PEW offered this series of videos that highlight the work of our new Secretary of State John Kerry --
Secretary John Kerry: The Ross Sea and East Antarctic Need Protection Now | Pew
Remarks by Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Senator Bob Carr
Remarks by Karen Sack, Pew's deputy director of international ocean conservation
Showing posts with label Senator John Kerry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Senator John Kerry. Show all posts
Monday, April 1, 2013
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Foggy Bottom Shuck & Jive
Secretary of State John Kerry may have had a high environmental score with the League of Conservation Voters, but he invested in DIRTY TAR SANDS.
Boardman: "Secretary of State John Kerry promised a 'transparent' assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline, and now the State Department has delivered on that promise." (illustration: istock)
ecretary of State John Kerry promised a "transparent" assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline, and now the State Department has delivered on that promise - with a transparently fraudulent "environmental impact statement" which, according one critic, "makes no mention of the [pipeline's] impact on the world's climate."
Boardman: "Secretary of State John Kerry promised a 'transparent' assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline, and now the State Department has delivered on that promise." (illustration: istock)
Foggy Bottom Shuck & Jive
06 March 13
Keystone pipeline safe from climate change, State Department says
ecretary of State John Kerry promised a "transparent" assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline, and now the State Department has delivered on that promise - with a transparently fraudulent "environmental impact statement" which, according one critic, "makes no mention of the [pipeline's] impact on the world's climate."
After meeting with Canadian foreign minister John Baird on February 8, 2013, Kerry made his first public comments as Secretary of State about the pipeline then under review by his department. He said, in response to a question about the review: "I can guarantee you that it will be fair and transparent, accountable, and we hope that we will be able to be in a position to make an announcement in the near term."
Environmentalist opponents of Keystone XL have warned for years, as anyone attentive to the issue would know, that the development of tar sands oil in Canada would increase greenhouse gas emissions beyond the point where there is any hope of mitigating climate change. Stopping the Keystone XL pipeline would not, in itself, control tar sands development. But permitting it would mean losing control.
In evaluating the Keystone project, one of the challenges the State Department faced was credibly assessing what effect the pipeline's operation - or more precisely the effect of burning billions of gallons of the world's dirtiest oil over a period of 30 years or more - would have on the global climate.
The first signal that the State Department report would be bad news for the climate was that it was released on March 1, on a Friday afternoon, a time when news media are often at their least attentive.
Why Would Government Ignore Impact on Climate?
Two days after the release of the report, investigative historian Eric Zuesse wrote: "The study does discuss 'Climate Change Impacts on the Proposed Project,' but not the proposed project's impacts on climate change. It finds that climate change will have no significant impact upon either the construction, or the operation, of the Pipeline."
The State Department's environmental impact statement, executive summary section ES.5.5, tiptoes up to the critical question of tar sands oil development:
"Finally, climate change considerations - which are influenced by GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions - could affect the construction and operation of the proposed Project. GHG and climate change issues were the subject of many comments received during the public scoping process for the proposed Project."
But there the analysis stops, like a shell game in which none of the shells conceal a pea.
The State Department statement (section E.S.5.5.2) concludes "that approval or denial of the proposed [Keystone] Project is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development in the oil sands, or on the amount of heavy crude oil refined in the Gulf Coast area."
In other words, even if there were a pea under one of the shells, there's nothing to be done about it.
The State Department's analysis finds that there will be little impact on air quality or noise (sections 3.12 and 4.12) from the construction or operation of the pipeline. Even better (section 4.14), the "impact of climate change effects … on the construction and operation of the proposed Project itself" are virtually nil.
As the summary section (4.16) puts it:
- Climate change would have no substantive effects on construction of the proposed Project.
- Climate change would have no substantive effects on the operation of the proposed Project….
Environmentalists React With Outrage, Disbelief
So the Project, the Keystone XL pipeline, may be safe from climate change, but the State Department has nothing to say about whether the climate is safe from the Project.
The day the report came out, Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, released a statement that said:
"The Sierra Club is outraged by the State Department's deeply flawed analysis today and what can only be interpreted as lip service to one of the greatest threats to our children's future: climate disruption.
"We're mystified as to how the State Department can acknowledge the negative effects of the Earth's dirtiest oil on our climate, but at the same time claim that the proposed pipeline will 'not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects.' Whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice."
A much longer objection came from Bold Nebraska's executive director, Jane Kleeb, who argues against the State Department analysis:
"Tarsands does not expand unless Keystone XL is built. The State Department's assumption that tarsands development does not change with or without this pipeline is wrong and laughable. Why would TransCanada spend billions on building the pipeline and millions on lobbying unless this piece of infrastructure is the - not a - but the lynchpin for the expansion of tarsands.
"Without this pipeline Canada stays at 2 million barrels a day, with it they get 3 million barrels a day.
The President has the ability to keep a million barrels of tarsands in the ground a day. With a stroke of a pen he can protect property rights, water and make a dent in climate change. This report is laughable using the wrong assumption and therefore the wrong science."
The public will have 45 days to comment on the environmental impact report, once the State Department posts a notice in the Federal Register. As the Department's March 1 cover letter states:
"As part of the Department's process, members of the public, public agencies, and other interested parties are encouraged to submit comments, questions, and concerns about the project via e-mail to
keystonecomments@state.gov
, at http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov, or mailed to:
U.S. Department of State Attn:
Genevieve Walker, NEPA Coordinator
2201 C Street NW, Room 2726
Washington, D.C. 20520
The letter further explains: "Ultimately, a determination will be made on whether this project serves the national interest. The national interest determination will involve consideration of many factors, including: energy security; environmental, cultural, and economic impacts; foreign policy; and compliance with relevant federal regulations."
There is no reference to any global interest or any other interest.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
New England: Tar Sands to the East Coast! Fair Warning!
Because this isn't your neighborhood, does it matter less?
What is your personal responsibility for the energy you consume?
Secretary of State John Kerry will oversee the review of the Keystone Pipeline.
(photo: Getty Images)
Kerry Misses the Keystone Point
12 February 13
he same day that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was promising a "fair and transparent" review of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the Texas Gulf Coast, the CEO of the company building that pipeline, TransCanada's Russ Girling, was reported as saying that his company's "Plan A" was finishing a different pipeline that would take the same tar sands oil to Canada's east coast.
TransCanada's plan to establish a pipeline to the Atlantic coast has received little attention since CEO Girling's February 6 interview on Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg's later report:
"Canada's second-largest pipeline company proposes to ship oil 3,000 miles (4,825 kilometers) to the Atlantic Coast, allowing producers to send it by tanker to the Gulf, Girling said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg's New York headquarters.
"While he expects U.S. passage of Keystone 'very soon,' the East Coast route makes sense in any event because of rising production from Alberta, Girling said."
TransCanada presently has about $22 billion worth of pipeline projects underway, of which Keystone XL represents about a third of the total. Asked if an East Coast pipeline was a fallback plan in case Keystone is blocked, Girling said: "It's not a Plan B, it's a Plan A, and it will go if the market supports it, along with Keystone…. Once you get on tidewater, you can get anywhere, and you don't need a presidential permit to bring oil into the Gulf Coast."
That the head of a pipeline company is more interested in getting tar sands oil to market than he is in what it may cause after that is perhaps not surprising. Girling isn't a climate change denier, he just sees change taking decades, during which TransCanada will try to make the transition to non-fossil fuels, which is why the company built three large wind farms in 2011.
Keystone Needs Presidential Permission to Proceed
But there may not be decades, there may be no time at all, according to a long National Journal story on February 7 with the headline: "The Scary Truth About How Much Climate Change Is Costing You" – costing you now, the sub-head emphasizes: "While policymakers fiddle, the threat of economic harm posed by rising sea levels, devastating storms, and drought is growing every day."
On January 22, Greenpeace released a 60-page report called "Point of No Return," dealing with "massive climate threats we must avoid," while giving little reason to think we will avoid them:
"The world is quickly reaching a Point of No Return for preventing the worst impacts of climate change.
"With total disregard for this unfolding global disaster, the fossil fuel industry is planning 14 massive coal, oil and gas projects that would produce as much new carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2020 as the entire US, and delay action on climate change for more than a decade.
"Continuing on the current course will make it difficult – if not impossible – to prevent the widespread and catastrophic impacts of climate change…."
In the United States, pressure is building for the president (or the secretary of state) to deny a permit to Keystone. That demand is at the heart of plans for "the largest climate rally in history" on the Mall in Washington February 17, sponsored by the Sierra Club, 350.org, and the Hip-Hop Caucus. The promoters of the event assert:
"The first step to putting our country on the path to addressing the climate crisis is for President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. His legacy as president will rest squarely on his response, resolve, and leadership in solving the climate crisis."
Making much the same argument with much greater detail on February 10 on TomDispatch.com, Hampshire College professor Michael Klare analyzes three possible pipeline routes that would enable Alberta tar sands oil to reach world markets. The first is Keystone, first proposed in 2008, which is still at least two years from being operational. The other two go in opposite directions -- west, where resistance is already high, and east, where a substantial amount of pipeline is already in place. Klare analyzes each alternative in detail, arguing that:
"… the only pipeline now under development that would significantly expand Albertan tar-sands exports is Keystone XL. It is vitally important to the tar-sands producers because it offers the sole short-term - or possibly even long-term - option for the export and sale of the crude output now coming on line at dozens of projects being developed across northern Alberta.
"Without it, these projects will languish and Albertan production will have to be sold at a deep discount - at, that is, a per-barrel price that could fall below production costs, making further investment in tar sands unattractive. In January, Canadian tar-sands oil was already selling for $30-$40 less than West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the standard U.S. blend."
But Klare does not consider the different route to the Atlantic proposed by Girling, a route that could be entirely within Canada, ending at St. John, New Brunswick.
It's Not About Pipelines, It's About Tar Sands Oil
The shadow play aspects of the public posturing around the Keystone pipeline make it difficult to focus on the underlying reality that matters most: whether exploiting tar sands, not only in Canada, but in the U.S. and other countries, really will mean "game over for the climate," as NASA scientist James Hansen has said. The heart of his argument, as it appeared in the New York Times, was simple:
"GLOBAL warming isn't a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves 'regardless of what we do.'
"If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate."
The game, in other words, is not about pipelines, it's about tar sands oil. And even though cancellation of the Keystone pipeline would not be a game-changer, such cancellation would be a powerful symbol that leaves open the possibility of changing the game. And it would be a signal that there is at least some political will to change the game.
The Canadian government under Stephen Harper has been pushing hard for the Keystone pipeline, lobbying the Obama administration and responding to unsympathetic media reports in the U.S. At the same time, Canadian resistance to pipelines in both the east and west has grown increasingly intense, especially among the more than 630 First Nations governments of Canada's native people whose land would be directly affected.
Media Coverage Omits More Than It Says
When Sec. Kerry promises a "fair and transparent" review of Keystone, and media from ABC News to the Washington Post to Huffington Post report the story with the same wire service account from AP, there's not a lot of reporting going on. Sec. Kerry's comments are value-free and allow for a possible approval, especially in the context of his "great respect" for the needs of Canada's energy industry.
What AP and those who carried the report left out included Sec. Kerry's significant oil industry holdings, which create an obvious conflict of interest, although as someone who was the richest U.S. Senator till recently (net worth about $240 million, compared to Jay Rockefeller's $98 million), his oil holdings may not represent that great a conflict. And Sec. Kerry was "a steadfast proponent of taking action on climate during his tenure as a senator," according to Reuters.
The widely distributed AP report all but dismisses "climate change," using the phrase only in the context of suggesting that the pipeline would be "a source of much-needed jobs," which it's not, and "a step toward North American energy independence," which it's not.
Sec. Kerry's remarks fit a context in which the State Department carries out its evaluation and approves the pipeline, giving cover for President Obama to approve it, too, since the evaluation was "fair and transparent," or will be reliably reported that way. But Sec. Kerry also mentioned "accountability" in passing, without saying (or being asked) just what that could possibly mean. If James Hansen is right, and the climate is destroyed by tar sands oil, how will anyone in the future be able to hold a long-dead multi-millionaire accountable for his lost seriousness?
Alternatively, with the boom of "light sweet oil" coming out of Texas and North Dakota, oil that is much preferable to the "heavy sour crude" from Alberta, the president may have a practical way of sidestepping Keystone approval as no longer very useful to the United States (if it ever really was).
Disruptions Continue Along Keystone Southern Leg
The active protest and political theatre front in recent months has been along the TransCanada Keystone Gulf Coast section in Texas and Oklahoma, where early in the morning of February 11 in Schoolton, Oklahoma, a youth pastor, Stefan Warner, chained himself to construction machinery high above a local waterway, the North Canadian River.
"I grew up in a town where the North Canadian River runs right through, and we can't let the North Canadian become another Kalamazoo," Warner said, referring to the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.
Another giant pipeline company, Enbridge Energy, had one of its pipelines rupture there in July 2010, dumping about 900,000 gallons of toxic tar sands crude oil into the river, where the clean-up is now in its third year.
Warner acted with other members of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, a new group that recently organized to resist the Keystone pipeline. The Great Plains web site reported the end of the action this way:
8:00AM: Direct Support for Stefan has been arrested without warning and placed in police car. Six other people on site being detained currently.
9:00AM: All Six people detained now arrested. Seven police vehicles on scene. Workers have lowered side-boom in disregard of Stefan's safety and OSHA regulations, Stefan still locked to machinery but lying painfully face-down on the lowered arm. Police obscuring Stefan from view and not allowing anyone within photographing distance.
9:15AM: Another individual arrested. This person was not initially detained but was prevented from accessing her vehicle since 8am. Stefan still holding strong….
1:00PM Earlier today, Stefan was extracted. To our knowledge, Stefan sustained no serious injuries and seems to be alright.
This action is similar to protests mounted over the past five months by the Tar Sands Blockade, who started their resistance in September 2012 when they set up a tree house blockade across the right of way along which TransCanada was constructing its pipeline. TranCanada skipped a section of construction to avoid the tree houses and also took members of the group to court. That action that was settled January 25, when 19 people, also acting on behalf of 6 Jan and John Does and three organizations, agreed to a permanent injunction against interfering with Keystone people, property, or progress.
Defeating Keystone – A Victory with No Winners?
It would certainly look like a victory for environmentalists if the president denied Keystone a permit, and a low political cost would allow the political class to bask in undeserved credit – a symbolic triumph. And, at worst, an opportunity to enjoy the illusion that something meaningful was accomplished.
But the problem of tar sands oil would be fundamentally unchanged. It would remain an underexploited asset that Canadians are eager to tap. The demand from Asian markets would continue to grow. Canada would continue to face the irrationality of importing half the oil it uses while exporting two thirds of the oil it produces. The pipeline struggle would become an all-Canada affair.
A lively and slightly hysterical imagination might envision an American war with Canada, not so much to keep tar sands oil in the ground to save the climate, but to keep the Canadians from selling it to the Chinese. More likely, the United States will revert to its traditionally torpid contemplation of planetary threat, the climate will continue to warm, and soon Alberta can have a pipeline to the north, since the Arctic Ocean is open year-round.
Is this the route?
Huge Climate Change Rally Targets Keystone XL Pipeline
Is this the route?
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Sad time for Republicans in Massachusetts
After dragging the swamps for a Republican candidate...any Republican candidate to run for election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Republican Party is grieving its lack of viable, electable candidates.
Rumor has it that ever the Glutton-for-Punishment Scott Brown will run as a last minute write-in candidate which avoids the inconvenience of collecting 10,000 signatures to add his name to the ballot.
The national image of the Republican Party's extremism and obstuctionism inspires neither confidence nor admiration.
Rumor has it that ever the Glutton-for-Punishment Scott Brown will run as a last minute write-in candidate which avoids the inconvenience of collecting 10,000 signatures to add his name to the ballot.
The national image of the Republican Party's extremism and obstuctionism inspires neither confidence nor admiration.
Massachusetts Senate special election: A lost cause for the GOP?
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Interesting to consider lies of the past....
Dec 21, 2012
Kerry's Nomination And The Return Of Swift Boats
By Charles P. Pierce
Photo Illustration by
DonkeyHotey via Flickr/Special to The Politics Blog
It appears quite clear now that John Kerry is going to be the next Secretary Of State, and the whole business is already crazy-making. Reporting the news this morning, CNN mentioned that Kerry had been the subject of attacks on his military record in 2004, when he was the Democratic candidate for president in 2004. There was no mention of the fact that all those attacks were completely spurious, having had no basis in fact. If this is going to be the pattern of the coverage of Kerry's nomination going forward, we're all in for another ride on the Swift Boats, god help us.
Kerry is a good, safe choice for the job. He has made an entire Senate career out of taking on foreign-policy issues that nobody else — except Gary Hart — ever wanted to touch. He led the way in normalizing diplomatic relations with Vietnam at a time in which H. Ross Perot was still running around the country talking about thousands of American POW's in camps in Laos, and while the country was filling the theaters watching Sly Stallone as John Rambo, doing as good a job of revising that sad episode in American history as can be expected from an actor who sat out the war as the chaperone at a girls' school in Switzerland. He took on the rat's nest at the Bank Of Commerce And Credit International, when BCCI was laundering money for whoever came through the door, and when BCCI also had bought enough politicians in Washington that Kerry and his investigators were pretty much out there alone. Here's a bit on that from a profile I did back in 2004.
In the Senate, throughout the 1980s, Kerry made his mark spelunking down the darkest caverns of what had become a reinvigorated secret government. He chased the illicit aid to the contra rebels in Nicaragua and the byzantine operations of a bank called BCCI, a sort of international ATM for black ops. And he did so alone, as far outside in the clubby world of the Senate as he ever had been in Massachusetts. "This was a bad case of bubonic plague," says Jack Blum, Kerry's investigator through those years. One prominent Democratic senator tried to sabotage Kerry's investigations, and the Republicans, riding Ronald Reagan's popularity, went after him as harshly as the Nixon people ever did. In fact, it is a kind of unprecedented historical parlay that John Kerry's name appears both on Nixon's White House tapes and in the notebooks of Oliver North. For Kerry, the investigations were pure reform politics, but they also were leavened with a respect for what happens when people are tricked away from their investment in their government. "It's antithetical to everything we are," he explains. "A government with secrets is accountable; a secret government is not. And when that happens, the American people are cheated of what is rightly theirs."This is a man who knows where the bodies have been buried for the past 30 years and, yes, he voted for the Iraq war, which was a terrible mistake that he fumbled trying to explain, but if you're casting about for a Democratic Secretary Of State from his generation of Democratic politicians, Kerry is the natural choice, even if you find the way he came to be nominated, through the slandering of Susan Rice, distasteful, as I do.
(And, yes, this likely means the return of Senator McDreamy to the national political stage, although he trashed his own brand pretty thoroughly up here in the Commonwealth -- God save it! -- and Teddy Kennedy, Jr. is an intriguing possibility, as is stepmother, Vicki. I still think Scott Brown should wait a few years and run for governor myself, and, not that it would matter to me, but if he hasn't shredded Eric Fehrnstrom's phone number into a thousand pieces and chucked the pieces into Cape Cod Bay, I don't like his chances this time around, either.)
But the key is the Swift Boats. If some senator brings it up — or, worse, if some of the old poolroom liars are trotted in front of the Senate committee sitting on Kerry's nomination — and if the courtier press doesn't emphasize at every moment that everything that was said about John Kerry and Vietnam in the 2004 presidential campaign was a lie and an embarrassment to American politics and the American media, then we have on our hands yet another case of journalistic malpractice, and we have had enough of those, thank you. Those people should be ignored. The "controversy" should be relegated to the guy with the pompadour on the Ancient Aliens TV show. Here's the nut graf — and I do mean "nut" -- from the CNN.com report.
The Vietnam experience came back to haunt Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. A Republican-funded group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth aired campaign ads accusing him of lying to receive two of his five combat decorations and criticizing his anti-war activism. The incumbent Bush won the Electoral College vote 292 to 252 and racked up 3 million more votes than Kerry nationwide.It must have had some truth because, look, it worked! We still have such terrible problems.
Read more: John Kerry Secretary of State Nomination - Kerry's Nomination And The Return Of The Swift Boats - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/john-kerry-secretary-of-state-nomination-122112#ixzz2FpG9ShTB
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Green Jobs
The email reply below is from Senator John Kerry in response to an email I sent to him.
Folks, Clean Energy is the only future we have.
Global Warming is the greatest single threat we face.
Folks, Clean Energy is the only future we have.
Global Warming is the greatest single threat we face.
Thank you for contacting me about clean
energy. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.
Today we are presented
with an economic opportunity of extraordinary proportions. The current energy
economy is a $6 trillion market with 4 billion users – and the fastest growing
segment of that is green energy – projected at $2.3 trillion in 2020. Yet as of
today, by not making any different policy decisions, most of this investment
will be in Asia, and not here in the United States.
I am proud to say that
Massachusetts is leading the way in the transition to a clean energy economy.
Through a range of policies including a renewable electricity standard (RES),
energy efficient building codes, and incentives for consumers to purchase fuel
efficient vehicles, Massachusetts is on track to meet the most ambitious
greenhouse gas reduction target of any state and create as many as 48,000 jobs
in Massachusetts by 2020. It is now time for the federal government to follow
our lead.
Now is the moment for
America to build our new energy future – and, in doing so, create millions of
steady, higher paying jobs at every level of the economy. Make no mistake - jobs
that produce energy in America are jobs that stay in America. The amount of work
to be done here is impressive and will be the work of many lifetimes. It must
begin now.
That is why I am committed
to promoting investment in clean energy jobs and industries, reducing costs
through energy efficiency, freeing the United States from dependence on foreign
oil, and promoting clean energy by retooling the infrastructure and workforce of
the United States. I cosponsored legislation
in the last Congress which requires utilities to generate 25 percent of their
electricity
from clean, renewable energy sources by 2025. By creating a national RES, this
legislation would incentivize a range of renewable energy sources, including
solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and hydropower. I also understand the
importance of nuclear energy to our clean energy portfolio and I included
support for nuclear energy in the American Power Act, comprehensive energy and
climate legislation that Senator Lieberman and I worked on in the last Congress.
I believe Congress must
come together to meet the defining test of our future. Please be assured that I
will fight for responsible policies to ensure that America is a stronger, more
powerful leader in the new energy economy.
Thank you again for
contacting me about this issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me again about
this or any other issue of importance to you.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Irresponsible Republican Tactics Jeopardize Lives
Bush/Cheney outed Valerie Plame for their own nefarious agenda and now Rep. Darrell Issa has jeopardized lives through his own irresponsible tactics.
Senator John Kerry was correct in criticizing Issa's actions.
John Kerry: Darrell Issa's Release Of Raw Libya Cables 'Irresponsible And Inexcusable'
Senator John Kerry was correct in criticizing Issa's actions.
John Kerry: Darrell Issa's Release Of Raw Libya Cables 'Irresponsible And Inexcusable'
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Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) criticized House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R- Calif.) for releasing 166 pages of "sensitive but unclassified" State Department cables that contained the names of Libyans working within the United States.
"This is irresponsible and inexcusable, and perhaps worst of all it was entirely avoidable," Kerry said.
"It is profoundly against America's interests in a difficult region."
The Obama administration has also criticized Issa for leaking the documents, which relate to the September attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and four others.
Administration officials told Foreign Policy magazine the leak, along with Issa's failure to redact the names of Libyan civilians and local leaders mentioned in the cables, could have "unintended consequences."
"This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road," an administration official said.
In a letter to President Barack Obama, Issa, along with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), said the cables were released because "the American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation" about the Benghazi attack.
"The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration," Issa and Chaffetz wrote. "Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives.
Washington, DC – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued the following statement in response to the release of documents, concerning the recent events in Libya, by the House Oversight Committee.
"The wholesale release of State Department documents by the House Oversight Committee has exposed Libyan nationals working with the United States to possible danger. This is irresponsible and inexcusable, and perhaps worst of all it was entirely avoidable. It is profoundly against America's interests in a difficult region.
Oversight and investigation is the job of Congress. I know how to run a real investigation. It's a responsibility I take personally as someone who spent years in the Senate leading difficult, sensitive, and comprehensive investigations on everything from BCCI and illegal money laundering to the fate of American soldiers missing in Vietnam. I don't say casually that this release of sensitive materials was a moment of real incompetence and irresponsibility.
The Foreign Relations Committee is committed to getting all the facts about what happened, and we’ve been in regular contact with the Administration to do so. The Committee has sent two letters asking questions, including one signed by all committee members, and we will have another committee briefing as soon as we reconvene. The House committee seems to adopting a very different set of investigative techniques. It's bad enough that it's becoming a political sideshow presumably driven by the calendar of Monday's upcoming presidential debate, but even worse is that in their rush to make news they've exposed Libyans who were working side by side with America."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/20/john-kerry-darrell-issa-_n_1992826.html?1350764638&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
Posted on facebook [accuracy not checked]:
By Debbie Schlussel
I’m a proud conservative Republican from Michigan, but I’m appealing to Californians of all political stripes not to support the recall of Gov. Gray Davis.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista)–funder of the recall effort and the only announced candidate to replace Davis–might be the contemporary, real-life version of Frank Sinatra’s “Manchurian Candidate.” Instead of communists, Issa’s allies are radical Islamists and supporters of terrorism against Americans, Israelis, Christians and Jews.
In a short political career, Issa’s statements and actions consistently defend terrorists, terrorist groups and terrorist sponsor states.
Saudi Arabia’s longtime lobbyist, James Gallagher, contributed to Issa’s campaign in November 2002, and Issa tried to overturn key classified evidence portions of President Bill Clinton’s 1995 counter-terrorism bill. Issa is also credited with “declawing” the Patriot Act.
Then, there’s Issa’s dance with Hezbollah, an organization that is on the State Department’s terrorist list and one of the largest components of Al Qaeda. In the 1980s, Hezbollah–which means “Party of Allah”–murdered more than 260 U.S. Marines while they slept in Beirut and tortured to death Col. Richard Higgins (in 1990) and CIA attache William Buckley.
Hezbollah endorses “the use of hostages,” “suicide in jihad operations” and “the duty of all Muslims to engage in Islamic jihad if it ensures the ultimate goal [of] inflicting losses on the enemy.”
Less than a month after Sept. 11, Issa visited Syrian President Bashar Assad, praising Hezbollah and lauding Assad’s policies (Syria is on the State Department’s terrorist list).
The Tehran Times and IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency, the official Iranian news agency) quoted Issa’s statements to Assad in Damascus: “Hezbollah acts legitimately and has never been involved in terrorist activities…. Hezbollah and any other Lebanese group has the right to resist the occupation of its territory…. Hezbollah’s humanitarian and governmental actions were legal…. Such behavior would be customary in any country.”
Issa denies the statements, but as a recent Los Angeles Times cover story demonstrates he has a record of stretching the truth–about his military record, his criminal history, his business affairs and his political positions.
In November 2001, for instance, Issa told syndicated columnist Debra Saunders he was vehemently against Arabs suing the airlines and government over profiling. At the same time, he told the rest of the press of his plans to introduce legislation to make it easier for Arabs to collect monetary damages for airline and government profiling. And Issa’s other statements and actions corroborate their veracity:
Less than a month after Sept. 11, in an Oct. 9, 2001, interview with the Beirut Daily Star’s Ibrahim, during a trip to Lebanon, Issa said, “It is Lebanon which will determine whether the party’s [Hezbollah's] activities constitute terrorism or resistance … If [Hezbollah] wants the world to understand that its activities are legitimate, they should say it…. Resistance is a legitimate right recognized [by the U.N.]…. I have a great deal of sympathy for the work that Hezbollah tries to do.” He expressed hope that Hezbollah would “reform” and become a “government” like the P.L.O.
Assad’s state-run SANA (official Syrian news agency) covered Issa’s November 2001 meeting with Assad, quoting Issa as saying: “Hezbollah or any other party has the right to resist occupation. ”Occupation? Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon at least a year before, and the U.S. withdrew over a decade earlier.
Issa’s January 2003 actions regarding Israelis captured by Hezbollah asserted the terrorist group’s moral equivalence with Israel. According to The Guardian of London, per Hezbollah’s demand, Issa asked Israel to allow the Red Cross to see captured Hezbollah terrorists in exchange for interceding with Hezbollah to allow the Red Cross to see four Israeli prisoners held by the group.
On Oct. 31, 2001, the London Arabic newspaper, Al-Hayat, reported, “U.S. Congressman of Lebanese origin Darrell Issa, during his recent visit to Beirut in the mid of October,” conveyed a proposal to Hezbollah leadership to remove Hezbollah from the State Department’s terrorist list and “normalize U.S. relations with” the group. Hezbollah refused the offer.
On May 31, 2003, Issa publicly made a similar proposal to legitimize Hezbollah by giving Lebanon $500 million of taxpayer money to disarm the group and turn it into a political party.