SYRIA AND BEYOND: FOREIGN INTERVENTION AND PARTITION
Enrique Ferro
"Bashar must die!"
The Brahimi Plan
By Thierry Meyssan
August 30, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - In the aftermath of the second Russian-Chinese veto which formally prohibited foreign intervention in Syria on February 4, the West feigned seeking peace while actively organizing a vast secret war. On the diplomatic front, they appeared to accept the Lavrov-Annan Plan, even as these same countries were facilitating the movement into Syria of tens of thousands of mercenaries and while UN Observers were escorting the leaders of the Free Syrian Army to get them through the roadblocks.
The July 18th attack that decapitated the Syrian military command was intended to open the gates of Damascus for these Contras as part of the West’s pursuit of "regime change." This did not happen. Given the failure of these forces on the ground, and in open contempt of the third Russian-Chinese veto, the Western allies took things to the next level. Not being able to accomplish "regime change", the strategic choice is to sew chaos. They therefore sabotaged the Lavrov-Annan Plan and proclaimed their intention to assassinate President Bashar al-Assad. The speeches of Obama and Hollande, both of which delivered sharp ultimatums on Assad’s hypothetical first-use of chemical weapons (in ways flagrantly reminiscent of the Bush Administration’s lies about Iraq) confirm that all forms of war are in play.
The latest operation commenced with organized leaks by the press. Reuters [1], NBC [2], Le Parisien [3], Le Canard Enchaîné [4], The Sunday Times [5], and Bild am Sonntag [6] revealed that Barack Obama had authorized covert military intervention months before and that the U.S., Turkey, France, Britain and Germany were acting in concert. The press announced that the secret war had been coordinated from headquarters established at the NATO base in Incirlik, Turkey.
When the U.S. presidential order was revealed, Kofi Annan resigned from his mission. By his account, it would be futile to demand a ceasefire at the Security Council when the leading Council members were openly identifying themselves as belligerants. The Special Envoy of the U.N. and the Arab League clearly stated that it would be impossible for anyone henceforth to proceed with a peace mission given that the mission itself was illusory because of what he euphemistically termed the "disunity" within the Security Council. [7]
Despite his statement, the Western nations turned again to the Secretary Generals of both the U.N. and the Arab League to provide a veneer of pacific intentions and legality to their imperial ambitions. They designated a new Special Joint Envoy in the person of Lakhdar Brahimi. In the communiqué announcing the nomination, Ban Ki-Moon did not define the new mission as intended to fulfill the Lavrov-Annan plan previously approved by the Security Council. Instead, he signalled that the nominee would employ "his talent and extraordinary experience" to lead Syria toward a "political transition in accordance with the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people." [8]
To comprehend what is currently underway requires a closer look at the "the talents and experience" of Mr. Brahimi. Son of a collaborator during the WWII occupation of France and not of a hero of the Algerian Independence with the same name as he would have people believe, Lahkdar Brahimi is one of the leading sycophant acolytes of the doctrine "humanitarian intervention", the new scarcely-veiled substitute for neocolonialism. His name is still attached to the report of the Commission for U.N. Peacekeeping Operations, which he had chaired. He never questioned the legal aberration that allowed the U.N. to create so-called peacekeeping forces in order to impose political solutions against the will of the warring parties rather than overseeing the implementation of peace accords concluded equitably by them. Instead, he has been an active advocate for further consolidating the world governance role of the United Nations on the basis of a doctrine of intervention and the creation of a supranational intelligence service. [9] This was the origin of the "decision support service." Not long after, and without informing the Security Council, Ban Ki-moon signed on September 23, 2008 a protocol with his NATO counterpart linking this newly-created service to the Atlantic Alliance. [10] So much for Brahimi’s "talents".
Continued: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32321.htm#.UD_OY0ikp0M.facebook
Robert Fisk: 'Rebel army? They're a gang of foreigners'
Our writer hears the Syrian forces' justification for a battle that is tearing apart one of the world's oldest cities
Aleppo
Thursday 23 August 2012
A victorious army? There were cartridge cases all over the ancient stone laneways, pocked windows, and bullet holes up the side of the Sharaf mosque, where a gunman had been firing from the minaret. A sniper still fired just 150 yards away – all that was left of more than a hundred rebels who had almost, but not quite, encircled the 4,000-year-old citadel of Aleppo.
"You won't believe this," Major Somar cried in excitement. "One of our prisoners told me: 'I didn't realise Palestine was as beautiful as this.' He thought he was in Palestine to fight the Israelis!"
Do I believe this? Certainly, the fighters who bashed their way into the lovely old streets west of the great citadel were, from all accounts, a ragtag bunch. Their graffiti – "We are the Brigades of 1980", the year when the first Muslim Brotherhood rising threatened the empire of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez – was still on the walls of the Syrian-Armenian hotels and silver shops. A 51-year-old general handed me one of the home-made grenades that littered the floor of the Sharaf mosque; a fluffy fuse poking from the top of a lump of shrapnel, coated in white plastic and covered in black adhesive tape.
Al Qaeda and NATO's Pan-Arab Terrorist Blitzkrieg
Terrorists Supported by NATO Target Syria and Algeria by Tony Cartalucci |
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Global Research, August 29, 2012 |
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Western policy makers admit that NATO's operations in Libya have played the primary role in emboldening Al Qaeda's AQIM faction (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). The Fortune 500-funded Brookings Institution's Bruce Riedel in his article, "The New Al Qaeda Menace," admits that AQIM is now heavily armed thanks to NATO's intervention in Libya, and that AQIM's base in Mali, North Africa, serves as a staging ground for terrorist activities across the region.  Image: NATO's intervention in Libya has resurrected listed-terrorist organization and Al Qaeda affiliate, LIFG. It had previously fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now has fighters, cash and weapons, all courtesy of NATO, spreading as far west as Mali, and as far east as Syria. The feared "global Caliphate" Neo-Cons have been scaring Western children with for a decade is now taking shape via US-Saudi, Israeli, and Qatari machinations, not "Islam." In fact, real Muslims have paid the highest price in fighting this real "war against Western-funded terrorism." .... | ||||||
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Robert Fisk: Inside Daraya - how a failed prisoner swap turned into a massacre
Exclusive: The first Western journalist to enter the town that felt Assad's fury hears witness accounts of Syria's bloodiest episode
Wednesday 29 August 2012
Officially, no word of such talks between sworn enemies has leaked out. But senior Syrian officers spoke to The Independent about how they had “exhausted all possibilities of reconciliation” with those holding the town, while citizens of Daraya told us that there had been an attempt by both sides to arrange a swap of civilians and off-duty soldiers in the town – apparently kidnapped by rebels because of their family connections with the government army – with prisoners in the army’s custody. When these talks broke down, the army advanced into Daraya, only six miles from the centre of Damascus.
Neocons, Israel, And The Fragmentation Of Syria By Stephen J. Sniegoski 8-11-12 |
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It is widely realized now that the fall of President Bashar Assad's
regime would leave Syria riven by bitter ethnic, religious, and
ideological conflict that could splinter the country into smaller
enclaves. Already there has been a demographic shift in this direction,
as both Sunnis and Alawites flee the most dangerous parts of the county,
seeking refuge within their own particular communities. Furthermore, it
is widely believed in Syria that, as the entire country becomes too
difficult to secure, the Assad regime will retreat to an Alawaite
redoubt in the northern coastal region as a fallback position. |
Continued: http://rense.com/general95/neocons-israel-syria.html#.UCeqY0kBV_0.scoopit
What is Happening in Syria is an Imperialist Proxy War by Finian Cunningham
by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Ethiopia
Crossposted from www.presstv.com
August 22, 2012
Image by Beshroffline via Flickr
The UN-Arab League’s new peace envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, says he is not confident about the prospect of restoring peace in Syria. After giving his first major public comment on the conflict, it is not surprising to hear the veteran Algerian diplomat voicing his lack of confidence.
This is because he is either completely misinformed on the violence in Syria; or, more likely, because Brahimi is deliberately misinforming the rest of the world about the problem at hand.
It should be a matter of deep misgiving that, only days after the former Algerian foreign minister took up the post, his first port of call was to have a private meeting with French President Francois Hollande in the Elysee Palace, Paris. The former colonial power is hardly a neutral party to the raging conflict in Syria. France, and the other Western powers, are up to their neck in the bloodshed that is spilling across the Levant.
For months now, it has been reported that France, along with that other colonial has-been Britain, dispatched Special Forces to operate covertly in Syria, helping the insurgency wage a campaign of sabotage to bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Only last weekend, the French government made its policy towards Syria abundantly clear when Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, visiting refugee camps in Turkey, announced that the Syrian authorities should be “smashed”.
Fabius even went as far as calling for Assad’s personal liquidation by adding that “he should not be allowed on this earth”. Let’s just dwell on that for a minute. The French government is in effect calling for the overthrow of a sovereign government and the assassination of a head of state. Such language is the policy of a lawless rogue power that has abdicated any pretence of abiding by the charter of the UN.
British
Paper Claims Western Troops in Syria
With zero mandate, SAS allegedly "hunts for WMDs" as West
attempts incremental intervention at any cost.
By Tony Cartalucci
August 27,
2012 "Information
Clearing House" ----
The British Daily Star has
reported in their article, "SAS
HUNT BIO ARMS," that, "nearly 200 elite SAS and SBS troops
are in or around Syria hunting for Assad’s weapons of mass
destruction." The Star also claims that the SAS are accompanied
by British MI6, US CIA, and both French and American soldiers.
This after US' Barack Obama made comments claiming the US would
military intervene
if Syria so much as "moves them [unconfirmed WMDs] in a
threatening fashion."
Like Iraq, the West has provided no evidence that such weapons
even exist, let alone prove that the weapons have or even would
be used against terrorists operating across Syria. And like in
Iraq, another false pretext is being developed through leaks,
and limited hangouts in an attempt to prime the public for a
desperate intervention designed to bolster the West's collapsing
terrorist front.
The West also categorically lacks any semblance of an
international mandate to act militarily within Syria - meaning
that if SAS soldiers are in Syria, they are in egregious
violation of international law.
Continued: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32294.htm
"No-Fly Zones inside Syria": West Scripting Scary Scenario
by Finian Cunningham |
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Global Research, August 29, 2012 |
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The so-called Free Syrian Army fighters take cover
as they exchange fire with Syrian forces in the Salaheddin neighbourhood
of Syria's northern city of Aleppo on August 22, 2012.
The Syrian crisis is a tragedy that is a montage of so many other recent Western-scripted tragedies: Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The same lies and fabrications, the same horror and suffering, and the same Western criminals posing as heroes. The conflict in Syria is unfolding like a predictable plot line - a script that appears to be a re-run of some Hollywood cliché movie - only the script is being written with outrageous cynicism in Washington along with its criminal co-stars, Britain and France. Tugging on public heartstrings this week, the Western powers are emoting about the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring out of Syria into neighboring countries: Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. The United Nations fears that the number of refugees in Turkey alone may reach 200,000. French President Francois Hollande says that the Western powers will have to set up No-Fly Zones inside Syria to act as buffer areas in order to relieve the humanitarian crisis. Hollande says that France is working closely with its American, British and Turkish partners on plans for this intrusion into Syrian sovereign territory - to address the very humanitarian crisis that these powers have instigated. Continued: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CUN20120829&articleId=32568 | ||||||
Robert Fisk: The bloody truth about Syria's uncivil war
Those trying to topple Assad have surprised the army with their firepower and brutal tactics
Damascus
Sunday 26 August 2012
A few hours after the ferocious attack on Damascus by the Free Syrian Army began last month, the new Syrian minister of information, Omran Zouhbi, turned on journalists in the capital. "What are you doing here in Damascus?" he roared. "You should be out with our soldiers!" And within a day, tired images of a primly smiling President Bashar al-Assad and pictures of Syrian troops happily kissing children were replaced by raw – and real – newsreel footage of commandos fighting their way across Baghdad Street under fire from the rebel opponents of the regime, grimy-faced, running from street corners, shooting from the cover of walls and terraces. "We've cleaned up here," one tired but very angry officer said. "So now we're going to get the rest of those bastards." Never before – not even in the 1973 war when the Syrian army stormed Observatory Ridge on the heights of the Golan – had the Syrian public witnessed anything as real as this on their television sets.
And – despite all the mythical tales of its presence in every smashed village – the battle for Damascus really was fought by Maher al-Assad's ruthless 4th Division. The soldiers loyal to Bashar's younger brother gave no quarter. "It was a slaughter, a massacre," a Syrian with expert knowledge of the military told me. "A lot of the corpses were already bloated within hours, but you could tell some of them weren't Syrian; there were Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, one Turk, Sudanese …" He counted 70 bodies at one location, 42 of them non-Arab. The FSA said it lost only 20 men, and claimed that the Syrians emphasised the number of "foreign fighters" they found among the dead. "Syrian soldiers don't like to think that they are shooting at fellow Syrians – they feel much more comfortable if they believe they are shooting at foreigners," the young man said.
The statistics of the Syrian war will always be in dispute – both sides will minimise their losses while they are fighting and exaggerate the number of their "martyrs" once the conflict is over; nor will we ever know the true number of the civilian dead, nor the exact identity of their killers. Given unprecedented access last week to majors and generals whom the West accuses of war crimes, I found only one officer who would partially admit the existence of the murderous shabiha militia credited with atrocities in largely Sunni Muslim towns and villages. "The shabiha doesn't exist," he told me. "It is a figment of imagination. There are village 'defenders' who guard some areas …"
Al-Mayadeen TV: 4 Egyptians have been captured when they attempted to infiltrate into Syria through Jordan
http://breakingnews.sy/en/breakingnews/1844.html
Robert Fisk: 'They snipe at us then run and hide in sewers'
Our writer was given exclusive access to the Assad Generals accused of war crimes as they seek to defeat the rebels in Aleppo
Mortars crashed into the middle-class streets around us and a T-72 tank baked in the heat under a road viaduct, but Bashar al-Assad's most senior operational commander in Aleppo – a 53-year-old Major-General with 33 years in the military in the military and two bullet wounds from last month's battles in Damascus – claims he can "clean" the whole province of Aleppo from "terrorists" in 20 days. Now that is quite a boast, especially in the Saif el-Dowla suburb of the city, where sniper fire snapped down leafy streets. For the battle of Aleppo is far from over.But this was a strange sensation, to sit in a private house, commandeered by the Syrian army – 19th-century prints still on the walls, the carpet immaculate – and talk to the Generals accused by Western leaders of being war criminals. I was, so to speak, in "the lair of the enemy", but the immensely tall, balding General – his officers adding their own impressions whenever they were asked – had much to say about the war they are fighting and the contempt with which they regard their enemies. They were "mice", the General said – he would not give his name. "They snipe at us and then they run and hide and in the sewers. Foreigners, Turks, Chechens, Afghans, Libyans, Sudanese." And Syrians, I said. "Yes, Syrians too, but smugglers and criminals," he said.
I asked about the rebels' weapons and the clutch of conscripts staggered into the room under the weight of rockets, rifles, ammunition and explosives. "Take this," the General said, grinning as he handed me a two-way radio, a Hongda-made HD668 taken two days ago off a dead Turkish fighter in Saif al-Dowla a few hundred metres from where we were sitting. "Mohamed, do you hear me?" the radio demanded. "Abul Hassan, did you hear?" The Syrian officers roared with laughter at the disembodied voice of their enemy, perhaps in the same block of buildings. We took this ID from the "terrorist", the General said. "Citizen of the Turkish Republic" was printed on the card, above a photo of a man with a thin moustache. Born – Bingol (Turkey) 1 July 1974. Name: Remziye Idris Metin Ekince. Religion: Islam.
So, suddenly, we had a name for one of the mysterious "foreigners" who – at least in popular Baathist imagination – staff the "terrorist" army the Syrian military is fighting. And a lot of other names with far larger significance. As I prowled around the weapons – all captured within the past week, according to the Syrian officers – I found sticks of Swedish explosives in plastic covers, dated February 1999 and manufactured by Hammargrens, whose office address was printed as 434-24 Kingsbacka in Sweden; the words "made in USA" was also marked on each stick.
There was: a Belgian rifle, an FN from the town of Herstal, manufacturer's code 1473224; a set of hand grenades of uncertain provenance numbered HG 85, SM8-03 1; a Russian sniper scope; a 9mm Spanish-made pistol – model 28 1A – manufactured by a Star Echeverria SA Eibar Espana; an ancient automatic rifle; a Soviet sub-machine-gun of 1948 vintage; a mass of Russian rocket-propelled grenades and launchers; and box after box of medical supplies.
"Every unit of the terrorists has a field ambulance," an intelligence officer said. "They steal medicines from our pharmacies but bring other packets with them." True, it seems. There were painkillers from Lebanon, bandages from Pakistan, much of the stuff was from Turkey. Interesting to know who the Spanish, Swedish and Belgian manufacturers originally sold their guns and explosives to. The haul went on and on, a newly out-of-date Visa card under the name of Ahed Akrama, a Syrian ID card in the name of Widad Othman – "kidnapped by the terrorists," another officer muttered – and thousands of rounds of ammunition. The General agreed that weapons may have been taken from dead Syrian troops or soldiers who had been captured. Army defectors existed, he said, but they were "drop-outs, soldiers who had failed their basic tests who were motivated only by money". This is what they say under interrogation, he said.
It wasn't difficult to work out just how the fighting in Aleppo is developing. Walking the streets for more than an hour with a Syrian army patrol, individual snipers would shoot from houses and then disappear before government soldiers arrived. The army had shot dead one man with a sniper's rifle who fired from the minaret of the El-Houda mosque. The Salaheddine district had been "liberated", the Syrian officer said, and the Saif el-Dowla district was only two blocks from a similar "liberation".
At least a dozen civilians emerged from their homes, retirees in their 70s, shopkeepers and local businessmen with their families and, unaware that a foreign journalist was watching, put their arms round Syrian troops. One told me he had stayed in his home as "foreign" fighters used his courtyard to fire on government soldiers. "I speak Turkish and most were speaking Turkish but some of the men had long beards and short trousers like the Saudis wear, and had strange Arab accents."
So many Aleppo citizens talked to me, out of earshot of soldiers, about armed "foreigners" in their streets along with Syrians "from the countryside" that the presence of considerable numbers of non-Syrian gunmen appeared to be true. While much of the city continues its life under occasional mortar fire, tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting between the Free Syrian Army and what the government always calls the "Syrian Arab Army" are now housed in vacant dormitories on the Aleppo University campus. And President Assad's enemies are never far away.
Returning to the city centre yesterday afternoon, I discovered five Syrian soldiers – exhausted, with sharp, tense eyes – walking back to their barracks with a civilian called Badriedin. He had alerted the soldiers when he saw "10 terrorists" in Al-Hattaf street and the government troops had killed several of them – their bodies taken away on motor scooters, Badriedin said – and the rest escaped. The soldiers were high on their story, how they had been outnumbered but fought off their enemies. Even the operational commander of all Aleppo told me that a major battle was beginning in an area containing a mosque and a Christian school where his men had surrounded a large number of "terrorists". "The Syrian army doesn't kill civilians – we came here to protect them, at their request," he said. "We tried to get civilians out of the area where we have to fight, with loudspeakers we give lots of warnings."
I prefer the words emblazoned on the T-shirt of young man who said he was trying to reach his apartment in the snipers' zone to see if it had survived. They read: "You see things and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were, and I say 'Why not?' – George Bernard Shaw." Not a bad motto for Aleppo these days.
German government aids anti-Assad forces in Syria
By Christoph Dreier
21 August 2012
The German military and related intelligence agencies are playing a far greater role in supporting anti-Assad forces in Syria than previously reported. On Sunday the Bildzeitung published a report on German army and Federal Intelligence Service (BND) operations on the Syrian border, where they are providing military aid to the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
The paper reported that a German reconnaissance ship was stationed off the coast of Syria, employing the latest BND technology to monitor the country. On the same day a spokesperson for the German Defence Ministry confirmed the report. It is “true that a ship is currently on a several month deployment in the region”, he said.
Although the Ministry declined to designate the ship as a “spy boat”, it admits that the ship in question is the Oker, part of the German navy's fleet of “early warning, communications and reconnaissance units”.
The spokesperson refused to confirm whether BND technology was on board, saying that no operational details of the current use of the ship would be issued. A member of the parliamentary control committee (PKG), Fritz-Rudolf Körper (Social Democratic Party) confirmed, however, that BND technology was being used.
According to the Bildzeitung, the ship’s instruments can observe troop movements up to 600 kilometers inside Syria. This data is then shared with the United States and Britain, as well as with Syrian rebels.
The newspaper also pointed out that BND agents were stationed at the Turkish NATO post of Adana, monitoring telephone and radio communications in Syria. The German operation also involves maintaining informal contact with sources in the immediate vicinity of the Assad regime. According to an anonymous US intelligence official, “No Western intelligence has such good sources in Syria as the BND”.
Continued: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/syri-a21.shtml
France, Britain say Syria military intervention on table
By John Irish and Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS | Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:22pm BST
(Reuters) - France and Britain warned Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday that military action to secure safe zones for civilians inside the country was being considered despite the paralysis of the U.N. Security Council over how to end the 17-month conflict.
While the Security Council impasse between western nations and Russia and China means a resolution to approve such a move appears impossible, countries could act outside the authority of the world body and intervene, as happened in Kosovo in 1999.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/30/uk-syria-crisis-un-idUKBRE87T17G20120830Turkey and US plan ‘intelligence shield’ and Syria 'after Assad'
Published: 24 August, 2012, 20:51
Syrian Kurds are seen holding their rifles in the Kurdish town of Jinderes, near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on July 22, 2012, as Kurdish activists on the Syria-Turkey border started taking control of towns in the area without encountering much resistance from the forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. (AFP Photo/Bulent Kilic)
TAGS: Arms, Conflict, Military, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Terrorism, Iran, Iraq, USA, Opposition, War, Syria, Turkey, Bashar Assad, CIA
Washington and Ankara have agreed to create an “intelligence shield” to prevent militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party from freely entering and operating on the Turkish territory from Syria as they discussed "after Assad" future.
The format of the Turkish-American anti-terrorist cooperation anticipates joint collection and sharing of intelligence data on militants’ activities on the Syrian territory and Turkish border districts, including possible rotation of chemical weapons on Syrian territory.
According
to the Turkish NTV channel the “intelligence shield” is to be directed
by CIA operatives that have been previously working in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
The shield’s creation is the first known result of work by the Turkish-American “operations planning group”, the creation of which was initiated during the visit of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Ankara on August 11.
"As you know, this meeting was called as a result of the conversation that the Secretary [of State] and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had on August 11. And they had agreed to have intensive conversations about operational planning. And so those conversations began today went into some detail," commented the meeting the US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland.
The
group that first met on Thursday is led by Turkish Foreign Ministry
Deputy Under-Secretary Halit Cevik and US Deputy Secretary of State
Elisabeth Jones. The group’s body includes military and intelligence
officials from both countries.
"They discussed the full range of issues and challenges with regard to Syria, the issues of supporting the opposition and hastening the day when Assad goes and a transition begins, and the refugee issues,” Nuland said
The most thorough attention the group pays to the “after Assad” stage, discussing the structure of the future Syrian state once the ruling Alawi regime is gone. Both sides insist that any possibility of a power vacuum should be precluded, while all terrorist elements should be excluded from the political life of Syria.
"There's also the necessity of planning for the day after. When that day comes, when the Assad regime falls and we move into transitional government, the international community will want to offer the Syrian people support for managing and disposing of some of the most dangerous weapons of the Assad regime," the US State Department spokesperson noted.
Turkey
has been playing an active role in the Syrian conflict for quite some
time. Syrian rebels have been using the porous Turkish-Syrian border for
arms and money smuggling, whereas secret services that assist the Syrian rebels have been using Turkish territory to operate against the regime of the President Bashar Assad.
CIA operatives have been present in Turkey for months, gathering data on Syrian rebels leaders and distributing arms among militants. In early August, President Barack Obama officially authorized covert US support to Syrian rebels.
But finally the Syrian government found a way to get even with Ankara by reportedly giving carte blanche to Syrian Kurds in dealing with rebels in areas of Kurds’ compact settlement in exchange for the widest autonomy.
Official Ankara has every reason to be worried about Kurdish militants, who have been in military struggle with Turkey for over three decades. The number of victims of the conflict is getting close to 45,000 on both sides.
With 30 million Kurds living in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and in some North Caucasus republics, the Kurdish nation remains world’s largest without a country. But that may be subject to change.
With a de facto existing Kurdistan republic in neighboring Iraq, where Kurds are already not sharing oil revenues with Baghdad, it is expected that Kurds are going to “concentrate” on their fight with Turkey, where Kurds compose up to 25 per cent of the population.
Since the Kurdistan region gained considerable independence at the time when Iraq was occupied by the US troops, one might come to a conclusion that Washington actually does not mind the creation of an independent Kurdish state. For America’s ally Turkey, such an event could become a direct threat to country’s integrity.
Terror acts organized by militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are occurring in Turkey with increased regularity. In this light the decisiveness of Ankara to topple the president of the neighboring country looks truly unintelligible.
As of now, the Syrian Kurds have a “gentlemen’s agreement” with President Bashar al-Assad and act within a certain framework. Once Assad is gone and a civil war engulfs Syria – the unrecognized Kurdistan in Iraq is most likely going to expand at the expense of Syrian territories populated with Kurds.
What the millions of Turkish Kurds would do then remains an open question.
http://rt.com/news/us-turkey-shield-kurds-483/
"No Fly Zone" War for Syria: Replicating The "Libya Scenario"
by Konstantin Garibov |
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Global Research, August 19, 2012 |
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Voice of Russia and Stop NATO |
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"This is a clear-cut intention to repeat the Libyan scenario," Dolgov says, referring to Clinton’s recent statement on a possible introduction of a no-fly zone over Syria, something that he says is little more than a call for an armed interference in Syria’s internal affairs. The no-fly zone stipulates destroying missile defense systems and launching air strikes, and it, in fact, means an armed invasion of Syria which can only be fulfilled without being endorsed by the UN. All the more so that Russia and China several times blocked the UN Security Council resolutions which paved the way for resolving the Syrian crisis through the Libyan scenario." Russia’s Western partners in the Action Group for Syria have demonstrated unwillingness to help Moscow contribute to a cease-fire in this Middle Eastern country. The planned session of the Action Group for Syria with the participation of Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and the EU has been postponed indefinitely. It was Russia that earlier offered the five permanent UN Security Council members to take part in the Action Group for Syria’s ambassadorial meeting in New York on Friday. Also, Russia hammered out a draft declaration where it formulated its initiatives on the Syrian settlement. The document, in particular, urged the conflicting parties to agree on an early cease-fire in Syria by notably appointing special envoys tasked with holding peace negotiations. The West has preferred to keep mum on Russia’s proposal on exerting pressure on both parties to the Syrian conflict. Small wonder, given that the West is playing its own card in Syria, our political commentator says. Western countries continue to lend military support to the opposition in a bid to oust a legal power in Syria. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried, in fact, to create a new anti-Syrian coalition that could bring together Britain, France, Germany and Turkey. During a video conference, the five coordinated steps to render additional assistance to Syrian opposition. They pledged more arms and means of communication to militants who are keen to topple the Assad regime. Additionally, more mercenaries are set to be dispatched to Syria in the near future. A year ago, the same steps were in place with respect to then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, says Boris Dolgov, of the Moscow-based Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "This is a clear-cut intention to repeat the Libyan scenario," Dolgov says, referring to Clinton’s recent statement on a possible introduction of a no-fly zone over Syria, something that he says is little more than a call for an armed interference in Syria’s internal affairs. The no-fly zone stipulates destroying missile defense systems and launching air strikes, and it, in fact, means an armed invasion of Syria which can only be fulfilled without being endorsed by the UN. All the more so that Russia and China several times blocked the UN Security Council resolutions which paved the way for resolving the Syrian crisis through the Libyan scenario." Earlier in the week, two field commanders from Libya joined those foreign mercenaries who are currently helping armed Syrian opposition depose President Bashar Assad. The two men were at the helm of militants attacking Gaddafi’s presidential palace in Tripoli in 2011. On Friday, the Al-Arabya TV channel quoted a source in the United States as saying that 14 surface-to-air Stinger missiles have been delivered to the Syrian opposition at an area on the border with Turkey. The source added that both the United States and Turkey are aware of the arms delivery, and that “financing has probably come from Saudi Arabia.” Alexander Sotnichenko, a St.Petersburg- based Middle East expert, warns that the West’s playing with fire in Syria is fraught with grave consequences. This will further exacerbate the situation, and is unlikely to help spread democratic values in Syria, Soitnichenko says. "Hefty sums injected into the Syrian opposition may finally lead to Bashar Assad stepping down," Sotnichenko says. "This will mean Syria ultimately turning into a battle zone where a civil war is very likely," he concludes. Meanwhile, the use of a force-leaning scenario was not supported by a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which wrapped up in Mecca earlier this week. A statement to this effect was made by OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, which was echoed by Sergei Demidenko of the Institute of Strategic Assessments and Analysis in Moscow. "Saudi Arabia and Qatar have realized that the West will not meddle in the conflict now that the presidential elections in the United States are yet to be held," Demidenko says. "Right now, they pretend to join the international community in saying ‘no’ to military interference in Syria, something that is nothing but lip-service. " On Friday, Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi was appointed the new UN-Arab League envoy to Syria. He will replace Kofi Annan who earlier said he will quit in late August. In the meantime, Moscow has already expressed hope that Lakhdar Brahimi will successfully interact with the Action Group for Syria.
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No announcement was made, no plans or timetable published, simply a vote on authorization of force which passed unanimously by member and included non-member states unanimously."
Two issues were on the agenda:
1. How climate change in Greenland will effect geopolitics, immigration and military affairs for the EU
2. Syria and the potential for Russian and Chinese intervention.
3. Iran was not an official agenda item but it is an unspoken conclusion that, if China and/or Russia stand aside for interference by NATO in Syria’s internal affairs, this will be seen as an authorization for incursions into Iran, a systematic “Balkanization” based on a prescribed formula of “manufactured and simulated internal political and social strife.”
No announcement was made, no plans or timetable published, simply a vote on authorization of force which passed unanimously by member and included non-member states unanimously.
News stories throughout North America and Europe earlier in the day were filled with reports of mass killings by the Syrian Army and the presence of Iranian troops in Syria. True or not, these stories represent a pre-staging for the NATO conference.
The critical reporting issue involves rhetoric. We moved, yesterday, from discussions of “fighting” to “systematic execution of hundreds of civilians.”
No video nor photos were included to verify neither claims nor sources given other than reports from “rebel forces.”
Recent consultation with friends in the Pentagon as to Syria’s air defense system indicated that the US has, in place, a play to destroy the command and control capability of Syria’s system.
The problems are twofold:
1. Russian technicians man the Syrian system
2. The S300P2 system Syria uses is extremely “robust”
An additional political consideration is a simple one, there is no UN authorization. Both Russia and China have vetoed even sanctions against Syria much less authorized an attack.
Thus, there is no existing authority capable of justifying an attack.
Continued: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/29/258834/nato-secretly-authorizes-syrian-attack/
Libya, Syria and now Lebanon?
Konstantin Garibov |
Aug 28, 2012 14:44 Moscow Time |
|
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Photo: EPA |
An ever-growing flame of the Syrian conflict may spill into neighboring Lebanon, Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper reported on Tuesday. The newspaper particularly points to the fact that a recent conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in northern Lebanon was defused only because of the army’s interference in the matter.
In light of this, the Milliyet points out a high probability of an armed conflict in Lebanon in the near future. Speaking of preconditions for the ouster of the regime there is irrelevant, the newspaper says, adding that the main problem in Lebanon is that the country’s conflicting parties are endorsed and supported by outside forces.
Many in Lebanon refer to the ‘Syrian trace’ when mentioning an array of arsons, abductions and protest rallies that have taken place in their country in the past. They were echoed by former Information Minister Michel Salaha who had earlier collaborated with the government of Bashar Assad. After his arrest, Salaha claimed that Damascus had allegedly nourished plans to draw Lebanon into chaos by notably sending a host of Syrian security agents there.
Moscow-based political analyst Stanislav Tarasov says, in turn, that Salaha’s allegations about Syria’s role in the Lebanese conflict holds no water. Pointing the finger at the West is also irrelevant, Tarasov says and elaborates.
"There is a factor of the third forces," Tarasov says, referring to radical Islam-related forces ready to capitalize on a standoff between the West and the Syrian regime in order to fulfill their own scenario, aimed at toppling the secular power in Lebanon. "There is a certain radical Muslim force which is keen to seize power in Lebanon, something which might be the case with Syria. In Egypt, this scenario has already been implemented."
Another Moscow-based political analyst, Alexander Filonik, says that the latest events in Syria could not but affect Lebanon, where many remain at odds over the Syrian crisis.
Continued: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_08_28/Libya-Syria-and-now-Lebanon/
US proxy war in Syria spreads to Lebanon and Iraq
By Eric London
18 August 2012
The intensifying proxy war in Syria is causing increased anxiety throughout the Middle East, where the specters of sectarian war and Western military intervention loom large. A series of kidnappings threatens to drag Lebanon deeper into the 17-month-long civil war in neighboring Syria, while 93 people were killed in Iraq on Thursday.
Al Qaeda’s role as a partner in a US-led Sunni sectarian war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is apparently strengthening its operations in Iraq. Some 190 people were killed by Al Qaeda attacks in Iraq over the last two-and-a-half weeks.
“The religious legitimacy of the Syria war and the increase of funding and fighters almost unquestionably benefits Al Qaeda in Iraq,” said Seth Jones, an Al Qaeda expert with the RAND Corporation. “It is heavily involved in overseeing the war in Syria.”
Hundreds more Iraqis were killed in June and July, making the last three months the deadliest in over a year. Two weeks ago, over a dozen neighborhood officials resigned their posts in Baquba, citing fears that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki cannot prevent a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The conflict is also escalating in Lebanon, where deep-seated sectarian tensions are coming to the surface in a nation wrought with unresolved political discord.
On Tuesday night, masked gunmen belonging to the mostly Shia Muqdad tribe kidnapped over 20 alleged members of the Free Syrian Army in Beirut. The kidnapping was in retaliation for Monday’s kidnapping in Damascus of a member of the Muqdad family by anti-Assad forces in Syria. They accused Hassan Salim al-Muqdad of being a Hezbollah agent and supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a claim Hezbollah and the Muqdad family denied.
The Syrian regime’s political and military support for Hezbollah—a Lebanese Shiite organization that repelled an Israeli attack in a 2006 war—is a key reason behind Washington’s strategy of seeking Assad’s overthrow. For its part, Hezbollah fears that, in the event of Assad’s overthrow by Sunni militias, it would rapidly be isolated, cut off from its sources of weapons and financing, and threatened with destruction.
Speaking yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah warned Israel: “War with Lebanon would be very, very, very costly … When our country is attacked, we will not wait for permission from anyone.” He warned that Hezbollah would fire volleys of precision-guided missiles at Israel, which could “turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of Zionists into hell.”
“What happened … is a clear indication that we are [on] the brink of major chaos in Lebanon,” a senior political Lebanese government source told Lebanon’s Daily Star on Thursday. “The storm in Syria has reached Lebanon now and there is no going back.”
Other Shia tribes in eastern Lebanon have since followed up on the retaliatory attack, kidnapping at least eight more alleged fighters of the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army (FSA). AP also reports that a Syrian businessman and supporter of Assad was kidnapped on Thursday by soldiers in the Bekaa Valley town of Chtoura.
Earlier this month, FSA fighters captured 48 Iranians in Damascus. The FSA kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims in February, and five Iranian technicians were kidnapped last December in Homs.
The kidnappings reflect the sectarian divide between the largely Shia or Christian backers of Assad and the mainly Sunni supporters of the Syrian opposition. May and June saw armed clashes between Sunni and Shia in Tripoli and Beirut. Although Lebanon has been involved in the Syrian conflict for months via arms trade and minor cross-border raids, the Syrian war now threatens to ignite a full-scale civil war in Lebanon.
“This … brings us back to the days of the painful war, a page that Lebanese citizens have been trying to turn,” said Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, referring to the 1975-1990 civil war that resulted, amongst other things, in a three-decade Syrian occupation.
Mikati is a member of the March 8th Alliance, a parliamentary coalition that includes Hezbollah and currently rules Lebanon. The coalition and the Lebanese state in general rest on a precarious balance between the nation’s Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Druze, Maronite and Orthodox factions. The government has already surrendered de facto control of many areas of Eastern Lebanon to Shia tribes like the Muqdad.
Beirut political commentator Rami Khouri explained the limits of the government’s ability to control civil strife: “The Lebanese state is not a powerful centralized state. You have people outside the control of the state, whether it’s Hezbollah or small groups like these family-based militias … The worry is that these incidents can escalate and get out of hand. Then you end up with armed conflict in the street.”
Lebanese security forces arrested former Information Minister Michel Samaha on August 9 for allegedly plotting to incite sectarian violence through “terrorist attacks” against Sunnis together with top Syrian Army officers.
Robert Fisk, the Independent’s correspondent in the Middle East, noted that the charges against Samaha were made “without a thread of evidence publicly revealed.”
In a further indication of the escalating conflict, Samir Geagea, the leader of Lebanese Forces, has called for the declaration of a state of emergency. Lebanese Forces, a right-wing Christian group, is the second most powerful political party in the opposition March 14th Alliance—a group which opposes Syrian influence and backs anti-Assad forces in Syria.
Continued: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/leba-a18.shtml
Rohrabacher’s Plan to Partition Iran
From time to time it is important that one provide a teach-in to nonacademics and educate those who promote wrong and harmful ideas. As a history professor I would like to teach a history lesson to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher, the honorable Congressional Representative of California’s 46th District in Orange County where I live and work. On July 26, 2012 Mr. Rohrabacher wrote a letter to the US Secretary of the State, Hillary Clinton, informing her that since the “people of Azerbaijan are geographically divided and many are calling for the reunification of their homeland after nearly two centuries of foreign rule,” the United States should help them reach that goal. He then goes on to say that: Russia and Persia divided the homeland of Azeris homeland in 1828, without their consent. “The Azerbaijan Republic won its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed,” continues the letter “Now it is time for the Azeris in Iran to win their freedom too.” Finally, Rohrabacher states: “Aiding the legitimate aspirations of the Azeri people for independence is a worthy cause in and of itself…yet, it also poses a greater danger to the Iranian tyrants than the threat of bombing its underground nuclear research bunkers.”
Obviously Mr. Rohrabacher is concerned with the immediate issues at hand in the Middle East and the interests of the US and Israel in a very twisted way, because he calls the MEK (Mojahedin Khalq Organization, an Iranian exile group on the US terrorist
list), “Israel’s Friends.” This obviously demonstrates Mr. Rohrabacher’s political stance and the influence of its supporters which is detrimental to the US policy in the Middle East. This short sightedness and lack of knowledge about the region and its history is indeed exactly the reason for which the US has gotten involved in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), which has bankrupted us. The question is how this kind of interference in different countries and plan of dismantling nation-states, recognized by the UN would help the US? Or does it simply just help other countries in the region? Well, the short answer is that it doesn’t help a bit! Last time I checked, it was the work of colonial powers in the nineteenth century which created and divided countries in Middle East. Even in Orange County it is taught that such ideas and actions were evil and has caused problems in the world for the past two centuries. It has been a long time since any country has thought of such colonial plans.
Continued: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/27/rohrabachers-plan-to-partition-iran/#.UDumcFsXfyc.facebook
United
States Offers Azerbaijan the Northern Area of Iran in Exchange
for Participation in War: Report
By StratRisks
Editor’s Note: This is a serious case of entangled alliances, carving up Iran to win the war. What about the Kurds and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Armenia? Neither Syria, nor Iran is worth all this trouble. A nuclear arms race is already beginning in the Middle East regardless of if Iran develops nukes or not. It seems that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and other nations would rather spend their oil profits on hardware than to rely on the US. Any military can have its strength diffused when their focus is too expansive. Their hands are in far too many pies. –Michael Vail
The belief of some experts in the United States are ready to attach to the Azerbaijan territory of northern Iran, populated by ethnic Azeris in exchange for participation in a military operation against Iran on the West, has found a new confirmation.
As “Rosbalt” with reference to Baku Trend news Agency, the United States State Department acknowledged receipt of the letter from Congresswoman Dana Rohrabacher addressed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the need to support the struggle for independence of southern Azerbaijan from Iran and the possibility of unification with the Republic of Azerbaijan.
This was reported at the briefing by State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland. According to her, she replied to a letter from the Congressman, but details of the correspondence will not be made public. “We are in favour of the principle of territorial integrity,” said Nuland, replying to a question by journalists about the possibility of United States support of the struggle for independence of southern Azerbaijan.
In the North of Iran in the region with its centre in the city of Tabriz is home to several times more than ethnic Azeris in Azerbaijan. Amid plans for Iran’s territory into several States in the United States and Israel are increasingly talking about them like “bruised minority.” In fact, Azeris are well represented in the Iranian elites. So, the spiritual leader of Iran , Ayatollah Khamenei is an ethnic Azerbaijani.
Continued: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32313.htm#.UD6Yb4_PsU4.facebook
America
Planning for a Post-Israel Middle East?
By Franklin
Lamb
August 28,
2012 "Information
Clearing House" ----
Congresswoman Illena
Ros-Lehtinen will have her hands full as she makes the political
and social rounds at this month’s Republican National
Convention. Illena, is the only female committee chair in the
House of Representatives and arguably Israel’s most ardent
agent. She is a constant thorn in the Obama administration's
side, regularly castigating the president for playing "political
games with U.S. foreign policy” and being “soft on Iran” and
undermining the legitimacy of Israel. Ros-Lehtinen is a
congressional cheer leader also for her Jewish voters in Florida
-- a key battleground in the rapidly approaching US presidential
election. Most recently, Ros-Lehtinen helped shepherd through
Congress yet another bill tightening sanctions against Iran
while calling for US military action against the Assad regime in
Syria.
The Congresswomen’s focus will likely not be on pushing the
republican’s talking points regarding her party’s nominee, Mitt
Romney the former “moderate Massachusetts governor” who she is
aware is unlikely to win the White House. Nor, according to a
source at the Democratic National Committee, frantically putting
together final touches on their own Convention, to be held the
week of September 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina, will Ileana
spend much time with or promoting Mitt’ running mate,
Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan, an Ayn Rand (author of The
Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as well as founder of the
Objectivism movement) follower, regularly tells audiences that
“Ayn Rand’s teachings have been one of the most profound
philosophical influences of my life.” Well, except for religion
and abortion and a few other matters, as Ayn, who passed away in
1982 was an avowed atheist and strongly pro-abortion, the
opposite of what Ryan tells audiences he is.
Rather, Ros-Lehtinen will be meeting with local, national, and
international Jewish leaders in this must win state where she
has been assigned the task of reassuring them that the
Republican Party is Israel’s best friend and that a recent US
government draft report urging a US re-think of its relationship
to Israel is the responsibility of none other than Barack Obama,
and it reveals his true disdain for Israel.
Helping her smear the White House with the findings in the
draft analysis will be William Kristol, publisher of the
neoconservative Weekly Standard and Director of the New American
Century, an “Israel first” Washington-based lobby “promoting
joint Israeli and American political and military leadership
across the globe, while bringing democracy to the Middle East”.
So what is all the fuss about?
It’s a paper entitled: Preparing For A Post Israel Middle East,
an 82 page analysis that concludes that the American national
interest in fundamentally at odds with that of Zionist Israel.
The authors concludes that Israel is currently the greatest
threat to US national interests because its nature and actions
prevent normal US relations with Arab and Muslim countries and,
to a growing degree, the wider international community.
The study was commissioned by the US Intelligence Community
comprising 16 American intelligence agencies with an annual
budget in excess of $ 70 billion. The IC includes the
Departments of the Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast
Guard, Defense Intelligence Agency, Departments of Energy,
Homeland Security, State, Treasury, Drug Enforcement Agency,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency,
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance
Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency commissioned the
study.
Among the many findings that Ros-Lehtenin and Kristol and other
unregistered agents of Israel will likely try to exploit
politically between now and November 6, by using them to attack
the Obama Administration. A sampling of the findings includes
the following:
• Israel, given its current brutal occupation and belligerence
cannot be salvaged any more than apartheid south Africa could be
when as late as 1987 Israel was the only “Western” nation that
upheld diplomatic ties with South Africa and was the last
country to join the international boycott campaign before the
regime collapsed;
• The Israel leadership, with its increasing support of the
700,000 illegal settlers on the occupied West Bank is increasing
out of touch with the political, military and economic realities
of the Middle East;
• The post Labor government Likud coalition is deeply complicit with and influenced by the settlers’ political and financial power and will increasingly face domestic civil strife which the US government should not associate itself with or become involved with;
• The Arab Spring and Islamic Awakening has, to a major degree, freed a large majority of the 1.2 billion Arab and Muslims to pursue what an overwhelming majority believe is the illegitimate, immoral and unsustainable European occupation of Palestine of the indigenous population;Continued: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32304.htm#.UD6Yf83xLvY.facebook
--
“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