As the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lobbies the Congress for approval of a nuclear agreement with the United States, serious export control incidents such as these are the last thing that the Gulf country leaders would want on the minds of Members of Congress that may be on the fence on the proposed 123 deal.
First reported in 2008, according to the Department of State, “Air Shunt Instruments, Inc. has entered in a consent agreement to settle 4 violations of the AECA and ITAR in connection with unauthorized exports of defense articles and the misrepresentation and omission of facts on an export control document.” The proposed charging letter states that Air Shunt personnel knew that it was illegal to export controlled parts to the UAE and Thailand without a license but did so anyway.
The controlled articles exported to the UAE included an engine actuator and an ignition exciter. He sent a gyroscope to Thailand. In addition to the unlicensed export, the charging letter states that the company made material misrepresentations and omissions in various export control documents.
Air Shunt has been in operation since 1984. It is in the business of “repair/overhaul and sales of cutting edge avionics and electromechanical instrumentation and systems for aerospace and defense.” There was no statement on the company website about the incident. According to news reports it appears as if the principal U.S. person involved in the transactions, Air Shunt Vice President for International Sales John Nakkashian, has been missing since 2007.
According to the State Department that company has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $100,00, of which $70,000 will be suspended on the condition that they have already applied that amount to self-initiated, pre-Consent Agreement remedial compliance measures; and the remaining $30,000 will be suspended on the condition that they will apply this amount to Consent Agreement-authorized remedial compliance measures. For more information on the consent agreement, visit the DDTC website.
With regards to the UAE, as usual in these charging letters, there is no information regarding what the parties on the other end of the deal knew or might have known about export licensing requirements. It is very possible that the UAE had no idea what was going on. Maybe some of the parts were headed for Iran for use in some Shah-era F-5. Either way, it is publicity that they could do without.
Posted in Export Controls, UAE, current events, national security, news | Tagged Air Shunt, current events, DDTC, Export Controls, Iran, news, State Department, Thailand, UAE | 1 Comment »
The Treasury Department has updated the Specially Designated Nationals list.
A Congressional Committee held a hearing yesterday on export controls: ”The Export Administration Act: A Review of Outstanding Policy Considerations.” Res Communis has posted the transcript of an earlier hearing on a similar issue by another House Committee, here. Meanwhile …
A Chinese national was indicted this week “for conspiring to violate U.S. export law, following a nearly three-year investigation into his alleged efforts to acquire sensitive military and NSA-encryption gear from eBay and other internet sources.”
Another recent reminder why export controls are needed. There are also gaps in the system.
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) told a Congressional Committee yesterday that “the interests of the United States are not served by encouraging the countries of the Middle East to accelerate their race for sensitive nuclear technologies” by engaging in nuclear cooperation with countries such as the United Arab Emirates.
It is never a good idea to politicize the intelligence oversight process. There is more than fifty years of evidence to support that idea. At least one Democrat agrees. Not everyone up there needs to know. Many times on the Hill, a lot of this is driven by, pure and plain, political voyeurism. It puts our security at risk.
An al-Qaeda plot to attack the Suez Canal reportedly successfully foiled by Egypt.
Evolution Robotics reports that it has been awarded a $1 million U.S. Navy contract to conduct “research on scaling visual recognition for maritime domain awareness,” including use in combating maritime piracy.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) as a trade sanction?
While on the subject of trade sanctions, here is yet another reason why U.S.-Cuba sanctions need ratcheting up.
A note on cyber-warfare and security.
Finally, the State Department’s Western Hemisphere desk should take note of Honduran faux-testers.
Posted in Democrats, Economic Sanctions, UAE, current events, foreign assistance, national security, news, non-proliferation, nuclear | Tagged Congress, Republicans, Democrats, OFAC, Export Controls, nuclear, politics, current events, news, nonproliferation, Markey, FCPA, ITAR, EAR, BIS, al-qaeda, Chi Tong Kuok, Boren, CIA | Leave a Comment »
The Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2010 requires that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) conduct a study of the efficacy of export control laws and regulations.
Judging from the Committee Report that accompanies the bill, HR 2701, it seems as if the request may have come from commercial satellite companies, and possibly some pockets in the government, that have long argued that “U.S. restrictions on the sale of commercial imagery are beginning to inhibit their growth and their competitiveness in foreign markets, especially as foreign imagery satellites improve and foreign reliance on U.S. systems diminishes.”
Reform of U.S. export control laws may be needed, but folks should keep in mind that complying and enforcing regulations is a two-way street that not only impacts the private sector, but the federal agencies as well. Having worked in Congress, this “phenomena” is not limited to export controls. With few exceptions, the agencies traditionally do not have sufficient resources to enforce the laws and regulations required of them by Congress. The export controls field touches the Commerce, State, and the Defense Department, as well as other agencies, has historically lacked resources and, at times, support from within the government.
While not taking a pro-State Department position, it is interesting that the Committee Report seems to be signaling conclusions that the primary problem is how the State Department has implemented and enforced the regulations. It states that the Department of State has managed the ITAR in a way that “defeats the premise of ITAR and causes a significant loss of market share in key industries for U.S. corporations.” Really? Is that not one of the reasons for this study?
The balancing act that must be done to secure U.S. technology from our enemies, while also not impeding the growth of commercial markets does not take place in a vacuum. Nor should this study. ”ITAR reform” has become a political talisman waved when one sector or group wants change. Such jujus should be cautiously waved. The onus for change needs to come from all parties, not just the State Department. These are no new issues, they have been debated since these laws were first enacted and will be debated for years to come.
It is not as if the State Deparment somehow ignores industry concerns, quite the opposite. The Arms Export Control Act (AECA) says it cannot and, in practice, it works closely with industry to try and make these laws and regulations work in a variety of ways. For example, the Defense Trade Advisory Group (DTAG) recently published a rather robust list of suggested substantive changes to various ITAR sections as well as list of new priorities. A list of proposed rule changes, including one for satellites, is also available for review here.
In addition to the ITAR report, the committee is also requiring the DNI to prepare two additional studies that are worth a mention. One involves a review of the illicit trade of nuclear and radiological material and equipment. The other involves a review of the global supply chain. Interestingly, these two reports are somewhat related to the ITAR study, yet it appears that they are to be completed independent of one another. That’s too bad. In practice these three issue areas meet up in the real world and a change or reform in one area could impact the others.
Posted in Export Controls, ITAR, current events, national security, news | Tagged Congress, current events, DDTC, EAR, Export Controls, ITAR, news | Leave a Comment »
Jennifer Rubin pens on Obama’s non-proliferation fetish.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a final rule to amend the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement the 2008 Australia Group (AG) intersessional decisions, which were recommended at the Intersessional Implementation Meeting held at The Hague on October 8-9, 2008. In part, the final rule amends the EAR to reflect changes to the AG “Control List of Dual-Use Chemical Manufacturing Facilities and Equipment and Related Technology and Software” affecting valves and toxic gas monitoring systems.
On Honduras, O’Grady writes in today’s Wall Street Journal: ”Hondurans had the courage to push back. Now Chávez-supported agitators are trying to stir up violence. Yesterday afternoon airline service was suspended in Tegucigalpa when Mr. Zelaya tried to return to the country and his plane was not permitted to land. There were reports of violence between his backers and troops.”
Meanwhile, the former Costan Rican Ambassador to the United States, Amb. Jaime Daremblum, pens at the Weekly Standard that it was the former president of Honduras that started the Honduran “imbroglio when he ignored a Supreme Court ruling and tried to use thuggish mob tactics to impose his will on the Honduran political system.” Indeed.
Staged photos by Zelaya supporters in Honduras? And a hat tip to Plumb Bob.
Over at the Export Law Blog, Clif Burns writes that a D.C. Circuit appeals court has reversed “a lower court ruling that had dismissed a case filed by Del Monte against the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (”OFAC”) alleging that OFAC was taking too long to process a license application Del Monte had filed to export agricultural commodities to Iran.”
The Obama Administration “has given his administration until Oct. 1 to scrutinize existing national space policy as part of a sweeping review that could culminate in a new strategy governing American civil and military space activities.”
Russians send military to combat piracy off Africa’s eastern coast. Sent by a reader this weekend, the Volokh Conspiracy has a good maritime anti-piracy post chain that is worth a review.
Posted in Honduras, Piracy, current events, national security, news, non-proliferation | Tagged Export Controls, current events, NASA, news, Honduras, non-proliferation, Piracy, Zelaya, outer space | Leave a Comment »
In a masterful political move, the new Honduran government withdrew from the OAS this weekend and its leaders told the OAS Secretary General that they thought he was in Honduras to deliver the impeached President for arrest. Obama officials are reportedly seething and looking for a way out of this political crisis that they, in essence, have created. So, in less than a month, the Obama Administration has pushed a democracy out, Honduras, and lobbied to get a dictatorship, Cuba, back in as a member of the OAS. Not their finest hour.
Facilitated by the Obama Administration’s Latin America advisors, the Bolivarian anti-American Axis of the Americas has had a good week. From the meddling at the Organization of American States (OAS) and its approval of a specious resolution condemning Honduran democratic processes, as well as the equally fallacious statements by unnamed administration officials of a coup d’etat, the U.S. has cravenly turned its back on ally. For some reason yet unknown, the Obama Administration has allowed Cuba, Venezuela, and the rest of the Latin American left to control this process.
People who insist on calling recent events a military coup have no idea what they are talking about. By all accounts from the current Honduran leaders (including a close to absolute majority of the Congress and the Supreme Court), as well as noted outside observers, the events that gave rise to the new government were legal and constitutional. This is not a case of a military official using the military to topple a democracy, as in the case of Cuba and Venezuela, but rather the military was ordered to act in defense of democracy and rule of law. And, even if it were the current government, judged customary international law norms (not to be confused with new age globalism), would be legitimate.
Freedom is not easy, it is hard. The Honduran people know a thing or two about this. It has been building a democracy since the 1980s in a part of the world where these things are anything but easy. Honduran leaders understood, however, that freedom trumps totalitarianism and socialism any day. In doing so, Honduras committed a political mortal sin in the eyes of Latin America’s cadre of leftists: it chose to ally itself with the United States.
During the Cold War, Honduras backed U.S. efforts to stem the growth of Marxists governments in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The U.S. is Honduras’ main trading partner, while Honduran ex-pats send close to a billion dollars a year of remittances to their relatives. Since at least the 1960s, the U.S. military has worked with the Honduran military. The Soto Cano military base has been operational since at least the 1980s. An economically poor country, it still found the means to sacrifice several hundred of its finest soldiers to assist in the global war on terrorism. They have cooperated in counter-narcotics and anti-gang efforts.
No relationship is perfect, none ever is. Yet the acts of the past few weeks that culminated in a constitutional change in government were not a coup in the flavor of coups that took place in the 1960s and 1970s – far from it. One would think that Obama’s Latin America advisors would understand these nuances. If they do, to characterize the recent change in government as a military overthrow is tantamount to political negligence. It harms U.S. economical, political, and security interests. The Obama Administration was quick to react and it never gave constitutionally-elected Congressional leaders an opportunity to explain its side of the story. They paid short shrift to the Supreme Court decrees. This is not how one treats an ally.
Unless a resolution can be found for this matter consistent with Honduran law, it will be the Obama Administration that will set back the growth of Honduran democracy. It seems to have an extreme obsession for meddling in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state through international organizations such as the OAS. In the process, it is making things easier for the enemies of freedom to further weaken rule of law and democratic institutions throughout the hemisphere.
The U.S. can be a good and trusted partner for freedom and democracy around the world, or we can be an obstacle. We can help advance freedom’s promise, or as we are doing in Honduras, muddle it, so much so, that people simply give up and resign themselves to the status quo. The Honduran people do not want to become another Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, or Nicaragua. Hondurans want to keep their country free and independent of external meddling by these countries, the UN and the OAS. On our Fourth of July weekend, the Obama Administration should be focusing on that reality. It needs to support rule of law and freedom.
Posted in Democrats, Honduras, Law, Western Hemisphere, current events, national security, news, politics | Tagged Central America, Cuba, current events, Honduras, news, Venezuela, Zelaya | 2 Comments »
The Hudson Institute hosted an interesting conference yesterday, “Populism, Islamism, and “Indigenismo” vs. Democracy in Latin America.” Doug Farah discussed the dangers of the Bolivarian-Islamist narrative in the region.
A University of Tennessee professor has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for passing controlled technical data to Iran and China. Dr. J. Reece Roth, a plasma physics researcher and professor, is believed to be the first person in a university setting successfully prosecuted and sentenced for violations of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) for passing technical information to foreign nationals that was developed in the course of research.
While on the subject of export controls, the Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), published a summary of a new priorities discussion by the Defense Trade Advisory Group (DTAG).
For your reading pleasure, the Export Law Blog has summarized some of the more notable civil penalty cases recently published by the Treasury Department, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act blog reminds readers that Honduras is not the only Western Hemisphere country with issues these days. Turks and Caicos Islands have been under investigation by authorities in the United Kingdom for rampant corruption. FCPA Blog pens that “the British government announced plans to suspend the territory’s political institutions and impose direct rule.”
A former executive of Philadelphia-based Nexus Technologies Inc. pleaded guilty this week in connection with his participation in a conspiracy to bribe Vietnamese government officials
in exchange for lucrative contracts to supply equipment and technology to Vietnamese government agencies, in violation of the FCPA. It is the first FCPA case involving Vietnam.
In the export control world, the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to include an “initial list of end-users for India approved to receive exports, reexports and transfers of certain items under Authorization Validated End-User (VEU).” The change authorizes “one VEU in India and identify the respective eligible items for export and reexport to that VEU’s facilities.”
Over at the Cuban Triangle Blog, Phil Peters seems perplexed on the Honduras matter. He states that he cannot understand “how the Honduran military’s resolution of this situation – putting troops in the streets, seizing broadcast media, grabbing the President in his pajamas and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica – has earned so much applause on the right in the United States.” Maybe it is because, in part, it is likely the first time in the history of the region that a military has acted on direct orders from a democratic institution, and the courts, in support of the rule of law and not in response to a strongman seeking power by subverting democratic institutions.
Bruce Klinger at the Heritage Foundation discusses recently imposed economic sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by the Obama Administration. Just in time for our Independence Day celebrations, North Korea announced this morning that it had launched several missiles.
Finally, Obama is the first post-American president.
Posted in Export Controls, FCPA, ITAR, Latin America, current events, news | Tagged Arms Export Control Act, Bolivarian, DDTC, Islamist, Latin America, Reece Roth, Turks and Caicos | Leave a Comment »
In what can only be described as an politically absurd move, the Obama Administration seems to have suspended military cooperation with the Honduran military. In doing so, it not only continues to confuse the issues about what is taking place in this Central Amreican country, but also harms U.S. interests in the region.
The Miami Herald reports that according to an unnamed White House source, “the U.S. has cut off contact with those who conducted the coup” and that the U.S. would be “standing down on our different cooperation programs.” This is at least the second time this week that unnamed White House sources talk with reporters on the condition of anonymity about the events transpiring in Honduras.
The United States maintains a facility on Soto Cano, Honduras called Joint Task Force Bravo (JTF Bravo). Its primary mission is to “is to support and conduct joint, combined and interagency operations in the Joint Operations Area, to enhance regional cooperative security initiatives and to support democratic development.” The men and women at JTF Bravo save lives, provide medical care, and look after many U.S. security interests in the region.
Cutting off cooperation, albeit temporarily, makes no sense and will play right into the hands of the Castro-Chavistas.
Posted in Honduras, Latin America, Western Hemisphere, current events, national security | Tagged current event, Honduras, Latin America, news, Obama | Leave a Comment »
Mexico has started nuclear radiation detection operations at one of its busiest seaports. A similar program was initiated in Jamaica earlier this year.
For decades a majority of the leaders throughout the Western Hemisphere worked against U.S. policy toward Cuba. Regional leaders criticize U.S.-Cuba sanctions as “inhumane,” among other things. How times changed. It seems as if Honduras is now the target of sanctions because its democratically-elected Congress, supported by its Supreme Court, impeached a lawbreaking President. And the Obama Administration is going along with it. It seems ideological brotherhood trumps doing the right thing.
While on the subject of Honduras, over at the Heritage Foundation, Ray Walser, PhD, talks about how there is a “grave danger that by acting against the new constitutional arrangement order established by the Honduran congress, supreme court, and military, bloodshed and political chaos are likely to follow.”
On dictatorships and double standards.
Ecuador’s Rafael Correa on why he will not renew the lease on our base in Manta and his attacks on U.S. corporations, in his own words. What he fails to mention, of course, is his support of Colombian terrorist groups such as the FARC or Ecuador’s new alliances with state sponsor of terrorism Iran.
Chalk one major victory up in the battle to clean up the MS-13 crime wave. Underreported in the media, last week the FBI announced the first indictment in Los Angeles, California to allege racketeering charges against more then twenty MS-13 members.
At the Nogales International, Raoul Contreras pens an interesting piece about the forthcoming Mexican Congressional elections. He says that “If I were voting in Mexico, I would vote with the PAN to bury the corrupt PRI, for “corruption is the PRI and PRI is corruption” as was put by Vicente Fox when he brought Mexico into the new millennium with his smashing victory in 2000. The PRI hasn’t changed; Mexico has.”
Posted in Central America, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Western Hemisphere, current events, news | Tagged Cuba, drug cartels, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, MS-13, nuclear, terrrorism | 1 Comment »
It is difficult for most of us who have never lived under the yoke of communism, or lived in fear of it, to make sense at what has transpired in Honduras during the past several months. There is a lot more at stake in tiny Honduras than democracy and rule of law. Regional stability and freedom are under attack by several Cuba-led powers in the region. Cuba, through its socialist proxy Venezuela, seeks to spread an alternative political and economic order for the region. A majority of Hondurans do not want this.
The Obama Administration has either chosen to ignore regional power grabs by Cuba and its proxies in the Americas or it is actively support leftist populist leaders. Either position is regretful and hurts U.S. interests. The Administration’s response to the Honduran matter is quite telling. Rather than wait for the facts, there were knee-jerk reactions by unnamed officials in support of the impeached leader.
The National Security Council (NSC) and the State Department, blinded by parochial political interests,has been working behind the scenes for several weeks to avert this situation and it failed to contain it. This is the second political failure by the Obama Administration in the Western Hemisphere. The first was facilitating Cuba’s reintegration in the Organization of American States (OAS), in contravention of U.S. law, only to be told by Fidel Castro that Cuba was not interested. The third? It could be be denying Colombia support for a free trade agreement or extending trade benefits to Ecuador, a country that has no rule of law and whose leader, Rafael Correa, works against U.S. interests throughout the Andean region.
The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas – a melange of leftist nations led by marginally democratically-elected autocrats – will fail at some point because it is based on lawlessness and suffocates freedom. Its core members including Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua will interfere in other nations in the region in a vain attempt to prolong the political life of this already decaying carcass. In the meantime, it can cause great damage and instability to the political and economic reforms of the past twenty years. It will also destabilize the region with its support of terrorists (including the Iranians), drug cartels, human smuggling, socialism, and rabid anti-Americanism.
A majority of the Honduran people do not want socialism or alternative economic orders based on outdated socialism or Cuban-led communism. Based on the legislative record of the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court decisions, and the statements made by members of a majority of all political parties in Honduras, the former president was opening the door to the Cuban-led cancer and he was violating Honduran laws to make it so.
Honduras has been a good ally and trade partner of the United States, it has even sent troops to support efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The response by the Obama Administration is inappropriate and impulsive, not becoming of people who claimed the mantle of “change.” Rather than wait for a complete set of facts on which to make a decision, it sided with the politically irrelevant OAS, Cuba and its proxies, and in the process turned its back on the elected Honduran Congress. This is not how one should treat an ally. Herein lies the true failure of the Obama Administration’s response.
Posted in Central America, Cuba, Nicaragua, Western Hemisphere, current events, politics | Tagged Central America, Cuba, current events, Honduras, Obama, Venezuela | 1 Comment »
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