West Asia News and Discussions

pankajs · Post by **pankajs** » 28 Mar 2014 08:54

Recordings, Posted Online, Rattle Officials in Turkey

On Thursday morning, a recording was posted on YouTube in which the officials were heard discussing a plot to establish a justification for military strikes in Syria. One option that is said to have been discussed was orchestrating an attack on the Tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, which is in northern Syria and is considered by the government here to be Turkish territory.

By Thursday afternoon, the Foreign Ministry building in Ankara, Turkey’s capital — where the secret meeting was held — was being swept for surreptitious listening devices, and the government had moved to block access to YouTube, just a week after a similar ban on Twitter, which has also been a conduit for the leaking of documents and telephone conversations.

The government, citing national security concerns, also banned news coverage of the contents of the meeting, and officials have suggested that a broader crackdown on the Internet may be coming.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 28 Mar 2014 09:35

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-2 ... iance.html
Obama-visits-Saudi-king-as-u-s-oil-boom-shifts-alliance

Though greater energy independence has altered the strategic framework, the U.S. still views Saudi Arabia as a critical player in globally linked energy markets, a senior administration official said, asking not to be identified before tomorrow’s talks. Two facts show the scale of change in global energy markets since Obama last visited the world’s largest oil exporter: U.S. output reached an average of 7.45 million barrels a day last year, 39 percent more than in 2009. As a result, U.S. imports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, where Saudi Arabia is the leading member, fell to their lowest level since 1996 last year to an average of 3.49 million barrels a day. . Even though Saudi Arabia remains the second-largest foreign supplier of U.S. crude after Canada -- partly because state oil producer Saudi Aramco has a refinery network that helps ensure an American market for its crude -- shipments fell slightly last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
For Saudi Arabia and other Middle East producers, the shale boom is accelerating the redirection of oil shipments toward Asia. China, which overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest oil importer in September last year, is becoming an increasingly important customer. It imported 53.9 million tons of Saudi crude in 2013, or about 1 million barrels a day. That’s 28 percent more than in 2009, according to Chinese customs data. “Ten years ago they were very concerned about maintaining market share in Europe and the U.S. This was a high foreign policy goal” for Saudi Arabia, Chatham House’s Marcel said. “That’s no longer as important.” The kingdom has the capacity to produce an additional 3 million barrels of crude a day, or just over 3 percent of global demand, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The Saudis will always play a key role,” Wittner said. “They are the only ones with spare capacity and the ability to increase it and willingness to cut when necessary.” The U.S. may still need Saudi Arabia’s oil in the long term if its domestic shale oil boom peters out, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. U.S. oil production is projected to level off and then slowly decline after 2020. The IEA estimates 2,500 new wells a year are needed to sustain output of 1 million barrels a day in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. In the meantime, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have a chance to reset their relationship after friction over Iran and Syria, said Ayham Kamel, director for Middle East and Africa at Eurasia Group in New York. “U.S. energy independence won’t signal withdrawal from the Gulf region, but a reassessment of priorities instead,” Kamel said. “Obama’s visit is a golden opportunity for Saudi officials to discuss a re-framing of their partnership. This would stop the deterioration in the relationship.”

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 28 Mar 2014 10:50

probably also asked KSA to activate Chechen Islamic terror groups and terror in Ingushetia

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 28 Mar 2014 11:10

^^Very much so maestro. Probably the entire Caucasian chain will be re-ignited.

Silly people charting the course in the US. In the Gladiator movie, there is a line: when a people have been defeated they should know it, the subtext being "or annihilation will follow"

The same applies the other way too: when a people have won, they should know it, the subtext being "or decline will follow".

habal · Post by **habal** » 28 Mar 2014 11:17

Nijalingappa wrote:probably also asked KSA to activate Chechen Islamic terror groups and terror in Ingushetia

Grozny & Chechnya was razed to the ground, and then rebuilt. Most Chechen 'warriors' fled elsewhere where they started fighting imaginary Russians. Same fate will greet Ingushetia. the battlefield learning curve available to the Chechens may not be available to the Ingushetians because matters more pressing await in Ukraine. It will be short, sharp & maybe nuclear.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 28 Mar 2014 22:35

Nijalingappa wrote:probably also asked KSA to activate Chechen Islamic terror groups and terror in Ingushetia

Long War Journal just came up with article on Saudi Mullah in tight embrace with Chechan fighters in Syria. Coincident ?
Battle Lines Now Getting Marked

Qatar buys $23B in arms from Boeing, Airbus, Raytheon, Lockheed

Qatar announces contracts worth ~$23B to buy attack helicopters, guided missiles, tankers and other weapons from 20 global companies, including U.S. firms which were awarded deals worth ~$7.6B.Boeing (BA) confirms a contract to buy 24 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters and three 737 Airborne early warning and control aircraft.Qatar also is buying 22 NH90 military helicopters from a unit of Airbus (EADSF, EADSY) worth €2B ($2.76B) and two Airbus-made refueling tankers.Other commitments include a Patriot missile defense system built by Raytheon (RTN) equipped with PAC-3 missiles made by Lockheed (LMT); advanced daytime, high-definition sensors and radars for Apache helicopters; and Javelin missiles built by a Lockheed-Raytheon joint venture.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 29 Mar 2014 05:01

Thats Qatar's baksheesh to uncle to fight their wars.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 30 Mar 2014 02:40

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 98213.html

Patrick Cockburn

Monday 17 March 2014
Al-Qa’ida, the second act: Is Saudi Arabia regretting its support for terrorism?

In the second part of his series, Patrick Cockburn examines the role of Saudi Arabia as the jihadists’ greatest ally – and asks whether the kingdom will be forced to change tack in the face of American impatience and anarchy in Syria
It is a chilling five-minute film made by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), showing its fighters stopping three large trucks on what looks like the main highway linking Syria and Iraq. A burly bearded gunmen takes the ID cards of the drivers who stand nervously in front of him.

“You are all Shia,” he says threateningly.

“No, we are Sunni from Homs,” says one of the drivers in a low, hopeless tone of voice. “May Allah give you victory.”

“We just want to live,” pleads another driver. “We are here because we want to earn a living.” The Isis man puts them through a test to see if they are Sunni. “How many times do you kneel for the dawn prayer?” he asks. Their answers vary between three and five.

“What are the Alawites doing with the honour of Syria?” rhetorically asks the gunman who by this stage has been joined by other fighters. “They are raping women and killing Muslims. From your talk you are polytheists.” The three drivers are taken to the side road and there is gunfire as they are murdered.

The armed opposition in Syria and Iraq is today dominated by Salafi jihadists, fundamentalist Islamic fighters committed to holy war. Those killing non-Sunni drivers on the Damascus-Baghdad road are an all too typical an example of this. Western governments may not care very much how many Shia die in Syria, Iraq or Pakistan, but they can see that Sunni movements with beliefs similar to the al-Qa’ida of Osama bin Laden, today have a base in Iraq and Syria far larger than anything they enjoyed in Afghanistan before 9/11 when they were subordinate to the Taliban.

The pretence that the Western-backed and supposedly secular Free Syrian Army was leading the fight to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad finally evaporated last December as jihadists overran their supply depots and killed their commanders.

In the past six months there have been signs of real anger in Washington at actions by Saudi Arabia and the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf in supplying and financing jihadi warlords in Syria who are now so powerful. US Secretary of State John Kerry privately criticised Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of Saudi intelligence since 2012 and former Saudi ambassador in Washington, who had been masterminding the campaign to overthrow the Assad government.

The film shows the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants The film shows the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants

The three Syrian truck drivers are pulled over The three Syrian truck drivers are pulled over

All three are killed for not being Sunni Muslims All three are killed for not being Sunni Muslims

He struck back by denouncing President Obama for not intervening militarily in Syria when chemical weapons were used against civilians.

Last month, it was revealed that Prince Bandar, while remaining intelligence chief, was no longer in charge of Saudi policy in Syria. He has been replaced by interior minister Mohammed bin Nayef, who gets on with the US and is chiefly known for his campaign against al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, son of the Saudi King Abdullah and head of the Saudi National Guard, will also play a role in formulating a new Syrian policy. Saudi Arabia’s differences with some of the other Gulf monarchies are becoming more explicit, with the Saudis, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates withdrawing their ambassadors from Qatar this month. This was primarily because of Qatar’s backing for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but also for its funding and supplying of out-of-control jihadi groups in Syria.

Saudi Arabia took over from Qatar as the main funder of the Syrian rebels last summer. But Saudi involvement is much deeper and more long term than this, with more fighters coming from Saudi Arabia than from any other country.

Saudi preachers call vehemently for armed intervention against Assad, either by individual volunteers or by states. The beliefs of Wahhabism, the puritanical literalist Saudi version of Islam, are not much different from those of al-Qa’ida or other Salafi jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt and Libya.

The Saudis have always ideologically opposed Shi’ism as a heresy, much as Roman Catholics in Reformation Europe detested and sought to eliminate Protestantism. This hostility goes back to the alliance between the Wahhabis and the House of Saud dating from the 18th century. But the key date for the development of the jihadist movements as political players is 1979, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini turned Iran into a Shia theocracy.

During the 1980s, an alliance was born between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (or more properly the Pakistani army) and the US which has proved extraordinarily durable. It has been one of the main supports of American predominance in the region, but also provided a seed plot for jihadist movements of which Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida was originally only one strain.

The shock of 9/11 provided a Pearl Harbour moment in the US when public revulsion and fear could be manipulated to implement a pre-existing neo-conservative agenda by targeting Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq. A reason for waterboarding al-Qa’ida suspects was to extract confessions implicating Iraq rather than Saudi Arabia.

The 9/11 Commission report identified Saudi Arabia as the main source of al-Qa’ida financing. But six years after the attack – at the height of US-al-Qa’ida military conflict in Iraq in 2007 – Stuart Levey, the Under-Secretary of the US Treasury in charge of monitoring and impeding terror financing, told ABC News that, when it came to al-Qa’ida, “if I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.” He added that not one person identified by the US or the UN as funding terrorism had been prosecuted by the Saudis.

Despite this high-level frustration at the Saudis for not cooperating, nothing much had improved a couple of years later. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in December 2009 in a cable released by Wikileaks: “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorists groups.” She complained that in so far as Saudi Arabia did act against al-Qa’ida, it was as a domestic threat and not against its activities abroad.

The US Under-Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, last week praised Saudi Arabia for progress in stamping out al-Qa’ida funding sources within its own borders, but said that other jihadist groups could access donors in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is not alone among the Gulf monarchies in supporting jihadists. Mr Cohen says sourly that “our ally Kuwait has become the epicentre for fundraising for terrorist groups in Syria”. He complains particularly of the appointment of Nayef al-Ajmi as both Minister of Justice and Minister of Islamic Endowments (Awqaf) and Islamic Affairs. He says: “Al-Ajmi has a history of promoting jihad in Syria. In fact, his image has been featured on fundraising posters for a prominent al-Nusra Front financier.” He adds that the Awqaf ministry has recently announced that fundraisers can now collect donations for the Syrian people at Kuwait mosques, opening the door wide to jihadist fundraisers.

A further point coming across strongly in leaked American diplomatic traffic is the extent to which the Saudis gave priority to confronting the Shia. Here the paranoia runs deep: take Pakistan, Saudi Arabia’s most important Muslim ally, of which a senior Saudi diplomat said that “we are not observers in Pakistan, we are participants”. Pre-9/11, only Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had given official recognition to the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

There is something hysterical and exaggerated about Saudi fear of Shia expansionism, since the Shia are only powerful in the handful of countries where they are in the majority or are a strong minority. Of 57 Muslim countries, just four have a Shia majority.

Nevertheless, the Saudis were highly suspicious of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and made clear they would have much preferred a military dictatorship in Pakistan. The reason for the dislike was sectarian, according to UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed who told the Americans that “Saudi Arabia suspects that Zardari is Shia, this creating Saudi concern of a Shia triangle in the region between Iran, the Maliki government in Iraq, and Pakistan under Zardari”.

Sectarian hostility to the Shia as heretics is combined with fear and loathing of Iran. King Abdullah continuously urged America to attack Iran and “cut off the head of the snake”. Rolling back the influence of the Shia majority in Iraq was another priority. Here was another reason why so many Saudis sympathised with the actions of jihadists in Iraq against the government.

The takeover of Iraq by a Shia government – the first in the Arab world since Saladin overthrew the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt in 1171 – had caused serious alarm in Riyadh and other Sunni capitals, whose rulers wanted to reverse this historic defeat. The Iraqi government noticed with alarm in 2009 that when a Saudi imam issued a fatwa calling on Shia to be killed that Sunni governments in the region were “suspiciously silent” when it came to condemning his statement.

The Arab uprisings of 2011 exacerbated sectarianism, not least in Saudi Arabia which is always highly conscious of its Shia minority in the Eastern Province. In March, 1,500 Saudi troops provided back up for the al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain as they crushed pro-democracy protests by the Shia majority on the island, the openly sectarian nature of the clampdown underlined when Shia shrines were bulldozed.

In Syria, the Saudis believed that the Syrian government would be swiftly overwhelmed like that of Muammar Gaddafi. They underestimated its staying power and the support it was getting from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But Saudi involvement, along with that of Qatar and Turkey, de-emphasised secular democratic change as the ideology of the uprising, which then turned into a Sunni bid for power in which the Salafi jihadist brigades were the cutting edge of the revolt.

Predictably, the Alawites and other minorities feel they have no choice but to fight to the death.

Many nonsensical conspiracy theories have evolved, peddling the idea that the US government was somehow complicit in the 9/11 attacks. The very absurdity of these theories has diverted attention from the fact that in one sense there was a conspiracy, but it was quite open and never a secret.

The price of the triple alliance between the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan was the jihadi movement. So far, this is anti-Shia before it is anti-Western, but, as the Isis gunmen on the Damascus-Baghdad road showed, any non-Sunni is at risk.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 30 Mar 2014 07:18

Neo-Imperialist plot unravels.The stealth warship carrying the former imperial powers,the US,EU,and Ottomans,plot to take-away Syria,has hit a rock and holed itself,revealing itself to all concerned.

Leaked Turkish false flag leaves US Imperial ship leaking at off-sides
Saturday, March 29, 2014

[quote]The UK, EU & Turkey have just left the US administration at off-sides, having leaked its false-flags for being just that: The fake Syrian Chemical attack, the NGO massacre at Maidan square and the stage-planned Turkish 9/11 which could be nick-named ‘Shesh-Besh’ which means literally 5-6 in Farsi (Persian) and Checkers in English. The 5/6 terror attack was supposed to bring Turkey in a total war against Syria, whereby Turkey has the largest NATO land army in Europe.

The spilled Turkish beans remind me of the EU leakage and admission about controlling the Maidan snipers. In both cases it looks like turning their coat on the USA, especially in a way which stings it about 9/11, Kosovo and Vietnam [Link].Why now turn the coat? – because the US had enough time to back its initiative with Muscle, which it didn’t, thus leaving the EU & Turkey alone at the front vs. Russia and Syria.

Recently the Syrian regime achieved a principle turning point in it war to repel the NATO guerrilla aka ‘rebels’ at Yabroud [Link]. This followed the killing of the Chechen ‘Rebels’ leader Umarov [Link: Doku Umarov Is Finally Dead] by Russia, which backs Syria in all regards including its military presence with a large naval and military base in Tartus.

The above wall-to-wall pattern of publicly disclosing NATO/US false-flagged war mongering is reminiscent of how the Ottoman empire lost the campaign for central Europe on the gates of Vienna, when Wallachian and Moldovan forces warned the Austrians of the coming Ottoman attack and loaded their own cannons with straw balls, in order not to impact upon the walls of the besieged Vienna [Link]. This time round, the late remnants of both those belligerents warn the world about the impending American attacks and refuse to partake in them.

Eastern-Ukraine:

“There has been a sharp increase in external threats to the state,” he said. “The lawful desire of the peoples of Crimea and eastern Ukrainian regions is causing hysteria in the United States and its allies.” [Link].Having secured Damascus, Beirut, Iran & Beirut, Russia goes on the offensive for the 2/3 encircled Don-Bass Russian speaking district.

All the above suggests Russia is going to reclaim Ukraine while the west shall attempt to reclaim the former British domain of Iran, like we suspected 3 weeks ago [Link].

The problem with this western intention is two fold:

1. It is already the death spasms of NATO at the allegiance level.

2. The new head of the CIA John Brennan is claimed to have been Islamized by the Saudi
counter-intelligence [Link 1] [Link 2].

3. Iran is the sneakier party to this liars-poker game,thus is not likely to be compromised.

4. The UK has just surrendered its entire Christian cultural foundation, on which its democracy is built, to the Islamic Law aka Sharia, thus it is Eurabia having been swallowed by the Caliphate, rather not Iran to become a satellite of and occidental white-Christian EU: Islamic law to be enshrined in British law as solicitors get guidelines on ‘Sharia compliant’ wills.

In this regard one must learn from the recent experience Israel has had with the Arabs having signed with them numerous peace agreements from 1979 to 1995, all are as good as carved on the ice, just like the Koran mandates and in lieu with the Islamic tradition [Link].

Egypt, Jordan, Fatah/PLO/PNA + a truce with Syria and Hezbollah in 2001: are all directly guaranteed by USA signatures and are all worthless since both Koran and the US constitution by their essential definitions render all foreign treaties null and void [Link]:

“American law is that international accords become part of the body of U.S. federal law.[1] Consequently, Congress can modify or repeal treaties by subsequent legislative action, even if this amounts to a violation of the treaty under international law. This was held, for instance, in the Head Money Cases. ”.

In this regard Islam has shaped the USA following the Koran’s inherent disrespect of foreign treaties [Link], like Barack Hussein Obama said to the Turkish Parliament on 6 April 2009: “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.” [Link].

The Anglo-American orientation towards Iran[Link], which we have reported on May 2012 [Link] ,involves public loggerheads with Saudi-Arabia and the rest of the Sunny world likewise Israel [Link: President Prepares To Meet King As U.S.-Saudi Divisions Deepen].

Since NATO has become a docile Dhimmi of the Shiite Caliphate of Iran, it is not surprising that Russia ostensibly plans on taking the war to the Americas now: Russia with plans for military bases in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela

All the above follows in the steps of our March 2013 article about the Russoman Empire [Link].[/quote
http://osnetdaily.com/2014/03/leaked-tu ... off-sides/

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 30 Mar 2014 17:36

“The Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, taken together, will be the most expensive wars in U.S. history.”

The Bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars: $4 to $6 Trillion

Y. Kanan · Post by **Y. Kanan** » 31 Mar 2014 09:03

Turkish leaders exposed planning "false flag operation" to justify starting war with Syria

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBk0HGfI_wM

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 31 Mar 2014 12:22

These "false flag" ops have been a feature of all the so-called colour revolutions,Arab Spring,etc.The Western press has conveniently ignored all the evidence that has come out in the media,which has lied to their own people.However,the truth about Iraq and Afghanistan has pouted,and the population of the West are highly sceptical of the integrity of their leaders who want to take them to war. Their economies are also bankrupt and as in Syria,unable to make even a token miniscule attack by one little drone!

This has shattered the trust of their Arab partners in crime,especially the Saudis,who've spent billions in a futile attempt to topple Assad and grab his oil-rich assets,while delivering a decisive blow against the Shiite power Iran,the mortal enemy of the Wahaabi Saudis.The unravelling of the US-Saudi relationship and the maverick actions of Qatar are creating acute instability in the Muddle East,wiht the AlQ forces taking maximum advantage of the confusion.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 31 Mar 2014 13:02

Last year Saudi 29 Billion for F-15's, Qatar 23 Billion this year, I reall doubt how SIpri can put Indiaa above these. I am sure GCC per year imports must be more than 10 Billion USD.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 31 Mar 2014 18:30

Remember the Holocaust? Not the slaughter of Jews by the Nazis,but the earlier slaughter of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks,as savage and inhuman.
There is an excellent film with Omar Sharif,"Mayrig",which shows a tiny part of this horrific event in human history.Sequel 588Rue Paradis,both superb,unmissable.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/com ... 24585.html
Robert Fisk
Sunday 30 March 2014
The extraordinary story of 100-year-old Yevnigue Salibian, one of the last people alive who can recall the horror of the Armenian genocide
Her life was saved by the reins of a horse as her family fled the brutality of Ottoman rule

She was a child of the Great War, born on a faraway killing field of which we know little, one of the very last witnesses to the last century’s first genocide, sitting in her wheelchair, smiling at us, talking of Jesus and the Armenian children whipped by the Turkish police whom she saw through the cracks in her wooden front door. It’s not every day you get to meet so finite an observer of human history, and soon, alas, we will not see her like again in our lifetime.

They took me to meet Yevnigue Salibian last week up in the Mission Hills of California, whose warm breezes and palm trees are not unlike the town of Aintab in which she was born more than a hundred years ago. She is an old lady now in a home for the elderly but with a still impeccable memory and an equally sharp and brutal scar on her thigh – which she displays without embarrassment – where a horse’s reins suspended her above a ravine until she almost bled to death in her final flight from her Armenian homeland. “Hushhhhhh,” she says. “That’s how the blood sounded when it poured out of me. “I still remember it: ‘hushhhhhh’, ‘hushhhhhh’.”

The facts of the Armenian Holocaust are as clear and real as those of the later Jewish Holocaust. But they must be repeated because the state of Turkey remains a holocaust denier, still insisting that the Ottoman government did not indulge in the genocide which destroyed a million and a half of its Armenian Christian population almost a century ago. The Armenians were axed and knifed and shot in their tens of thousands, the women and children sent on death marches into the deserts of northern Syria where they were starved and raped and slaughtered. The Turks used trains and a primitive gas chamber, a lesson the Germans learned well. Very soon, there will be no more Yevnigues to tell their story.

She was born on 14 January 1914, the daughter of Aposh Aposhian, an Aintab copper merchant who taught his five children the story of Jesus from a large Bible which he held on his lap as he sat with them on a carpet on the floor of their home. They were – like so many Armenians – a middle-class family, and Aposh had Turkish friends and, although Yevnigue does not say so, it appears he traded with the Ottoman army; which probably saved their lives. When the first deportations began, the Salibians were left in their home, but the genocide lasted till the very last months of the Great War – it had begun within weeks of the Allied landings at Gallipoli – and in 1917, the Turks were still emptying Aintab of its Armenians. That’s when the sound of crying led three-year-old Yevnigue to the front door of her home.

“It was an old wooden door and there were cracks in it and I looked through the cracks,” she says. “There were many children outside without shoes and the Turkish gendarmes were using whips to drive them down the street. A few had parents. We were forbidden to take food to them. The police were using whips on the children and big sticks to beat them with. The sounds of the children screaming on the deportation – still I hear them as I look through the cracked door.”

So many parents were killed in the first year of the Armenian genocide that the orphans – tens of thousands of feral children who swarmed through the land in their absence – were only later driven out by the Turks: these were tiny deportees whom Yevnigue saw. The Aposhians, however, were able to cling on until the French army arrived in eastern Turkey after the Ottoman surrender. But when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk launched a guerrilla war against the French occupiers of his land, the French retreated – and in 1921 the surviving Armenians fled with them to Syria, among them Yevnigue and her family, packed into two horse-drawn carts. She was among the very last Christians to leave her Armenian homeland.

“My family was divided between the two carts. I changed places with an old lady. It was at night and over a ravine, our horses panicked, and the cart overturned and an iron bar killed the old lady and I was thrown over the edge of a bridge and only the horse’s reins saved me when they got wrapped around my leg. Jesus saved me. I hung there and there was the ‘hushhhhhh’ sound of my blood pouring out of me.” Yevnigue shows the harsh scar on her leg. It has bitten deeply into the muscle. She was unconscious for two days, slowly recovering in Aleppo, and then Damascus and finally in the sanctuary of Beirut.

The remainder of her life – as she tells it – was given to God, her husband and the tragedy of losing one of her sons in a Lebanese road accident in 1953. A photograph taken on her arrival in Beirut shows Yevnigue to have been an extraordinarily pretty young woman and she had, she says, many suitors. She eventually chose a bald-headed Evangelical preacher, an older man called Vahran Salibian who had a big smile and whose name – Salibi – means crusader. “He had no hair on his head but he had Jesus in his heart,” Yevnigue announces to me. Vahran died in 1995 after 60 years of marriage and Yevnigue has lost count of her great grandchildren – there are at least 22 so far – but she is happy in her cheerful Armenian nursing home.

“It’s not a good thing to be away from your family – but I like this place. Here, it is my extended family.” She loves America, Yevnigue says. Her family fled there when the civil war began in Lebanon in 1976. “It is a free place. All people come from everywhere to America. But why is our President a Muslim?”

I try to convince her this is untrue. She reads the New Testament every day and she talks constantly of her love for Jesus – this is an old lady who will be happy to die, I think – and when I ask her how she feels today about the Turks who tried to destroy the Armenians, she replies immediately. “I pray for Turkey. I pray for the Turkish officials that they may see Jesus. All that is left of the Prophet Mohamed is dust. But Jesus is alive in heaven.”

And I am taken aback by this, until I suddenly realise that I am not hearing the voice of a hundred-year-old lady. I am listening to a three-year old Armenian girl whose father is reading the Bible on the floor of a house in Aintab and who is looking through the cracks of her wooden front door and witnessing her people’s persecution.

These are the same Ottoman heirs,sh*worms ,who plotted a "false flag" operation to invade Syria! A thousand plagues upon the Otoman Turks who have not changed in attitude,like "Turd-O-Gun"!

PS:On a personal note,this holocaust brought my great grandmother,an Armenian refugee to India.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Apr 2014 05:04

And thanks to her we have you. Again our condolences to your family for the atrocities perpetrated by Turks.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 01 Apr 2014 07:36

video of a Syrian Arab Air Force Mig-29 Fulcrum strafing at rebel positions
Right on The Chin

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/incredible-vi ... @jesusdiaz

member_28502 · Post by **member_28502** » 01 Apr 2014 09:15

Thanks Philip may your progeny as well contribute to the (cultural) riches of India.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 01 Apr 2014 14:53

PS:On a personal note,this holocaust brought my great grandmother,an Armenian refugee to India.

That explains why Phillip is so enamoured of the Russians.

My post in Islamophobia thread couple of days ago.

Is it possible that the ethnic cleansing that the Turks have experienced at the hands o the Russians has so traumatized them that they have exited the whole business of becoming Islam's Thekedar like the Pakis are trying to become.

The Ottomans and Russians fought at least 17 wars between 1568 and 1917. The Ottomans lost vast and often heavily Muslim territories spanning from the Crimea to Circassia to the Russians. The Russians killed many inhabitants of these Ottoman lands and expelled the rest to Turkey. So many Turks descend from refugees from Russia that the adage in Turkey is: "If you scratch a Turk, you find a Circassian persecuted by Russians underneath." [6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cle ... ircassians

The Russians have rendered a service to the whole of Mankind and all of us should be grateful to them. Now someone should step up to the plate and do the same to the Arab threat.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 03 Apr 2014 05:25

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/opini ... .html?_r=0
The Foreign Fighters and Me

WASHINGTON — We have heard a great deal recently about the “foreign fighters” flocking to take up arms against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war — and the threat they may pose if they eventually return to their home countries as battle-hardened jihadis.
The numbers certainly demand our attention. I know the mentality of these nationless combatants. I fought beside them.Pitting a small, impoverished Muslim nation against an infidel invader, Afghanistan’s conflict attracted up to 20,000 foreign fighters in the 1980s, the largest contingent drawn to any Muslim country in modern history. Made up mostly of Saudis and Pakistanis, the army of volunteers also included Egyptians, Tunisians and Indonesians, among others.
Others were pure zealots; they sought not national liberation, as I did, but martyrdom. Some young Arab men, hoping to be martyred, chained themselves to trees in the waning days of the Soviet occupation. You can imagine how much this contributed to Afghan freedom.It is said that war makes brothers out of strangers, but the foreign fighters and we native Afghans remained strangers to the end. While some bonds were formed, the foreigners could never shed their outsider’s baggage and win full acceptance.Their foreign tongues, their strange garb and mien and, above all, their reasons for fighting kept them apart. Their novice’s clumsiness drew giggles; their religious dogmatism baffled us. And their suicidal embrace of martyrdom caused revulsion.At best, we viewed them as uninvited guests; at worst, a nuisance imposed on us by jihadi leaders eager to win Saudi financial support. The divide hardly narrowed as the war drew to a close. While we yearned for the fighting to end, I heard more than one of the foreign fighters say how they looked forward to carrying on the jihad until they hoisted the green banner of Islam over Moscow and Washington.
Before summarily prosecuting the fighters upon their return from Syria, as Britain is considering, or revoking the United States citizenship of fighters with dual citizenship (as some have called for), we should determine their guilt by more than association. For most, a deradicalization program, such as those run by Saudi Arabia, could help reintegrate them into civilian life.In Afghanistan, hundreds of veterans stayed behind and followed in Osama bin Laden’s footsteps to later infamy. Others, gripped by religious fervor and martial wanderlust, went on to cause mayhem in places like Algeria and Egypt during the 1990s.But not all did, of course. For some, their adventure concluded, quiet civilian lives beckoned. I befriended a young Arab-American from New York who was happy to be heading home at the end of the war. A Harvard-educated British convert I knew went on to become a distinguished war correspondent. I, too, became a writer and journalist. You might say that in the end, we were more closely allied in peace than we had been in war.

Masood Farivar is a senior broadcaster for Voice of America and the author of “Confessions of a Mullah Warrior.”

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 03 Apr 2014 14:08

That's only a wee drop.A "wee dram" also came from the land of Uisque Beatha. Begorrah!

The Muddle East talks head for their inevitable collapse. Joker-ry is out of his depth in the ways of the Muddle East,with its Byzantine bargaining,ancient feuds and modern mayhem,which requires a Kissinger to contain let alone resolve.The last real peace effort was made by Jimmy Carter and his Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt. had Rabin lived one might've had some lasting success,but with both him ,Sharon and Arafat gone,there are no giant leaders who can assure their people that it is time to make peace.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... e-collapse

Middle East peace talks edge towards collapse despite Kerry's frantic efforts
The US secretary of state has seemed more engaged than either side during eight months of bickering and brinkmanship.

Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem
theguardian.com, Wednesday 2 April 2014

Officials have said John Kerry has gone 'as far as he can' as a mediator. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AFP/Getty Images

It is a truism of the Middle East that the US cannot be more invested in the peace process than the sides themselves. But with the current round of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis on the brink of collapse, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, it seems, has fallen foul of just this old dynamic.

After Tuesday's announcement from Mahmoud Abbas that Palestine intends to bypass the official US-steered peace negotiations and unilaterally to seek recognition from 15 UN bodies, Kerry's team has made a handbrake turn, with the secretary of state cancelling his scheduled visit to the Middle East. Officials indicated that Kerry had gone "as far as he can" as a mediator.

Palestinians have insisted they are not abandoning Kerry. "We hope that Kerry renews his efforts in the coming days. We don't want his mission to fail," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, after the delivery of letters of accession to 15 international conventions signed by Abbas on Tuesday to officials including Robert Serry – the UN's special co-ordinator in the region.

Conciliatory words have done little to appease the White House. Off-the-record briefings – given separately by US officials to the New York Times and Washington Post – reflected what Kerry had said in Brussels only a few hours before: "Facilitation is only as good as the willingness of leaders to actually make decisions when they are put in front of them."

In the last few weeks it has been Kerry, as he has shuttled frenetically back and forth looking for a breakthrough, who has seemed the most engaged. When the case of Jonathan Pollard – the Israeli spy serving a life sentence in a North Carolina jail – was injected into the combustible mix this week, many wondered if he was too invested.

In reality, Pollard's case has no bearing on the peace process and yet his long-sought release was raised as a possible key to breaking the deadlock on the Israeli side – Pollard from the US in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a vague commitment to show restraint in some settlement building from Israel. It was hoped the Palestinian side would commit to extending talks.

Waved as a carrot in front of the government of the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, the gesture was symptomatic of a process that has been distracted from its purpose to the brink of failure. Some of that distraction has been deliberate. As the Israeli columnist Chemi Shalev presciently noted last month, Netanyahu – once nicknamed the magician, or hakosem in Hebrew, for his political skills – is a master of misdirection.

Eight months ago, Netanyahu signed a US-sponsored agreement to release 104 long-term Palestinian prisoners in a quid pro quo that would block the Palestinian application to membership of a raft of UN bodies in exchange for talks. But despite the agreement, Netanyahu has refused to release the fourth group of prisoners unless the Palestinian Authority recognises Israel as a Jewish state.

That demand has been rejected outright by Palestinian negotiators for years because of the implications for Israel's Arab citizens.

In truth, the last eight months have been a case study in how not to run a peace negotiation. Rather than seeking compromises between the parties, the process has been compromised by the caprices of bickering leaders.

Kerry's deadline of 29 April – set last July after a three-year gap in negotiations as a target for a final status deal – has rapidly diluted into a deadline for a framework agreement supposed to inform the shape of a final deal. Faced with little progress, even on these limited terms, talks about talks have dissolved into tit-for-tat negotiation over whether talks should be extended.

The Associated Press's diplomatic writer Matt Lee, who has been travelling with Kerry, sharply mocked the secretary of state's efforts on Twitter as the "The Incredible Shrinking #Mideast Peace Process".

With no prospect of an agreement on the core issues of settlement building, future borders of a Palestinian state and the status of Jerusalem being addressed in a substantive way, it is perhaps unsurprising that the process has devolved into brinkmanship.

On the Palestinian side, the complaint that Netanyahu's effort to attach new conditions to a deal he had already signed up for is legitimate – reneging on a confidence-building measure so early in the game has undermined the trust required for negotiation.

But Abbas's push for recognition by the UN bodies is risky to the point of provocation, not least because the move is so strongly opposed by the US. Abbas's gamble is that piecemeal recognition by international institutions will in the end build a state through the slow accretion of legitimacy – an untested proposition.

And while some have remarked admiringly on the degree of latitude that the US president, Barack Obama, has given Kerry to conduct the talks, the absence of Obama from a process which has historically been propelled by the direct involvement of American presidents may have suggested to the participants that, for all of Kerry's efforts, the White House is not engaged.

What happens next is hedged with unknowns. Abbas's request for accession to the Geneva conventions and various human rights treaties – but not the international criminal court – will be processed. Israel has not responded to the move, but on Monday it renewed a call for contractor bids on 708 homes in Gilo, an Israeli settlement in Palestinian east Jerusalem.

What is clear is that the incremental approach of inching towards a framework agreement appears as much a bust as efforts to get the sides talking directly on key issues. Given that these talks were presented, not least by Obama, as a last chance for a two-state solution, their failure will pose stark and dangerous new challenges.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 05 Apr 2014 21:51

A New Documentary on Donald Rumsfeld "The Unknown Known"

Deciphering Donald Rumsfeld -- the former defense secretary becomes subject of Oscar-winner's latest documentary

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 06 Apr 2014 02:06

MENA Mashup: Egypt, House of Saud, I/P Peace Farce, and Turkey
http://my.firedoglake.com/ctuttle/2014/ ... nd-turkey/

Why the Saudis Are Panicking

As President Barack Obama must have noticed during his visit, there is a panicky tone to almost everything the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does these days, whether it’s campaigning for two years to win a coveted seat on the UN Security Council only to give it up immediately after the vote, or its public pronouncements of going it alone in the chaos of Syria, or its break with its fellow Arab state Qatar, or the closing of the Al Jazeera office in Riyadh, or the banning of the books of renowned Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish. Or, of course, its opposition to diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear program and the prospects of a US-Iranian thaw.
Riyadh’s opposition to the Iran nuclear talks has largely been understood in the context of the larger Saudi-Iranian and Sunni-Shia rivalry. Consequently, Saudi’s negative reaction was predictable, the argument goes. The Saudi royal house would undoubtedly not sit idly by as its regional rival negotiated its way out of harsh sanctions and into a potential US-Iranian rapprochement that could pave the way for an American tilt towards Tehran—all at the expense of Saudi interests. {…}The new reality is that in spite of Riyadh’s massive arms purchase from the US, Washington will likely not come to its aid if the Arab spring reaches Saudi. This means that a critical avenue for Saudi Arabia to ensure regime survival is in jeopardy—at best—or, at worst, lost…
I liked how Trita cited an old DSW post on how the Sauds are willing to go it alone in Syria…!

And syria

Syria Civil War Total Fatalities
Estimates released today by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) portray a different picture of the civil war in Syria than U.S. policymakers and media convey. SOHR’s estimated death toll reinforces the point made in an article published on ForeignPolicy.com in September 2013, when they last released updated data: most of the reported deaths in Syria have not been committed by forces under Bashar al-Assad’s command. Additionally, the involvement of various individuals and groups in the conflict has broadened greatly since SOHR’s September 2013 estimate.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 06 Apr 2014 22:04

"Hubris" (Full Film) Iraq War Documentary - Rachel Maddow

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 08 Apr 2014 07:59

US has reportedly started supplying Syrian rebels with anti-tank weapons
Published time: April 07, 2014

http://rt.com/usa/us-syria-moderate-opp ... apons-921/

Rebels embattled against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have reportedly come into possession of high-powered anti-tank weaponry, the likes of which may have been supplied by the United States.

Images of rebels equipped with heavy arms have begun to circulate in recent days, and at least one news site has claimed that the source responsible is the US government.

On Monday, Israel’s Debkafile website reported that two moderate Syrian rebel militias — the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Revolutionary Front — have been supplied with advanced US weapons, including armor-piercing, optically-guided BGM-71 TOW missiles, thanks to the Pentagon.

According to Debkafile’s report, US Gen. Martin Dempsey — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs — asked officials in Israel last week to help get Saudi Arabian fighter jets stationed at the kingdom’s Faisal Air Base at Tabuk near Jordan positioned in a manner that would provide air cover as American forces moved the weapons into southern Syria. Debkafile attributed the claims to unnamed military sources.

Late last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that US President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah “appeared to narrow their disagreement on assisting Syrian rebels” amidst a meeting between the two. According to the Journal’s report, Obama administration officials said the meeting ended with the White House agreeing to increase its level of assistance to Syrian rebels.

“Senior US officials said their goal is to provide assistance to moderate Syrian rebels not just as a ‘counterweight’ to the Assad regime, but also to extremist elements of the opposition,” Carol Lee and Ellen Knickmeyer wrote for the paper.

At the same time, however, the Journal reporters said that the White House made it clear to the Saudis — who reportedly asked for America’s assistance — that Washington was not comfortable supplying certain weapons, including hand-held anti-aircraft missile launchers known as manpads, due to the “proliferation risk” involved with introducing those types of arms into the heart of Syria. The South China Morning Post also cited US officials as saying the Obama administration was considering supplying weapons and has recently “been able to develop deeper relations with the opposition.”

Screenshot from YouTube user asim zedan

Screenshot from YouTube user asim zedan

Then over the weekend, a blog that specializes in covering the Syrian conflict published screenshots from just-uploaded YouTube videos alleged to show rebels using the US-made tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided anti-tank missiles.

“Until more photos or videos of the missile and possible other locations pop up, it's hard to tell who might have been the supplier. But most likely, the TOWs were indeed foreign-supplied to the rebels,” one blogger wrote. “Since the TOW missiles are made in the US such a transfer likely needs permission from the Obama administration.”

Iran’s Fars News agency also reported on Monday that their sources said the US has supplied the anti-tank missiles to the militants fighting against Assad.

According to Debkafile, the report — if true — marks “the first advanced US weapon to be deployed in more than three years of civil war.”

“Our military sources report that Syrian tank armor is not thick enough to withstand the BGM-71 TOW rockets. To save his tanks, Assad has shifted the brunt of his anti-rebel operation to heavy air force bombardments, which claim a heavy toll among civilians,” Debkafile continued. “Washington is therefore confronted with its next decision about whether to give the rebels sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons as well.”

On Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are going to continue to press in every way we can to assist the Syrian people.”

“We are constantly doing is reviewing and assessing what else we can do,” Carney said. “These kinds of discussions, when bad things continued o happen in a place like Syria, always can be reduced to the question of: is the US going to use its military forces to try and do something?”

Carney said the administration will assess all options before making a decision based on what the White House believes is the right course of action to take in support of the Syrian people and in support of the United States’ own national security interests.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Apr 2014 05:52

I guess they will exit Af-Pak very soon to prevent blowback.

sooraj · Post by **sooraj** » 09 Apr 2014 21:36

Pals no more: McCain, Kerry trade personal shots during heated Senate exchange
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... medium=RSS

“My hero, Teddy Roosevelt, used to say, talk softly but carry a big stick. What you’re doing is talking strongly and carrying a very small stick — in fact, a twig,” Mr. McCain said to Mr. Kerry.

sooraj · Post by **sooraj** » 09 Apr 2014 21:38

John Kerry Says Mideast Peace Talks Went ‘Poof’ After Israel Declined to Release More Palestinian Prisoners
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04 ... prisoners/

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 09 Apr 2014 22:57

Three Israeli diplomats in IGIA fracas to be sent home
indianexpress.com | Apr 9th 2014 1:52 AM

The three Israeli diplomats accused of assaulting an immigration officer at the Indira Gandhi International Airport are being sent back home by their embassy, sources said. The Israel embassy on Tuesday night confirmed the development and sources said the decision was taken to avoid any diplomatic fracas between the two countries.

The Israeli diplomats had been charged with assaulting an immigration officer at the Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3 on Saturday afternoon reportedly after the officer took too long to process their papers.

Police said the three diplomats have been charged under Sections 186 (obstructing a public servant in the discharge of his duties), 353 and 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from performing his duty).

Police said the diplomats were headed to Kathmandu and were preparing to board a SpiceJet flight. The incident was captured on CCTV cameras, police said. Reportedly, when the diplomats reached the immigration counter, they found no one at the desk. So they called out to the immigration officer in an adjacent counter, saying they were in a hurry.

Responding to their request, immigration officer Somveer said he would process their documents. Police said after 10 minutes, the diplomats got restless and asked Somveer to hurry up. Somveer reportedly asked them to be patient as he needed time. Police said this angered the diplomats, who abused him. When Somveer got up and began explaining to them, one diplomat allegedly slapped him. Immediately, Somveer raised the alarm and senior immigration officers rushed to his help.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 09 Apr 2014 22:59

Pacifist yogi or al-Qaida threat? Guantanamo parole board to decide
by CAROL ROSENBERG, mcclatchydc.com
November 20th 2013

Ghaleb al-Bihani is either a one-time, gun-toting cook from war-torn Afghanistan turned yoga-practicing pacifist inside Guantanamo's communal prison blocks - or he is a trained extremist ripe to rejoin al-Qaida if he's returned to his native Yemen.

Those are the competing views being presented Tuesday in the latest closed session of a Guantanamo parole board. And the case of al-Bihani, 34, who has spent a third of his life in U.S. military detention, brings into sharp relief the issues confronting the Obama administration 13 years into the war on terror.

Al-Bihani has never been charged with a crime and is the youngest of seven sons to join the jihad in Afghanistan. Now, as the U.S. is extricating itself from Afghanistan, al-Bihani wants out of Guantanamo - but not back to his native Yemen.

As his attorney Pardiss Kebriaei tells it, al-Bihani has argued for years that he wants to get away from the turbulent region still rattled by the legacy of al-Qaida.

"I want a new life, independence - a new country with a better chance," she quotes him as saying from their first phone call in 2011.

For Tuesday's session, that's all the public can hear from him. The Pentagon prohibits the press from listening in to anything but select, pre-approved opening statements.

But documents released on the eve of the hearing - the fourth since the Pentagon launched the process this summer - show the dilemma of what to do about the man who got to Guantanamo in the first days of the detention center and now has the status of a "forever prisoner."

His lawyer and a military officer assigned to his case describe him as a one-time foot soldier who was the rank equivalent of a U.S. Army private. They say he's now fed up with life on the fringes of jihad, a sickly man with unchecked diabetes who finds escape on the cellblocks in yoga.

An intelligence assessment describes al-Bihani as a sometime prison camp troublemaker and "almost certainly" a trained former member of al-Qaida whose brothers are former Afghan jihadists.

One brother, not identified, is said to be a member of Yemen's feared al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula franchise. Another is a prisoner at Guantanamo, Tawfiq al-Bihani, 42, already approved for conditional release, if the situation in Yemen improves or another country is found to rehabilitate and settle him.

The U.S. intelligence estimate provided to the parole board says his family would "almost certainly" induce him "to re-engage with extremist activities if he were repatriated to Yemen."

The assessment was released Monday.

He doesn't want to go to Yemen, anyway. Since 2008, he's made clear that he's afraid of repatriation, "and would prefer to be transferred to Europe to establish a life away from jihad," according to the intelligence summary.

"Most often, he talks about wanting a new life in a new place," says Kebriaei, who said he reads yoga magazines at their attorney-client meetings to cope with his pain, depression and anxiety. "His parents passed when he was young, his siblings all have their own lives, so there's not the usual picture waiting for him. It's really about a new start for him."

Half of Guantanamo's 154 detainees are cleared for release in one fashion or another. And al-Bihani wants to join the list of captives for whom the State Department's special envoy is trying to negotiate safe resettlement, says Kebriaei, an attorney at New York's Center for Constitutional Rights.

Like many of Guantanamo's parole-board-eligible prisoners, Bihani's name is not a familiar one.

He only emerged from anonymity in a 2009 federal court decision that put him in the company of one of history's greatest military commanders, the one-time emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Al-Bihani had admitted in a habeas corpus hearing that, around the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he carried a rifle and worked in the kitchen of a pro-Taliban Arab militia, the 55th Arab Brigade, whose ranks included al-Qaida members.

That was enough for U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to uphold his detention.

"Faithfully serving in an al-Qaida affiliated fighting unit that is directly supporting the Taliban by helping to prepare the meals of its entire fighting force is more than sufficient," Leon wrote. "After all, as Napoleon himself was fond of pointing out, 'An army marches on its stomach.' "

Suddenly, the captives held at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba included not just "the worst of the worst" but a cook.

Now al-Bihani's case illustrates a new effort to define whom to let go and whom to retain in this second decade of the war on terror:

- He's been described as among the prison's "high-risk detainees from a health perspective" in a leaked U.S. intelligence profile. Now prison medical staff are talking more and more about how to cope with an ailing and aging captive population through costly expeditionary medicine that brings in U.S. military medical specialists rather than sending sick patients to U.S. facilities because Congress forbids it.

- He's a Yemeni citizen, for whom a parole board transfer decision is more theoretical than certain release from Guantanamo. The majority of the U.S.-held prisoners in Cuba are from Yemen, but the United States has yet to reach a repatriation agreement with the Yemeni government on how to rehabilitate and keep watch on them.

Al-Bihani becomes the fourth person to go before the Obama administration's Periodic Review Board - an anonymous panel of officials representing six U.S. bureaucracies, two within the Department of Defense plus the departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, and the Directorate of National Intelligence.

So far, the board has ruled in favor of transfer of one, the continuing indefinite detention of another, and has yet to decide what to do about a third man. All, like al-Bihani, are Yemenis.

At issue is whether letting the man go presents a "significant threat" to U.S. national security."

An unidentified U.S. military officer assigned to his case said in a document released Monday that Bihani does not pose such a threat.

"I say this as both a warfighter and as someone who has years of experience performing vulnerability assessments," the officer wrote in a prepared statement in the slice of the case the public can see.

He argued that al-Bihani's service in Afghanistan was inconsequential: "He was not involved in any specific attacks. Twelve years ago, he was an assistant cook in one of the groups that fought against the Northern Alliance, prior to U.S. combat operations, and then surrendered."

Or as Kebriaei describes him: "A kitchen aide for a group that had been disbanded."

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 10 Apr 2014 04:01

The Red Line and the Rat Line
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m- ... e-rat-line
( Killing will keep Going for long time: Bet Turk Brought Paki There in Syria)

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’
. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’. (According to a Defense Department consultant, US intelligence has long known that al-Qaida experimented with chemical weapons, and has a video of one of its gas experiments with dogs.) The full extent of US co-operation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in assisting the rebel opposition in Syria has yet to come to light. The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line’, a back channel highway into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida. Barring a major change in policy by Obama, Turkey’s meddling in the Syrian civil war is likely to go on. ‘I asked my colleagues if there was any way to stop Erdoğan’s continued support for the rebels, especially now that it’s going so wrong,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The answer was: “We’re screwed.” We could go public if it was somebody other than Erdoğan, but Turkey is a special case. They’re a Nato ally. The Turks don’t trust the West. They can’t live with us if we take any active role against Turkish interests. If we went public with what we know about Erdoğan’s role with the gas, it’d be disastrous. The Turks would say: “We hate you for telling us what we can and can’t do.”’

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Apr 2014 04:22

^^^^

The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line’, a back channel highway into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida.

I think Benghazi consulate attack is related to that rat line feedstock. AlQ was on both sides of the line. No proof will wait for a few years for someone to write a book.

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 10 Apr 2014 10:10

^^^ Even if the 'rat line' is expanded to become a bandicoot line in order to allow the Turks to re-open the feud on the Russian front, its still a lipstick on a pig move by NATO to bet on Turkey against Russia after Crimea.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 10 Apr 2014 15:18

The nonagerian Sow-Dee king reads the riot act to O'Bomber,aka "O'Bumbler".

Saudi King Gives Obama One Choice: American Blood Or Cheap Oil?

April 9, 2014 by John Myers

Saudi King Gives Obama One Choice: American Blood Or Cheap Oil?
OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA
President Barack Obama met with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Saudi Arabia on March 28.

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was a perfect cover for President Barack Obama’s unnoticed trip to Saudi Arabia. So fortuitous was the news of the Boeing 777-200ER jet one has to wonder about the circumstances of its disappearance. Of course, we may never know the real answer to that. But we have a pretty good idea what Obama’s instructions from King Abdullah were. The king and the two highest-ranking representatives of the oil dynasty — Crown Prince Salman and the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal — explained in strict terms that the United States is making a mockery out of their monarchy and that Obama damn well better gear up for imminent military intervention in the Mideast.

There has been little press coverage of this. Most Americans were so focused on Flight 370 they didn’t know Obama was away. In fact, Obama put in two overseas trips. He jumped easily from his mission in Brussels with the G-7 — focusing on the values and principles the United States has in common with its European allies — to Saudi Arabia, a nation that holds no regard for democracy or pretty much any other values that Obama may or may not embrace.

Not that Obama had much of a choice in showing up; he is just the latest Presidential messenger sent to Saudi Arabia. For previous Presidents, pleasing the Saudis was always about affordable oil. For Obama, it is about that and perhaps other personal and religious reasons for his steadfastness. If so, there is also another riddle without resolution, is Obama really a loyal Muslim first?
Barry Of Arabia

Given 90-year-old Abdullah’s poor health and the need for a standby respirator, it was short and not sweet for Obama.

Saudi Arabia has a litany of complaints against the United States, which include:

Washington peace overtures with Iran. Since the fall of the Shah in 1979, Saudi Arabia has feared military and economic domination by Iran. For more than a decade, Iran has used its influence and terror cells to build up its prestige as a Mideast and OPEC leader. If Iranian leadership is obtained, it will diminish Saudi Arabia’s position as the world’s super oil power. It is also making the kingdom susceptible to a wave of radical Muslim rule and perhaps the overthrow of the Saudi royal family.
Obama’s decision to not follow through on airstrikes against Syria and its stockpiles of chemical weapons, which threaten the Saudi royals.
Abdullah’s fury that Obama did not back Hosni Mubarak during Egypt’s first crisis in 2011, giving rise to the Qatar-backed Muslim Brotherhood. Other missteps along the way with regard to Egypt is that Obama has refused to be supportive of the military now ruling Egypt, something Saudi Arabia is insisting Obama do immediately to counter the growing Muslim radicalism.

In December, Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times with this threatening headline: “Saudi Arabia Will Go It Alone.” He wrote:

The foreign policy choices being made in some Western capitals risk the stability of the region and, potentially, the security of the whole Arab world. This means the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no choice but to become more assertive in international affairs: more determined than ever to stand up for the genuine stability our region so desperately needs.

Saudi Arabia has enormous responsibilities within the region, as the cradle of Islam and one of the Arab world’s most significant political powers. We have global responsibilities — economic and political — as the world’s de facto central banker for energy.

Obama, A Saudi Servant To The End

Obama must heed the king’s warning that the House of Saud has set its sights on control over Mideast foreign policy. There are a third of a billion reasons why — the number of barrels of Saudi oil — that make Obama a Saudi servant.

Obama will do Saudi bidding because of its oil wealth. This fact will be ignored by the greens in his Administration who fail to accept the fact that renewable energy is a joke, a sidebar story to please the environmental lobby. But on the big stage with global power and money, it is given no consideration.

Saudi Arabia has enough cheap crude to last decade upon decade, as do the rest of the Mideast, Canada and North Dakota, with its increasingly productive Bakken formation. That makes solar, wind and other green dreams just that — dreams.
Will Obama Use American Military As Mercenaries?

Obama is facing an international crisis this year, and it has nothing to do with Russia. It has to do with the Arab Spring and using our military might to procure Saudi favor and the guarantee of cheap oil.

The only good news for Obama when he left Riyadh was the promise that if he met Saudi expectations with regard to Mideast intervention, the OPEC kingpin would reduce the price of crude. That’s an important carrot for Obama with the summer driving season coming on and an economy ready to fall into another recession.

Right now, Obama and America’s military have their marching orders, which came from the king of Saudi Arabia. America’s young men and women will soon be involved in the Mideast to try to bomb reason into groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which will only incite more hatred against the United States and more calls for terror attacks against America.

Around and around it will go until there are definitive winners and losers in the Mideast. That could take a very long time to decide.

And America will be left to account for our actions, leaving Washington and the Nation to shoulder responsibility for our involvement in tribalism that continues seemingly without end in the Arab world.

It is all part and parcel of our addiction to cheap oil — something that won’t be broken for decades and something we cannot even wean ourselves from with increasing domestic production. Meanwhile, the greens continue to protest North American oil and gas projects. They may think they are achieving a greener world. In fact, all they are doing is helping create a bloody red one. It will bleed from the Mideast all the way to America’s heartland.

It is certainly sad we have in our President a man who will prove to be a dutiful Saudi servant.

Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 10 Apr 2014 17:26

^
Please provide the link sir.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 10 Apr 2014 19:35

God article with lot of data points

Saudi Arabia has enormous responsibilities within the region, as the cradle of Islam and one of the Arab world’s most significant political powers. We have global responsibilities — economic and political — as the world’s de facto central banker for energy.

Multatuli · Post by **Multatuli** » 11 Apr 2014 11:26

Russia rejects US warnings over oil deal with Iran

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-rejects-us ... 10491.html

Russian business daily Kommersant has reported that Moscow plans to buy 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day, a deal that would shatter an export limit defined by an interim nuclear agreement world powers and Iran reached last year.

Iran has agreed to temporarily limit its atomic work, which the West fears could be a cover for developing nuclear weapons, in return for some sanctions relief. Six world powers, including Russia, and Iran are working on a fuller deal that would place long-term restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for an end to all economic sanctions.

The six-month interim agreement, which went into effect in January and expires in July, allows Iran to continue exporting a total of 1 million barrels a day of oil to six countries: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. The promise didn't apply to Russia, which wasn't an existing customer of Iran's petroleum industry.

ashish raval · Post by **ashish raval** » 11 Apr 2014 11:45

Amir khan is less dependent upon imported Saudi oil now. They are using high oil prices to destabilise the emerging economies around the world by forcing them to buy oil at higher prices and thereby increasing their manufacturing cost. This ultimately leads to more $$$ demands from around the world for payment to Middle Eastern nations and hence khan business of printing money for the world.
Amazing game. They only destroy the countries who move away from $$ business or at least try to move away from it. E.g. Saddam tried to do that butchered, gaddaffi tried to do that met his 72, Venezuela president tried to do that, Iran is trying to do and Russia is trying to do that. No wonder whom the khan is after in the above list next. It is all about $$$ drug addiction of the world.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 11 Apr 2014 16:08

Ashish,

Its not just about the security of supplies. The US is less dependent on Saudi energy imports, but the Saudis still have more power than anyone other producer in the world when it comes to setting global market oil prices. Energy prices have a critical impact on overall economic performance.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 11 Apr 2014 16:19

There is a myth that US is less dependent on OPEC oil ...The shale oil ends up spending 1.5 time more to get 1x Oil......so in economic terms its highly doubtful its sustainable business , check the statements of Exxon chief and others.

Right now the only reason US manages to get that Oil out is because of Cheap Money Supply due to QE and High Oil Prices .....any one can break the US Oil self-Sufficiency back.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 11 Apr 2014 16:21

Russia Does Not Acknowledge US Sanctions Against Iran – Russian Finance Minister

“The US Secretary of the Treasury informed us that they have information about the possible participation of our companies in trade ties with Iran for buying Iranian oil,” Siluanov said.

“In this situation we are acting on the basis of decisions by the United Nations, which defines sanctions and groups of goods that will fall under the sanctions, and we are acting within the limits of the decisions approved by international organizations,” he added.

There is a subtlety in the situation, the minister underlined.

"Our American partners have enacted their own legislation, which differs from the decisions taken by the UN, and they are monitoring their solutions," Siluanov said.

In the meeting, Lew told his Russian counterpart that the US was concerned about developments around Ukraine and Iran and threatened possible new sanctions against Russia.