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Pompeo announces reversal of longstanding US policy on Israeli settlements

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced a major reversal of the US' longstanding policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, rejecting a 1978 State Department legal opinion that deemed the settlements "inconsistent with international law."

The announcement, which breaks with international law and consensus, is the latest in a string of hardline, pro-Israeli moves that are likely to inflame tensions between the Trump administration and Palestinians and widen the divide between the Trump administration and traditional US allies in Europe.

"After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan: the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law," Pompeo said, citing President Ronald Reagan's 1981 assessment that the settlements were not "inherently illegal."

Pompeo said the US government is "expressing no view on the legal status of any individual settlement" or "addressing or prejudging the ultimate status of the West Bank."

Trump has been a tool of Israel. But this move might not be good for Israel's long-term future.

Will not the good people respond to a united, and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means, so certainly, or so speedily, assure these vital objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility.
[...]We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. .

― Abraham Lincoln

Replace the head of Hong Kong with democratically elected leadership. Then do the same for China as a whole. Anything else doesn't fix the underlying problem. President Xi Jinping wasn't voted in by Chinese voters and there's no mechanism for kicking him out for the shenanigans going on in Hong Kong now. That's a huge part of the present Hong Kong problems.

The responses were almost invariably criticism of that claim and it's quite enlightening the approaches they used. The first reply was a discussion of the alleged unpopularity of the protests by noting that only 17% wanted independence (while ignoring that substantially more would want to not be extradited to the mainland just for saying the wrong thing). And since the protests were allegedly unpopular, thus, they shouldn't be able to impose drastic changes on a society.

The second lauded the Chinese election system because it kept the riff raff out. The third complained that democratic governments have protests too. Every single one of them mentioned the US in some way:

The US media has been unabashedly promoting the protests and protesters.

In regards to the Chinese voting system, it deserves some consideration. I think a big part of the reason our democratic systems have been failing is because of lowest common denominator issues. Democrats have to promise handouts to people, because it's how they've built their support. Reparations are the most visible example of this. We'll pay for you to vote for us! Even better, we're not paying you with our money! And the party platform is now increasingly frequently now turning into free everything, we'll sort out the implications or how to pay for it all later. Republicans, by contrast, end up proposing things like building a wall, even though if you magically zapped every single brown person out of the country today and split the US and Mexico by a few hundred miles of Pacific, I think it's improbable we'd see a dramatic improvement in conditions/wages for the labor class. It might help some but the gesture is largely symbolic, though the cost is anything but. In both cases it's simply appealing a lowest common denominator.

Yellow vest protesters (which I don't recall have ended yet, and have been sufficiently violent from both sides.) Protests for independence in Catalonia, national police showing up to beat down a local organised referendum. Kent State shootings

This foreshadows a deep discussion tree of duplicitous debate where all kinds of shifty rationalizations for Chinese and Hong Kong government action appear. China apparently can't handle democracy due to its culture - which as I noted at the time indicates the culture would be inferior (and ignoring Taiwan which has a functioning Chinese democracy). And these critics go over without any initial prompting from me the numerous glaring flaws of the US: corruption, terrible voters/candidates, awful media, lying and dishonesty, "red scare" witch hunts, partisanship, tragedy of the commons, prisoners per capita, and understanding of the Chinese culture(s) - while ignoring that China was worse at every single one of these except for the last two (maybe).

The point of that huge discussion of US/China comparisons is that it was both spontaneous introduced by a lot of the critics, and ignores that there's plenty of democracies where the US comes from. Even if you don't like the US or don't believe it's actually a democracy, there's others that have their shit together better like say Norway or Switzerland. Yet we see again and again when the Chinese government gets criticized in a story, so does the US government in comments.

This also happens in stories critical of Russia. For example, we have a recent bit [fixed a bad link I just noticed 5/19/2020] of Russian propaganda posted in Runaway's journal where invasion and annexation of the Crimea is glossed over in a peculiar revision of history. Consider these two dates:

Feb. 23, 2014: The date that NATO, Western diplomats, and the corporate media have chosen – disingenuously – as the beginning of recent European history, with silence about the coup orchestrated in Kyiv the day before. President Vladimir Putin returns to Moscow from the winter Olympics in Sochi; confers with advisers about Crimea, deciding – unlike Khrushchev in 1954 – to arrange a plebiscite to let the people of Crimea, most of whom strongly opposed the coup regime, decide their own future.

March 16, 2014: The official result from the voters in Crimea voted overwhelmingly for independence from Ukraine and to join Russia. Following the referendum, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation. On March 18, the Russian Federal Assembly ratified the incorporation of Crimea into Russia.

Where's the invasion of Crimea by the Russians on February 27? Strangely, it's not mentioned at all. We go from the silky weaseling of Putin deciding to "arrange a plebiscite" even though he has no authority to do so, to a smooth annexation of Crimea by Russia (unmentioned in this narrative is the ridiculously on-sided vote of 97% of the vote in favor). Notice also the attack on Nikita Khrushchev, whom is termed a "Ukrainian" while glossing over that Khrushchev was the First Secretary of the USSR and unlike Putin had the authority to decide that the Crimea would become part of the Ukraine.

Similar prevarication happens in the discussion of the shooting down of a passenger airline.

So what happened when I criticized this timeline as the over-the-top Russian propaganda that it was? Suddenly there was a great interest in the flaws of the US system in particular. The alleged 3% who allegedly voted against the Russian invasion were compared to the 5% or less who don't vote for a major party presidential candidate in the US. I was accused of spouting US propaganda (facts apparently don't matter). And so on. Runaway said something I think quite appropriate though grossly misapplied.

The point is, it gets tiresome when someone constantly condemns one party for the actions that another party gets away with, routinely. It smells of hypocrisy.

Here's my take. None of that is a valid excuse for evil and tyranny. Else I could just throw back in your face. "Russia and China do it, so my shifty country can do it too." Is that race to the bottom really what we want for our world?

Authoritarian societies like China or Russia can lie without consequence and people will automatically believe (or at least pretend to). It's a standard 1984 system where alignment with official rhetoric is more important than whether that rhetoric has any basis in truth. I'm not part of that system. I don't have to believe it, hence I don't.

Micron announces 1TB industrial microSD, aimed at surveillance markets

The Micron i300 microSD card is available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities, and is built using its 96-layer 3D QLC NAND. Micron uses the high-capacity NAND in its products, including the aforementioned microSD cards, as well as SATA and NVMe-linked SSDs, as well as selling NAND to other companies to pair with custom controllers in their products.

Micron is positioning the card for edge compute, with surveillance systems increasing storing video on-device, rather than transmitting everything to external storage as it is recorded, eliminating the need for on-site DVRs, lowering TCO costs.

This may be an application where QLC NAND makes sense, if it takes three months to fill the microSD on a continuous write (though increasing the resolution of the storage image could undercut this). Given that QLC is rated for 100 to 1,000 erase/write cycles, for three months per device write, a pessimistic view would put the lifespan at 25 years.

An even more pessimistic view would note that no MicroSD card ever made has survived for 15 years, much less one with crappy QLC NAND, since the MicroSD form factor was finalized in 2005.

https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2019/11/14/ukraine-for-dummies/

At Wednesday’s debut of the impeachment hearings there was one issue upon which both sides of the aisle seemed to agree, and it was a comic-book caricature of reality.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff led off the proceedings with this: “In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation’s embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire…”

Five years ago, when Ukraine first came into the news, those Americans who thought Ukraine was an island in the Pacific can perhaps be forgiven. That members of the House Intelligence Committee don’t know – or pretend not to know – more accurate information about Ukraine is a scandal, and a consequential one.

As Professor Stephen Cohen has warned, if the impeachment process does not deal in objective fact, already high tensions with Russia are likely to become even more dangerous.

So here is a kind of primer for those who might be interested in some Ukraine history:

Late 1700s: Catherine the Great consolidated her rule; established Russia’s first and only warm-water naval base in Crimea.

In 1919, after the Bolshevik Revolution, Moscow defeated resistance in Ukraine and the country becomes one of 15 Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

In 1954, after Stalin’s death the year before, Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, assumed power. Pandering to Ukrainian supporters, he unilaterally decreed that henceforth Crimea would be part of the Ukrainian SSR, not the Russian SSR. Since all 15 Republics of the USSR were under tight rule from Moscow, the switch was a distinction without much of a difference – until later, when the USSR fell apart.

Nov. 1989: Berlin wall down.

Dec. 2-3, 1989: President George H. W. Bush invites Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to summit talks in Malta; reassures him “the U.S. will not take advantage” of Soviet troubles in Eastern Europe. Bush had already been pushing the idea of a Europe whole and free, from Portugal to Vladivostok.

A Consequential Quid Pro Quo

Feb. 7-10, 1990: Secretary of State James Baker negotiates a quid pro quo; Soviet acceptance of the bitter pill of a reunited Germany (inside NATO), in return for an oral US promise not to enlarge NATO “one inch more” to the East.

Dec. 1991: the USSR falls apart. Suddenly it does matter that Khrushchev gave Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR; Moscow and Kyiv work out long-term arrangements for the Soviet navy to use the naval base at Sevastopol.

The quid pro quo began to unravel in October 1996 during the last weeks of President Bill Clinton’s campaign when he said he would welcome Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into NATO – the earlier promise to Moscow notwithstanding. Former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock, who took part in both the Bush-Gorbachev early-December 1989 summit in Malta and the Baker-Gorbachev discussions in early February 1990, has said, “The language used was absolute, including no ‘taking advantage’ by the US… I don’t see how anybody could view the subsequent expansion of NATO as anything but ‘taking advantage,’ particularly since, by then, Russia was hardly a credible threat.” (From 16 members in 1990, NATO has grown to 29 member states – the additional 13 all lie east of Germany.)

Feb. 1, 2008: Amid rumors of NATO planning to offer membership to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warns US Ambassador William Burns that “Nyet Means Nyet.” Russia will react strongly to any move to bring Ukraine or Georgia into NATO. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have Burns’s original cable from embassy in Moscow.

April 3, 2008: Included in Final Declaration from NATO summit in Bucharest: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

Early September 2013: Putin helps Obama resist neocon demands to do “shock and awe” on Syria; Russians persuade President Bashar al-Assad to give up Syrian army chemical weapons for destruction on a US ship outfitted for chemical weapons destruction. Neocons are outraged over failing to mousetrap Obama into attacking Syria.

Meanwhile in Ukraine

Dec. 2013: In a speech to the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland says: “The United States has supported Ukraine’s European aspirations. … We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.”

Feb. 4, 2014: Amid rioting on the Maidan in Kiev, YouTube carries Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s last minute instructions to US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt regarding the US pick for new Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk (aka “Yats”) and other plans for the imminent coup d’etat in Kiev. (See: ) When Pyatt expresses concern about EU misgivings about mounting a coup, Nuland says “Fuck the EU.” She then apologizes to the EU a day or two later – for the profanity, not for the coup. She also says that Vice President Joe Biden will help “glue this thing together”, meaning the coup.

Feb. 22, 2014: Coup d’etat in Kyiv; appropriately labeled “the most blatant coup in history” by George Friedman, then President of the widely respected think-tank STRATFOR.

Feb. 23, 2014: The date that NATO, Western diplomats, and the corporate media have chosen – disingenuously – as the beginning of recent European history, with silence about the coup orchestrated in Kyiv the day before. President Vladimir Putin returns to Moscow from the winter Olympics in Sochi; confers with advisers about Crimea, deciding – unlike Khrushchev in 1954 – to arrange a plebiscite to let the people of Crimea, most of whom strongly opposed the coup regime, decide their own future.

March 16, 2014: The official result from the voters in Crimea voted overwhelmingly for independence from Ukraine and to join Russia. Following the referendum, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation. On March 18, the Russian Federal Assembly ratified the incorporation of Crimea into Russia.

In the following days, Putin made it immediately (and publicly) clear that Yatsenyuk’s early statement about Ukraine joining NATO and – even more important – the US/NATO plans to deploy ABM systems around Russia’s western periphery and in the Black Sea, were the prime motivating forces behind the post-referendum re-incorporation of Crimea into Russia.

No one with rudimentary knowledge of Russian history should have been surprised that Moscow would take no chances of letting NATO grab Crimea and Russia’s only warm-water naval base. The Nuland neocons seized on the opportunity to accuse Russia of aggression and told obedient European governments to follow suit. Washington could not persuade its European allies to impose stringent sanctions on Russia, though, until the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 over Ukraine.

Airplane Downed; 298 Killed

July 17, 2014: MH17 shot down

July 20, 2014: Secretary of State John Kerry told NBC’s David Gregory, “We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.” The US, however, has not shared any evidence of this.

Given the way US intelligence collectors had been focused, laser-like, on that part of the Ukrainian-Russian border at that time, it is a near certainty that the US has highly relevant intelligence regarding what actually happened and who was most likely responsible. If that intelligence supported the accusations made by Kerry, it would almost certainly have been publicized.
Less than two weeks after the shoot-down, the Europeans were persuaded to impose sanctions that hurt their own businesses and economies about as much as they hurt Russia’s – and far more than they hurt the US There is no sign that, in succumbing to US pressure, the Europeans mustered the courage to ask for a peek at the “intelligence” Kerry bragged about on NBC TV.

Oct. 27, 2016: Putin speaks at the Valdai International Discussion Club.
How did the “growing trust” that Russian President Putin wrote about in his September 11, 2013 New York Times op-ed evaporate?

How did what Putin called his close “working and personal relationship with President Obama” change into today’s deep distrust and saber-rattling? A short three years later after the close collaboration to resolve the Syrian problem peacefully, Putin spoke of the “feverish” state of international relations and lamented: “My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results.” And things have gone downhill from there.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News.

"You're Essentially a Prisoner": Why do Dubai's Princesses Keep Trying to Escape?

The story of Sheikh Mohammed and Haya’s parting of ways is a winding tale, full of unexpected twists and turns and the font of so many rumors that I could barely keep them straight. The Gulf states are involved in an information warfare campaign at the moment—in particular, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are pitted against Qatar—and conspiracy theories in many realms abound. It’s possible to even hear impassioned explanations of how the real killers of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident and Washington Post reporter, were actually Qatari spies who framed the Saudis to get back at them for the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. (And, by the way, part of why the Saudis blockaded the country was said to be jealousy over Qatar landing the 2022 World Cup.)

Theories about Haya’s departure, too, have come hot and heavy. Facts are scant—and certainly not found in the public square. It is simply understood that the emir’s wives and daughters are off-limits as a subject of chatter. “It is said that human scorpions dwell on the earth in the form of gossipers and conspirators, who trouble souls, destroy relationships, and subvert the spirit of communities and teams,” is the way that Sheikh Mohammed has described loose talk.

But in private among Arabian experts, royal watchers, and journalists in the West, each move in Haya’s departure from Dubai has been scrutinized. Many question why Sheikh Mohammed, who is known to keep close tabs on his citizens, would have allowed his wife to leave when Dubai has more surveillance than anywhere on Earth, with 35,000 cameras trained on street corners (Washington, D.C., only has about 4,000). If the sheikh had an inkling that things were awry in his marriage, wouldn’t he have asked one of his ministers to monitor his wife’s digital footprint, and even revoke her privileges on their (multiple) private planes?

Many are also questioning what exactly Haya’s escape may have to do with Sheikh Mohammed’s daughter Latifa fleeing on a yacht and if the two departures are linked. The downside of monarchical prerogative may be felt through the heirs, as it is so often. The sheikh needs to run his state and keep his offspring from embarrassing him, and he may do that in a strict and potentially brutal way.

[...] In Dubai’s royal family, for women, life may be stricter. “You have the fancy title of being a princess, and of course you have people waiting on you [hand and foot], but you’re essentially a prisoner,” says an Arab dissident. “You’re not supposed to socialize. You don’t have a normal life.” Though some women in Dubai’s royal family are educated abroad and have public profiles, others simply bear children, spend their monthly stipend, and remain quiet. “If you want to be in favor, you buy into what the king does. If you’re not, you’re pushed aside and nobody really cares about you—you’re not a high-profile monarchy anyway,” says a source with knowledge of Dubai’s royals.

[...] In 2001, according to The Guardian, Sheikh Mohammed’s daughter Shamsa bint Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, a tall, dark-eyed college student and equestrian who once came in behind Princess Anne in a long-distance horse race, abandoned her black Range Rover near the stables at the family’s Surrey estate. When the vehicle was discovered the following morning, Sheikh Mohammed took a helicopter from another racing area to join the hunt. Shamsa was eventually found in Cambridge, after which she was reportedly snatched by bodyguards and returned to Dubai; her father followed up by moving 80 horses off the property and firing nearly all of the estate’s staff.

When this news spilled into the press—via Shamsa hiring a London barrister and also reportedly calling British police from Dubai—there was an outcry. In London, the government opened an investigation into whether she had been taken out of the country “against her will.” But the investigation apparently languished, and Shamsa remained in Dubai, though she has not appeared in a photograph circulating on the internet or elsewhere in the intervening 18 years.

Could this court case unlock the mystery of Dubai’s missing princesses Latifa and Shamsa?

Princess Haya in court for London hearing in legal battle with Dubai's ruler

Student protesters fortify campus occupations as Hong Kong braces for more violence

The CUHK campus was on Tuesday the scene of some of the most intense fighting in the city since demonstrations began in June, with hundreds of riot police firing more than 1,567 canisters of tear gas during a chaotic and ultimately aborted clearance operation.

Throughout Wednesday and Thursday, protesters and those helping them continued to pour into the sprawling grounds by road and by foot, bringing supplies, including protective gear, food and water.

A highly organized operation was launched inside the campus, sorting and distributing the supplies, building and reinforcing barricades, and stockpiling weapons, including petrol bombs, bows and arrows, javelins, and pieces of wood hammered with nails.

[...] On Thursday, China's top state-run television channel issued an online editorial telling protesters their actions are "undisguised terrorism." "We have had enough talking, persuasion and warnings. To stop the unrest has to be implemented and advanced more resolutely now. The country will never accept the situation to be out of control, justice to be covered or Hong Kong to be sunk," the editorial from CCTV read.

It echoed an editorial in the state-run tabloid Global Times suggesting the People's Armed Police and the People's Liberation Army were ready to back up Hong Kong's government "when necessary." "We also warn the radical protesters: You are on the edge of doom. Those who are coerced to be 'valiant' should walk away as soon as possible when you still can make the call," the editorial said.

See also: Hong Kong is still ‘a very good proxy’ for Chinese assets despite the unrest, says an economist
U.S. Senate Sets Up Expedited Vote on Hong Kong Democracy Bill

ABC scrambles to figure out identity of Amy Robach leaker, who goes by ‘Ignotus’

ABC bigwigs are going potty to find the identity of the leaker behind the Amy Robach tape — after the alleged source posted a letter online slamming the network under the name “Ignotus,” a wizard from the “Harry Potter” franchise.

After junior producer Ashley Bianco denied leaking the tape, on which the anchor complained that ABC News killed her interview with Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre, someone purporting to be the actual leaker and still working at the network posted a letter on Project Veritas blasting ABC’s “mission of seek and destroy” to conjure up the mysterious mole.

Project Veritas editors confirmed the missive was penned by the same ABC News insider who gave them the tape “in light of the actions taken against those wrongfully identified as involved in the leaking.”

An ABC insider said top execs were particularly puzzled by Ignotus. He is possibly best known as a Harry Potter character, a pure-blood wizard who has a cloak of invisibility, passed through generations, finally to Harry Potter. Ignotus also means “unknown” in Latin.

The ABC insider said, “They are freaking out over the Harry Potter reference. Does this mean the leaker is a Potter fan, likely one of the younger staff members who work the overnight shift? Or is the leaker citing Latin, which means he or she could be an older member of staff. I mean, how many young producers speak Latin these days?”

Previously: Jeffrey Epstein and ABC

Wow!

I am stunned at the outpouring of encouragement and support from the SoylentNews community in response to On the Road to Recovery after a Minor Stroke.

To offer some perspective, my only social media activity is right here on SoylentNews. I am generally a private person and have not created an account on MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. In fact my only other social media activity was on Slashdot up until the SlashCott and the creation of SoylentNews.

There is, however, something special about this community which overcame my reluctance about posting personal information on-line. If anyone here learned something about strokes and therefore took steps to make a change in their life as a result, then I will know my efforts here were not in vain. I greatly appreciate the well-wishes and cannot thank you all enough. It has heartened my resolve and my hope that I may continue to serve this community for many more years to come!

Among the recommendations I have received during the course of my treatment and recuperation so far:

• Don't smoke
• Watch my diet (lowered fat and salt, more fruits and vegies)
• Exercise
• Regular checkups
• Watch for high blood pressure

Again, please accept my great thanks for all the support and encouragement!

Burger King to launch meatless burgers across Europe and test more Impossible burgers in the US

Burger King is doubling down on meatless burgers.

The Restaurant Brands International chain announced on Monday plans to launch a vegetarian burger in more than 20 markets across Europe. The Rebel Whopper, made with patties from Unilever-owned The Vegetarian Butcher, will be available in more than 2,400 European locations Tuesday.

Burger King first launched the Rebel Whopper and another meatless sandwich, the Rebel Chicken King, in Sweden earlier this year.

In the United States, the burger chain will test substituting beef patties with Impossible patties in its Whopper Jr. burgers and signature hamburgers. The company said 180 restaurants in Milwaukee, Cedar Rapids, Augusta, Cincinnati and Buffalo will test the extended Impossible burger line.

Thanks in part to the success of the Impossible Whopper, Burger King's U.S. same-store sales grew by 5% during its third quarter, its largest jump since 2015.

Previously: Meatless "Beyond Burgers" Come to Fast Food Restaurants
Burger King Adds Impossible Vegan Burger To Menu
Plant-Based "Impossible Burger" Coming to Every Burger King Location