeda in Iraq — could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels. On the contrary, the emergence of an al-Qaeda affiliated “Salafist Principality” as a result is described as a strategic opportunity to isolate Assad....

Hey, Osama Bin Laden's "freedom fighters" worked so well in Afghanistan, what could go wrong?

Nafeez Ahmed — Insurge Intelligence

Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS
Nafeez Ahmed

David Lindorf — Rather Than Exposing Propaganda, WaPo Shows How It’s Done

In any event, the Post’s story was really all about PropOrNot’s list and, in contrast to FPRI, the organization remains fully opaque. What is PropOrNot trying to hide? One possibility: The Pentagon. The Defense Department is, after all, spending billions of dollars a year on information warfare, and has, under Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, been promoting the idea of Russia as an existential threat to the US.

One indication of some level of Pentagon involvement is the curious role of Joel Harding, whose own blog identifies him as a retired longtime military intelligence officer specializing in “information operations, strategic communication and cyberwarfare”—in other words, psychological warfare and propaganda. Harding, who denied (via an email conversation with me) any connection to the 30 or 40 “volunteers” alleged to be working at PropOrNot, is nonetheless the only named “analyst” whose work is cited as a rationale for listing any of the sites on PropOrNot’s list....

FAIR — Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Rather Than Exposing Propaganda, WaPo Shows How It’s Done
David Lindorf, founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an independent online alternative newspaper

Dave Lindorff

Chuck Spinney — Why Are Defense Policy Wonks So Ineffectual?

Today, America’s foreign policy is a shambles. Its primary features are (1) a perpetual war on terror, and (2) the seemingly inevitable march into a new and unnecessary cold war against Russia and China. At the same time, President Obama is leaving his successor with a budget plan containing a front loaded and political engineered* procurement bow wave that guarantees steeply rising defense expenditures well into the next decade and possibly beyond. Such long term increases in the defense budget can only be justified by a new cold war. Yet the United States now spends far more on the military than any other country. Add in the expenditures of our allies, and the spending advantage over any conceivable combination of adversaries becomes overwhelming. Nevertheless, US citizens are more fearful than they were during the Cold War, and politicians and the yellow journalism of the mainstream media are hyping those fears to a greater extent than they did during the Cold War.
What is going on?

Goldman Sachs is not the only giant vampire squid. As always, follow the money.

Risking nuclear war, you say? Small potatoes given the enormous pile of $ on the table.

The Blaster
Why Are Defense Policy Wonks So Ineffectual?
Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney, former Pentagon military analyst

Patrick Smith — The Defense Department Is Ruining America: Big Budgets, Militarization and the Real Story Behind Our Asia Pivot

As ever, follow the money through the revolving door. And the new arms race and cold war is just beginning.

Salon
The Defense Department Is Ruining America: Big Budgets, Militarization and the Real Story Behind Our Asia Pivot
Patrick Smith

Nafeez Ahmed — Pentagon Allowed to Supply Military Gear Directly to Homeland Security Dept. for ‘War on Immigrants’

Amendments to a controversial Pentagon program to sell military gear to domestic police forces have quietly extended the scheme to provide war on terror weaponry directly to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The amendments for FY2016, passed by Congress in late 2015, were highlighted in a briefing note published by the Congressional Research Service in February 2016. Under the controversial “1033” program, the Department of Defense (DoD) is able to provide “surplus” military-grade equipment to law-enforcement agencies.

The program, legislated for in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), provided local police forces access to billions of dollars worth of high-tech military equipment, including armoured tanks, rocket launchers, automatic weapons, night-vision goggles, and other supplies traditionally used by the U.S. Army in foreign war theaters.

The DHS often provided multimillion-dollar grants to law-enforcement agencies to purchase the military equipment.

To let you feel safer.

Naked Capitalism
Pentagon Allowed to Supply Military Gear Directly to Homeland Security Dept. for ‘War on Immigrants’
Nafeez Ahmed

Alexander Mercouris — Syrian Peace Plan: US Seethes at Its Humiliation by Russia

A very well sourced article, which has recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal (attached below), shows the extent of the policy disarray in Washington following the US-Russian “cessation of hostilities” agreement.
It seems there has been a massive row.

The heads of the US military and the CIA are clearly furious at the way in which they feel the US has been humiliated, and in a series of angry meetings in the White House they have made their feelings known.

Though they rationalise their anger with talk about how Russia cannot be trusted, and how US allies in the regions like the Turks and the Saudis feel betrayed, that is what it amounts to.….

… the anger the hardliners feel does not promise well, and is absolutely not a cause for rejoicing, and certainly not for gloating. On the contrary, it is a cause for foreboding and for worry about the future.

Far from accepting their defeat, on past experience the hardliners will now be looking for ways to get even with Russia.

The fact they cannot do it in Syria will not hold them back, any more than failure in Vietnam in the 1970s held an earlier generation of US hardliners back.
What happened then was that the hardliners “avenged” the US's defeat in Vietnam by setting Afghanistan on fire - with catastrophic consequences for the whole world including the US.

The fact Afghanistan turned out a disaster will however hardly deter the hardliners of today from acting in the same way. If there is one constant in US foreign policy it is that when it comes to disasters it is the wrong lessons that always get learnt.

Far from being a factor in improving relations between the US and Russia, the fact the US feels humiliated in Syria is going to make relations between the two countries even worse than they already are, and is storing up more problems for the future.

From the WSJ article:

President Barack Obama’s top military and intelligence advisers, convinced Russia won’t abide by a cease-fire in Syria, are pushing for ways to increase pressure on Moscow, including expanding covert military assistance for some rebels now taking a pounding from Russian airstrikes.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter; Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan have voiced increasingly tough views in White House meetings, calling for new measures to “inflict real pain on the Russians,” a senior administration official said. Russia Insider

Russia Insider
Syrian Peace Plan: US Seethes at Its Humiliation by Russia
Alexander Mercouris

Christopher Black issues a warning below. Very dangerous situation and ugly outlook. "Operation Barbarosa" was the Nazi codeword for the invaston of Russia.

NEO

Operation Barbarossa 2: The Baltic Gambit

Christopher Black

Russia Insider
US Army Ships 5,000 Tons of Ammunition to Germany

Originally Appeared at German Economic News.

Translated by Werner Schrimpf

This is taking place within the context of the Wolfowitz doctrine that holds the US will not permit a military or economic challenge to US global hegemony. Add to that the fury of the US deep state of being not only frustrated by Russia but humiliated. Add to that nuclear weapons, and go figure. And add to that the fact that the people involved are (alleged) war criminals that have already established in evidence that the prohibition against illegal aggression and torture mean nothing to them.

This also explains in part why Rep. Tulsi Gabbard felt it incumbent to burn her bridges with the Establishment and endorse Bernie Sanders.

Tass Pentagon, CIA heads demand to increase pressure on Moscow over Syria - media

Top military and intelligence officials in U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration want to increase pressure on Moscow by expanding support to militants fighting in Syria after the agreement was reached with Russia on the ceasefire in Syria on February 27, the Wall Street Journal online newspaper said on Tuesday.

The publication called Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Marine General Joseph Dunford and CIA Director John Brennan an "alliance of Russia hawks in the cabinet."

According to the daily, at the last meeting in the White House Obama’s top advisers expressed extremely bellicose views towards Moscow.…

Killing the baby in the crib.

Tass
Pentagon, CIA heads demand to increase pressure on Moscow over Syria - media

Moon of Alabama —Criticism Of Hersh's New Piece Fails To Understand What Really Happened

The latest Seymour Hersh piece alleges that the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) under General Dempsey undermined the official White House policy on Syria. Their impetus to do so came after a Defense Intelligence Agency analysis found in 2012 that there were hardly any "moderate rebels" in Syria but only Islamists fighting against the Syrian state. The CIA was at least since early 2012 delivering weapons from Libya to Turkey as well as through other routes. The U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed on September 11 2012 in Benghazi over some issues with the weapon transfers. Once in Turkey those weapons, as well as plane loads of others purchased by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were given to "moderate rebels" who took them into Syria. There they sold off at least part of every weapon and ammunition haul to the Islamists terror gangs which were and are financed by the Wahhabi Gulf states. A new BBCRadio4 report by Peter Oborne explains in detail how that scheorks.

The JCS under Dempsey was quite disturbed that weapons transferred by the CIA were going to exactly those people they had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan just a few years ago. They decided, according to Hersh's source, to undermine the White House's and CIA's regime-change program.…

Moon of Alabama
Criticism Of Hersh's New Piece Fails To Understand What Really Happened