I came across a photo (below) of a U.S. Air Force general briefing an Army general about “B-2 bomber operations.”

My immediate smart-alecky thought for a caption was something like “This is how we fly an airplane in the Air Force, general.”

But looking a little closer into the occasion for the photo, I will refrain from such comments.

The photo depicts Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Bussiere, left, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, briefing Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about B-2 bomber operations and maintenance on Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

While I am not sure about the reason for the visit by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Whiteman, I would not be surprised if it is related to the fact that the year 2013 has been designated “Year of the B-2,” celebrating the 20th anniversary of the delivery of the first B-2 Spirit, the “Spirit of Missouri,” to Whiteman Air Force Base on Dec. 17, 1993. Throughout the year, the 509th Bomb Wing, the world’s only B-2 Spirit stealth bomber unit, will be marking other milestones in the life of this venerable aircraft.

According to Capt. John Severns of the 509th Bomb Wing Public Affairs at Whiteman AFB in Missouri:

The first occurred 14 years ago, when B-2 bombers flying from Whiteman AFB were the first manned aircraft to engage in hostilities during Operation Allied Force on March 24, 1999. Operation Allied Force was a NATO military operation launched to force Yugoslavia’s president, Slobodan Milosevic, to end a campaign of violence by Serbian forces against the people of Kosovo.

Ten years ago, B-2s operating from Whiteman Air Force Base and other forward locations participated in the opening salvos of Operation Iraqi Freedom, dropping dozens of bombs on high-value targets in Baghdad on March 20, 2003. Operation Iraqi Freedom marked the highest-intensity bombardment ever conducted by B-2s, with the aircraft dropping over a million pounds of ordnance during the opening days of the war.

Finally, and most recently, three B-2s took off from Whiteman AFB on March 22, 2011 and flew more than 6,000 miles to Libya, where they took part in Operation Odyssey Dawn, a NATO operation to enforce a UN no-fly zone to prevent Muammar Gaddafi from using his air forces to attack civilians. The aircraft destroyed a series of hardened aircraft shelters at an airfield near Sirte, and resulted in the nearly complete destruction of Gaddafi’s air forces.

On March 28, 2013, six days after Severns’piece was published, when North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was rattling his missiles, the United States flew two of these mighty birds from Whiteman AFB, Mo., to the Korean peninsula and back on a 37-1\2-hour, non-stop flight, in what U.S. officials say was “a diplomatic sortie,” and one that may have drummed some common sense and reason, if not some healthy fear, into the young dictator’s mind — but not before young Kim Jong-un had “persnally” selected and placed Austin, Texas, in the crosshairs of his missiles.

Whatever one thinks of the past, present and future military missions of the B-2 “Spirit” multi-role bomber, this aircraft represents a dramatic achievement in military aircraft technology, bringing massive nuclear or conventional firepower to bear, “in a short time, anywhere on the globe through previously impenetrable defenses.”

These are some of its features:

The B-2 provides the penetrating flexibility and effectiveness inherent in manned bombers. Its low-observable, or “stealth,” characteristics give it the unique ability to penetrate an enemy’s most sophisticated defenses and threaten its most valued, and heavily defended, targets. Its capability to penetrate air defenses and threaten effective retaliation provides a strong, effective deterrent and combat force well into the 21st century.

The revolutionary blending of low-observable technologies with high aerodynamic efficiency and large payload gives the B-2 important advantages over existing bombers. Its low-observability provides it greater freedom of action at high altitudes, thus increasing its range and a better field of view for the aircraft’s sensors. Its unrefueled range is approximately 6,000 nautical miles (9,600 kilometers).

The B-2′s low observability is derived from a combination of reduced infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, visual and radar signatures. These signatures make it difficult for the sophisticated defensive systems to detect, track and engage the B-2. Many aspects of the low-observability process remain classified; however, the B-2′s composite materials, special coatings and flying-wing design all contribute to its “stealthiness.”

The B-2 has a crew of two pilots, a pilot in the left seat and mission commander in the right, compared to the B-1B’s crew of four and the B-52′s crew of five.

Whiteman AFB, Mo., is the only operational base for the B-2. The first aircraft, Spirit of Missouri, was delivered Dec. 17, 1993. Depot maintenance responsibility for the B-2 is performed by Air Force contractor support and is managed at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla.

The prime contractor, responsible for overall system design and integration, is Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems Sector. Boeing Military Airplanes Co., Hughes Radar Systems Group, General Electric Aircraft Engine Group and Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc., are key members of the aircraft contractor team.

And these are its “General Characteristics”:

Primary function: Multi-role heavy bomber
Contractor: Northrop Grumman Corp. and Contractor Team: Boeing Military Airplanes Co., Hughes Radar Systems Group, General Electric Aircraft Engine Group and Vought Aircraft Industries, Inc.
Power Plant: Four General Electric F118-GE-100 engines
Thrust: 17,300 pounds each engine
Wingspan: 172 feet (52.12 meters)
Length: 69 feet (20.9 meters)
Height: 17 feet (5.1 meters
Weight: 160,000 pounds (72,575 kilograms)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 336,500 pounds (152,634 kilograms)
Fuel Capacity: 167,000 pounds (75750 kilograms)
Payload: 40,000 pounds (18,144 kilograms)
Speed: High subsonic
Range: Intercontinental
Ceiling: 50,000 feet (15,240 meters)
Armament: Conventional or nuclear weapons
Crew: Two pilots
Unit cost: Approximately $1.157 billion (fiscal 98 constant dollars)
Initial operating capability: April 1997
Inventory: Active force: 20 (1 test)

Read more here.

CODA: B-2s are named after States of the Union. Here’s the “Spirit of Texas”

For an interesting “timeline” of the B-2 development, please click here

Images:DOD

WASHINGTON — In Syria, the Obama administration seems to be stumbling back to the future: An old-fashioned proxy war, complete with the usual shadowy CIA arms-running operation, the traditional plan to prop up ostensible “moderates” whose prospects are doubtful and, of course, the customary shaky grasp of what the fighting is really about.

This will not end well.

It is tragic that more than 90,000 people have been killed in the bloody Syrian conflict, with more than a million displaced. But I have heard no claim that President Obama’s decision to arm the rebels will halt or even slow the carnage. To the contrary, sending more weapons into the fray will likely result in greater death and destruction, at least in the short term.

So this is not promising as a humanitarian intervention. And if the aim is to punish dictator Bashar al-Assad for his apparent use of chemical weapons, surely there are measures — a missile strike on the regime’s military airfields, for example — that would make the point without also making an open-ended commitment.

Why decide now to announce stepped-up direct support for Gen. Salim Idriss and his rebel forces? It is surely not a coincidence that the Syrian military — with the help of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia backed by Iran — has been pulverizing the rebels in recent weeks and now threatens to recapture Aleppo, the country’s commercial hub.

Hence, a complicated proxy war: The United States supports Idriss. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are U.S. allies, send money and arms to competing rebel factions that dream of turning Syria into an Islamic republic. Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are supporting Assad with weapons, money and — in the case of Hezbollah — well-trained troops. The rebel side is mostly Sunni; the government side largely Shiite.

As I said, this will not end well.

President Obama’s reluctance to get dragged into this morass has been commendable, but now his ambivalence and caution become liabilities. Iran’s most important ally in the Arab world is Syria. Russia’s only military base outside of the former Soviet Union is in Syria. Does Obama care as much as those nations’ leaders do about who wins the war? If not, what’s the point?

It could be argued that providing Idriss with light arms and ammunition is a way to equip moderate, secular forces for their inevitable fight against Islamists in a fractured post-Assad Syria. But this is moot if Assad crushes the rebellion and holds on. Accordingly, U.S. aid reportedly may include some heavier weapons for use against tanks and aircraft. The CIA will take the lead in transferring the arms and training the rebels to use them, according to The Washington Post.

Perhaps bolstering Idriss can at least buy time for negotiations to produce a political settlement, which is what Obama has said he prefers. For a long time, Russia balked at joining the call for an international peace conference. Now that momentum on the battlefield has shifted and the Assad regime is in a stronger position, Russia is more willing to summon everyone to the table — but the Obama administration is no longer in such a big hurry.

Not every slope is slippery, but this one looks like a bobsled run. It was August 2011 when Obama issued a statement declaring that “the time has come for President Assad to step aside.” Now that the president has put muscle behind those words, it will be difficult for the United States to accept any other outcome.

There will be pressure to impose a no-fly zone to neutralize Assad’s devastating air power. There will be pressure to contain the war so it does not spill beyond Syria’s borders and destabilize our allies in Turkey and Jordan, or our sort-of, kind-of allies in Iraq. There will be pressure to alleviate the immense suffering of the Syrian people. Perhaps all of this can be accomplished without putting American lives at risk. I doubt it.

Above all, there will be pressure to win a proxy war that Obama never wanted to fight. This is how quagmires begin, with one reluctant step after another toward the yawning abyss. (See: Vietnam.)

We do sometimes win proxy wars — in Afghanistan, for example, where the CIA helped the warlords defeat the mighty Soviet army. In the process, however, we created the chaotic power vacuum that allowed al-Qaeda to set up shop — and ultimately launch the 9/11 attacks.

I hope I’m wrong but fear I’m right: This will not end well.

Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.(c) 2013, Washington Post Writers Group

Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency, told the House Intelligence Committee today that more than 50 terrorist plots worldwide have been prevented since the 9/11 attacks — “including at least 10 homeland- based threats” — through the classified surveillance programs the government uses to gather phone and Internet data, programs he said are legal and do not compromise the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.

According to the American Forces Press Service:

Testifying alongside Alexander, Deputy FBI Director Sean Joyce discussed two terrorist plots that he said the surveillance programs helped to prevent. In one, emails intercepted from a terrorist in Pakistan helped to stop a plot to bomb New York City’s subway system. Another involved a failed attempt by a known extremist in Yemen who conspired with a suspect in the United States to target the New York Stock Exchange. Both cases led to arrests and convictions, Joyce said.

“These programs are immensely valuable for protecting our nation and the security of our allies,” Alexander said, and added that they may have helped to prevent the 9/11 attacks themselves if the government had the legal authority, as granted by the Patriot Act, to use them at the time.

The disclosure of the NSA programs has generated a nationwide debate over what techniques the government can legally use to monitor phone and Internet data to prevent terrorism without violating the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. Alexander and other senior U.S officials emphasized that the gathering of phone numbers that already are being collected by service providers as well as the tracking of U.S-based Internet servers used by foreigners are legal and repeatedly have been approved by the courts and Congress.

“These programs are limited, focused and subject to rigorous oversight,” and their disciplined operation “protects the privacy and civil liberties of the American people,” Alexander said.

The details of the foiled terror plots that he plans to provide to Congress will remove any doubt about the usefulness of the surveillance in keeping the homeland safe, the NSA director told the House panel.

“In the 12 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, we have lived in relative safety and security as a nation,” he said. “That security is a direct result of the intelligence community’s quiet efforts to better connect the dots and learn from the mistakes that permitted those attacks.”

To prevent another damaging leak such as the breach caused by Snowden’s disclosures, Alexander told lawmakers, the NSA is looking into where security may have broken down and for ways to provide greater oversight for the roughly 1,000 or so system administrators at NSA who have access to top secret information.

The New York Times calling the tone of the hearings “nonadversarial,” says:

Both the top Republican and the top Democrat on the committee, Representatives Mike Rogers of Michigan and C. A. Dutch Ruppersburger of Maryland, offered a robust defense of the surveillance programs revealed by Mr. Snowden and expressed anger over the leaks, and all five witnesses were executive branch officials who supported the surveillance activities.

The Times continues:

In an apparent reference to Mr. Snowden, for example, Mr. Rogers criticized his actions as “selectively leaking incomplete information” that “paints an inaccurate picture and fosters distrust in our government.” He added, “It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside,” but adds, “There was no way to independently verify the claims made by the officials during the hearing.”

In the meantime, there’s a flap brewing over exactly how “the highly protected and segregated computer systems that store the secret court warrants authorizing electronic surveillance inside the United States have been breached.”

The Daily Beast calls the Top Secret court order the Guardian published, “one of the most highly classified documents inside the U.S. government and says:

The warrants reside on two computer systems affiliated with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. Both systems are physically separated from other government-wide computer networks and employ sophisticated encryption technology, the officials said. Even lawmakers and staff lawyers on the House and Senate intelligence committees can only view the warrants in the presence of Justice Department attorneys, and are prohibited from taking notes on the documents.

“The only time that our attorneys would have gotten to read one was if Justice Department lawyers came over with it in a secure pouch and sat there with them when they read them,” said Pete Hoekstra, a former Republican chairman and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “There was never one in the intelligence-committee spaces, never one left there without someone from the Justice Department. It would not have been left there overnight.”

The Daily Beast says that U.S. intelligence officials “have not yet concluded there is a mole inside the FISA Court or that the secure databases that store the court warrants have been compromised, only that both prospects were under active investigation.” However, it adds, “If the secret court has been breached, it would be one of the most significant intelligence failures in U.S. history, potentially giving America’s adversaries a road map to every suspected agent inside the United States currently being watched by the FBI, according to the officials.”

The Daily Beast updates its story with this:

On Tuesday, hours after this story was originally posted, General Keith Alexander, the NSA director, told reporters that Snowden had accessed some of the materials he later leaked, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, from a special classified part of the NSA’s internal servers.

The FISA warrant that Snowden accessed “was on a web server at NSA in a special classified section that as he was getting his training he went to,” said Alexander. The highly classified warrant had been placed on an internal web forum intended to “help people understand how to operate NSA’s collection authorities, where you look for collection authorities.”

Read more here

Photo: NSA

Berlin is excited about President Obama’s upcoming visit and his speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Can he coin a memorable phrase like Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” fifty years ago? Or Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”? Will he offer Germany a different version of Bush senior’s “partnership in leadership”, but this time with more impact? I doubt it.

I have high hopes, but not high expectations. Yes, Obama will ask Germany to lead in Europe and beyond. He’ll appeal to our responsibility, to our shared values and to the trust that has been built over six decades of transatlantic cooperation and how fundamental it is to freedom (and to all the other buzzwords). He will – hopefully – say a few nice words about our troops in Kosovo and Afghanistan, but probably ignore (or gloss over) PRISM and other controversial issues. Instead he will talk about the wonderful possibilities of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) and how it will lead to growth, strengthen our bonds and global influence and reinforce our values etc.

Obama will reassure Germany of America’s continued support and solidarity, because he knows that Germans are concerned about America’s pivot (balancing) to Asia and have complained that he has not visited us in his first term. [Oh, we crave so much attention and ignore that Obama has been to Europe eleven times since assuming the presidency, incl. three times to Germany. It has been my long position that Obama would have come to Berlin earlier and worked more with us, if we had make concrete suggestions for revitalized transatlantic cooperation rather than just photo-ops at various summits.]

Instead of turning his speech into a love fest for German-American relations, he should give some tough love. German citizens and politicians need a dose to understand where the United States is headed and what responsibilities Europe now has in its neighborhood.

Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune

What are we doing in Syria and why? And why are we still chained to a discredited foreign policy concocted by Dick Cheney and his armchair warriors before George W. Bush took office almost two decades ago?

After 9/11/01 their fringe call in 1997 for a new century of “American global leadership” with “military strength and moral clarity” drove US foreign policy into, among other misadventures, an Iraq war that cost the nation more than 4000 lives and $3 trillion dollars.

While Congress bickers over responsibility for deaths in Benghazi, the same old voices drive the nation toward intervention into the kind of morass in Syria that led to quagmires in Libya, Egypt and throughout the Middle East.

When and where have we found moral clarity through military strength anywhere? Isn’t it past time for new voices and new ideas about what the hell we are doing in that region of the world?

While white-haired Bill Clinton says the President risks looking like a “fool” and a “total wuss” if he doesn’t move into Syria, he is joined by Cheney, McCain and all the ancient GOP war lovers cheerleading for another bloody enterprise.

Unheard in the din are young senators like Connecticut’s Chris Murphy and New Mexico’s Tom Udall who went to Syria and came back deeply skeptical about what we can do there. Their face time on cable news is minimal.

Unheard too are the American people who have long been showing signs of Middle East fatigue.

MORE.

While U.S. victims of disaster receive nearly immediate assistance from their fellow Americans, columnist Hassan Al-Khafaji of the Sotal Iraq newspaper is appalled at the treatment being meted out to victims of the Syrian civil war, who have fled for safety to the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan. According to Khafaji, ‘animals’ who call themselves Muslim and are ‘pimping’ and taking advantage of young women in the camp are the real ‘infidels’, and not the Americans, who at least come to the aid of the less fortunate among them.

For Sotal Iraq, Hassan Al-Khafaji writes in part:

Some Syrians have found themselves in hastily-built humanitarian aid camps. Some there have found their bodies, and those of their women and girls, ravaged by monsters in human form. Whatever was left of the honor of these poor souls has been stolen by evil predators from Jordan and the Gulf.

In Oklahoma, families have found themselves without a roof over their heads, after the latest tornado flattened their homes and possessions. However, they at least were greeted with open arms by generous souls who stood by them, embraced them, and eased their burdens. And despite the fact that Oklahoman members of the U.S. Senate always vote against disaster relief for other states, representatives from those states are nevertheless more caring and humane.

As the Oklahoma disaster and those that preceded it, such as Hurricane Sandy, the earthquake in China and the tsunami in Japan, have hit self-reliant societies, we have seen them accustom themselves and turn disasters into lessons for the future. We haven’t heard a single case of a woman from a disaster-struck city in any self-reliant society being forced to sell her honor in return for a scrap of food, shelter or a “bit of cash”!! And yet these are the peoples described by those with long, dirty, matted beards and Islamist-style robes as “infidels!”

We have seen films and heard stories about young men from Jordan and the Gulf who have nothing better to do than to go to these degrading camps full of lust, sick with desire, and with a complete lack of scruples or knowledge and respect for society. There in the camps, where residents have been taken prisoner and tyrannized, they practice prostitution and pimping. Which Islam do the perpetrators belong to, and which Islam do those who have been wronged belong to!!??

Muslim infidels of all ranks who call themselves Muslim and hide their disbelief, have committed deeds for which God will decide the punishment. We should pay tribute to the humanity and generosity of the “infidel” West, and be ashamed of the deeds committed by Arab heretics.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR ARABIC AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

What is it about the ‘man of steel’ that makes him such an enduring figure for Americans? For Spain’s El Pais, columnist Álvaro Vargas Llosa writes that Superman embodies three items that are embedded in the American psyche: Religion, immigration, and morality. Superman bears close resemblance to Moses and Jesus; he is an immigrant; and he defends the legal code of Metropolis, which stands for the morality of the Judeo-Christian tradition. But even more, Llosa writes, Superman defends values that transcend America, and which appeal to people around the world.

For El Pais, columnist Álvaro Vargas Llosa writes in part:

When he was born at the time of the Great Depression, Superman was more left-wing. In the wake of Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” he fought for the poor and against the capitalist exploiter. During the Second World War, he was an enemy of the “Japanazis” (Goebbels, accusing Stiegel, the creator, of being a propagandist, called him “intellectually circumcised”). During the Cold War, Superman, now on the right, became the guardian of world peace and promoter of the “American dream.” More recently it has been suggested that he has an environmental dimension.

The key, however, is that he is neither left nor right. Superman brings together three elements that have become embedded in the psyche of successive generations of Americans. One is religious. Religion, along with individual freedom, is the clay that the country is made of. In Superman there is something of Moses and Jesus. In the boy whose parents removed him from of their planet Krypton to save him, and who arrives in another planet as an orphan with a mission, there is something of the Hebrew prophet. In the son sent by the father to earth to incarnate as a man (Clark Kent), there is something of Jesus.

The second element is immigration. Superman is an immigrant. When the character was created, one such stage had just ended: from 1870 to 1920, tens of millions of Europeans from very different backgrounds had enriched and diversified the composition of the country. That Jews had been the creators of Superman reinforced this connection, as Jews from Central and Eastern Europe had made up a substantial part of this recent immigration. The trauma of the Holocaust strengthened Superman’s immigrant dimension.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Like clockwork it is “hurricane season” again.

And like clockwork, the skilled and courageous men and women from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (WRS) at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi are literally flying into the eye of the storm again.

This year Hurricane Hunters like Air Force Maj. Sean Cross will be especially busy as the 2013 hurricane season, which began June 1, promises to be a very active one.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) has indicated a “very active” 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season, calling for a 70% chance of an above-normal season which would include the following ranges of activity:

• 13-20 Named Storms
• 7-11 Hurricanes
• 3-6 Major Hurricanes

(The Atlantic hurricane region includes the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico.)

The names for these storms have already been selected. The list of names starts with Andrea and ends with Wendy. This author’s name is included in the list and here is hoping that storm or hurricane “Dorian” will be a gentle one — if that can be attributed to a storm or hurricane.

Having tried to evade the fury of Hurricane Wilma in 2005, to no avail, I have every respect and admiration for these Hurricane Hunters who seek out and fly right into the jaws of these monsters so that others may be forewarned, seek safer ground and survive.

The craft, art, science — some may call it “daredevilry” — of “hurricane hunting” goes back a long way:

It all started in 1943 as a bar room dare, when two Army Air Corps pilots challenged each other to fly through a hurricane. On July 27, 1943, Maj. Joe Duckworth flew a propeller-driven, single-engine North American AT-6 “Texan” trainer into the eye of a hurricane. Major Duckworth flew into the eye of that storm twice that day, once with a navigator and again with a weather officer. These were generally considered to be the first airborne attempts to obtain data for use in plotting the position of a tropical cyclone as it approached land. Duckworth’s pioneering efforts paved the way for further flights into tropical cyclones.

Today, the “dare” continues, but in a much more organized, state-of-the-art and effective manner.

The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the Air Force Reserve, a one-of-a-kind organization, has 10 Lockheed-Martin WC-130J Super Hercules aircraft equipped with palletized meteorological data-gathering instruments and is authorized 20 aircrews, all stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The “Mission” sounds simple enough: “to conduct tropical storm reconnaissance.”

But that includes flying an average of 11 hours, crisscrossing the storm and penetrating the powerful eyewall several times during each mission, releasing weather instruments in the eye, performing numerous measurements and analyses, establishing the exact latitude and longitude of the center as well as collecting wind speed, temperature, humidity barometric pressure and other information forecasters need to determine the path and strength of a hurricane.

If and when needed, the 53rd WRS must be able to support 24-hour-a-day, continuous operations and have the ability to fly up to three storms at a time.

But flying these dangerous and demanding missions is not the only thing that makes the members of this unique Hurricane Hunters organization heroes in my eyes.

Many of the crewmembers flying these missions, such as Maj. Cross, a pilot, live with their families all along the Gulf Coast. As has happened all too often in the past, the same hurricanes they are flying into, may be heading straight for the areas where their loved ones live and are anxiously watching the progress of the storm.

Instead of being there with their families, helping them prepare for the oncoming storm, perhaps even evacuating them, these men and women must stay laser focused on their mission and on the many other lives that are possibly at stake.

Major Cross who is now beginning his 13th season with the 53rd WRS and who has a wife and 3-year-old son in Biloxi, Mississippi, perhaps says it best:

We have crewmembers all across the Gulf Coast, so at any one time, anyone in the squadron can be directly affected by a storm. The tough part is when you’re looking at the forecast as you’re coming in to fly. Then, we go fly, and we’re basically dropping crumbs along a trail as we’re tracking the storm. We look at where we live and where this track is going and where it’s shifting, and we’re playing mind games with ourselves, basically trying to wish this storm somewhere else. No. 1, you’ve got to stay focused on the safety of the crew and the plane. But No. 2, you’re thinking about the people on the ground and the lives that are going to be affected.

Cross flew into Hurricane Katrina twice in 2005. By the second flight it became clear that the hurricane was on a direct path toward the Mississippi coast, toward the homes of many of the Hurricane Hunters and their families.

Katrina killed more than 1,800 people and caused more than $95 billion in damage in Louisiana and Mississippi. Included in the list of victims are at least half a dozen members of the Hurricane Hunters who lost their homes to Katrina. Nevertheless, “[t]he squadron relocated to Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Ga., for the rest of the season and never missed a tasking from the National Hurricane Center,” according to Randy Roughton of the Air Force News Service

Two months later, in October 2005, my family and I sought refuge in a cinderblock church annex in a poor section of Cancun as Hurricane Wilma, “the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin,” battered Cancun with sustained winds of 145 miles per hour and gusts of nearly 200 miles per hour and “hovered” over and around Cancun for an incredible fifty hours.

While in the eye of the hurricane, the scores of tourists who had sought shelter in the church annex poured outside and looked up at the patches of blue sky clearly visible in the eye of the hurricane.

I did not see or hear our Hurricane Hunters then, but I know that they flew into Wilma and were instrumental in providing the warnings that may have saved our lives and certainly the lives of many others.

My thanks and admiration to these gallant and brave men and women in their WC-130J flying machines.

Anatomy of a hurricane hunter: When storms get personal

Hurricane Hunters Association

53RD WEATHER RECONNAISSANCE SQUADRON “HURRICANE HUNTERS”

Hurricane Hunters Prepare for Season

Lead image: Hurricane Katrina. Courtesy NOAA. All other photos, DOD

(Edited to correct link)

The opinion writers at China’s state media outlets haven’t been known to be the biggest fans of whistleblowers.

When, earlier this year, a spate of corruption scandals — many unearthed by intrepid bloggers wielding the new-found power of Chinese social media websites — rocked the Communist Party, several official media outlets cautioned against the dangers of ‘rumour mongering,’ although the leadership, confronted by angry public opinion, was forced to sack officials to placate the tide of online anger.

And, when several of those bloggers and activists were subsequently silenced, there was barely a murmur of protest in the State media.

However, when a 29-year-old American whistleblower surfaced in Hong Kong last week, the party’s mouthpieces welcomed him with open arms. “Whistleblower welcome in China,” ran one headline on the English-language website of the People’s Daily, the party’s official newspaper.

It isn’t surprising that the revelations of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, have been welcomed in China. For months, Beijing has been chafing at accusations from Washington that the Chinese were mounting a widespread hacking campaign against government agencies and enterprises in the U.S.

Snowden’s revelations this week included new details of the U.S. hacking into servers in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland. In an interview with the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, Snowden said the U.S. had been carrying out such activities “for years.” He reportedly even shared details of IP addresses in Hong Kong and China that the U.S. had targeted.

“What has happened recently,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in response to the revelations, “has shown that China is indeed one of the major victims of cyberattacks.”

In a not-too-subtle dig at the U.S., she added: “What cyberspace needs is not war or hegemony, not irresponsible attacks or accusations, but regulation and cooperation.”

What does China do with its whistleblowers?

The irony of a usually hard-line party mouthpiece calling for support to whistleblowers was not lost on many Chinese bloggers.

Beyond the official media’s unquestionable sense of schadenfreude at Washington’s predicament, the Snowden case has also shed light on the rising number of Chinese who are waging similar battles for transparency.

“When would China have its own Snowden?” was a common question on Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese Twitter equivalent used by 300 million Chinese.

It is clear that like Snowden, a growing number of technologically savvy young Chinese are using the power of the Internet to bring about greater political accountability.

AND:

A pledge from the new President, Xi Jinping, that he would swat both “tigers and flies” to fight corruption energised activists like Zhu. But in recent weeks and months, the leadership has shown that it is more wary, rather than welcoming, of people like Zhu by quietly silencing whistleblowers.

Since March 15, activists who were calling on officials to publicly declare their assets have been detained on charges including “illegal assembly” and “inciting subversion of State power.”

Nine activists in Beijing and one in southern Jiangxi have been arrested, while four others are yet to be formally charged, according to Human Rights Watch. Journalist Hou Xin, securities trader Yuan Dong and retiree Zhang Baocheng were detained after unfurling banners in Beijing, calling on officials to publicly disclose their assets.

Meanwhile, Zhu Ruifeng has received visits from police in his modest Beijing apartment. He has since slowed down his whistle-blowing activities, although he has pledged that his work remains unfinished.

h/t Real Clear World

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that international pressure on Iran must not be loosened in the wake of the election of reformist-backed Hassan Rouhani as president.

Mr Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear programme must be stopped “by any means” and there should be no “wishful thinking” about Mr Rouhani’s victory.

The cleric won just over 50% of the vote in Friday’s election.

He said his election was a “victory of moderation over extremism”.

One of Mr Rouhani’s main election pledges was to try to ease international sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme, and he has also promised greater engagement with Western powers.

But Mr Netanyahu said on Sunday: “The international community should not fall into wishful thinking and be tempted to ease pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear programme.”

He added: “Iran will be judged on its actions. If it insists on continuing to develop its nuclear programme the answer needs to be clear – stopping its nuclear programme by any means.”

And, indeed, the real motor of change (or status quo) in Iran will be at levels ABOVE the Iranian President. But Rouhani’s election is a (baby) step in the right direction.

Does the surveillance capability of the NSA lead inexorably toward a world in which intelligent machines run everything, and autonomously decide who is a threat – and what to do about those so judged? That is the unsettling conclusion of Midiapart tech columnists Jean-Paul Baquiast and Christophe Jacquemin, who warn that without leaders like Charles de Gaulle – who might have the cahones to spend half a trillion dollars immediately, it will be impossible for France, Europe, Russia or China to ever technologically catch up to the United States.

Midiapart‘s Jean-Paul Baquiast and Christophe Jacquemin write:

This system rests on two pillars. The first is storage, which has become global, notably at the NSA’s Utah data center, of all personal and financial information transmitted on digital networks by billions of Internet users and so-called intelligent portable devices. The information is either pirated or provided voluntarily by all users of Facebook, Skype, Google, etc.

The second pillar of American power, the extent of which is only now fully revealed, rests on the fact that databases stored in this way are then read and analyzed, not by human operators who would be incapable of doing so, but by software programs developed as a result of billion-dollar contracts to high-tech companies specializing in research and control.

These programs are becoming autonomous and activate one another. Initially, they may suggest that human operators research, and eventually destroy, a particular individual or company whose existence may be judged hostile to American interests. Very soon, they will themselves, without a clear mandate, take the decision to destroy or incapacitate. This scenario exists, not only in the so-called battle against terrorism, but in all competitive fields where America takes on the world.

The old fear of science fiction writers, that robots would become rulers of the world, is becoming a reality.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR FRENCH OR READ MORE TRANSLATED and English-language foreign press coverage as the NSA surveillance story continues to unfold at Worldmeets.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

As the Obama White House moves to arm Syrian rebels, the jury is out on whether the President is exacerbating conflicts rather than advancing world peace during his tenure.

Overall, world peace is on a downslide. The Global Peace Index 2013 covering 162 independent countries has dropped by five per cent over the last six years. This innovative index is published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, founded by Australian entrepreneur Steve Killelea.

At the same time, the Syrian and Afghan conflicts are becoming worse. The White House concluded this week that President Bashar Assad has crossed President Barack Obama’s red line by using chemical weapons against his own people. Anti-Assad rebels now hope Obama will send them heavy weapons, including anti-tank and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

The Afghanistan war is also worsening, ahead of US withdrawal next year. Roadside bombs killed five Afghan police and injured seven today while local UN observers estimate that internal violence now matches the worst in 12 years.

The Syrian conflict will intensify greatly if rebels get heavy weapons. They want to unravel Assad’s recent battlefield gains in the strategic town of Qusair, made with help from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia. They also want to seize fully Aleppo and parts of Damascus, which might prompt Iran and Russia to upgrade their military aid to Assad. That would turn the conflict into a clear proxy war between Russia and the US and its unruly allies.

Moscow fired the first anti-White House salvo today saying weapons deliveries could scuttle an international peace conference on Syria, being put together for next month by the United Nations, US and Russia following Secretary John Kerry’s relentless lobbying.

Almost simultaneously, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi cut off diplomatic relations with Damascus today because he wants Hezbollah, a Shia militia, to withdraw so that Sunni rebels can properly defeat Assad’s Shia supporters. His decision makes clear that America’s Arab allies are promoting a sectarian proxy war having little to do with democracy or human rights. So delivery of heavy weapons could turn Obama into a fuel of conflict rather than peace builder.

Conflict and terrorism seem without end and the US is not getting much for its expenditure of blood and treasure. The GPI report notes that the US is by far the world’s biggest spender on containing violence, including military spending and internal security, with $1.7 trillion, followed by China with $354 billion, Russia with $207 billion and India with $186 billion.

Yet the US gets few security gains, according to some analysts at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). They suggest that terrorists seek out Americans because the US is also a participant in conflicts that cause deterioration both in global peace and its own security.

In a speech on 23 May, President Obama indicated he wants to reset counter terrorism policies, including the use of killer drones. That would avoid exacerbating conflicts and add to the benefits of withdrawal from Afghanistan and caution in Syria.

The economic dividends could be massive and return the American economy and jobs to glory days. For the first time for any agency, the GPI report clarifies the benefits of winding down conflicts and promoting the positive aspects of peace beyond an end to fighting.

It estimates that the 162 countries surveyed spent $9.46 trillion in 2012 or 11% of Gross World Product on measures to contain violence. “Were the world to reduce its expenditure on violence by approximately 50% it could repay the debt of the developing world ($4,076bn), provide enough money for the European stability mechanism ($900bn) and fund the additional amount required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals ($60bn),” the report says.

This is astounding. Debt elimination would put almost all developing countries on paths to growth, the European stability mechanism could restore growth to Europe, and the Millennium Development Goals will dramatically reduce poverty.

Another fascinating GPI innovation is the Positive Peace Index (PPI), which “measures the strength of the attitudes, institutions, and structures of 126 nations to determine their capacity to create and sustain a peaceful environment”.

PPI improved by 1.7% between 2005 and 2010, partly because of fairer distribution of resources, improved human capital, freer information flows, slightly less corruption and better governance.

However, the challenges to positive peace are huge. For instance, Egypt walked out of talks on the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) last month, jeopardizing the Treaty’s Review Conference of 2015. So far, other Arab countries have not followed suit but their agenda is clear. They want dismantlement of Israel’s nuclear arsenal as part of a Mid-East nuclear-free zone, a demand that no US administration will accept.

By being the first Arab nation to walk out of the NPT talks, Morsi, a Sunni Islamist, might be opening his options to acquire the prestige of a nuclear weapon ahead of historical competitors Saudi Arabia and Turkey. That could happen if the region is destabilized by long internal conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and possibly Iran following Israeli bombardment of its nuclear sites.

Obama, who got the Nobel Peace Prize mainly for promising to make concrete progress towards a nuclear weapons-free world, has much to do. Otherwise, the global peace index could be a dismal read five years from now.

Fifty years ago this week, John F. Kennedy gave the “best speech of his life,” which led to a nuclear test ban treaty. The next night, as Alabama police were attacking protesters with water cannons and dogs, he was on TV from the Oval Office affirming the rights of African-Americans.

Two days later I was in the Cabinet Room of the White House across a table from him leading editors of seven women’s magazines with 34 million readers to ask questions about preserving peace, the only exclusive interview he had given in his presidency, JFK said, other than one with Khrushchev’s son-in-law, editor of Isvestia.

It had taken much effort to get there. Kennedy was changing the rules in pop culture, but politics were something else. His popularity soared, but the Bay of Pigs was a fiasco, Congress thwarted him on civil rights, the Soviets put atomic warheads into Cuba. Even after the 1962 Missile Crisis, both sides were poisoning the air with nuclear testing. Kennedy was negotiating a test-ban treaty, but the Senate seemed unlikely to approve it.

As editor of Redbook, a magazine for young women, I knew readers were concerned that nuclear tests were contaminating their children’s milk and might lead to apocalyptic war. I had been running articles on the subject. Other women’s magazines were publishing little or nothing.

I asked Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary, if the President would give a joint interview to editors of women’s magazines about nuclear war and peace. Salinger did not hesitate. “Yes,” he said. “We’re starved for ways to get people to listen.”

As popular as Kennedy was, lining him up was the easy part. My colleagues, always leery of depressing topics, had to be inveigled. The bait was Dr. Benjamin Spock, who was opposing nuclear tests, and a Republican, James Wadsworth, Eisenhower’s Ambassador to the United Nations, who had written for me on the subject. I invited the editors of six magazines to listen to them over cocktails.

Afterward, I proposed we ask Kennedy for an interview and publish our own versions of it simultaneously.

To my amazement, they agreed, but I could not foresee that that would put me in the position of, in effect, strong-arming the President.

At our first meeting, the editors–of McCalls, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan and Parents–worried that material on survival of the human race might be too “dull” for their readers. We agreed to submit questions in advance, so we could use our time with the President to talk in human terms.

When the answers came back, I had a revolt on my hands. Kennedy’s staff had drafted 15 pages of position-paper jargon. What, my colleagues demanded, was I going to do about it?

As they sat glowering, I called the White House. Salinger was away, leaving his assistant, Andrew Hatcher, to cope with me. “We’re worried,” I told him, “by the tone of the written material. Does the President realize we want to ask questions on a more personal level? Otherwise it doesn’t make sense for us to come down.”

Hatcher, understandably taken aback, could only answer, “But any interview with the President is worthwhile.”

“Of course. But we wouldn’t want to waste his time. Can you make sure there’s no misunderstanding?“

Several days later, Salinger called. “We hear you. Come on down.” (When we were making the arrangements, one editor had asked if he could attend and then decide if the material was usable. “Tell him,” said Salinger, who had been a free—lance writer, “the President doesn’t work on speculation.”)

On June 14, 1963, we were in the Cabinet Room. Kennedy came in and shook hands. We settled into leather chairs around the table. Sitting opposite, I thanked him for seeing us and added, “Between the material you gave us and your speeches, we understand your basic positions. We’d like to ask questions that reflect the concerns of our readers so you can talk to them personally.”

Kennedy smiled, patting the papers in front of him. “I looked over this material. It is somewhat canned. I’ll try to make my answers as personal as possible.”

For the next hour, he did just that, talking about radiation dangers, fallout shelters, the effects on children of air raid drills, easing the arms race, and the value of individuals joining the political debate.

“There is great pressure against peaceful efforts,” he said. “There are an awful lot of powerful groups and interests and people, all very strong patriots, who believe in policies that I think could end up in disaster.” Women working for peace, he added, “are very valuable because they help balance off that pressure. Otherwise we would be very isolated in our efforts toward arms control.”

Most of his answers were, as usual, analytical and rational. But some emotion showed through. “Too many people want to blow up the world,” he said at one point.

“In Cuba, a lot of people thought we should take more drastic action. I think we did the right thing, more drastic action would have increased the possibility of nuclear exchange. The real question now is to meet conflicts year after year without having to escalate.”

The meeting ended soon afterward. The President asked how we would like the transcript. “Raw,” I said and he smiled. We posed for pictures, Kennedy showed us around the Rose Garden, and we left.

The following week we received a 31-page transcript. Then in July, Kennedy and Khrushchev signed a treaty banning nuclear tests. Salinger suggested I come down alone for another interview, and in August, I did.

MORE (with pictures)

I believe that most Americans want an open debate on our government’s surveillance activities.

Today, the Armed Forces Press Service Department published a piece, “NSA Chief Urges Public Debate of Terrorist Surveillance”

Here’s the entire report. You decide whether this is a statement of fact, whether it deserves a question mark, whether it is wishful thinking or whether it is just more government “propaganda.”

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2013 – Now that the existence of classified National Security Agency data-gathering efforts have been leaked to the public, the head of U.S. Cyber Command and NSA said yesterday he wants the public to understand the programs “so they can see what we’re doing and what the results of it are.”

Among the results, Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander told the full Senate Appropriations Committee, is the disruption or contributions to the disruption in the United States and abroad of “dozens of terrorist events.”

Alexander testified along with interagency partners from the Homeland Security Department, the FBI and the National Institute of Standards and Technology during a hearing that U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the committee chair, convened to discuss preparing for and responding to the enduring cyber threat.

But several senators — given their first chance to question Alexander since NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information to newspapers June 6 about classified surveillance practices — abruptly asked about the leaks and about legislation authorizing the practices.

In his leaks to the media, Snowden described two NSA surveillance programs authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress created in 2008. Section 702 of FISA authorizes access to records and other items of foreign targets located outside the United States under court oversight.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act broadened FISA to allow the FBI director or another high-ranking official there to apply for orders to produce telephone records, books and other materials to help with terrorism investigations.

Revelations about the programs have launched a debate nationwide about privacy, because Section 215 allows NSA to collect something called metadata — information about call length and connections — for phone calls that occur inside the United States and between the United States and other countries.

“These authorities complement each other in helping us identify different terrorist actions and … disrupt them,” Alexander told the senators. “If you want to get the content [of the phone calls], you’d have to get a court order. In any of these programs … we [need] court orders for doing that, with oversight by Congress, by the courts and by the administration.”

Some of the senators asked for details about terrorism cases that the NSA surveillance programs have helped, and Alexander named a few but said he intended to bring a classified list of them to today’s closed session of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

But Alexander said he also wanted to provide an unclassified version — if he could make that happen, he said — this week that could be released to the public.
(emphasis mine)

“I think this is an area where we have to give [Congress and the American people] the details. They need to understand it so they can see what we’re doing and what the results of it are,” he added. (emphasis mine)

“We all had this concern coming out of 9/11 — how are we going to protect the nation,” the general said, “because we did get intercepts on [Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar], but we didn’t know where he was. We didn’t have the data collected to know that he was a bad person.”

Mihdhar was one of five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 who flew that aircraft into the Pentagon as part of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“Because he was in the United States,” Alexander continued, “the way we treated it [then] is that he’s a U.S. person, so we had no information on him. If we didn’t collect that [information] ahead of time, we couldn’t make those connections.”

Now through its surveillance programs, the NSA creates a set of telephone metadata from all over the United States, and only under specific circumstances can officials query the data, he said.

“And every time we do, it’s auditable by the [congressional] committees, by the Justice Department, by the court and by the administration,” Alexander said. “We get oversight from everybody on this.”

The collection of U.S. telephone metadata is one of the elements that should be debated nationally, Alexander said, but he described why it was helpful in terrorism cases to do so.

“Let’s take Mihdhar,” he said. “[Congress] had authorized us to get Mihdhar’s phones in California, but Mihdhar was talking to the other four teams [in other parts of the country].

“Today, under the business-record FISA, because we had stored that data in the database, we now have what we call reasonable, articulable suspicion. We could take that [phone] number and go backwards in time and see who he was talking to,” the general continued. “And if we saw there were four other groups, we wouldn’t know who those people were — we’d only get the numbers. We’d say, ‘This looks of interest,’ and pass it to the FBI. We don’t look at U.S. identities. We only look at the connections.”

Alexander said he would like to see a nationwide debate on such topics for a couple of reasons. (emphasis mine)

“I think what we’re doing to protect American citizens here is the right thing,” he said. “Our agency takes great pride in protecting this nation and our civil liberties and privacy, and doing it in partnership with this committee, with this Congress, and with the courts. We aren’t trying to hide it. We’re trying to protect America, so we need your help in doing that. This isn’t something that’s just NSA or the administration. … This is what our nation expects our government to do for us.”

Alexander said he’s not the only official involved in getting information declassified, but added, that if he can make it happen, he will. (emphasis mine)

“I do think what we’re doing does protect American civil liberties and privacy,” he told the Senate panel. “The issue is [that] to date, we’ve not been able to explain it, because it’s classified, so that issue is something we’re wrestling with.”

“How do we explain this and still keep the nation secure?” he asked. “That’s the issue that we have in front of us.” (emphasis mine)

Martin Sutovec, Slovakia

Guest post by Ali Ezzatyar

The dust does not seem to be settling at all on protests in Turkey this week. All the while, talk of an “increasingly authoritarian government” and the erosion of democracy has had a particularly ironic resonance for one portion of Turkey’s population: the Kurds. Making up 25 percent of the country and historically estranged from Turkish society, the view from the southeast is one that could benefit outside observers as they try to make sense of transpirings in Istanbul and beyond.

The notion that Turkey is becoming increasingly authoritarian under Erdogan only makes sense if your chronology is a few years long. It is true that, using his democratic mandate, Erdogan has been aggressive in the implementation of his agenda over the last few years with very little effort in the way of consensus building. But in the context of 50 years of Turkish history, the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) represents a step forward both economically and democratically as the rest of the world defines those terms.

The line between a brand of “Kemalist” secularism and democracy is blurred by a large part of last week’s bona fide protesters, who likened their Turkish government to that of other deposed dictatorships in the Middle East. The importance of that form of secularism is espoused especially by supporters of Ataturk’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), which held a monopoly on power and information in Turkey for most of its history. It is an ultra-secularism that is better described as the separation of church and society, not the separation of church and state, in addition to extreme Turkish nationalism. While the protests do target legitimate shortcomings in the Erdogan government, such as curbs on personal freedom, they are not defined by them. Rather, they are defined by the shift away from a traditional Turkish way of existence, which is uncomfortable for many. The allegations being lobbed against the AKP and Erdogan existed the day they took power.

The Kurdish example helps contextualize the protesters’ allegations a bit. Since the founding of the Turkish Republic 90 years ago, Turkey has ceremonially excluded the participation of its openly Kurdish citizens from any aspect of civil society. Dozens of Kurdish parties have been banned from the “democratic” process and elected members of parliament have been jailed for treason for merely speaking Kurdish in parliament. Thousands of Kurdish journalists have been jailed and tortured by successive Turkish governments for writing in Kurdish or on Kurdish issues, with more Kurdish journalists in jail today in Turkey than journalists imprisoned in all of China or Iran. The list of injustices like this against Kurds is long.

Religious Muslims in Turkey have also had reason to believe that their values were not at home in the modern Turkish Republic, which meanwhile marketed itself to the outside world as a progressive Muslim country that bridged the European-Asian divide. As exhibited by events such as a military coup that destroyed a democratically elected Islamist leaning government in the ’90s, or policies such as the banning of the headscarf, Turkey failed to incorporate the majority of its population into civil society or the democratic process before the AKP, while the country struggled economically. These are important factors in evaluating Turkey’s trajectory and the allegations against Erdogan today.

Enter the AKP and Turkey’s new “Islamist” government at the turn of the century on the heels of decades of economic setbacks, interference with the democratic system, and ethnic strife. In addition to successfully nationalizing Turkey’s ailing public industries and augmenting nearly all economic indicators during a global downturn, Turkey has finally taken important steps to strengthen its lukewarm democracy. It has ostensibly taken political power out of the hands of the military, an essential first step for any real democracy.

Erdogan is also busy working on a new constitution that may once and for all view all of Turkey’s citizens equally under the eyes of the law, regardless of language or cultural distinction. This is the main demand of Turkey’s Kurds, and while many practical issues remain with respect to the so-called “Kurdish Question,” no government has sought to deal with it in as direct a manner as the current one. For a majority of Turkey’s population — the new entrants to the middle class who are not part of Ankara’s traditional elite, businessmen and students in Istanbul, and Turkey’s massive Kurdish population — things are not worse, they are better. Whatever the merits of Kemalism for a post-war Turkey, Ataturk’s Anatolia belongs in the past, not the present.

In this lies both an opportunity and a real danger. Erdogan is up against an entrenched, passionate, and genuine opposition that resents his arrogance and view of the Republic. For all of his accomplishments, he is far from perfect, and to continue his project he needs to do more than dismiss the protesters’ grievances while characterizing their activities as hooliganism. He needs to be a better democratic leader — by negotiating with the opposition, seeking compromise on his more controversial reforms, and eliminating any semblance of censorship of the media or his foes. As a popular member of the CHP recently stated, “Sadly, I don’t see any way for Erdogan to lose an election.” While he may not lose an election, he may very easily lose all control of his Republic, with dire consequences for Turks and the region as a whole.

Ali Ezzatyar is a lawyer and executive director of the Berkeley Program on Entrepreneurship and Democracy in the Middle East. He is a frequent contributor to The Reaction.

The electorate, in primal wisdom, has told them to cool it, as a new poll shows 57 percent believe “leaks about the surveillance programs would not affect the ability of the United States to prevent future terrorist attacks” after 56 percent had called phone tracking an acceptable tactic.

In the light of such attitudes, the likes of John Boehner have turned on a dime. After first challenging the President to “explain” the NSA revelations, the Speaker is now leading the pack calling Snowden “a traitor.”

As most Democrats like Al Franken line up to back the programs, their GOP counterparts are rushing to outdo them in patriotic fervor, with good old reliable Lindsey Graham proclaiming he wouldn’t mind having the government snoop on his snail mail.

As he often does, Thomas Friedman reflects the mixed feelings that most rational Americans can’t avoid:

“Yes, I worry about potential government abuse of privacy from a program designed to prevent another 9/11–abuse that, so far, does not appear to have happened. But I worry even more about another 9/11…

“I worry about that even more, not because I don’t care about civil liberties, but because what I cherish most about America is our open society…”

MORE.

Like the WikiLeaks story before it, given the fact that the NSA surveillance saga uniquely affects people of every other nation, there is a global reaction that we are working to capture and translate on behalf of the American people and English-speaking world.

So far, from the non-English-language press, we have posted content from Germany’s Handelsblatt and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Switzerland’s Suedostschweiz, France’s Le Monde and Midiapart, Brazil’s Folha, and Colombia’s El Espectador. Here is a sampling.

For Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an article headlined Protect Us from Terrorism … and Government Snooping, columnist Carsten Knop considers the most sobering part of the NSA surveillance program to be that a well-functioning democracy is conducting it. Considering that other countries which are far less democratic can be expected to do the same, Knop writes that manufacturers and companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook should begin building such protections into their services and devices as a way to boost business and rebuild trust.

“The individual Internet user is helpless against this development. Therefore, companies that conduct their business using the lure of the Internet should be asked to do something. Data protection must urgently be incorporated into devices and software programs. Privacy must become a selling point. … Democratic states must address a task that needs to be taken far more seriously in the future than it has in the past: In addition to surveillance to protect against terrorism, they must also protect the digital freedom of their citizens so they remain free themselves.”

From Switzerland’s Suedostschweiz in an article headlined, Exposed: Spy Powers that Obama Shouldn’t Use, columnist Thomas J. Spang has a suggestion for President Obama, now that we know how The Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are being used: stop using them!:

“No scandal investigation committee is required where none exists. However, it is urgently necessary to change these scandalous laws which so cheerfully hand civil rights and freedom to the executioner’s block of secrecy. A blank check for eavesdropping on millions of innocent citizens goes far beyond what is necessary for the targeted monitoring of suspicious communications.”

Then for France’s Le Monde, in an article headlined NSA Surveillance Storm Gathers Over Cloud Market, columnist Guenael Pepin writes that by giving the NSA access to the Cloud-based user data of European citizens, Internet giants like Microsoft appear to have broken European rules governing their operations on the continent, thus undermining their credibility, the legal basis for their operations, and the confidence of people around the world in the security of putting sensitive data in the Cloud:

“News of the NSA surveillance comes at the worst possible moment for these companies, for which the level of trust regarding private data has been diminished. Google and Microsoft, in particular, are increasingly targeting the business market in their transitions to the Cloud. … The secret “‘PRISM’ program could be construed as a violation of the principles of Europe’s Safe Harbor Scheme, which protects the data security of Europeans, as the European Commission was not notified.”

So now that the whole world knows that no one’s data is safe from the NSA – what’s next? For France’s Mediapart, in an article headlined The NSA is Spying on Us! What a Surprise!, tech columnist Jean-Paul Baquiast thinks he knows. According to him, the beauty of what is to come is that snooping and squelching evil-doers will soon be fully automated!:

“As forecast by our friends, the experts in algorithms, all search functions that now navigate automatically within these programs will from this point on self-activate. People, whoever they are, you and me perhaps, who are in no way terrorists, will be reported with the utmost discretion to other programs responsible for anonymous eradication. A drone, or ‘special forces’ mercenaries, will take care of any necessary eliminations, and neighbors will blame the disappearances on sudden bouts of depression.”

Then from Brazil’s Folha, reporter Isabel Fleck filed this article headlined Being ‘Carioca’ Helped Glenn Greenwald Break NSA Surveillance Story. Greenwald, who lives in Rio with his partner, tells Folha that he believes his presence in Brazil has facilitated his work investigating the U.S. government:

“People [sources] think they are more protected because of the distance, and I’m less vulnerable to being targeted by political retaliation or lawsuits because I live in Brazil. That gives me additional protection. … Not being in New York and Washington – and not being socially connected to the people who cover politics, allows me to be more independent.”

Then … whatever laudable purposes NSA surveillance technology may be put to, is it just as likely to be used for less desirable ones? For Colombia’s El Espectador in an article headlined Please Consider Yourself Watched!, columnist Hector Abad Faciolince ponders the possibilities, and asks who is watching the watchers while they watch all of us:

“The interesting thing is that now, it seems, the spy activities that emerged to protect against an outside attack are being turned against the citizens themselves. … Private Manning, who leaked the video on which we could see U.S. soldiers killing a journalist in Iraq, is faring much worse than the soldier who killed that journalist. Apparently, we can all be watched, save those who are watching. The problem is, who is watching those who watch?”

READ MORE TRANSLATED and English-language foreign press coverage as the NSA surveillance story continues to unfold at Worldmeets.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Paresh Nath, The Khaleej Times, UAE

As the demonstrations grow in Istanbul, the question is now being raised. Is Turkey — a country vital to President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, just as it has been vital to the foreign policy of many earlier administrations — heading into it’s version of the “Arab Spring?” Some use the comparison, some reject it. Events are unfolding quickly.

Cable networks are now covering live demonstrations. Expects are being hauled out to talk about the political context, Turkey’s history, and what could happen if the demonstrations peter out or are violently repressed. A cross section (go to the links to read the full stories):

–The AP:
—

Riot police stormed Istanbul’s Taksim Square on Tuesday, using tear gas and water cannon to scatter protesters demonstrating against plans to redevelop a nearby park.

“Now that the theater is over, I don’t know what will happen now but we are waiting and we are trying to save the park still,” said Nuri Kayserilioglu, 24, an economics student sitting at the edge of the square, who says the show of force was a play for the camera but he and his friends intended to occupy Gezi Park until forcefully removed.

Television cameras captured images of molotov-cocktail-throwing demonstrators who confronted armored police vehicles. By mid-afternoon, demonstrators inside Gezi Park tried to distance themselves from the violence, accusing police of using provocateurs to make sensational images of violence.

RAW VIDEO: Police move in:

The BBC’s Mark Lowen:

What began as a demonstration by environmentalists has mushroomed into something far bigger: a fight by disparate groups for greater freedom in Turkey and a preservation of the country’s secular order.

They see a government with an authoritarian, neo-Islamist agenda: the highest number of journalists in the world in prison, restrictions on alcohol sales, massive construction projects prioritised over human rights.

“This is not an Arab spring”, one protester, Melis Behlil, told me.

“We have free elections here. But the problem is that the person elected doesn’t listen to us.”

…….And what of the timing? The police clear-out came a day before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was supposed to hold talks with some protesters – a potential chance for dialogue. That prospect now seems in tatters.

But Mr Erdogan has stood firm throughout.

AND:

I have spent days in Taksim and Gezi Park and have met mainly young leftist Turks enjoying a largely festive atmosphere here – the petrol bomb-throwers are the fringe”

He has called the protesters “vandals” and “terrorists”.

On Tuesday he told parliament that the movement was an international conspiracy against Turkey to destabilise its economy.

He lashed out at the foreign press for launching “comprehensive attacks” on the country and warned protesters that they were pawns in a wider game. “We won’t show any more tolerance,” he said.

Vast swathes of the country still back him. The protest movement has made the headlines – but another side of Turkey exists. Mr Erdogan’s support base is conservative and more religious.

The Guardian:

There is a bitter irony to events in Turkey. The man who told the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak before his fall that “no government can survive against the will of its people” dismissed his own civil movement as looters, riffraff and foreign agents. The man who sent the army back to its barracks, and pushed back the power of Turkey’s deep state, sent in riot police yesterday to arrest more than 50 lawyers protesting at police brutality. The man whose reforms instituted unprecedented democratic freedoms in Turkey can not, apparently, cope with their consequences.

For the second time in 10 days, the response of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to appeals to listen and compromise has been defiance, teargas and water cannon. Answering the charge that his own reaction to the protests in Gezi Park and Taksim Square in Istanbul have turned a local environmental protest into a national crisis, Mr Erdo?an did a Margaret Thatcher: “If you call this roughness, I’m sorry, but this Tayyip Erdo?an won’t change.” Turkey, on the other hand, has changed.

One has to define which Turkey. There are several of them residing within one land. But to take just one of the causes of this crisis – the restrictions on the sale and advertising of alcohol which were signed into law yesterday – the Justice and Development party measure was a solution to something that was not really a problem. According to the government’s own surveys, only 6% of households spend enough on alcohol to affect their budget. The rest are social drinkers or non-drinkers. In one blitzkrieg of a week, Mr Erdo?an has made selling beer at night at the height of the tourist season an act of political defiance.

Police forces in Italy, Britain and the US have had their own well-documented problems in dealing with political protest, especially in the runup to G8 conferences. But in Mr Erdo?an’s mind, something other than genuine political protest is happening. There is a conspiracy, too. “The big picture” behind the protesters, he reportedly told members of his party executive, is the forces that want to scupper his historic deal with the Kurds, profiteers upset by government moves to push interest rates below 5% and foreign powers who cannot accept Turkey becoming an international power. That’s a big list.

Russia Today video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aljazeera English analysis of events:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Economist:

It Bega with a grove of sycamores. For months environmentalists had been protesting against a government-backed plan to chop the trees down to make room for a shopping and residential complex in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. They organised a peaceful sit-in with tents, singing and dancing. On May 31st riot police staged a pre-dawn raid, dousing the protesters with jets of water and tear gas and setting fire to their encampment. Images of the brutality—showing some protesters bloodied, others blinded by plastic bullets—spread like wildfire across social media.

Within hours thousands of outraged citizens were streaming towards Taksim. Police with armoured personnel carriers and water cannon retaliated with even more brutish force. Blasts of pepper spray sent people reeling and gasping for air. Hundreds were arrested and scores injured in the clashes that ensued. Copycat demonstrations soon erupted in Ankara and elsewhere. By June 3rd most of Turkey’s 81 provinces had seen protests. A “tree revolution” had begun.

In fact these protests are not just about trees. Nor is Turkey really on the brink of a revolution. The convulsions are rather an outpouring of the long-stifled resentment felt by those—nearly half of the electorate—who did not vote for the moderately Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party in the election of June 2011 that swept Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s combative prime minister, to a third term. The most popular slogan on the streets was “Tayyip Resign”. Millions of housewives joined in, clanging their pans in solidarity and belying government claims that the protests had been pre-planned rather than spontaneous.

It took 24 hours for Mr Erdogan to respond—whereupon he called the protesters “louts” who were acting under orders from “foreign powers”. The wave of unrest evidently caught his government off guard. “The limits of its power have now been drawn,” said Kadri Gursel, a columnist for the daily Milliyet. By June 5th at least three people had died and thousands of others had been hurt; students referred to their bruises as “Erdogan’s kiss”. The Istanbul Stock Exchange fell by as much as 12% on June 3rd, before recovering slightly the next day. Barack Obama’s administration expressed “serious concerns”.

–Foreign Policy blog:

On Tuesday morning, police attempted to drive protestors out of the park with water cannons and tear gas — perhaps signaling an end to the popular and mostly peaceful demonstrations that have spread across Turkey over the past two weeks. But the issues that have fueled the turmoil — from complaints over the Islamist government’s conservative social policies to demands for greater democracy — are not likely to dissipate so quickly. And that is particularly true of one issue that has inflamed many protesters’ anger at Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The government’s stance on the war ravaging Syria, which has now claimed over 80,000 lives.

The war in Syria is polarizing Turkey. According to a recent study by MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center, based in Ankara, only 28 percent of the Turkish public supports the prime minister’s policies on Syria. Since the start of the conflict, the government has strongly condemned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. From early on, Erdogan has vocally supported the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the rebel group battling the regime, and has urged the United States to supply them with weapons and to establish a no-fly zone.

Turkey is crucial for the rebels. It offers refuge for their families as well as a safe zone where they can plan and launch attacks over the border. Turkish businesses supply the rebels with everything from medicine to uniforms to cigarettes. But many Turks have long worried that this would make them subject to retaliation by the Syrian government — a fear that, for many, was confirmed by the attacks in Reyhanli. The leader of Turkey’s main opposition has repeatedly confronted Erdogan over his pro-rebel policies, accusing the prime minister of supporting Syrian “terrorists.”

Indeed, protests against the government’s Syria policy actually predate the broader demonstrations of the past two weeks. Thousands of enraged residents took to the streets in Reyhanli in the days after the bombings, citing what they perceive as a growing lack of security and a job market now favoring Syrian refugees willing to work for less than Turks.

--4 News:

The police operation came after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed to meet protest leaders, having initially refused to engage with the growing protest movement.

However, Erdogan has backed the police actions, declaring: “They say the prime minister is rough. So what was going to happen? Were we going to kneel down in front of these (people)?”

“If you call this roughness, I’m sorry, but this Tayyip Erdogan won’t change.”

NBC News:

Under Erdogan’s leadership, most here agree, Turkey has become an economic success and a force to be reckoned with in the region. But his construction mania and a series of new laws have angered secular Turks, even as they have pleased his growing power base – the conservative, Islamist middle-class.

“People are fed up with Erdogan’s approach,” said Ali Orcunos, a 64-year-old pensioner who was protesting in Taksim Square with a group younger than his own children. “Which is ‘I decided this, so I will do it this way because the 50 percent who support me want it so; and the other 50 percent don’t count.’’’

In recent months Erdogan has imposed restrictions on the sale of alcohol, a drawing down of social security, the separation of boys and girls in primary and secondary schools, and an emphasis on religious – over national – holidays.

And after the initial clashes, Erdogan, rather than seek a conciliatory tone, skewered the protesters, calling them looters who were “arm in arm with terrorists.”
“I was stunned,” said Begum Uzun, one of the protesters on the square. “I expected Erdogan to say something that would slow down the protest, to be more rational.”

The Washington Post’s Max Fisher:

It’s amazing to watch this video and compare it to the images from Istanbul’s Taksim Square just two weeks ago, when the protests began. In those first days of protest, the square looked more like an outdoor jazz concert, with urbane young locals lounging in the square’s park and waving signs.

Now, as the above video shows, the square is filled with riot police, trucks blasting water cannons at protesters, tear gas and young, gas mask-wearing demonstrators who looked like they just stepped out of Cairo’s Tahrir Square. That doesn’t mean Turkey’s protest movement is akin to Egypt’s – for starters, Turkey is a democracy that freely elected its current, Islamist government – but it is jarring to see how quickly Taksim has been Tahrirified by protesters and police alike.

A few Tweets as Twitter belches out its quick coverage:

CNN Int/The Lead: We know that many in Turkey are watching us because they don’t trust their media #occupygezi

— Ezgi Basaran (@ezgibasaran) June 11, 2013

Aliriza @cnn:Turkey has been portrayed as a model nation in the Middle East however, Turkey is not currently a model for anyone @jaketapper

— CSIS (@CSIS) June 11, 2013

Once again turkish tvs are in a shame as #Turkey watches international channels to see whats happening in the country #occupygezi

— Erdinc Ergenc (@erdierge) June 11, 2013

#Turkey‘s crackdown sends scores scattering from Taksim. As governor declares war on marginal groups, more seem fueled to join #occupygezi

— Emre Peker (@wsjemre) June 11, 2013

… Also tells me that Turkey’s PM wants to hold talks with the “legitimate” protestors.

— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) June 11, 2013

Turkey is one of the countries with the highest # of journalists in jail, that does not speak well for democracy, says @camanpour.

— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) June 11, 2013

Just a remarkable job right now by @arwacnn, reporting from behind a gas mask in the middle of the protests in Turkey. Riveting.

— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) June 11, 2013

Turkish central bank boosts lira as clashes obscure economic gains reut.rs/1a0bkkx

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 11, 2013

When no one trusts anyone, paranoia sells and produces “heroes” like 29-year-old Edward Snowden, who is being hailed by the self-selected morally superior for revealing, in the words of his sponsor Glenn Greenwald, that the “US government is building this massive spying apparatus aimed at its own population.”

That this is not even remotely true seems to matter not at all, as the White House and Congress struggle to explain how surveillance works with safeguards of a FISA court to limit intrusion on Americans who have not been in contact with suspicious foreign sources. (If they had been aggressively bugging the Tsamaev brothers, might we have been spared the Boston bombings?)

Now in Hong Kong, Snowden has taken his conscience out of criminal reach, counting on odds that the US will not try to extradite him to avoid prolonging debate on the issue, but that does not make him a First Amendment hero. In times of moral darkness, a one-eyed whistle blower is no king.

JeffreyToobin observes in the New Yorker: “The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work. But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the air—and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. We all now have to hope that he’s right.”

Now we learn about ego-driven squabbles at the Guardian over publishing Snowden’s scoop that tend to confirm the motivation of all involved.

Right on cue, Daniel Ellsberg who made public the Pentagon Papers in 1971 shows up to proclaim that the US has fallen into an “abyss” of total tyranny but that Snowden’s revelations offer “the unexpected possibility of a way up and out of the abyss.”

Those of us who recall those days can testify to the legal process back then that the New York Times and other publications had to go through to publish details…

MORE.

Should Europeans, or people in any country other than the United States for that matter, worry that the newly-revealed NSA surveillance program is legally authorized to spy on them? For Germany’s Handelsblatt, columnist Axel Postinett expresses concern that almost all of the major Internet companies are based in the United States and are at the behest of the U.S. government, which puts European data at risk, and the European Union at a competitive disadvantage.

For Handelsblatt, Axel Postinett starts out this way:

San Francisco: It was emphatically the last thing Obama needed. This weekend in California’s Palm Springs, he actually hoped to read the riot act to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. For years, hackers in China have allegedly been obtaining confidential information from corporate and government servers. Obama wants to make clear that this will no longer be tolerated and that the Chinese government will be held directly responsible.

But Jinping has good reason to react with an inscrutable smile and massive counter-allegations. On Friday morning, Obama had to openly admit that under his authority, the United States has been conducting massive worldwide data snooping. Anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or living in the United States is under general suspicion of being a terrorist – and that includes the Chinese. Conversations are being followed, e-mails read, photos viewed, and files on servers searched. On a more limited level, even U.S. citizens are targeted: selected phone numbers at home and abroad are evaluated.

That is only possible because the U.S. has achieved virtual global domination of the Web through its prosperous Internet industry. At least in the Western world, practically every significant Internet company originated in the United States. Regardless of whether it is Apple, Google, AOL, Skype, Dropbox, Microsoft or Facebook: According to U.S. law, these companies are required to provide, on request, information about all foreign customers.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR GERMAN, OR READ MORE GLOBAL REACTION TO THE NSA SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM, AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

It was evident from the very beginning that Mr. Edward Snowden, the man who revealed highly classified national security information to The Guardian and to the world, would be a hero to some, a villain to others.

And the characterization of Snowden, as either a hero or a villain has been — for a change — bipartisan.

Conservative television host Glenn Beck and liberal filmmaker Michael Moore both praised Snowden, calling him a “hero.”

Others, both Republicans and Democrats, have called Snowden a felon, a traitor, and worse.

Jeffrey Toobin at The New Yorker, referring to how many are hailing Snowdon as a hero and a whistle-blower, says, “He is, rather, a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.”

While I believe that Snowdon has broken the law and a sacred trust — regardless of his motives — and that if convicted he should be punished according to our laws, what we call him is not as important as what he has done.

And what he has done truly puzzles me.

He has been called extremely intelligent — and that he appears to be.

He has been called “patriotic” — and that, in my opinion, is debatable.

He has been called truthful, honest — and that needs to be ascertained.

But it is the incongruity of these traits, allegedly possessed by Snowden, with his recent actions that have me puzzled and disturbed.

Let me explain.

If Snowden is brilliant enough to know the ins-and-outs of our nation’s most sensitive surveillance programs and if — as he claims — he could shut the entire system in an afternoon if he wanted to and if he “had full access to the full rosters of everyone working at the NSA, the entire intelligence community, and undercover assets all around the world,” how patriotic, how intelligent is it for him with this mass of knowledge of our most sensitive programs and assets to make his presence known in Hong Kong, where China — or any other country or party with unfriendly designs towards the United States — could whisk him off and in a Chinese water-boarding minute extract such wealth of information out of him?

A strange and volatile mixture of brilliancy, honesty and patriotism, if you ask me.

Toobin puts it this way:

Snowden fled to Hong Kong when he knew publication of his leaks was imminent. In his interview, he said he went there because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent.” This may be true, in some limited way, but the overriding fact is that Hong Kong is part of China, which is, as Snowden knows, a stalwart adversary of the United States in intelligence matters. (Evan Osnos has more on that.) Snowden is now at the mercy of the Chinese leaders who run Hong Kong. As a result, all of Snowden’s secrets may wind up in the hands of the Chinese government—which has no commitment at all to free speech or the right to political dissent. And that makes Snowden a hero?

Read more here

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