I TOLD YOU... TODAY'S COMPILATION OF BENGHAZI'S BLOWBACK./ Syria: Christians take up arms for first time, and more.
Enrique Ferro
The most ironic of all is that the attack wasn't perpetrated by the victims of the US/NATO, but by its fanatic beneficiaries. What it actually signals is the failure of Obama's imperial foreign policy, based on the promotion of Contra mercenary gangs, and using the maddest and bloodthirstiest elements in the world to achieve his domination as the global hegemon.
"While Libya was a thorn in the side of the United States, it didn't deserve the level of destruction that was brought on it by the United States and NATO. Gaddafi, as bad as he supposedly was, didn't deserve to have a machete shoved into his rectum by the "Freedom fighters" that the United States was backing. The ultimate insult was the line that Clinton used when she arrived in Libya, "We came, we saw and he died" with the cackled laugh after she said it."
Blowback
Become a Fan (28 fans) -- Page 1 of 1 page(s)
I'm as upset and angry as anyone when I heard about the bombing of the United States Consulate in Libya. I also mourn the deaths of the Americans who worked there. The Ambassador seemed like a man who genuinely cared about the area and knew the people there and Americans and Libyans should mourn his loss.
Still, I don't understand the rhetoric that came from Hillary Clinton's mouth about the event. She actually went on to say that the United States "freed" the city of Benghazi and that we helped rid the country of the "evil dictator" Muammar Gadhafi. Apparently Ms. Clinton was surprised at the bombing, and did not expect anything like that would happen, especially to the United States consulate, located in a quiet residential area.
The location of the consulate in a quiet residential are, lightly guarded was a huge mistake on America's part. It showed the arrogance of the United States. When you think of the damage this so-called "Democratic" revolution brought to the county and the destruction of the country by US and NATO forces that actively supplied the so-called "Revolutionaries" that ended with half the nation in chaos and the other half ruled by a revolutionary council it's relatively easy to understand the anger that some Libyans have toward the United States.
While Libya was a thorn in the side of the United States, it didn't deserve the level of destruction that was brought on it by the United States and NATO. Gadhafi, as bad as he supposedly was, didn't deserve to have a machete shoved into his rectum by the "Freedom fighters" that the United States was backing. The ultimate insult was the line that Clinton used when she arrived in Libya, "We came, we saw and he died" with the cackled laugh after she said it.
Undoubtedly, there were people in Libya that didn't appreciate that. There were people in Libya that didn't welcome the wholesale destruction that the warplanes of NATO wrought. There are also people in Libya that didn't welcome the regime that took Gadhafi's place and the lawlessness that is occurring in the western half of that former nation, now a war zone for warlords vying for power.
To this writer, the layout and the position of the Consulate in a lightly guarded residential area was a decision that was completely incomprehensible. I can't understand the mentality of the State Department in locating the Consulate there. Didn't they understand that NATO wasn't seen as a benevolent force in the "liberation" of Libya by all Libyans? That the United States and other European nations were part and parcel in the destruction of a State that was seen not as a dictatorial regime, but a nation that would not be intimidated by outside forces. Some believed that Gadhafi had brought Libya to a higher level of life than when he arrived.
To some, the destruction of Libya was seen as a show of power by the Europeans and Americans. NATO was an instrument of violent "regime change" and that they used Libya as an example to other nations that defied the Western powers. At this present time, the United States is heavily involved in the destruction of Syria, another nation that doesn't kowtow to the Western powers. Syria and Libya were secular governments that went their own way and this has seemed to be the reason that the Western powers have decided that they should not exist in their present state.
According to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, secular governments in Middle-Eastern countries unite the various factions that live together. Installing fundamentalist Sunni governments will lead to fracturing these nations and cause the various factions in these nations to fight with each other, leading to lawless impotent states. This removes obstacles to Western interests in the region. Fracturing the government in Libya was also seen as a way to cripple Chinese oil interests in Libya.
These are just some of the reasons that bring me to ask our State Department how they had the audacity to put our Consulate in a residential area of Benghazi. Didn't they realize that there are factions there that don't look upon NATO as "saviors" of their nation? Didn't they realize that putting Americans in harm's way by locating the American compound in an unguarded residence was foolish, let alone reckless?
The statement made by Clinton after the bombing of the Consulate seemed oblivious of the destruction that NATO wrought on Libya. It is inconceivable to believe that all Libyans would welcome Americans. She seemed outraged that some in Libya would attack an American installation after America helped "liberate" the city of Benghazi. This point of view in my estimation, lead to the deaths of four American citizens that should have been housed in an area that was defensible, and should have had a large contingent of Marines to guard them.
After what NATO did to Libya, any sane Secretary of State should have housed diplomats in Libya in a secure environment. The shock and disappointment that Clinton displayed after the bombing displayed her naivety. If she actually thought that all Libyans would welcome Americans with open arms after we bombed the nation back to the stone-age, she was mistaken. This is called blowback.
It's time that Congress stepped up to the plate and demanded that American military adventures in other nations be authorized by the representatives of the American people. This includes the carnage we are heaping on Syria. The sooner Congress steps in and takes its rightful place in authorizing military action against other nations, the sooner this kind of thing will stop. Stepping into other countries internal affairs will only bring more outrage against America. It's time we reeled this administration in and stopped American involvement in other nation's internal conflicts. If we really prize self-determination in other nations, we should stop interfering by backing different factions. When NATO or the United States (which really is the same thing) backs one side or another in conflicts in other nations, that isn't self-determination; its America determining which side wins. When we get involved in other nations struggles we are deciding, not the people of that nation.
In the Middle-East, this is why we are despised by many. It is not up to the United States to determine the path that other nations should take. The sooner we learn that lesson, the sooner we will have normal relations with nations there. If Clinton were living in the real world, she should have made that Consulate a fortress. The blood is on her hands.
http://liberalpro.blogspot.com
A TIMELY COMMENT:
The maturity of a people lies in their ability to realize that when they offended by another and if they have full conviction in the virtue behind their beliefs, offense will never injure that state. However, if spontaneous anger drives people into a murderous frenzy, the perpetrator of the offense has achieved his objective which was always to create more hatred, fear, mistrust and justification for entering into a state of open, merciless hostility.
For once I actually enjoyed a Times article. Americans should learn something now, and be more cautious with their imperial megalomania. Ah, and please kick out the bitch (you know who).
Russians Say Anti-U.S. Attack in Libya Vindicates Their Position
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: September 12, 2012
MOSCOW — Upon learning of the violent death of the United States ambassador to Libya on Wednesday, many Russians responded with variations on “I told you so.”Russia has long argued that the West should not support popular uprisings against dictatorships in the Middle East lest Islamic fundamentalism take hold. Vladimir V. Putin, then serving as prime minister, was especially enraged last fall after an angry crowd killed his ally, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, an event he later condemned as a “repulsive, disgusting” scene.
Since then, Russia has blocked Western initiatives to force Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, from power despite a bloody crackdown on the opposition. Russians’ responses to the storming of the American Consulate in Benghazi underlined the deep policy divide. A prime-time news report pointedly juxtaposed images of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s death with Colonel Qaddafi’s, pointing at their similarities, then cut to footage of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reacting to the Libyan leader’s death with a cursory “wow.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Margelov said that passions had been stoked by the uprisings and that they “splash out in the form of terrorist acts or massacres of nonbelievers or an attack on embassies and consulates.”
“The frequency of these outbursts, unfortunately, has been growing since the ‘Arab Spring’ brought to power political groups of Islamic orientation, either open or indirect,” Mr. Margelov said, in comments to the Interfax news agency. A telegram from Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov to Mrs. Clinton condemned the attack as a crime, and said “it confirms once again the necessity of combining the forces of our countries and the whole international community to fight with the evil of terrorism.”
But many commentators were far less diplomatic, especially on social media. The first commentaries on Twitter were bitingly sarcastic — “The democratized residents of Libya thanked the staff of the American Embassy for its support,” one read. Another read, “This is what you call exporting democracy, it seems. America gives Libya a revolution, and Libyans, in return, kill the ambassador.” Aleksei K. Pushkov, the head of Russia’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote via Twitter: “Under Qaddafi they didn’t kill diplomats. Obama and Clinton are in shock? What did they expect – ‘Democracy?’ Even bigger surprises await them in Syria.”
Yevgeny Y. Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East in Moscow, said American leaders should not expect “one word of sympathy” from their Russian counterparts.
“It is a tragedy to the family of the poor ambassador, but his blood is on the hands of Hillary Clinton personally and Barack Obama personally,” Mr. Satanovsky said. He said Russian warnings against intervention in the Middle East came from the bitter experience of the Soviets in Afghanistan.
“You are the Soviet Union now, guys, and you pay the price,” he said. “You are trying to distribute democracy the way we tried to distribute socialism. You do it the Western way. They hate both.” He said dictators were preferable to the constellation of armed forces that emerges when they are unseated.
“They lynched Qaddafi — do you really think they will be thankful to you?” he said. “They use stupid white people from a big rich and stupid country which they really hate.”
Russia’s case against American involvement in the Middle East dates from the post-Sept. 11 campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it has been at the forefront of Russian discourse for at least a year, since Mr. Putin broke out of his role as prime minister and delivered a passionate criticism of the NATO bombing campaign in Libya, leaving the clear impression that he — unlike his predecessor — would have used Russia’s power in the United Nations to stop it.
Mr. Putin has dug his heels in on the issue of Syria, frustrating Western hopes that he could persuade Mr. Assad to leave his post voluntarily. Fyodor Lukyanov, a respected analyst and editor of Russia in Global Affairs, said violence like Tuesday’s had been at the heart of Russia’s warnings. He said Russia had formulated a “post-Communist position: If you try to impose anything on others, as the Soviet Union tried to do, the result will be the opposite, and disastrous.”
“This killing is just strengthening the views which are already quite
widespread — that the Western approach to the Arab Spring is basically
wrong,” Mr. Lukyanov said.
Libyan Interior Ministry
"“Who’s going to control these people?” said Tarik Yousef, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is also the SON of GNC’s interim president, Mohammed Yousef Magarief. “Some of these Salafi groups claim to operate under the banner of the Interior Ministry.”" Tarek is right. I watched a press conference by Libya's deputy interior minister and he sounded rather sympathetic to the violent protests.
Regarding events in Libya today, there are so many parallels to be drawn with the words spoken here by Moussa Ibrahim
AGAIN, THIS ATTACK SANCTIONS THE FAILURE OF OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY OF ARMING FANATICS IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE HIS IMPERIAL GOALS OF DOMINATION.
Libya Attack Brings Challenges for U.S.
-
Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters
Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Mahmud Turkia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
CAIRO — Islamist militants armed with antiaircraft weapons and
rocket-propelled grenades stormed a lightly defended United States
diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya,
late Tuesday, killing the American ambassador and three members of his
staff and raising questions about the radicalization of countries swept
up in the Arab Spring.
Was U.S. Ambassador Lynched? Attack on U.S. Consulate Illustrates Disastrous Outcome of Obama’s “Humanitarian Intervention” in Libya
Despite initial reports suggesting he died in a rocket attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, photos appear to indicate that U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed by a lynch mob, illustrating the disastrous consequences of the Obama administration’s military intervention in Libya – arming some of the very same men who carried out today’s attack.
“The US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, has been killed in a rocket attack in the eastern city of Benghazi along with three other embassy staff, the White House confirmed on Wednesday,” reports France 24.
However, images released in the hours after the attack show Stevens’ body being paraded around by a mob. The body appears to show signs of torture.
Subsequent reports speculated that Stevens’ car was attacked as he and the three other personnel attempted to escape from the Consulate. The other embassy staff were shot while Stevens’ died of “suffocation,” suggesting he was lynched and physically attacked by the mob.
The incident is being portrayed by the establishment media as a reaction to a film produced in the United States that purportedly ridicules Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
However, the wider issue of how the 2011 bombardment of Libya paved the way for gangs of militant Islamic extremists, once backed by NATO powers with heavy weapons, to fill the power vacuum left by Colonel Gaddafi, has been largely ignored.
Indeed, it’s a horrific irony that Hillary Clinton’s infamous gloating about Gaddafi’s execution - “We came, we saw, he died” - has now come full circle, with Stevens paying for such despicable arrogance with his life.
After NATO-backed insurgents with links to Al-Qaeda helped topple Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, they proudly flew the distinctive black Al-Qaeda flag over courthouses in Benghazi and other centers of power. That same flag flew over the Consulate today after the U.S. flag was torn down and burned.
In the aftermath of last year’s “no fly zone,” which turned into an incessant bombardment almost overnight, Libya, once one of the richest countries in Africa, is now run by brutal armed gangs who have rounded up black people in huge numbers, subjecting them to torture, incarceration in concentration camps and execution.
A February 2012 report by Amnesty International found that Libya’s militias are “largely out of control” and that “Thousands of detainees are being held in various prisons across the country” and are being “tortured to death.” The country’s NATO-installed rulers have proven themselves unwilling to prevent widespread abuse.
Libya’s oil resources have been carved up between NATO-aligned corporations while the country’s financial enslavement to global bankers is ensured with a fresh IMF loan and the end of their state-owned central banking system.
Despite the fact that Libya is in a state of hellish sectarian warfare and societal collapse, with armed thugs hostile to the west now in control of major power centers, the White House is intent on repeating the same disaster in Syria, funneling arms to rebels, the majority of whom aren’t even Syrian, who are being led by Al-Qaeda terrorists.
Indeed, some of the very same militants responsible for the Libya debacle were airlifted into Syria with the aid of NATO powers as part of the effort to topple Bashar Al-Assad.
The assault on Libya was carried out with absolutely zero constitutional authorization.
In June last year, President Obama arrogantly expressed his hostility to the rule of law when he dismissed the need to get congressional authorization to commit the United States to a military intervention in Libya, churlishly dismissing criticism and remarking, “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question.”
Obama tried to legitimize his failure to obtain Congressional approval for military involvement by sending a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he said the military assault was “authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council.”
Today’s attack on the U.S. Consulate serves as another reminder that the military-industrial complex’s new paradigm of “humanitarian intervention” – a scam they hope to repeat in Syria – has nothing to do with humanitarianism in that it only results in more bloodshed and more instability.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
US sends Marines to Libya after ambassador’s killing
By Bill Van Auken
13 September 2012
The Obama administration has dispatched an elite unit of Marine special forces to Libya after the killing of the US ambassador and three other US personnel in the storming of the American consulate in Benghazi Tuesday.
The killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the first such killing of a US envoy since the death of Washington’s ambassador to Afghanistan in 1979, together with the breaching of the walls of the US embassy in Cairo by Islamist demonstrators, touched off bitter political recriminations in Washington.
The Libyan attack is by all appearances a case of the chickens coming home to roost. Ambassador Stevens was himself very much involved in executing a policy that culminated in his own demise. The war for “regime change” that ended with the lynch-mob murder of former leader Muammar Gaddafi last October was prosecuted by means of US-NATO bombardment and the arming, training and financing of “rebels” that included Islamist elements closely connected to Al Qaeda. Now it appears that these same elements have killed Stevens.
While designed to install a puppet government subordinate to the interests of Washington and the Western oil companies and to teach China a lesson as to who runs North Africa, the war has produced what in the parlance of the intelligence services is known as blowback.
No doubt a contributing factor to Tuesday’s bloody events is the fact that the US-NATO war has brought no benefit to masses of Libyans, who are increasingly embittered over the devastation of their country.
Both the incidents in Benghazi and Cairo, together with smaller demonstrations in Tunisia, Sudan, Morocco and the Gaza Strip, were ostensibly in response to a provocative, rabidly anti-Muslim film produced in the US. A trailer for the amateurish and cartoon-like video, titled “Innocence of Muslims,” was posted on YouTube in July, and more recently was dubbed in Arabic and became more widely known after being denounced on an Egyptian television program.
Initially an individual describing himself as Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American real estate developer in California, claimed he had made the video to “expose” Islam. It later appeared, however, that no such person exists. Promoted by Christian right elements, the film appears to have been designed precisely to provoke violent confrontations.
The sequence of events in Benghazi remains somewhat murky. Initial reports attributed the attack to a militia known as the Ansar al-Sharia brigade, but the group has denied involvement.
Libya’s deputy interior minister, Wanis al-Sharif, tried to pin the blame on supporters of Gaddafi, but also suggested that the Americans were responsible for their own fate for not heeding previous warnings of attacks by Al Qaeda. “It was necessary that they take precautions,” he told AFP. “It was their fault that they did not take the necessary precautions.”
The New York Times Wednesday cited US officials as suggesting that the death of Stevens was not merely the accidental byproduct of spontaneous protest. “Indications suggest the possibility that an organized group had either been waiting for an opportunity to exploit like the protests over the video or perhaps even generated the protests as a cover for their attack,” the Times reported.
As many as 80 militiamen, armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and 14.5mm anti-aircraft machine guns took part in the assault, a Libyan reporter told the BBC.
Others have suggested that the attack, carried out on September 11, may have been the work of Al Qaeda-linked elements seeking revenge for the US drone assassination of Abu Yahya al-Libi, the Libyan-born Al Qaeda leader killed in June in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border.
Sharif said that two of the slain Americans died as US security forces flown in from the capital of Tripoli tried to evacuate US personnel from a safe house in Benghazi, where they had been taken during the attack on the consulate.
“It was supposed to be a secret place, and we were surprised the armed groups knew about it. There was shooting,” Sharif told Reuters, suggesting that the attackers had good intelligence on US operations in the city.
Ambassador Stevens and another member of the US consular staff were killed in the attack on the consulate. Libyan authorities said that Stevens died of asphyxiation, apparently resulting from fires ignited by rocket-propelled grenades and homemade bombs. The consulate was left gutted and looted.
Speaking from the Rose Garden Wednesday morning, Obama emphasized that “the US is working with the Libyan government to bring the attackers to justice.”
He did not spell out what form “justice” would take. The White House ordered 50 members of the elite Marine special forces unit known as a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) to Libya. This may be only the first elements of a larger US intervention. A senior administration official told reporters Wednesday, “The Department of Defense is ready to respond with additional military measures, as directed by the president.”
The Pentagon is also redeploying US warships off the Libyan coast. The destroyer USS Laboon moved to a position off the Libyan coast Wednesday, while the USS McFaul is reportedly en route. Both ships carry Tomahawk missiles, which they could fire at targets on land.
Libyan officials also reported that US drones regularly fly over the North African country.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued her own statement Wednesday, expressing perplexity over the attack. “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate in a city we helped save from destruction?,” she said. “This question reflects just how complicated, and at times how confounding the world can be.”
Clinton could have answered her own question by spelling out the criminal and filthy methods that Washington employed to “liberate” Libya.
The loss of Stevens, a high-level US Middle East operative, was clearly a blow. Fluent in Arabic, he had served in various parts of the region in mid-level embassy positions, such as political section chief in Jerusalem, political officer in Damascus, consular/political officer in Cairo and consular/economic officer in Riyadh. Dispatched to Libya in 2007, he was first listed as “chargé d'Affaires” and then deputy chief of mission. Secret cables published by WikiLeaks show he held frequent meetings with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whom he once described an “engaging and charming interlocutor.”
Then in March of last year, barely a week before the US and NATO launched their war for regime change in Libya, Stevens was named US “liaison to the opposition” and dispatched with a US team to Benghazi. A State Department spokesman said he would “explore ways to open funding spigots for an opposition movement.”
In this military intervention, Washington and its European, Saudi and Qatari allies provided arms, training and heavy air support for the so-called rebels, which included significant numbers of Islamist fighters, some of whom had worked with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Iraq. If the attack on the consulate was carried out by these elements, the US ambassador and the other Americans were likely killed with arms and ammunition supplied by NATO.
Islamist militias continue to wield substantial power in Libya after elections held in July. Libya’s interim government is incapable of disarming the various armed groups or imposing its authority. In recent weeks heavily armed militiamen have brought in bulldozers to demolish shrines and mosques belonging to the Sufi branch of Islam in Tripoli, and other cities, sparking clashes that left several people dead and wounded.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a statement late Tuesday night declaring his outrage over the attacks in Libya and Egypt and stating, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
Romney was referring to a statement issued by the US Embassy in Egypt hours before thousands of demonstrators gathered outside, scaling its walls and hauling down the US flag, which was replaced with the black banner favored by Islamist groups. The statement, which condemned “efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the feelings of Muslims,” aimed to pre-empt the protest. The embassy also reportedly called Egypt’s Salafist Nour Party, relaying this message and asking them to call off the demonstration.
In an interview with CBS, Obama responded that Romney’s criticism was indicative of a “tendency to shoot first and aim later.”
Beneath the superficial political attacks, there are no doubt deeper concerns within the American ruling elite over the implications of a US policy of “regime change” carried out by backing Islamist forces in both Libya and Syria, destabilizing the entire Middle East in the process.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/liby-s13.shtml
US Ambassador with Jihadist friends of Hillary (sept. 2012).
Friendship is something fugitive ...
Clinton on Qaddafi: "We Came, We Saw, He Died"
By Corbett B. Daly
October 21, 2011 "CBS" - Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton shared a laugh with a television news reporter moments
after hearing deposed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had been killed.
"We came, we saw, he died," she joked when told of
news reports of Qaddafi's death by an aide in between formal
interviews.
Clinton was in Tripoli earlier this week for talks
with leaders of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).
The reporter asked if Qaddafi's death had anything
to do with her surprise visit to show support for the Libyan people.
"No," she replied, before rolling her eyes and saying "I'm sure it did" with a chuckle.
Vultures Descend: NATO, World
Bank To Attend Libya Summit
NATO and the World Bank to speak at The Libya Summit
Wednesday 12, September 2012 by Isla MacFarlane
Since the civil war in 2011, which resulted in the ousting of one of Africa's most infamous dictators, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the subsequent collapse of his 34-year-old rule in Libya, the country has been undergoing massive political re-construction.
This new government wants to undo the damage caused by the earlier rulers and develop Libya into a liberated and democratic country which is accepted by United Nations and the western world. Hence Fleming Gulf Conferences are organising a summit which will showcase Libya as a nation worth investing into, especially in sectors like oil production, banking and finance, telecommunication, information technology and tourism.
The Libya Summit is to be held between 20th and the 22nd of November 2012 in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
The three-day summit will have representatives from more than twenty participating countries subjected to ten plus hours of knowledge sharing, networking sessions, industry insights, and have a chance to participate in interactive sessions, all conducted by over 35 speakers and panellists.
There are many eminent world leaders coming for the event. Speakers include representatives from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, NATO, the World Health Organisation, BBC World News, the Tripoli Post, Lukoil, Condor Petroleum, Barclays Capital and the International Finance Corporation – World Bank Group, amongst others.
International guests include Dr Stefanie Babst, the Head of Global Risks Assessment and Strategy, NATO, Her Royal Highness Princess Alla Al-Senussi who is representing her country on behalf of the Global Heritage Trust. Khwaja Aftab Ahmed, Director Financial Markets and PE Funds Europe, Central Asia and MENA - International Finance Corporation, World Bank Group, William Hatcher, Sr Vice President, Asset Development and Operations, Condor Petroleum, Vladislav Kulakovsky, Project Risk Manager, Lukoil. Christian Manahl, Policy Advisor, European Union.
Dr Filiz Katman, Expert, BBC World News, Leila Hanafi, Coalition for the International Criminal Court Regional Coordinator, Middle East and North Africa, Hesham Hamdy, Chief Risk Officer, Arab International Bank, Egypt, Dr. Bessma Momani, Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovations (CIGI), Meb Somani, Head of Oil & Gas investments, Barclays Natural Resource Investments, Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi, Italian Ambassador in Libya are also expected to attend.
Local guests include Ahmed Shebani, Founder, Democratic Party of Libya, Dr Faisel Gergab, Project Manager, Libya Stabilization Team - National Transitional Council - Libya, Reida El Oakley, Libya Representative, World Health Organisation (WHO), amongst others.
Some of the speakers described the current scenario in Libya as:
"Health Reform is a mandate and considered to be an essential step to move forward in the new Libya. This reform requires a huge budget and expertise, and while the Libya government can continue to spend on healthcare there are always cost effective ways to implement this reform through strategic partnership with serious private partners. Health PPP can help in the design and implementation of the reform, using regional best examples, and reducing the burden of investment and time pressure on the new government" - Dr. Saif AlJaibeji, Institute of HealthCare Research - Cambridge Academy for Higher Education, CEO
"The relatively young and educated population will be a vast consumer market in the world. Not to mention a small population with enormous amount of national oil wealth used to increase the domestic capacity and absorption of foreign capital." - Dr. Bessma Momani, Senior Fellow, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
The Summit will provide all its attendees an opportunity to interact directly with the leaders with an eye towards providing a new arena for economic investments.
Matthew VanDyke, a Middle East analyst who was the only non-Libyan who fought for democracy alongside the rebels of the Arab Spring during the Civil War will be conducting a small pre-conference session on the 19th of November 2012. He will be talking about his experiences during the Civil War.
http://www.cpifinancial.net/news/post/15645/nato-and-the-world-bank-to-speak-at-the-libya-summit
Is Muhammad Movie a Contrived Fraud?
Bizarre story behind film that supposedly sparked middle east unrest
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, September 13, 2012
An anti-Muslim film that has been blamed for the attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt, Libya and Yemen is likely a contrived fraud designed to stir up unrest in the Middle East while shielding the true reasons behind the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens.
A trailer for the film, entitled The Innocence of Muslims, has been on You Tube for over two months. Despite the alleged film maker’s claim that the movie was funded by rich Jewish donors to the tune of $5 million dollars, it has all the quality of a low budget film school project. The trailer has now been banned in several middle eastern countries, including Egypt and Afghanistan.
Indeed, the full film itself may not even exist, a doubt that has also been shared about the existence of its shadowy director Sam Bacile, who told the Associated Press this week that he was a 56-year-old “Israeli Jew” who lives in California, despite telling actors on set that he is Egyptian, while others have claimed he is an American.
Bacile claims he made the film to illustrate how “Islam is a cancer, period.”
However, numerous authorities have failed in attempting to locate a ‘Sam Bacile’ residing in California. Bacile is likely a pseudonym for the only real person who has been positively connected with the movie – Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Coptic Christian living in California who was convicted for federal bank fraud in 2010.
The movie itself – or the 14 minutes of it which have been released – is also highly suspect. Actors involved in filming were told “they were appearing in a film about the life of a generic Egyptian 2,000 years ago.” Following the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, all 80 cast members put out a joint statement stating that they were misled by the producer.
“The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose,” the statement says. “We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”
The film has been purposely dubbed and edited to elicit maximum outrage from Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad is depicted as a pedophile, a homosexual, a religious phony, a philanderer, a womanizer and a bloodthirsty dictator.
During dialogue, the actors words have been crudely dubbed to include references to Muhammad that were not in the original script.
As Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress involved in the movie, told Gawker, “In the script and during the shooting, nothing indicated the controversial nature of the final product. Muhammed wasn’t even called Muhammed; he was “Master George.”
“The words Muhammed were dubbed over in post-production, as were essentially all other offensive references to Islam and Muhammed,” writes Adrian Chen.
For example, at 9:03 in the trailer, the words “Is your Muhammed a child molester?” are heard, yet the actress’ voice has been dubbed as her lips do not form the word “Muhammed”.
As the Christian Science Monitor summarizes, the film looks like, “it could have been ginned up by someone sitting a basement with cheap dubbing software.”
Everything about the movie suggests it was a contrived fraud to artificially manufacture unrest in the middle east at a time where speculation that the U.S. and Israel are about to launch military interventions in Iran and Syria is rife.
The amateurish nature of the film may be a ruse to deflect suspicion away from its true purpose and the real identities of its creators.
“Those sniffing the air properly smell some sort of intelligence/influence operation in the whole situation,” writes Daniel McAdams, comparing the film to Kony 2012. “A purposely bad cover for what happened in Benghazi yesterday? A badly done attempted cover for what happened yesterday? Arabs — even Muslim Brotherhood — looking to score points by blaming “wealthy Jews” for making the film? A power struggle between Islamist factions in Egypt? Israelis attempting to make it look like Arabs made a crudely anti-Semitic cover story for a crude film?”
What’s known for sure is the fact that the establishment media has seized upon the movie as an excuse to explain away the attacks on the embassies in Cairo and Benghazi as just another instance of extremist Muslims getting riled up over nothing in particular.
Subsequent reports confirmed that the attacks were coordinated well in advance of the release of the Arabic version of the trailer this week and had nothing to do with the film, but the media immediately ran with that narrative.
This conveniently disguises the true narrative behind the attacks, which is the fact that the United States and other NATO powers are seeing their chickens come home to roost having armed and empowered Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic extremists in pursuit of regime change, most notably in Libya where the removal of Gaddafi was achieved via NATO’s support for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – which is listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department and was responsible for killing U.S. troops in Iraq.
Given that these same militants are now being used by Gulf states and NATO powers in a bid to topple President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, their connection to the embassy attacks must be downplayed. This was evident when NATO stooge Ali Aujali, Libya’s Ambassador to Washington, ludicrously claimed that Gaddafi loyalists were responsible for killing Ambassador Stevens.
With embassies in Yemen, Tunisia and other countries now coming under siege, the mass media’s promotion of what would otherwise have been an obscure, ineffectual and downright laughable 14 minute You Tube trailer has now created a crisis that threatens the stability of the entire region.
The bizarre circumstances behind The Innocence of Muslims, its shadowy creators and the deliberate attempt to manipulate the film to offend Muslims clearly suggests that the whole farce was a contrived set-up to inflame tensions in order to justify an acceleration of U.S., Israeli and NATO aggression across the Middle East and North Africa.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
http://www.infowars.com/is-muhammad-movie-a-contrived-fraud/
AGAIN THE EXTREMISTS FROM BOTH SOCIETIES ACT AS THE BEST ALLIES: AMERICAN ZIOFUNDAMENTALISTS AND JIHADIST-ISLAMISTS FEED ON EACH OTHER TO DRAG THE REST OF PEOPLE TO CONFRONTATION AND HATRED. BUT THEN WE HAVE THE US AND WAHHABI GOVERNMENTS FROM BEHIND USING FANATIC MERCENARIES TO DESTROY INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES, AND BOMB THEM OUT OF THE PLANET. AND WHO BLOWS THE WHISTLE?
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch.
Moments of imperial and economic decline -- according to a recent poll, 65% of Americans now believe this country to be “in a state of decline” -- can also be periods of cultishness, even of madness incarnate. Such a mood now seems to be spreading through the United States. It’s not so surprising, really. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, fear has been injected into this “homeland” like a drug and a penumbra of official secrecy has settled over the land in a way that makes the secrecy of the Cold War years (when this country faced a superpower, not a ragtag set of jihadis, guerrillas, and terrorists) seem like an era of sunshine.
In an atmosphere of swirling fears and hysteria amid declining living conditions, “explanations” that at other times might have remained confined to tiny crews of conspiracy-mongers can suddenly gain a patina of plausibility and so traction. No wonder then that, as hard times hit, as the financial system seemed on the verge of collapse, as unemployment soared and a massive wave of home foreclosures swept into view, increasing numbers of Americans became prey to any wacky explanation for our troubles, none more so than the idea that Islam was somehow responsible, that mosques and Islamic centers meant for a sliver of a minority here were capable of imposing anything, no less a way of life on this country, or that Sharia law (of all things) might somehow worm its way into state legal systems, or that YouTube was a hotbed of terrorism worthy of suppression, or... well, you name it.
Max Blumenthal, author of the bestselling book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, has done the necessary legwork to take us deep into one of those crews of conspiracy-mongers who, at another time, just about no one would have paid much attention to, but in twenty-first-century America have gained a remarkable audience. They are a chilling barometer of the changing weather in America. Tom
The Great Islamophobic Crusade
Inside the Bizarre Cabal of Secretive Donors, Demagogic Bloggers, Pseudo-Scholars, European Neo-Fascists, Violent Israeli Settlers, and Republican Presidential Hopefuls Behind the Crusade
By Max BlumenthalNine years after 9/11, hysteria about Muslims in American life has gripped the country. With it has gone an outburst of arson attacks on mosques, campaigns to stop their construction, and the branding of the Muslim-American community, overwhelmingly moderate, as a hotbed of potential terrorist recruits. The frenzy has raged from rural Tennessee to New York City, while in Oklahoma, voters even overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning the implementation of Sharia law in American courts (not that such a prospect existed). This campaign of Islamophobia wounded President Obama politically, as one out of five Americans have bought into a sustained chorus of false rumors about his secret Muslim faith. And it may have tainted views of Muslims in general; an August 2010 Pew Research Center poll revealed that, among Americans, the favorability rating of Muslims had dropped by 11 points since 2005.
Erupting so many years after the September 11th trauma, this spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry might seem oddly timed and unexpectedly spontaneous. But think again: it’s the fruit of an organized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era. It was then that embittered conservative forces, voted out of power in 2008, sought with remarkable success to leverage cultural resentment into political and partisan gain.
This network is obsessively fixated on the supposed spread of Muslim influence in America. Its apparatus spans continents, extending from Tea Party activists here to the European far right. It brings together in common cause right-wing ultra-Zionists, Christian evangelicals, and racist British soccer hooligans. It reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and urging the U.S. and various European powers to emulate its heavy-handed methods.
Little of recent American Islamophobia (with a strong emphasis on the “phobia”) is sheer happenstance. Years before Tea Party shock troops massed for angry protests outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, representatives of the Israel lobby and the Jewish-American establishment launched a campaign against pro-Palestinian campus activism that would prove a seedbed for everything to come. That campaign quickly -- and perhaps predictably -- morphed into a series of crusades against mosques and Islamic schools which, in turn, attracted an assortment of shady but exceptionally energetic militants into the network’s ranks.
Besides providing the initial energy for the Islamophobic crusade, conservative elements from within the pro-Israel lobby bankrolled the network’s apparatus, enabling it to influence the national debate. One philanthropist in particular has provided the beneficence to propel the campaign ahead. He is a little-known Los Angeles-area software security entrepreneur named Aubrey Chernick, who operates out of a security consulting firm blandly named the National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination. A former trustee of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has served as a think tank for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a frontline lobbying group for Israel, Chernick is said to be worth $750 million.
Chernick’s fortune is puny compared to that of the billionaire Koch Brothers, extraction industry titans who fund Tea Party-related groups like Americans for Prosperity, and it is dwarfed by the financial empire of Haim Saban, the Israeli-American media baron who is one of the largest private donors to the Democratic party and recently matched $9 million raised for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces in a single night. However, by injecting his money into a small but influential constellation of groups and individuals with a narrow agenda, Chernick has had a considerable impact.
CONTINUED: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175334/tomgram:_max_blumenthal,_the_great_fear_
Syria: Christians take up arms for first time
Christian communities in Aleppo have taken up arms and formed their own militias for the first time, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The Christian community has tried to avoid taking sides in the civil war. In Aleppo, it recruited vigilantes from the Boy Scout movement to protect churches, but as the war moved into the city and spread across its suburbs they have begun to accept weapons from the Syrian army and joined forces with Armenian groups to repel opposition guerrillas.
"Everybody is fighting everybody," said George, an Armenian Christian from the city. "The Armenians are fighting because they believe the FSA are sent by their Turkish oppressors to attack them, the Christians want to defend their neighbourhoods, Shabiha regime militia are there to kill and rape, the army is fighting the FSA, and the [Kurdish militant group] PKK have their own militia too."
For the past six weeks up to 150 Christian and Armenian fighters have been fighting to prevent Free Syrian Army rebels from entering Christian heartland areas of Aleppo.
Last month the Syrian army claimed a 'victory' in removing FSA fighters from the historic Christian quarter of Jdeidah. But Christian
militia fighters told the Daily Telegraph it was they who had first attacked the FSA there.
"The FSA were hiding in Farhat Square in Jdeideh. The Church committees stormed in and cleansed the area. Then the Syrian army
joined us. They claimed the victory on State television," said George, who like many Christian refugees is too scared to give his full name. "The rebels were threatening the churches."
The area, defined by its boutique shops, narrow cobbled streets and the spires and cupolas of the Maronite, Orthodox and Armenian churches, had over the weeks become infiltrated with sniper positions and checkpoints, residents said.
"FSA snipers were on the rooftops and they were attacking the Maronite church and Armenian residents there," said a former clergyman calling himself John, now in Beirut, who said he had witnessed the battle.
The battle for Aleppo has become bitter, with militant jihadist groups playing a more prominent role than in any other city.
It has become increasingly scarred by accusations of atrocities on both sides, most recently the mass killing of 20 regime troops, whose bodies were displayed on a video apparently uploaded to the internet by a rebel militia.
Residents of the city told The Telegraph that the city's minorities feared that they would suffer the same fate as Christians in Iraq, who
were heavily targeted by the sectarian violence that erupted after the 2003 war.
"They are shouting 'the Alawites to the graves and the Christians to Beirut," said an Armenian mother of four who recently fled the city – a claim also made by several other Christian refugees.
John said that contrary to reports Aleppo's minority groups and wealthy residents were not all regime supporters. But he said they felt they had to protect themselves from 'peasant immigrants' who were using the war to destroy the city's sophisticated
heart.
"I am not in support of the government, but the FSA are all a bunch of thugs and thieves. I watched them steal from a textile
factory – they took everything; gas, materials, even the beading machines!"
Increasingly on the offensive, Syrian rebels killed at least 18 soldiers in a car bomb and ground attack on a military position in neighbouring Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In Aleppo on Wednesday four Syrian Armenians were reported killed and 13 wounded in an ambush near the airport.
The new UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Thursday, in a last-ditch effort to rescue the country from civil war.
Any military intervention looked to be firmly off limits on Wednesday. Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, made clear that Western countries would not consider such action whilst Russia and China continued to oppose it.
Seeing little hope of change many Christians have already joined the hundreds of thousands who have fled the country. The UN High
Commission for Refugees said 253,000 Syrians were now registered with them.
Many Christians say they hold little hope of returning.
Syria: A testimony by the women of Homs
Source - by Pierangela Zanzottera
Homs is traditionally noted in the entire country for the beauty of its women
Translated from Italian by Syr. Georges
Homs, the third city of Syria, located a few kilometers from the borders of Lebanon, is traditionally noted in the entire country for the beauty of its women. If you pass through the quarters of al-Hamidiya, al-Zahra, al-Arman, Bistan al-Diwan, Hay al-Sabil, al-Muhagirin, al-Madabyà, Karm al-Zaitoun and al-Nizha, which places are inhabited by religious minorities, it will be easy to meet women who are proud to face life with uncovered face and head; only old women hold their hair in a scarf.
In these quarters there are women who have bravely decided to open their hearts and to offer us their personal testimony. They have chosen to stay anonymous to maintain their safety and privacy. You can give them the names you like.
They all belong to ordinary families, as in Homs there are Allawi and other pro-government families who are not that wealthy (in contrary to the claim that Allawi people have benefited from the ruling power). They don’t have agents in the army or the public administration. Some of them are public employees; others work in governmental companies, others have their private jobs. The sons and nephews, who are numerous, frequently go to public schools, but they don’t go frequently to cultural centers. They respect the religious ruling principles. They all love their country and respect the government.
In the city, it is said that there is a natural curfew that has lasted for several months now [a woman tells]: "After 5 p.m. it is not possible to walk around, there are a lot of stray missiles and the risk to get hit is so high that one needs to be in an optimal secure region to be safe. Also wide streets have to be avoided, because the snipers prefer them to have a wider view. Yesterday my sister was crossing a street going back home. Suddenly, she felt a blow behind her neck messing up her hair; it was a bullet! The blow of death, but it seems that her hour hasn’t arrived yet; she wasn’t hurt and could come back home safe. However she was terrified."
"One witnesses the violent death of their friends, relatives or parents as a normal event, waiting to guess who would be the next victim, wishing that they won't be the next themselves, and then at the same moment hoping to be the next victim to end living in fear and helplessness, as long as this will exempt them from torture, and they realize their beloved ones will mourn over them. What life is this! What have we done to deserve such a daily misery? Such a misery that prevents us from sleeping, working and living our lives, a misery that takes away the little daily joy which makes it worth to stay on earth!”
A young woman, living at the borders of the quarter Bab Tadmor, tells us with the same fear in her eyes about the terrible days during the last weeks:
"Terrorists tried to invade our quarter and prevented the inhabitants from going out. Many of them who couldn’t flee the quarter in time found themselves locked up at home, and became a refugee in their most internal rooms that are far away from doors, windows and balconies, frightened to be shot. During those long days I only thought of how to protect my children. We waited for the first chance to flee; we went to my parents in a more safe quarter. My children moved to another school. But I was very worried about my husband who remained alone there to guard our apartment from being occupied by militants; he may be devastated and be used as a base for them, as occurred to many of our neighbors. One day, during my residence with my uncle at my parents, some militants came to us. I felt as if my blood froze! In an interminable moment, all the faces of my beloved people flashed back in my mind, and I wondered to whom among them I had to say goodbye... The victim was my aunt! The militants said that she died by the shelling while she was drying clothes on the roof of the house. One can die in Homs like that, while doing the most innocent and normal actions! While setting the table, having dinner, eating a biscuit, playing or drying clothes in open air! I will never be able to forget the look on my uncle's face at that moment. There is no explanation for such a suffering.”
"When we were able to go home, one month later, I didn't recognize my quarter at all! Those streets that I used to pass through and that I knew step by step, seemed alien to me, desecrated and contaminated with a mysterious disease."
Another woman tells us that it is also very difficult for people from Homs to go to their work:
“I used to work at an office in the city center, at a little distance from Souq Al-Hashish. It was a rewarding job that allowed me to dedicate myself to my family for the rest of the day. This was until the last summer, 2011, when going to the office started becoming a little more complex day after day, till I found myself at a real risk. While the way from my home to the office in the morning wasn’t that risky, the way back required circumspection. Many times I had to run away till I found myself amid the shootings in the Christian zone. Any unveiled woman (without Hijab) who dared to go out alone was concidered to be suspicious. I remember once I had to hide from a group of about ten bearded armed men with sabers, knives and batons. I could take a taxi while I was on the run. Offices have been closed for the last two months for security reasons and all employees stay at home. I often feel astonished when I think about what happened to this area that doesn’t belong to us anymore. Also my husband’s life has changed. He is an employee at the oil refinery at the suburbs of the city. Since 5 September 2011 when the refinery’s bus which was assigned to transport the employees was attacked (those militants target all governmental employees) and three among them were killed, I hold my breath every time he goes to work. Now, to avoid the risk, he comes home only once per three days. My five children and I, we miss him a lot at home, we haven’t lived apart even for one day since we got married. But, this is better because at least we know he is safe there.”
A third woman, a teacher, tells us her similar experience:
"Until 3 months ago, I had taught at a school in Al-Bayada. My entire family didn't approve that I travelled through the city every day to get there, where terrorists control the quarter and hate us. But I’m a teacher and my duty is to go where I’m assigned to go to teach. But what can they accuse me of? Also, why do [the children I teach] have to pay for this? Isn’t it enough for their little souls to bear the weight of this situation? [The terrorists] don't seem to take into account the devastating influence this situation has on the children’s souls. When the signs of this situation already show on the faces of all of us, the children who are eminently innocent will be the most damaged without justification. And we, teachers, whether we are mothers or sisters, are not prepared to provide the adequate psychological support to those poor souls."
"After the innumerous times I went to school, I got once blocked there. There was no access to any of the streets that could bring me back home. Minutes and hours passed while I was only thinking of my beloved ones and how this entire situation doesn't make any sense. Not being able to go home could mean that I could become subject to kidnapping, torture, brutal killing. What counted most for me was if I had to abandon my children at a moment they ultimately needed me. Without further thinking I called my father, and told him to take care of those who are the most dear to my heart: my three kids. Later, I don’t remember very well how it happened, I was rescued. This was my last terrible day at Al-Bayada. The next day I asked to be transferred to another school in my neighborhood. Since then, I have never seen my old school and my students again, but not one day passes without thinking of them and their families. Their destiny has become a part of me."
http://worldmathaba.net/items/1615-syria-the-women-of-homs?ref=email
The European Union, in one of its few enlightened decisions, has rejected to list Hizbullah like a "terror group", in spite of the heavy pressure from the US and Israel.
Hezbollah aids Syrian refugees
Terror group providing food, housing to displaced Syrians who fled violence to Lebanon. Rep: We owe them for support during war with IsraelRoi Kais
Published: 09.13.12, 17:47 / Israel News
Syria Real News - September 12 & 13 roundup
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/when-war-correspondents-take-sides-7468?page=show
When War Correspondents Take Sides
An
opponent of U.S. intervention in World War I, the isolationist senator
from California Hiram Johnson lamented once that, “The first casualty
when war comes is truth.” Indeed, as British author Philip Knightley
demonstrated in his The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as a Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo,
Johnson’s warning was right: war correspondents sometimes spread lies
for governments and others with a stake in the outcome of the war.
Much of the critique of the U.S. media coverage of the Vietnam War—and more recently, of the war in Iraq—highlighted the danger of American journalists becoming either the targets of the news management by their own government or as the mouthpieces for the "other side." But portraying American journalists as victims of U.S. propaganda or as targets for manipulation by Ho Chi Minh and Saddam Hussein misses an important point.
Many of the journalists who have been drawn to the hot zones of the globe have been driven by a notion that they have a role to play in a grand, historical epoch. Their mission, as they see it, is to draw the attention of the world to the evil being committed by the “bad guys” against helpless victims and to force their government and the international community to “do something.”
In a way, the foreign correspondent as a global crusader—not unlike the muckraking journalist who uncovers evil deeds by corrupt party bosses and corporate chiefs—was the product of the a tradition that evolved in the progressive era, with its emphasis on uncovering wrongdoings at home and abroad, on punishing the evildoer and rescuing the underdog. Hence, the crusading war correspondent provides the crusading statesman with the rationale to go abroad, fight the monsters and make the world safe for democracy.
Indeed, from Martha Gellhorn's coverage of Spanish civil war to Christiane Amanpour's reports from the former Yugoslavia's war zones to the more recent media’s growing preoccupation with the so-called Arab Spring, this politicized genre of American war reporting has been celebrated as a courageous mission to discover the truth. But in reality, it has been a form of romantic adventurism in search of a political narrative performed by self-proclaimed “idealists” parachuting for the first time into an exotic part of the world—yet who are suddenly transformed into the leading experts about it. Concern with facts is replaced by the need to provide a dramatic morality tale.
And since the American journalists started flocking to Tahrir Square in 2011, promoting the perceived struggle for freedom and democracy in the Arab World has become a leading cause for a new generation of crusading war correspondents whose initial reports helped create the impression that the Arab Spring—supposedly a replay of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989—was led by a bunch of Westernized and “cool,” Internet-savvy kids who deserved full American support.
But things got murkier since Tahrir in 2011, and it has become more important for correspondents covering the political turmoil spreading in the Arab World to maintain a coherent story line—but this isn’t easy when the “good guys” who ousted autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya one day embrace Islamist and anti-liberal causes the very next day. After all, even a work of fiction has to make some sense, and the notion that Qaddafi was dead but Al Qaeda is on the rise in Libya doesn’t fit into the kind of narrative our foreign correspondents have been selling us for more than a year.
It may not have been easy for the foreign correspondents of the past to identify the good guys and the bad guys in their stories (Soviet commissars murdering Trotskyite volunteers in Spain; radical Muslim guerrillas fighting the Serbs in Kosovo). But imagine the many cases of cognitive dissonance experienced by the American reporters covering the civil war in Syria these days.
It all seemed quite clear: Bashar al-Assad, the son of the anti-American Syrian military dictator and himself a ruthless autocrat, an ally of Iran and Hezbollah—enemies of Israel—found himself under attack by groups of Syrian protesters. That meant that the Arab Spring was coming to Syria, prodemocracy forces were on the rise and another Arab dictator was about to fall from power.
And indeed much of the coverage of the Syrian crisis seemed to reflect that kind of Arab Spring narrative. The protesters’ embrace of violence has been described as a form of self-defense against a brutal dictator, while the use of force by the regime has been depicted as “atrocities” committed against civilians, including women and children, and a clear violation of human rights that requires a strong response by Washington and the rest of the international community. Consider this week’s reporting from the Syria-Jordan border by NBC’s Ann Curry, for example. While Curry interviews refugees fleeing the Assad regime, opposition “atrocities” condemned by the UN and reported in the New York Times are given little time in her reports.
How many Americans know that many rebels tend to espouse radical Islamist views and include foreign jihadists affiliated with the pro-Saudi Salafists and even members of Al Qaeda? Or that the collapse of the Assad regime could ignite a bloody civil war between ethnic, religious and sectarian groups? These are the kind of facts that could ruin such a pleasing good-guys-vs.-bad-guys narrative, a story that promotes the cause of getting the Obama administration to intervene in the Syria crisis and force Assad out.
That the not-very-nice guys in Moscow and Beijing were joining Iran in obstructing efforts to oust Assad further demonstrated that siding with the rebels meant we were occupying the right side of history.
The good news is that the Obama administration seems to be resisting the pressure to send U.S. troops to Syria. For one thing, despite warmongering coverage by our crusading journalists, there isn’t public support: according to the recently published Chicago Council survey, only 14 percent of Americans support U.S. military intervention in Syria. Maybe after Iraq, the public has a sense that what is presented on television doesn’t always correspond with reality.
Leon Hadar, senior analyst at Wikistrat, a geostrategic consulting group, is the author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.
--
“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