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xtruss · 10 months

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Why Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ Went Viral, 21 Years Later

— By Victoria Bisset | November 16, 2023 | The Washington Post

Guardian Website Forced to Remove Osama Bin Laden’s anti-Semitic ‘Letter to America’! The diatribe, which aimed to rationalise 9/11 terror attacks and called for assault against ‘Americans and Jews’, has gone viral on TikTok — By Tony Diver, US Editor | 16 November 2023 | Telegraph.Co.UK. Osama bin Laden at a news conference in Khost, Afghanistan, in 1998 Credit: Mazhar Ali Khan/AP

The Guardian has Deleted Osama bin Laden’s Anti-Semitic “Letter to America” from its Website after it went viral and received praise from teenage TikTok users.

A spokesman for the newspaper said it had deleted the terrorist diatribe after it was “widely shared on social media without full context” by pro-Palestinian activists.

Bin Laden’s letter, published in 2002, explains the rationale behind the 9/11 attacks and argues that the oppression of the Palestinian territories must be “revenged” in an assault against “Americans and Jews”.

The terrorist leader said it brought him “both laughter and tears” when Americans expressed “fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine”.

The letter also contains claims that Jewish people “control [American] policies, media and economy”, that Aids is a “Satanic American Invention”, and that “the creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes”.

Letter Circulated by Pro-Palestinian TikTok Accounts

Twenty-one years later, amid debate over the US’s response to the conflict in Gaza, the letter has attracted the support of pro-Palestinian TikTok accounts.

“I need everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read – it’s literally two pages – go read ‘A Letter to America’. Come back here and let me know what you think. Because I feel like I’m going through an existential crisis right now, and a lot of people are. So I just need someone else to be feeling this too,” said Lynette Adkins.

Another user commented: “Just read it.. my eyes have been opened.”

A third posted: “We’ve been lied to our entire lives. I remember watching people cheer when Osama was found and killed.

“I was a child, and it confused me. It still confuses me today. The world deserves better than what this country has done to them. Change must be made.”

After the Guardian’s 2002 transcript of the letter began to attract significant web traffic, the newspaper removed it.

“The transcript published on our website in 2002 has been widely shared on social media without the full context,” a spokesman told The Telegraph.

“Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualised it instead.”

TikTok is no stranger to quirky trends — from beauty tips about calamine lotion, to obsessions with the Roman Empire. But this week much darker content is trending — a letter from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that was published more than 20 years ago, well before his death.

The long letter, published just over a year after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, includes bin Laden’s grievances against Western involvement in Muslim countries — a mainstay of jihadist propaganda — and criticizes America’s support of Israel and its policies in the Palestinian territories.

It also criticizes Western “lies, immorality and debauchery” — “acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling and trading with interest” — and argues that attacks against civilians and the United States are justified as a result.

Despite running thousands of words, and being written two decades ago by a terrorist leader who is no longer alive, the letter has gone viral on TikTok amid polarization over Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“So I just read ‘A Letter to America’ and I will never look at life the same, I will never look at this country the same,” one TikTok user said in a video that gained 1.2 million views in less than 24 hours.

Another person said they were “trying to go back to life as normal” after “realizing everything we learned about the Middle East, 9/11, and ‘terrorism’ was a lie.” Yet another one wrote that the experience of reading the text in college “change[d] my entire perspective on the American government.”

The sudden surge of interest also led the Guardian, a British newspaper, to pull from its website a decades-old piece containing the full letter. That article, published in 2002, detailed how the letter was being shared among Islamist extremists in Britain amid government warnings that al-Qaeda attacks in the country were “inevitable.”

Perhaps unavoidably, some social media users found the removal suspicious, with one person accusing the newspaper of “actively censoring” information.

Charlie Winter, a specialist in jihadist affairs and director of research at the intelligence platform ExTrac, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he was “frankly really quite surprised at the response” to the letter, which he described as “a kind of core doctrinal text” for both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

In addition to long-standing grievances, the letter contains “blatant language that is clearly calling for acts of genocide, clearly calling for or justifying indiscriminate acts of violence against civilians, clear justifications for killing noncombatants in any nation that is democratic and is fighting against a Muslim-majority state,” he said.

“It’s not the letter that is going viral. It’s a selective reading of parts of the letter that’s going viral,” he said. “And I don’t know whether it’s because people aren’t actually reading it or, when they’re reading it, they’re reading the bits that they want to see or, you know, the bits that they want to see are sinking in.”

A spokesperson for the Guardian said in an emailed statement early Thursday that the transcript had been taken down after it was “widely shared on social media without the full context. Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualized it instead.”

The Guardian isn’t the first newspaper to print texts that have incited or justified violence: On the FBI’s recommendation in 1995, The Washington Post and the New York Times agreed to jointly publish the 35,000-word manifesto of the Unabomber in a special edition of The Post, after a threat was made to carry out more attacks if they refused.

The editors of the Guardian faced a “no-win scenario” once interest in bin Laden’s letter began to grow, Marco Bastos, a senior lecturer in Media and Communication at City, University of London, said in a telephone interview. “If they don’t take down the content, the content will be leveraged and it will be discussed, potentially shared and is going to go viral — if not out of context, then certainly outside of the scope of the original piece. If they take it down, they’re going to be accused, as they are right now, of censorship.”

Back at the time of publication, the editors “just expected that this letter would be read critically, you know, adversarially — the expectation is that you would process this within the view — or the bias, if you prefer — of the Western side of the events. And now it’s being consumed, distributed and shared to push an agenda that’s precisely the opposite of the one that it was originally intended for. Hence, of course, they’ve taken down the content.”

Journalists are well aware that their stories may take on new life long after they’ve been published, but Bastos said this is more common with human interest stories that don’t have a specific news angle.

“What is different about this case is that what is resurfacing is a content of inherent news value,” he said. “And of course, it’s super polarizing. But that speaks to another contextual variable that we have to take into account, which is the fundamental demographic shift in the U.S.,” he said, referring to how younger generations show higher levels of support for the Palestinian cause, something that took American pundits “by surprise.”

TikTok to Prohibit Videos Promoting Osama Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'! By Sheila Dang and David Shepardson | November 16, 2023 | Reuters | TikTok app logo is seen in this illustration taken, August 22, 2022. Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo.

Winter, the jihadist affairs specialist, noted that the text does not appear to have been pushed from extremist sources but rather seems to be spreading organically and enjoying “an uncritical resonance.”

“And that’s kind of ironic,” he added, “because one of the lines being taken in relation to it is that people who consider themselves to be critical consumers of mainstream media are consuming this very uncritically and not thinking about the context around it, not thinking about everything that happened just over a year before it was published as well, in any meaningful way.”

A TikTok spokesperson sent the following statement: “Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism. We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform. The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate. This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and the media.”

#Forever Palestine 🇵🇸 The Guardian | Anti-Semitism #Illegal Regime and Bastard Child of the US and the West Israel-Hamas War #Al Qaeda #Osama bin Laden #Letter #Victoria Bisset #The Washington Post #TikTok | Prohibition | Bin Laden | Letter to America 🇺🇸

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keramalusundeep · 4 years

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THE SUICIDE OF HELL

He sets out with a prayer on his lips. Wired and beefed with bombs from head to the bone on his hips. There is no going back. The clock ticks on. He doesn’t need his specs on. Because by five, from one, two, three, and four, he’d be gone along with you in the vacation of your yawn.

He is not crippled by disease, society, upbringing, or education. He is just him. Sacked and hacked under a radical whim. Time is precious. The last moments are vicious. Biologically his ticker is alive. Spiritually he is dead. Because, only the dead can kill. And only the killed can be dead.

He is happy. The heaven is mapped in his favour. With the odour of the most beautiful untouched, virgin angels.

He has reached the destination. The nation from where he officially departs. The reaction in which his victims are casually censored in the aftermath graphic footage clip arts. Bodies are assembled in a scramble like broken eggs in a challenging scrabble. The curse is blessed.

THE LEGACY OF SUICIDE BOMBING

War is poetry for geopolitics. Most often it is a mystery who the poet is. It is always “poets”. War encourages the most collaborative commerce.

People are always unhappy with the existing government. Change becomes the staple food of the bourgeois. Their manifesto is smeared with the throbbing young blood of promise. Vibrant and striking. One that appears and feels better than that is today. It has to be. But if you just unwrap their juicy roll of delicious hope, all you’d see is an old fry dipped in new oil. Revolutions are baptised as the ‘Morning Sun’. Martyrs are autopsied as the ‘Memorial Sons’.

In 1869, the famous anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin, and Sergi Nechayev, both Russians, published a book called ‘Catechism of a Revolutionist’. A passage from the book reads, “The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion – the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose – to destroy it.”

The book had a great impact around its epicentre. From the aftershocks, seven years later, in 1876, a group was created. It was called Land and Liberty. In this group, a considerable chunk voted for the system of state to go to the dogs. Then, hand over the land of Russia to its peasants. A reality that Mikhail Bakunin had been counting his beads for.

Three years from the inception of Land and Liberty, the group broke into two factions. One that had a sweet tooth for terror. The other that was diabetic to terror. The terror group went on to become The People’s Will, the Russian left-wing revolutionary organisation.

So the group built some muscle. And in 1881, Ignacy Hryniewiecki from The People’s Will was appointed to assassinate Alexander II. Not just in any manner. But with a human touch. When Hryniewiecki flung the bomb at the Tsar, he was too close to the explosion himself. The effect of the bomb along with tearing the Tsar apart, injures, wounds, and kills Hryniewiecki. Right this moment, the bomb conceives a new testosterone. It scribbles a ripple in the mystical ocean of its renaissance, spelling an endless and relentless wave of suicide bombing in an orgy of trance.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH

Before World War 2 was born, the Chinese and the Japanese had a warm up in 1938, with their Battle of Taierzhuang. Here, the Chinese soldiers strapped with grenades and explosives, dove under the Japanese tanks and blew what they could with the girth of their bombs.

When it was time for the Japanese to exploit the suicide hashtag, they soared high and cornered the market. Literally. During World War 2, Kamikaze pilots were engineered to fly planes into the navel of the Allied Forces’ naval fleet. Their planes were not built to deploy bombs as they were “the bombs”. From torpedoes to missiles to bubbling fuel tanks to aircraft, the Kamikaze pilots had only one role. To use the instrument they were in or on and take it straight to the flesh of the enemy’s ships, making them bleed hard, to grief.

To the Japanese, the philosophy of death was far more supreme and coveted than defeat. According to the principles laid out in their Samurai and Bushido code, everything else came second to loyalty and honour.

The Land of the Morning Sun, South Korea, who, cradled by the U.S.A, after the split of Korea in World War 2 was not all sunshine and rainbows when it came to the roster on suicide poll. Among the developed nations, South Korea ranks #1 in suicide rate. 14,160 people committed suicide in 2012.

As South Korea was still licking its wounds from World War 2 and the Korean bifurcation, North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. As part of a strategic military tactic, South Korean soldiers wrapped bombs around their bodies and attacked North Korean tanks.

North Korea was not shy either. Using satchel charges, North Korean suicide squads attacked American tanks in the same Korean War.

When the suicide bombing ball rolled over to Asia, LTTE grappled it hard with its jaw like a mastiff on cocaine.

LTTE didn’t spare the government, civilians, Prime Minister or their own President. They were Tigers. Wild. All they knew was to hunt and eat. In their case, detonate and inspire for a cause. Between 1980 and 2000, LTTE rocked the stage of the suicide bombing concerts.

Once the middle east understood that it was beyond just snaking exotic bellies for the connoisseurs and cheering ships of oils with the west and the rest of the velvet states, it knew it could roll the dice on its golden plate of religion.

“Jihad” becomes the dictator. Everyone else obliged to press the Quran against their foreheads out of proclaimed duty and acclaimed piety, does as the Jihad commands. As we have come to see, with so many organisations and diverse mottos – LeT, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Boko Haram, and of course, ISIS, Jihad is just one person. But he comes with many tongues. Or could it be said, Jihad has many flavours, but the main ingredient remains the same?

It used to be a man’s game. But as the world is hell-bent on giving its word to extending the quality of equality, the men behind the keffiyeh, the convenient and fashionable facial burka for the man, he started inviting women. And children. To take part in the exploding arguments for their bereaved cause.

A 2011 intelligence analyst report in the U.S. army said, “Although women make up roughly 15% of the suicide bombers within groups which utilize females, they were responsible for 65% of assassinations; 20% of women who committed a suicide attack did so with the purpose of assassinating a specific individual, compared with 4% of male attackers.” The report also maintained that most of the women suicide bombers were, “grieving the loss of family members [and] seeking revenge against those they feel are responsible for the loss, unable to produce children, [and/or] dishonoured through sexual indiscretion.”

With the children it is easier. Unlike their older counterparts who are to be lured with vengeance that is turbo-charged with the tartness of political, regional, religious, and sectarian propaganda, and the promise of relentless whoring in the afterlife, all that the juvenile needs to be told is that “they” are the bad men.”

A child suicide bomber is like the icing on the cake. They are agile, effortless, and very smooth.

Invasions take up our personal space. Demanding us to change our face and base. Our surrender will include both the genders, including the one that is tender. In agreement, you are an ally to one. In disagreement, you become an enemy to another. In neutrality, you are “a threat” to world peace.

There is no such thing as the world’s most famous suicide bomber. A suicide bomber’s kid won’t come out and scream on the edge of rooftops, “I want to be like my father.” The world is not going to sing songs for suicide bombers. No successful suicide bomber will go on to tell his tale. There won’t be any fodder from the “horse’s mouth”. Just a handful who were able to target the renowned are worshipped. In their own circuits. However, they are just messengers who are impotent to issue commandments, as they are not sure what it means to be right, and what it means to be left out.

Photo by Christopher Farrugia

#china #isis #islam #japan #suicide #suicide bomber #terrorism #war

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cyber-front-blog · 6 years

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The Future of War Will Be ‘Liked’ | Foreign Policy

In the social media age, what you share is deciding what happens on the battlefield.

BY PETER W. SINGER, EMERSON BROOKING

| OCTOBER 2, 2018, 10:00 AM

It was, perhaps, the strangest demand in political history:

“The middle photo is taken from Hungarian porn. Stop using fake photos to ‘trick’ people into supporting your lost cause.”

This Nov. 18, 2014, tweet from a now-defunct Twitter account run by the U.S. State Department offered an early glimpse into a new front in the future of war: trolling. The message was the outgrowth of an effort the department had launched in 2011 to track and counter terrorist propaganda, first against al Qaeda, then against the fast-growing Islamic State that had spun out of its Iraqi remains.

The campaign may have sounded sensible, but it soon backfired. Instead of cheering on the online battle against extremism, Twitter users piled on with more questions than the staid Foggy Bottom bureaucrats manning the account were prepared to answer. “How did the State Dept. know it was Hungarian porn?” @SpaSuzy asked. “dude … it’s really weird you know so much about hungarian porn,” @7thhorse added.

How did the State Dept. know it was Hungarian porn? #TheXXXFiles

After an avalanche of criticism, the State Department decided it was inappropriate for the U.S. government to get stuck in the muck of social media—better to stick to airstrikes—and pulled the plug on the Twitter account.

Four years later, such scruples seem almost quaint. In an era in which President Donald Trump didn’t just rise to power through his deft use of the same medium, but then even used it to fire his first secretary of state, the old notions that government should stay above the social media fray have evaporated. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have become crucial battlegrounds for politics, war, and even truth itself. Social media has emerged as an arena in which virality—how far and wide a message spreads—trumps veracity. In this domain, attention is power. Win enough of it and you can reshape the very fabric of reality.

A generation ago, the new notion of what was called “cyberwar”—the hacking of networks—began to take conflict into a new domain. Today, what we call “like wars”—the hacking of the people and ideas on those networks—mark the latest twist in the ever-evolving nature of warfare.

* * *

On the surface, many of these battles waged on social media can seem like mere propaganda and an often silly version at that—like teenaged trolling transposed onto the global stage. In August 2017, for example, the Ukrainian government’s official Twitter account attacked Russia with a mocking South Park GIF; in June 2018, the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., answered a fire-and-brimstone threat by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with a Mean Girls meme; and in May 2018, the U.S. Air Force cracked jokes about airstrikes in Afghanistan while the Taliban returned the favor by poking fun at former U.S. commander David Petraeus’s illicit love affair.

The goal for all such actors is not merely the lulz but to ridicule their foes and expand their influence, in a world where online sway can drive real-world power. Yet beneath it all, a more serious side of conflict also takes place, its ammunition the bevy of images taken from actual battles. Today, nearly all our moves are tracked, including those in anything from election campaigns to military ones.

Some of it is intentional: selfies taken in the midst of battle, observers watching events, smartphone in hand. Others are captured in the background: be it images that lay in the distance or even information in the digital background, from the geolocation of CIA black sites revealed by guards’ use of exercise apps to the metadata that accompanies every online post. The result is that the smallest of firefights is observed by a global audience, while terrorist attacks are even shared out live by the killers themselves. Open-source intelligence analysts then use these very same digital breadcrumbs to reveal new secrets, documenting war crimes that would go otherwise untracked or assessing the strength of enemy formations that would go otherwise unobserved. It works for both good and bad: Terrorists use this information to win new recruits; human rights activists use it to highlight the plight of civilians caught in harm’s way and even steer rescues their way. During the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul—the most livestreamed and hashtagged siege in history—thousands of virtual observers waited for each new snippet of content, spinning it to all of these ends at once.

These battles that play out in the digital shadows are not just about unveiling secrets but burying truths—and even shaping hearts, minds, and actions. Russian sockpuppets and botnets, for instance, did quite a bit more than simply meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They used a mix of old-school information operations and new digital marketing techniques to spark real-world protests, steer multiple U.S. news cycles, and influence voters in one of the closest elections in modern history. Using solely online means, they infiltrated U.S. political communities so completely that flesh-and-blood American voters soon began to repeat scripts written in St. Petersburg and still think them their own. Internationally, these Russian information offensives have stirred anti-NATO sentiments in Germany by inventing atrocities out of thin air; laid the pretext for potential invasions of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by fueling the political antipathy of ethnic Russian minorities; and done the same for the very real invasion of Ukraine. And these are just the operations we know about.

Such online skirmishes may appear insignificant compared with real fights conducted with real weapons, but they have become just as important. As Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the highly decorated former commander of Joint Special Operations Command, stated at a military conference in 2017, for the foreseeable future what happens on social media will be crucial to the outcome of any debate, battle, or war. The reason, he explained, is that battles are now being waged over truth itself. In these fights, “the line between reality and perception will be blurred,” he said. “Separating fact from fiction will be tough for governments but almost impossible for populations.”

McChrystal’s comments may seem to echo the ravings of the notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose website Infowars uses the tagline, “There’s a war on for your mind!” But that doesn’t make them any less truthful. With our personal and political understanding of the world increasingly filtered through online sources, images and ideas distributed and created on social media may become more important than objective facts. As McChrystal put it, “Shaping the perception of which side is right or which side is winning will be more important than actually which side is right or winning.”

Indeed, the messages coursing through social media today shape not just the perceived outcomes of conflicts but the very choices leaders make during both military campaigns. Russia, for instance, has crafted its information operations into a potent, nimble weapon that can target U.S. voters or pinpoint artillery strikes in Ukraine, using what happens in the online world to geolocate soldiers—and then message their looming death right before the cannons fire. Social media even shapes the overall flow. A 2016 study by the American University professor Thomas Zeitzoff of the Israel Defense Forces’ 2012 air campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip found that the conflict followed the pace set on Twitter; the tempo of operations and targeting shifted depending on which side was dominating the online conversation at the time. The military officers and civilian leaders were watching their social media feed and reacting accordingly.

Sometimes, social media posts can even spark new fights, especially when they play to long-standing tensions or hatreds. The Sri Lankan government blamed viral Facebook rumors for stirring up the hatred that led to a brutal assault on the country’s Muslim minority this March. In June, false reports circulated among India’s 200 million WhatsApp users spurred a spate of lynchings. Meanwhile, racist messages and rumors shared on Facebook continue to fuel the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

Mounting evidence suggests that these online tug of wars may not just start fights and mass killings but also make conflicts harder to end. Criminologists who study the spike of murders in cities such as Chicago note how an increasing share of gang violence is attributable to social media trash-talking. Sometimes, the spark is a disrespectful emoji; other times, it’s a long-forgotten post, dug up in a moment of escalating tensions. Unlike the interaction in the street (or by diplomats in a traditional negotiation), it doesn’t matter if the original insult was made a year ago or hundreds of miles away. All that matters is that the world is watching and the internet never forgets. It’s easy to see how a similar dynamic will haunt future cease-fire negotiations, whether the end of an insurgency or the conclusion of a major interstate war. There’s always some people intent on keeping the violence going. And online, they never lose their voice.

Daunting as all this may seem, however, social media has only just begun to shape the future of war. Only half the world is online, while the tools of “like wars” today are like the biplanes of air war. Indeed, new machine intelligence is making it ever harder for humans to discern truth from lies and is possibly reshaping our conception of reality itself. Over the last year, the techniques needed to create “deep fakes”—hyper-realistic digital forgeries generated by advanced artificial intelligence neural networks—have become increasingly accessible. This technology, currently used mostly by cutting-edge computer scientists and inventive pornographers, will soon flood the internet with pitch-perfect voice imitations, photo-realistic video fabrications, and vast networks of chattering bots indistinguishable from their human counterparts. And like everything else, deep fakes are also likely to be weaponized, both in elections and even battles. We’ve already had a taste of it; in its run to seize Mosul, the Islamic State was able to use a mix of real and fake news to help spur retreat by Iraqi Army units. Even U.S. information war units now train at sowing false digital trails to misdirect their foes. We may one day even face the prospect of a digital Gulf of Tonkin, where the very case for a real war is built wholly on AI-constructed lies.

These changes reshape the speed, experience, and even the reach of conflict. In the social media age, every election, every conflict, and every battle is simultaneously global and local. Even as the physical experience of war grows more alien to the average Westerner with each generation, it has also become more personal than ever. Our choices of what to “like” and share (or not) shape not only the outcomes of elections and battles but also what our friends, family, and the wider world treat as real. You may not be interested in like wars, but the future of war and politics is very much interested in you—and your clicks.

Peter W. Singer is a strategist and senior fellow at New America. He is a co-author of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media. Twitter: @peterwsinger

Emerson Brooking is a former research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a co-author of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media. Twitter: @etbrooking

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newstfionline · 6 years

Text

The Future of War Will Be ‘Liked’

By Peter W. Singer, Emerson Brooking, Foreign Policy, October 2, 2018

It was, perhaps, the strangest demand in political history:

“The middle photo is taken from Hungarian porn. Stop using fake photos to ‘trick’ people into supporting your lost cause.”

After an avalanche of criticism, the State Department decided it was inappropriate for the U.S. government to get stuck in the muck of social media--better to stick to airstrikes--and pulled the plug on the Twitter account.

Four years later, such scruples seem almost quaint. In an era in which President Donald Trump didn’t just rise to power through his deft use of the same medium, but then even used it to fire his first secretary of state, the old notions that government should stay above the social media fray have evaporated. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have become crucial battlegrounds for politics, war, and even truth itself. Social media has emerged as an arena in which virality--how far and wide a message spreads--trumps veracity. In this domain, attention is power. Win enough of it and you can reshape the very fabric of reality.

A generation ago, the new notion of what was called “cyberwar”--the hacking of networks--began to take conflict into a new domain. Today, what we call “like wars”--the hacking of the people and ideas on those networks--mark the latest twist in the ever-evolving nature of warfare.

On the surface, many of these battles waged on social media can seem like mere propaganda and an often silly version at that--like teenaged trolling transposed onto the global stage. In August 2017, for example, the Ukrainian government’s official Twitter account attacked Russia with a mocking South Park GIF; in June 2018, the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., answered a fire-and-brimstone threat by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with a Mean Girls meme; and in May 2018, the U.S. Air Force cracked jokes about airstrikes in Afghanistan while the Taliban returned the favor by poking fun at former U.S. commander David Petraeus’s illicit love affair.

Some of it is intentional: selfies taken in the midst of battle, observers watching events, smartphone in hand. Others are captured in the background: be it images that lay in the distance or even information in the digital background, from the geolocation of CIA black sites revealed by guards’ use of exercise apps to the metadata that accompanies every online post. The result is that the smallest of firefights is observed by a global audience, while terrorist attacks are even shared out live by the killers themselves. Open-source intelligence analysts then use these very same digital breadcrumbs to reveal new secrets, documenting war crimes that would go otherwise untracked or assessing the strength of enemy formations that would go otherwise unobserved. It works for both good and bad: Terrorists use this information to win new recruits; human rights activists use it to highlight the plight of civilians caught in harm’s way and even steer rescues their way. During the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul--the most livestreamed and hashtagged siege in history--thousands of virtual observers waited for each new snippet of content, spinning it to all of these ends at once.

These battles that play out in the digital shadows are not just about unveiling secrets but burying truths--and even shaping hearts, minds, and actions.

Indeed, the messages coursing through social media today shape not just the perceived outcomes of conflicts but the very choices leaders make during both military campaigns. Russia, for instance, has crafted its information operations into a potent, nimble weapon that can target U.S. voters or pinpoint artillery strikes in Ukraine, using what happens in the online world to geolocate soldiers--and then message their looming death right before the cannons fire. Social media even shapes the overall flow. A 2016 study by the American University professor Thomas Zeitzoff of the Israel Defense Forces’ 2012 air campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip found that the conflict followed the pace set on Twitter; the tempo of operations and targeting shifted depending on which side was dominating the online conversation at the time. The military officers and civilian leaders were watching their social media feed and reacting accordingly.

Daunting as all this may seem, however, social media has only just begun to shape the future of war. Only half the world is online, while the tools of “like wars” today are like the biplanes of air war. Indeed, new machine intelligence is making it ever harder for humans to discern truth from lies and is possibly reshaping our conception of reality itself. Over the last year, the techniques needed to create “deep fakes”--hyper-realistic digital forgeries generated by advanced artificial intelligence neural networks--have become increasingly accessible. This technology, currently used mostly by cutting-edge computer scientists and inventive pornographers, will soon flood the internet with pitch-perfect voice imitations, photo-realistic video fabrications, and vast networks of chattering bots indistinguishable from their human counterparts. And like everything else, deep fakes are also likely to be weaponized, both in elections and even battles. We’ve already had a taste of it; in its run to seize Mosul, the Islamic State was able to use a mix of real and fake news to help spur retreat by Iraqi Army units. Even U.S. information war units now train at sowing false digital trails to misdirect their foes. We may one day even face the prospect of a digital Gulf of Tonkin, where the very case for a real war is built wholly on AI-constructed lies.

#social media and war #war and social media #future of war

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ralphmorgan-blog1 · 7 years

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What the Qatar crisis means for Hamas

(CNN)When Palestinian militant group Hamas announced its new charter to the world, it wasn't from Ramallah or Gaza City, but from the Sheraton hotel's gilded Salwa Ballroom in Doha.

It was no surprise that Hamas chose Qatar. It's the home of outgoing Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, and much of his senior leadership.

"Qatar is quite important for Hamas," said H.A. Hellyer, a senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. "Qatar provides strong financial aid to the occupied Palestinian territories and is a safe haven for a number of Hamas leaders."

The recent crisis in the Persian Gulf region is putting that relationship in jeopardy. Earlier this month, nine countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed financial embargoes of varying severity.

The announcement was the culmination of a feud that had been simmering for years. The nine countries accused Doha of assisting terrorist organizations, providing support for the Muslim Brotherhood and of being far too cozy with Iran.

OPINION: Don't be fooled by Hamas' rebranding

Ironically perhaps, Qatar's relationship with Hamas had not been among the biggest issues dividing the region.

Unlike the US, Britain, and Europe, all of which designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, Arab states -- including Qatar -- do not. This was something Qatar's Foreign Minister sought to remind people in an interview with Russia's RT, in response to a call from his Saudi counterpart that Qatar stop supporting Hamas.

"The US views Hamas as a terror organization. But to the rest of the Arab nations, it is a legitimate resistance movement. We do not support Hamas, we support the Palestinian people," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said.

"Hamas' presence [in Doha] is coordinated with the US and the countries in the region, and it's part of our effort to mediate between the Palestinian factions to reach reconciliation."

OPINION: Hamas has a huge long-term problem

Qatar crisis threatens to tear families apart

Unreasonably squeezed?

For its part, Hamas says it is being squeezed unreasonably.

"The Gulf Countries are pressuring Qatar to cut relations with resistance organizations. This is unacceptable and we refuse this pressure," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoom said in a statement to CNN. "We are a resistance movement and the whole world is a witness to this."

Hamas is seen as having been under a series of pressures for the last few years, reflected in some significant internal changes.

Last month, a new leader was announced -- Ismail Haniya taking over from long-time leader Meshaal -- at the same time as the militant group issued its new charter.

While Israel pointed to the fact the new document continued to espouse violent resistance, and a commitment to the "rejection of the Zionist entity," others observers said the document's description of a Palestinian state with the borders existing on the eve of the Six Day War in 1967 provided evidence of a new moderation.

As Hamas rank and file were digesting those changes, so the leadership was suddenly forced to pay careful attention to diplomatic developments. Hellyer sees two main reasons the nine regional allies are turning their attention towards Hamas.

"First, Hamas has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood organization, which puts it in the firing line of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia," Hellyer says. "But I think this has more to do with a western audience. The Saudi rulers took advantage of Trump's recognition of them as a powerful actor in the region and that might have encouraged them."

What in the World: Trump & the Qatar Quarrel

Al Jazeera: 'Thorn'

Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, has been a thorn in the side of regional autocrats for years. Qatar's regional influence also comes from support for Islamists, whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas at one end of the spectrum, or Al Qaeda at the other.

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Gulf crisis: What you need to know

Doha has used this sway to negotiate with various groups including the Taliban, as well as to help negotiate ceasefires between Israel and Hamas.

In late 2010 and into 2011, Qatar saw its influence throughout the Middle East rise sharply. Al Jazeera, already a thorn in the side of Arab autocrats, reported extensively on the Arab Spring.

The Al Jazeera Arabic channel grew additional roots in Egypt after the uprising and election of Mohamed Morsy who hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood. The international community praised the new Egyptian president for bringing a swift end to a war between Gaza militants and Israel that same year.

In the long run, though, as it unraveled across the region, the Arab Spring proved to be disastrous for Hamas, which saw the number of countries it could call a friend whittled away.

"Hamas had very strong relations with Syria, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and Iran," says Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian politician. "Things have changed over time so they had to diversify relations."

Move from Damascus

Food, fuel and flights: How Qatar may suffer

Before 2012, the Hamas leadership was based out of Damascus. Tensions grew between the militants and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad as revolution gripped the country. Eventually, Hamas sided with the rebels and cut ties to some extent with Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran.

"Hamas lost a lot in the uprisings," says Hellyer. "This is one of the reasons why Qatar stepped in."

Qatar, a strong supporter of both the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hamas, took advantage of the situation.

In the fall of 2012, the head of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited the Gaza Strip becoming the first world leader to do so under Hamas control. The emir inaugurated projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In the vacuum left by other countries, Qatar saw its influence over the Strip rising quickly.

But Doha's ambitions hit a roadblock on July 3, 2013 when Mohamed Morsy was ousted by Egypt's military in a coup. The Muslim Brotherhood were stripped of their power and their influence. The new ruler -- General Abdel Fatah El Sisi -- was hostile toward Qatar and Hamas.

He accused Hamas of supporting the Brotherhood in the post-coup violence. Hundreds of smuggling tunnels, along the border with Gaza, were taken out of action, thus severing a vital lifeline to the coastal strip. Indeed, relations between Hamas and Cairo grew so bad that Egyptian pundits cheered Israel and praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the 2014 war between Gaza Militants and Israel.

Less than three years later, and that Egyptian resentment, shared by its Arab allies, exists now as a power play aimed at bending Qatar to its will.

"It's difficult to imagine Qatar able to hold out against such a restrictive system around them. I expect quite a few people in Qatar are looking for a way to compromise," explains Hellyer. "The problem is, the temperature has risen so much so quickly that there are no face saving measures. If Doha concedes to the demands, it'll look quite bad for Doha internally."

A break with Qatar?

Perhaps the most immediate sign of any acquiescence would be for Qatar to expel the Hamas leadership. Sudan or Turkey might be places of refuge if that were to happen, according to Hallyer.

"Until this moment, Qatar hasn't informed us of any decision to leave Doha," says Hamas's Barhoom. "We are welcomed in many countries. We had elections and will consider new arrangements. The residency of Hamas leadership might change according to a decision taken by the leadership itself."

A break with Qatar wouldn't break Hamas -- the organization has survived before without Qatar's money -- but it would surely compound the dire situation in Gaza, say observers.

According to the United Nations, the unemployment rate in the strip hovers around 65% and one million people rely on food handouts from the UN's Palestinian refugee agency.

"It's a very serious, dangerous and explosive situation," says Barghouti. "Qatar has been helping the Gazans by supplying them with electricity and fuel. Breaking ties would drastically affect the civilians. My worry is squeezing Hamas too much could lead to certain splits and allow certain radicalization."

Ultimately, he says, this feud between the Gulf countries could have a negative effect on Palestinian ambitions for an independent state.

"Internal disputes in the Arab world, between Arab countries, are bad for Palestine. One very important effect is that this distracts from the Palestinian need for liberation and independence," says Barghouti. "We Palestinians need these problems resolved as soon as possible."

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Part 2, Monday, April 17th, 2017

International News:

--- "Mothers Noha, a Shi'ite, and Samira, a Sunni, were besieged for nearly two years on each side of Syria's civil war. At the weekend they finally escaped the suffocating blockades under an evacuation agreement - but their ordeal was not over. As they waited at two transit points miles apart outside Aleppo, a bomb attack hit Noha's bus convoy, killing more than 120 people including dozens of children. After ambulances rushed off the wounded, new buses arrived and the two convoys eventually reached their destinations - one in government territory and the other in rebel territory. In the hours leading up to Saturday's attacks, the two women spoke to Reuters about what they had left behind, their families being split up, and the likelihood they would never return home. Reuters was not allowed back past security to try to find Noha after the blast, and lost contact with Samira after speaking to her earlier on another evacuee's phone. "We've lost everything. We hope to go back one day, but I don't expect we will," said Noha, 45, asking not to be identified by her last name. Noha left al-Foua, one of two Shi'ite villages besieged by Syrian insurgents in Idlib province with her two youngest children and 5,000 other people under a deal between the Syrian government and armed opposition. In exchange, 2,000 Sunni residents and rebel fighters from the government-besieged town of Madaya near Damascus - Samira's hometown - were given safe passage out, and bussed to Idlib province, a rebel stronghold, via Aleppo."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-displaced-idUSKBN17J0ZJ?il=0

--- "Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on Monday in response to a call by prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, widely seen as a possible future Palestinian president. Palestinians termed the open-ended strike a protest against poor conditions and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that has been applied against thousands since the 1980s. Israel said the move by the prisoners, many of whom were convicted of attacks or planning attacks against Israel, was politically motivated. The protest was led by Barghouti, 58, a leader of the mainstream Fatah movement of the Palestine Liberation Organization, serving five life terms after being convicted of murder in the killing of Israelis in a 2000-2005 uprising. The strike, if sustained, could present a challenge to Israel and raise tensions between the two sides as the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip approaches in June. Israeli troops and settlers pulled out of the Gaza Strip, now run by Hamas Islamists, in 2005, but peace talks on the creation of a Palestinian state collapsed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2014."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-prisoners-idUSKBN17J0XZ?il=0

--- "Islamic State is talking to al Qaeda about a possible alliance as Iraqi troops close in on IS fighters in Mosul, Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi said in an interview on Monday. Allawi said he got the information on Monday from Iraqi and regional contacts knowledgeable about Iraq. "The discussion has started now," Allawi said. "There are discussions and dialogue between messengers representing Baghdadi and representing Zawahiri," referring to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda. Islamic State split from al Qaeda in 2014 and the two groups have since waged an acrimonious battle for recruits, funding and the mantle of global jihad. Zawahiri has publicly criticized Islamic State for its brutal methods, which have included beheadings, drownings and immolation. It is unclear how exactly the two group may work together, Allawi said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-islamic-state-idUSKBN17J1DT?il=0

--- "Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron urged French voters on Monday to turn the page on the last 20 years and bring a new generation to power, as he stepped up attacks against resurgent far-left and conservative rivals six days before voting day.Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron urged French voters on Monday to turn the page on the last 20 years and bring a new generation to power, as he stepped up attacks against resurgent far-left and conservative rivals six days before voting day. Macron, a 39-year-old pro-EU centrist who would become the youngest French leader since Napoleon if elected, said recent leaders had betrayed the post-war generation which had rebuilt the country, leaving France unreformed and sclerotic. "What has been proposed to the French in the last 20 years is not liberation or reconstruction, but a slow, unavowed acceptation of unemployment, state impotence and social breakdown," he told a cheering crowd of at least 18,000 people in the Bercy arena in Paris. Investors are glued to the outcome of France's most unpredictable election in decades. Polls suggest growing numbers of voters are turning away from mainstream parties because of disenchantment with the establishment and frustration at years of economic malaise."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-macron-idUSKBN17J1J0?il=0

--- "Far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday sought to mobilize her supporters six days ahead of France's most unpredictable presidential election in decades by pledging to suspend all immigration and shield voters from "savage globalization." Opinion polls have for months shown Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron qualifying on Sunday for the May 7 run-off, but the gap with conservative Francois Fillon and far-leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon has been tightening. "I will protect you. My first measure as president will be to reinstate France's borders," Le Pen said to wide applause and cheers from the crowd of about 5,000, prompting the National Front's (FN) traditional "This is our home!" chant. Slamming her rivals, whom she said wanted "savage globalization," she said hers was the camp of patriots. "The choice on Sunday is simple," she said. "It is a choice between a France that is rising again and a France that is sinking." While no polls have shown Le Pen missing out on the run-off, they are now within the margin of error and any two of the four top candidates have a shot at qualifying. Polls have consistently shown her losing that second round."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-pen-idUSKBN17J1FU?il=0

--- "Turkey extended its state of emergency on Monday by three months starting from Wednesday, its third such extension after a coup attempt last July, a deputy prime minister said. The decision came after the National Security Council advised extending it, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters in a press conference in Ankara."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-emergency-pm-idUSKBN17J1MU?il=0

--- "U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told business leaders in Seoul on Tuesday that the Trump administration will review and reform the five-year-old free trade agreement between the two countries. Pence said the U.S. trade deficit has more than doubled in the five years since the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement began and there are too many barriers for U.S. businesses in the country. Pence's meeting in Seoul with business leaders comes before he heads to Tokyo later on Tuesday, where he will meet Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso and kick off talks that Washington hopes will open doors for U.S.-made products. U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to narrow big trade deficits with nations like China and Japan, saying he would boost U.S. manufacturing jobs. "That's the hard truth," Pence told an American Chamber of Commerce meeting in Seoul. "We have to be honest about where our trade relationship is falling short", said Pence, adding the Trump administration would work with businesses on reforms."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-usa-pence-idUSKBN17K01C?il=0

--- "U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday the United States was eager to strengthen its trade relations with Japan, after meeting his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo. Asked about a possible free trade agreement, Ross told reporters: "It's a little bit early to say just what forms things will take, but we are certainly eager to increase our trade relationships with Japan and to do so in the form of an agreement." He added: "We made good progress in terms of establishing the overall issues and frame of reference for continuing dialogue." Japanese Trade Minister Hiroshige Seko, also speaking after their meeting, told reporters he had a "detailed, frank and practical" discussion with Ross. Separately, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will meet with Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday, kicking off talks in Tokyo that the White House hopes will open doors in Japan for U.S. products and attract Japanese investment in U.S. infrastructure projects."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pence-asia-japan-ross-idUSKBN17K08U?il=0

--- "U.S. Marines began arriving in Australia's tropical north on Tuesday for a six-month deployment during which they will conduct exercises with Australian and visiting Chinese forces. The 25-year annual deployment program started by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2011 is part of the U.S. "pivot" to Asia at a time of increased assertiveness by China. "I think that the commitment that we've taken to put a task force here with a conversation to get larger over the years says that we do think this is an important region," said Marines' commander Lieutenant Colonel Brian Middleton after the first troops arrived in Darwin in the Northern Territory. "Being close to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, the Indo Pacific position has always been important." Middleton said the marines would conduct an "important exercise alongside our Chinese partners" and Australia. The strength of this year's deployment at 1,250 troops lags well behind the initial plan for the deployment to reach 2,500 Marines this year, but it will see the largest U.S. aircraft contingent to Australia in peacetime history."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-usa-defence-idUSKBN17K09N?il=0

--- "Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday diplomatic means must be used to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula, where North Korea has vowed to continue with its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of U.N. sanctions. Wang, speaking at a news conference in Beijing, urged all sides to find a peaceful solution."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-china-idUSKBN17K093?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "Advisers to President Donald Trump will meet on Tuesday to discuss whether to recommend that he withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, a White House official said on Monday. The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015, aims to limit planetary warming in part by slashing carbon dioxide and other emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Under the pact, the United States committed to reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Trump has said the United States should "cancel" the deal, but he has been mostly quiet on the issue since he was elected last November. Environmental groups want Washington to remain in the Paris agreement, even if the new administration weakens U.S. pledges. A White House official said Trump's aides would "discuss the options, with the goal of providing a recommendation to the president about the path forward." The meeting comes before a summit of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in late May, the deadline for the White House to take a position. White House officials, led by the National Economic Council, have recently been asking publicly traded energy companies for advice on whether to stay in the agreement."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climatechange-idUSKBN17J1DN?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump called Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a referendum expanding his authority, sources in Erdogan's palace said on Monday. Turkey voted on Sunday to switch to a presidential system, greatly increasing Erdogan's powers. Unofficial results, which the opposition said it would challenge, showed a narrow victory for him with 51.4 percent of votes cast in favor."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-election-usa-idUSKBN17J1M3?il=0

--- "On his first trip as U.S defense secretary to parts of the Middle East and Africa, Jim Mattis will focus on the fight against Islamic State and articulating President Donald Trump's policy toward Syria, officials and experts say. His trip may give clarity to adversaries and allies alike about the Trump administration's tactics in the fight against Islamic State militants and its willingness to use military power more liberally than former President Barack Obama did. One of the main questions from allies about Syria is whether Washington has formulated a strategy to prevent areas seized from militants from collapsing into ethnic and sectarian feuds or succumbing to a new generation of extremism, as parts of Iraq and Afghanistan have done since the U.S. invaded them. U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake the Islamic State strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and questions remain about what will happen after that and what role other allies such as Saudi Arabia, can play. There are signs that Trump has given the U.S. military more latitude to use force, including ordering a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base and cheering the unprecedented use of a monster bomb against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan last week...Arriving in the region on Tuesday, his stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Israel."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mideast-mattis-idUSKBN17J1RA?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs. Two senior Trump administration officials who briefed reporters at the White House said Trump will also use the "buy American and hire American" order to seek changes in government procurement practices to increase the purchase of American products in federal contracts. Trump is to sign the order when he visits the world headquarters of Snap-On Inc, a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The order is an attempt by Trump to carry out his "America First" campaign pledges to reform U.S. immigration policies and encourage purchases of American products. As he nears the 100-day benchmark of his presidency, Trump has no major legislative achievements to tout but has used executive orders to seek regulatory changes to help the U.S. economy. The order he will sign on Tuesday will call for "the strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labor from abroad for the stated purpose of creating higher wages and higher employment rates for workers in the United States," one of the senior officials said. It will call on the departments of Labor, Justice, Homeland Security and State to take action to crack down on what the official called "fraud and abuse" in the U.S. immigration system to protect American workers."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-visa-idUSKBN17K02U?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "President Donald Trump's appointee Neil Gorsuch on Monday showed himself to be a frequent and energetic questioner during U.S. Supreme Court arguments in his first day hearing cases as a justice, at one point even apologizing for talking too much. Gorsuch, whose confirmation to the lifetime job restored the court's conservative majority, exhibited composure and confidence, sitting on the far right of the bench in the ornate courtroom, alongside liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He appeared relaxed, gingerly sipping from a disposable coffee cup. The justices, with the exception of the usually silent Clarence Thomas, are known for their aggressive questioning, and Gorsuch showed no qualms about jumping right in. Eight times during the course of three one-hour arguments Gorsuch peppered attorneys with a series of pointed questions...The Coloradoan came across as temperamentally different from the sometimes hard-edged New Yorker Scalia, offering respectful but firm questioning even when the lawyer facing his queries seemed evasive."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gorsuch-idUSKBN17J0NZ?il=0

--- "Mini motorcycle and go-kart maker Monster Moto made a big bet on U.S. manufacturing by moving assembly to this Louisiana town in 2016 from China. But it will be a long ride before it can stamp its products "Made in USA." The loss of nearly one out four U.S. factories in the last two decades means parts for its bike frames and engines must be purchased in China, where the manufacturing supply chain moved years ago. "There's just no way to source parts in America right now," said Monster Moto Chief Executive Alex Keechle during a tour of the company's assembly plant. "But by planting the flag here, we believe suppliers will follow." Monster Moto's experience is an example of the obstacles American companies face as they, along with President Donald Trump, try to rebuild American manufacturing. U.S. automakers and their suppliers, for example, have already invested billions in plants abroad and would face an expensive and time-consuming transition to buy thousands of American-made parts if President Trump’s proposed “border tax” on imported goods were to become law. When companies reshore assembly to U.S. soil – in Monster Moto’s case that took two years to find a location and negotiate support from local and state officials – they are betting their demand will create a local supply chain that currently does not exist...Their experience has shown Americans’ patriotic shopping habits have limits, namely when it comes to price. Take Monster Moto's bikes, which sell for between $249 to $749. Keechle, the CEO, says he can’t raise those prices for fear his price sensitive prospective customers will turn to less expensive rivals made in China. "Consumers won't give you a free pass just because you put 'Made in USA' on the box," Keechle says. "You have to remain price competitive."Keeping a sharp eye on labor costs in their factory is one thing these U.S. manufactures can control. They see replacing primarily lower-skilled workers on the assembly line with robots on American factory floors as the only way to produce here in a financially viable, cost-competitive way. It’s a trend that runs against the narrative candidate Donald Trump used to win the U.S. Presidency."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-manufacturing-suppliers-idUSKBN17J0SY?il=0

--- "U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the Trump administration's timetable for tax reform is set to falter following setbacks in negotiations with Congress over healthcare, the Financial Times reported on Monday. Mnuchin told the Financial Times in an interview that the target to get tax reforms through Congress and on President Donald Trump's desk before August was "highly aggressive to not realistic at this point". "It is fair to say it is probably delayed a bit because of the healthcare," Mnuchin told the newspaper. Mnuchin also told the Financial Times he agreed with Trump's view that the dollar's strength in the short term was hurting exports, but said he saw the currency's strength over the long term as a positive. "As the world's currency, the primary reserve currency, I think that over long periods of time the strength of the dollar is a good thing," the Financial Times quoted Mnuchin as saying. Trump has signaled he wants to streamline the income tax system, cut federal regulations, reduce corporate income tax and add new taxes to prod companies to keep or move production to the United States."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-mnuchin-idUSKBN17J1LZ?il=0

--- "An Illinois lawmaker on Monday introduced a bill to ban the forcible removal of travelers from flights by state or local government employees after a United Airlines passenger was dragged from an aircraft last week. The Airline Passenger Protection Act, sponsored by Republican state Representative Peter Breen, came after Dr. David Dao, 69, was pulled from a United flight at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to make space for four crew members. The treatment of Dao sparked international outrage, as well as multiple apologies from the carrier, and raised questions about the overbooking policies of airlines. Under Breen's measure, passengers could not be removed from flights unless they were presenting a danger to themselves or others, an emergency was taking place or the passenger had caused a serious disturbance, according to a copy of the bill introduced in the state capital, Springfield. "A commercial airline that removes validly seated customers without serious cause breaches the sacred trust between passengers and their airlines," the bill said. The legislation would also bar the state of Illinois from making travel arrangements, doing business with or having investments in any commercial airline that maintained a policy of removing paying passengers to make room for employees traveling on non-revenue tickets."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-illinois-airlines-ual-idUSKBN17J1JX?il=0

#international affairs #domestic affairs #source: reuters

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