Israel: A rogue state

Last week, US President Donald Trump’s administration announced that it was imposing economic sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The decree was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who reported that the US would: “Not tolerate [the ICC’s] illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction.”

This is the US’ vindictive response to investigations announced by the court into US war crimes in Afghanistan, and Israeli war crimes in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

These ICC investigations are still at an early stage, but the US has already acted in a most draconian manner in order to evade justice.

It has also acted to protect Israel – one of the world’s worst human rights abusing countries, and a key ally.

The Trump administration’s new move has been described by my colleague Maureen Murphy at The Electronic Intifada as Trump’s nuclear option against the international court.

The ICC was established with the hope that human rights abusers the world over could be held to account in the most concrete terms – not merely condemned, but actually put on trial and jailed for their crimes.

But so far, the court has failed to live up to that lofty ideal. To date, it has prosecuted African nationals only.

As soon as the court was established, the US opted out. As the world’s biggest superpower since at least 1945, the US is the leading perpetrator of war crimes anywhere.

The US’ almost-unending series of imperialist wars for the control and dominance of the globe has been the direct cause of millions of uncounted deaths.

In helping to sustain, fund, train, arm and encourage a racist, violent regime such as Israel, the US empire is also a world order of torture and injustice – much like the British empire was before it.

It is little surprise then, to find that much of the impetus for US sanctions against the ICC is the court’s decision (finally, after long years of prevarication) to prosecute Israel for its war crimes.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200912-israel-a-rogue-state/

VA Data Breach Leaves Personal Info of 46,000 Veterans Exposed

Hackers have tapped into personal information of more than 46,000 veterans kept by the Department of Veterans Affairs, gaining access to data such as Social Security numbers, VA officials said Monday.

Unauthorized persons accessed a VA Financial Services Center online application in an attempt to steal payments from VA to private physicians who treat veterans in the community, according to the department.

As soon as the breach was detected, the application was shut down and actions "were taken by the department to prevent and mitigate any potential harm to those individuals," VA officials said in a release.

"A preliminary review indicates these unauthorized users gained access to the application to change financial information and divert payments from VA by using social engineering techniques and exploiting authentication protocols," the statement read.

VA is notifying affected veterans and survivors of deceased veterans by mail of the data breach and will provide credit monitoring services to those whose Social Security numbers may have been compromised.

Instructions for receiving credit monitoring will be included in the letter to affected veterans. If a former service member does not receive a letter, their information was not compromised, according to VA.

The breach is the largest in the past decade, affecting roughly the same amount of veterans in five separate breaches since 2011.

The largest compromise of personal information ever reported at VA occurred in 2006 when a laptop and hard drive with the personal information of 26.5 million veterans, spouses and active-duty service members was reported stolen. The devices containing the information were later found at the home of an employee who had permission to work from home.

The affected application will remain offline until the VA's Office of Information Technology conducts a security review of the hack, according to VA.

VA did not disclose whether the hackers succeeded in diverting any funds. Officials did not immediately respond to questions about the breach.

Veterans or next-of-kin who are notified that their information was potentially compromised can contact the VA FSC customer help desk by emailing VAFSCVeteransSupport@va.gov.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/09/14/va-data-breach-leaves-personal-info-of-46000-veterans-exposed.html

U.S. is in Middle East ‘to protect Israel’ not for oil, Trump says

Four days ago, Donald Trump said the U.S. isn’t involved in the Middle East for oil, but because we “want to protect Israel.” The comments have gone all but unreported in the mainstream press.

Trump made the comment during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Sept. 8, when he was bragging about America’s energy independence, which he said Joe Biden would undermine if he gets the White House (minute 47):

I like being energy independent, don’t you? I’m sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it’s below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? Thank you President Trump! Look at your electric bills and everything else– these guys, your electric would go up four, five, six times. The Green New Deal it’s called the Green New Nightmare. While I’m president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come.The fact is, we don’t have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We’ve been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don’t have to be in the Middle East.You know there was a time we needed desperately oil, we don’t need that anymore. We have more than they do, isn’t that nice? After years of rebuilding other countries, we are finally building our country.

The American Conservative’s Barbara Boland is the only reporter who seems to have picked up Trump’s remarks. No one else cares, evidently.

Do you remember all the arguments about Why are we engaged in so many conflicts in the Middle East? And why we are going to war in Iraq? And the mainstream default position is that it’s because of oil. Even though we lost concessions in Iraq.

These comments by Trump, the disrupter, tie into the long but shadowy pedigree of analysis from policymakers that we invaded Iraq to make Israel safer. Like the former head of the 911 Commission who said that the threat to Israel was the motivation for the war, but that was “the threat that dare not speak its name.” Or Colin Powell’s comment that we went into Iraq because the Secretary of Defense bought the neoconservative arguments of “the JINSA crowd,” referring to the Israel lobby group the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Trump touches on a larger realpolitik understanding of the creation of Israel, that it helped foster unrest throughout the region. As the State Department warned that it would do, in the 1940s. But don’t expect anyone in our media to consider such ideas…

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/09/u-s-is-in-middle-east-to-protect-israel-not-for-oil-trump-says/