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Sen. McCain: 'Assad could have been stopped last year'
The civil war in Syria could have been stopped last year if President Obama had armed the rebels, Republican Senator John McCain told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
“I always believed that we could provide weapons and training, but I also felt it was important to establish a safe zone,” McCain said. Had that happened, he added, “I am confident that [the rebels] would have succeeded by now.”
In Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s exit testimony before Congress last week, he revealed that Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus had offered up a plan to arm and train the Syrian opposition last summer. The plan was rejected by the White House.
With his testimony, Panetta became the first senior official to publicly admit that he, along with key members of the President's national security team, disagreed with the White House decision not to give weapons to Syrian rebels.
Two years into the fighting, the vicious war has at best reached a military stalemate. There is no meaningful sign that either side is ready for real negotiations, though both the opposition and the Assad regime have recently indicated for the first time that they would be willing to talk.
With 60,000 dead, Syria may be headed toward a Somalia-style failed state that could threaten the U.S. and its friends in the region.
What is Plan B? Senator John McCain answers that question in the video above.
READ MORE: Plea from parents of missing American in Syria
Pope’s friend ‘not surprised’ by Benedict XVI’s decision
The Pope’s announcement on Monday that he will resign at the end of February surprised the world, and even many of his closest aides.
But one friend of Pope Benedict XVI isn’t shocked at all.
“I’ve known him for many years. I’m not surprised at this decision that he made today because he’s always placed the emphasis – the priority of the Catholic Church over any kind of ambition,” the Former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Joseph Flynn, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday. “I think he has really recognized and sees that this is an opportunity to move the Church forward for a more energetic person in good health.”
The Pope has admitted in the last four or five months that he is in declining health, Flynn said.
In the video above, Flynn says the timing of the Pope’s announcement may have to do with Lent, an important six week period for many Christian denominations leading to Easter Sunday, which begins this week.
Look up! Drones now hovering over America
By Lucky Gold & Samuel Burke, CNN
Remotely piloted airplanes, or drones, are increasingly responsible for projecting America’s military might around the world.
Missile strikes from the drones are causing increasing ire from Pakistan to Yemen to Somalia. But imagine drones coming home to roost, in the skies above America.
It's already happening, albeit without the missiles.
Some adventurous amateur spirits who call themselves “Team Black Sheep” are making amazing videos with ingenious miniature drones (watch the video above).
They're also making a statement, showing security lapses in America's airspace. From the majesty of New York’s Statue of Liberty and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, to the gaudy spectacle of the Las Vegas Strip, the drones fly around some of the U.S.’s most-famous landmarks – sometimes buzzing by just a couple feet away.
A federal law that flew under the radar last March allows surveillance drones to monitor U.S. borders.
Cash-strapped police departments have started exchanging expensive helicopters for inexpensive drones.
In two short years, commercial drones will be allowed to take flight, putting even more eyes in the sky.
Fasten your seat belts, America.
READ MORE: Grandfather grieves teenage grandson killed by U.S. drone
When can America kill Americans?
When can America kill Americans?
PART 1: CNN's Christiane Amanpour explores how U.S. drones have been used to kill Americans.
When can America kill Americans?
PART 2: CNN's Christiane Amanpour explores how U.S. drones have been used to kill Americans.
By Samuel Burke & Ken Olshansky, CNN
For much of the world, drones represent everything that is wrong with American foreign policy. The sizable majority of Americans, on the other hand, have no problem with them.
In the latest polling, 75% of Americans approve of the use of unmanned aircrafts against terrorist suspects overseas.
In the countries that are on the receiving end of drone attacks, such as Pakistan and Yemen, there is rage. As well as significant evidence that drones have killed and injured civilians.
In Washington on Thursday, the secretive policy had its first official public airing, as Congress started confirmation hearings for John Brennan, whom President Obama has nominated by to be the next CIA director. Brennan is currently President Obama’s counterterrorism chief and the principle architect of the U.S. drone policy.
It was Brennan who first publicly admitted the existence of the drone program last year.
In a speech last year at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Brennan said, “Let me say it as simply as I can: Yes, in full accordance with the law and in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the united states and to save American lives the united states government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones. And i m here today because president Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts.”
Much remains secret about the drone program. Most notably is the “Kill List” – targets, including American citizens, that the President is said to personally approve.
Indeed, three Americans are known to have been killed by drones, including a 16-year-old American boy who was born in Colorado, who the son of American-born al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
The Brennan hearings may be an accountability moment.
Leading the charge is a Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who has laid out some fundamental questions about the drone program.
“Every American has the right to know when their government believes it's allowed to kill them,” Senator Wyden said on MSNBC Thursday morning. “I don't think that, as one person said, that is too much to ask. And this idea that security and liberty are mutually exclusive, that you can have only one or the other, is something i reject.”
In the video above, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour puts Senator Wyden's questions to two experts: Mark Lowenthal, a former CIA official who approves of the U.S. drone policy; and Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Warren is one of the lawyers representing the al-Awlaki family’s case against the U.S. government.
READ MORE: Grandfather grieves teenage grandson killed by U.S. drone
Has the U.S. outsourced torture?
By Samuel Burke, CNN
President Obama came into office denouncing the Bush years of torturing alleged terrorists, also known as “enhanced interrogation.”
But it is unclear if Obama has repudiated another shadowy practice called “extraordinary rendition,” according to a comprehensive report published this week by the Open Society Justice Initiative.
It says the CIA has outsourced interrogation and detention to countries outside the reach of U.S. law. FULL POST
Woman fighting rape in India’s old boys club
Five men are on trial in India this week for the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old girl.
The case has put India’s treatment of its women, and especially rape victims, under the spotlight as never before.
Even if a rape is reported, victims often complain that Indian police either dismiss their complaints or fail to protect them from their attackers.
Indian police estimate that a staggering 60% of rapes go unreported. Just 26% of the prosecuted cases resulted in convictions in 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Kiran Bedi was the first high-ranking female officer in India's police force. Her tough brand of law enforcement made such an impact that she became a nationally-recognized figure. A documentary film called ‘Yes madam, sir,’ chronicled her career as a crusading activist.
She knows better that most what needs to change in her country – demanding a wide-ranging education campaign and an entire overhaul of the police, judiciary and politics to combat the systematic scourge of rape and violence against women in India.
In the video above, Bedi tells CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about the old boy’s club she fought as an officer and says must be taken on again to combat the culture of rape.
READ MORE: Indian rape debate: Why death penalty is no solution
One man and a $60 billion-dollar checkbook
By Ken Olshanksy, CNN
Dr. Jim Yong Kim may have one of the best jobs in the world, but also the hardest.
As head of the World Bank, he has almost $60 billion to spend to fight poverty and boost the middle class. But poverty isn't giving up without a fight.
About 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day, a number that hasn't changed much in more than 30 years. And successful growth of the global middle class comes at a cost: A massive income disparity as the poorest are left behind.
Raising the standard of living across the world is crucial to keeping the world safe and secure. But Jim Yong Kim is not your typical banker. He is a doctor and anthropologist, with an extraordinary track record fighting disease in the poorest corners of the world.
READ MORE: Selling little girls to pay back debt in Afghanistan
A glimpse into Putin’s mindset
By Mick Krever & Claire Calzonetti, CNN
The Russian-U.S. relationship is, once again, decidedly cold.
Dueling pieces of legislation and the threat of cancelled trips in recent months have been escalating a political tit-for-tat.
A Cold War it is not, but it is certainly enough to make President Barack Obama’s much-trumpeted “reset” in Russian-U.S. relations seem thoroughly off the rails.
“There are issues that we disagree upon,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s longtime spokesman and adviser, Dmitry Peskov, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “But we agree… that our relationship is very much important, and we have to work in order to change the negative trend.” FULL POST
DRC’s prime minister: ‘Peace within reach’
By Samuel Burke & Claire Calzonetti, CNN
One of the deadliest countries on earth may be on the cusp of peace its prime minister told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
Nearly four million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo since war erupted in 1998. A brief lull brought some calm until a rebel group called M23 launched a rebellion in resource-rich Eastern Congo last year and subsequently took over the city of Goma.
“Peace is really now at our reach in the whole of the DRC,” Prime Minister Matata Ponyo Mapon told Amanpour. “If M23 rebels did not have external support to come and destabilize both territories, by now, we would have had peace and security on the whole of the DRC.”
A recent U.N. report accused the DRC's Western-backed neighbor, Rwanda, of supporting the M23 rebel group, although President Paul Kagame denied the accusation in an interview with Amanpour just last week.
“It's a big ‘no’ on the issue of saying that I am accepting this kind of responsibility,” Kagame told Amanpour. “But what I am accepting is that people can work together to find a solution to this problem that affects Rwanda [and] also affects the Congo.”
Prime Minister Ponyo said that the DRC takes the U.N. accusations aimed at Rwanda at face value. “It's not only the DRC that says it, even the United Nations says so,” adding that the alleged interference is an obstacle for achieving peace.
He also emphasized that the DRC President Joseph Kabila cannot restore peace overnight given that war has torn apart the DRC for more than a decade.
Prime Minister Ponyo is currently in the United Staes to pursue further diplomacy at the U.N. and in Washington, D.C.
What Nigeria and the Super Bowl have in common
By Luck Gold & Samuel Burke, CNN
While American waited 35 minutes for the Super Bowl’s lights to come on, Nigerians just chuckled.
They know all too well the problem of power outages: Nigeria has been plagued by rolling blackouts that last hours, sometimes even days.
So as the television audience worldwide waited for the power to come back on, Nigerians took to social media with wit.
"Power outage at the Super Bowl on Sunday. Suddenly, Nigeria doesn't look as dark anymore,” tweeted one Nigerian.
"If they had the Super Bowl in Nigeria, the power coming back on would be the real surprise," another tweeted.
Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that his country’s electrical woes have been improving.
“That is one area that Nigerians are quite pleased with the government, that commitment to improve power. It's working,” President Jonathan told the president.
Many Nigerian viewers tweeted messages to Christiane Amanpour to express their continued frustrations about having to rely on back-up generators for power.
In the video above, you can watch an “Open Mic” series CNN conducted after Amanpour’s interview with President Jonathan. We left a microphone in a public place and recorded Nigerians expressing their frustrations with their notoriously unreliable power supply.
READ MORE: Nigeria battles to stop spread of al Qaeda chaos in Africa
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