Syria and the Hand of Foreign Intervention/FSA IS NO ANGEL/TURKEY HAS A PROBLEM/ The Syrian debacle/Is Libya the New Iraq?/SECTARIAN PAKISTAN
Enrique Ferro
Mossad Accused of Assassinating Syrians
Syrian
Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi accused Israel’s Mossad on Monday
of carrying out targeted assassinations in Syria, as well as aiding the
rebellion which has brought Syria to civil war. “We found arms caches with the weapons used by the terrorists, and their source was Israel,” al-Zoebi said.
He also claimed some of the attacks against individuals and institutions in Syria “had the fingerprints of intelligence services, including Israel’s Mossad.” He did not elaborate or say which attacks Israel was allegedly behind.
Al-Zoebi also leveled criticism at Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who during the Non-Aligned Movement conference last week conveyed his sympathy to the Syrian rebels, likening their struggle to the Palestinian conflict with Israel.
“There is no difference between [ousted President Hosni] Mubarak and Morsi, who has done nothing for the Palestinians and continues to sell gas to Israel,” al-Zoebi said.
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/mossad-accused-of-assassinating-syrians.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/LkRU+%28Window+Into+Palestine%29
Syria Real News - September 6 roundup
"France providing money and arms to Syrian insurgents"
France has embarked on providing direct financial and arms aid to
insurgent-held areas of Syria and is even supplying anti-aircraft
weapons to terrorists fighting Syrian Army forces. A diplomatic source,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that France has
increased its contacts with Syrian armed groups over the past few weeks
as it intensifies efforts to weaken President Bashar al-Assa ... (click
link to read full article)
Syria Real News - September 7 & 8 roundup
Hospital bombing kills 10 in Syria's Aleppo
Ten people have been killed in a bomb attack carried out at a hospital
in Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo. The bombing comes one day after
five members of Syrian security forces were killed in a similar attack
carried out in the Ruknuddin district of the capital, Damascus. (Read
more)
Syrian army kills 200 insurgents near Damascus
Syrian security forces have killed about 200 insurgents in clashes near
the ca ... (click link to read full article)
NAM, Iran and all that fog - Part 2
September 6, 2012 - Iran... Or as the Iranis pronounce their
nation in farsi... Ee-raw-n... is a land of peace, generally unbroken
peace of the last 23 years. But its location being the Western part of
South Asia, and sitting right next to West Asia... living in peace is a
great achievement. Four nations around Iran have been either
regime-changed by NATO or are under de-stabilization. But not Iran.
Iran being neither a superpower nor a regional power, now ... (click
link to read full article)
Written by sameer
Have you ever heard about a "REVOLUTION" which asks the people:
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1- To kill the army
2- To boycott the national products
3- To burn the local currency
5- To threat people who don't obey to get beheaded
6- To bring back the French Mandate flag
7- To burn the Syrian national flag
8- To change the national anthem which was composed in 1938
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This "revolution" has a problem not with the government, but with SYRIA.. But again Media presents them to the world as angels on earth!!!
How the CIA's "Free Syrian Army" massacred citizens of Daraya
Source - by Paul Joseph Watson
Victims of the Daraya massacre
In an extraordinary account of the Daraya massacre by veteran journalist Robert Fisk, eyewitnesses reveal that it was U.S.-backed FSA rebels and not the Syrian Army who were responsible for the slaughter of 245 men, women and children.
The massacre, which took place last weekend, was instantly blamed on President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces by the global media despite video footage from the scene showing victims welcoming the presence of Syrian Army troops and blaming the violence on armed rebels.
Those eyewitness accounts have now been verified thanks to the courageous journalism of veteran reporter Robert Fisk, who is risking his life in his role as one of the few impartial media observers inside Syria.
In an article for the London Independent entitled Inside Daraya – how a failed prisoner swap turned into a massacre, Fisk reveals how he was able to talk to eyewitnesses independently of Syrian officials, all of whom said the violence was carried out by armed rebels before the Syrian Army even arrived in the town, which is five miles outside Damascus.
Explaining how negotiations for a planned prisoner swap between Syrian forces and FSA rebels broke down, Fisk quotes an eyewitness called Leena who said she saw ten dead bodies lying on the road near her home before Syrian troops had entered the town.
Another eyewitness reveals that most of the dead were off-duty army conscripts as well as a postman. “They included him because he was a government worker,” the man said.
“If these stories are true, then the armed men – wearing hoods, according to another woman, who described how they broke into her home and how she kissed them in a fearful attempt to prevent them shooting her own family – were armed insurgents rather than Syrian troops,” writes Fisk.
Fork-lift truck driver Amer Sheikh Rajab also told Fisk how armed rebels stormed his home, smashed the family’s possessions, burned beds and carpets and also stole television and computer parts, presumably to help in the construction of bombs.
Lorry driver Khaled Yahya Zukari also related how the armed rebels killed his wife and baby daughter simply for driving down the road.
“We were on our way to [the neighbouring suburb of] Senaya when suddenly there was a lot of shooting at us,” he said. “I told my wife to lie on the floor but a bullet came into the bus and passed right through our baby and hit my wife. It was the same bullet. They were both dead. The shooting came from trees, from a green area. Maybe it was the militants hiding behind the soil and trees who thought we were a military bus bringing soldiers.”
The Daraya massacre by no means represents the first time the international media has blamed a mass killing on Assad’s forces in order to grease the skids for a NATO military intervention when in fact the bloodshed was the work of Syrian rebels.
As the respected German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported, the Houla massacre, which was immediately blamed on Assad’s forces by the establishment media, was in fact carried out by anti-Assad Sunni militants.
President Barack Obama recently signed a secret order confirming that he would use taxpayer money to support Syrian rebels with “non-lethal aid”. However, the New York Times admits that the CIA is helping steer heavy weaponry to the rebels on the Turkish border paid for by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Al-Qaeda terrorists are also flooding in from numerous countries, most recently Yemen, in order to train and command the U.S.-backed rebel army. In a July 30 report, the London Guardian admitted that Al-Qaeda fighters met regularly with Syrian rebels and taught them how to build bombs.
Watch a video clip below in which further evidence of the FSA rebels being responsible for the massacre is presented.
Turkish officers take command of Syrian rebel brigades. N. Israel on alert
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 6, 2012, 10:59 AM (GMT+02:00)
Turkish army officers have assumed direct command of the first two
Syrian rebel brigades fighting Bashar Assad’s government forces,
according to debkafile’s
exclusive sources. This step has sent military tensions rocketing on
Israel’s northern borders with Syria and Lebanon in case of a backlash.
The rebel North Liberators Brigade in the Idlib region of northern
Syria and the Tawhid Brigade fighting in the Al-Bab area northeast of
Aleppo are now taking their operational orders from Turkish officers,
who exercise their authority from headquarters outside Syria in the
southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep. Nonetheless, Turkey is
considered to have stepped directly into the Syrian conflict marking the
onset of foreign intervention.
Western and Arab military circles in the Middle East expect Turkey to
extend its command to additional rebel units – not all of them part of
the Free Syrian Army.
This first step has already caused waves.
1. The consequences of Turkish military action in Syria were urgently
aired with CIA Director David Petraeus when he arrived in Ankara Monday,
Sept. 3, debkafile’s
intelligence sources reveal. After hearing how and when Ankara
proposed to expand its role in the Syrian conflict, Petraeus discussed
with Turkish military and intelligence chiefs the likely Syrian, Iranian
and Hizballah responses.
He then flew to Israel to continue the discussion there.
2. By then, US, Turkish and Israeli intelligence watchers were
reporting unusual military movements in Syria and on Hizballah turf in
southern Lebanon – suspected of being preparations for a blowback from
the Turkish intervention in Syria.
3. The IDF countered by placing its units guarding the Syrian and
Lebanese borders on a state of alert. Wednesday, Sept. 5, an Iron Dome
battery was installed in Gush Dan to head off a potential Hizballah
missile barrage on central Israel and its hub, Tel Aviv.
4. Later that day, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan commented: "The regime in Syria has now become a terrorist state."
Only a few of Erdogan's listeners understood he was laying international legal grounding for expanding Turkish military intervention in Syria.
debkafile's military sources report that Thursday, Sept. 6, military temperatures remained high-to-feverish along Syria's borders with Turkey and Israel, and along Lebanon's borders with Syria and Israel.
“Ankara now realizes that it doesn’t have the power to rearrange — forget it in the region, but also not in Syria,” said Gokhan Bacik, director of the Middle East Strategic Research Center at Turkey’s Zirve University. “So Ankara desperately needs American support. But American support is not coming.”
Turkey facing questions on Syria policy
By Karin Brulliard, Saturday, September 8, 2:38 AM
ANTAKYA, Turkey — Turkey, a rising heavyweight in the Muslim world, has led the international campaign to oust the regime in next-door Syria. But as the fighting drags on, Turkey is complaining that the United States and others have left it abandoned on the front line of a conflict that is bleeding across its border.
With its calls for an international haven for refugees in Syria going nowhere, Turkey is rushing to shelter an influx of about 80,000 Syrians. In the east, Kurdish militants who Turkey alleges are aided by Syria are intensifying deadly attacks. And in this Alawite-heavy border region, a rest and resupply hub for the mainly Sunni Syrian rebels, worries are growing that Syria’s sectarian strife might infect Turkey.
Turkish officials stand behind their Syria policy, and the problems have posed little threat to the moderately Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan or to Turkey’s carefully cultivated popularity in the region. But as opinion polls indicate declining domestic support for the government’s stance, Turkey is finding it has limited room to manage fallout that analysts say it did not anticipate when it turned against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year.
“Ankara now realizes that it doesn’t have the power to rearrange — forget it in the region, but also not in Syria,” said Gokhan Bacik, director of the Middle East Strategic Research Center at Turkey’s Zirve University. “So Ankara desperately needs American support. But American support is not coming.”
When a U.S. delegation visited late last month, the Turks made the case they had made two weeks earlier to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a senior administration official said: They were overwhelmed with Syrians, and they wanted the United States and others to establish safe areas, protected by a no-fly zone, for them inside Syria. Their limit, the Turks warned, was 100,000 refugees.
Clinton, confronted with emotional Turkish pleas, said that a no-fly zone would require major outside military intervention and that the United States did not believe it would help, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. But rather than dismiss Turkey’s concerns outright, Clinton called for further bilateral discussions and an “operation and command” structure for the two governments to coordinate their responses to the crisis.
Turkey’s posture toward Assad is the result of an about-face. Before the uprising, Syria was the centerpiece of Turkey’s “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy, and trade and travel between the countries flourished.
Now Turkey hosts the opposition Syrian National Council and provides a haven to the rebel Free Syrian Army and hundreds of defected Syrian soldiers. On Wednesday, Erdogan called Syria a “terrorist state.” The stance has boosted Turkey’s credibility in the Arab world but complicated its relations with Iran and Russia, which support Assad.
Turkey has constructed a string of 11 refugee camps along its border and is building more for newcomers, who the government says enter at a rate of 4,000 a day. Thousands are packed into public schools and dormitories, and hundreds of Syrians are being treated in Turkish hospitals.
Turkey backtracked on a recent statement that it would close its doors at 100,000 refugees. But Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who is facing growing criticism at home, suggested regret last week over the open-door policy.
“There is an increasing sense in Turkey that, through making such a sacrifice and tackling an enormous issue all by itself, we are leading the international community to complacency and inaction,” he said at the United Nations.
The refugee crisis is swelling as Turkish headlines are dominated by deadly battles in the alpine southeast between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a separatist insurgency for 28 years. Turkish officials accuse Syria of arming the guerrillas and empowering a PKK offshoot in sections of northeastern Syria along the Turkish border. Last month, Turkish officials blamed the PKK for a bombing that killed nine civilians in the city of Gaziantep.
Turkey is particularly concerned that Syrian missiles could fall into the hands of the PKK, enabling it to attack the helicopters Turkey relies on to fight the insurgents, Bacik said.
Yet even as Turkey condemns Assad, frets about a growing power vacuum in Syria and pleads for international intervention, officials and analysts say the country has no appetite for deploying its military unilaterally to confront Assad or secure a refugee zone.
There is widespread public opposition in Turkey to military action, and analysts say Turkey is wary of jeopardizing its popularity in a region where the legacy of Ottoman rule remains fresh. The Turkish military is ill-prepared for what could be a prolonged, Iraq-style sectarian war, said Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
“They realize this is a Pandora’s box, that you go in and God knows how you’re going to come out,” Barkey said.
Barkey said Turkey’s 566-mile border with Syria made the conflict “a no-win situation for the Turks from the beginning.” Turkish commentators and opposition politicians have seized on the issue as a policy failure, and some analysts and U.S. officials said Turkey exacerbated its woes by limiting U.N. involvement in the camps and allowing Sunni rebels and refugees to concentrate in the largely Alawite province of Hatay.
“The government is facing a crisis for which it has no answers, and a public at home that is growing increasingly uneasy over this,” Semih Idiz, a foreign policy analyst, wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News, an English-language newspaper in Turkey. “If this is not a debacle, then what is?”
That unease is palpable in Antakya, less than an hour from the border. Many residents of this scenic town and surrounding Hatay province are members of the Alawite minority Shiite sect that dominates the Syrian regime. Syria and Turkey are majority Sunni.
Antakya had been a shopping destination for Syrians. Since the rebellion, it has become a base for Syrian refugees and rebels, including thickly bearded men who stand out in a town where sundresses and shorts are common. Cross-border trade has slowed, and apartment prices have spiked.
Here, support for Assad remains strong, and there is simmering anxiety that Erdogan, the prime minister, is supporting the Syrian rebellion to cement Sunni supremacy in the region. Those fears have been stoked by Turkey’s main opposition party, which has accused the government of training radical Islamists in a nearby camp for defectors. The government denies that and says it has not armed rebels.
“They’re shaping some new religious fighters. What is the guarantee those fighters would not fight back against Turkey someday?” said Refik Eryilmaz, an opposition member of parliament from Hatay, which hosts five refugee camps.
Ismail Kimyeci, the Hatay chairman of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said critics are overstating the presence of fighters in Antakya. He dismissed the concerns as propaganda meant to stir division. “The Syrian people are demanding a new, free country,” Kimyeci said. Of the Syrians in Hatay, he said: “We don’t really see which religion they are. The Turkish policy is to help everyone.”
But tensions are festering. In interviews, Antakyans complained about Syrian rebels ditching restaurant tabs or robbing women of their jewelry, though none could cite personal experience. Last weekend, several thousand people protested Turkey’s participation in what was described as an imperialist plot against Syria. Some said all rebels must leave Turkey.
“They are saying, ‘After we finish in Syria, we will cut your throats here,’ ” said Ali Zafer, 33, a teacher who said he supports Assad, describing one common rumor about the rebels. Turkey, he said, “especially brought them to Antakya, to kill Alawites.”
Syrians interviewed said they generally feel welcome but know that might wear off. At a rebel safe house in Reyhanli, where the Alawite population is smaller, occupants said Turks stop by with supplies and encouragement.
“We are trying our best to obey the rules of a foreign country,” said a rebel commander who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Hashim.
But he also contended that the controversy should motivate Turkey to speed an end to the war. “It’s better for the Turkish government to send us weapons,” he said, “so they can avoid this fuss here.”
Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
The man who controls the FSA's operations around the border with Turkey then handed the designer $300 (£187) and a flash drive full of footage and photographs of the conflict. These included interviews with senior FSA commanders and images from the frontline; even gruesome footage allegedly showing a soldier from the regime's forces being decapitated with a chainsaw. "Sell that to CNN or the BBC and you can keep the profits!" the commander told the designer.
Syria's revolution is being branded
Free Syrian Army commander commissions designer logo in Turkey so fighters will look the part 'if we take Aleppo'
-
Seamus Mirodan in Kilis
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 September 2012 15.54 BST
The revolution is being branded. A young Turkish graphic designer from the small border town of Kilis in Turkey has been commissioned by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to design their logo.
More accustomed to creating posters declaring "girls need to go to school" for the local municipality's education programmes, 28-year-old Sedat Akpinar looked up from his computer to find the FSA's northern border commander, Abu Hayder, standing in his shop.
With designers and materials in short supply in Syria, the commander had crossed the border last week, hoping to find someone in Turkey who could help him create "an identifiable symbol" to be placed on cars, trucks, tanks, T-shirts, baseball caps and bandannas.
With him, Hayder had brought his "quality controller": an FSA soldier with a background in design, now occupied as a full-time sniper. The recruit had a bullet wound in his arm over which he had tattooed a sword. "Designed by me!" he declared proudly.
Sedat didn't feel like arguing, so he set about mocking up a design employing the green, white and black and three red stars of the Syrian flag superimposed with an eagle and an assault rifle "representing war".
Speaking only Turkish, the designer then had to draft in one of his neighbours, a local smuggler who spoke Arabic. Together, they were able to build the Arabic characters for "Northern Storm Brigade", a branch of the FSA, across the top of the insignia.
The Free Syrian Army's new branding.
Once he had approved the final mock-up, the FSA commander instructed Sedat to print 300 stickers with the logo, each with a different number, as number plates for his army's vehicles. The printing had to be done on the spot: Hayder was returning to Syria that day. But he assured Sedat that he would return shortly to order black T-shirts and baseball caps embossed with the logo. "If we take Aleppo we want all the fighters in our brigade to look the same when we enter the town," he explained.
Even as the bullets fly, this very 21st century rebel group appears to understand the power of branding and the media. By building a unified image, the commander told Sedat, the FSA is seeking to present itself as a force with the trappings of statehood, capable of not only looking to the future with confidence, but also taking a central role in driving change at the heart of the Syrian government.
The man who controls the FSA's operations around the border with Turkey then handed the designer $300 (£187) and a flash drive full of footage and photographs of the conflict. These included interviews with senior FSA commanders and images from the frontline; even gruesome footage allegedly showing a soldier from the regime's forces being decapitated with a chainsaw. "Sell that to CNN or the BBC and you can keep the profits!" the commander told the designer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/07/syria-rebels-revolution-designer-logo?newsfeed=true
NATO holds secret meeting approving Syrian operation - interview
Sep 5, 2012 12:02 Moscow Time |
|
Download
Collage: The Voice of Russia |
Rick Rozoff spoke to the Voice of Russia's John Robles regarding the recent "quiet" of NATO and among the topics he touched upon were a secret meeting by NATO which apparently approved military operations against Syria. Mr, Rozoff says that NATO and its Western allies are attempting to isolate Russia and China politically and using Syria as a pretext.
NATO has decided to stop training Afghan soldiers. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you know about that? That seems to be the latest development. They’ve been very quiet lately, which worries me.
It worries us both, John. Yes, in fact NATO suspended, I suppose, what’s called the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan to develop, I guess, a more comprehensive and reliable system of, to use their own word, "vetting" potential recruits of the Afghan national army and this is after, as your listeners know, an unprecedented series of so-called “Green on Blue” attacks by Afghan military personnel against US and other NATO forces in the country. Simultaneously of course the United States’ armed forces in Afghanistan have announced that they are going to suspend if not terminate the training of Afghan police personnel, so it signals the west falling deeper and deeper into an intractable quagmire in South Asia.
Would you characterize this as part of an overall failure of US policy and NATO policy in Afghanistan?
Yes, it’s demonstrable, it's a signal, an indication of catastrophic failure in Afghanistan of course. On October 7th, which, say, next month, the US and NATO will be in Afghanistan for their 11th year and it’s certainly not produced any successful results, it’s led to the dislocation, impoverishment and in many instances, killing, of Afghan civilians without any measureable achievements even according to what the West itself claimed it had intended to do in Afghanistan when the first troops were sent there on October 7th 2001. However, I should mention, we are talking about a quiet NATO and for the most part they have been, arguably since the summit here in Chicago in May, but certainly over the last month or so, nevertheless, NATO is about to launch a fairly large scale air exercises, a series of air exercises in Czech Republic, something called Ramstein Rover 2012, which will include the participation of 12 nations, presumably, both NATO full member states and partners, and this is a test of what are called Forward Air Controllers by NATO, by the United States Joint Terminal Air Controllers. These are the people who call in support including attacks in Afghanistan. So, the fact that such a large scale air exercise clearly targeted either towards Afghanistan specifically, John, or with applicabilities for an Afghan-style operation elsewhere in the world afterwards, suggest that the US and NATO plans for Afghanistan have certainly not ceased and contrary to pledges that both US and NATO will draw down or withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2 years it certainly suggests that they are planning an ongoing military operation.
On Saturday September 1st an article was published on the Internet. They say that NATO has secretly authorized an attack on Syria. Do you know anything about that?
Yes, I do. It’s by Gordon Duff who was a former US intelligence official. It’s actually quite a valuable work. In the article he talks about a meeting of NATO’s military committee in recent days where there were 2 topics on their agenda, one was Greenland, which he passes very quickly as it’s not of primary importance, but the second was on Syria. And what Duff indicates in his article rather convincingly, I am persuaded, is that NATO is elaborating plans for military action in, and against, Syria. I think it’s noteworthy that the meeting of the military committee that the author refers to is nowhere addressed on the NATO websites including on the main NATO homepage. I don’t know how Duff gained access to that information, but certainly it suggests that NATO is keeping a low profile so as not to divulge what its plans may be.
I’ve seen some reports say that NATO is actually targeting Bashar Assad and the Ayatollah of Iran for regime change. Do you know anything about that?
You know, it’s nothing that we are going to see NATO openly acknowledge but it’s common wisdom at this point, or conventional wisdom. To use the expression that's current, "the road to Teheran runs through Damascus” which is to say that the proxy war by NATO forces and their allies amongst the Arab Gulf sheikdoms and the Persian Gulf is, say, a warm-up exercise, if you will, for a comparable campaign against Iran. In that sense, if you want to draw a historical parallel, it’s much like the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s where forces on both sides of the political divide in Europe and in the world gave support either to the Spanish Republic that is to the elected government or to the military insurgents of Generalismo Franco. To update that parallel, just as Mexico and the Soviet Union had sent military and other aid to the Spanish Republic, so Hitler and Mussolini supplied troops and war planes against the government. And something comparable is accruing in Syria now where the United States and NATO allies. There was recent story in the British press, that at least 200 special forces troops from Britain and France, leading NATO members of course, are active on the ground, and your listeners I am sure have heard or read comparable reports. So that what you have is a proxy war by the NATO forces and their sheikdom allies in Persian Gulf not only directly against Syria but by proxy against Iran which, as you indicated in your comments, is the ultimate target. Though as we've had occassion to discuss before on your show, John, the other two targets of the campaign against Syria are of course Russia and China, you know, diplomatically at this point. But one wonders if the Russian North Caucasus, China’s Xinjiang province could not be made into the next Syria at some point in the future.
What is NATO’s position on intervention by Russia and China in Syria and Iran?
Of course there is no question about military intervention by Russia and China at this point but if you are talking about Russia and China’s defense of international law in the cases of both Syria and Iran, the position of NATO which has not been formulated as a collective position by the alliance, but certainly listening to the statements by the foreign ministers and the heads of states of the major NATO powers, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and others, it’s patently obvious that Russia and China are being criticized and in fact are being excoriated for having the alleged temerity to defend the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of other members of the United Nations such as Syria and Iran. So, the NATO members acting in collusion if not completely collectively under the banner of NATO are criticizing and more than criticizing, are attempting to politically, and diplomatically isolate Russia and China using Syria as a pretext.
That was PART I of the interview with Mr. Rick Rozoff, the manager of the Stop NATO website and mailing list.
- David Ignatius
- Opinion Writer
Some relevant comments:
Al Qaeda are in Syria in their thousands,
not hundreds, and America is actively supporting Al Qaeda in their
desperate attempt to overthrow Assad and install a puppet government
friendly to America.
At last an acknowledgement that our actions in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to the disaster in the Middle East today.
The dead of Hoola and Daraya were killed by men with shaven heads and long beards.
No army looks like that - but the insurgent radicalized pseudo-muzlims like Al Q'eda do.
The old US friends Taliban still do such slaughter back home - as they were allowed to do when they were doing a proxy war for the USA - and as they do it now in Syria again: as US mercenaries.
Syrians are better educated and less religious than Afghans. They are also better familiar with how western political systems work. But in any Middle Eastern power struggle, the educated civil minded forces lose to religious ones who in turn lose to fanatics. So yes, Syria can easily become another Afghanistan.
Syria’s eerie parallel to 1980s Afghanistan
By David Ignatius, Published: September 6
The United States and its allies are moving in Syria toward a program of covert support for the rebels that, for better or worse, looks very much like what America and its friends did in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The parallels are spooky. In Syria, as in Afghanistan, CIA officers are operating at the borders (in this case, mostly in Jordan and Turkey), helping Sunni insurgents improve their command and control and engaging in other activities. Weapons are coming from third parties (in Afghanistan, they came mostly from China and Egypt; in Syria, they’re mainly bought on the black market). And finally, a major financier for both insurgencies has been Saudi Arabia.
There’s even a colorful figure who links the two campaigns: Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who as Saudi ambassador to Washington in the 1980s worked to finance and support the CIA in Afghanistan and who now, as chief of Saudi intelligence, is encouraging operations in Syria.
What does this historical comparison suggest? On the positive side, the Afghan mujahedeen won their war and eventually ousted the Russian-backed government. (Yes, that’s another eerie parallel.) On the negative, this CIA-backed victory opened the way for decades of chaos and jihadist extremism that are still menacing Afghanistan, its neighbors and even the United States.
The Obama administration, to its credit, recognizes the dangers ahead. That’s one reason Obama’s approach to this war has been cautious and, according to critics, half-hearted and ineffective. Because the way forward is so uncertain, the administration has been taking baby steps. But it’s the nature of these wars that a little involvement leads to more, and still more.
What does history teach us about such interventions that may be useful in the Syrian case? Here are several points to keep in mind as the covert war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ripens:
●The United States should be wary of supporting a Saudi strategy that inevitably is self-interested. The Saudis understandably would prefer that Sunnis who oppose autocratic rule should wage their fight far from the kingdom; Damascus is a far safer venue than Riyadh.
● The United States should be cautious about embracing the Sunni-vs.-Shiite dynamic of the Syrian war. Rage against Shiites and their Iranian patrons has been a useful prop for the United States and Israel in mobilizing Sunni opposition against Assad, who as an Alawite is seen as part of the Shiite crescent. But this is a poisonous and potentially ruinous sectarian battle, the kind that nearly destroyed Iraq and Lebanon and is now plunging Syria into the inferno. The Saudis want to fight Shiites, yes, and further from home than in Bahrain, or in Qatif in the kingdom’s eastern province. The United States should not endorse the sectarian element of this conflict.
●The United States should work hard (if secretly) to help the more sensible elements of the Syrian opposition and to limit the influence of extremists. This policy was ignored in Afghanistan, where the United States allowed Pakistan (aided by Saudi money) to back the fighters it liked — who turned out to be among the most extreme and dangerous. America is still trying to undo the mess caused by that exercise in realpolitik. Don’t do it again.
●Finally, the United States should subtly play the tribal card, which may be as crucial in Syria as it was in Iraq. The leaders of many Syrian tribes have sworn a blood oath of vengeance against Assad, and their power is one reason the engine of this insurgency is rural, conservative and Sunni. But Iraq showed that the tribal leaders can be the best bulwark against the growth of al-Qaeda and other extremists.
What’s scary about Syria is that al-Qaeda is already fighting there, in the hundreds. Cells in Mosul and other parts of northern Iraq are sending fighters across the Syria-Iraq border, with the jihadist pipeline now operating in reverse. Arab intelligence sources tell me that the Syrian opposition is laudably battling al-Qaeda’s influence: The opposition killed an al-Qaeda fighter named Walid Boustani, who tried to declare an “emirate” in a town near the Lebanese border; they also demolished a cell that raised al-Qaeda’s black flag near Bab al-Salameh, along the Turkish border. Sunni opposition fighters aren’t necessarily al-Qaeda fanatics, in other words.
The rebels fighting Assad deserve limited U.S. support, just as the anti-Soviet mujahedeen did. But be careful: This way lies chaos and extremism that can take a generation to undo if the United States and its allies aren’t prudent.
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_05/NATO-holds-secret-meeting-approving-Syrian-operation-interview/
In fact, the Assad clan was long a target of jihadist wrath, described as godless tyrants oppressing good Muslims, in bed with the heretical Shia of Iran and too often cooperating with Western powers. Osama Bin Laden called on all jihadists to overthrow the Assads. Bin Laden is gone, of course, but the movement he sparked continues to gain momentum.
Syria and the Invisible Hand of Foreign Intervention
The
Polish Zionist ideologue Vladimir Jabotinsky, the father of Israel’s
right wing, observed nearly a century ago that much of the Arab world
was a fragile mosaic. A few sharp blows, he wrote, would cause it to
shatter, leaving Israel the region’s dominant power. Jabotinsky may have
been right.
Even if the Bashar al-Assad regime manages to hang on in Syria, that country’s economy is being wrecked, its people driven into poverty and neighbors tempted to intervene. Israel just threatened to attack Syria’s modest store of chemical weapons. Turkey is stumbling into the morass, egged on by the Saudis and Gulf Arabs. Russia’s national prestige is increasingly involved in Syria—which is as close to its borders as northern Mexico is to the United States. Iran may yet get involved.
We could be observing the beginning of a twenty-first-century version of the 1930s’ Spanish civil war, which became a proxy struggle between Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union. The only thing we know for sure about Syria’s civil war is that it is extremely dangerous to the entire region. Its outcome is entirely unpredictable. Meanwhile, the West keeps fueling the fires.
As a veteran correspondent who has covered fourteen conflicts and closely followed events in Syria since 1975, I have become convinced that there’s much more to the civil war raging in Syria than Westerners are being told by their governments or the blinkered media.
Last week, Reuters reported a classified intelligence “finding” signed by President Obama authorizing aid to the Syrian rebels. This may be the tip of the iceberg that eventually reveals an extensive covert campaign by the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to overthrow the Assad government in Damascus. According to this scenario, these U.S. allies would be using Qatar, assorted freelance jihadists and Lebanese rightists as cat’s-paws to sustain the uprising. Jihadists, both Syrian and foreign, may also play a spearhead role in the fighting.
In fact, the Assad clan was long a target of jihadist wrath, described as godless tyrants oppressing good Muslims, in bed with the heretical Shia of Iran and too often cooperating with Western powers. Osama Bin Laden called on all jihadists to overthrow the Assads. Bin Laden is gone, of course, but the movement he sparked continues to gain momentum.
That revolution has erupted again in Syria is no surprise: the Assad family and its Alawite power base have brutally ruled Syria for over forty years. Rebellions by the Sunni majority, led by the underground Muslim Brotherhood, have been crushed with ferocity. This writer was outside the city of Hama in 1982 when government heavy guns and tanks put down a Sunni rebellion there, inflicting an estimated ten thousand casualties.
But until recently, Syria was in our good books. The Assad regime quietly cooperated with Western powers and Israel, jailed or liquidated Islamists, and kept quiet about the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. The Bush administration even sent Islamist suspects to be imprisoned in Syria. Assad and his henchmen were another of our unsavory allies.
However, that was before war fever over Iran gripped Washington. Overthrowing the Assad government, Iran’s only Arab ally, would be a natural first step in overthrowing Iran’s Islamic government and isolating, then eliminating, Israel’s bitter Lebanese foe, Hezbollah.
If Syria were shattered into little confessional ministates and Hezbollah crushed, Lebanon likely would become an Israeli protectorate. Such was the strategic plan of Israel’s General Ariel Sharon in 1982.
Western powers already may be employing destabilization methods in Syria that were perfected in Libya. The DGSE, French foreign intelligence, cobbled together a group of Libyan exiles to form the “National Forces Coalition,” which rallied anti-Qadaffi elements in Benghazi. Britain’s MI6 intelligence had been active there for decades stirring up opponents of the Qadaffi regime.
In Libya, NATO air power intervened on “humanitarian” grounds to halt killing of civilians. News reports showed only lightly armed civilians battling Qadaffi’s regulars. Not shown were French, British and some other Western special forces disguised as Libyans that did much of the fighting and targeted air strikes.
France made use of a similar tactics in its brief border war with Libya in 1986 over the disputed Aouzou Strip on the Chadian-Libyan desert border. Chadian troops supposedly routed Libyan forces. In reality, the “Chadians” were actually tough French Foreign Legionnaires decked out in Bedouin dress. I interviewed some of the Legionnaires involved.
Fast-forward to today’s Syria. As a former soldier, I cannot believe that anti-Assad forces in Syria have made such great strides on their own. All armed forces require command and control, specialized training, communications and logistics. How have anti-Assad forces moved so quickly and pushed back Syria’s capable, well-equipped army? Where does all their ammo come from? Who is supplying all those modern assault rifles with optical sights?
China backs "transition" in Syria, opposes intervention
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/05/syria-crisis-china-idUSL4E8K51Y520120905Yang gave no details of what he meant by a transition in Syria, where the government of President Bashar al-Assad has been beset by growing opposition and armed rebellion. Russia has also offered broad support for such a transition.
"We support a period of political transition in Syria," Yang said at a news conference after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"But we also believe that any solution should come from the people of Syria and reflect their wishes," he said. "It should not be imposed from outside."
Lakhdar Brahimi, the new United Nations-Arab League mediator on Syria, has described his bid to broker peace there as "nearly impossible" but Yang stuck to a more hopeful message.
"I said in a phone call (to Brahimi) that China fully supports his mediation efforts and we hope all the parties will also support his mediation efforts so there can be an appropriate and peaceful solution to the situation in Syria," Yang said.
"On the question of Syria, let me emphasize that China is not partial to any individual or any party," he said.
"We hope that members of the international community will bring their positive influence to bear and get the various parties in Syria to adopt a realistic, calm and constructive attitude so that there can be an early beginning of political dialogue and transition."
Western governments, including the United States, have sought to gain the support of China and Russia in resolving the Syrian crisis.
The U.N. General Assembly last month overwhelmingly approved a non-binding resolution expressing "grave concern" at the escalation of violence and condemned the U.N. Security Council for its failure to take strong action.
But the Security Council has been prevented from taking stronger action by China and Russia, which have blocked three Western-backed resolutions that criticised Assad and threatened sanctions against Syria. A council meeting on the crisis on Thursday achieved nothing new.
Yang said China stood by a principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries.
Clinton acknowledged that it is "no secret" the U.S. government is disappointed by the positions of China and Russia on Syria, and reiterated that the best course of action remains tough U.N. Security Council action.
"We hope to continue to unite behind a real path forward to end the violence in Syria," Clinton said.
Meanwhile, she said, the United States would work with like-minded countries to plan for the day when Assad leaves power, "because we are convinced that he will".
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_06/Stop-meddling-in-Syrias-internal-affairs--says-Pakistani-general/
Russian Information Agency Novosti
September 6, 2012
"Stop meddling in Syria's internal affairs!" - says Pakistani general
Interference in Syria’s domestic affairs will lead to the collapse of the country and to the destabilization of the situation in the region at large, the former head of the Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant-General Asad Durrani, who is making a private visit to Moscow, told newsmen.
He believes that the non-interference in Syria’s domestic affairs is necessary for settling the existing problem.
“The change of leadership, like in Egypt, will lead to the destabilization of the whole region, to devastation and chaos”, Durrani said.
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8
1
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are engaged in a proxy war at the behest of the United States to destabilise Syria and change the regime in Damascus. Saudi Arabia bankrolls the insurgency, Qatar plays a role similar to the one it played in the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, and Turkey provides bases to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting President Bashar al-Assad. It is incredible how the FSA irregulars inflict heavy casualties on the battle-hardened Syrian army and knock out its tanks and helicopter-gunships.
The United States, Britain and France have thrown their might behind the Syrian rebels by providing them intelligence support and sophisticated weapons. The clandestine operation going on for the last 17 months against Syria is meant to weaken the influence of Iran in the region.
The Iranian leadership refuses to acquiesce to imperial designs in the Middle East, unlike the oil-rich sheikdoms. The pattern of Western intervention in Syria is all too familiar. It is the same old pretext of weapons of mass destruction as it was in Iraq, and the same powers-mainly the US, the UK and France.
The Iraq invasion in March 2003 was fresh in people’s minds when Libya was attacked by Western forces and its leader Muammar Qaddafi lynched. The new candidate for regime change is Syria and its leader Bashar al-Assad. In Libya the opposition was the Transitional National Council (TNC), and in Syria it is the Syrian National Council (SNC). Tony Blair played out the US agenda in Iraq, and David Cameron is faithfully doing the same in Syria.
Britain has already given £5 million in aid to opposition groups in Syria, and its special envoy to the Syrian opposition, John Wilks, has remained in contact with FSA members in Istanbul. Western powers continue to change the regimes of countries which cannot defend themselves and they do it too often and too brazenly.
The recently held summit of the OIC in Mecca has suspended Syria’s membership and backed calls for arming Syrian rebels to launch offensives against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has accused Assad of acts of repression against his own people. It is strange for the Arab League, which also contains repressive monarchies and dynastic emirates, to declare one of its member-states tyrannical. Who knows the scenario could change for the worse for Muslim countries which are now instigating rebellion in Syria.
For instance, what would happen if the Western media suddenly began to advocate the arrival of democracy in, say, Saudi Arabia, asking it to hold elections? And the CNN and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, known for influencing US foreign policy, could take up the sensitive issue of emancipation of women in the ultra-conservative Saudi society and insist that the Saudi Arabia granted them the right to vote. Ridding Afghan women of their blue cloak was part of the lofty agenda of the US invasion in Afghanistan, although the cloak stays when the invaders pack up to leave.
It is sad that the Muslim countries allow themselves to be part of campaigns against other Muslim countries because of sectarian prejudices. Iran has always assured Saudi Arabia and the emirates that it has no ill will towards them. Without outside support Qatar can hardly face Iran. In fact, Qatar is so vulnerable on its own that if threatened by Iran it would have to back off. Turkey, which is dreaming of becoming a member of the European Union, should first act as democratically and responsibly as the countries of Europe do.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Lahore. Email:pine...@gmail.com
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_09_06/Stop-meddling-in-Syrias-internal-affairs--says-Pakistani-general/
Russian Information Agency Novosti
September 6, 2012
"Stop meddling in Syria's internal affairs!" - says Pakistani general
Interference in Syria’s domestic affairs will lead to the collapse of the country and to the destabilization of the situation in the region at large, the former head of the Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant-General Asad Durrani, who is making a private visit to Moscow, told newsmen.
He believes that the non-interference in Syria’s domestic affairs is necessary for settling the existing problem.
“The change of leadership, like in Egypt, will lead to the destabilization of the whole region, to devastation and chaos”, Durrani said.
http://www.thefaultlines.com/opinion/924-view-sectarian-divide-the-modern-warfare.html
By: Farooq Yousaf*
The current situation in Syria is showing signs of bigger things to come. By the look of it, regime change may not be the sole purpose of the Western coalition, rather dividing Syria for long term goals may also be on the agenda.
Observers are of the view that the Syrian state may be heading towards balkanization - a model in which a state is fragmented into many parts. Maplecroft, one of the major risk assessment firms, also shares the same view:
“Kurds in the north, Druze in the southern hills, Alawites in the coastal northwestern mountainous region and the Sunni majority elsewhere”, it says talking of the different divides present in Syria.
With such an intricate nexus of different ethnic groups, it seems that the division of this Islamic state may be based upon these ethnic boundaries and may soon lead to a chaotic civil war among Shias and Sunnis. This, in other words, may mean that the process may initially lead to Lebonization, a mild form of balkanization, as witnessed in Iraq, before heading towards balkanization.
This scheme of things may promote sectarian hatred, ethnic dangers and racist expressions among different groups living in Syria. The pattern also seems to suggest that the in-fighting among these groups may be a far more easy tool to promote or force a regime change than a physical intervention. Such clashes also put a mark on neighboring countries, such as the Libyan effects in Niger and Chad where as the Syrian effects in Turkey and Lebanon.
The raging spiral of Syrian violence has also spilled over to Lebanon. As I write, members of the Meqdad Clan, belonging to Shia'ite community, of Lebanon have abducted some 20 Syrians in retaliation of one of their family members being kidnapped in Syria. The Saudi ambassador in Beirut and the United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry undersecretary advised their nationals to leave the country immediately, as did Qatar and Bahrain. Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry issued a similar warning anticipating the Syrian war aftermath in Beirut.
As the Arab Spring gained pace, public revolts gathered momentum in peaceful countries such as Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. But these movements had another dimension to them as well. Along with the public dissent against the rulers, there were ethnic Shia-Sunni conflicts in these regions. These conflicts boast a bigger danger compared to movements against the rulers.
Amidst the fiasco, there was still a state that kept itself safe from infighting and chaos. Egypt, a ground for both revolution and counter-revolution scenes, is heading towards positive developments, both domestically and internationally. Although the Western forces, along with Israel, are trying to meddle with internal affairs creating a faceoff between the Muslim Brotherhood and the army, the decision by President Morsi retiring an influential army general played down much of the speculations of the possible clash between him and the military establishment.
Libya, on the other hand, is a prime example of balkanization. With the country divided in to countless splinter groups, killing each other, there seem to be no signs of improvements in post-Gaddafi Libya.
The stake and viewpoint of Israel is important in this regard. President of a renowned Israeli think tank says, “What you have in Syria is that the Middle East is coming apart; a new form of chaos is replacing what has existed.”
Pakistan is also under the same ethic-cum-sectarian violence. With a fragile security situation in FATA and Balochistan, as a result of militancy and separation movements, a spate of ethnic violence on minority Hazaras, and different ethnic groups in Karachi, is making the situation worse. Although the situation is comparatively better compared to Syria, Iraq and Libya, yet a check on violence is imperative to avoid similar cases faced by the aforementioned states.
Sad enough is the situation of Sunni majority Muslim states supporting interventions in Shia led states such as Syria at present or Iran in future. The recent moves by the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) suspending Syria's membership depict the same phenomena of the Muslim states helping in promoting a possible foreign intervention in Syria.
Interesting to note is Turkey's role, a moderate Muslim state, having strong ties with USA and weak with many of the Muslim states, including Syria. Erdogan, the Turkish PM, has time and again blamed Syria for fighting that has erupted in Turkey’s Kurdish areas. On the other hand, he ignores the fact that the violence in Turkey is a direct result of Turkish interference and its support to rebels in Syria.
Sarcastic for the Muslim states though, is the fact that China and Russia, non Muslim states, are coming for the help of Syria in order to avoid any chaos. Russian Foreign Minister Dmitry Medvedve recently stated that the consequences in Libya have made Russia realise its mistake of allowing an intervention in Libya and that is why they are holding firm in Syrian crisis.
The situation on ground, even being extremely complex, is portrayed as a simple one by observers and analysts around the world. Even with smallest of skirmishes in Muslim states, the blame is directly laid upon religio-sectarian reasons. This calls for greater unity and compassion among Muslims on the whole who must start agreeing to underlying disagreements in pursuit of unity, harmony and strength.
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* The writer is working as a research analyst, programme consultant and content editor at the Centre for Research and Security Studies, Islamabad along with pursuing his Research Studies in Public Policy from Germany. He can be reached at far...@crss.pk
Of course! Couldn't you see it before hand? Besides, Benghazi has always been a hotbed of Islamist extremism: Don't you remember the fuss they made over the Bulgarian nurses/Palestinian doctor? The relevant rebel politician Mustafa Abdul Jalil, former Minister of Justice, twice upheld their death sentences, and only Saiuf al Islam managed to save their lives, in spite of the Benghazi mad dogs...
The Libya We Fought For Or Is Libya the New Iraq?
The Libya We Fought For Or Is Libya the New Iraq?
In Benghazi, a car bomb aimed at Libyan intelligence officials shook a crowded street. It’s not the first car bomb to strike Libya after the fall of Gaddafi. Benghazi has its own insurgency and remains a flashpoint for the looming civil war that no one is talking about.
Postwar Libya has not received the same scrutiny that postwar Iraq did. The reasons for that revolve around partisan politics and differences in commitment. American soldiers are not patrolling the streets of Benghazi the way that they did in Baghdad, and that translates into a lack of public engagement. Unlike Iraq, Libya is a back-burner issue, even if the oil-rich country is beginning to look a lot like Iraq.
The fall of Gaddafi, like the fall of Saddam, unleashed simmering tribal and religious tensions. While Libya does not have the sharp indigenous split between Sunnis and Shiites that Iraq does, the Arab Spring opened the door to Salafi violence across North Africa from Mali to Tunisia and east through Libya and as far as Egypt.
The Arab Spring uprisings have been used by the Islamists as a pretext for purging Christians in Egypt and Syria, as well as Sufis in Mali and Libya. Despite a recent election in Libya that was widely hailed as a signpost of stability, the country is in no way stable and its central authority is an illusion. Tribal warfare, even of the kind taking place in Zitan, 90 miles from Tripoli, is however a lesser evil compared to the revelation that the Libyan government either cannot stop the Salafi violence or is unwilling to do so.
Both possibilities are present and plausible. The Libyan military under Gaddafi was a patchwork of expensive equipment and incompetent troops. The loss of much of that expensive equipment in Gaddafi’s earlier wars and NATO bombing raids that targeted whatever was left over leaves the Libyan government with limited security capabilities.
The loose coalition against Gaddafi has been splintered by its own differing agendas. One of the few things that everyone agrees on is the necessity of using Islam and Islamic law to fill the gap left by Gaddafi and his charade of Libyan nationalism. If one of Gaddafi’s kin were to try and reclaim Libya, enough factions might unite together to put a stop to his efforts, but no similar coalition can be assembled to protect Libya’s Sufis or its women, the other group being targeted by the Salafis.
Libyan Interior Minister Fawzi Abdel A’al has made it clear that the Salafis have a free hand to do as they please. “If all shrines in Libya are destroyed so we can avoid the death of one person,” he said, “then that is a price we are ready to pay.”
Libyan security forces have stood aside or even helped the Salafis do to Libya what the Taliban did to Afghanistan. But that is only to be expected when many members of those security forces, patched together out of bands of ambitious Jihadi fighters, are Salafis. The Interior Minister may have unilaterally ceded all of Libya’s Sufi shrines to the Salafis, but the Salafis won’t stop at destroying graves. Not when they can fill them as well.
In Tunisia and Egypt, Salafi violence has been met with similar inaction or delayed reactions from the security forces. The Muslim Brotherhood and some other Islamists distance themselves from Salafi attacks on non-Muslims or on variant Muslim groups to maintain plausible deniability while the Salafis rid them of people they consider infidels and heretics. The Salafis have foreign backing and no shortage of recruits eager to kill and maim for the cause, and the Post-Arab Spring governments are staying out of their way.
“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and -– more profoundly -– our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are,” Obama said, in his speech defending the Libyan intervention. But what does the current state of Libya say about who we are?
The Libyan intervention handed over the country to rule by armed militias and as car bombs go off in major cities, and religious, political and tribal violence reaches a boiling point; what has become of that responsibility?
(***Well let me answer you what we think of your intervention! 1. You are thieves, 2. Mass Murderer’s, 3. You invaded our country for no reason we were no threat to you or to Europe, 4. You are so hungry to make an empire and use all Arabs and Africans as slaves that you do not care how many lives you destroy to achieve this including your own soldiers. 5. You do not bring Democracy YOU BRING DICTATORSHIP IN EACH COUNTRY YOU SET YOUR FOOT IN! 6. You Have not won a single war that’s how incapable you are, meaning your chicken shit, if you don’t have your Nepal bombs & atomic bombs you can’t win a war! go Yankee’s!)
http://libyaagainstsuperpowermedia.com/2012/09/08/the-libya-we-fought-for-or-is-libya-the-new-iraq/[AS A REMINDER:
Aug 26
Written by:
Diana West
Friday, August 26, 2011 5:38 AM
Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the man who twice upheld death sentences in the Bulgarian nurses show trial and is poised to lead post-Qaddafi Libya. But don't worry: The State Department says he's a refomer.
---
While making a correction in my column regarding Libyan "rebel" front man Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the former Qaddafi justice minister who now heads Libya's government-in-waiting, the National Transitional Council (NTC), I realized that US and NATO support for this man and the NTC and the "rebels" is actually worse than I previously thought, which was already pretty bad.
I don't refer only to the role Abdul Jalil played in the Bulgarian nurses show trial, which I mistakenly underestimated: I originally wrote that Abdul Jalil sentenced the five nurses and Palestinian medic to death when, in fact, as president of the Tripoli appeals court, he twice upheld their death sentences. Indeed, for these blatant perversions of justice (charges that the nurses had infected hundreds of Libyan children with HIV virus were unsubstantiated), Abdul Jalil was well rewarded. According to a March interview in L'Express with a Bulgarian journalist who has followed the case since it began in 1999, "loyal among the loyal" Abdul Jalil "was named [justice] minister in 2007 as compensation for his intransigence during that trial.” (Thanks to Nidra Poller for the translation.)
2007 was also the year the Bulgarian nurses were freed due to EU intervention (money?), particularly from France, after serving eight years in Libyan prison. Bulgaria is still seeking a credible probe into allegations that the nurses were tortured by the Qaddafi regime into making confessions (later recanted).
Lotsa luck on that. The new and supposedly improved post-Qaddafi government-in-waiting is a veritable "Bulgarian nurses affair" cabal.
There's Mustafa Abdul Jalil, as noted above. His lead role in upholding the show trial death sentences has completely vanished from the record. Now, he's the "reformer" whom Uncle Sam has had his approving if blind eye on for years. From McLatchey just this week:
A December 2009 cable from the American ambassador in Tripoli, Gene Cretz, passes along praise for Abdul Jalil, who was then the justice minister. Officials at Human Rights Watch told U.S. Embassy staff privately that Abdul Jalil was "a proponent of the rule of law," according to the cable, one of a trove of classified documents obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to McClatchy Newspapers and other news organizations.
"Abduljalil (sic) told HRW that he would continue to fight against the culture of corruption that allowed security services to operate above the law," the cable said.
In a cable sent the next month, embassy staff describe the first meeting between Abdul Jalil and Cretz. Abdul Jalil described efforts to reform Libya's criminal code - efforts that he spearheaded. The reforms would replace prison time with fines for some offenses and ultimately reserve the death penalty for murder only, he told Cretz.
How did Abdul Jalil keep a straight face? How did Crezt get his job?
There's also Idris Laga, as L'Express also reported. In recent months, Laga has been described in Western media as "the military coordinator for the rebel movement." Laga, too, played a prominent role -- "tres active" --in the Bulgarian nurses show trial as head of the Association of Relatives with Children with HIV, as Lysiane Gagnon wrote in Canada's Globe and Mail in April. Gagnon added a couple of key details to the story:
Idris Laga, the council’s “military co-ordinator,” was head of the Association of Relatives of Children Infected with AIDS, an organization set up by the regime to raise the price exacted for the Bulgarian nurses held hostage. Vladimir Chukov, a Bulgarian expert on the Arab world, says Mr. Laga “harbours a deep hatred for the West.”
And, as Gagnon wrote, there was yet another Qadaffi regime player in the torment, literally, of the Bulgarian nurses, who this year came to prominence in the anti-Qaddafi revolt.
Abdul Fatah Younis, a senior military commander of the insurgency, is a former interior and public security minister. As such, he was responsible for the system of torture set up by the Gadhafi regime.
Such torture included, according to the nurses, electroshocks, beatings and attacks from police dogs.
Younis was bumped off in July so we don't have to worry about him.
Or do we?
Sharia aside: These are the ruthless, amoral and bloodthirsty shakedown artists we, the world's easiest marks, have decided to empower with precious blood and treasure we don't have. This cabal -- the ruthless show trial judge, the opportunistic Qaddafi stooge and blackmailer, the Qaddafi torture-master -- came together at the core of the "rebel" movement. US and NATO support for it should cease.
Target Killing, Mass Murder Of Shia Minority In Pakistan
By Ismail Salami
06 September, 2012
Countercurrents.org
With thousands of Shia Muslims killed over the past few years in Pakistan and over 400 murdered in recent months, the killings have practically amounted to genocide, raising more-than-sectarian alarm bells not only in Pakistan but also across the Muslim world.
In fact, there has been a marked escalation in mass murders and target killings of the Shia minority in Pakistan, increasing global fear and consternation over the brutal bloodbath. According to World Minority Rights Report (2011), Pakistan ranks as the 6th worst country in terms of violence against and persecution of the Shia Muslims and minorities.
That the Shia mass murders have continued over the years with no legal and judiciary source or law enforcement agencies having sought to put an end to these brutalities indicates that these acts are but to be considered as part of a systematic and organized plot prodigiously funded and ingeniously engineered by internal and external forces with the express intention of making the pillars of Pakistani society fall to smithereens, shattering the very fabric of the Shia community and distorting the image of Pakistan and depicting it as a religiously intolerant nation.
The targets which were basically focused on any ordinary person with Shia belief has now come to include those Shia Muslims who belong to the educated and elite class of the Pakistani society.
At least four people have been shot down in Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan since Tuesday morning. A recent incident occurred at Kashmir Road near Jail Chowrangi where Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Ali Mohsin, 42, was shot three times in the head by assassins. Two more people were also shot dead in Pirabad area of the city. In another assassination, Shia Doctor Syed Naimatullah s/o Syed Sarwar was killed in Quetta in broad daylight at his clinic at Kirni Road.
Doctor Syed Naimatullah is the 419th victim of targeted killings since January 2012.
In another instance of elite killings, unidentified gunmen shot dead a Shia Muslim judge Zulfiqar Naqvi along with his driver and police bodyguard on August 30 in Quetta, southwestern Pakistan.
Apart from the target killings, other cases of Shia killings have been committed in the most grisly forms. A gruesome video recently circulated online by the Wahhabi Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) shows the beheading of two Shia Muslims.
An offshoot of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group first posted the video titled “Revenge” on August 23 on the Wahhabi terrorist Seminary Jamia Hafsa Urdu forum and then distributed it on other Wahhabi-Nasabi jihadist forums.
Four masked men accompany the victims Haseeb Zaidi and Maulana Nooruddin with their hands tied behind their backs and decapitate them in cold blood. The extensively networked terrorist group is widely believed to be behind the Shia killings in the country.
The gruesome nature of the murders helps disclose the identity of the perpetrators. The act of beheading victims is typically characteristic of Taliban extremists who also carry out similar atrocities against Shia Muslims in Afghanistan.
The history of violence against the Shia community in Pakistan goes back to the time of military dictator Zia ul-Haq who made it a state policy to fund and arm Wahhabi groups in the 1980s. It was during those years when he technically institutionalized violence by unleashing Sipah-e Sahaba fundamentalists on Shia-populated regions, ushering in a new age of violence and mayhem.
In 1988, Zia ul-Haq dispatched a huge army of 80,000 extremists to Shia-populated Gilgit region to annihilate the Shias. Adjacent villages such as Jalalabad, Bonji, Darot, Jaglot, Pari, and Manawar were razed to the ground and over 700 Shia Muslims were massacred. According to a Herald report “In May 1988, low-intensity political rivalry and sectarian tension ignited into full-scale carnage as thousands of armed tribesmen from outside Gilgit district invaded Gilgit along the Karakoram Highway. Nobody stopped them. They destroyed crops and houses, lynched and burnt people to death in the villages around Gilgit town. The number of dead and injured was put in the hundreds. But numbers alone tell nothing of the savagery of the invading hordes and the chilling impact it has left on these peaceful valleys.”
Simultaneously, Zia ul-Haq tasked Pakistan intelligence agency ISI with monitoring the activities of Shia organizations all over the country lest the Shia Muslims would be empowered in the wake of the advent of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
In order to avoid international blame for stoking sectarian violence in the country, Zia al-Haq decided to legitimize the anti-Shia activities of Wahhabi fundamentalists such as Sipah-e Sahaba to carry out this task for the government. Privy to the carnage of the Shia Muslims at the hands of the Wahhabi fundamentalists, the ISI refrained from stopping the genocide of the Shias. Worst of all, they even facilitated and financed the massacre on the secret orders of Zia ul-Haq.
What is now happening to the Shia Muslims in Pakistani regions such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Parachinar, Kurram agency, Quetta and other areas is indeed the continued legacy of violence initiated by Zia ul-Haq and financed by Saudi Wahhabis in an effort to limit the influence of the Shia Muslims in the country.
Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.
http://www.countercurrents.org/salami060912.htm
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20c07e98-f74b-11e1-8e9e-00144feabdc0.html
September 5, 2012 3:37 pm
Acquittal urged in Pakistan blasphemy case
By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
The defence lawyer of Rimsha Masih, a Christian teenager who faces possible life imprisonment under Pakistan’s controversial Islamic blasphemy law, says he will demand her acquittal in what he calls “a baseless and fraudulent case” when he appears in court on Friday for a bail hearing.
Ms Masih’s case took a dramatic turn in her favour last weekend when Imam Khalid Jadoon, a cleric from a mosque near her home, was arrested on suspicion that he had torn pages from a Koran and planted them in a plastic bag recovered from Ms Masih in order to incriminate her. She is accused of burning Islamic texts.
The arrest three weeks ago of Ms Masih, who is believed to have learning difficulties, has prompted condemnation from human rights groups worldwide and revived concerns in Pakistan and abroad about Islamic extremism and the fate of minorities in the predominantly Muslim country.
Despite the arrest of the imam, Christians in the Pakistani capital say they doubt Ms Masih will be able to return to a normal life in her family’s two-room shanty home in Islamabad.
Paul Masih, a Christian college student in Islamabad who is not related to the accused, says Ms Masih will live with the risk of being targeted by Islamic hardliners if she returns home. At least 300 Christians from Ms Masih’s neighbourhood fled after her arrest, fearing attacks of the sort that have occurred in the past.
“There is so much in this case which makes the charges very doubtful,” says Tahir Chaudhary, her defence lawyer, who is a Christian legislator from the populous Punjab province. “It is just total fabrication.”
Christians make up only about 2 per cent of the population of Pakistan – a country founded on its Muslim identity after Muslim politicians opted for partition from India at independence in 1947.
The Masih case has highlighted what critics say is the misuse of the Islamic laws introduced in the 1980s when Pakistan was ruled by General Zia ul Haq, a military dictator and sponsor of Islamic hardliners.
Islamists have resisted suggestions that these laws be abolished, in spite of events such as last year’s assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of the populous Punjab province, by one of his own police security guards. Mr Taseer had publicly defended Asia Bibi, a Christian woman arrested for blasphemy.
Successive Pakistani governments have yielded to pressure from hardliners, Ms Masih’s arrest by a junior police officer was a breach of official instructions that such cases should be cleared by a senior officer.
“If there was a mob outside the police station, why should a police officer feel so overwhelmed that he orders the arrest in violation of the procedure?” asks Tahir Ashrafi, an Islamic scholar who leads a coalition of Muslims and non-Muslims seeking equal rights for followers of all faiths. “Questions must be asked about how the law is applied.”
Few believe conditions for Pakistan’s religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus and non-Sunni sects of Islam, are likely to improve.
“The position right now is that those with an extremist agenda can operate with impunity,” says Wilson Chowdhry, head of the UK-based British Pakistani Christian Association, a private group campaigning for Ms Masih’s release.
“It would be interesting to see if the cleric will be prosecuted. Under successive Pakistani governments, not enough has been done to protect Christians.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012
Fanatic militants are recruited by imperialism to murder Syrians; for
example. Others vent their brutal ways at home. But what makes these
countries such a hotbed of intolerance and bigotry, even at the grass
roots, no need for demagogue politicians to stir murdering spree...?
Afghan Actress' Murder Forces Others Into Hiding
The Huffington Post | By Betsy Isaacson Posted: 09/08/2012 12:32 pm Updated: 09/08/2012 4:22 pm
On Aug. 20, sisters Areza and Tamana and their friend Benafsha were minutes away from moving out of their conservative Kabul neighborhood when the neighbors attacked.
The three women tried to flee, the Guardian reports, and while the sisters succeeded, Benefsha was not so lucky; the 22-year-old actress was stabbed to death on the steps of a mosque.
According to Russia Today, Benafsha had been threatened before as some considered the roles she played to be against Islamic values.
All three of the girls were used to "taunts, threats" and criticism of their outfits, the Guardian writes. But still, said Areza, they weren't expecting the mob.
The police made some arrests, but it weren't the knife-wielding neighbors who were taken into custody. Instead, after a few hours in the hospital, Areza and Tamana were arrested for "moral crimes," subjected to intrusive "virginity tests" and learned they might face years in prison, according to the Guardian.
Benafsha's violent death has had a chilling effect on other Afghan actresses, the Khaama Press reports.
After the murder, Sahar Parniyan, a prominent Afghan actress and colleague of Benefsha and Areza, said she began receiving threats, Russia Today writes. Parniyan, in fear for her life, called the Kabul police and reported the death threats, but her fears were met with contempt and neglect, KabulPress reports.
Parniyan has since abandoned her home and now conceals her address. She has, however, declared her intent to write an open letter to the Ministry of the Interior, condemning Benefsha's killing and Areza and Tamana's arrests and demanding the government take seriously the job of protecting women in the public sphere, Kabul Press adds.
But Afghan police and prosecutors maintain that Benefsha's murder and the attack on the sisters had nothing to do with their profession.
"The result of our investigation is that she was not killed because they work in television, the six people who killed her were threatening the group one or two days before with the aim of getting them to agree to illegal relations," Ghulam Dastegi Hedayat, the women's prosecutor, told the Guardian on Thursday.
The attacks come at the end of a summer that also saw the death of Hanifa Safi,
head of women's affairs in Laghman Province, a woman "known locally for
going out without her head covered," according to the BBC.
--
“They have succeeded in dominating us more
through ignorance, than through force”.
Simon Bolivar
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" - Steve Biko