US fears syrian reprisals after wikileaks disclosure
from reuters:
The State Department has secretly funded Syrian opposition groups, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
The cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million since 2006 to a group of Syrian exiles to operate a London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, and finance activities inside Syria, the Post said.
Barada TV began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria that began last month as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad the Post said.
The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after political ties with Damascus were frozen in 2005, the newspaper said.
The financial backing has continued under President Barack Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad, the Post said. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.
The article said it is unclear whether the United States was still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010.
from washington post:
President Obama’s decision to launch his 2012 reelection campaign Monday is about much more than money. It is an acknowledgment by the president’s team that the grass-roots army that helped propel Obama to the White House needs repair and rejuvenation.
That corps of volunteers defined the character and personality of Obama’s first run for the White House. It was in many ways an organic movement, which sprang to life in 2007 and gathered momentum through the course of the campaign. Since then it has atrophied.
Obama advisers know his reelection will depend on many things, some of which are out of their control. What they also know is that a victory will rely in part on their ability to reenergize those volunteers, to stitch together the unusual coalition of African Americans, Latinos, young people, women and college-educated white voters who backed Obama in 2008. That is within their control.
Monday’s headlines focused on Obama’s “billion-dollar campaign” and the lengths to which campaign manager Jim Messina, among others, has begun the process of stroking big donors and setting big targets for fundraising.
The desire to start raising money early should not be underestimated. Obama was extraordinarily successful raising money in small donations in 2008. His haul from the Internet — hundreds of millions of dollars — underscored the bottom-up nature of his candidacy.
related obamessiah updates:
obama vs. dancing with the stars*
washington post & cbs receiving money from obamacare slush fund*
mystery scars on obama's head begs the question: has he had brain surgery?*
get ready for obama's second term*
video: cornel west says that as obama becomes 'puppet,'
america in the midst of a 'radical democratic awakening'*
video: fmr cia analyst to cnn anchor:
"you're just carrying the water for mr. obama"*
glenn beck to end daily show on fox news*
now it's official: beck will depart fox news*
glenn beck: reestablishing the false paradigm, one lie at a time*
2 soros events aim to remake financial order & media*
soros convenes 'bretton woods ii';
unreported soros event aims to remake entire global economy*
'
national conference for media reform':
the soros media power grab*
from ap:
Some 90,000 leaked U.S. military records posted online Sunday amount to a blow-by-blow account of six years of the Afghanistan war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings as well as covert operations against Taliban figures.
The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks posted the documents on its website Sunday. The New York Times, London's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel were given early access to the documents.
The White House condemned the document disclosure, saying it "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk."
The leaked records include detailed descriptions of raids carried out by a secretive U.S. special operations unit called Task Force 373 against what U.S. officials considered high-value insurgent and terrorist targets. Some of the raids resulted in unintended killings of Afghan civilians, according to the documentation...
According to the Times, the documents suggest Pakistan "allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders."
The Guardian, however, interpreted the documents differently, saying they "fail to provide a convincing smoking gun" for complicity between the Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban.
wikileaks updates:
secret/leaks: truth serving lies with cia/mossad oversight*
from washington post:
“Top Secret America” is a project nearly two years in the making that describes the huge national security buildup in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
When it comes to national security, all too often no expense is spared and few questions are asked – with the result an enterprise so massive that nobody in government has a full understanding of it. It is, as Dana Priest and William M. Arkin have found, ubiquitous, often inefficient and mostly invisible to the people it is meant to protect and who fund it.
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