West Asia News and Discussions

[brihaspati]

Never realized the jihadi logic could be adopted to defend of US image. Poor poor innocent USA : US never provoked Assad and Putin in any possible way, never backed the Saudis and Turkey to go after Assad, never backed up the rebel+jihadi combo, never allowed third party supply of arms to jiahdis, and so it was Assad who really attacked himself, and attacked Saudi and European jihadis outside his national territory, to which US can do nothing but merely respond onlee.

Every conflict and war always starts with the enemy. The enemy attacked itself, and then us on his territory - we only defended ourselves in enemies territory.

[TSJones]

Never realized the jihadi logic could be adopted to defend of US image. Poor poor innocent USA : US never provoked Assad and Putin in any possible way, never backed the Saudis and Turkey to go after Assad, never backed up the rebel+jihadi combo, never allowed third party supply of arms to jiahdis, and so it was Assad who really attacked himself, and attacked Saudi and European jihadis outside his national territory, to which US can do nothing but merely respond onlee.

Every conflict and war always starts with the enemy. The enemy attacked itself, and then us on his territory - we only defended ourselves in enemies territory.

Yes, please feel sorry for us. Austin and Philip know that we are going broke defending ourselves. We are poor onlee. Anytime soon now.

[Philip]

The Syrian crisis was instigated by the "oily" camels of the desert,the Gulf sheikhdoms,Qataris and the Saudis, supported by the US and Western powers ,including the Turks-who have dreams of reviving their glory days of the Ottoman Empire.They saw a great opportunity to do an "Iraq" or "Libya" to Syria,and in the process steal its new-found massive petro reserves of oil and gas. A bonus in the process would've been to wound Iran greatly,key supporter of the Baathist regime of Assad. That Assad brooks no opposition is no secret,but then ,which Middle Eastern nation ruled by kings,sheikhs and military despots is any different? Are the Saudis paragons of virtue as they behead in public a range of "criminals"? Do not the Saudis have the closest-of-close bum-chum relations with the Bush family? American hypocrisy in the region is legion! It beggars belief!

Having bankrupted itself in its expeditionary wars in recent times,the Afghan War lasting far monger than even the Vietnam War,the US is in no condition to continue to wage war in classic expeditionary style anymore.Thus have we seen the emergence of private armies,so-called "contractors",in reality "contract killers",like mafia hitmen emerge from the darkness.These unworthies do the dirty work for Uncle Sam,rarely if ever play the game by the Geneva Convention as we've seen in the recent conflicts allowing him to plead innocence when necessary.The motley gang of killers in Syria who have been trying to overthrow Assad have come from all parts of the world including Britain! That they're disunited is no surprise,when you have the likes of AlQ sympathisers rubbing robes with mercenaries supported by the sheikdoms, whom Al Q in turn want to overthrow for being un-Islamic,allowing westerners to squat in their land in special enclaves like Saudi Arabia !
The Saudis appear heading for a new crisis when its current monarch moves on as controversy may engulf its current line of succession.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 42274.html

The son of a concubine's appointment as ‘deputy heir’ stirs up intrigue over Saudi succession

Muqrin has upset the established order
Liz Sly
Riyadh
Tuesday 27 May 2014

When Saudi Arabia’s elderly king took the unusual step of naming a deputy heir, the move initially was welcomed as a sign of continuity in a country that soon will confront major questions over the future of its leadership.

But in subsequent weeks, the announcement has stirred a rare outburst of dissent, revealing previously unacknowledged strains within the royal family and casting into doubt prospects for a smooth transition from King Abdullah’s rule.

The king’s youngest brother Muqrin, who was named deputy crown prince on the eve of US President Barack Obama’s visit in March, appears to be popular among ordinary people, who say he is not corrupt. He also is well-regarded by foreign diplomats, who describe him as likeable and smart.

But behind closed doors, royal tongues have been wagging about the manner in which Muqrin was chosen, the validity of his title and his pedigree, as the son of a Yemeni concubine who was never married to his father.

“He is not a real prince, his mother was a slave and there are other brothers who are more competent,” said a former Saudi official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Nobody believes Muqrin can become king.”

Some of the dismay has found a public airing on Twitter, which is better known in the Middle East for its role in fomenting social unrest but has found a niche as an outlet for disgruntled royals.

“He was picked for this post because he is easily used,” tweeted an account known as @mutjahidd, which has 1.4 million followers and is thought to belong to a palace insider because its information is often accurate.

The griping may merely reflect sour grapes among those left out, or perhaps just the increased opportunities afforded by social media for tensions to come to light.

It has become clear, however, that Muqrin’s elevation is unpopular in at least some quarters, foreshadowing the strife that many fear will erupt as the older generation of the royal family passes away.

The controversy goes to the core of what is perhaps the biggest question hanging over the family-run, oil-rich country, which does not have a clearly defined succession process in place.

The founder of the Saudi state, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, decreed only that his first son would inherit the throne, and over the next six decades the succession passed from brother to brother roughly in order of age. Soon, however, the last of the brothers (of which there were at least 35) will die, necessitating a transfer of power to the brothers’ sons — the third generation of the family.

Given that there are scores of princes in that category, the potential for discord is high. Whoever inherits the throne is likely to anoint his own brothers as future heirs, thereby cutting out cousins from access to the throne and the patronage it provides.

In light of Saudi Arabia’s strategic significance as the world’s biggest supplier of oil and a close ally of the United States, the succession dispute is therefore of “considerable concern”, said Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“The identity and character of the future king is not known, and the circumstances under which he becomes king are likely to be contentious,” he said. “That introduces instability to Saudi Arabia.”

The issue also is growing in urgency as Abdullah enters his 90s. He breathed with the help of a respirator throughout his two-hour meeting with Obama in March, and he makes frequent visits to hospitals in the United States. His immediate successor, Crown Prince Salman, is hardly in better shape, setting up something of a race to see which of the two brothers will pass first.

And so the choice of Muqrin, a British-educated fighter pilot who has close ties to the United States, had at least some logic. A relatively youthful 69, he could be king for years, deferring the tricky question of how to transition to the next generation. In light of the poor health of Salman, who is said to be suffering a form of dementia, it would seem to make sense to have an heir in reserve.

But designating a successor is traditionally the prerogative of the monarch, and the job of deputy has never existed before. Moreover, the naming of Muqrin skipped over at least two other brothers.

“What happened was against Islam, and against the whole history of Saudi Arabia. There is no such thing as a deputy crown prince,” said the former Saudi official, who supports Ahmed, one of the older brothers.

“Muqrin will potentially be the weakest king in Saudi history,” said one Western diplomat. “He is not from the first ranks of the royal family, he has no constituency and he will have to ride herd on a lot of powerful princes.”

[Philip]

The contrasting elections,India and "E-Gyp".Fisk on the "gyp" in Egypt,par for the course for Middle Eastern elections.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 55822.html
Robert Fisk on Sisi poll: All hail the Egyptian Emperor – but what about that missing 7%?

NINETY-THREE PER CENT! Let me write that again: 93 per cent! Or 93.3 per cent if you want to be precise.

This superb, stunning, incredible – quite literally, one might say – achievement in Egypt’s presidential election, places ex-Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on a pedestal alongside those other imperishable titans of modern Arab history: Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, Hafez al-Assad. Indeed, Sisi’s stupendous victory is only 7 per cent less than the total votes collected by that indomitable mother of all presidents, Saddam Hussein, who scored an even more handsome victory of 100 per cent in the 2002 Iraqi presidential referendum.

All hail to the Egyptian Emperor, then, even if he did not quite reach the Beast of Baghdad’s record. But who are we to gainsay such a statistic? Why, only 93 years ago, the British arranged a plebiscite in Mesopotamia (rigged, of course) which elected Faisal King of Iraq with 96 per cent of the vote. From then on, it was a piece of cake for Arab leaders to bring in the masses. Mubarak got 96.3 per cent as President 21 years ago, Sadat got 99.95 per cent for public reform. Saddam – before his 100 per cent in 2002, picked up 99.96 per cent in 1993, Hafez al-Assad 99.98 per cent in 1999.

No matter that the Egyptian authorities have been forced to admit that the turnout for Sisi this week was less than 46 per cent, which was not quite up to the 80 per cent which the Great Man thought he’d get, and represented only 23.3 million voters rather than the 80 million he confidently expected. The “rival” candidate – the truly luckless Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, who called the election results “an insult to the intelligence of Egyptians” – supposedly gained the preposterous support of a mere 3 per cent of Egyptians; a brave man who was beaten up and imprisoned by the old mukhabarat goons – a mark of honour if ever there was one – but why did he bother to stand?

And what now of Mohamed Morsi, the genuinely elected Muslim Brotherhood President who in 2012 picked up only 51 per cent of the vote and who was overthrown by the same man? He still faces years of imprisonment, and perhaps even the hangman. If the Brotherhood is the source of all “terror” (the Sisi version of reality), then few Westerners are going to weep more than crocodile tears at his demise. Nasser had no qualms about liquidating his opponents. Today, a lesser president with a more modest vote might demand clemency. But with 93.3 per cent?

So who will be first in the line-up to congratulate Sisi? King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to be sure. The Saudis, as all the world knows, are renowned for their democratic traditions. Sisi has called Abdullah “King of the Arabs”, a totally unprecedented expression for an Egyptian to make in appreciation of a Saudi monarch – but who can be surprised when Saudi billions must now keep Egypt (and its new President) afloat? Then the other freedom-loving Gulf Arabs will come huffing and puffing along behind the Saudis with promises and praise; minus Qatar, of course, which still prefers – for now – the incarcerated Morsi.

Sisi’s greatest Western admirer, Tony Blair, cannot be far behind with his blandishments. And Obama must surely put his head above the parapet. For a US President who congratulated Afghanistan’s President Karzai after his last, fraudulent election, it should be easy to smile upon Sisi’s assumption of power – with words of American propriety, no doubt, regarding Egypt’s “transition to democracy”. This “transition” is hard to see in a country whose new leader has already announced that Egyptians may have to wait another 20 years for that democracy, but claptrap semantics are still de rigeur in the State Department.

Few will want to remark on the identity of those – more than 50 per cent of the Egyptian electorate – who stayed away, although most appeared to be the 2011 Revolution generation, the young and the liberals who also supported Sisi in his 2013 coup but foolishly did not ask themselves whether he might have ambitions of his own. Popularity is a fickle animal, however.

Yesterday evening, in that most famous and drabbest of Cairo’s squares – that of Tahrir – Sisi’s supporters gathered to celebrate the victory of a President who overthrew his predecessor in a military coup and then sought popularity with vague policies of austerity and appeals to patriotism. Bring your families, the demonstrators were told. Work, family, fatherland. Sound familiar?

[Shanmukh]

Here is a very interesting article by someone who is very close to the Israeli Right.

http://carolineglick.com/shimon-peres-legacy/

Here is the relevant portion of the article.

Peres’s legacy will be Iran’s nuclear arsenal.

For years, many Israelis as well as Israel’s supporters in the US, the Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf and even the French have been scratching their heads wondering why Israel hasn’t struck Iran’s nuclear installations yet. Over the past few months, we received our answer.

The ongoing police investigation into allegedly illegal conduct by then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has revealed the source of Israel’s paralysis.

Apparently led by Peres, the triumvirate of security chiefs serving between 2008 and 2011 – Ashkenazi, then-Mossad director Meir Dagan and then-Shin Bet director Avi Dichter – colluded to undermine Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and then-defense minister Ehud Barak’s legal authority to order Israel’s security forces to take action against Iran.

According to a Haaretz report on Wednesday, between 2008 and 2011, the four men leaked plans and discussions of possible Israeli strikes on Iran to the media in order to prevent them from being carried out. The four men opposed an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations and stridently rejected any Israeli operation not coordinated with the US.

Ashkenazi and his associates are being investigated by the police for crimes associated with criminal insubordination to Israel’s elected leadership. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein ordered the police probe in January after information unearthed by the media and by the State Comptroller’s Office raised strong suspicions of a conspiracy led by Ashkenazi to usurp the powers of the government.

According to media reports of the investigation, the police have discovered tape recordings of numerous telephone conversations between Ashkenazi and Peres. According to Channel 1 and Haaretz, Peres’s attorney requested that Weinstein prohibit the publication of the details of phone conversations.

Haaretz’s report didn’t specifically state that the conversations in question related to actions by Peres and the security chiefs to prevent military operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But the same day the report appeared, Amir Oren, Haaretz’s senior commentator, published an article praising Peres for preventing Israel from attacking Iran.

Oren wrote, “Peres’s involvement in blocking the Iranian adventure [i.e., a military attack against Iran’s nuclear installations] is… the most important action he took as president.”

As Amnon Lord wrote last December in Makor Rishon, Peres’s role in the security chiefs’ conspiracy to prevent Netanyahu and Barak from ordering a strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was to provide “pseudo-constitutional and pseudo- moral support” for their unlawful subversion.
The four men were very likely not acting by themselves. Lord argued that the Obama administration was a fifth partner in this criminal conspiracy.

The US was represented in its efforts by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen. Mullen visited Israel almost every month during this period and constantly praised Ashkenazi’s leadership publicly.

As Lord noted, these trips were reciprocated by Ashkenazi and then-Military Intelligence commander Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin who flew regularly to Washington.

For the Americans, Lord wrote, the point of cultivating these ties was “to influence the IDF’s high command and cut it off from the political leadership of Israel.”

In the case of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as in the case of the phony peace process, Peres’s motivation, like that of Ashkenazi, Dichter and Dagan, was clear and crass. He wanted power.

If this article is true, then it is a huge wake up call for us. If this is the extent to which the Americans will go with regard to their special favoured partner, Israel, what will they do to us, given half a chance? The best way is to keep America at a distance from everything of any significance in India.

[Philip]

Absolutely Nagesh! Which is why we see so many apologists for US chicanery howling for India to embrace the US in a military embrace,buy US weaponry-which it has already sold to Pak,while it continues to support Pak's chicanery and terrorism against India. India is meant to end up like a failed proud nation like Egypt,nowadays better spelt as "E-Gyp".

What next for Egypt, with its new president in America’s pocket?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 67072.html

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi may have won the vote by a landslide, but the honeymoon will not last long if the economy doesn’t improve
Robert Fisk

Sunday 01 June 2014

Wael Gamal is one of those guys who make you believe that journalism has a future. Inquisitive, humorous – with a streak of cynicism essential in post-revolutionary Egypt – he thinks fast, he thinks forward and he’s convincing. What’s his view of the election last week of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as president? “It is a disaster. I think it is a very important step backward for the revolution, but it’s not the end.” In short, 41-year-old Gamal is a sub-editor’s delight.

We do not talk more about that 93 per cent victory of the former field marshal, although even Gamal, until recently the managing editor of the liberal and independent Al Shorouk newspaper, can’t avoid talking about those who had left the voting booths frighteningly empty. “It took me just a minute to vote – for Sabahi [Sisi’s opponent] – on the second day, Tuesday. I thought this would be the busiest moment; it was a day off, it was going to be hot later, but in Nasr City, there was only one other person in the polling station.” Everyone knew that Hamdeen Sabahi would croak at the polls – he picked up only 3 per cent of the votes – but Gamal says he’s a brave man, one who suffered for his actions at the hands of state security.

As for Shorouk itself – although Gamal says nothing of this – it is in pretty dire straits. With a circulation of around 150,000 just after the 2011 revolution, it plummeted to 70,000 and then, today, staggers along with perhaps 15,000 printed copies – partly, so say other journalists, because advertisers have failed to pay their bills. In fact, all Egyptian newspapers have seen their circulations collapse since Sisi kicked out the previously elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013.

“The general interest in buying newspapers is diminishing, because the political situation is not as cheerful as it was after the [2011] revolution,” Gamal says, hands splayed in the “what-can-we-do?” gesture that all journalists here know too well.

As for the immediate future under Sisi, problems can already be identified. “A dictatorship needs real support from all sectors of society. Yes, Sisi has support now, but it is conditional. The expectations of people are different from each other. Whatever he says, part of the alliance – which elected him – will be annoyed. If Sisi talks about revitalising the state’s role in the economy, the businessmen who support him will be angry and vice-versa.”

Nasser, the former president, is not Sisi’s model, Gamal says. “The international situation is totally different from what it was 60 years ago. In five years, Nasser had all the poor peasants behind him in agrarian reform decrees.

“The economic programme of Sisi is in the budget plan, it calls for slashing 22 per cent of energy subsidies in one year. And they are shrinking public investments …. This is austerity, the kind that the US and the International Monetary Fund wants. This is contradictory to public support.” As for Sisi’s relations with the United States – and with a Washington humbled by its own military catastrophes and hesitations – Gamal believes that the former defence minister, whose curriculum vitae includes a somewhat conservative thesis on society and Islam from his time at the US Army War College, has strong support from the Pentagon.

“Everybody knew from the beginning that the conditions with the United States were clear: his policy towards the border with Gaza, his policy towards Israel and his economic agenda. As for his policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood, he gets a ‘tick’ [from the US] for that as well.”

Yet Sisi’s straightforward anti-Brotherhood line will be nuanced. “There will be some kind of a deal with Morsi,” Gamal says. “There were some kind of talks just before Sisi announced his candidacy. The Brotherhood demonstrations were getting quieter. Then something failed. The talks stopped. There had been a Brotherhood statement that they were prepared to enter parliamentary elections. And then the rank and file were not willing to accept that. This could mean people getting more violent. There are signs of this in some of the small explosions that have happened in Cairo; perhaps they were individuals who were very angry about the mass killings [at Rabaa, in Cairo] in 2013.”

Egyptians, Gamal reckons, will grant Sisi a “grace” period after the elections, just as they gave time to Morsi in 2012. “They think things will get better very soon – but if Sisi fails to deliver, they will be in the streets. This is what happened to Morsi. In his first 10 months, there were 7,000 strikes and protests in the streets. Morsi said this was a challenge to his role as president.” Prior to the elections, even old Hosni Mubarak began to give pro-Sisi interviews from his Nile-side hospital bed until – so the word in Cairo has it – the military told the former dictator to shut up.

“Sisi wants a stable role for the state – but the problem is that he is depending on some of Mubarak’s interest networks,” Gamal says. “They have already invested in him. Now he must pay. They want returns on their investment – so he can’t put taxes on the stock market. But if he wants to spend on education, he must raise extra taxes.”

Wael Gamal is on leave from Shorouk while he prepares a book on the Egyptian revolution and its political economy. He’s lucky that small publishing houses are among the few businesses in Cairo to have flourished in the aftermath of Mubarak’s overthrow.

“I think the revolution created an awareness among young writers and novelists,” he says. “People are writing poetry and politics.” He beams with delight and talks – rather suddenly, and here I suspect he is not entirely against Sisi’s projects – about “a new wing in the business community” that accepts it must make “a concession”. Some sort of wealth tax, perhaps? Then we’d see how much power Mubarak’s former cronies have over Egypt’s future.

[TSJones]

Here is a very interesting article by someone who is very close to the Israeli Right.

http://carolineglick.com/shimon-peres-legacy/

Here is the relevant portion of the article.

Peres’s legacy will be Iran’s nuclear arsenal.

For years, many Israelis as well as Israel’s supporters in the US, the Sunni Arab states in the Persian Gulf and even the French have been scratching their heads wondering why Israel hasn’t struck Iran’s nuclear installations yet. Over the past few months, we received our answer.

The ongoing police investigation into allegedly illegal conduct by then-IDF Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has revealed the source of Israel’s paralysis.

Apparently led by Peres, the triumvirate of security chiefs serving between 2008 and 2011 – Ashkenazi, then-Mossad director Meir Dagan and then-Shin Bet director Avi Dichter – colluded to undermine Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and then-defense minister Ehud Barak’s legal authority to order Israel’s security forces to take action against Iran.

According to a Haaretz report on Wednesday, between 2008 and 2011, the four men leaked plans and discussions of possible Israeli strikes on Iran to the media in order to prevent them from being carried out. The four men opposed an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations and stridently rejected any Israeli operation not coordinated with the US.

Ashkenazi and his associates are being investigated by the police for crimes associated with criminal insubordination to Israel’s elected leadership. Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein ordered the police probe in January after information unearthed by the media and by the State Comptroller’s Office raised strong suspicions of a conspiracy led by Ashkenazi to usurp the powers of the government.

According to media reports of the investigation, the police have discovered tape recordings of numerous telephone conversations between Ashkenazi and Peres. According to Channel 1 and Haaretz, Peres’s attorney requested that Weinstein prohibit the publication of the details of phone conversations.

Haaretz’s report didn’t specifically state that the conversations in question related to actions by Peres and the security chiefs to prevent military operations against Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But the same day the report appeared, Amir Oren, Haaretz’s senior commentator, published an article praising Peres for preventing Israel from attacking Iran.

Oren wrote, “Peres’s involvement in blocking the Iranian adventure [i.e., a military attack against Iran’s nuclear installations] is… the most important action he took as president.”

As Amnon Lord wrote last December in Makor Rishon, Peres’s role in the security chiefs’ conspiracy to prevent Netanyahu and Barak from ordering a strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was to provide “pseudo-constitutional and pseudo- moral support” for their unlawful subversion.
The four men were very likely not acting by themselves. Lord argued that the Obama administration was a fifth partner in this criminal conspiracy.

The US was represented in its efforts by the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen. Mullen visited Israel almost every month during this period and constantly praised Ashkenazi’s leadership publicly.

As Lord noted, these trips were reciprocated by Ashkenazi and then-Military Intelligence commander Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin who flew regularly to Washington.

For the Americans, Lord wrote, the point of cultivating these ties was “to influence the IDF’s high command and cut it off from the political leadership of Israel.”

In the case of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as in the case of the phony peace process, Peres’s motivation, like that of Ashkenazi, Dichter and Dagan, was clear and crass. He wanted power.

If this article is true, then it is a huge wake up call for us. If this is the extent to which the Americans will go with regard to their special favoured partner, Israel, what will they do to us, given half a chance? The best way is to keep America at a distance from everything of any significance in India.

I would point out the US is not obligated to support Israel in everything it wants to do including starting a war with Iran. The Israeli lobby in the US seems to think the US should be Israel's goon squad. In point of fact we're not.

[Shanmukh]

I would point out the US is not obligated to support Israel in everything it wants to do including starting a war with Iran. The Israeli lobby in the US seems to think the US should be Israel's goon squad. In point of fact we're not.

It is very true that the US is not obligated to support Israel in anything relating to its projected attack on Iran. But, if the article is correct, the manner in which the sabotage of Israel's prospective attack on Iran has been done, suggests a deeply worrying act by the US. Basically, they have co-opted US friendly figures from the Israeli Military and Intelligence to undermine the moves of the legitimate Israeli government. Just take a look at the Harpaz affair and how it has been used by the US to undermine both Bibi and Barak. To get the military, which is subordinate to the government, to sabotage the moves of its own boss, is well, unseemly at the least.

[Gerard]

Given that Peres played a key role in the creation and concealment of of the Israeli nuclear Programme, his judgement regarding the survivability of the Iranian Programme and the limits of bombing should probably be heeded.

The legacy of Peres is the Israeli bomb.

[Shanmukh]

Given that Peres played a key role in the creation and concealment of of the Israeli nuclear Programme, his judgement regarding the survivability of the Iranian Programme and the limits of bombing should probably be heeded.

The legacy of Peres is the Israeli bomb.

Gerard-ji,
It is very possible that the judgement of Peres and Ashkenazi is indeed accurate. The two people, Caroline Glick and Amnon Lord, who have criticised the decision are both hardcore right wingers, so I would not take their words as `वेद वाक्य' . The troublesome part is the role played by the US, according to these articles. Did they encourage Israeli military officials to sabotage the operation to hit Iran? And did Israeli officials agree? Finally, neither Peres, nor Ashkenazi have denied the contents of the article (either they regard to Glick as too cooky, or else, it is true). The Harpaz affair is too uncomfortable for a disciplined army.

[Gerard]

Perhaps just a case of the US being a convenient whipping boy. Those gung-ho for bombing are faced with a military advising against this. Rather than accept the expert advice, it is easier to blame this on US machinations.

[TSJones]

I would point out that Israel plays political football lobby in the US as well as everything from organized espionage to out right theft of nuclear materials. The US taxpayer pays $55 million a year to fund a holocaust museum in DC and congress refuses to pay any of the yearly expenses of 911 museum in NYC requiring a ticket price of $21 per person to visit it.

I am pro Israel but they and their lobby are downright abusive to the point of Animal Farm rules. Sheldon Adelson is one of their chief culprits.

[Philip]

Jonesy,one fact intrigues me,why the US has not released Jonathan Pollard.OK,Pollard was spying for Israel,but even during the Cold War,there were exchanges between the US and the USSR,Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel for instance. Do the Israelis have to kidnap a US spook or what to get Pollard released? After all the US's closest buddy in the ME is Israel,whom it relies upon to keep other nasties and ungodlies in place. I suggest that JP is released as a gesture of goodwill and on humanitarian grounds on Aug 7th,his 60th BDay.

[Virupaksha]

TSJones,

Dont get soo self righteous on israel.

US does it because it keeps egypt and jordan under check, a low cost thing for keeping the suez canal open. and then US balances it off with its support to hamas, PLA through the soudis.

It is a F-16 vs F-16 fight with the US playing both sides right from 50s.

US keeps nurturing terrorists of the next generation to keep its competitors busy.

[TSJones]

TSJones,

Dont get soo self righteous on israel.

US does it because it keeps egypt and jordan under check, a low cost thing for keeping the suez canal open. and then US balances it off with its support to hamas, PLA through the soudis.

It is a F-16 vs F-16 fight with the US playing both sides right from 50s.

US keeps nurturing terrorists of the next generation to keep its competitors busy.

I would hardly call paying $5 billion a year to Israel and Egypt for decades on end "cheap".

[Vadivel]

$10 billion is peanuts for owning two different states far far away which keeps playing for US and project it as a global power. In fact it's basement bargain, you can't call your self super power and pay nothing

[panduranghari]

Military Keynesians’ Mission Accomplished: Iraqi Air Force Destroyed (2003); Iraqi Air Force Recreated (2014)

It seems like it was only yesterday when the US, under the guise of a fabricated WMD threat, was invading Iraq to liberate its oil deposits.

Fast forward to this week, when as Reuters reports, the US will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq in what Baghdad’s envoy to the United States called a “new chapter” in his country’s ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.

Which merely shows that since the US has “sanctioned” virtually every other potential customer of US weapons, it now has no choice but to invoice defense machinery deliveries (and boost factory orders and GDP) to former enemies. It also means that in several years, when Iraq reverts to a posture that is unfriendly to the US, and when the US shale boom is long gone and foreign sources of petroleum are once again all the rage, the US will have to fight its own fighter jets in the name of yet another war of democratic liberation and emancipation

[ramana]

For a $16T economy that is small change.



Nageshks, Why dont you look at it as a European vs Asian Jews issue.

It could be civilizational thing.

Most Ashkenazis are Persian of not Iranian.
They dont want that destroyed.
If Europeans ditch them (and they will till they get out of Roman cults) they still have someone to count on.

[Philip]

Bashar Assad's electoral victory is far more credible than the farcial one in the land of E-Gyp,where the people have been gypped into permitting Feld Marchal "Fat-Al-Sissy" to take over the country in a paper coup. There were so few voters in E-Gyp,that the polls were kept open for three days to strain a semblance of legitimacy in the Fat one's rape of democracy.But then he is Uncle Sam's stooge so we must all applaud E-Gyp' return to western style Arab "shamocracy".

No too far away,another election was taking place in Syria,where beleagured Bashar Assad held an election,far more credible despite the attempts of the motley groups Syrian rebels,western and Islamist mercenaries,all trying to prevent it from being a success.The last year has seen the anti-Bashar forces take a hiding,despite being supported by the Saudis,Qataris,Gulfdoms,Yanquis and the west.Bashar has proved a point,two in fact,that he can win elections and win a war,using the ballot and the bullet (barrel bombs too)!

Syria election: The barrel bomb and the ballot box - how Bashar al-Assad held on to power
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 81100.html

It's really all a question of proportion.

Field Marshal Sisi's 93.7 per cent presidential electoral victory in Egypt last week must surely be outshone by Bashar al-Assad today, albeit that the skies of Damascus were filled with howling fighter jets and the thump of explosions as its citizens shouted and danced - I kid thee not - outside the voting booths. Two dull and obedient politicians, one a former minister - both born losers - were added to the hitherto one-man presidential voting list for the first time in Baathist history, so when I asked the Syrian foreign minister, Walid Moallam, if there was any danger of Bashar losing, he wisely replied: “This is up to the Syrian people.”

Ah indeed, the Syrian people. Crushed, humiliated, tortured, imprisoned, slaughtered, forever crying for freedom from terror - note how these words of tragedy are used by both sides against each other in Syria's agony - they were invited to participate, at the height of their agony, in a little lesson in Middle East democracy. Sixty per cent of the population was able to vote in the 40 per cent of Syria firmly controlled by the regime, in more than 9,000 voting stations, most of which were vulnerable to the gunfire of Bashar's largely Western-supported opponents.

These rebel forces, fading secularists, frightening Islamists - groups so fractured that they look like a broken windscreen - promised a rain of rocket-fire into the country's cities to destroy an election which American and European leaders had condemned as a farce. From dawn, mortars and rockets crashed into central Damascus - until Bashar's Mig fighter jets swept over town and blasted their suburbs and all within them in the most persuasive form of electoral violence suppression in the history of democracy.

Or not, as the case may be. Bashar and wife Asma - yes, in a bridal white jacket - pushed their vote into an equally white box before Syrian television. In the Starship Enterprise interior of the Syrian foreign ministry - a vast white Christmas cake palace on the edge of the suburbs, echoing to the bomb explosions - a clutch of his ministers gathered to produce their identity papers, garlanded in Syrian flags, eager to place their signatures beneath the portrait of Bashar on the ballot paper. At least, one must assume that such loyal men - they included Moallam (newly recovered from a serious operation), his eloquent deputy Faisal Mokdad and Syria's canny (and, with the regime's opponents, ferocious) Minister of Information Zoubi - voted for a third seven-year term for Bashar. There were indeed curtains to protect the privacy of the voting booths and the foreign ministry - whose massive walls make it one of the best-defended buildings in Damascus - was a suitable venue for the event.

The polling stations for the masses included frontier posts, schools, government ministries and even airline offices. I spent several minutes buying a local air ticket in a Damascus room thick with militiamen and voters, the walls plastered with pictures of the electoral winner - guess who? - while those jets raced over the rooftops outside. “Do you want to vote?” a clerk asked me with double-edged humour. I got the point. Was I to vote for Sisi, perhaps?

But there were some differences between the Pharaoh and former Field Marshal who now rules Egypt and the former optometrist who now - and surely for years to come - rules Syria. For just as Sisi's election was marked by grimly empty polling stations and an electorate weary of its heat-wave revolution, Syria's electorate turned up in their thousands with bands, newly-published posters of That Man - head-to-toe black suit, in full commander-in-chief costume or smiling against a roaring Mediterranean - and long queues of young men in tribal headdress. Spontaneous? Never. Coerced? Up to a point. Happy? Who could read behind the smiles and forlorn cries of “With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you?” And everyone knew who 'you' was.

The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad watches his wife Asma cast her vote at a polling station in Damascus (Getty)

Rumours flooded across borders just as thousands of Syrians crossed the Lebanese frontier to vote a few hundred metres inside their country. In Lebanon, the word went out that Syrians who went home to vote would not be allowed to return and would lose their refugee status. An expensive vote, in other words, for Syria's poor. In Damascus, I was told that the Lebanese authorities were charging $200 to Syrian citizens if they wished to return to their own country. Both were totally untrue. Syrians waited to receive a printed yellow sheet of paper from Lebanese immigration men, allowing their return within 24 hours. I saw no money changing hands.

But now to the Department of Home Truths. Add together most of the Christians, Druze, Alawites and a substantial number of Sunni Muslims in that 60 per cent of the population locked into the 40 per cent of Syria which constitutes Assadland, and wouldn't a majority of them have voted for Bashar? The militant opposition, of course, were not represented - the Islamists would not wish to be, and many of them are not even Syrian - and Hassan Abdullah Al-Nouri and Maher Abdelhafiz Hajjar, the two has-beens-to-be whose pictures also adorned the voting papers and who have no criticisms of Assad, didn't stand a chance. Al-Nouri, by the way, has a Masters in public administration from the University of Wisconsin and holds a PhD from Kennedy University in California; Hajjar is famous for telling Syria's Christians that they remained “neutral” when their country faced a foreign conspiracy.

Syrian men pretend they are casting their votes during a mock election calling for the 'criminal' Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the stripped of his nationality (Getty) Syrian men pretend they are casting their votes during a mock election calling for the 'criminal' Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the stripped of his nationality (Getty)
Twenty-four candidates originally presented themselves for the presidency but they were whinnied down to the lonely three for the elections, including - deus ex machina - Bashar himself. So will historians interpret all this as a political punch by the president to match the military victories which his armies - including rather a lot of Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary Guards - have clocked up?

Among the most excoriating of journalistic attacks on the Syrian elections - outside Syria, of course - came in the Saudi-financed 'Al-Hayat', in which Hazem Saghieh wrote that Bashar's decision to hold this election was more brutal for Syrians than the savage repression visited upon them. “… the violence struck their bodies yet respected their brains, but this electoral farce is a humiliation without parallel.” A smile, Saghieh concluded, “is all this mascaraed is worth.”

So when I asked Foreign Minister Moallem how he defended the 'farce', he replied with characteristic bluntness. “I don't need to defend myself,” he said. “I ask those people to look at the television… and see what the Syrian people want. This is a democracy of the Syrian people when they vote.”
Syria’s presidential candidate Hassan al-Nouri accompanied by his wife Hazar casts his vote at polling centre in Damascus (Getty)

What I really wanted to know - what we all want to know, I suspect - is why these elections, Egypt last week, Syria this, actually take place. Are they an attempt to follow - or mimic - the imperfect but powerful system of democracy in Europe and then outdo it in grotesque percentages?

Is it by chance that the Arab peoples who were influenced by European politics over the past 150 years - the ones who generally wear Western clothes rather than Arab robes and whose forefathers read Voltaire and Rousseau and the great Victorians - imbibed the ideals of representative government? And does this explain why the Gulf Arabs, proud in their 'abayas', largely - but not entirely - show little interest in parliamentary democracy?

Certainly, Syria was a revolutionary nation even under Ottoman rule. Independence is part of its historical birthright. But is that individual independence we are talking about? Or just national independence? And what statistic are we going to hear of in Damascus this week? A few here have talked to me of a credible but secure 62 per cent for Assad. But others - I predicted 90 per cent - are saying we shall see 95 per cent for Bashar. A paper victory amid bloody war.

[Shanmukh]

For a $16T economy that is small change.



Nageshks, Why dont you look at it as a European vs Asian Jews issue.

It could be civilizational thing.

Most Ashkenazis are Persian of not Iranian.
They dont want that destroyed.
If Europeans ditch them (and they will till they get out of Roman cults) they still have someone to count on.

Erm - Ashkenazis are Central European/Polish, for the most part. Persian Jews are Mizrahis, I think.

[ramana]

No Read again.

They are Persian migrants to Central Europe.

[Agnimitra]

No Read again.

They are Persian migrants to Central Europe.

ramana ji, are you sure? I thought they are converted Khazars who migrated there from C. Asia. They were mostly of Turkic origin, who had an empire between the Byzantines and the Persians for a while.

I think the idea that Ashkenazis are "Persian" Jews is an Islamist rumour quoted to match "End of Times" ahadith that speak of the Dajjal being lead by "the Jews of Isfahan". Of course, Persian Jews are also a powerful column within Israel, but they're not the Ashkenazis AFAIK.

[Shanmukh]

No Read again.

They are Persian migrants to Central Europe.

I have never even heard of this. Most of the Polish/Central European Jews came from various parts of the Roman empire, AFAIK. I never heard of Persian Jews migrating in large numbers to Central Europe. As a matter of fact, I have never heard there were a large number of Persian Jews at any time.

[Shanmukh]

No Read again.

They are Persian migrants to Central Europe.

ramana ji, are you sure? I thought they are converted Khazars who migrated there from C. Asia. They were mostly of Turkic origin, who had an empire between the Byzantines and the Persians for a while.

I think the idea that Ashkenazis are "Persian" Jews is an Islamist rumour quoted to match "End of Times" ahadith that speak of the Dajjal being lead by "the Jews of Isfahan". Of course, Persian Jews are also a powerful column within Israel, but they're not the Ashkenazis AFAIK.

Persian Jews are classed as Mizrahis in Israel.

[Philip]

The defeat of the "rebels" in their stronghold of Homs,marked a turning point in the Syrian War,with Assad the clear winner.However,the ancient city of Homs,rebels' stronghold has been reduced to another ruined city that history's tears know only too well.

Syria conflict: The silence in Homs emphasises the city’s fate. There’s barely a breath of wind

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 87763.html

It was the crucible of the revolt against President Assad. Now Robert Fisk finds a desolate landscape of ruins and broken dreams
Robert Fisk
Wednesday 04 June 2014

Deep beneath the city of Homs, in the last days of the Syrian army’s siege, a desperate Islamist rebel wrote on the wall of a tunnel. “I have a question for all our commanders,” he lamented. “When will the road be open? If someone has an answer, please give me one. And tell me when the siege will be lifted. If no one answers, this means that all our commanders are…” The final word is obscured. Liars? ********?

But the lonely gunman’s suspicions were correct. The last rebels surrendered – to be given safe passage from Homs under the eyes of the UN – and left behind a city destroyed, its ancient streets pulverized, its shops crushed beneath tons of masonry, its 7th-century Mosque of Khalid ibn al-Walid blasted by shellfire and bullets. Even the grave of ibn al-Walid himself, a Companion of the Prophet Mohamed no less, lies amid rubble in one corner of the mosque, a green and gold cloth over his last resting place, the corners held down by breeze blocks. Rumour has it that the Wahabi Islamists who fought here stole his body long before they left.

Now today – at last – the full extent of Homs’ martyrdom can be seen, street after noble street shattered by bombs, tank-fire, rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rounds, stately Ottoman offices gutted by flames, Roman columns tossed into gardens of shell-shorn tree trucks. The great modern shops and city-centre offices are reduced to rubble-filled skeletons. Tunnels run beneath many of the roads and, for the first time, visitors can clamber through the snipers’ alleys which bisected the city for two years.

One tunnel beneath a wrecked department store was ground out through hard rock almost two years ago, built – as the proud amateur engineers inscribed in paint beside their tunnel entrance – by a group of Islamist fighters. “This tunnel was dug by the hands of jihadis, Abu Bashir, Abu Odai, Abu Aleil, Abu Iskander, 15 July 2012,” it says. The tunnel is only four feet high. I crawled its length, beneath gas pipes and alongside drains, and emerged in the centre of a main highway beside the ancient mosque to find myself in a sand-bagged sniper’s position.

The front lines between Syrian and rebel forces are still in place, concrete barrels and barbed wire and sofas and steel-framed chairs across blackened streets drenched in broken water mains and sewage – a panorama familiar to anyone who witnessed the years of civil war in central Beirut or parts of Baghdad. Government soldiers now laze in the sun at makeshift checkpoints where tens of thousands of civilian demonstrators gathered in the early days of the rebellion in 2011 – joined on one tumultuous day by the American and French ambassadors – to demand the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, who was said to have been re-elected president with 88.7 per cent of the vote.

After that peaceful protest, the armed defenders of Homs arrived, to be replaced by the jihadis and the al-Qa’ida men and the Nusra fighters, who struggled for years against an army which had earlier shot down unarmed demonstrators. From that moment, Homs was doomed.

It is the silence which emphasises the city’s fate. Scarcely a breath of wind moves the giant hoardings of Assad that now hang in triumph down the front of the destroyed facades of shops and factories. In the sky, hundreds of swifts dart across the dead city and its roofless buildings, a symbol of an almost heavenly life amid the disgrace of these ruins. We wandered this place for hours, past the little places of humanity that make up any living society, a broken pharmacy, a doctor’s surgery, a dress shop with the inevitable dummies long congealed into the street rubble in the streets, the remains of a cheap hotel – the “Forgiveness Hotel”, a wardrobe store and a shoe shop whose boxes – along with hundreds of shoes – lay mouldering in the gutters.

It was a unique moment, too, because already government trucks were removing the tens of thousands of tons of concrete and stone from the city, and in months – perhaps weeks – this place may be a wasteland, ready for post-war reconstruction (with billions of Qatari cash?), its recent tragedy as erased as the centre of Hama after its Islamist rebels rose up in savage rebellion against Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, in February 1982. You could save many of the older buildings of Homs. The fluted columns, the old clocks, the arched windows of Ottoman rule and French mandate do not have to be turned to rubble just because their roofs have been flung into the streets.

Destroyed buildings in the Homs neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh (Getty) Destroyed buildings in the Homs neighbourhood of Khaldiyeh (Getty)
And then there is the Mosque of Khalid ibn al-Walid, which dates from the 7th century. Its walls are scarred with bullets and shell fragments, its fountain is twisted into a Daliesque art form, part of its exterior is sandbagged and its interior is carved out by shrapnel and smeared with graffiti. Renovated it must be – and can be – but its desecration is a disgrace. There is no way, in Homs, to apportion blame for this architectural disaster.

Both Syrians and Islamists held the mosque at different times. The Islamists used it as a redoubt, just as their comrades – or perhaps they themselves – did amid the ruins of Fallujah in Iraq’s “city of a thousand minarets” when the Americans besieged that city.

Some tall buildings have been sliced in half by air attacks – clearly by the Syrian air force – others, including the city’s French-built museum, have been spotted by a plague of rifle rounds and rocket-propelled grenades that must have come from rebel-held lines. Around the city, middle-class apartments and villas stand untouched close to the university of Homs, but the streets deteriorate into fire-burned walls the nearer one reaches the suburb of Bab al-Amr, a place of great death and suffering under Syria’s ruthless bombardment.

Oddly, as the summer heat builds up across the plain of Homs, there is no smell of decay, no hint of the thousands of deaths which were inflicted here. There must be bodies aplenty under the cascade of concrete walls sandwiched on top of each other in the old city. But most of the dead were buried after battle or during those cruel semi-ceasefires which marked the great siege of Homs.

I found an interior ministry fighter in Omar bin al-Khattab Street, wearing – and he was no patsy left for journalists to find, since I came across him at a checkpoint hidden by rubble – a miniature double-edged sword of Shiite Islam around his neck and a wristband depicting the heads of Christian saints. I asked “Khaled” what he thought when he gazed upon the destruction of Homs.

Syrian government forces in Hamidiyeh in the old city of Homs (Getty) Syrian government forces in Hamidiyeh in the old city of Homs (Getty)
“I feel as if a brother has lost his life,” he said. “All the victims are our brothers. All this blood is our brothers’ blood. I am young, but the defence of your country doesn’t wait until you get old.” He laughed. There was no patriotic talk of the Baath party, no reference to President Bashar al-Assad.

The only words from the Islamist fighters – apart from the tunnel literature – were spray painted on the walls. “There is a mine in the next alley,” a Nusra man had obligingly written at a street corner. Another ominously inscribed the words: “When the night comes, the killing begins.”

A Christian Syrian asked me why men wrote such words. Behind him, in a roofless Orthodox church, was the bust of a cleric. There were bullet holes in his face and shoulders. Potshots? Target practice? Or another shameful sign of Homs’ wartime degradation?

[Virupaksha]

TS Jones,

Controlling egypt for 5 B$ wrt to population, it is controlling US for 20 Billion $. In gdp ppp, it is controlling US for 150 B$. In gdp nominal, it is controlling US for 300 Billion $.

And that is assuming US is actually giving that money out of its own pockets, instead of getting more through contracts to its private companies.

[Philip]

"Arab Spring" wilts in the heat of "Summer". This represents along with events in Syria and Egypt,a devastating blow for US foreign policy in the Arab world. In Syria,Assad has won both the battle with the bullet and the ballot decisively,while in E-Gyp,a farcial election has given a veneer of legitimacy to Fat-Al-Sissy,the latest in a long line of US supported military dictators,who eventually disappeared without trace in history's dustbin.Libya would've been far better off with the defanged Gadhaffi in power,rather than the current motley gang of would be holy warriors on yet another jihad.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... return-war
With Libya's return to war, democratic dream is all but ruined
Crisis escalates as rival governments preside over violence that is tearing nation apart three years after Arab spring

Chris Stephen
The Guardian, Thursday 5 June 2014

Fighting between Islamist militias and forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi, Libya
Smoke and flames rise during fighting between Islamist militias and forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, in Benghazi, Libya. Photograph: Maher Alawami/EPA

When Libya threw off the shackles of dictatorship in its Arab spring revolution, few could have imagined that, three years later, it would have two rival governments installed at opposite ends of the country, presiding over fighting that has, in effect, torn the nation in two.

In the capital, Tripoli, an Islamist-dominated congress where less than half the members show up to vote has appointed Ahmed Maiteeq as the third prime minister in four months.

But the man he wants to replace, Abdullah al-Thinni, insists that he is still the rightful prime minister. Al-Thinni, who condemned his rival's appointment as illegal, has now decamped to the oil-rich eastern province of Cyrenaica with his cabinet and sections of that same congress.

Al-Thinni is now in talks with army officers allied to the renegade general Khalifa Haftar, whose forces have for three weeks battled Islamist militias that he labels "terrorists".

Government, in the sense of a joined-up administration, has all but collapsed and mediation efforts appear stillborn.

Many had hoped the country's supreme court would end the standoff by ruling on Thursday on the legality of Maiteeq's election. But judges appeared to duck the issue, putting off the decision until next week. Whether a ruling will make a difference amid the spiralling violence is unclear.

What is clear is that Libya's democratic dream has all but collapsed, in a week that has seen authoritarian rulers claiming mandates after elections of questionable credibility in fellow Arab spring states Egypt and Syria.

The crisis began last month when Haftar, supported by sections of the armed forces, launched Operation Restore Libyan Dignity in Cyrenaica's capital, Benghazi, with assaults on Islamist militias. The city is now a war zone, with daily battles between militias and army formations. TV footage this week showed air force helicopter gunships firing relays of missiles into militia bases, with streets deserted and civilians cowering in their homes during fighting that has cost more than 100 lives. Haftar himself survived a suicide car bomb that killed four soldiers at his headquarters.

For some, it is an echo of the 2011 Arab spring uprising, in which rebels, backed by Nato air strikes, toppled the government of Muammar Gaddafi in an eight-month civil war.

Yet the faultlines have changed, with the former rebel coastal city of Misrata aligned with what remains of congress and Haftar supported by powerful Zintan militias in mountains west of the capital.

Islamists insist they control a democratic congress, voted into power in the country's first post-revolution elections, but opponents say the parliament lost its legitimacy by extending its mandate beyond its original limit in February.

As fighting worsens, foreign officials have become targets. The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday suspended operations after a Swiss employee was shot dead in the coastal city of Sirte, and a UN spokesman said four of its diplomats were captured and "roughed up" by militias at Tripoli airport.

The United States has moved warships, aircraft and 1,000 marines to the region and Washington has joined Canada, Jordan and Tunisia in advising citizens to leave Libya immediately.

Many Libyans are wary of Haftar, an ally of Gaddafi before defecting to join US-backed dissidents, but hope the support he has in the regular army means an end to three years of anarchy.

"The support for Haftar is in essence support for institutions, not for individuals," said Libyan journalist Mohamed Eljarh. "There is this movement in eastern Libya which has managed to bring lots of actors together."Haftar's campaign has also received what some have interpreted as partial support from Washington, which is concerned about the rise of jihadists in Libya. America's ambassador to the country, Deborah Jones, has said: "It's not necessarily for me to condemn [Haftar's] actions in going against very specific [terrorist] groups."

Ansar al-Sharia, the Benghazi militia the US blames for killing its ambassador in the city in 2012, has borne the brunt of Haftar's attacks, and it has warned Washington it risks a "bloodbath" if it intervenes militarily.

Outside powers may prove crucial in the standoff, with Al-Thinni's ministers apparently winning support this week in meetings with Egypt's president-elect, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who warned Cairo would not tolerate "terrorist activities" launched from Libya.

[ramana]

Philip, We now await the results of the KSA failure in Syria to scuttle Shia Iran.

[Philip]

Keep "knocking down all doors" and see which ones are enterable. Some foreign/strategic policy!

[Philip]

Dirty secrets of the Saudi King!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 17343.html

The late King of Saudi Arabia, his 'secret' wife and the missing £12 million
Janan Harb wins right to pursue Prince Abdul Aziz for money 'promised by his father', or she will 'spill the beans'

[Prem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/world ... .html?_r=0
Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army Out of Mosul

BAGHDAD — Iraqi army soldiers abandoned their weapons and fled the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, as Sunni militants freed hundreds of prisoners and seized military bases, police stations, banks, the airport and the provincial governor’s headquarters. The attacks widened the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and were among the most audacious assaults on the government since the American military withdrawal more than two years ago.The rout in Mosul, the second-largest Iraqi city after Baghdad and an important center of the country’s petroleum industry, was breathtaking in its speed and appeared to take government officials by surprise, not to mention residents of the city and surrounding Nineveh Province. A major humiliation for the government forces in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated areas, the defeat also reflected the stamina of the Sunni insurgency, which has been growing with the war in neighboring Syria.Mosul was the last major urban area of Iraq to be pacified by American troops before they left, and the violence there now threatens to broaden into the adjacent autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which has its own armed forces, the peshmerga. Osama al-Nujaifi, speaker of Iraq’s Parliament and a brother of Nineveh’s governor, called on the authorities in the Kurdistan autonomous region to send reinforcements to fight the Sunni militants. BasNews, an independent news agency in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region, reported on Monday that Kurdish military forces had already been ordered to the outskirts of Mosul to protect Kurds threatened by the Sunni insurgents. Iraqis at a checkpoint near the Iraqi city of Arbil on Tuesday. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered a state of emergency for the entire country. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered a state of emergency for the entire country and called on friendly governments for help, without mentioning the United States specifically. His Shiite-led government has been increasingly struggling to deal with the resurrection of Sunni militancy in Iraq since the American military departure at the end of 2011 after eight years of war and occupation.In Washington the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statement that the United States was “deeply concerned about the events that have transpired in Mosul,” and that the Obama administration supported a “strong, coordinated response to push back this aggression.” The statement said the administration would provide “all appropriate assistance to the government of Iraq” but did not specify what aid might be forthcoming.
By midday on Tuesday, militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, one of the strongest extremist groups, were in control of much of central and southern Mosul, according to witnesses. Local officials claimed that many of the fighters were jihadists who had swept in from the porous border with Syria, who have increasingly operated with impunity in that region even as President Bashar al-Assad has reclaimed ground lost to the insurgents elsewhere in Syria.
As hundreds of families fled Mosul, the bodies of slain soldiers, police officers and civilians were seen lying in streets. “They took control of everything, and they are everywhere,” said one soldier who fled the city, and gave only his first name,

[ramana]

Fall of Mosul means to Iraq?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27789770

Looks like AlQ is back in another form ISIS in Sunni Iraq.


Are we seeing the future partition of Iraq and nearby Syria to create a Sunni state?

[Philip]

The impending Destruction of Europe: The consequences of the cretinous,asinine and moronic foreign policy of the US formulated by neo-cons and "Christian soldiers".

Thanks to the incredible stupidity and greed of the US,the last two decades has seen the unparalleled rise of Islamist terrorism worldwide of the Al Q variety,Al Q wannabees and a host of Wahaabi outfits,some even more terrifying than Al Q.The failed attempts at rewriting the history of the Middle East,N.Africa,Levant and Mesopotamia has resulted in colossal failures of US/Western foreign policies.Today,after almost two decades of military warring in Iraq,where lakhs died as a result of the US/West's illegal war without UN sanction,Mosul,the second largest city is now in rebel hands after the US retreated with its tail well tucked in between its legs.Surely under the tyrant Saddam,another western ally at one time,taught how to gas the Kurds with his western supplied gas units,and war with Iran using western arms,the region was a much safer place! The Libyan gambit exterminating Ghadaffi was another dismal failure.The country is now a jungle where lawless Islamists vie for control. Thankfully Syria under Assad with the support of Russia and China has stemmed the tide,even though the US and its Arab bum-chums are funding,training and arming all manner of insurgents,rebels,and mercenaries who fight amongst themselves first before taking on Assad and still hate the West/US!

Europe with its borderless nations has been invaded in various guise by lakhs upon lakhs of Islamic immigrants over the last two decades,legal and illegal,which is causing the most severe crisis ever in the history of the EU.The rise of the far right is a counter reaction,as Europeans are scared stiff about the massive tsunami of Islamists reaching Europe by any means,as thanks to the cretinous policies of the US in Libya for example,an invasion of 600,000 "refugees" from Libya alone is shortly expected!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... ian-crisis
Thousands of migrants cross Mediterranean in effort to reach Europe
European authorities warn of impending humanitarian crisis as up to 600,000 people wait in Libya to make treacherous crossing

Harriet Sherwood and agencies
Migrants disembark in Palermo, Sicily, after being rescued while trying to cross the Med. About 4,500 people have been picked up by the Italian navy since Thursday. Photograph: Alessandro Fucarini/AP

Thousands of migrants have crossed the Mediterranean in the past few days, taking advantage of good weather conditions to launch dozens of boats from Libya in a desperate effort to reach Europe.

Up to 600,000 people are estimated to be waiting in Libya for an opportunity to make the treacherous sea crossing, prompting warnings by European authorities of an impending humanitarian crisis.

About 4,500 migrants have been picked up by the Italian navy since Thursday. The largest contingent of 1,300 – including hundreds of women and dozens of babies –was rescued on Sunday and taken to the southern Italian city of Taranto.

Another group of 998, including 214 women and 157 minors, was picked up on Friday in a rescue operation that involved merchant ships flying Hong Kong, Italian, Moldovan and Panamanian colours as well as the Italian navy.

Most of those being brought into port in the past few days are Syrian, Sudanese and Eritrean. Many have been taken to Sicily, where authorities are struggling to cope with the influx.

Enzo Bianco, the centre-left mayor of Catania and former Italian interior minister, warned last week of a looming disaster. "Either there is a strong initiative by the Italian government and by the EU, or we will be facing a real disaster of colossal proportions," he told the Guardian.

Thousands of migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in rickety and overcrowded boats run by people-traffickers in recent years. Italy launched the Mare Nostrum rescue operation last October after more than 400 people drowned when two boats sank.

Italy says more than 50,000 migrants have landed on its shores since the start of this year – about the same number as for the whole of 2013. More than 2,000 have arrived in Malta.

The Greek coastguard said a patrol boat rescued 29 migrants from an inflatable speedboat taking on water in the eastern Aegean on Monday.

The rescue took place in Turkish territorial waters, it said, but the Turkish authorities refused to accept the boat's occupants, which included two women and a child. The migrants were taken to the Greek island of Lesbos.

Keep it up America,keep up the good work of invading,bombing,destabilising the Islamic world and destroy Europe in the bargain.In a few years from now,the EU may have to be called "Eurostan"! Q.Where will the European refugees then go to,America?

[ramana]

Philip, There was a recent book on why conflict in Western Europe will lead to global instability.

[Philip]

Author please? Must review it for the Book Club.

[ramana]

Will do so thos Friday.

[Philip]

Iraq falling into extreme Islamist ISIS hands? The West may now have to rope in Assad to control ISIS!

http://www.theguardian.com/uk
Iraq crisis: Islamist militants attack Tikrit after 500,000 are forced to flee Mosul

Islamist insurgents have overrun parts of the Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, after taking control of Iraq's biggest city Mosul.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has urged troops to fight back against the militants as up to 500,000 people fled Mosul after the al-Qa'ida splinter group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) overran the city.

Security sources said some parts of Tikrit, which is located 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad, is now under the control of militants and dozens of the insurgents have reportedly been clashing with security forces near the headquarters of the government in the city centre.

It has not been confirmed if ISIS is attacking Tikrit.

Those fleeing from Mosul to the Kurdistan Region have now been told they must already have family in the region or a sponsor in order to receive permission from the govornate to enter from the surrounding Nineveh province, the International Organisation for Migration has reported.

Many residents in the city have been forced to flee on foot as they have been prohibited from using vehicles in the city. They report “chaos” from within its walls, with police stations on fire, over 1,000 prisoners freed and hospitals remaining inaccessible.

Witnesses say the military, police and city officials have also fled the city after it was overrun by the ISIS, while government soldiers abandoned all vehicles and weapons and left on foot.

A picture taken with a mobile phone shows uniforms reportedly belonging to Iraqi security forces scattered on the road on June 10, 2014 A picture taken with a mobile phone shows uniforms reportedly belonging to Iraqi security forces scattered on the road on June 10, 2014 "We can't beat them. We can't," one army officer told Reuters. "They are well trained in street fighting and we're not. We need a whole army to drive them out of Mosul.

"They're like ghosts: they appear, strike and disappear in seconds."

Mr al-Maliki has asked parliament to declare a state of emergency to grant him further powers.

In a televised address, he said security personnel who had "deserted" and "did not carry out their jobs properly" should be punished, but those who are resisting will be rewarded and urged units to keep fighting.

A spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, said he was "gravely concerned" by the events.
Read more: US considers sending emergency military aid to Iraq
Who is the jihadi leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?
Militants seize northern capital and free 1,200 prisoners in jail break

Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has issued a statement appealing to the UN refugee agency for help.

"In order to assist and support the displaced people of the city of Mosul, including all of the city's different ethnic groups – Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Chaldeans and Assyrians – I ask the people of the Kurdistan Region to help the displaced people of Mosul in whatever way they can within the framework of legal and security guidelines”, he said.

The United States condemned the seizure of Mosul, calling the situation "extremely serious" and urging fractious political groups to fight Iraq's enemies together.

[Philip]

The successor to Osama,even more deadly?
Who is the jihadi leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

Is Baghdadi another "rogue" Islamist leader created by the US like OBL? The fact that he was a prisoner for 5 years under the Americans and then released,indicates a deeper more sinsiter story.If he was such a "bad egg:,why was he not incarcerated in America's best known concentration Camp Gitmo,esp. in the secret sector 7?

https://www.google.co.in/search?newwind ... urce=hp&q=]Who+is+the+jihadi+leader+Abu+Bakr+al-Baghdadi%3F[%2Fb]&oq=]Who+is+the+jihadi+leader+Abu+Bakr+al-Baghdadi%3F[%2Fb]&gs_l=hp.12...8151.8151.0.9847.2.2.0.0.0.0.559.848.2-1j5-1.2.0....0...1c.2.46.hp..2.0.0.0.uIM9rYpDLOE

In the space of a year he has become the most powerful jihadi leader in the world, and on Monday night his forces captured Mosul, the northern capital of Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Dua, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has suddenly emerged as a figure who is shaping the future of Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East.

He began to appear from the shadows in the summer of 2010 when he became leader of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) after its former leaders were killed in an attack by US and Iraqi troops. AQI was at a low point in its fortunes, as the Sunni rebellion, in which it had once played a leading role, was collapsing. It was revived by the revolt of the Sunni in Syria in 2011 and, over the next three years by a series of carefully planned campaigns in both Iraq and Syria. How far al-Baghdadi is directly responsible for the military strategy and tactics of ISIS, once called AQI, is uncertain: former Iraqi army and intelligence officers from the Saddam era are said to play a crucial role, but are under al-Baghdadi’s overall leadership.

There are disputes over his career depending on whether the source is ISIS itself, US or Iraqi intelligence but the overall picture appears fairly clear. He was born in Samarra, a largely Sunni city north of Baghdad, in 1971 and is well educated. With black hair and brown eyes, a picture of al-Baghdadi taken when he was a prisoner of the Americans in Bocca Camp in southern Iraq between 2005 and 2009, makes him look like any Iraqi man in his thirties.

His real name is believed to be Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, who has degrees in Islamic Studies, including poetry, history and genealogy, from the Islamic University of Baghdad. He may have been an Islamic militant under Saddam as a preacher in Diyala province, to the north east of Baghdad, where, after the US invasion of 2003, he had his own armed group. Insurgent movements have a strong motive for giving out misleading information about their command structure and leadership, but it appears al-Baghdadi spent five years as prisoner of the Americans.

After the old AQI leadership was killed in April 2010, al-Baghdadi took over and AQI became increasingly well organised, even issuing detailed annual reports over the last two years, itemising its operations in each Iraqi province. Recalling the fate of his predecessors as AQI leader, he insisted on extreme secrecy, so few people knew where he was. AQI prisoners either say they have never met him or, when they did, that he was wearing a mask.

Taking advantage of the Syrian civil war, al-Baghdadi sent experienced fighters and funds to Syria to set up Jabhat al-Nusra as al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria. He split from it last year, but remains in control of a great swathe of territory in northern Syria and Iraq. Against fragmented and dysfunctional opposition, he is moving fast towards establishing himself as Emir of new Islamic state.

[Philip]

ISIS,the globe's most deadly Islamist outfit.

Who are Isis? A terror group too extreme even for al-Qaida
The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria has a reputation for being even more brutal than the main jihadi group of inspiration

Isis fighters, pictured on a militant website verified by AP.
Isis fighters, pictured on a militant website verified by AP. Photograph: AP

The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria (Isis) is so hardline that it was disavowed by al-Qaida's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Led by an Iraqi called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Isis was originally an al-Qaida group in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). As the Syrian civil war intensified, its involvement in the conflict was indirect at first. Abu Muhammad al-Joulani, an ISI member, established Jabhat al-Jabhat al-Nusra in mid-2011, which became the main jihadi group in the Syrian war. Joulani received support and funding from ISI and Baghdadi.

But Baghdadi sought to gain influence over the increasingly powerful Jabhat al-Nusra by directly expanding ISI's operations into Syria, forming Isis in April last year. Differences over ideology and strategy soon led to bitter infighting. Isis turned to out to be too extreme and brutal not just for Jabhat al-Nusra, but for al-Qaida itself, leading to a public repudiation by Zawahiri, who last month called on Isis to leave Syria and return to Iraq.

By then Isis, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, had lost ground in Syria to Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies. But any notion that Isis is a spent force has been shattered by its capture of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city. Isis now controls territory that stretches from the eastern edge of Aleppo, Syria, to Falluja in western Iraq and now the northern city of Mosul.

Isis has shown its ruthlessness and brutality in the areas of Syria under its control, eastern Aleppo and the city of Raqqa. It was blamed for the February killing of a founding member of the Salafi group Ahrar al-Sham and the group's leader in Aleppo, Muhammad Bahaiah, who had close connections with senior al-Qaida leaders. It was also blamed for the assassination of Jabhat al-Nusra's leader in the Idlib governorate, Abu Muahmmad al-Ansari, along with his wife, children and relatives. It ordered the crucifixion of a man accused of murder; other forms of punishment include beheadings and amputations.

Despite its brutal reputation, Isis has shown flexibility as well in Iraq to win over disaffected Sunnis in the north against the Shia-led government of Nouri al-Maliki. Mushreq Abbas, who writes on Iraq for the Al-Monitor website, describes how Baghdadi has presented himself as an alternative to the Sunni political class tribal leaders and moderate clerics who oppose central government.

"Until now, Baghdadi's fighters have not harmed religious men … when the tribes refused to raise Isis banners in Falluja, he ordered his fighters not to raise the banner and try to co-opt the fighters of armed groups, clans or religious men," says Abbas.

Unlike the Iraqi troops facing them Isis fighters are highly motivated, battle hardened and well-equipped, analysts say.

"It also runs the equivalent of a state. It has all the trappings of a state, just not an internationally recognised one," Douglas Ollivant of the New America Foundation, told the Washington Post.

It runs courts, schools and services, flying its black-and-white flag over every facility it controls. In Raqqa, it even started a consumer protection authority for food standards.

Isis has bolstered its strength by recruiting thousands of foreign volunteers in Syria, some from Europe and the US, and is estimated to have more than 10,000 men under its control. As for resources, it counts large extortion networks in Mosul that predates the US withdrawal and in February it seized control of the financially valuable Conoco gas field, said to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, from Jabhat al-Nusra in Deir Ezzor, in Syria.

Now that it has captured Mosul, Isis is in an even stronger position to bolster its claim that it is the leading jihadi group.

"Isis now presents itself as an ideologically superior alternative to al-Qaida within the jihadi community and it has publicly challenged the legitimacy of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri," said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Doha, in a paper last month. "As such it has increasingly become a transnational movement with immediate objectives far beyond Iraq and Syria."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... mosul-iraq
Latest news.Tikrit has fallen,Turkish diplomats seized by ISIS,the camel sh*t has really hit the date palms!

Isis militants kidnap Turkish diplomats after seizing consulate in Mosul
Fighters abduct mission head and 24 staff as residents of Iraqi city continue to flee, with Tikrit also reportedly under their control

[ramana]

Philip, When the Abbasaids Caliphs took over it was same type of Sunni extremists from that very same area who led the charge.