Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest

I think this is really the tip of the iceberg. but it is good to see this guy in real danger of being held accountable. Let's hope it goes further. Let's pray that one day the Puppet Masters will also be held to account.

Steve B
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Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest by Ralph Lopez

Global Research, September 20, 2011

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office. The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company.  The company was under contract to the Department of Defense.   The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the “mass acquisition” of American weapons.  The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet.  Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding. Torture Room, Abu Ghraib Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in 2004 of photos withheld by the Defense Department from Abu Ghraib, “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here… We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.”  And journalist Seymour Hersh says: “boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has.” Rumsfeld resigned days before a criminal complaint was filed in Germany in which the American general who commanded the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib had promised to testify.  General Janis Karpinski in an interview with Salon.com was asked: “Do you feel like Rumsfeld is at the heart of all of this and should be held completely accountable for what happened [at Abu Ghraib]?” Karpinski answered: “Yes, absolutely.”  In the criminal complaint filed in Germany against Rumsfeld, Karpinski submitted 17 pages of testimony and offered to appear before the German prosecutor as a witness.  Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, who participated in the hearings on Abu Ghraib, said of Rumsfeld: “There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything.” And Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib, said in his report: “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Abu Ghraib Prisoner Smeared with Feces Amazingly, the two American contractors in the 7th Circuit decision were known by the military to be working undercover for the FBI, to whom they had reported witnessing the sale of U.S government munitions to Iraqi rebel groups.  The FBI in Iraq had vouched for Vance and Ertel numerous times before they nevertheless disappeared into military custody.  They were held at Camp Cropper in Iraq where the two were tortured, one for 97 days, and the other for six weeks. In a puzzling and incriminating move, Camp Cropper base commander General John Gardner ordered Nathan Ertel released on May 17, 2006, while keeping Donald Vance in detention for another two months of torture.  By ordering the release of one man but not the other, Gardner revealed awareness of the situation but prolonged it at the same time. It is unlikely that Gardner could act alone in a situation as sensitive as the illegal detention and torture of two Americans confirmed by the FBI to be working undercover in the national interest, to prevent American weapons and munitions from reaching the hands of insurgents, for the sole purpose of using them to kill American troops.  Vance and Ertel suggest he was acting on orders from the highest political level. The forms of torture employed against the Americans included “techniques” which crop up frequently in descriptions of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner abuse at Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib.  They included “walling,” where the head is slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall, sleep deprivation to the point of psychosis by use of round-the-clock bright lights and harsh music at ear-splitting volume, in total isolation, for days, weeks or months at a time, and intolerable cold. The 7th Circuit ruling is the latest in a growing number of legal actions involving hundreds of former prisoners and torture victims filed in courts around the world.  Criminal complaints have been filed against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials in Germany, France, and Spain.  Former President Bush recently curbed travel to Switzerland due to fear of arrest following criminal complaints lodged in Geneva.  “He’s avoiding the handcuffs,” Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters. And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were he to land in London to “flog his memoirs,” that “the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief-of-Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson surmised on MSNBC earlier this year that soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be “the only two countries Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest will travel to.” Abu Ghraib: Dog Bites What would seem to make Rumsfeld’s situation more precarious is the number of credible former officials and military officers who seem to be eager to testify against him, such as Col. Wilkerson and General Janis Karpinsky. In a signed declaration in support of torture plaintiffs in a civil suit naming Rumsfeld in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Col. Wilkerson, one of Rumsfeld’s most vociferous critics,  stated: “I am willing to testify in person regarding the  content of this declaration, should that be necessary.”  That declaration, among other things, affirmed that a documentary on the chilling murder of a 22-year-old Afghan farmer and taxi driver in Afghanistan was “accurate.”  Wilkerson said earlier this year that in that case, and in the case of another murder at Bagram at about the same time, “authorization for the abuse went to the very top of the United States government.” Dilawar The young farmer’s name was Dilawar.  The New York Times reported on May 20, 2005: “Four days before [his death,] on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.On the day that he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar’s mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. However, he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.” Dilawar’s misfortune was to drive past the gate of an American base which had been hit by a rocket attack that morning.  Dilawar and his fares were arrested at a checkpoint by a warlord, who was later suspected of mounting the rocket attack himself, and then turning over randam captures like Dilawar in order to win trust. The UK Guardian reports: “Guards at Bagram routinely kneed prisoners in their thighs — a blow called a ‘peroneal strike’… Whenever a guard did this to Dilawar, he would cry out, ‘Allah! Allah!’ Some guards apparently found this amusing, and would strike him repeatedly to show off the behavior to buddies. One military policeman told investigators, ‘Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny. … It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes.’” Dilawar was shackled from the ceiling much of the time, with his feet barely able to touch the ground.  On the last day of his life, after 4 days at Bagram, an interpreter who was present said his legs were bouncing uncontrollably as he sat in a plastic chair. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days. The New York Times reported that on the last day of his life, four days after he was arrested: “Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face. “Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!” At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling. “‘Leave him up,’ one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.” The next time the prison medic saw Dilawar a few hours later, he was dead, his head lolled to one side and his body beginning to stiffen.  A coroner would testify that his legs “had basically been pulpified.” The Army coroner, Maj. Elizabeth Rouse, said: “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” She testified that had he lived, Dilawar’s legs would have had to be amputated. Despite the military’s false statement that Dilawar’s death was the result of “natural causes,” Maj. Rouse marked the death certificate as a “homicide” and arranged for the certificate to be delivered to the family.  The military was forced to retract the statement when a reporter for the New York Times, Carlotta Gall, tracked down Dilawar’s family in Afghanistan and was given a folded piece of paper by Dilawar’s brother.  It was the death certificate, which he couldn’t read, because it was in English. The practice of forcing prisoners to stand for long periods of time, links Dilawar’s treatment to a memo which bears Rumsfeld’s own handwriting on that particular subject.  Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, the memo may show how fairly benign-sounding authorizations for clear circumventions of the Geneva Conventions may have translated into gruesome practice on the battlefield. The memo, which addresses keeping prisoners “standing” for up to four hours, is annotated with a note initialed by Rumfeld reading: “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”  Not mentioned in writing anywhere is anything about accomplishing this by chaining prisoners to the ceiling.  There is evidence that, unable to support his weight on tiptoe for the days on end he was chained to the ceiling, Dilawars arms dislocated, and they flapped around uselessly when he was taken down for interrogation.  The National Catholic Reporter writes, “They flapped like a bird’s broken wings.” Contradicting, on the record, a February 2003 statement by Rumfeld’s top commander in Afghnanistan at the time, General Daniel McNeill, that “we are not chaining people to the ceilings,” is Spc. Willie Brand, the only soldier disciplined in the death of Dilawar, with a reduction in rank.  Told of McNeill’s statement, Brand told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes: “Well, he’s lying.”  Brand said of his punishment: “I didn’t understand how they could do this after they had trained you to do this stuff and they turn around and say you’ve been bad.” Exhibit: A sketch by Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell Exhibit: Dilawar Death Certificate marked “homicide” Exhibit: Rumsfeld Memo: “I stand 8-10 hours a day.  Why only 4 hours?” Dilawar’s daughter and her grandfather Binyam, Genital-Slicing Binyam Mohamed was seized by the Pakistani Forces in April 2002 and turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty.  He was held for more than five years without charge or trial in Bagram Air Force Base, Guantánamo Bay, and third country “black” sites. In his diary he describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. He writes: “They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor’s scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they’d electrocute me. Maybe castrate me…One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. ‘I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,’ [one] eventually said. “They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor. “I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: ‘What’s the point of this? I’ve got nothing I can say to them. I’ve told them everything I possibly could.’ “‘As far as I know, it’s just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you’ll have these scars and you’ll never forget. So you’ll always fear doing anything but what the US wants.’ “Later, when a US airplane picked me up the following January, a female MP took pictures. She was one of the few Americans who ever showed me any sympathy. When she saw the injuries I had she gasped. They treated me and took more photos when I was in Kabul. Someone told me this was ‘to show Washington it’s healing.’” The obvious question for any prosecutor in Binyam’s case is: Who does “Washington” refer to?  Rumfeld?  Cheney?  Is it not in the national interest to uncover these most depraved of sadists at the highest level?  US Judge Gladys Kessler, in her findings on Binyam made in relation to a Guantanamo prisoner’s petition, found Binyam exceedingly credible.  She wrote: “His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence.” Obama: Torturers’ Last Defense The prospect of Rumsfeld in a courtroom cannot possibly be relished by the Obama administration, which has now cast itself as the last and staunchest defender of the embattled former officials, including John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Judge Jay Bybee, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and others.  The administration employed anunprecedented twisting of arms in order to keep evidence in a lawsuit which Binyam had filed in the UK suppressed, threatening an end of cooperation between the British MI5 and the CIA.  This even though the British judges whose hand was forced puzzled that the evidence contained “no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.”  The judges suggested another reason for the secrecy requested by the Obama administration, that it might be “politically embarrassing.” The Obama Justice Department’s active involvement in seeking the dismissal of the cases is by choice, as the statutory obligation of the US Attorney General to defend cases against public officials ends the day they leave office.  Indeed, the real significance of recent court decisions, the one by the 7th Circuit and yet another against Rumsfeld in a DC federal court, may be the clarification the common misconception that high officials are forever immune for crimes committed while in office, in the name of the state.  The misconception persists despite just a moment of thought telling one that if this were true, Hermann Goering, Augusto Pinochet, and Charles Taylor would never have been arrested, for they were all in office at the time they ordered atrocities, and they all invoked national security. Judge Kessler’s findings point to yet another even more alarming aspect of the Bush-era crimes for which Rumsfeld is now being pursued for his part.  And that is the emerging evidence that the tortures perpetrated were not designed to protect national security at all, but to obtain false confessions in order to score propaganda points for the War on terror. Andy Worthington writes that: “As it happens, one of the confessions that was tortured out of Binyam is so ludicrous that it was soon dropped…The US authorities insisted that Padilla and Binyam had dinner with various high-up members of al-Qaeda the night before Padilla was to fly off to America. According to their theory the dinner party had to have been on the evening of 3 April in Karachi … Binyam was  meant to have dined with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Sheikh al-Libi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Jose Padilla. What made the scenario ‘absurd,’ as [Binyam's lawyer] pointed out, was that ‘two of the conspirators were already in U.S. custody at the time — Abu Zubaydah was seized six days before, on 28 March 2002, and al-Libi had been held since November 2001.’” The charges against Binyam were dropped, after the prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, resigned. He told the BBC later that he had concerns at the repeated suppression of evidence that could prove prisoners’ innocence. The litany of tortures alleged against Rumsfeld in the military prisons he ran could go on for some time.  The new photographic images from Abu Ghraib make it hard to conceive of how the methods of torture and dehumanization could have possibly served a national purpose. The approved use of attack dogs, sexual humiliation, forced masturbation, and treatments which plumb the depths of human depravity are either documented in Rumsfeld’s own memos, or credibly reported on. The UK Guardian writes: “The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I – resistance to interrogation – match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. “One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: ‘It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn’t know what they were doing.’” Torture Now Aimed at Americans, Programs Designed to Obtain False Confessions, Not Intelligence The worst of the worst is that Rumsfeld’s logic strikes directly at the foundations of our democracy and the legitimacy of the War on Terror.  The torture methods studied and adopted by the Bush administration were not new, but adopted from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program (SERE) which is taught to elite military units.  The program was developed during the Cold War, in response to North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet Bloc torture methods.  But the aim of those methods was never to obtain intelligence, but to elicit false confessions.  The Bush administration asked the military to “reverse engineer” the methods, i.e. figure out how to break down resistance to false confessions. In the 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report which indicted high-level Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld, as bearing major responsibility for the torture at Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and Bagram, the Committee said: “SERE instructors explained “Biderman’s Principles” – which were based on coercive methods used by the Chinese Communist dictatorship to elicit false confessions from U.S. POWs during the Korean War – and left with GTMO personnel a chart of those coercive techniques.” The Biderman Principles were based on the work of Air Force Psychiatrist Albert Biderman, who wrote the landmark “Communist Attempts to Elecit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War,” on which SERE resistance was based.  Biderman wrote: “The experiences of American Air Force prisoners of war in Korea who were pressured for false confessions, enabled us to compile an outline of methods of eliciting compliance, not much different, it turned out, from those reported by persons held by Communists of other nations.  I have prepared a chart showing a condensed version of this outline.” The chart is a how-to for communist torturers interested only in false confessions for propaganda purposes, not intelligence.  It was the manual for, in Biderman’s words, “brainwashing.”  In the reference for Principle Number 7, “Degradation,” the chart explains: “Makes Costs of Resistance Appear More Damaging to Self-Esteem than Capitulation; Reduces Prisoner to “Animal Level…Personal Hygiene Prevented; Filthy, Infested Surroundings; Demeaning Punishments; Insults and Taunts; Denial of Privacy” Appallingly, this could explain that even photos such as those of feces-smeared prisoners at Abu Ghraib might not, as we would hope, be only the individual work of particularly demented guards, but part of systematic degradation authorized at the highest levels. Exhibit: Abu Ghraib, Female POW This could go far toward explaining why the Bush administration seemed so tone-deaf to intelligence professionals, including legendary CIA Director William Colby, who essentially told them they were doing it all wrong.  A startling level of consensus existed within the intelligence community that the way to produce good intelligence was to gain the trust of prisoners and to prove everything they had been told by their recruiters, about the cruelty and degeneracy of America, to be wrong. But why would the administration care about what worked to produce intelligence, if the goal was never intelligence in the first place?  What the Ponzi scheme of either innocent men or low-level operatives incriminating each other  DID accomplish, was produce a framework of rapid successes and trophies in the new War on Terror. And now, American contractors Vance and Ertel show, unless there are prosecutions, the law has effectively changed and they can do it to Americans.Jane Mayer in the New Yorker describes a new regime for prisoners which has become coldly methodical, quoting a report issued by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, titled “Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees.”  In the report on the CIA paramilitary Special Activities Division detainees were “taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes.” Mayer writes that a former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the “takeout” of prisoners as: “a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location.” A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories, likened the treatment to “sodomy.” He said, “It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability.” Of course we have seen these images before, in the trial balloon treatment of Jose Padilla, the first American citizen arrested and declared “enemy combatant” in the first undeclared war without end.  The designation placed Padilla outside of his Bill of Rights as an American citizen even though he was arrested on American soil.  Padilla was kept in isolation and tortured for nearly 4 years before being released to a civilian trial, at which point according to his lawyer he was useless in his own defense, and exhibited fear and mistrust of everyone, complete docility, and a range of nervous facial tics. Jose Padilla in Military Custody He was convicted by a Miami jury and sentenced to 17 more years.  As of this writing, and meriting it’s own outrage, on Sept. 19, an appeals court threw out Padilla’s sentence as “too lenient” and has sent it back for review. Rumsfeld’s avuncular “golly-gee, gee-whiz” performances in public are legendary.  Randall M. Schmidt, the Air Force Lieutenant General appointed by the Army to investigate abuses at Guantanamo, and who recommended holding Rumsfeld protege and close associate General Geoffrey Miller “accountable” as the commander of Guantanamo, watched Rumfeld’s performance before a House Committee with some interest. “He was going, ‘My God! Did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy’s head and telling him all his buddies knew he was a homosexual?’” But General Taguba said of Rumsfeld: “Rummy did what we called ‘case law’ policy — verbal and not in writing. What he’s really saying is that if this decision comes back to haunt me I’ll deny it.” Taguba went on: “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S.—Can’t Remember Shit.” Miller was the general deployed by Rumfeld to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib in 2003 after Rumfeld had determined they were being too “soft” on prisoners.  He said famously in one memo “you have to treat them like dogs.”  General Karpinski questioned the fall of Charles Graner and Lyndie England as the main focus of low-level “bad apple” abuse in the Abu Ghraib investigations.  “Did Lyndie England deploy with a dog leash?” she asks. Exhibit: Dog deployed at Abu Ghraib, mentally-ill prisoner Abu Ghraib prisoner in “restraint” chair, screaming “Allah!!” Rumfeld’s worry now is the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, as well as ordinary common law.  The veil of immunity stripped in civil cases would seem to free the hand of any prosecutor who determines there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed based on available evidence.  A grand jury’s bar for opening a prosecution is minimal.  It has been said “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”  Rumsfeld, and the evidence against him, would certainly seem to pass this test. The name Dilawar translates to English roughly as “Braveheart.”  Let us pray he had one to endure the manner of his death.  But the more spiritual may believe that somehow it had a purpose, to shock the world and begin the toppling of unimaginable evil among us.  Dilawar represented the poorest of the poor and most powerless, wanting only to pick up his three sisters, as his mother had told him to, for the holiday.  The question now is whether Americans will finally draw a line, as the case against Rumsfeld falls into place and becomes legally bulletproof.  Andy Worthington noted that the case for prosecutors became rock solid when Susan Crawford, senior Pentagon official overseeing the Military Commissions at Guantánamo — told Bob Woodward that the Bush administration had “met the legal definition of torture.” As Rumsfeld continues his book tour and people like Dilawar are remembered, it is not beyond the pale that an ambitious prosecutor, whether local, state, or federal, might sense the advantage.  It is perhaps unlikely, but not inconceivable, that upon landing at Logan International Airport on Wed., Sept. 21st, or similarly anywhere he travels thereafter, Rumsfeld could be greeted with the words such as:  “Welcome to Boston, Mr. Secretary.  You are under arrest.” Massachusetts District Attorneys Who Can Indict Rumsfeld, Please Email them this post and call them.SAMPLE INDICTMENT TEXT, BASED ON GERMAN CRIMINAL COMPLAINT Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley: email:  ago@state.ma.us One Ashburton Place Boston, MA 02108 -1518 Phone: (617) 727-2200 Here is the contact info for members of the Boston City Council, which could pass a resolution directing the Police Commissioner to arrest Rumsfeld on sight (google Brattleboro Resolution, George W. Bush): http://www.cityofboston.gov/… And Gov. Duval Patrick has an obligation to order the state police to do the same: CONTACT FORM Local District Attorneys Berkshire County: District Attorney David F. Capeless Elected November 2006 OFFICE ADDRESS:     P.O. Box 973 888 Purchase Street New Bedford, MA 02741 PHONE:     (508) 997-0711 FAX:     (508) 997-0396 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.bristolda.com Bristol County     District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter Appointed March 2004 Elected November 2004 OFFICE ADDRESS:     7 North Street P.O. Box 1969 Pittsfield, MA 01202-1969 PHONE:     (413) 443-5951 FAX:     (413) 499-6349 Internet Address:     http://www.mass.gov/… Cape & Islands     District Attorney Michael O’Keefe Elected November 2002 OFFICE ADDRESS:     P.O.Box 455 3231 Main Street Barnstable, MA 02630 PHONE:     (508) 362-8113 FAX:     (508) 362-8221 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/… Essex County: District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett Elected November 2002 OFFICE ADDRESS:     Ten Federal Street Salem, MA 01970 PHONE:     (978) 745-6610 FAX:     (978) 741-4971 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/… Hampden     District Attorney Mark Mastroianni Elected 2010 OFFICE ADDRESS:     Hall of Justice 50 State Street Springfield, MA 01103 PHONE:     (413) 747-1000 FAX:     (413) 781-4745 Middlesex County: District Attorney Gerard T. Leone, Jr. Elected November 2006 OFFICE ADDRESS:     15 Commonwealth Avenue Woburn, MA 01801 PHONE:     (781) 897-8300 FAX:     ((781) 897-8301 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.middlesexda.com Norfolk     District Attorney Michael Morrissey Elected 2010 OFFICE ADDRESS:     45 Shawmut Ave. Canton, MA 02021 PHONE:     (781) 830-4800 FAX:     (781) 830-4801 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/… Northwestern     District Attorney David Sullivan Elected 2010 HAMPSHIRE OFFICE ADDRESS:     One Gleason Plaza Northampton, MA 01060 PHONE:     (413) 586-9225 FAX:     (413) 584-3635 FRANKLIN OFFICE ADDRESS:     13 Conway Street Greenfield, MA 01301 PHONE:     (413) 774-3186 FAX:     (413) 773-3278 WEBSITE: Northwestern     http://www.mass.gov/… Plymouth     District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz Appointed November 2001 Elected November 2002 OFFICE ADDRESS:     32 Belmont Street Brockton, MA 02303 PHONE:     (508) 584-8120 FAX:     (508) 586-3578 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/… Suffolk County:     District Attorney Daniel F. Conley Appointed January 2002 Elected November 2002 OFFICE ADDRESS:     One Bulfinch Place Boston, MA 02114 PHONE:     (617) 619-4000 FAX:     (617) 619-4009 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/… Worcester     District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr. Elected November 2006 OFFICE ADDRESS:     Courthouse – Room 220 2 Main Street Worcester, MA 01608 PHONE:     (508) 755-8601 FAX:     (508) 831-9899 INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.worcesterda.com

Global Research Articles by Ralph Lopez

The Encirclement of Russia: U.S.-NATO Interceptor Missile Anaconda Loop Around Russia

I have been saying for some time now that countries formerly not solidly aligned with the USA or Russian after the iron curtain collapsed would be pushed into one of these major camps as time passed. Russia has been trying to regain its might by forming alliances and moving west. NATO and USA have been pushing east. What I did not see clearly however is that USA has been encircling Russia with a missile defense barrier. Don't believe this is just about defense, these missiles and facilities will have the capacity to be used for 'first strike' also. Read on, and marvel at how far the USA has progressed with this.

Steve B
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-"Their task is to neutralize our nuclear weapons and push us out of the major areas of the world's oceans. In this case - even from the Black Sea.
Turkey, of course, has its own views on the missile defense system, but Romania is a pawn in the hands of the U.S., and its elite exist only because of American support. The same can be said about Poland. As a result, there is a chain of U.S. missile defense sites along the Russian border, stretching from Turkey through Romania and Poland to Norway."

The U.S. and Romania signed an agreement on deployment of the elements of a U.S. missile defense system. Earlier it was reported that some elements of the EUROPRO system will appear in Turkey. Everything indicates that the U.S. military machine and NATO are inexorably approaching the Russian borders.


The US-Romanian agreement was signed on September 13 during a visit to Washington of Romanian President Traian Basescu. The document was signed by the foreign ministers of the two countries - Hillary Clinton and Theodore Baconschi. Later Barack Obama met with the participants of the talks, although initially he was not planning to meet with Basescu.

According to the document, by 2015 elements of a U.S. ground-based missile defense system will appear at the former Romanian Air Force Base in Deveselu. They will include a radar (SAR) complex Aegis, an operational control center, and mobile missile batteries with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor missiles. Approximately 200 U.S. military personnel will reside at the base, but if necessary this number will be increased to 500.

Nothing was said with regard to the fact of who the missile base will be directed against. Earlier, U.S. officials and Basescu had repeatedly reiterated that the missile defense is not directed against Russia. However, recently there was another event that made the Russian side doubt that statement.


Some time ago the United States and Turkey announced that Turkish territory would host an early warning radar system, EUROPRO. Spokesman of the Turkish Foreign Ministry Selcuk Unal said that the decision to implement a projected system of protection against missile attacks by the U.S. and NATO was adopted at the Lisbon summit in 2010. Turkey has actively contributed to these original plans and made a significant contribution to the work. He added that there have been negotiations on the extent of Turkey's participation in this system, which have finally entered into the final stage.

According to the Turkish diplomat, the radar will be located in the southeastern part of the country. This will allow "scanning" the area with a radius of several thousand kilometers. Turkey insists that the new object is not directed against anyone, especially against Russia. This will only allow the country to contribute to the development of a new security system of NATO.


According to the American plans, Turkey will first host a mobile radar detection system AN/TPY-2. By 2015 there will be a new sea-and land-based modification of the SM-3. Subsequently, the system will be improved further so that it successfully reflects the threat against the United States and Europe from missiles of medium and long range.

The appearance of the two similar objects in the immediate proximity of Russian borders could not but worry the leadership of the country. In his statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed the need to sign a special agreement clearly stipulating that the elements of a U.S. missile defense are not directed against Russia. "The developments only increase the urgency of the need to obtain solid, legally binding assurances from the U.S. and NATO that missile defense facilities being deployed in Europe are not directed against Russia's strategic nuclear forces," commented MFA.


"The agreement with Romania to deploy a ground-based version of SM-3 missile system and Aegis at the former air base at Deveselu, as well as the recent announcement of the impending deployment of the U.S. forward based anti-missile radar AN/TPY-2 in Turkey, suggests that the implementation of U.S. and European missile plans is quick and smooth. This is happening amid a lack of progress in the NATO-Russian and Russian-American dialogue on the subject of missile defense," the Ministry commented.

"Scheduled for deployment in Romania by 2015, regardless of the evolution of real missile challenges,a  missile defense base is another link in the strategic infrastructure of the global missile defense system developed by the U.S. The NATO-Russia Council needs to develop effective and targeted decisions about the purpose and architecture of the missile defense in the region", stressed the Russian Foreign Ministry.


It may be added that the objects in Romania and Turkey are not the only ones of this kind. The United States and Poland agreed to deploy Patriot interceptor missiles at a Polish base in the town of Morag. The distance from this object to Kaliningrad is no more than 100 kilometers. As in the case of Romania, the Polish authorities also have repeatedly stated that Russian missile defense is not threatened. Initially it was planned to place these missiles near Warsaw, but they were eventually "pushed" to the Russian border. 
Finally, further north there is an American radar in Norway, in the town of Varde, located near the Russian border.

Although officially its function is to monitor space debris, the Russian military and diplomats suspect that it was placed in violation of the ABM Treaty of 1972. Russia conducts regular talks on the operation of this facility with both the U.S. and Norway.

What does the emergence of a chain of objects of a U.S. missile defense system at the Russian borders mean? Military expert and senior vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Issues Konstantin Sivkov spoke on this subject in an interview with Pravda.ru:
 "The U.S. and NATO continue the policy of encirclement of Russia with their bases in the framework of the project 'Anaconda loop.' Our country is still perceived by the Americans as the main strategic adversary, and they do not even make any secret of it. 

"Their task is to neutralize our nuclear weapons and push us out of the major areas of the world's oceans. In this case - even from the Black Sea.
Turkey, of course, has its own views on the missile defense system, but Romania is a pawn in the hands of the U.S., and its elite exist only because of American support. The same can be said about Poland. As a result, there is a chain of U.S. missile defense sites along the Russian border, stretching from Turkey through Romania and Poland to Norway."



source: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26595

DefMin Demetris Eliades says Cyprus will not play the game of threats with Turkey

2011-09-12 17:53:48

Defence Minister Demetris Eliades has called on Turkey to cooperate for a political settlement in Cyprus to render the country an island of freedom, peace and cooperation where all legitimate citizens can live in safety and peace, enjoying the wealth of their homeland.

Eliades told a local radio station that during talks he had with Greek National Defence Minister Panos Beglitis they discussed issues of mutual interest in the framework of their permanent cooperation and coordination.

The Minister said that relations between Greece and Cyprus are excellent and that the Greek government firmly supports the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the Republic of Cyprus.

He stressed that we are not going to get engaged in the game of threats and provocations played by Ankara, adding that Cyprus and Greece pursue normal relations in the region and are working for stability with seriousness, responsibility and compliance with international law.

source: http://news.pseka.net/index.php?module=article&id=12017

Russia Sends Nuclear Subs To Patrol Cyprus Waters - Report

2011-09-12 18:43:50

Russia has sent two nuclear-powered submarines to patrol Eastern Mediterranean waters around Cyprus and enforce the island's right to explore for undersea oil and gas in its territorial seas, according to information from Defencenet.gr, citing a Russian FM spokesman.

Alexander Lukashevich said that Russia supports Cyprus and guarantees its security if it is threatened: "Under the UN Convention on International Law, among 162 other signatory states, including Cyprus, each state has sovereign rights in its EEZ for exploring, exploiting and protecting both live and non-living natural resources, including water, the seabed and subsoil," said Lukashevich in comments made on August 19th and reported by Defencenet.gr (in Greek).

So far there has been no reaction from the foreign ministry on reports that Russian submarines will be sent to protect Cyprus from any potential military threat from Turkey. A telephone call to the foreign ministry for comment has not yet been returned. A telephone call to the press attache at the Russian Embassy in Nicosia has also not yet been returned. The submarines are due in early September and are being interpreted as a clear warning to Turkey to stay away from Noble Energy's drilling sites in Block 12. Noble is set to start exploring for undersea gas at the beginning of October along with Israeli energy company DELEK, which has reached an agreement with Noble Energy to share in its licensing deal with Cyprus, reported Globes.co.il.

Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis just wrapped up a visit to Israel to discuss undersea hydrocarbon exploration with President of Israel Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman. Israel and Cyprus' interests are closely aligned after the two countries signed an agreement delimiting their maritime borders in late 2010. The agreement also led to cooperation on undersea reserves exploitation and closer diplomatic relations, with Peres expected to visit Cyprus in the near future.

Turkey has also not yet commented on the development and is one of the countries which has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, which has been in force since 1994. There are 162 countries that have ratified the Convention, including Cyprus and Greece.

On August 9th, Turkey renewed its veiled threats towards Cyprus on the issue of undersea gas and oil exploration, with a statement from its foreign ministry saying that "the Greek Cypriot Administration does not represent in law or in fact the Turkish Cypriots and Cyprus as a whole." Bilateral agreements between Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel are "unilateral actions" which could derail settlement talks, give rise to new conflicts and increase tensions in the region, according to the statement. "These unlawful acts create tension in the region, compromise and prejudge the Turkish Cypriots’ existing and inherent equal rights over the natural resources of the island," says Turkey's foreign ministry.

In response, recently-appointed foreign minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoulis said that the statements were 'posturing' from Turkey and that she would complain to the UN Security Council and the EU. And President Demetris Christofias called on the international community to end its silence on Turkey's threatening attitude to Cyprus.

Behind the scenes, the international community backs Cyprus on its oil exploration, according to US cables released by Wikileaks.ch. The government's plan to allow US companies like Noble Energy and others to drill in its Exclusive Economic Zone is well within its legal rights and Turkey does not have a "legal leg to stand on", says a 2007 confidential cable from the US Embassy in Nicosia.

EU tells Ankara (Turkey) to back off

2011-09-12 18:56:34

By Stefanos Evripidou Published on September 9, 2011 Cyprus Mail

THE EUROPEAN Commission yesterday issued its strongest rebuke yet to Turkey over its threatening behaviour towards Cyprus’ efforts to drill for hydrocarbon reserves within its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Unfazed, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued to raise the stakes in his row with Israel and Cyprus over hydrocarbon explorations in the eastern Mediterranean, vowing yesterday to stop them from exploiting natural resources in the area while also pledging to send warships to escort aid to Gaza. The EU, through Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule yesterday “urged Turkey to refrain from any kind of threat, sources of friction or action, which could negatively affect good neighbourly relations and the peaceful settlement of border disputes”.

In a released statement, Fule said, “The Commission regrets any statements that are not conducive to this objective,” noting that it “regularly reiterates these issues in its discussions with Turkey and will continue to monitor Turkey’s commitments to good neighbourly relations in the light of the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes”.

The Commission further highlighted the importance of progress in the normalisation of relations between Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus. The EU also “stressed all the sovereign rights of EU member states which include entering into bilateral agreements, in accordance with the EU acquis and international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”.

The Commission underlined the “urgent need” to reach a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus issue.

“Ahead of the crucial phase of Cyprus talks this autumn, it is essential that all parties concerned exert restrain and do their utmost to ensure a positive climate that will facilitate a successful completion of the process,” said the statement released by Fule’s office.

Tensions in the eastern Mediterranean are growing by the day as top Turkish officials continue to make cutting comments on Turkey’s plans to beef up navy patrols in the region and secure free navigation of the seas, following its spat with Israel over nine activists killed in international waters last year. Apart from Turkish demands for an Israeli apology, compensation for the families of the dead and free passage to Gaza, the combative tone of the Turkish leadership is also viewed by some analysts as a response to Israel and Cyprus’ plans to explore for oil and gas in their respective EEZs.

According to Reuters, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan went a step further yesterday in an interview with Al Jazeera saying Turkish warships will escort any Turkish aid vessels to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, preventing Israel from attacking them again. Erdogan also said that Turkey had taken steps to stop Israel from unilaterally exploiting natural resources from the eastern Mediterranean. “Turkish warships, in the first place, are authorised to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza,” Erdogan said in the interview, broadcast by Al Jazeera with an Arabic translation.

“You know that Israel has begun to declare that it has the right to act in exclusive economic areas in the Mediterranean,” Erdogan said, apparently in reference to Israeli plans to exploit offshore gas reserves found in areas that are also claimed by Lebanon. “You will see that it will not be the owner of this right, because Turkey, as a guarantor of the Turkish republic of north Cyprus, has taken steps in the area, and it will be decisive and holding fast to the right to monitor international waters in the east Mediterranean,” he warned. Deploying warships to escort aid vessels to Gaza and direct interference in the exploitation of Israel and Cyprus’ natural resources are the boldest statements yet to come from the outspoken Turkish leader.

Former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat was quoted in Turkish Cypriot press yesterday criticising President Demetris Christofias for being “insanely brave” in daring to explore the island’s natural resources before a Cyprus solution. Defence Minister Demetris Eliades yesterday condemned Erdogan’s statements, noting that Turkey has reached the point of issuing direct threats to numerous countries.

“Turkey with its overt threats against Cyprus is exposed in the eyes of the international community,” said Eliades. Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said yesterday: “Turkey needs to get the message that all states should act within the framework of international law because this safeguards peace and good relations between neighbouring states. Unfortunately Turkey opts to provoke and opts for tension.”

In an interview with Voice of America, Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis questioned how Turkey planned to disrupt drilling, undertaken by Houston-based Noble Energy, which is due to start by month’s end. “I would like to hear from Turkish officials what exactly they plan to do? Do they plan to attack Noble Energy’s equipment when they start the drilling, because it is not the Republic of Cyprus that is doing the drilling?” Marcoullis called on Turkey to act like a European country and conduct its foreign policy based on the UN Charter and European principles and laws.

Head of the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KEVE) Manthos Mavromatis yesterday said the American company was ready to begin drilling despite the threat. Noble presented its plans at a closed gathering on Wednesday organised by KEVE and the Cyprus-American Business Association, in the presence of US Embassy officials.

According to Mavromatis, Noble plans to move the oil rig to Block 12 for drilling after September 20.

He noted that Noble is taking into consideration the threats but is proceeding normally, in coordination with the US State Department and Embassy here.

Obama Ordered To Denver Bunker By US Military

hmmm. Does this coincide with Elenin coming close on 25 & 26 September? If preparations are being made, and Obama is in his bunker for 27th, it looks suspicious. I really don't know how the Sol / Elenin / Earth alignment will turn out. I hope very little happens, but it will be coming close, and it is big, and reportedly has a tail 200,000 km long (please correct me if wrong on that).
I'd rather take some minor precautions than be a total ostrich with my head in the sand.
What do you think?
Steve B
=====
Posted by EU Times on Sep 14th, 2011

A disturbing report prepared by General Alexey Maslov, the Senior Military Representative of the Permanent Mission of Russia to NATO, states that he has been notified by the Americans of their plan to hold a DEFCON 1 “Cocked Pistol” maximum readiness alert drill on 27 September which will be overseen by President Obama at one the United States most secure bunkers located beneath the Denver International Airport.
Under the SALT I Strategic Nuclear Arms Control Agreement signed between Russia and the US, both parties are required to notify the other in all cases of such maximum readiness drills occurring, but are not required to state their reasons for doing so.
General Maslov states in his report, though, his concern over this drill is “heightened” due to last months nuclear attack on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) branch of the intercontinental military tunnel complex between Washington D.C. and Denver, and which we reported on in our 24 August report Russia Reports Nuclear Explosions Hit Vast US Military Tunnel Network.
Important to note is that shortly after the devastating attacks on American on 11 September 2001, the Bush regime moved to completely militarize the CIA by placing as its Director former US Air Force General Michael Hayden who served in that capacity until February, 2009 when Obama then put in place the former US Army intelligence officer Leon Panetta to run this most powerful of spy agencies. After Panetta, Obama put Americas top general David Petraeus in charge of the CIA barely a week after the aforementioned nuclear attack upon it.
The fears of both the Bush and Obama regimes regarding the CIA were due to their complicity in the 11 September 2001 attacks upon America utilizing their al Qaeda terror network headed by their main asset Osama bin Laden, otherwise known by his code name of “Tim Osman,” that was run jointly with Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and funded by the Saudi royal family.
Important to note is that Russian intelligence services were long aware of the CIA-ISI “Tim Osman” operation after it had been infiltrated by top FSB agent Viktor Bout who delivered to Marvin Bush, President George Bush’s younger brother, and Wirt Walker III, George Bush’s cousin the approximately 15 tonnes of Russian military PVV-5A Plastic Explosive plastic explosives used to bring down the World Trade Center buildings.
In our 1 September 2010 report US-Russia Bidding War For 9/11 “Merchant Of Death” Reaches $20 Billion we detailed this sordid plot and, in part, stated:
“Important to note about Marvin Bush and Wirt Walker III is that at the time of the 9/11 attacks they were both directors of the American security company named Stratesec (formally known as Securacom) which was given a $8.3 million contract to help provide security at the World Trade Center and which the weekend prior to the attacks completely closed this massive skyscraper complex for 36 hours to “upgrade” its security system.
Now Bout in being curious, to say the least, as to why the Bush Family needed so much Russian explosives for their “upgrade” of the World Trade Center complex was “invited” by Marvin Bush to come to New York City to watch “the big show”, an offer Bout did not refuse. And so the night prior to 9/11 Bout traveled to New York City where he was met by Bush “operatives” working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), who “coincidentally” had scheduled an emergency exercise for the morning of September 11, 2001 that all too soon became real.
Bout was given a FEMA security pass that gave him unhindered access to the aftermath of the catastrophic attacks upon the World Trade Center complex which these reports document he took full advantage of. Unfortunately for the Americans though was that Bout’s “visit” wearing his FEMA “credentials” was filmed by FEMA’s official videographer Kurt Sonnenfeld, who was the only film maker given unrestricted access to the 9/11 site.”
The “main conduit” for Saudi Arabian cash used to finance the “Tim Osman” operation was identified by Bout in his FSB reports as being Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife Anoud (a grand niece of Saudi King Abdullah ) who lived in Sarasota, Florida, and who just days prior to the 11 September 2011 attacks suddenly left all of their possessions and returned home. Though the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was quick to state that the Hijji’s had no connection with the Saudi hijackers it is more than curious to note that nearly all of them were recorded visiting them in the days prior to the attacks.
The importance of noting the CIA-ISI-Saudi connection to the attacks upon America on 11 September 2001 with the Obama’s planned 27 September “Cocked Pistol” alert is due to General Maslov warning in his report that this unprecedented drill occurring in Denver on that date could very well likely be related to threats made against the United States by both Saudi Arabia and Israel over the upcoming UN General Assembly vote to declare Palestinian statehood.
Where Israel commands vast resources within the United States to elect government officials, including Presidents, and who have fallen out of favor with Obama over his polices towards Israel, former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal warned yesterday that unless the Obama regime voted for Palestinian statehood, “Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has” and the “chances of another war in the region” would be assured.
As we had warned about in our 28 May report Obama Vows War On Saudi Arabia, Orders Thousands Of US Troops To Region, and our 23 June report Nuclear Attack On US Warned Imminent As Saudi War Nears, the United States plans for all-out global war are well in place and are now awaiting the “spark” that will set it off.
To if the date of 27 September when Obama will be in Denver will be the date this “spark” is set off it is not in our knowing. What is in our knowing, though, is that since the CIA transferred their headquarters to Denver in 2005 under the mysterious airport [second photo right] with bizarre murals depicting [3rd and 4th photos right] picturing mass global death, particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, the questions as to who, or what, actually controls the United States today remains in question.
And when this information is coupled with the fact that 27 September is one of the most significant dates in American history because on that date, in 1777, after British troops captured Philadelphia, Lancaster, Pennsylvania became the United States capitol for that single day, the first time such a thing occurred in all of that nations history, and it is, also, the date that Comet Elenin enters into its feared alignment with the Earth, Sun and Moon with many believing these conjunctions are responsible for catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis, and nearly all of NASA’s top officials and scientists will be in Denver on that date too, one can be justifiably perplexed as to the many meanings these events have.
But, to the greater meaning of all of these things it has been best stated by Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, who warned the American people about the future to come:
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
And to understand these words are to understand everything, especially what is to come. No one, therefore, can say that they were never warned, only that they didn’t listen.

source: http://www.eutimes.net/2011/09/obama-ordered-to-denver-bunker-by-us-military/

Obama Orders Sweeping Sanctions and Regime Change in Syria Without Congress

Once again President Obama has used the authority vested in him in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act to impose sweeping sanctions against a sovereign nation without Congressional approval.

On August 18th, 2011, Obama signed Executive Order 13582: Blocking Property of the Government of Syria and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to Syria, which authorizes the seizure of all Syrian-owned property and interests in property in the United States.  It also bans exports of U.S. services to Syria, the import of petroleum from Syria, and any new investment in Syria or those who support them.

The following actions are now prohibited:

(a) new investment in Syria by a United States person, wherever located; 

(b) the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of any services to Syria; 

(c) the importation into the United States of petroleum or petroleum products of Syrian origin; 

(d) any transaction or dealing by a United States person, wherever located, including purchasing, selling, transporting, swapping, brokering, approving, financing, facilitating, or guaranteeing, in or related to petroleum or petroleum products of Syrian origin; and 

(e) any approval, financing, facilitation, or guarantee by a United States person, wherever located, of a transaction by a foreign person where the transaction by that foreign person would be prohibited by this section if performed by a United States person or within the United States.

The sweeping unilateral sanctions also permit the President to seize property without notice of those who sponsor or provide material assistance to Syria.  In the case that such a person should have Constitutional protections, Obama declared "there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination" because of his powers during a national emergency.