Friday, January 16, 2015

International Attorney Robert Muse stated "President Obama has unfettered authority to open the trade opportunites in Cuba.:

“We will end (click here) an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries." the President said in a nationally-publicized statement from the White House.



January 14, 2015
C-Span
Video 1 hour 30.08 minutes

Trade experts talked about U.S. relations with Cuba, (click here) following President Obama’s December 2015 announcement that eased some ties between the two countries. Panelists discussed whether a full embargo lift was possible, commercial opportunities, and how the international community responded to President Obama’s announcement.

Mr. Muse articulated his belief in that the normalization of relations with Cuba is a legacy issue for the President. NORMALIZING relations with Cuba will bring all the same trade laws as any other country abides in a relationship with the USA.

Here we go again with biased political rhetoric of the right wing.

Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, called Obama’s announcement, “another concession to a tyranny,” and said that it was a sign that Mr. Obama’s administration is, “willfully ignorant of the way the world truly works.”

We already know what happens when Cuba is isolated in the Western Hemisphere.

I wish this had happened in Germany with Atta. Europe has to realize some in the USA have different agendas when these problems manifest.

The Free World has to remember these criminals use a country's infrastructure against the government and people; that includes the privacy and rights within the country and international community. This is extremely unfortunate because it turns the country in a direction most citizens believe is dangerous, but, to ignore the reality before all of us is not prudent and can be very dangerous. There is a reason there is media.

Hind sight is always better. In 2013, the USA and it's international allies were faced with violence in Syria by the militants. The picture in Syria was not clear and I doubt it is clear yet today. I remind the Syrian President is still in place. Syria is not a vacuum without leadership. The West also was able to assist Syria in relinquishing it's chemical weapons and stores; that was no small accomplishment.

The invasion into Iraq began the destabilizing of governments in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The weakest countries fell like dominoes, but, to reenter a war into the region was unwise since the invasion is what caused the opportunity in the first place.

The idea the First World invading the Third World is the answer to national security is grossly misconceived and quite frankly desperate in nature. Any call for the USA to lead is asking the country's military to be the global police. Those wishes are foreign political dogma and not realistic, both logistically and financially. If France or any other European ally wants to make a wish list including the USA defending their countries is opening up a defense for those that carried out the atrocities in the first place. 

The war into Iraq was illegal and immoral by every measure including the instability witnessed today. I remind the United Nations was on the ground and not finding any reason for invasion. An invasion into the region would not end the killing, it would increase it, especially the deaths of the most innocent, and the dangers to other nations. Civilian deaths in Iraq range from tens of thousands into hundreds of thousands. Not only that, but, every Muslim killed becomes a reason to escalate violence and not end it. Other nations have to develop their own defenses.

The USA's political environment endangers it's own democracy. I would hardly call that a dependable ally. Europe has NATO available for military needs, I suggest that be reviewed. The very existence of NATO validates the commitment to Europe allies. Defending Europe is more important than fueling a greater war in the Middle East. Kindly consider that reality. If NATO were to widely move into the Middle East where does that leave the defense of NATO? It takes large amounts of people to invade and stabilize any country. If nothing else, the weak invasion of Iraq proves that. It is far easier to defend a stable country than to break one down and rebuild it from the street up. The entire invasion into Iraq was far to desperate to be necessary. An invasion into Syria would be the same.

January 16, 2015
By Melissa Eddy and Allen Cowell

BERLIN — As European investigators (click here) radicals, the Belgian police said on Friday that 13 people had been detained in Belgium and two in France after a shootout in which two men believed to be militants were killed.
Eric Van Der Sypt, a Belgian federal magistrate, also said the authorities had conducted searches at a dozen locations where the police had found four weapons normally used by the military, including AK-47 assault rifles, The Associated Press reported.
The magistrate was speaking hours after a gun battle in the eastern town of Verviers as officials in Paris and Berlin also announced a series of arrests and interrogations....
...In Germany, the police arrested two Turkish men suspected of having links to an organization supporting the militant Islamic State and other radical groups fighting in Syria.
In a statement, prosecutors in Berlin said they had no indication that the men had immediate plans to stage an attack.
It was not immediately clear whether the arrests in Berlin were linked to other investigations in Europe. But the sudden flurry of activity seemed to reflect heightened alarm after last week’s assaults in Paris, where, on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and then with President François Holland...
...In Germany, prosecutors said that 250 officers had raided 11 apartments after months of tracking a group that was said to support the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, with money and the recruitment of combatants. Both of the arrested men were Turkish citizens, and they are formally suspected of planning a serious attack in Syria and of money laundering.
One of the detained men, identified only as Ismet D., 41, in keeping with German privacy laws, is suspected of serving as an “emir,” or leader, of a radical Islamist group that was not identified by name. “He is suspected of radicalizing this extremist group through ‘Islam lessons’ he held, and encouraging participation in jihad against ‘unbelievers’ in the war in Syria,” prosecutors said.
The other man, identified only as Ermin F., 43, is suspected of providing financial support to members of the group and of helping them prepare for travel to Syria.
As the waves of alarm spread, the only Orthodox Jewish school in the Netherlands was closed on Friday, Reuters reported, even though there was no specific threat against it.
In Belgium, Jewish schools in Antwerp and Brussels were also closed temporarily, Reuters said....