Should Britain jump into the toxic mix of military intervention in Syria?
By Andrew Murray | Stop the War Coalition | October 19, 2015
GIVE them credit for persistence and ingenuity. The bomb-Syria bloc in the British establishment isn’t taking “no” for an answer.
In 2013 they were urging war against the Syrian government over its alleged use of chemical weapons. The House of Commons defeated David Cameron’s proposal in what was a landmark vote for anti-war sentiment in this country.
Indeed, it stopped Obama’s own plans for attacking Syria in their tracks and represented a decisive democratic rupture in the Anglo-American war front in the Middle East.
Imperial interventionists in both major parties have been smarting ever since. The rise of Islamic State to control much of Syria’s territory – a consequence of the civil war fostered by the western powers, amongst others – seemed to offer another excuse for intervention.
After all, British bombers are already participating in the US-led attack on IS in neighbouring Iraq – the latest military intervention in that country, and one having no better outcomes than all the previous.
It is now pretty obvious that bombing by western powers is not going to roll back Islamic State. That could only be done by the forces of strong and sovereign states in Iraq and Syria, able to mobilise support from all sections of the people.
Western policy has actually been directed towards obstructing that development, through the sponsorship of sectarian strife across the Middle East, and the destruction of one state after another in the region.
Now reason number three has been dredged up – that old stand-by humanitarian” intervention. Labour MP Jo Cox has joined forces with Tory Andrew Mitchell to advocate military action… to save civilian lives.
They wrote in The Observer :
“We need a military component that protects civilians as a necessary prerequisite to any future UN or internationally provided safe havens. The creation of safe havens inside Syria would eventually offer sanctuary from both the actions of Assad and Isis, as we cannot focus on Isis without an equal focus on Assad. They would save lives, reduce radicalisation and help to slow down the refugee exodus.
“The approach of focusing on civilian protection will also make a political solution more likely. Preventing the regime from killing civilians, and signalling intent to Russia, is far more likely to compel the regime to the negotiating table than anything currently being done or mooted.”
Of course, if humanitarianism was really a consideration, Britain would have stopped funding and arming the Syrian civil war some time ago. It would be welcoming far more refugees from the conflict zone it has fuelled.
But let us take the appeal at face value for a moment. How could it be implemented? Our bipartisan armchair strategists are obviously riled by Russia’s escalating military involvement in Syria. But it is a fact. What form of military intervention could now be undertaken which would not lead to a clash with Russia they do not say. Even the head of MI6 has acknowledged that “no-fly zones” are no longer a possibility, unless the NATO powers are prepared to countenance conflict with Moscow.
The reality of “no fly zones” and “safe havens”, benign as they sound, is regime change. That is the clear aim of the proposal. Assad government forces – or those supporting it – would be the target.
A “no fly zone” would represent no challenge to Islamic State whatsoever. The caliphate lacks an air force.
If anyone still doubts that regime change is the real agenda, let them cast their minds back to the Libyan war. That began with Cameron and then French President Sarkozy pushing the United Nations to endorse just such a “no-fly zone”, ostensibly to protect the people of Benghazi from a massacre that Libyan ruler Gadhafi was then allegedly contemplating.
Enforcing the no-fly zone quickly morphed into bombing Libyan government troops, in coordination with the anti-Gadhafi rebels on the ground. The result was the swift transition of “humanitarian intervention” into regime-change, with results that are all-too clear today. A ruined and divided country, a shattered society and hundreds of thousands of refugees risking life and limb to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
In Syria today, the winners from a war to set up safe-havens – an operation which would also require the deployment of grounds troops into Syria – would most likely be IS. It would be best placed to expand into many of the areas cleared of regime forces.
Such plans fuel the fantasies of neo-conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic who dream of creating a “third force” capable to taking over Syria in opposition both to Assad and to Islamic State.
Obama’s efforts to create a militia to carry out such a plan has ended in fiasco. No more than five fighters have been trained. So they are left with the non-IS rebel groups in Syria. These include the “Free Syrian Army” and the local al-Qaeda affiliate, trading as the Nusra Front.
These groups are drawing support from a range of foreign powers, including the US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other reactionary Gulf states. The Assad government is actively supported by Russia and Iran.
The clear need is not for Britain to jump further into this toxic mix. It is for a negotiated diplomatic end to the dreadful civil war which has laid waste to Syria. Ultimately, only the Syrian people can determine their own future political arrangements.
But the foreign powers could assist by all ending their military interventions, open and clandestine, in Syria – ending the bombing and the arming of one side or another.
They should further promote peace by abandoning all the preconditions laid down for negotiations. Such preconditions only serve to prolong the conflict and to give either government or opposition hope that foreign military and diplomatic support could somehow lead to all-out victory.
David Cameron, however, wants Britain to pile into the war – adding bombing of somebody or other to the existing levels of covert interference.
No doubt he is in part animated by a wish to be seen to be “doing something” that keeps Britain a key player in Middle East politics.
But mostly he just seems to want to reverse the humiliation of autumn 2013, when he became the first British prime Minister to lose a vote in parliament on going to war.
He has so far hesitated to bring a definite proposal forward for fear of a repetition. Many influential Conservative backbenchers can see no rational case for war.
He draws strength, however, from signs of support for bombing in the Labour ranks. The parliamentary arithmetic is still more unfavourable for peace than it was two years ago. But a united and resolute Labour position against bombing would most likely still stay his hand.
That is why the arguments within Labour’s ranks on this issue today are of first-rate importance.
***
There should be no need for a dispute within the Labour Party over the looming possibility of a Commons vote on bombing Syria.
Just a few weeks ago, the Party conference agreed a resolution on the issue which, despite shortcomings, is clear enough. For the benefit of those members of the Shadow Cabinet who appear not to have read it, here it is:
“Conference believes the Parliamentary Labour Party should oppose any such extension [of bombing] unless the following conditions are met:
Clear and unambiguous authorisation for such a bombing campaign from the United Nations.
A comprehensive European Union-wide plan is in place to provide humanitarian assistance to the increased number of refugees that even more widespread bombing can be expected to lead to.
Such bombing is exclusively directed at military targets directly associated with ‘Islamic State’ noting that if the bombing campaign advocated by the British government in 2013 had not been blocked by the PLP under Ed Miliband’s leadership, ‘Islamic State’ forces might now be in control of far more Syrian territory, including Damascus.
Any military action is subordinated to international diplomatic efforts, including the main regional powers, to bring the Syrian civil war to an end, since only a broadly-based and sovereign Syrian government can ultimately retake territory currently controlled by ‘Islamic State’.
Conference believes that only military action which meets all these objectives, and thus avoids the risk of repeating the disastrous consequences of the 2003 war in Iraq and the 2011 air campaign intervention in Libya, can secure the assent of the British people.”
In the view of Stop the War Coalition, even a military campaign which conformed to all those criteria, which are frankly very unlikely to be met, would still be an unwarranted and pointless intervention which would add to the sum of human suffering in Syria. The present bombing in Iraq proves that.
Nevertheless, the resolution represents a block in Cameron’s road to war. And it is, to repeat, Labour policy, not the whim of anyone, even a leader with such a recent and expansive mandate as Jeremy Corbyn.
But it has come under sustained, if indirect attack from Labour MPs.
The most overt opposition has come from shadow foreign secretary Hillary Benn. In a Guardian article last week he went well beyond the terms of the resolution in three specific respects.
First, he urged Cameron to actively work to secure the United Nations resolution referred to. Second, he hinted, in lawyerly language, that Labour might support bombing of Syria even if no such UN resolution was forthcoming.
And third he deliberately mixed up the issue of bombing Islamic State, a possibility conceded in a highly-contingent fashion in the resolution, with “humanitarian intervention” to establish so-called “safe havens”, which wasn’t.
Benn’s article came with the endorsement that it represents Labour’s official view on the matter, and spin to the effect that it left open the possibility of Labour backing war without UN authorisation.
It is a reminder that diluting Labour’s position on Syria is a win-win for the party’s right-wing. It gets the Party back in the military intervention game, removing the stain, as they see it, of the 2013 vote. And it damages, as a sort of collateral damage, the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who was until his election as Labour leader, the chair of the Stop the War Coalition.
An attempt to hedge the issue was the floating of suggestions that Labour MPs be given a “free vote” on the bombing issue. Under this scenario, bombing would most likely be approved, but the sting of anti-Corbyn rebellion would have been drawn.
There should be no question of allowing this. War is not a matter of conscience, save for absolute pacifists, but of policy. And Labour’s policy was made abundantly clear at the Party conference just a few weeks ago. Jeremy Corbyn has rightly called for policy sovereignty in the Party to be restored to conference.
In effect, a “free vote” would be tantamount to allowing the bombing of Syria. Some Labour MPs would doubtless rebel against a whipped vote in support of Labour policy in any case. Some would be committed Blairite neo-cons, while others would be animated by a desire to do anything, however debased, to damage Jeremy Corbyn.
However, their number would be limited. A “free vote” would increase the pro-war element considerably, since it would give the confused all the alibi they need to line up with the government.
The worst aspect of such vacillation, and of the Benn article in particular, is that it amounts to a come-hither to David Cameron, inviting him to bring a proposal for bombing Syria in the sure anticipation if victory, either because he will secure official Labour backing or because enough Labour MPs will support his resolution in any case.
It is therefore urgent to put all possible pressure on Labour MPs to stick to their own party policy as a minimum. That means explaining the humanitarian and strategic realities of the Syrian situation to those MPs who are uncertain.
It means explaining the alternative route of a real diplomatic settlement to the Syrian conflict and extended assistance to refugees and outlining the dangerous consequences for Syrian civilians and great-power relations alike of any extension of the war.
And for those Labour MPs who are still committed to the neo-conservative interventionist approach it means confronting them with the hideous record of their policies so far this century – millions dead or displaced, state collapse throughout the region, sectarian conflict incited, economies wrecked and global tension heightened. The Scottish National Party has clearly recognised it is time to break with the crimes of the recent past, as its conference last weekend voted to oppose bombing Syria. Can Labour afford not to do likewise?
Above all, it is time for a major upsurge in anti-war campaigning across the country. Our demands should be clear:
All foreign military intervention in Syria should end immediately. The Syrian conflict must be dealt with through political and diplomatic negotiations, with an end to the preconditions which block progress.
While these negotiations should include all regional and global parties that are affected by the conflict, the future of the Syrian government must be decided by the Syrian people alone, free of all external interference.
And Britain must abandon plans for bombing Syria, cease bombing Iraq and end its support for US global domination in favour of respect for every nation’s right to self-determination and sovereignty.
Andrew Murray is Chair of the Stop the War Coalition
US & allies to test missile defense system in Europe for first time – media
RT | October 18, 2015
The US Navy alongside forces from eight other nations, will hold missile defense drills in Europe later in October, according to military sources, as cited by the American media.
The exercises will be held under the Maritime Theater Missile Defense Forum, which is a coalition aimed at coordinating missile defense efforts, Stars and Stripes reports. The forum was created in 1999 and includes Canada, Australia, Spain, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Italy alongside with the US.
The goal of the exercises is to test the allies’ capability to counter multiple missile threats and coordinate their actions in defending against several missiles at once, which is known as an integrated air and missile defense concept, military.com reports citing the US 6th Fleet.
The drills will reportedly include simultaneous interception of an unarmed ballistic missile launched from a British range located in the Outer Hebrides near Scotland and an anti-ship missile fired from a closer range. In order to accomplish this task, the vessels will use highly automated command-and-control systems such as Aegis with the US ship also using their guided anti-ballistic SM-3 missiles.
Aegis is an advanced integrated command and weapon control system used to find and track targets as well as to guide weapons to destroy them. It is installed on more than 30 US Navy warships and is also used by several other countries, including Spain and Norway.
The military sources have revealed neither the exact date nor the location of the missile defense drills in Europe.
The exercises mark a new milestone in the development of the ballistic missile defense system in Europe, which has been created by the US and NATO for about a decade already.
On September 25, the US navy completed the deployment of its Aegis-equipped naval group with its fourth and final destroyer ‘Carney’ being stationed in the Spanish port of Rota. It was part of the US-developed missile defense system in Europe known as the European Phased Adaptive Approach.
Alongside the ship-based missile defenses, this system also includes ground-based interception sites that are to be built in Romania and Poland. On September 25, Polish lawmakers approved a technical agreement with the US concerning an anti-missile base in Redzikowo. According to the plan, the facility will be operational by 2018.
The US and NATO continue to point at a potential missile threat from Iran as the reason for the development of the missile defense system in Europe. Iran only has short and medium-range missile systems with its most advanced ballistic weapons having a maximum range of about 2,500 kilometers.
The agreement with Tehran reached on July 14, which curbed its nuclear program, has not changed US plans to create an anti-missile defense system in Europe.
Moscow has repeatedly stated that the US anti-missile systems poses a threat to Russia’s national security. The US has consistently refuted such claims.
In August, a month after the deal with Iran had been reached, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that the US missile defense system was in the final stages of its development and it would have a “certain devaluating effect concerning Russian strategic forces.”
“We don’t see any reasons [the missile defense system] should continue, especially at such a rapid pace and with a clear ‘projection’ on Russian territory,” Ryabkov said at that time, adding that “the US administration is making up artificial excuses to justify their decision – made under the influence of other motives – to continue the creation of a missile defense system in Europe.”
READ MORE: US ‘making up excuses’ to justify expanding missile defense system in EU – Russian Deputy FM
UK seeking closer ties with Saudi Regime: Report
Documents demonstrate that British companies are being secretly encouraged to sign major contracts with Riyadh as a priority market. This is while London has openly censured Riyadh for beheading sentences handed to two Saudis for alleged anti-government activities. The Ministry of Justice was also forced to end a multi-million-dollar prison contract with Saudi Arabia over a lashing sentence given to a British citizen. Britain has at the same time licensed over six billion dollars worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia since 2010, including the selling of Hawk jets next year. But activists, including the rights group ‘Reprieve’ have blasted London’s hypocrisy. Reprieve says the government should come clean about the true extent of its agreements with repressive regimes, such as Saudi Arabia.
Hey Mr. Cameron, Who’s the Extremist?
By Finian Cunningham – Sputnik – 15.10.2015
When British Prime Minister David Cameron lambasted Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for having a “terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology” the rightwing British media went into raptures over the bashing.
But amid the boorish braying, the question is: what about Cameron’s own extremist-supporting politics? And not just Cameron, but the whole British establishment.Cameron made his cheap shot at Corbyn while addressing his Conservative Party annual conference last week. With the fulsome help of British media, Corbyn’s views on the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, as well as on foreign policy issues, including Russia, Palestine, Hezbollah and Irish republicanism, have been wildly distorted. But the crude demonisation of Corbyn as national traitor is an easy job when you have a phalanx of willing media hatchet-wielders on your side.
How richly ironic it is then that a week after Cameron’s mud-slinging at Corbyn, news emerges of a British man who is facing a death sentence in Saudi Arabia.
Karl Andree, a 74-year-old British expatriate living in the oil-rich kingdom for the past 25 years is to receive 350 lashes under the archaic Saudi justice system. The man was caught last year reportedly in possession of homemade wine — in a country where alcohol is officially forbidden.
His family in Britain are making desperate appeals to British premier David Cameron to intervene in the case to save the pensioner’s life.
Suffering from cancer and asthma, the family of Karl Andree fear that he will die from the flogging, especially after having spent a year already in a Saudi jail. A son of the man told British media this week that Cameron’s government had done little to seek clemency from the Saudi rulers. Simon Andree “accused the Foreign Office of allowing business interests to get in the way of helping to free his father.”
Cameron may be obliged to finally intervene, such is the furore. But the mere fact that London has to be pushed into doing something to save the man’s life shows just how deeply entwined the British establishment is with the House of Saud.
The case is just one of many instances where the British government has steadfastly given the Saudi rulers political cover for their extremist practices. With an estimated 30,000 political prisoners languishing in Saudi jails and over 100 people executed by public beheadings every year, the kingdom has been described as one of the most despotic regimes on Earth. Some observers have noted that the House of Saud beheads as many people as the notorious terror group, Islamic State, which shares the same Wahhabi ideology as the Saudi rulers. Indeed probably bankrolled by the Saudi monarchs, as are other extremist jihadi groups, including Al Qaeda and Jabhat al Nusra.
Yet while Cameron and his government make high-profile calls for sanctions against Russia over alleged violations in Ukraine, London keeps silent when it comes to international appeals for human rights in Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this year it emerged from leaked cables that Cameron’s government was involved in “back-room deals” with the Saudis for the kingdom to be appointed to a chair on the United Nations Human Rights Council. This is while international campaigners have recently appealed in two particularly disturbing cases, one involving a Saudi blogger sentenced to receive a 1,000 lashes and the other of a pro-democracy activist, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who is due to be beheaded and crucified. Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn has personally entreated Cameron to intervene — but so far, Downing Street has declined to mediate.
Cameron has gone on the defensive about British-Saudi relations, telling media that Britain has a “special relationship” with the kingdom, and insisting that it must maintain “close ties”.
The British leader never fails to pontificate to international audiences about how Britain is “supporting democracy and human rights” around the world.
Cameron’s double-think fails, spectacularly, to acknowledge that his government and Downing Street predecessors have “close ties” with the Saudi regime, where elections are banned, women are prohibited from driving cars, and freedom of speech is exercised under the pain of death.
Even as Saudi Arabia carries out more than six months of slaughter in Yemen, the British government maintains a stony silence. Evidence of war crimes involving Saudi bombing of civilians in Yemen has not registered a pause by Britain in supplying the Saudis with Tornado and Typhoon fighter jets equipped with 500-pound Pave IV missiles.Thousands of women and children have been massacred in the onslaught, while Britain reportedly finds new reserves for ordnance to sustain the Saudi bombardment, along with deadly supplies from Washington of course.
In 1985, former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — a political heroine of Cameron — lent her personal intervention in signing the al Yamamah arms deal between Saudi Arabia and Britain.
That ongoing deal — worth an estimated £80 billion ($120 billion) — is the biggest weapons contract ever signed by Britain. A reputed 50,000 jobs depend on its fulfilment, mainly by Britain’s top weapons manufacturer, British Aerospace Engineering (BAE).
The contract is mired in corruption. Investigations have shown that some $1 billion in bribes were funnelled to key members of the House of Saud by BAE, including the former spy chief Bandar bin Sultan. In 2010, a US court found BAE guilty of corruption, for which the firm had to pay $400 million in fines.But Britain’s own legal probe into corruption over the Al Yamamah arms deal was dramatically blocked in 2006 by then Labour leader and Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair, as with Cameron recently, simply invoked “national security interests” to close the prosecution. Once again, the supposed “special relationship” between Britain and Saudi Arabia trumped any concerns about criminality or the despotic nature of the House of Saud.
One factor in why Blair gave cover to Britain’s Saudi clients was the threat from the House of Saud that it would pull the plug on the whole Al Yamamah contract, and instead direct its business to France. The French-made Rafale fighter jets were dangled as an alternative to the British-made Typhoon.
Resonating with that, this week a French delegation led by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Saudi Arabia where it signed $11 billion in contracts for various industrial and military products.
This is the same French government that cancelled the $1.3 billion Mistral helicopter ship contract with Russia over alleged — yet unproven — violations by Moscow in Ukraine.
As with the British, the French government’s high-minded claims of democracy, rule of law and human rights are nothing but cynical public relations when it comes to the altar of financial profits, no matter how “extremist” the customers are.
So, let’s re-run that clip again of David Cameron denouncing others for “extremist-sympathising ideology”. Whatever Jeremy Corbyn’s alleged views are, they are nothing, absolutely nothing, when compared with the extremist-supporting practices of David Cameron and a host of British governments in their courting of Saudi oil money.
Saudi Arabia set to behead two Pakistanis for drug offences
Reprieve | October 16, 2015
Two Pakistani men are facing imminent beheading in Saudi Arabia after being forced by traffickers to bring drugs into the country.
Muhammad Irfan and Safeer Ahmad, from Pakistan, were taken to Saudi Arabia in 2010 and 2012 by men posing as ’employment agents’, believing they would find work there. Instead both were forced into bringing drugs into the country, and were arrested by Saudi police on arrival. Both were sentenced to beheading, and it is understood that the sentences have now been upheld, and that they face imminent execution.
Irfan and Safeer have both been denied access to a lawyer throughout their imprisonment, and faced secretive trial proceedings that were conducted in Arabic – a language neither of them understands. Both men are believed to have told Saudi police that they had been trafficked – however, the courts disregarded the complaints, in violation of international and Saudi law.
The plans come amid an outcry over the imminent beheading of two Saudi juveniles arrested at protests. Ali al-Nimr and Dawoud al-Marhoon were both 17 when they were tortured into ‘confessions’ that would be used to convict them in the country’s secretive Specialized Criminal Court.
The British government faced questions from MPs this week over its continued cooperation with the Saudi criminal justice system, following the cancellation of a controversial Ministry of Justice bid to provide services to the country’s prisons.
Lawyers at international human rights organization Reprieve and Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) have urgently appealed to the UN Special Rapporteurs to intervene to stop the Pakistani men’s executions from going ahead.
Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: “It is shocking that, amid an outcry over the planned executions of two juveniles, the Saudis are also preparing to behead two exploited drug mules – two men who travelled to Saudi Arabia in the belief that they would be better able to support their families back home. They have been denied justice at every turn, and now face imminent execution. The Pakistani government must urgently intervene with the Saudi authorities on behalf of Irfan and Safeer – while other countries must also step in and prevent this outrage from going ahead.”
US Must Call Off Dogs of War in Syria
By Finian Cunningham – Sputnik – 12.10.2015
Ambiguity can be a useful skill in diplomatic engagement. It can wrong-foot adversaries, or otherwise tamp down tensions to avoid confrontation. But there is a danger that ambiguity can rebound badly by blurring reality, thereby impairing decisive action when decisive action is actually the best tactic.
Take Russia’s preferred lexicon of “partners” when referring to Washington and its various allies. The use of the term no doubt has served well to frustrate belligerent Western attitudes. But is there a danger that such polite engagement creates a false sense of negotiation? Or, worse, an unhelpful distraction from Russia’s priorities?
Moscow has magnanimously offered partnership to Washington and its allies over the immediate challenge of defeating terrorism in Syria.
Moscow has called on the United States to coordinate military operations, although, it has to be said, to not much avail so far.
Just this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Washington’s main client in the Arab region – Saudi Arabia – in a related bid to try to advance military cooperation in Syria against terror groups.
Both sides reportedly expressed willingness to prevent the “formation of a terrorist caliphate” in Syria under the control of the Islamic State group and other associated jihadists.
But, unambiguously, Russia knows full well that the American and Saudi “partners” are the principal sponsors of the jihadist mercenary armies that have been destroying Syria for the past nearly five years.
Washington and its Saudi and other regional allies may talk out of the side of their mouths about “degrading and defeating” the Islamic State and other terror groups. But the reality is that Syria would not be in the dire condition of 250,000 dead, $100 billion worth of infrastructure decimated and millions of refugees if it were not for the US-led covert criminal war for regime change in that country.
Leaked US official cables testify that Washington was plotting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from as early as 2006 – five years before the Western-orchestrated uprising began in March 2011.
US President Barack Obama and his top diplomat John Kerry have repeatedly insisted that Assad must stand down in any eventual political outcome. In other words, the Americans want regime change by hook or by crook against what is, as Putin has clearly stated, the “legitimate government of Syria” – and a long-time strategic ally of Russia to boot.
Again this week, the Saudi rulers reiterated the same objective during their visit to Moscow. Saudi Foreign Minister Abel al-Jubeir may have talked about military cooperation with Russia in Syria, but the bottom-line for the House of Saud is that Assad “must go”.
This imperative demanded by Washington and its Saudi ally is an outrageous ultimatum – especially coming from an unelected dictatorship that imprisons tens of thousands of its own people for daring to call for democratic rights in the oil-rich kingdom.
Moreover, in recent days it has been reported that the Obama administration and the Saudis are to step up their supply of anti-tank weapons to the jihadi mercenaries in Syria.
The BBC reports: “The well-placed [Saudi] official, who asked not to be named, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab- and western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies. He said those groups being supplied did not include either Islamic State (IS) or al-Nusra Front, both of which are proscribed terrorist organisations. Instead, he said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances – Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.”
Who is the BBC trying to kid? One of the recipients of Saudi-supplied weapons – the Army of Conquest – is known to be affiliated with the Al-Qaeda network. As for the other supposed “moderate rebels” it is abundantly clear by now that that depiction is a ridiculous fiction and that these groups operate like a revolving door, exchanging fighters and weapons.
The New York Times also reported that the Obama administration, while cancelling its failed program to train “moderate rebels”, is now planning to send arms, including anti-tank missiles, directly to “vetted” rebel groups. “The new program would be the first time the Pentagon has provided lethal aid directly to Syrian rebels, though the CIA has for some time been covertly training and arming groups fighting Mr Assad,” notes the Times.
These “vetted” rebels are part of the same chimeric Free Syrian Army that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week dismissed as a “phantom”.
The Washington Post also reported this week that the BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles previously supplied to Syria by the CIA are now going to be increased. “Now that Russia has entered the war in support of Assad, they are taking on a greater significance than was originally intended… [it] amounts to proxy war of sorts with Moscow.”
What seems clear then is that the interests of Russia and the US in Syria are fundamentally irreconcilable. Washington and its Saudi client are motivated by regime change against Moscow’s ally, and they are moving to escalate arms supplies to their mercenary terror networks fighting to topple the Syrian government and its allies – Russia and Iran.
The notion that Washington and Saudi Arabia could be called upon to form an “anti-terror” front is not just misplaced wishful thinking. It a dangerous ambiguity. Washington and its cronies are not “partners”.
They are implacably working to undermine Russia, and worse, to draw Moscow into an “Afghanistan-type” quagmire.
This deeper enmity towards Russia should be of no surprise. Earlier this year, Russia’s top national security official Nikolai Patrushev warned that Washington was trying to topple the Russian government of Vladimir Putin through “colour revolutions” in former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. By extension, Syria is following the same US script aimed at undermining Russia.
Rather than betting that the United States and its clients might somehow be counted on to fight terrorism in Syria, Moscow would be better defining more clearly who is the root cause of conflict. The logical thing to do then is to not engage with poisonous “partners” – but instead to unambiguously state terms for ending the conflict. One such term would be for the US and its clients to call off their dogs of war in Syria.
Iraqi Forces Seize US-Supplied Anti-Armor Missiles from ISIL in Fallujah
Fars News Agency – October 12, 2015
The Iraqi army and volunteer forces discovered US-made military hardware and ammunition, including anti-armor missiles, in terrorists’ positions and trenches captured during the operations in the Fallujah region in Al-Anbar province.
The Iraqi forces found a huge volume of advanced TOW-II missiles from the Takfiri terrorists in al-Karama city of Fallujah.
The missiles were brand new and the ISIL had transferred them to Fallujah to use them against the Iraqi army’s armored units.
Iraqi officials have on different occasions blasted the US and its allies for supplying the ISIL in Syria with arms and ammunition under the pretext of fighting the Takfiri terrorist group.
On Saturday, the Iraqi forces discovered US-made military hardware and ammunition from terrorists in the town of Beiji.
“The military hardware and weapons had been airdropped by the US-led warplanes and choppers for the ISIL in the nearby areas of Beiji,” military sources told FNA.
In February, an Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that the US airplanes still continue to airdrop weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists.
“The US planes have dropped weapons for the ISIL terrorists in the areas under ISIL control and even in those areas that have been recently liberated from the ISIL control to encourage the terrorists to return to those places,” Coordinator of Iraqi popular forces Jafar al-Jaberi told FNA.
He noted that eyewitnesses in Al-Havijeh of Kirkuk province had witnessed the US airplanes dropping several suspicious parcels for ISIL terrorists in the province.
“Two coalition planes were also seen above the town of Al-Khas in Diyala and they carried the Takfiri terrorists to the region that has recently been liberated from the ISIL control,” Al-Jaberi said.
Also in February, a senior lawmaker disclosed that Iraq’s army has shot down two British planes as they were carrying weapons for the ISIL terrorists in Al-Anbar province.
“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” Head of the committee Hakem al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
He said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this regard.
The senior Iraqi legislator further unveiled that the government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from people and security forces in al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL in terrorist-held areas.
The Iraqi lawmaker further noted the cause of such western aid to the terrorist group, and explained that the US prefers a chaotic situation in Anbar Province which is near the cities of Karbala and Baghdad as it does not want the ISIL crisis to come to an end.
Also in February, a senior Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that US and Israeli-made weapons have been discovered from the areas purged of ISIL terrorists.
“We have discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL’s control in Al-Baqdadi region,” the Al-Ahad news website quoted Head of Al-Anbar Provincial Council Khalaf Tarmouz as saying.
He noted that the weapons made by the European countries and Israel were discovered from the terrorists in the Eastern parts of the city of Ramadi.
Meantime, Head of Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli also disclosed that the anti-ISIL coalition’s planes have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.
In January, al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.
“There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition’s military aid to ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes),” he told FNA at the time.
He noted that the members of his committee have already proved that the US planes have dropped advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft weapons, for the ISIL, and that it has set up an investigation committee to probe into the matter.
“The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations.
He noted that the committee had collected the data and the evidence provided by eyewitnesses, including Iraqi army officers and the popular forces, and said, “These documents are given to the investigation committee … and the necessary measures will be taken to protect the Iraqi airspace.”
Also in January, another senior Iraqi legislator reiterated that the US-led coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.
“The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons,” Jome Divan, who is member of the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said.
He said the coalition’s support for the ISIL is now evident to everyone, and continued, “The coalition has not targeted ISIL’s main positions in Iraq.”
In Late December, Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Commission MP disclosed that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province.
MP Majid al-Gharawi stated that the available information pointed out that US planes are supplying ISIL organization, not only in Salahuddin province, but also other provinces, Iraq TradeLink reported.
He added that the US and the international coalition are “not serious in fighting against the ISIL organization, because they have the technological power to determine the presence of ISIL gunmen and destroy them in one month”.
Gharawi added that “the US is trying to expand the time of the war against the ISIL to get guarantees from the Iraqi government to have its bases in Mosul and Anbar provinces.”
Salahuddin security commission also disclosed that “unknown planes threw arms and ammunition to the ISIL gunmen Southeast of Tikrit city”.
SNP Demands Clear Stance on Trident From Scottish Labour Leader
Sputnik – 11.10.2015
Scotland’s Labour Party must clarify its position on the Trident nuclear deterrent system, the Scottish National Party (SNP) said as quoted by local media Sunday.
“This has been another week of absolute chaos for the Labour party on the issue of Trident,” the UK Press Association quoted SNP member of Scottish Parliament Bill Kidd as saying.
Kidd accused Scottish Labour Party leader Kezia Dugdale of misleading the public over whether Labour supports the ruling Conservative Party’s plan to renew the aging system or backs SNP’s position to scrap it.
Kidd demanded from Dugdale in a statement this week “to be straight with the people of Scotland – will they back the SNP in getting rid of Trident or will they back the Tories in spending 100 billion pounds [$153 billion] on weapons of mass destruction?”
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn divided the party last week by publicly vowing not to deploy nuclear weapons under any circumstances and opposing the renewal of the Trident program.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron said London will acquire four new Trident submarines “in the coming years.”
The Trident system is deployed at the UK Royal Navy’s Faslane naval base in Scotland, the United Kingdom’s only facility capable of hosting the four Vanguard-class ballistic missile-equipped submarines.
British Defense Procurement Minister Philip Dunne has said the so-called “main gate” decision on Trident’s successor is expected next year.
Britain’s Secret Widespread Use Of Torture
By Graham Vanbergen | TruePublica | October 6, 2015
The last British prisoner in Guantanamo Bay has claimed that Britain knew flawed evidence, used to justify the Iraq War, had been obtained under torture – and said his lengthy detention was a result of fears that he would go on the record if released.
Shaker Aamer, who is due to be freed from the US military prison after 13 years without charge, said he witnessed British agents at Bagram Air Base when a prisoner wrongly told interrogators that Iraqi forces had trained al-Qaeda in the use of weapons of mass destruction.
The evidence of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, which was later disproven, was used by George W Bush in 2002 during a hawkish speech calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein, in which he said: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.”
Mr Aamer said that despite guarantees he would be released within days, he feared he would still die in the prison, adding: “I know there are people who, even now, are working hard to keep me here.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The UK does not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose.
Aamer gave statements to the Metropolitan police two years ago in which he detailed the alleged brutality he has faced, that included torture. He said he was interrogated by British agents at Bagram airbase, who knew he and others were being tortured there.
Britain has a long, dark history of torture and it has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide it. A normal functioning democracy would stand resolute that torture of any kind is not just illegal and immoral, it simply doesn’t work.
David Whyte’s recent book “How Corrupt is Britain” covers some pivotal moments in the UK’s history of torture.
In June 1975 an eminent Harley Street doctor flew to Dublin. The patient was suffering from severe angina, a condition which is ‘always associated with the risk of sudden death according to the doctor. The doctor was Dr Denis Leigh, a leading consultant psychiatrist at the Bethlem Royal and the Maudsley Hospitals in London, and more importantly, medical consultant to the British Army.
The patient, Sean McKenna, was a former member of the IRA who had been subjected to so-called ‘in-depth interrogation’ following the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971, He was one of the 14 ‘hooded men’ whose infamous treatment forced the lrish state to launch a case alleging torture against the UK government at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Leigh’s medical examination was being carried out on behalf of the Crown to bolster the UK defence that the men had not suffered long-term physical or psychiatric damage as a result of their interrogation.
The ‘in-depth interrogation’ that McKenna and the others were subjected to consisted of five techniques that had been widely used by the British army in counter-insurgency campaigns in Aden, Cyprus, Malaya, Palestine and elsewhere – hooding, white noise, wall standing in a stress position and of course regular beatings.
Dr Leigh found that McKenna’s condition was known to British army doctors before the interrogation went ahead, and ‘it would be hard to show that it was wise to proceed with the interrogation, and that the interrogation did not have the effect of worsening his angina’.
In fact McKenna’s psychiatric condition was such that he had been released from Long Kesh internment camp in May 1972 directly into the care of a psychiatric unit. His daughter described ‘a very broken man, sitting crying, very shaky’. Four days after the June 1975 medical examination Sean McKenna died. He had suffered a massive heart attack.
In 1976 the European Human Rights Commission (EHRC) upheld a complaint by Ireland that the treatment of the ‘hooded men’ constituted torture, and referred the case to the European Court of Human Rights for judgement. The Commission had condemned the five techniques as a ‘modern system of torture’.
Britain was one of the original signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights, had been found to have sanctioned torture.
Successive UK governments, rather than comply with their legal obligation to ‘search and try’ allegations of torture, adopted a policy more akin to ‘hide and lie’. This was to have consequences many years later. The inquiry into the 2003 murder of an Iraqi civilian, Baha Mousa, by British soldiers was told that the five techniques had again been used in Iraq by every single battle group in the field.
ln ‘Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture,’ Guardian journalist Ian Cobain provides damning evidence that the UK government did in fact ‘do’ torture, and had been doing so for decades in counter-insurgency wars from Brunei to Aden, and from Ireland to lraq. In June 2013 UK foreign secretary William Hague apologised in Parliament for the torture of Mau Mau suspects in Kenya during the 1950s. Over £50 million was paid out in compensation to some 5,000 Kenyan victims. ln 1972 prime minister Edward Heath had promised Parliament that the ‘five techniques’ torture techniques would never be used again.
As declassified documents now show, prime ministers and cabinet colleagues over the decades actually went to great lengths to ensure that those responsible for torture would not face sanction or prosecution and actively covered up these crimes.
In another case in Afghanistan, among the Britons who were picked up was a man called Jamal al-Harith. Born Ronald Fiddler in Manchester in 1966, Harith had converted to Islam in his 20s and travelled widely in the Muslim world before arriving in Afghanistan. After 9/11, he had been imprisoned by the Taliban, who suspected him of being a British spy. A British journalist found Harith languishing in the prison in January 2002 and alerted British diplomats in Kabul, believing they would arrange his repatriation. Instead, they arranged for him to be detained by US forces, who took him straight to an interrogation centre at Kandahar.
Harith then spent two years at Guantánamo, being kicked, punched, slapped, shackled in painful positions, subjected to extreme temperatures and deprived of sleep. He was refused adequate water supplies and fed on food with date markings 10 or 12 years old. On one occasion, he says, he was chained and severely beaten for refusing an injection. He estimates he was interrogated about 80 times, usually by Americans but sometimes by British intelligence officers.
In all, nine British nationals were sent to the maximum-security prison at Guantánamo, along with at least nine former British residents. All were incarcerated for years, and from the moment they arrived they suffered torture including regular beatings, threats and sleep deprivation. All were interrogated by MI5 officers and some also by MI6.
In December 2005, the full truth about British complicity in rendition and torture was still such a deeply buried official secret that Jack Straw felt able to reassure MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee about the allegations starting to surface in the media. “Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories,” he said, “there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition or that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States”. Straw was lying.
Over the next few years, men were rendered not only from the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, but from Kenya, Pakistan, Indonesia, Somalia, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Gambia, Zambia, Thailand and the US itself. The US was running a global kidnapping programme on the basis of agreements reached at a Nato meeting.
Quietly, Britain pledged logistics support for the rendition programme, which resulted in the CIA’s jets becoming frequent visitors to British airports en route to the agency’s secret prisons on at least 210 times.
It has since been discovered that throughout the postwar period, it seemed, there had been a network of secret British prisons, hidden from the Red Cross, where men thought to pose a threat to the state could be kept for years and systematically tormented, tortured and sometimes murdered.
It is now known that MI5 have a department called the “international terrorism-related agent running section”: the section routinely responsible for interviewing suspected terrorists. The MI5 officers who were interrogating al-Qaida suspects – men who were being tortured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere around the world – were agent handlers. It appeared that MI5 was seeking to recruit torture victims as double agents.
Within two months of the May 2010 general election, under pressure from his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, as well as some of his own backbenchers, the new prime minister, David Cameron, announced the establishment of a judge-led inquiry into the UK’s involvement in torture and rendition. The man appointed to head the inquiry was named as Sir Peter Gibson, a retired judge. It is possible that MI5 and MI6 had a hand in his selection; for the previous four years Gibson had served as the intelligence services commissioner. Rights groups suggested that Gibson should be appearing before the inquiry as a witness rather than presiding over it.
In July 2011, most major international and British human rights groups, including Amnesty International, said they would be boycotting the inquiry. The following month, lawyers representing victims of Britain’s torture operations announced that they, too, would have nothing to do with it. Six months later, the government announced that the Gibson inquiry was scrapped.
Cameron’s government then brought forward a green paper that suggested a need for greater courtroom secrecy. Britain’s complicity in torture was to continue to be a dirty dark state secret.
None of this squares with Britain’s reputation as a nation that prides itself on its love of fair play and respect for the rule of law. Successive British government’s continues to preach to other nations around the world of the importance of justice, transparency and democracy whilst disregarding essentials such as these back at home.
Baby amongst children removed over Islamist radicalization fears
RT | October 9, 2015
More than 20 children including one baby have been taken into care over fears they could be subject to extremist views and radical Islam at home.
Children from at least 11 families have been subjected to court orders, which remove children into state care.
The youngest child is a one-year-old from Rochdale whose family were caught attempting to flee to Syria via Turkey earlier in the year.
The figures come after one of the most senior judges in the UK released new guidelines on the increasing number of extremist cases which are taken to family courts.
In many cases judges use court orders to protect children who are considered vulnerable to extremist behavior. The orders can include making the children wards of court, place them in foster care or prevent them leaving the UK.
President of the Family Division of the High Court Sir James Munby said on Thursday that the number of cases involving children had risen since the beginning of the year.
“Recent months have seen increasing numbers of children cases coming before … the family court,” he said.
“There are allegations that children, with their parents or on their own, are planning or being groomed to travel to parts of Syria controlled by the so-called Islamic State; that children are at risk of being radicalized; or that children are at risk of being involved in terrorist activities either in this country or abroad.”
Munby said police should be proactive in seeking court orders, and not rely on local councils. He added that the safety of vulnerable children was “paramount.”
His announcement came days after Prime Minister David Cameron highlighted the “danger” Islamic extremism poses in the UK, saying the “passive tolerance” of radical ideas was allowing the spread of dangerous rhetoric.
Hannah Stuart, counter-radicalization expert at the Henry Jackson Society, said terror groups are continuing to target young people.
“Both among those who support people joining the conflict in Syria or who want to see terror acts committed here, we see a recurring obsession with the radicalization of children.
“We are seeing a generation who are getting older and having children, and those children are growing up in an environment where there is a risk of them being taken to Syria – or being told that it is right to hate non-Muslims and desire martyrdom.”
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Secret document reveals plans for civil war in Lebanon, Israeli false flags, and invasion
By Randi Nord | Geopolitics Alert | April 5, 2019
Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.
Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue
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