Commentary: An overwhelming number of crises means the international community cannot respond well.
WASHINGTON — Humanitarian crises in the world today — Syria, Iraq, Central African Republic, South Sudan and now Gaza — all demand immediate and massive humanitarian response.
The crises are not only large-scale, affecting millions, but the conflicts also are complex, each with unique political realities and on-the-ground difficulties.
They are not alone among crises competing for our attention. They are simply the biggest, pushing off the front pages other crises where human needs remain urgent: Darfur, Central America, Pakistan, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia.
Four years into the United States military’s effort to counter the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa its leader, Joseph Kony, remains elusive. This certainly isn’t for lack of effort or resources. One hundred Special Forces advisors, a robust command and control structure, contracted airplanes, even the occasional short-term deployment of a CV-22 squadron have all assisted African partner forces to remove a few leaders from the battlefield and enable many more fighters, wives, and children to escape the organization. Yet the mission still faces serious obstacles. The tyranny of distance has oftentimes been crippling to the effort, hindering logistical resupply and time sensitive strikes. In addition to geography, this mission continues to pose many challenges which test the U.S. intelligence community but, if overcome, can serve as a model for U.S. intelligence support in low-intensity conflicts and other crisis areas worldwide. Removing Kony and his LRA from the battlefield is, foremost, an intelligence problem. Without accurate intelligence of Kony and his forces’ location, counter-LRA forces will continue to be reduced to “searching for a needle in twenty haystacks.” Further complicating the situation, in addition to the joint U.S. and combined foreign forces requiring coordination, many other stakeholders are active in the area of operations. Non-government organizations (NGOs), aid organizations, the United Nations, civilian village defense forces, even the Catholic church all contribute to central Africa being a complex environment.
This is why what Senator Inhofe did was so very wrong. An entire country, indeed the world, will pay in suffering and coin, because a tiny group of corrupted politicians, of which he is an American leader, blocked any preparation or remediation.
The longer the U.S. holds off action to mitigate climate change, the more costly the effort will become, a new report shows
A new report estimates the cost of mitigating the effects of climate change could rise by as much as 40% if action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is delayed 10 years – immediately outweighing any potential savings of a delay.
The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, U.S. President Barack Obama’s source for advice on economic policy, compared over 100 actions on climate change laid out in 16 studies to extract the average cost of delayed efforts. Released Tuesday, the findings suggests policymakers should immediately confront carbon emissions as a form of ‘climate insurance.”
Inside the Search for the Last Prisoner of America's Longest War
VICE, 21 July 2014
PART 1 EXTRACTS:
The next intercepts from the elated kidnappers, using their CDMA or RUIM phone while still inside the vehicle, provided the first real piece of evidence on how Bergdahl was grabbed: “We were attacking the post. He was just taking a shit. He had no gun with him. He was taking a shit. He has not cleaned his butt yet.”
Why did President Obama look so lost Monday while trying to make a case against Russia in the downing of the Malaysian Boeing in Ukraine? And how come the US journalists seem to know more than experts and intelligence agencies investigating the case? The Burning Point is discussing it with Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of the US Treasury, currently the chairman of The Institute for Political Economy.
As an inquiry into the complex subject of international terrorism, the 9/11 Commission's 10th anniversary reprise is a slipshod farrago of circular argumentation, faulty reasoning and naïve gullibility about the claims of senior officials – but it does serve official Washington's purpose.
By Mike Lofgren, Truthout | Op-Ed,Saturday, 26 July 2014 16:07
This is the most detailed analysis I have come across so far and makes the theory of a failed false flag operation likely. It also details the ridiculous attempts by Kiev and Washington to cover up their failed plan. It contradicts everything MSM are telling us and our governments are trying to impress on us.
Until this past Monday, the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17th, 2014, was a potential game changer for global geopolitics and the New Cold War. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the Kremlin…
In this report, we will lay out the facts based on a wide breadth of available information and data surrounding MH17. We will also present and give critique to Washington and Kiev’s “mountain of evidence” that has saturated US and European-based media coverage since the incident took place. 21WIRE has compiled this report with the help of many contributors and references from English-speaking media, as well as material translated from Russian and Ukrainian media sources, along with other historical references to provide context. Our objective is to get as close to the truth as possible. Although many revelations will appear to be self-evident, we still encourage the public to draw their own conclusions regarding this pivotal event.
There are other well-known anomalies surrounding this event which have been covered at 21WIRE, as well as connections to MH370, but for the purposes of this investigation we will focus on both factual and speculative evidence brought forth by the US, Ukraine and Russia.
As we will clearly demonstrate, the only wild conspiracy theories being pushed right now, are those coming out of the US State Department, and the government in Kiev, Ukraine, which are being repeated by CNN, BBC, FOX-NewsCorp, ABC, CBS and NBC…
