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NY state senator poses with weapon on Syria border

A photo released on August 15, 2012 shows NY State Sen. David Storobin (L) and his chief of staff, Paul Gullo, (R) with Israeli Gen. Shmulik Olansky (C) on the Syrian border.
Photo released August 15, 2012 shows NY State Sen. David Storobin (L) and his chief of staff, Paul Gullo, (R) with Israeli Gen. Shmulik Olansky (C) on Syrian border
Press TV –  August 19, 2012

A New York state senator has taken up arms while posing for a picture in an Israeli army uniform on the Syrian border during an official trip to Israel.

A New York state senator has been photographed with a weapon in his hands and posing for a picture in an Israeli army uniform on the Syrian border during an official trip to Israel.

A photo posted online on August 15 showed State Sen. David Storobin in an Israeli army uniform and with a rifle in his hands side-by-side with Israeli officers.

Storobin, who is running for reelection as a Republican, is seen standing next to Gen. Shculik Olansky, who is in charge of Israel’s Golan Heights Armor Division.

Storobin’s chief of staff, Paul Gullo, also appears in the image released by Storobin’s campaign.

The provocative move is the latest show of US support for armed gangs attempting to topple the Syrian government.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Damascus says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed militants are foreign nationals, mostly from Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.

August 19, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syrian Australians Demand an End to Foreign Intervention

By CHRIS RAY | CounterPunch | August 17, 2012

Sydney – Around 1500 people, mostly Australians of Syrian descent marched in Sydney on August 5, calling for an end to foreign intervention aimed at destroying the government of President Bashar al-Assad.  The Australian media gave the march almost no coverage, unlike well-publicised though much smaller protests against the Syrian government.

It should surprise no one that large numbers of Syrians support the al-Assad government, with its promise of peaceful reform in a direction indicated by the May 2012 parliamentary elections (when, incidentally, the communists won additional seats), rather than the civil war on religious lines now in progress. One does not have to be an al-Assad supporter to suspect that his government’s immediate departure, as demanded by the rebels and their foreign backers, would create a power vacuum, fragment the country and result in far greater bloodshed.

For its Syria project the US has put together a powerful alliance embracing NATO through its Turkish spearhead, and Israel and its Gulf Arab de facto allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Intervention has ranged from sanctions and economic sabotage to funding and equipping foreign mercenaries and “boots on the ground” in the form of Western military advisers and trainers.  The current goal appears to be regime change by promoting civil war rather than foreign invasion. But calls for a “No Fly Zone” along Libyan lines can now be heard – no doubt a precursor to another “humanitarian” bombing campaign.

Foreign forces are playing a substantial role in the campaign to topple the government.  According to some assessments, foreign jihadis including Al Qaeda units from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya and Jordan are more effective, and engaged in more significant combat than the so-called Free Syrian Army. Al Qaeda is once again enjoying the backing of the ‘Great Satan’ patterned on their 1980s relationship in Afghanistan.

Foreign jihadis have admitted that they formed brigades to infiltrate Syria well before the first protests in early 2011.

Also instructive is the testimony of two Western photographers captured and tormented by a rebel group comprising fighters from Bangladesh, Britain, Chechnya and Pakistan – but no Syrians. Viewers of the ABC’s 7.30 Report on 7.8.12 would have seen a Chechen combatant in Syria threaten an ABC reporter.

We are not only talking foreign jihadi cannon fodder: “It is highly likely that some western special forces and intelligence resources have been in Syria for a considerable time,” says Colonel Richard Kemp, of the Royal United Services Institute which has strong connections to British intelligence services.

Some on the Left argue that the Syrian regime is unworthy of support because it is a dictatorship. Should the political form of the Syrian state absolve the Left of any responsibility to defend it against imperialist aggression? The al-Assad  government is under attack by NATO, Israel and the Arab Gulf monarchies not for its denial of democracy, or harsh treatment of dissent, but because of its positive features: support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Zionist expansion; refusal to join the US in isolating and impoverishing Iran; upholding a unique (in the Middle East) degree of religious tolerance and pluralism. For a visitor to Syria this commitment to freedom of religion – and rights for women – comes as a revelation in comparison to the reactionary US/British protectorates of the Arab Gulf. Such freedoms enrage the poisonously sectarian Sunni fundamentalists now sponsored in Syria by the West. Bin Laden always hated Shia Islam more than Zionists or the CIA.

For much of the anti-government opposition, regime change is about establishing Sunni dominance not democratic freedoms. They hate the regime because it is a heretical government responsible for a secular state with constitutionally guaranteed freedom of worship. The popular rebel slogan “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to their graves” raises the spectre of widespread ethnic cleansing – already underway with the expulsion of tens of thousands of Christians by the NATO-backed ‘Free Syrian Army’.

The fall of the al-Assad government is probably inevitable given the forces ranged against it. Some have predicted an Egypt-like power-sharing arrangement between the Muslim Brotherhood and secular nationalist ‘democrats’ will follow. However Syria’s religious and ethnic make-up is far more complicated than almost anywhere else in the region: a Sunni majority with numerous Muslim minorities (Shia, Alawite, Sufi, Ismailis) as well as Druse and several strands of Christianity  – altogether about one third of the population. There are significant ethnic minorities such as the Muslim Kurds and Christian Armenians – descendants of refugees from Turkish genocide – as well as hundreds of thousands of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, many of them Christians. These minorities do not share the cheerful assessment that the outcome of this war is likely to approximate post-Mubarak Egypt – itself now a more dangerous home for minorities.

The Syrian government is widely blamed for starting the war with unprovoked attacks on peaceful demonstrators. Western media spent most of 2011 denying the very existence of armed opposition, until the media narrative was recast to that of peaceful protests gradually morphing into armed revolt as a consequence of regime brutality.

The authorities’ initial response to opposition protests in March 2011 was brutal and inflammatory. But it is not contradictory to also acknowledge that government forces were under armed attack from the outset. Syrian TV was broadcasting footage of the funerals of military and police personnel killed by protestors in March 2011. My son who was living in Damascus viewed these reports and discussed them with locals.  I saw similar Syrian TV coverage while in Jordan in April-May 2011.

Reporter Robert Fisk identified the murder of a boy by police as the spark for the initial March 2011 protest in Deraa. Fisk, no supporter of the regime, also pointed to the existence of video footage of gunmen on the streets of Deraa that same month and al-Jazeera footage of armed men fighting Syrian troops near the Lebanon border in April 2011.  Fisk noted that Al-Jazeera television, cheerleader for the rebels, chose not to broadcast it. The station is of course owned by the emir of Qatar, a principal financier of the war against the Syrian government.

On 21 March 2011 Israel National News reported that seven policemen were killed in Deraa in mid-March.

As early as August 2011 the anti-regime, UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that soldiers and police accounted for about one quarter of Syria’s death toll since the start of the uprising – a casualty proportion not likely to be suffered by an army ranged against unarmed protestors.  SOHR, in a rare moment of candour conceded that some of the dead civilians were tortured and killed by regime opponents. This was before Al-Qaeda bombers began their work in co-ordination with the ‘Free Syrian Army’.

Most Syrians would possibly prefer a ceasefire and negotiations in order to avoid the catastrophic fate of Iraq and Libya.  Yet the rebel leaderships and their foreign backers have sought only to prolong the fighting. Four weeks into Kofi Annan’s attempted ceasefire, the Washington Post reported: “Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials.” CounterPunch’s Patrick Cockburn was one of the few western correspondents to report the UN monitoring team’s observation that during the ceasefire “the level of offensive military operations by the government significantly decreased” while there has been “an increase in militant attacks and targeted killings”.

In Libya, war sold to the gullible as a humanitarian necessity has reduced North Africa’s only welfare state to an ungovernable ruin: where rival tribal militias fight perpetual turf wars, blacks are ethnically cleansed, ancient archaeological treasures plundered and the social gains of the revolution systematically erased. All this mostly goes unreported – a non-story now that Libya’s oil contracts are in safer hands (China and Russia need not apply) and Western weapons sales rejected by the murdered Gaddafi are back on the table.

Only the terminally naïve would recommend the Syrian people risk a repeat of the Libyan triumph.

Chris Ray is a Sydney-based Asia business analyst and journalist.

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August 17, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

UN replaces Syrian observer mission with civilian office

RT | August 16, 2012

The United Nations Security Council has decided not to extend the body’s observer mission in Syria, setting up a civilian liaison office instead. Russia called for the Syria Action Group to meet in New York on Friday in response.

The Council’s members have agreed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s proposal to establish a liaison office in Damascus, France’s UN Ambassador Gerard Araud announced on Thursday following a Security Council meeting.

The new body will include military advisers to the head of the office on military affairs, as well as civil affairs and human rights components.

The exact size of the office is yet to be determined, but it will be significantly smaller than the current UN observer mission, peacekeeping department chief Edmond Mulet said.

“We are already identifying some staff already working there that will be willing to continue working in Damascus under this new office,” Mulet stated.

According to Mulet, the Syrian government has already given its agreement for the UN liaison office in Damascus.

Mulet also said he expected the new UN-Arab League Syrian envoy to be announced “very soon.” The new envoy will fill the shoes of Kofi Annan, who has announced his resignation effective August 31, noting that the conflict was spiraling out of control and that the Syrian government, rebels and incessantly-bickering Security Council members were to blame.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Annan said Syrian authorities have backed former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran UN diplomat who had previously served as the UN’s representative for Afghanistan and Iraq, as the new UN Syrian envoy. Several UN diplomats said Brahimi has already accepted the post, but with an altered mandate and title. Brahimi also reportedly conditioned his acceptance on “strong support” from the Security Council.

Currently there are 101 military observers and 72 civilian staff working in Syria’s UN observer mission. The last observer is to leave the country by August 24, but the observers will stop all their duties after August 19, when the mandate ends.

Meanwhile, Moscow has invited the members of the Syria Action Group to meet in New York on Friday.

The purpose of the meeting is to ensure that the group’s members are committed to the consensus document signed in Geneva in June, Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said.

“Foreign ministers of countries, members of the action group, agreed to certain things and they need to do those things,” Churkin stated.

The meeting will take place at 11 am somewhere at the UN headquarters, he added.

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August 16, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US Realists, Neocons and the War in Syria

Pletka wants Washington to ‘stop subcontracting Syria policy.’ (C-SPAN)
By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | August 15, 2012

In US political circles, the Syria conflict is increasingly being presented as a discussion pertaining to Israeli interests. This attitude is not substantially different from the way US politicians and media weighed in on the Egyptian January 25 revolution and its aftermath. Egypt mostly matters because of the US-brokered Camp David treaty of 1979, which benefited Israel beyond all expectations. The treaty had ushered in a false period of peace; it turned Egypt into an American ally, largely alienating it from its Arab political context.

When it comes to US foreign policy in the Middle East, Israel represents a point of departure for many in the US political establishment. Neoconservative groups have long defined US foreign policy in the region. Their most crucial and unifying concern is Israel’s security and any threat, real or imagined, to Israel’s regional domination.

The neocons clustered through various organizations and think tanks. Most visible among them was the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which included very influential foreign policy individuals. PNAC’s ‘vision’ was seen as the roadmap that guided George W. Bush in his war against Iraq, the sanctions against Iran, and the overall hostile relationship that defined (and continues to define) US foreign policy in the Middle East. Tainted by the disastrous foreign policy, PNAC folded, only to be reinvented two years ago with the advent of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

The neocons are duly challenged. Their critics in the establishments are the ‘realists’ (as described by former Secretary of State James Baker in a recent interview with Foreign Policy). The so-called realists are far less organized than the neocons. They were simply empowered by the latter’s mammoth failures. Now the neocons are making a comeback, thanks to the golden opportunities presented by ongoing conflicts throughout the Middle East.

“Our biggest threat today isn’t Syria, or even Iran, or Russia or China,” Baker told Foreign Policy. “Our biggest threat today is our own economy, and we cannot continue to be strong diplomatically, politically, and militarily and be weak economically” (August 9). Baker, of course, hasn’t completely abandoned Israel. The problem is that the pro-Israel camp is asking for a military intervention in Syria and an escalation against Iran, both of which come with a high political and financial price tag — one that the US cannot afford.

Another ‘realist’ is Aaron David Miller, a former US adviser on the Middle East (to six Secretaries of State) and a member of the US Advisory Council of Israel Policy Forum. Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 6, in an article entitled ‘Syria: Let’s Stay out of It’, Miller stated, “Syria today is a mess — but it’s a Syrian mess. Afghanistan and Iraq should teach us that America can’t control the world. It’s time for the United States to focus on fixing its own broken house instead of chasing the illusion that it can always help repair somebody else’s.”

However, this ‘realist’ estimation by Miller was further discussed in his article in Foreign Policy two days later. In ‘Winners and Losers of Syria’s Civil War,’ Miller argued that Israel was a possible winner in case of Bashar Al Assad’s fall.

“The good news for the Israelis is that Iran and Hezbollah will be weakened by Al Assad’s fall. The bad news is that like so much of the Arab Spring/ Winter, the impending transition brings with it enormous uncertainty.”

US intervention in Libya was a much easier decision for both neocons and realists. A letter was organized by the Foreign Policy Initiative and signed by 40 policy analysts, calling on President Barack Obama’s administration to arm Libyan rebels and to “immediately’ prepare for military action to bring down the Libyan regime under Muammar Gaddafi. The neocons’ calls at the time were hardly rejected as ‘unrealistic’. According to Jim Lobe, they were “a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage US intervention in the Balkans and Iraq.” Of course, they got what they asked for in Libya. Now, the neocons are pushing for another intervention in Syria.

“Washington must stop subcontracting Syria policy to the Turks, Saudis and Qataris. They are clearly part of the anti-Al Assad effort, but the United States cannot tolerate Syria becoming a proxy state for yet another regional power,” wrote Danielle Pletka, a leading neocon and vice-president of Foreign and Defence Policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (Washington Post, July 20).

Despite immense hesitation from the Obama administration, the neocons are now trying to weasel in their version of an endgame in Syria. Their efforts are extremely focused and well-coordinated, making impressive use of their direct ties with the Israeli lobby, major US media and Syrian leaders in exile. Writing in CNN online, Elise Labott reported on a recent neoconservative push to upgrade American involvement in Syria, urging “the Obama administration to increase its support of the armed opposition” (CNN, August 1).

The ‘experts’ included Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), another pro-Israel conduit in Washington, established in 1985 as a research department for the influential Israeli lobby group, AIPAC. Obama obliged under pressure from the ‘experts’. According to CNN, he signed a secret order “referred to as an intelligence ‘finding,’ allow[ing] for clandestine support by the CIA and other agencies.”

More, On July 31, AIPAC urged all members of Congress to sign on a bill introduced by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman. Entitled ‘The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (H.R.1905)’, the bill, if passed, “will establish virtual state of war with Iran,” according to the Council for the National Interest. The old neoconservative wisdom arguing for an unavoidable link between Syria, Iran and their allies in the region is now being exploited to the maximum. Their hope is to settle all scores left unsettled by the Bush administration.

US foreign policy in Syria is likely to become clearer once the signs of an endgame become easier to read. Until then, the neocons will continue to push for another campaign of intervention. For them, influencing the endgame in favor of Israel is much more beneficial than dealing with a divided country, which is ‘subcontracted’ to other regional powers, per Pletka’s unrelenting wisdom.

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August 16, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanese Clan Abducts Syrians, Turkish National

Al Akhbar | August 15, 2012

A clan in Lebanon has abducted a Turkish businessman and several Syrians it says are rebel fighters in retaliation for the kidnapping of one of their relatives by the rebel Free Syrian Army in Damascus.

More than 20 Syrians have been kidnapped by the Mokdad clan, said Maher al-Mokdad, a relative of Hassan al-Mokdad, the man he said was captured in Damascus two days ago by the Free Syrian Army, which is fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

In remarks to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), he said “the snowball would grow”, warning “Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and their citizens”.

The apparent threat to kidnap nationals from countries backing the Syrian rebels quickly seems to have been realized. Among the hostages is a Turkish national, a diplomat in Lebanon said.

“He was here for business, arrived today, and was kidnapped near the airport,” the diplomat said, adding that there has been little progress so far in negotiations to secure the man’s release.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour contacted Hatem al-Mokdad, another brother of Hassan, requesting that the captors release Turkish national Toufan Teyken.

Mokdad refused the request, insisting that Teyken will remain a hostage until Hassan is freed by Syrian rebels across the border.

In a video broadcast by al-Mayadeen, a Lebanon-based TV station, two men identified as members of the FSA were shown in the custody of masked gunmen from the Mokdad clan in green fatigues and armed with automatic rifles.

One of the detainees identified himself as a captain by the name of Mohammed, who said his role was to help supply the FSA. The other said he was his assistant.

Maher al-Mokdad, speaking to Reuters, said the abductions were a response to the capture of Hassan al-Mokdad in Damascus two days ago by the FSA. The rebels had said Mokdad had been sent to Syria by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, one of Assad’s regional allies. Hezbollah denied Mokdad was a member of the party.

The detained Syrians included a lieutenant who deserted from the Syrian army to join the rebels, but those who were not FSA members had been freed, he said. He gave no details of how or where the men were abducted.

He said Mokdad went to neighboring Syria more than a year and a half ago – that is, before the outbreak of the 17-month-old uprising against Assad – and had no links to the fighting in Syria. … Full article

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August 15, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Peace still on table in Syria as China scrambles to set up talks

Global Times | 2012-8-15

According to Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Buthaina Shaaban, special envoy for and political and media advisor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been invited to Beijing Tuesday. The ministry also stated that it will invite members of the Syrian opposition to come to Beijing on a later date.

These moves are widely believed to be aimed at persuading the Syrian sides to get back to the negotiation table and solve their differences through a political solution. But such hopes suffered a heavy blow after UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan quit his job earlier this month. This has prompted observers to question the effectiveness of China’s mediation efforts.

China’s influence in the Middle East is certainly weaker than other major world powers like the US and Russia. It’s natural that there are doubts on what China can achieve through its talks with the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition. China’s efforts will not bear fruits instantly after just one round of talks.

However, China will keep trying. Solving the Syrian crisis through a political solution has always been China’s position. It will work to explore every possibility, however thin.

Though Annan has left the special envoy post, the UN hasn’t halted its mission. It has been actively seeking a replacement for Annan. The leaders of some Western countries, like French President François Hollande, have also agreed to solve the Syrian crisis through talk rather than war.

For China, a major supporter of the UN mission, its mediation efforts this time are intended to send a bold signal to the international community that the possibility of a political solution is still on the table, and that China is determined to continuously work with the UN to broker such a deal in Syria.

The US and some Western and Gulf countries are now exploring the option of imposing a no-fly zone in Syria, which, as witnessed in Libya, is an important step to enable foreign military intervention. China will need this mediation opportunity to counter that idea and to give undecided countries second thoughts on which approach is more feasible.

There are several issues that will pose serious challenges to efforts to broker a political solution.

First, making a political solution effective will require the cooperation of all parties in Syria. But at this stage, the will to get back to the negotiation table is weak on both sides. They have been pouring more efforts onto the battlefield than in setting up talks, because both believe that victory is within reach. The longer they are at war, the harder it will be for them to talk.

Second, the largely divided opposition makes it difficult for China or the UN to carry out effective mediation work. For instance, there is confusion in China as to which opposition group the Chinese government should make contact with.

While the Syrian National Council, based mainly outside Syria, is widely perceived as a representative of the rebel movement, does it truly have authority over groups and factions that have been operating inside Syria like the Free Syrian Army? Should China’s mediation also include representatives from other opposition groups?

While China is making its efforts, some countries are paving the way for military intervention, including supplying arms. The more weapons the opposition receives, the more confident they grow of an ultimate military triumph.

The opposition will increasingly prefer war over talks, but Assad won’t easily surrender either. This will eventually deadlock both sides in a cycle of conflict, blocking the way to a peaceful solution and risking more people’s lives.

Due to China’s lack of influence and channels to present its argument in full, its struggle to stop bloodshed in Syria has been constantly misinterpreted by some countries that are willing to throw Assad out at any cost and have been actively promoting their stance to the international community.

This will not only undermine China’s effort but even leave China isolated. Chinese policymakers should learn from this, and try to win understanding and support to its stance on Syria through various international platforms.

For instance, China can put forward this issue at developing country-orientated platforms like the Non-Aligned Movement or BRICS.

Most developing countries these days know that political reforms are a much better option than revolution induced by foreign intervention. China’s stance will win support there relatively easily.

By gathering such supports, China will not only find itself better positioned when confronted by similar issues, but also draw more nations to defend the UN principles from being violated by a few super powers.

This article was compiled by Global Times reporter Gao Lei based on an interview with He Wenping, director of the African Studies at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. leigao@globaltimes.com.cn

August 15, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

How much will America’s animus against Iran distort U.S. policy toward Syria?

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Race for Iran | August 13th, 2012

Across most of the American political spectrum, policy elites are urging that the United States double down on the Obama administration’s failing Syria policy.  America’s reliably pro-intervention senatorial trio (Lindsay Graham, Joseph Lieberman, and John McCain) recently argued that the “risks of inaction in Syria,” see here, now outweigh the downsides of American military involvement.  Last week, the Washington Post  prominently featured a piece by Ken Pollack, see here, asserting that negotiated settlements “rarely succeed in ending a civil war” like that in Syria—even though that it precisely what ended the civil war in Lebanon, right next door to Syria.  From this faulty premise, Pollack argues that the only way to end a civil war like that in Syria is through military intervention.  (After his scandalously wrong case for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, we wonder why the Washington Post or anyone else would give Pollack a platform for disseminating his views on virtually any Middle Eastern topic—but especially not for a piece dealing with the advisability of another U.S. military intervention in the region.  In this regard, we note that the bio line at the end of Ken’s op ed makes no mention of his book that made the case for the U.S. invading Iraq, The Threatening Storm, describing him instead as “the author of A Path Out of the Desert:  A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East.)

A more chilling—and, in some ways, more candid—indicator of the direction in which the debate over American policy toward Syria is heading was provided last week in Foreign Policy by Robert Haddick (managing editor of the hawkish blog, Small War Journal), see here.  Remarkably, Haddick argues that,

“rather than attempting to influence the course of Syria’s civil war, something largely beyond Washington’s control, U.S. policymakers should instead focus on strengthening America’s diplomatic position and on building irregular warfare capabilities that will be crucial in future conflicts in the region.  Modest and carefully circumscribed intervention in Syria, in coordination with America’s Sunni allies who are already players in the war, will bolster critical relationships and irregular warfare capabilities the United States and its allies will need for the future.”

And why is bolstering these relationships and capabilities so critical?  Because, as Haddick writes,

“The conflict in Syria is just one front in the ongoing competition between Iran and America’s Sunni allies on the west side of the Persian Gulf… The Sunni countries have a strong interest in stepping up their irregular warfare capabilities if they are to keep pace with Iran during the ongoing security competition.  The civil war in Syria provides an opportunity for the United States and its Sunni allies to do just that… U.S. and GCC intelligence officers and special forces could use an unconventional warfare campaign in Syria as an opportunity to exchange skills and training, share resources, improve trust, and establish combined operational procedures.  Such field experience would be highly useful in future contingencies.  Equally important, it would reassure the Sunni countries that the United States will be a reliable ally against Iran.”

Foreign Policy has become arguably the leading online venue for topical discussion of key issues on America’s international agenda.  And it is giving its platform to an argument that Washington should leverage the “opportunity” provided by the civil war in Syria to help its regional allies get better at killing Shi’a.  And Washington should do this for the goal of prevailing in “the ongoing security competition” between the Islamic Republic and the United States (along with America’s “Sunni allies).

Such trends in the American policy debate show an appalling incapacity to learn from either current experience or history.  And these trends are, in fact, influencing actual policy.  Late last week, during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Turkey, Ankara and Washington agreed that “a unified task force with intelligence, military and political leaders from both countries would be formed immediately to track Syria’s present and plan for its future,” see here.  After meeting with her Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoğlu, Secretary Clinton said that the United States and Turkey are discussing various options for supporting opposition forces working to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad, including the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over rebel-held territory in Syria, see here.

In the wake of Clinton’s remarks, Flynt appeared on CCTV’s World Insight weekly news magazine to discuss the internal and international dimensions of the Syrian conflict, see here.  Flynt and both of the other guests on the segment—Jia Xiudong from the China Institute of International Studies and our colleague Seyed Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran—agreed, contra Pollack, that the only way to resolve what has become a civil war in Syria is through an inclusive political process.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Flynt pointed out that “the United States and its regional partners are trying to use Syria to shift the balance of power in the Middle East in ways that they think will be bad for Iran.”  This strategy is “ultimately doomed to fail”—but, as long as Washington and others are pursuing it, “the international community is going to be challenged to find ways to keep the violence from getting worse and try to get a political process started.”  Flynt also observed that China and other players in the international community have historical grounds for concern about the imposition of a no-fly zone in Syria to create so-called “humanitarian safe havens” could lead to:  since the end of the Cold War, every time that the United States has imposed humanitarian safe havens—in Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, and most recently in Libya—this has ultimately resulted in a heavily militarized intervention by the United States and its partners in pursuit of coercive regime change.

In part, American elites persist in their current course regarding Syria because they continue to persuade themselves that, in the “security competition” between America and Iran, the United States is winning and the Islamic Republic is losing.  At roughly the same time that Pollack and Haddick were holding forth last week, the New York Times offered an Op Ed by Harvey Morris purporting to explain Iran’s “paranoia” over Syria’s civil war by describing “What Syria Looks Like from Tehran,” see here.  Morris claims that

“the impact of regime change in the Arab World has in fact been largely negative from Tehran’s perspective.  The Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt is closer to Saudi Arabia than it is to Iran.  If the Alawite-dominated regime in Damascus were to fall, it would mean the loss of a non-Sunni ally.”

Our analysis—of both Tehran’s perspective on, and the reality of, how the Arab Spring is affecting the regional balance of power—is diametrically opposite to Morris’s.  For an actual (and genuinely informed) Iranian view, we note that Al Jazeera devoted last week’s episode of its Inside Syria series to the topic, “Can Iran Help End the Syrian Crisis?,” see here.  Once again, our colleague from the University of Tehran, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, gave a clear and concise exposition of Iranian views on the imperatives of and requirements for serious mediation of the struggle in (and over) Syria.

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August 14, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Syrian rebels abduct Iran TV journalist

Al Akhbar | August 14, 2012

A Syria-based reporter for Iran’s Arabic language television network Al-Alam has been abducted by rebels in the central Syrian city of Homs, the channel said on its website on Tuesday.

The journalist, named as Ahmad Sattouf, was taken by “armed terrorist groups” as he returned to his home in Homs, Al-Alam said.

The channel did not say when exactly Sattouf was abducted, but said he had been missing for “several days.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights separately said that Sattouf, a Syrian, had been abducted overnight Saturday-Sunday.

Al-Alam said that “the rebels also attacked and ransacked” its office in Homs.

Several foreign and Syrian journalists have been targeted in the conflict in Syria.

The head of the UN observer mission in Syria on Monday condemned attacks on the media.

A domestic news chief for Syria’s state new agency SANA was said to have been murdered by rebels outside his home near the capital on Saturday, and an al-Qaeda linked group has claimed responsibility for the murder early this month of a presenter on state television.

Three Syrian state TV journalists were also reportedly abducted by rebels on Friday as they accompanied government troops close to the capital, and last week a bomb attack on state television headquarters wounded several people.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

August 14, 2012 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel seeks to destroy neighbours’ histories and identities

By Jeff Goodall | August 12, 2012

This would not be the first time that the Israelis have endeavoured to destroy historical and cultural artifacts in order to bolster their territorial claims and to eradicate inconvenient elements of the past.

In 2003, in an article headed “Pillaging 7000 Years Of Iraq History No Accident” sub-heading “The Sacking Of Iraq’s Museums – US Wages War Against Culture And History”, Patrick Martin wrote in Rense.com that

“US claims to have been taken by surprise by the ransacking of cultural facilities in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities are not credible. Such a tragedy was not only predictable, it was specifically warned against. . . . Attacking the cultural resources that connect the Iraqi people to 7,000 years of history is part of the process of systematically destroying their national identity.”  (Emphasis added – link to full article).

A little-known event in 1948 during the “Naqba”, was the Israeli theft of books and manuscripts.

Journalist Arwa Aburawa, writing in “Sabbah Report” two years ago, refers to

“the systematic looting of more than 60,000 Palestinian books by Israeli forces and the attempted destruction of Palestinian culture… Between May 1948 and February 1949, librarians from the Jewish National Library and Hebrew University Library entered the desolate Palestinian homes of west Jerusalem and seized 30,000 books, manuscripts and newspapers alone. These cultural assets, which had belonged to elite and educated Palestinian families, were then “loaned” to the National Library where they have remained until now.” (See “The great book robbery of 1948″ here)

Not only does Israel wish to achieve complete domination of the Middle East, it also wants to destroy the history, the culture, and the very identity of its neighbours and those it occupies.

We can be sure that an attack on Iran, one of the oldest civilisations in the world with a massive treasure-trove of historical and cultural artifacts, will include widespread theft and destruction as was the case with Iraq.

The United States, Britain, and all other backers and enablers of “gallant little Israel” are fully complicit in these crimes against humanity.


Foreign-backed armed groups targeting Syrian history

PRESS-TV | August 11th, 2012

Clashes continue in Syria’s largest city Aleppo between the army and foreign-backed militant groups. This time the Aleppo Castle was the target, but the army managed to repel the assaults, and declared the historical building as safe and intact.

Castle of Aleppo, is a large medieval fortified palace in the centre of the old city of Aleppo. It is considered to be one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. Usage of the Citadel hill dates back at least to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC.

Foreign backed armed groups and supporting media outlets emphasized on controlling the castle repeatedly. Press TV crew headed to the castle, the tension was high, Syrian soldiers were almost everywhere fully geared, two tanks on the sides of the roads and a commander waiting for us.

Upon arriving the archaeological building, the traces of mortars were imprinted on the Defensive bridge, the main gate was Booby-trapped by the armed groups upon attempting to penetrate the historic fortifications and several Syrian soldering were assigned to protect the castle being under hours of attack by the armed groups.

Syrians believe this war against Syria, has already targeted all components of Syrian society, and now foreign backed armed groups and their sponsoring countries are after Syrian 7000 years history.

August 12, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Qatar offered Syrian ambassador $5.8mn for defection – report

RT | August 11, 2012

Qatar’s ambassador in Mauritania allegedly offered his Syrian counterpart an advance payment of US$1 million and a monthly salary of $20,000 over 20 years, trying to convince the diplomat to defect and voice support for the opposition.

Hamad Seed Albni was also offered a permanent residence in the Qatari capital Doha, but refused the proposition, claims Lebanese-based Al-Manar TV. The diplomat reportedly called the offer a “blatant interference” in Syria’s affairs and warned not to come up with such initiatives anymore.

Bashar al-Assad’s government has endured a number of high-profile defections recently. Diplomats representing Syria in the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, Abdel Latif al-Dabbagh and Nawaf al-Fares, abandoned their positions and so did the country’s Prime Minister Riyad Hijab. The officials explained their defections, saying they could not work for a regime oppressing its own people

Damascus says Qatar uses its financial resources to promote defections among the ranks of Syrian officials. Doha reportedly allocated $300 million for the purpose, Iran’s Fars news agency claimed.

August 12, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

The Yinon Thesis Vindicated: Neocons, Israel, and the Fragmentation of Syria

By Stephen J. Sniegoski | The Passionate Attachment | August 12, 2012

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 Alawite redoubt in the northern coastal region as a fallback position.

Syrian Kurds, about ten percent of the country’s population, are also interested in gaining autonomy or joining with a larger Kurdistan. The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD)—linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has engaged in a separatist insurgency in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast region for nearly three decades—has gained control of key areas in northeast Syria. While Turkey has supported the Syrian opposition, it is terrified of a Kurdish autonomous zone in Syria, believing that it could provide a safe haven for staging attacks into Turkey. Moreover, Kurdish autonomy would encourage separatist sentiment within the Turkish Kurdish minority. Turkey has threatened to invade the border areas of Syria to counter such a development and Turkish armed forces with armor have been sent to Turkey’s border with the Syrian Kurdish region. A Turkish invasion would add further complexities to the fracturing of Syria.

What has not been readily discussed in reference to this break-up of Syria is that the Israeli and global Zionist Right has long sought the fragmentation of Israel’s enemies so as to weaken them and thus enhance Israel’s primacy in the Middle East. While elements of this geostrategic view can be traced back to even before the creation of the modern state of Israel, the concept of destabilizing and fragmenting enemies seems to have been first articulated as an overall Israeli strategy by Oded Yinon in his 1982 piece, “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties.” Yinon had been attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and his article undoubtedly reflected high-level thinking in the Israeli military and intelligence establishment in the years of Likudnik Menachem Begin’s leadership. Israel Shahak’s translation of Yinon’s article was titled “The Zionist Plan for the Middle East.”

In this article, Yinon called for Israel to use military means to bring about the dissolution of Israel’s neighboring states and their fragmentation into a mosaic of homogenous ethnic and sectarian groupings. Yinon believed that it would not be difficult to achieve this result because nearly all the Arab states were afflicted with internal ethnic and religious divisions, and held together only by force. In essence, the end result would be a Middle East of powerless mini-statelets unable to confront Israeli power. Lebanon, then facing divisive chaos, was Yinon’s model for the entire Middle East. Yinon wrote: “Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.”

Eminent Middle East historian, Bernard Lewis, who is a Zionist of a rightist hue and one of the foremost intellectual gurus for the neoconservatives, echoed Yinon with an article in the September 1992 issue of “Foreign Affairs” titled “Rethinking the Middle East.” In it, he wrote of a development he called “Lebanonization,” stating “[A] possibility, which could even be precipitated by [Islamic] fundamentalism, is what has of late been fashionable to call ‘Lebanonization.’ Most of the states of the Middle East—Egypt is an obvious exception—are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common identity. . . . The state then disintegrates—as happened in Lebanon—into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions, and parties.” Since Lewis— credited with coining the phrase “clash of civilizations”—has been a major advocate of a belligerent stance for the West against the Islamic states, it would appear that he realized that such fragmentation would be the result of his belligerent policy.

In 1996, the neoconservatives presented to incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu their study “A Clean Break” (produced under the auspices of an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies), which described how Israel could enhance its regional security by toppling enemy regimes. Although this work did not explicitly focus on the fragmentation of states, such was implied in regard to Syria when it stated that “Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” It added that “Damascus fears that the ‘natural axis’ with Israel on one side, central Iraq and Turkey on the other, and Jordan, in the center would squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula. For Syria, this could be the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria’s territorial integrity.”

David Wurmser authored a much longer follow-up document to “A Clean Break” for the same Israeli think tank, entitled “Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power Strategy for the Levant.” In this work, Wurmser emphasized the fragile nature of the Middle Eastern Baathist dictatorships in Iraq and Syria in line with Lewis’s thesis, and how the West and Israel should act in such an environment.

In contrast to some of the Western democracies as well as Arab states, Israel did not publicly call for Assad’s removal until a few months ago. This, however, does not mean that the Netanyahu government did not support this outcome. This tardiness has a number of likely reasons, one of which being the fear that an Islamist government would replace Assad that would be even more hostile to Israel and more prone than he to launch reckless attacks. Moreover, instability in a country on Israel’s border is of tremendous concern to its security establishment. It is feared that in such a chaotic condition, Assad’s massive chemical weapons arsenal and advanced surface-to-air missile systems could end up in the hands of terrorist groups like the Lebanese Hezbollah, which would not be hesitant to use them against Israel.

Unlike the armchair destabilization strategists and the neocons, the actual Israeli leaders, including hardline Likudniks such as Prime Minister Netanyahu, have to be concerned about facing the immediate negative political consequences of their decisions even if they believe that the long-term benefits would accrue to the country. This invariably leads to the exercise of caution in regard to dramatic change. Thus, the concern about the immediate security risks cited above likely had a significant effect on their decision-making.

Furthermore, it could have been counterproductive for Israel to express support for the Syrian opposition in its early stages. For Assad has repeatedly maintained that the opposition is orchestrated by foreign powers, using this argument to justify his brutal crackdown. Since Israel is hated by virtually all elements in the Middle East, its open support of the opposition could have turned many Syrians, and much of the overall Arab world, against the uprising. While Israel did not openly support the armed resistance, there have been claims from reliable sources that Israeli intelligence has been providing some degree of covert support along with other Western intelligence agencies, including that of the United States.

Since May of this year, however, the Israeli government has become open in its support for the overthrow of the Assad regime. In June, Netanyahu condemned the ongoing massacre of Syrian civilians by Assad, blaming the violence on an “Axis of Evil,” consisting of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. “Iran and Hezbollah are an inseparable part of the Syrian atrocities and the world needs to act against them,” he proclaimed. This inclusion of Iran and Hezbollah illustrates Israel’s goal of using the Syrian humanitarian issue to advance its own national interest.

If the Assad regime were to fall, Israel would certainly be more secure with a splintered congeries of small statelets than a unified Syria under an anti-Israel Islamist regime. Consequently, staunch neoconservative Harold Rhode presents the fragmentation scenario in a positive light in his article, “Will Syria Remain a Unified State?” (July 10, 2012). In contrast to what has been the conventional Western narrative of the uprising against the Assad regime, which presents a heroic Sunni resistance being brutally terrorized by government forces and pro-government Alawite militias, Rhode writes with sympathy for the pro-government non-Sunni Syrian minorities: “In short, what stands behind most of the violence in Syria is the rise of Arab Sunni fundamentalism in its various forms – whether Salafi, Wahhabi, or Muslim Brotherhood. All of those threaten the very existence of the Alawites, the Kurds, and other members of the non-Sunni ethnic and religious groups.

“It is therefore much easier to understand why the ruling Alawites feel they are fighting a life and death battle with the Sunnis, and why they believe they must spare no effort to survive. It also explains why most of Syria’s other minorities – such as the Druze, Ismailis, and Christians – still largely support the Assad regime.”

For a short aside, the neoconservative background of Harold Rhode is of considerable relevance, providing further evidence for the much denied neocon support for the fragmentation of Israel’s enemies. (The mainstream view is that the neocons are naïve idealists whose plans to transform dictatorships into model democracies invariably go awry.) Rhode, a longtime Pentagon official who was a specialist on the Middle East, was closely associated with neocon stalwarts Michael Ledeen, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle. He was also a protégé of Bernard Lewis, with Lewis dedicating his 2003 book, “The Crisis of Islam,” to him. Rhode served as a Middle East specialist for Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy during the administration of George W. Bush, where he was closely involved with the Office of Special Plans, which provided spurious propaganda to promote support for the war on Iraq. Rhode was a participant in the Larry Franklin affair, which involved dealings with Israeli agents, though Rhode was not charged with any crime. Alan Weisman, the author of the biography of Richard Perle, refers to Rhode as an “ardent Zionist” (“Prince of Darkness: Richard Perle,” p.146), more pro-Israel than Perle, which takes some doing since the latter has been accused of handing classified material to the Israelis. Rhode is currently a fellow with the ultra-Zionist Gatestone Institute, for which he wrote the above article.

Obviously the very removal of the Assad regime would be a blow against Israel’s major enemy, Iran, since Syria is Iran’s major ally. Significantly, Assad’s Syria has provided a conduit for arms and assistance from Iran to Hezbollah and, to a lesser extent, Hamas, to use against Israel. If Israel and Iran had gone to war, these arms would have posed a significant threat to the Israeli populace. Moreover, a defanged Hezbollah would not be able to oppose Israeli military incursions into south Lebanon or even Syria.

A fragmented Syria removes the possible negative ramifications of Assad’s removal since it would mean that even if the Islamists should replace Assad in Damascus they would only have a rump Syrian state to control, leaving them too weak to do much damage to Israel and forcing them to focus their attention on the hostile statelets bordering them. Moreover, Israel is purportedly contemplating military action to prevent Assad’s chemical weapons from falling into the hands of anti-Israel terrorists. With such a divided country there is no powerful army capable of standing up to an Israeli military incursion.

The benefits accruing to Israel from the downfall of the Assad regime and the concomitant sectarian fragmentation and conflict in Syria go beyond the Levant to include the entire Middle East region. For sectarian violence in Syria is likely to cause an intensification of the warfare between Sunnis and Shiites throughout the entire Middle East region. Iran might retaliate against Saudi Arabia’s and Qatar’s support for the Syrian opposition by fanning the flames of Shiite Muslim revolution in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich and majority Shiite Eastern Province. Both areas have witnessed intermittent periods of violent protest and brutal government suppression since the Arab Spring of 2011. And Iraq remains a tinderbox ready to explode into ethno-sectarian war among the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, with violence already on an uptick since the formal departure of American troops in December 2011.

In assessing the current regional situation, American-born Barry Rubin, professor at the Interdisciplinary Center (Herzliya, Israel) and director of its Global Research in International Affairs Center, writes in the Jerusalem Post (“The Region: Israel is in good shape,” July 15, 2012) : “The more I think about Israel’s security situation at this moment, the better it looks.” He goes on to state: “By reentering a period of instability and continuing conflict within each country, the Arabic-speaking world is committing a self-induced setback. Internal battles will disrupt Arab armies and economies, reducing their ability to fight against Israel. Indeed, nothing could be more likely to handicap development than Islamist policies.”

It should be noted that the “period of instability and continuing conflict” in the Middle East region has been the result of regime change and is in line with the thinking of Oded Yinon who, along with the other aforementioned geostrategic thinkers, pointed out that the major countries of the Middle East were inherently fissiparous and only held together by authoritarian regimes.

America’s removal of Saddam Hussein in a war spearheaded by the pro-Israel neoconservatives served to intensify Sunni-Shiite regional hostility and, in a sense, got the destabilization ball rolling. Iran is targeted now, and Israel and its neocon supporters seek to make use of dissatisfied internal elements, political and ethnic—the radical MEK, democratic secularists, monarchists, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, and Azeris— to bring down the Islamic regime. And while Saudi Arabia is currently serving Israeli interests by opposing Iran, should the Islamic Republic of Iran fall, Israel and their supporters would likely turn to Saudi Arabia’s dismemberment, seeking the severance of the predominantly Shiite, oil-rich Eastern Province, with some neocons already having made such a suggestion—e.g., Max Singer, Richard Perle, and David Frum (schemes which have been put on ice while Israel and its supporters have focused on Iran). If everything went according to plan, the end result would be a Middle East composed of disunited states, or mini-states, involved in intractable, internecine conflict, which would make it impossible for them to confront Israeli power and to provide any challenge to Israel’s control of Palestine. The essence of Yinon’s geostrategic vision of Israeli preeminence would be achieved.

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August 12, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hillary’s Projection

Voltaire Network | August 9, 2012

On 7 August 2012, following a meeting with the Foreign Minister of South Africa, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Hillary Clinton who was asked about the situation in Syria had this to say:

“I do think we can begin talking about and planning for what happens next, the day after the regime does fall. I’m not going to put a timeline on it. I can’t possibly predict it, but I know it’s going to happen, as does most observers around the world. So we have to make sure that the state’s institutions stay intact. We have to make sure that we send very clear expectations about avoiding sectarian warfare. Those who are attempting to exploit the misery of the Syrian people, either by sending in proxies or sending in terrorist fighters, must recognize that that will not be tolerated, first and foremost by the Syrian people.”

Clearly stated,

  • The U.S. Secretary of State rebuffs any involvement by third parties, yet she is preparing to administer a country that does not belong to her.
  • Clinton condemns terrorism, even though she hailed the July 18 attack in Damascus which decapitated the Syrian military command, and her President, Barack Obama, has signed a secret directive to practice terrorism in Syria.

August 11, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

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