Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer (via WND)

My latest article gets top-of-the-page visibility. See “Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer” via WND. -- S.P.

Bureau boss overseeing shipments has Benghazi connections

The State Department bureau tasked with secretly sending to embassies plastic and liquid explosives operates under the guidance of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, whom a congressional panel last year separately found to be largely responsible for security lapses in Benghazi, WND has learned.

A series of WND articles recently exposed the purchase and international transport of many hundreds of pounds of plastic, sheet and linear explosives along with thousands of containers of high-energy liquid explosives.

Weeks after a State official laughed in response to WND’s inquiry, the department belatedly reacted to a follow-up request for information about how, where and by whom the blasting equipment will be used.

Read more at WND.com...

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NightTalker Radio: Michael David McGuire Interview with Steve Peacock

Feds Want to Track Your DNA Like a License Plate (WND)

Though this article deviates from U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's typical topic focus, the potential implications on a global scale make it worthy of a link -- S.P.

Feds Want to Track Your DNA Like a License Plate

Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals.

The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”

According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”

Read more at WND.com...

 

Two Must-Read Commentaries on the Egyptian Conflict, U.S. Assistance

To many other conservatives (and liberals as well), the Obama administration's refusal to cut off foreign aid to Egypt initially was surprising if not insulting. How dare the president and his many Democratic and Republican supporters on this issue fail to take immediate action! Despite deposed Egyptian President Morsi's shortcomings, he was democratically elected, wasn't he? No wonder the Egyptians are rebelling.

Rather than reiterate the well-reasoned  positions that conservative writers Andrew C. McCarthy and Thomas Sowell have taken on the situation, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor urges readers to deeply explore the very convincing and eye-opening commentaries from these men.

Things are not what they seem in Egypt. Those who support the "democratically elected" Morsi do not share  the American concept of democracy and freedom. Islamist radicals are attempting to retake the government, and it very well may be in U.S. national interests to steer far clear of this turmoil.

While congressional and White House debate over foreign aid in general and U.S. assistance to Egypt specifically is necessary (is there really a debate at the moment?), let's not be naive about what is happening in Egypt.

See Andrew McCarthy's "Egypt’s One Chance for Democracy-- Only capable armed forces can check the violent proclivities of Islamic supremacism" as well as "Reality versus mirages in Egypt -- Thomas Sowell drubs conservatives wanting to cut off aid to military force."

While readers are at it, also consider the following Monitor articles as critical and reliable resources in the debate over foreign aid to the region:

Have U.S. 'Investments' in Mideast Paid Off?

Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships

Obama Wants Egyptian Students to Get More from College

U.S. Modernization of Egyptian Air Force Continues as Planned (by Steve Peacock for Patriot Update)

-- S.P.

Andrew C. McCarthy

Have U.S. 'Investments' in Mideast Paid Off?

Contradictory claims of total dollar figures for U.S. foreign aid circulate around the Internet, containing oft-repeated figures that may or may not reflect reality. In response to those conflicting claims, WND has compiled a list of significant U.S. aid totals based on a review of congressional and Obama administration documents and databases.

As the debate often focuses on whether the U.S. receives, in financial parlance, an adequate return on its investment, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor (first published via WND) decided to first focus on arguably the world’s greatest hot spot, the Middle East/North Africa, or MENA, home to three of the top 10 recipients of U.S. assistance: Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.

Though the aid totals are significantly less for Saudi Arabia and Gaza/West Bank, we have included them due to the role that the Saudis and Palestinians play on the MENA world stage.

Unless otherwise indicated, the data is gleaned from the federal database via ForeignAssistance.gov and from Congressional Research Service, or CRS, “Background and U.S. Relations” reports (CRS reports are made publicly available courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists.)

West Bank/Gaza

The U.S. has committed more than $4 billion in bilateral assistance since the 1990s, when limited Palestinian self-rule began.

While Israel remains the largest recipient, dollar-wise, of U.S. dollars, Palestinians “are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid,” CRS points out.

The administration FY 2014 request seeks $440 million for the West Bank/Gaza, nearly half which it would devote to Education and Social Services ($202 million).

The remainder is slated for Economic Development ($70 million), Health ($53 million), Democracy, Human Rights and Governance ($50 million), Peace and Security ($45 million), and Humanitarian Assistance ($20 million).

“The achievement of a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a core U.S. national security objective which is central to American interests in the Middle East,” according to the Congressional Budget Justification FY 2014.

This aid hopes to promote three major U.S. policy priorities: preventing terrorism against Israel from Hamas and other militant organizations; fostering stability, prosperity, and self-governance in the West Bank that inclines Palestinians toward peaceful coexistence with Israel and a “two-state solution” and meeting humanitarian needs.

These priorities since June 2007 have “crystallized” as a result of the “geographical and factional split” between the Fatah-led and U.S.-supported Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and “the de facto regime led by Hamas in Gaza.”

Hamas, the reports emphasizes, “receives support from Iran along with substantial non-state support and has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT), and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the U.S. government.”

Despite Internet-based claims that the administration is funneling millions to Hamas, federal restrictions on providing funds to the organization cast doubt that the group is, at least directly, a recipient of such assistance.

Indeed, as CRS points out, annual spending bills routinely contain a variety of mandatory vetting, or advance clearance, processes as well as the imposition of strict “conditions, limitations, and restrictions on U.S. aid to Palestinians.”

No aid, for example, is allowed to go to “Hamas or Hamas-controlled entities,” CRS says.

Similarly, the U.S. cannot make aid available “for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit or have committed acts of terrorism.”

Aid likewise is forbidden if the PA decides to share power in a government “that includes Hamas as a member” or gives Hamas “undue influence.”

Exceptions to that restriction may be made “if the president certifies that the PA government recognizes ‘the Jewish state of Israel’s right to exist’” in addition to “previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.”

U.S. assistance does indeed reach Gaza, but is limited to the support of projects carried out by private contractors and nongovernmental organizations tasked with carrying out those endeavors, CRS says.

Oversight of such programs is reflected in “executive branch reports and certifications, as well as internal and Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits” whose aim it is to prevent U.S. aid “from benefitting Palestinian terrorists or abetting corruption.”

A GAO report released last month did not indicate problems with the enforcement of these restrictions; however, it reiterated congressional concerns expressed in recent years, particularly the PA’s signing of “a reconciliation agreement with Hamas that could lead to a unity government.”

It noted that various congressional committees in response to that agreement “placed holds on most of the fiscal year 2011 funds for the West Bank and Gaza.” Some of those holds have since been released and the U.S. Mission “began obligating those funds in April 2012.”

No mention was made, however, to an administration initiative seeking to draw tourists away from Israel and keep them in Gaza and the West Bank.

As the Monitor reported in 2011, literally days after Hamas militants rained rockets on Israeli civilians, USAID alerted contractors to an endeavor whose aim was to have Christian pilgrims stay longer – and thereby spend more money – in Palestinian territory rather than in Israel.

One year later, this writer uncovered details of a USAID plan to infuse another $300 million into West Bank and Gaza construction projects, which the administration explicitly described as critical in attaining the “success of a future Palestinian state.”

Israel

Israel remains the top foreign aid recipient within the Obama administration’s FY 2014 request: $3.1 billion, all which falls under the category of Peace and Security. It mirrors the FY 2013 request.

The total amount of U.S. assistance to Israel, however, is not fully reflected in the ForeignAssistance.gov database.

As the CRS report “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel” points out, Congress via the FY2013 Continuing Resolution approved – separate from $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, and $15 million for Migration and Refugee Assistance – another $480 million “in joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs.”

That separate total included $211 million for the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system, $150 million for David’s Sling – a “short/medium-range system designed to counter long-range rockets and slower-flying cruise missiles… such as those possessed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as by Syria.”

It also encompassed $75 million for Arrow III and $44 million for Arrow II, both ballistic missile-interceptor projects.

The resolution likewise called on DOD and State “to explore with their Israeli counterparts and alert Congress of any requirements the Israeli Defense Force may have for additional Iron Dome batteries, interceptors, or other equipment depleted during the recent conflict with Hamas-controlled Gaza.”

The U.S. Department of Defense’s FY 2014 request via the Missile Defense Agency is $96 million for Israeli Cooperative Programs, which includes $53 million for Arrow III, $33 million for David’s Sling and $11 million for Arrow II. DOD separately is requesting $220 million in “Defense-wide funds for Iron Dome.”

Sequestration could decrease FMF to Israel “up to an estimated $155 million,” CRS says. “Likewise, rocket and missile defense funding to Israel may be sequestered up to an estimated $37.41 million.”

The report, submitted to Congress in June, emphasized that the calculations “are estimates only.”

The final FY2013 total “remains unclear” since the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Department of Defense “could reprogram additional amounts of aid to Israel in order to compensate for lost funding as a result of sequestration.”

Maintaining Israel’s “Qualitative Military Edge,” or QME, over its regional neighbors and enemies historically has provided justification for significant U.S. assistance, CRS says.

Current and future security threats exist due to Iranian nuclear ambitions, “Islamist-led or influenced Arab states” that stir up anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiments, and “instability and terrorism” from ungoverned or minimally governed spaces along Israel’s borders.

Despite the continued provision of military aid to deter region-wide conflicts that largely have been avoided over the past 40 years, “Economic conditions in the United States and Israel may affect future U.S. aid to Israel,” CRS says.

“With the prospect of prolonged fiscal austerity in the United States, overall American public support for foreign aid may diminish in the years ahead.”

Egypt

The Obama administration’s FY 2014 budget request for Egypt is $1.56 billion. That total primarily is categorized under Peace and Security initiatives ($1.3 billion), with the remainder slated for Economic Development ($129 million), Education and Social Services ($63 million), Democracy, Human Rights and Governance ($28 million), Health ($16 million) and Environment ($15 million).

A CRS report cites a similar FY 2014 request total; however, rather than using the category Peace and Security, it simply refers to that particular amount as Military Aid, with the remainder ($250 million) listed as Economic Aid.

Among other U.S-Egypt assistance programs that WND recently reported is a USAID plan to help Egyptians get more out of their college educations.

The administration is pursuing this endeavor because Egyptian higher-education institutions struggle to “produce graduates with the skills employers seek, posing constraints for growth opportunities, particularly in high skilled economic sectors.”

U.S. interests in Egypt “include maintaining U.S. naval access to the Suez Canal, maintaining the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty, and promoting democracy and economic growth within Egypt, the region’s largest Arab country,” the CRS report says.

Despite publishing that report prior to the Egyptian military’s removal of President Mohamed Morsi, CRS foresaw that U.S. diplomatic opportunities “may be overshadowed by disruptive political trends that have been unleashed by the so-called Arab awakening and allowed for more expression of anti-Americanism, radical Islamist politics, antipathy toward Israel, and sectarianism.”

(Also see: "Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships").

Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships

Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships

Jordan

Specific to State and U.S. Agency for International Development aid to Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Congressional Budget Justification FY 2014 says that the administration’s $671 million request is justified because “Jordan is a strong U.S. ally in a turbulent region that, despite its relative stability, faces a number of critical, immediate challenges of its own.

“The country is host to large numbers of refugees from Syria at a time when the lingering effects of the worldwide fiscal crisis, regional instability, and other pressures have created increased strain on Jordan’s economy…”

The administration hopes to leverage this assistance “to deepen the partnership with Jordan to promote comprehensive regional peace and combat terrorism.”

CRS takes it a step further, asserting that the Jordanian government “remains arguably the most reliable partner for the United States in the Arab world.”

Despite Jordan’s participation in past regional wars against Israel, it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 after concluding that peace “was in Jordan’s strategic interests due to Israel’s conventional military superiority.”

Jordan likewise seeks peaceful resolution in its support of an “independent Palestinian national movement.”

The absence of such a resolution has “threatened both Jordanian and Israeli security,” a particular concern to Jordan as there about “1.9 million United Nations-registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan,” many of whom maintain “hope of being included in any future settlement.”

The administration consequently seeks to provide Jordan with aid under the categories of Peace and Security ($311 million), the bulk of which is slated for Stabilization Operations and Security Sector Reform ($304 million) and the remainder devoted to Counterterrorism ($5 million) and Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction ($1.7 million).

Other categories include Economic Development ($233 million), Education and Social Services ($56 million), Health ($36 million), Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance ($28 million, and Environment ($7 million).

Whereas much of the assistance is made possible via USAID programs, the U.S. also provides Jordan with cash assistance “to service its foreign debt,” CRS says.

Despite the expressed desire to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, King Abdullah II has repeatedly emphasized that the U.S. must pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution.

Abdullah II earlier this year in a joint press conference during Obama’s visit to Jordan, said “There is simply no other formula, no other alternative.

The two-state solution is the only way to go. And if you compare that also with the radicalization of Syria, together with the impasse in the peace process, this is going to be a serious threat to an already volatile region,” he said.

Jordan regularly participates in joint military exercises and training with the U.S., and has deployed thousands of military, law enforcement, and health professionals in support of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as U.N. peacekeeping operations around the world, CRS notes.

Saudi Arabia

The administration has proposed giving $10,000 in FY2014 direct aid to Saudi Arabia. The administration sought that amount last year and slightly less the year before. In the years immediately prior to those, annual requests had fluctuated while staying in the low hundreds of thousands.

The $10,000 aid figure specifically is for International Military Education and Training for Saudi Arabia. According to CRS, “This nominal amount makes Saudi Arabia eligible for a substantial but undisclosed discount on the millions of dollars of training it purchases through the Foreign Military Sales program.”

The actual amount of assistance to Saudi Arabia remains unclear, however, as the U.S. has numerous mechanisms in place to assist the Saudis in other ways.

No itemized costs could be found that detail U.S. expenses in the arrangement and processing Foreign Military Sales and other contracting actions.

The U.S. Air Force, for instance, this week issued a revised Request for Information from industry in the potential procurement of cyber-protection services and facilities for the Royal Saudi Air Force’s F-15 IT upgrade program.

The agency in that same endeavor also is coordinating a series of Industry Day gatherings that connect vendors with Saudi officials.

“Official U.S. concerns about human rights and religious freedom in the kingdom persist, and some members of Congress have expressed skepticism about Saudi leaders’ commitment to combating religious extremism and sharing U.S. policy priorities in the Middle East and South Asia,” CRS says.

“However, Bush and Obama administration officials have referred to the Saudi government as an important regional partner in recent years, and U.S. arms sales and related training programs have continued with congressional oversight.”

Although it receives literal bilateral aid from the U.S., Saudi Arabia is a major buyer of U.S. military hardware.

Among other arrangements that CRS notes, “In October 2010, Congress was notified of proposed sales to Saudi Arabia of dozens of F-15 fighter aircraft, helicopters, and related equipment and services, with a potential value of $60 billion.”

The Obama administration, “like its predecessors, has engaged the Saudi government as a strategic partner in efforts to promote regional security and global economic stability.”

Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships

Harpoon missile among weapons aboard patrol vessels

The U.S. Senate has rejected an effort to crack down on U.S. taxpayer monies being forwarded to the violence-ridden nation of Egypt, and now the Obama administration is preparing to send more heavily armed, missile-equipped naval patrol ships to the interim government there.

For that purpose, Washington is hiring private contractors to make the transoceanic delivery on its behalf.

This shipment of Fast Missile Craft, or FMC, comes at a time when congressional interest in suspending U.S. military aid to Egypt had heated up – to the point there was a Senate proposal to cut it off. That aid, according to federal law, must be suspended in response to military coups.

But the White House refuses to designate the military overthrow of deposed President Mohamed Morsi as a coup, and therefore has expressed no more than a commitment to review U.S.-Egyptian aid.

The U.S. Senate last week shot down, 86-13, Sen. Rand Paul’s proposed amendment to the transportation spending bill that would have redirected “certain foreign assistance to the government of Egypt as a result of the July 3, 2013, military coup d’état.”

Paul specifically sought to shift some of those funds to critical domestic bridge projects.

The Senate’s rejection of the Paul amendment now leaves the administration and its congressional supporters relatively free to proceed with their plans, so long as funds are approved for the U.S. Military Sealift Command endeavor.

Procurement documents that WND located through routine database research show that the MSC is now arranging to outsource the delivery of two of the advanced naval craft, which the contractor will bring under its care somewhere “within 100 miles of Pensacola,” Fla.

According to a U.S. Navy description, “The primary mission of the FMC is to conduct independent and joint operations, primarily against armed surface adversaries” in and around “coastal waterways of the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea and, in particular, the Suez Canal.”

FMC are equipped with a variety of missiles as well as a Close-In Weapon System, which can detect and attack incoming anti-ship missiles. Each vessel holds a crew of 40 personnel.

Other armaments aboard the Fast Missile Craft, an Ambassador IV-Class patrol ship built by VT Halter Marine in the United States, include eight RGM-84L Boeing Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles, (SSM) Block II missiles, one 76mm Super Rapid gun, one MK31 Raytheon Rolling Airframe Missile system with MK49 guided missile launching system and a guided missile round pack that can support 21 canister-mounted missiles. Also one Raytheon MK15 Mod 21 Phalanx Block 1B 20mm close-in weapon system and two deck-mounted 7.62mm M60 machine guns.

The Harpoon missiles can travel in excess of 67 miles with high subsonic speeds carrying nearly 500 pounds of explosives.

The beginnings of the FMC program precede the recent controversy over the military coup. Indeed, the George W. Bush administration in 2003 first reached out to contractors in search of someone capable of executing the then-conceptual aid initiative for Egypt.

The U.S. Navy since has awarded over $800 million in contracts to VT Halter Marine of Pascagoula, Miss., to carry out the Egypt FMC program. One already has been delivered, and the company in March 2010 had announced a $165 million contract to build a fourth FMC, slated for delivery by the end of 2013.

The new document explicitly reveals that “Egyptian military” personnel must be permitted to board and accompany the contractor vessels when the massive cargo containers embark from Florida en route to Alexandria, Egypt.

The inclusion of Egyptian military representatives, who will be unarmed, is “to maintain cargo integrity for the voyage,” the solicitation says.

Two cargo containers each 200 feet long with a combined hauling capability of 1,600 metric tons will deliver FMCs to Egypt. Each FMC must have a quarter-billion-dollar insurance policy, payable to the U.S. government in the event of a disaster.

An MSC spokesperson said the solicitation documents that WND discovered are exactly what the public affairs office possesses, and therefore it is unable to offer more information.

“We just fulfill the charter” for the requested contractor ships, she said.

However, when pressed to elaborate on the project’s explicit plan to have the Egyptian military board the contractor vessels for the entirety of the voyage, the spokesperson referred WND’s inquiry to the Department of Defense, specifically the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory told WND he had nothing to add to the information in the procurement documents.

The Heavylift Cargo Transport initiative – Solicitation no. N00033-13-R-5218 – is sensitive enough to require advance screening of crew personnel by the El Paso Intelligence Center, or EPIC, a multi-agency tactical operational unit.

The U.S. Department of Justice created EPIC in the ’70s primarily to support U.S.-Mexico border and counternarcotics operations. The center has since expanded its mission in support of law enforcement and counterintelligence initiatives from the local- to international level.

EPIC will be tasked with approving – or disapproving – contractor shipping-crew members.

Although MSC set an August 15 contractor bid-submission deadline, the solicitation emphasized that “funds are not currently available for this procurement. In the event funds remain unavailable, this procurement will be canceled without an award being made.”

In other Egypt-specific U.S. funding matters:

1) A $10 billion aviation-support project at the U.S. Department of State continues work with contractors on how the government may divvy up these awards through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL.

Although Egypt is not the sole focus of this endeavor – which had been in the planning stages long before Morsi’s ouster – INL nonetheless has been eying Egypt as a possible target for counterdrug operations. Current INL-contractor aviation activities are taking place in Central Florida, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Guatemala, and Iraq, it says.

“However, it is anticipated that performance may extend into other worldwide locations and the contractor(s) must be able to quickly extend operations to new locations on short notice, for limited duration. Recent examples of such include Sudan, Honduras, Malta, Libya, and Egypt.”

2) The Naval Surface Warfare Center said it intends to award a no-bid sole-source contract to Unified Industries, Inc., or UII, to train the Egyptian Air Force, or EAF, in technical measurements and calibration.

UII will provide subject matter consultation to EAF Metrology Engineering and Calibration Center, which is planning to build a facility at the Cairo West Air Base in Cairo. The Navy did not disclose an estimated contract cost.

3) The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, extended until August 15 the deadline for contractors to submit letters of interest in a project to improve the Egyptian university system.

As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor recently reported, the USAID Higher Education Partnership Program hopes to bring together the government of Egypt, Egyptian institutions of higher learning and the private sector in a collaborative effort to meet the needs of this North African nation’s business community.

A similar version of this article was published via WND.com Aug. 3, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to its author, Steve Peacock.

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Have U.S. 'Investments' in Mideast Paid Off? (WND)

My latest via WND. -- S.P.

Contradictory claims of total dollar figures for U.S. foreign aid circulate around the Internet, containing oft-repeated figures that may or may not reflect reality. In response to those conflicting claims, WND has compiled a list of significant U.S. aid totals based on a review of congressional and Obama administration documents and databases.

As the debate often focuses on whether the U.S. receives, in financial parlance, an adequate return on its investment, WND decided to first focus on arguably the world’s greatest hot spot, the Middle East/North Africa, or MENA, home to three of the top 10 recipients of U.S. assistance: Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.

Though the aid totals are significantly less for Saudi Arabia and Gaza/West Bank, we have included them due to the role that the Saudis and Palestinians play on the MENA world stage.

Continued at WND.com...

Follow @tradeaidmonitor

Former Federal Prosecutor Leverages Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor in Column

Many thanks to Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review Online for using U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor today as a supplemental resource in his article "Shhh, Don't Tell Anyone Hamas Won."

McCarthy, author of Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, via the NRO piece linked to "Obama to Exclude U.S. Companies from $300 Million Palestinian Project" (Monitor, Aug. 17, 2012).

McCarthy, it should be noted, is not your average columnist. Indeed, check out his bio:

Andrew C. McCarthy was a top federal prosecutor involved in some of the most significant cases in recent history. Decorated with the Justice Department’s highest honors, he retired from government in 2003, after helping launch the 9/11 investigation. He is one of America’s most persuasive voices on national security issues and author of the bestsellers Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. Currently, he is a contributing editor at National Review and a columnist for Pajamas Media.

I am honored that Mr. McCarthy has recognized the value of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, and  look forward to reading Spring Fever and his other works.

WND: Cash Flows for 'Madrassa' Lawmaker

Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.)

Check out my latest article for WND, "Cash flows for 'madrassa' lawmaker -- Contributors include Obama appointee as U.S. Marshal." For all it's worth, I spent two days researching and writing this piece, which reveals a surprising connection between a shady congressman and a high -ranking law enforcement official appointed by President Obama. Specific to U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, the piece is quite relevant since the elected official in question,  Rep. Andre Carson, serves on powerful congressional panels having great influence upon -- and which are greatly influenced by -- cash-rich international corporations and unions seeking political favors.

U. S. Marshal Kerry Forestal

Obama: Slaughter of Christians a Misunderstanding

The violence in northern Nigeria is mistakenly viewed as a religious conflict rather than simply a tribal dispute over land, according to the Obama administration.

Despite the ongoing Muslim destruction of churches and the slaughter of Christians – including many murdered during worship services – the U.S. Agency for International Development claims that the misunderstandings make it difficult to administer aid programs.

USAID, therefore, has launched a program titled Project PEACE – an acronym for Programming Effectively Against Conflict and Extremism.

PEACE says it will hire contractors to help the agency analyze the “true causes of conflict and consequently provide more effective humanitarian and conflict-resolution assistance, according to planning documents that WND located via database research.

The cost of Obama’s new “knowledge generation, dissemination and management” initiative is $600 million.

The unveiling of PEACE comes as the slaughter of Nigerian Christians is on the rise.

As WND reported earlier this month, an international Christian ministry says Muslims recently killed hundreds of Christians gathering for worship.

Patrick Sookhdeo, international director for Barnabas Fund, said at the time: “The simple act of going to church on a Sunday has become a perilous one for Christians in many parts of Nigeria.”

Indeed, Nigerian media have reported that the Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram has pledged to “eradicate Christianity.”

The USAID documents, however, contend that Boko Haram simply shares with other groups anger “over the nation’s poor governance.”

Efforts to “improve state service capacities and working to enhance the service delivery capacity of local governments” would help reduce such anger and resultant conflicts, the agency says.

The Statement of Work governing the PEACE procurement does not say that USAID specifically plans to intervene in Nigeria. However, an accompanying guidance document explicitly cites Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim conflict as a “case study” for Obama’s global endeavor.

Supposed misconceptions about such strife interfere with attempts to prevent or mitigate problems, according to the USAID Conflict Assessment Framework 2.0 document.

“Hence, the first task of conflict management is to distinguish the symptoms of the conflict from its sources. … In other words, the sources of conflict must be addressed, just as a doctor tries to treat the disease and not just the symptoms.”

The guidance document – on which USAID requires prospective contractors to base future service proposals – then addresses the contentious state of affairs between Christian and Muslim communities in Jos, Nigeria.

Prior to mentioning, however vaguely, the frequent “clash in episodes of violence,” USAID alludes to the tendency of parties in conflict to dishonestly adopt “tactics and positions to advance their interests.”

“In some cases, particularly when the interests of key actors differ from those they claim to represent, a key actor may purposefully hide or deflect their intentions through rhetoric,” the agency says.

Specific to Nigeria, it then dismisses the religious element of the hostility.

“Yet, although the symptom of conflict is intercommunal violence along sectarian lines, the source of the conflict will not be found in theology. Rather, the conflict’s source [is] competition for land between a group that perceives itself as indigenous to the area and another seen as more recent settlers.”

Attempts to focus on the theological nature of the fighting have failed to halt the ongoing clash, since those parties purportedly ignore the underlying motivation for feuding, according to USAID: “Those who perceive the conflict as a religious war have been unable to gain traction in resolving the conflict because, at its root, it is more about the governance of contested resources.”

Grievances such as this “almost always precede physical acts of violence,” the document says, hinting that the indigenous Christian majority is the primary source of tensions with the Muslim Hausa minority.

“For example, in Nigeria, control of the city of Jos has long been a particular source of tension between the Muslim ‘settler’ Hausas and the largely Christian ‘indigenes.’

“Although the Hausas are a minority in Plateau state, they are the largest ethnic group in Nigeria overall. Thus, many Berom and other Christian groups voice fears of Hausa domination at the national level.

“Meanwhile, the Hausa minority harbors similar fears of being forced out of Jos.”

Both sides have subsequently spread “rumors” of imminent threats as well as “allegations of silent killings, weapons stockpiling, and so on,” the document continues.

“Tensions are so high that any minor incident between two individuals across the religious divide could escalate rapidly, facilitated by the barrage of hate messages and other alarmist texts sent across extensive cellular networks.

“Occasional outbreaks of violence do in fact occur.”

Contractors selected under Project PEACE would, among other tasks, analyze the historical and cultural contexts of ongoing or developing conflicts.

They also would be responsible for tapping into existing USAID resources – distributing reports on lessons learned from prior interventions, for example, or training USAID personnel in how to develop and implement new assistance programs as conflicts emerge worldwide.

In addition to ensuring that USAID program responses “are informed by an understanding of what is required for effective peacebuilding,” contractors would attempt to identify “bright spots” in the conflict.

Despite the imposition of Islamic law, or Shariah, in 12 northern Nigerian states in 1999-2000, the governor of Kaduna state brokered a political agreement between Christians Muslims that remains in force.

“As Christian-Muslim clashes have raged in nearby states, Kaduna has faced tensions and occasional fighting, but has remained relatively peaceful in the face of extremist provocations.

“One neighborhood in southern Kaduna, Barnawa, is particularly remarkable for having remained peaceful throughout the 2000 and 2002 crises,” the government documents state.

“In both instances, Christians and Muslims worked together to protect each other and to prevent outsiders who were intent on engaging in conflict from coming to their neighborhood.”

It is this sort of “bright spot” that contractors would use as a starting point to develop assistance programs and foster peace among groups in conflict and their governmental leaders, USAID believes.

USAID is holding a “pre-proposal conference” May 31 to discuss the program with interested contractors.

This article originally appeared on WND.com. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

FOR MORE REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S NIGERIA PAGE AND  AFRICA PAGE.

FOR ADDITIONAL REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, SEE THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

Obama: Slaughter of Christians a misunderstanding

My latest contribution to WND.com: "Obama: Slaughter of Christians a misunderstanding; Pricey 'knowledge generation' project aims to reduce such conflicts."

This is the real deal. No conspiracy theories. Just verifiable documentation of an otherwise unpublicized Obama Administration view of Muslim attacks of Nigerian Christians.