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White House Rejects Petition to Pardon Snowden

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More than 167,000 people signed letter urging Obama administration to drop its prosecution of NSA whistleblower

A petition calling for clemency for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was denied on Tuesday. (Photo: August Kelm/flickr/cc)

A petition calling for clemency for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was denied on Tuesday. (Photo: August Kelm/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

The White House on Tuesday formally rejected a ‘We the People’ petition to pardon Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower who has been living in exile since exposing the U.S. government’s invasive spying operation in 2013.

More than 167,000 people signed the petition urging the government to grant him clemency, stating in their petition that Snowden is “a national hero … [who] should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs.”

Not only will Snowden not be pardoned, the Obama administration said, he should face criminal charges for his actions.

“Mr. Snowden’s dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it,” Lisa Monaco, adviser to President Barack Obama on homeland security and counter-terrorism, said in a statement on Tuesday. The White House issued its rejection two years after the petition was delivered.

The U.S. filed espionage charges against Snowden after he leaked a cache of NSA documents to journalists, revealing the agency’s vast and invasive collection of Americans’ phone and internet activity and prompting an ongoing global debate over the role of government surveillance and the nature of individual privacy.

The revelations also opened the door for surveillance reform, particularly through the passage of the USA Freedom Act and the sunsetting of Section 215 and other controversial provisions in the USA Patriot Act.

Snowden currently lives in political asylum in Russia and has repeatedly expressed his desire to come home—and his doubts that he would get a fair trial if he did.

In many ways, the response by the White House is not unexpected. Despite pledging to protect whistleblowers during his campaign for office, Obama has cracked down more on those who expose government misdeeds than any previous president.

Monaco said on Tuesday that if Snowden “felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and—importantly—accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers—not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he’s running away from the consequences of his actions.”

But journalist Glenn Greenwald, who along with Laura Poitras and Ewan MacAskill helped publish the NSA files in 2013, has previously noted that Snowden would be barred under the Espionage Act from publicly arguing that his actions were justified. “[A]nyone who has even casually watched the post-9/11 American judicial system knows what an absurdity it is to claim that Snowden would receive a fair trial,” he wrote in June.

Erdogan in China amid tension over treatment of Uighurs

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Turkey president to meet Chinese counterpart in bid to improve souring ties over Beijing’s treatment of Uighur minority.

NATO countries are concerned over Turkey's move to secure an air defence system deal with China [Getty Images]

NATO countries are concerned over Turkey’s move to secure an air defence system deal with China [Getty Images]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Beijing to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart and other senior officials amid increased tensions between the two countries over China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority.

Erdogan, who is due to meet Xi Jinping later on Wednesday, has repeatedly accused China of systematic oppression against the Uighurs, who share close linguistic, cultural and religious ties with Turks.

The president has previously accused Beijing of “genocide” in the region, and the gap between Chinese and Turkish views of the Uighurs are likely to complicate the upcoming discussions on improving relations.

The two sides engaged in a row this year over Uighurs who fled China to seek refuge in Thailand, with Turkey offering them shelter against Beijing’s wishes.

Bangkok said this month that it had deported about 100 Uighurs back to China, after sending more than 170 Uighur women and children to Turkey in late June.

China’s state-run China Daily said in a Wednesday editorial that the “Uighur issue … if left unattended, may poison ties and derail cooperation”.

The newspaper suggested that Beijing would pressure Erdogan to stop Turkish officials issuing Uighurs who “illicitly left China” with travel documents.

As tensions over the refugees mounted this month, activists stormed the Thai consulate in Istanbul and burned the Chinese flag outside Beijing’s consulate in the city. China “strongly condemned” the acts.

Missile deal

Turkey entered discussions in 2013 with a Chinese state-run company over an anti-missile system contract worth $3.4bn, raising eyebrows among other NATO members.

A final deal has been elusive, with Erdogan noting “impediments” have emerged after an initial Chinese proposal, but he said the issue will be on the agenda in Beijing.

“Any offer that will enrich this appropriate proposal will be welcomed by us,” he told China’s official news agency Xinhua in an interview published on Tuesday.

“I believe this visit will give more momentum to bilateral relations.”

Boosting Turkish exports to China is also likely to be high on Erdogan’s agenda, with Ankara running a large trade deficit with the world’s second-largest economy, according to official Chinese statistics.

 

Powerful earthquake hits Indonesia’s Papua

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Magnitude 7.0 quake strikes west of provincial capital Jayapura.

earthquake Papua

by Al Jazeera

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake has hit Indonesia’s Papua region, the US Geological Survey says.

The quake struck at 6.41am on Monday, almost 250km west of the provincial capital Jayapura.

No tsunami warning was issued after the quake, which struck inland, and Indonesia’s national disaster agency said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

“The quake was felt very strongly for four seconds,” disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told the AFP news agency.

“Residents panicked and rushed out of their homes.”

Nugroho said there were no initial reports of damage but added the region around the epicentre, in Indonesia’s remote east, was difficult to reach, and data was still being collected.

The Earthquake-Report monitoring website said the area has “steep mountain ranges and its vegetation is rainforest, which means that the chance of dangerous landslides is real”.

Weak shaking was reportedly felt in Jayapura for a few seconds.

Both Indonesian authorities and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no threat of any tsunami waves from the quake, which occurred beneath a jungle.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.

Saudi Arabian airstrike kills 120 civilians as US-backed war in Yemen rages

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Humanitarian crisis continues with no end in sight as forces armed and supported by the United States continue to terrorize the people of Yemen

Houthi followers demonstrate against Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen's capital Sanaa July 24, 2015. A Saudi-led coalition of Arab states has been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel movement and army forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh since late March in a bid to restore exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. (Photo: Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)

Houthi followers demonstrate against Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen’s capital Sanaa July 24, 2015. A Saudi-led coalition of Arab states has been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel movement and army forces loyal to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh since late March in a bid to restore exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. (Photo: Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Intense fighting between Houthi factions and Yemeni forces allied with a Saudi-backed military campaign continued on Sunday, just a day after the killing of approximately 120 civilians by a Saudi airstrike spurred an impromptu call for a five-day ceasefire in the war-torn and poverty-stricken country.

According to the Associated Press:

The airstrikes late Friday hit workers’ housing for a power plant in Mokha, flattening some of the buildings to the ground […] A fire erupted in the area, charring many of the corpses, including children, women and elderly people.

Wahib Mohammed, an eyewitness and area resident, said some of the bodies were torn apart by the force of the blast and buried in a mass grave on Saturday. Some of the strikes also hit nearby livestock pens, he said. Human and animal blood pooled on the ground of the surrounding area.

The deadly strike highlights growing concerns that the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes are increasingly killing civilians as they continue to target Shiite rebels known as Houthis.

Responding to the carnage, Hassan Boucenine of the Geneva-based Doctors Without Borders told AP, “It just shows what is the trend now of the air strikes from the coalition. Now, it’s a house, it’s a market, it’s anything.”

In the wake of the deadly airstrike on Saturday, the Saudi-led coalition, which includes the United States and allied Gulf states, called for a five-day ceasefire that would begin at midnight local time on Sunday.

However, even as mixed reporting by Reuters indicated that Houthi military leaders may have rejected the call, a fierce battle raged near the port city Aden over a strategically valuable air base:

The al-Anad base, 50 km (30 miles) from the major southern port city, has been held by the Iranian-allied Houthi movement for much of a fourth-month-old civil war, and is regarded as a strategic asset commanding the approaches to Aden.

The Arab coalition on Saturday announced a ceasefire to take effect at 11.59 p.m. (2059 GMT) on Sunday evening for five days to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Reuters indicated that a Houthi leader may have taken to Twitter to reject the call for the midnight ceasefire, but other journalists expressed doubt that the message was valid:

Since the Saudi-led bombing began in March of this year, the United Nations last week estimated that in addition to the many more thousands injured and maimed, at least 1,693 civilians have been killed in Yemen, of which 365 were children. Already one of the poorest nations on the planet before the fighting and subsequent bombing campaign began, both the UN and independent aid agencies have warned that so long as the war continues and humanitarian blockade enforced, Yemen’s further spiral towards total political chaos and a full-fledged famine will continue.

Obama in Kenya: Africa is on the move

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US president says Africa is “one of fastest growing regions in world” as he co-hosts entrepreneurship summit in Nairobi.

Obama attends a private dinner in Nairobi with his Kenyan family members including his step-grandmother Sarah and half-sister Auma [Reuters]

Obama attends a private dinner in Nairobi with his Kenyan family members including his step-grandmother Sarah and half-sister Auma [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

US President Barack Obama has praised Africa for its economic advancements, calling it “one of the fastest growing regions in the world”, while co-hosting a summit on global entrepreneurship with his Kenyan counterpart, Uhuru Kenyatta, in Nairobi.

Obama declared on Saturday that “Africa is on the move”, in his first official engagement since arriving in the Kenyan capital a day earlier.

“People are being lifted out of poverty, incomes are up, the middle class is growing and young people like you are harnessing technology to change the way Africa is doing business,” he told the summit.

Sharing the stage with Obama, Kenyatta also voiced optimism towards a brighter future for the continent.

“The narrative of African despair is false, and indeed was never true,” Kenyatta said. “Let them know that Africa is open and ready for business.”

The summit is aimed at promoting businesses that promise to lift many more Africans out of poverty and help insulate societies against radicalisation.

As Obama arrived in Kenya, the birthplace of his father, throngs of Kenyans lined the route of his convoy, cheering, whistling and waving as the motorcade passed by and a helicopter circled overhead.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from Nairobi, said there was “overwhelming euphoria” when Obama arrived, adding that the US president is the “most popular” politician in Kenya.

The visit is Obama’s first as president, and is also the first time a sitting US president will visit Ethiopia and the African Union’s headquarters in Addis Ababa.

The first African-American president of the US is expected to address regional security issues and trade, and also touch on matters relating to democracy, poverty, and human rights in the region.

A previous planned trip to Kenya was delayed by Kenyatta’s indictment for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Those charges were suspended last year – in part, prosecutors say, because the Kenyan government thwarted the investigation.

Obama’s trip has also come under fire by rights groups, and more than 50 African and global human rights organisations have called on him to publicly meet democracy activists on the ground.

They voiced concerns about “grave and worsening” rights challenges in both Kenya and Ethiopia.

The charges against Kenyatta, and the fact that Ethiopia’s government won 100 percent of parliamentary seats in a recent disputed election, has raised questions about whether Obama should have made the trip at all.

In Addis Ababa, Obama is expected to address leaders of the African Union.

He spent Friday evening reuniting with about three dozens of Kenyan family members.

Obama has said he had “never truly known” his father, who was born in Kenya’s far west, in Kogelo village near the shores of Lake Victoria.

An economist, he walked out when Obama was just two and died in a car crash in Nairobi in 1982, aged 46.

Obama has previously made personal visits to Kogelo, the home of many of his Kenyan relatives, most recently in 2006.

Noam Chomsky: ‘The Real Question is…What Exactly Is The Threat of Iran?’

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Scholar and activist questions the need for a nuclear agreement when Iran has not violated the nonproliferation treaty

Noam Chomsky tells Al Jazeera that Iran did not deserve to be sanctioned to begin with. (Photo: Andrew Rusk/flickr/cc)

Noam Chomsky tells Al Jazeera that Iran did not deserve to be sanctioned to begin with. (Photo: Andrew Rusk/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

As U.S. Congress considers signing the unprecedented nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers announced earlier this month, renowned scholar and activist Noam Chomsky on Wednesday asked a less-considered question: “Why is the deal being pursued?”

The deal constrains what is referred to as “the Iranian threat,” Chomsky said, “but what exactly is the threat?”

In an interview with Al Jazeera reporter Antonio Mora, Chomsky stated that Iran—which is a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), an agreement that seeks to achieve global disarmament—has “lived up to” the mandates of that accord, despite allegations it has violated some of them by failing to declare its enriched uranium program.

“I don’t think anyone ought to have nuclear weapons, including the United States, but that’s not the issue,” Chomsky said. “If Iran’s alleged noncompliance with the NPT is an issue—and I add alleged—that certainly doesn’t require sanctions or a treaty or any other actions.”

Chomsky, who has previously described the U.S. treatment of Iran as “torture,” said on Wednesday that the U.S. and Israel “freely use force and violence” throughout the Middle East—unlike Iran, which would only use nuclear power as a deterrent.

“Furthermore, the U.S. is quite open about [their use of force],” Chomsky continued.

Asked what the U.S. should do if a terrorist plot was developing in a remote area of the region, Chomsky noted that the question illustrates the egregious double-standards of American foreign policy. “We feel free to attack people anywhere and kill them who we claim might be planning to harm us in the future. If anyone else did that, we’d nuke them,” he said.

Watch the interview below:

Earth 2.0: NASA finds planet that matches our own

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Space agency’s Kepler mission finds planet outside solar system that may have volcanoes, oceans and sunshine like Earth.

Kepler 452b's star is 1.5 billion years older and 10 percent brighter than our sun [Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle]

Kepler 452b’s star is 1.5 billion years older and 10 percent brighter than our sun [Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle]

by Al Jazeera

Astronomers hunting for another Earth have found the closest match yet, a potentially rocky planet circling its star at the same distance as the Earth orbits the Sun, NASA has said.

Named Kepler 452b, the planet is about 60 percent larger than Earth. It could have active volcanoes, oceans and sunshine like ours, twice as much gravity and a year that lasts 385 days, scientists said on Thursday.

“Today we are announcing the discovery of an exoplanet that, as far we can tell, is a pretty good close cousin to the Earth and our Sun,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“This is about the closest so far, and I really emphasize the ‘so-far,'” he added, describing Kepler 452b as “the closest twin,” or “Earth 2.0.”

The planet was detected by the US space agency’s Kepler Space Telescope, which has been hunting for other worlds like ours since 2009.

This planet sits squarely in the Goldilocks zone – where life could exist because it is neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water, the US space agency said.

“Today the Earth is a little less lonely,” said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

Kepler 452b’s star is 1.5 billion years older, four percent more massive and 10 percent brighter than our sun.

But at a distance of 1,400 light-years away, humankind has little hope of reaching this Earth-twin any time soon.

“You and I probably won’t be travelling to any of these planets without some unexpected breakthrough, but you know, our children’s’ children’s children may,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler research scientist at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, California.

The Kepler mission launched in 2009 to search for exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system, particularly those about the size of Earth or smaller.

On Thursday, NASA released the latest catalog of exoplanet candidates, adding more than 500 new possible planets to the 4,175 already found by the space-based telescope.

The new list includes 12 candidates that are less than twice the diameter of Earth and which are orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars.

Of those 12 new candidates, Kepler 452b “is the first to be confirmed as a planet”, NASA said.

The Kepler mission has cost NASA about $600m, and the US space agency said in 2013 that two of its orientation wheels had lost function, leaving the space telescope beyond repair.

(AFP)

Fragments of what could be world’s oldest Quran have been found in the U.K.

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The university's academics were "startled" when the radiocarbon dating tests showed it was so old

The university’s academics were “startled” when the radiocarbon dating tests showed it was so old.

by Sean Coughlan, BBC

What may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.

Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence.

The pages of the Muslim holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century.

The British Library’s expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, said this “exciting discovery” would make Muslims “rejoice”.

The manuscript had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents, without being identified as one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the world.

Oldest texts

When a PhD researcher, Alba Fedeli, looked more closely at these pages it was decided to carry out a radiocarbon dating test and the results were “startling”.

The university’s director of special collections, Susan Worrall, said researchers had not expected “in our wildest dreams” that it would be so old.

“Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting.”

The University of Birmingham’s manuscript was in a collection brought back from the Middle East

The tests, carried out by the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, showed that the fragments, written on sheep or goat skin, were among the very oldest surviving texts of the Koran.

These tests provide a range of dates, showing that, with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645.

“They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam,” said David Thomas, the university’s professor of Christianity and Islam.

“According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year of his death.”

Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

“The person who actually wrote it could well have known the Prophet Muhammad. He would have seen him probably, he would maybe have heard him preach. He may have known him personally – and that really is quite a thought to conjure with,” he says.

First-hand witness

Prof Thomas says that some of the passages of the Koran were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels – and a final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650.

Prof Thomas says the writer of this manuscript could have heard the Prophet Muhammad preach

He says that “the parts of the Koran that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad’s death”.

“These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.”

Susan Worrall says the university wants to put this internationally significant discovery on public display

The manuscript, written in “Hijazi script”, an early form of written Arabic, becomes one of the oldest known fragments of the Koran.

Because radiocarbon dating creates a range of possible ages, there is a handful of other manuscripts in public and private collections which overlap. So this makes it impossible to say that any is definitively the oldest.

But the latest possible date of the Birmingham discovery – 645 – would put it among the very oldest.

‘Precious survivor’

Dr Waley, curator for such manuscripts at the British Library, said “these two folios, in a beautiful and surprisingly legible Hijazi hand, almost certainly date from the time of the first three caliphs”.

The first three caliphs were leaders in the Muslim community between about 632 and 656.

Dr Waley says that under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, copies of the “definitive edition” were distributed.

“The Muslim community was not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for decades, and to produce a complete Mushaf, or copy, of the Holy Koran required a great many of them.”

Dr Waley suggests that the manuscript found by Birmingham is a “precious survivor” of a copy from that era or could be even earlier.

“In any case, this – along with the sheer beauty of the content and the surprisingly clear Hijazi script – is news to rejoice Muslim hearts.”

Muhammad Afzal of Birmingham Central Mosque said he was very moved to see the manuscript

The manuscript is part of the Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in modern-day Iraq.

He was sponsored to take collecting trips to the Middle East by Edward Cadbury, who was part of the chocolate-making dynasty.

The local Muslim community has already expressed its delight at the discovery in their city and the university says the manuscript will be put on public display.

“When I saw these pages I was very moved. There were tears of joy and emotion in my eyes. And I’m sure people from all over the UK will come to Birmingham to have a glimpse of these pages,” said Muhammad Afzal, chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque.

The university says the Koran fragments will go on display in the Barber Institute in Birmingham in October.

Prof Thomas says it will show people in Birmingham that they have a “treasure that is second to none”.

Just a ‘Mistake’: US airstrikes kill allied soldiers in Afghanistan

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Helicopters attack outpost in broad daylight in what could be worst such incident in nearly 14 years of war

U.S.-led coalition has "made a very big mistake," said one official, after an attack on an Afghan outpost left at least ten soldiers dead. (Photo: File/Wikimedia Commons)

U.S.-led coalition has “made a very big mistake,” said one official, after an attack on an Afghan outpost left at least ten soldiers dead. (Photo: File/Wikimedia Commons)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

In what may be the worst “friendly fire” incident of the U.S. war in Afghanistan since it began in 2001, reports on Monday indicate that at least ten Afghan soldiers were killed and others wounded after their compound was fired on by U.S. military helicopters.

According to initial reports citing Afghan officials, a pair of U.S. gunships attacked the outpost in Logar Province in the morning hours. Pentagon officials have confirmed there was an “incident” in the area which is now under investigation.

Agence France-Presse reports:

The early morning raid in Baraki Barak district of Logar province comes as coalition forces increase air strikes on potential militant targets despite a drawdown of NATO forces after 13 years of war.

The bombing marked the second such incident in the area since last December when a NATO air strike killed five civilians and wounded six others.

“At 6am (0130 GMT) today, two US helicopters attacked a checkpoint in Baraki Barak,” district governor Mohammad Rahim Amin told reporters. “The checkpoint caught fire … and 10 Afghan army soldiers were killed,” he added, revising down a previous estimate that 14 soldiers were killed.

A statement by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense said that helicopters belonging to the U.S.-led military coalition had come under enemy attack in the area and returned fire, mistakenly hitting the army post.

Despite that statement, the Afghan army corps commander for the region, Sharif Yaftali, told the Washington Post that the U.S.-led coalition had “made a very big mistake” because the strike was during the daytime, and the outpost was perched on a hill top, making it visible for U.S. forces to determine that it was controlled by its allies.

“The Afghanistan flag was waving on our post, when we came under attack,” said Yaftali.

Retired US general: Drones cause more damage than good

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Retired US Lieutenant General Michael Flynn calls for “different approach” on drones in interview with Al Jazeera.

Flynn acknowledged the US invasion of Iraq helped fuel the rise of ISIL [File]

Flynn acknowledged the US invasion of Iraq helped fuel the rise of ISIL [File]

by Al Jazeera

US President Barack Obama’s former top military intelligence official has launched a scathing attack on the White House’s counter-terrorism strategy, including the administration’s handling of the ISIL threat in Iraq and Syria and the US military’s drone war.

In a forthcoming interview with Al Jazeera English’s Head to Head, retired US Lt. General Michael Flynn, who quit as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August 2014, said “there should be a different approach, absolutely” on drones.

“When you drop a bomb from a drone… you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good,” Flynn said.

Flynn was a senior intelligence officer with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which is responsible for the US military’s secretive and controversial drone program in countries such as Yemen and Somalia.

Asked by Al Jazeera English’s Mehdi Hasan if drone strikes tend to create more terrorists than they kill, Flynn, who has been described by Wired magazine as “the real father of the modern JSOC”, replied: “I don’t disagree with that”, adding: “I think as an overarching strategy, it is a failed strategy.”

“What we have is this continued investment in conflict,” the retired general said. “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done but I am looking for the other solutions.”

Commenting on the rise of ISIL in Iraq, Flynn acknowledged the role played by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. “We definitely put fuel on a fire,” he told Hasan. “Absolutely… there is no doubt, history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003.”

“Going into Iraq, definitely… it was a strategic mistake,” said Flynn on Head to Head.

The former lieutenant general denied any involvement in the litany of abuses carried out by JSOC interrogators at Camp Nama in Iraq, as revealed by the New York Times and Human Rights Watch, but admitted the US prison system in Iraq in the post-war period “absolutely” helped radicalise Iraqis who later joined Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its successor organisation, ISIL.

Calls for accountability

Flynn also called for greater accountability for US soldiers involved in abuses against Iraqi detainees: “You know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable… History is not going to look kind on those actions… and we will be held, we should be held, accountable for many, many years to come.”

Publicly commenting for the first time on a previously-classified August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo, which had predicted “the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (…) this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want” and confirmed that “the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” the former DIA chief told Head to Head that “the [Obama] Administration” didn’t “listen” to these warnings issued by his agency’s analysts.

“I don’t know if they turned a blind eye,” he said. “I think it was a decision, I think it was a willful decision.”

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