Could A News Headline Be More Slanted Than This One from CNN?

Why the Syrian regime is killing babies

By Frida Ghitis

CNN

Editor’s note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer/correspondent, she is the author of “The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television.”

(CNN) – When a slow-motion massacre has unfolded over the course of 15 months, it’s easy to lose the world’s attention. But even the most jaded gasped in horror as news emerged of the latest carnage inflicted on the Syrian people. The images from the town of Houla defied belief.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went on asystematic killing spree, murdering at least 108 people. Most shockingly, the killers targeted women and children. A U.N. representative said the victims included 49 children who were younger than 10. The al-Assad regime denied it carried out the atrocities, but U.N. officials said they saw clear evidence that the Syrian government was involved in the attacks.

Why would a regime, even a brutal dictatorship, send its thugs to kill women and children, even babies? Does it make any sense, even by the twisted logic of armed conflict and tyranny?

India struggles with pipeline geopolitics

By Zorawar Daulet Singh

NEW DELHI – India spends more than U$400 million each day on oil imports which account for 70% of its oil consumption. For a country facing such high dependence on outside sources so early in its growth trajectory one would expect securing reliable and long-term supplies would be at the forefront of the development and foreign policy agenda.

And yet, Delhi seems to be expending diplomatic and political resources in a direction that would baffle even the most optimistic observer. Last week, the union cabinet affirmed India’s participation in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) 1,700-kilometer pipeline, which envisages a flow of gas from Central Asia into the Indian heartland.

While Afghanistan and Pakistan committed to the security of the pipeline in a December 2010 Inter-Governmental Agreement, the transit zone involved in the TAPI case is now widely acknowledged as the most tumultuous region in the world.

In Afghanistan, though the Kabul regime has received extensive international aid and military support, it is by no means assured that the state will acquire a wherewithal that can ensure the uninterrupted flow of a strategic resource like natural gas across 735 kilometers of southern and western Afghanistan, the hotbed of Pashtun resistance.

In Pakistan, the problem is magnified because the state’s capacity is weak and compromised by an ideology that is repulsed by the idea of any interdependence with India. Further, the military – the most vital state organ for underwriting the security of the 800-kilometer transit route – is nurtured by a strategic culture that strives to acquire new leverages vis-a-vis India. To place India’s energy security in the hands of an institution that has rarely been bound by international agreements would be strategically irresponsible.

So, why is this project being pursued? Perhaps, it serves to underscore India’s hope for a seamless flow of resources across the greater South Asia region. It might also be good public diplomacy as India exudes the right notes for a region condemned to irresolvable territorial conflicts.

Indeed, the US State Department spokesperson summed up US interest in this project, “You’ve got new transit routes, you’ve got people-to-people links, you’ve got increased trade across a region that historically has not been well-linked, where there have been historic antipathies which are now being broken down by this positive investment project.”

Few can dismiss such grandiose rhetoric. But to assert that the TAPI pipeline “is a perfect example of energy diversification” as the US official did, is going too far. What it actually reflects is America’s dual strategy to break the Russian monopsony on Central Asian gas and prevent the flow of Iranian gas eastward. Concern for South Asian energy security was probably an afterthought.

The pursuit of energy security is a serious endeavor and cannot be driven by or become hostage to ideological or optimistic projections of international politics. Surely, there are other more benign means to test the prospects of Central-South Asian camaraderie? A two-way flow of less strategic merchandise and people could be a start.

If energy security is a national concern, Delhi should be pursuing a geostrategy that is based on a more sensible comparative assessment of the potential lines of communication to the energy starved Indian heartland.

The severing of India’s natural lines of communication to the resource wealth of Central and West Asia was one of the great tragedies of partition. In many ways, India’s post-1947 foreign policy has struggled to overcome the geopolitical consequences of 1947 after which India became a prisoner of geography unable to forge continental geoeconomic or geopolitical links with its western periphery and beyond.

Fortunately, peninsular India has historically always provided options to craft maritime lines of communication between India and the world. Indeed, over 90 percent of India’s trade and all of its oil imports rely on maritime transportation networks. Thus, it is only logical for India to explore maritime energy routes.

In 2009, Gas Authority of India (GAIL) entered into a Principles of Cooperation agreement with South Asia Gas Enterprises (SAGE) to explore the technical viability of laying a deep-sea pipeline from West Asia across the Arabian Sea to India. According to SAGE, the cost of a pipeline from Oman to India, a project first studied in 1995, would be $4 billion (TAPI is estimated at $8-10 billion).

The gas tariff would also be lower since transit or security costs become negligible. Oman’s access to the Arabian Sea makes it a natural export hub for gas-rich states like Qatar, Turkmenistan and Iran. A direct coastal pipeline from Iran to India is not only technically challenging given the depth and turbulence of the Indus Canyon, but would also require Pakistan’s acquiescence since it would traverse near the latter’s exclusive economic zone.

In March 2011, the union petroleum minister stated in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House), “So far technical feasibility of the [Oman-India] project has not been established” and “not much progress has been made since” mid-2009. Has India’s inability to de-hyphenate its Tehran ties from its US-policy reduced the attractiveness of this project?

Russia’s strategy of systematically investing in routes that bypass politically volatile or unfriendly transit states can serve as a lesson for India. In 2005, Moscow and Berlin came together to collaborate on a project that sought to overcome the financial and geopolitical costs of transiting large volumes of natural gas through Central and Eastern Europe.

Until recently, 70% of Russian gas was transiting through Ukraine and Poland. The 1,200-kilometer Nord Stream sub-sea pipeline network, which became operational in 2011, has directly connected Eurasia’s largest energy supplier to the economic heart of Europe through the Baltic Sea.

India’s proximity to energy rich West Asia is a geopolitical advantage that most nations can only aspire for. Lines of communication, however, do not just arise spontaneously but are always the outcome of sustained political, economic and even military commitment to specific routes that are deemed stable and relatively inexpensive to sustain. This is the essence of geostrategy.

Moreover, advancement in offshore technologies and high hydrocarbon prices has made deepwater pipelines a viable proposition. Finally, the growing capabilities of the Indian navy will only complement a political initiative to pursue a sub-sea link between West Asia and India’s west coast.

It would be absurd if public diplomacy that is apparently guiding Delhi’s calculus on TAPI deflects attention from the more urgent need for a secure maritime energy line of communication to India’s economy. A subsea pipeline deserves more than a perfunctory assessment.

Zorawar Daulet Singh is Research Fellow at the Center for Policy Alternatives, New Delhi(http://www.zorawardauletsingh.com)

13 Charred Bodies Found Inside Kazakh Border Guard Post

Charred bodies of soldiers found in Kazakhstan

Police in Kazakhstan have opened an investigation into the death of 13 people at a remote military outpost near the border with China.

Former Soviet Kazakhstan shares a long border with China Photo: ALAMY

By James Kilner, Central Asia correspondent

2:31PM BST 31 May 2012

Media quoted Colonel Turganbek Stambekov, first deputy chief of the Kazakh border guard service, as saying that the charred remains of 12 soldiers and one hunter had been found at the outpost.

The outpost, though, can house 15 soldiers, local media said, although Colonel Stambekov didn’t say whether the security services were looking for three missing soldiers.

He also said the cause of the fire, and whether it was deliberate or accidental, was still unknown.

Former Soviet Kazakhstan shares a long border with China. The outpost where the bodies were found was located in the sparsely populated and mountainous southeast of the country.

All Six SCO Countries To Participate In “Peace Mission 2012″ Next Week In Tajikistan

SCO Armed Forces to Stage “Peace Mission 2012″ Drill

Xinhua

Web Editor: yangyang66

Armed forces from Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states will hold the “Peace Mission 2012″ drill in Tajikistan from June 8 to 14, Ministry of Defense spokesman Yang Yujun announced Thursday.The drill is a joint anti-terrorism military exercise launched under the SCO framework, Yang said, adding that the drill will involve more than 2,000 military personnel from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Yang said the drill will focus on the preparation and implementation of joint anti-terrorism action in mountainous areas in the context of a regional crisis incurred by terrorist activity. Yang said defense and security cooperation is an important part of relations conducted between SCO member states, adding that members have established a mechanism allowing for meetings between defense ministers and held meetings between SCO military chiefs over the last decade. Member states have staged eight anti-terrorism drills, held five security forums and conducted exchanges concerning defense cooperation and personnel training, he said. Defense and security cooperation has deepened military trust among SCO member states and enhanced their ability to cope with new challenges, he said, adding that cooperation has played a positive role in safeguarding regional peace and stability. Over the last decade, the SCO’s drills have developed from company-level tactical exercises to multilevel exercises featuring strategic consultation, battle preparation and simulated combat, he said, adding that the venues and varieties of soldiers involved in the drills have also evolved. The drills have cemented and deepened SCO defense and security cooperation, strengthened the cohesiveness of the organization and increased mutual strategic trust between China and other SCO member states, Yang said.

State of the Taliban: The secret US Forces report

[The following should be taken with a grain of salt, since it is reportedly a product of a "US Operations Team," under the authority of JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command ).  It is more likely, therefore, that it is a propaganda document, originally intended to be "leaked" to the press, even though it is allegedly a "Classified" document.  As reported below, the original SOF document contains a line of code to enable some sort of tracking, so perhaps more timid readers would want to avoid that, no matter what the report contained, settle for reading the summary.  Despite this, it could be useful in helping us understand the Taliban, on both sides of the border.  A link to the full report is included.]

We are pleased to publish copy of a classified internal document prepared by a special operations team of the US/NATO forces in Afghanistan.

What the Report Means

The report, “State of the Taliban: January 6, 2012,” is part of a regularly published series on the insurgency that’s based on the interrogations of thousands of detainees. It offers an unvarnished glimpse into the inner beliefs of the military establishment in Afghanistan for two reasons: First, as a classified document, it was intended solely for internal consumption, and second, it was put together by a special operations team working under the Joint Special Operations Command, which is responsible for the US military’s most secretive and demanding special forces missions, including the one that killed Osama bin Laden last year.

The special operations team that authored the report, known as Joint Task Force 3-10, allegedly helps oversee a “black site” prison at the largest US military base in the country, located at Bagram air base, just north of Kabul. In the introduction, the report describes how it was put together:

“Throughout the year, TF 3-10 conducted over 27,000 interrogations of over 4,000 Taliban, Al Qaeda, foreign fighters and civilians. As this document is derived directly from insurgents, it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical.”

While, as the authors note, the report is intended to be a presentation of the information they’ve gathered from detainees, in certain passages it clearly includes their own views and analysis. And though the ‘black sites’ operated by the CIA and special forces in Afghanistan have in the past been associated with detainee abuse, overall the interrogators seem notably sympathetic to the detainees’ motivations and understanding of Afghan politics and culture.

1. Who are the Taliban?

The report is remarkable for its clear-eyed view of the insurgency, a far cry from the caricature that often features in military press releases. Rather than merciless fanatics, the Taliban are portrayed as a nuanced and complex phenomenon — one deeply involved in violence and criminality, but also pragmatic and evolving, with a deep base of support among ordinary Afghans. It portrays them as motivated both by nationalistic and religious grounds:

“[Afghan government] corruption, abuse of power and suspected lack of commitment to Islam continue to provoke significant anti-government sentiment. The Taliban will be hostile to any government which appears to act as an agent of foreign powers to instill Western values.”

The report makes clear the distinction between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, whose influence is seen as dissipating under the pressure of military strikes and the loss of much of its core leadership:

“In most regions of Afghanistan, Taliban leaders have no interest in associating with Al Qaeda. Working with Al Qaeda invites targeting, and Al Qaeda personnel are no longer the adept and versatile fighters and commanders they once were. Even Taliban groups with historically close ties to Al Qaeda, such as the Haqqani Network, have had little or no interaction with them in the last two years.”

Regarding the Haqqani Network—which was accused by US officials of being behind the attack on the embassy—the report also tones down much of the hype about the Haqqanis being a distinct and uniquely dangerous force—the so-called “Sopranos of the Afghanistan war”—stating that the group is deeply linked with the rest of the Taliban:

“Though the Haqqani Network maintains its own identity and history, it remains an integral part of the Taliban. Haqqani Network personnel changes, areas of responsibility, funding, operations , and strategy are directed by the Taliban leadership in Quetta, Pakistan.”

As the report notes, the term ‘Haqqani Network’ is not even used by its members:

“The Haqqani Network will not independently reconcile, nor are they authorized to act as spokesmen for the Taliban as a whole. Haqqani Network members refer to themselves only as Taliban. The term Haqqani Network is unknown within the group.”

2. Who funds the Taliban?

The report puts to rest the oft-repeated idea of “ten-dollar Taliban,” that is, that the insurgency is largely composed of poor Afghan men who are bribed in order to fight. “The Taliban do not fight for financial gain,” it states. “Almost without exception, Taliban members do not receive salaries or other financial incentives for their work.”

The largest source of the insurgency’s funding, according to the report, comes from donations collected door-to-door in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as from wealthy Arab donors in the Gulf region. It downplays direct Taliban involvement in the narcotics trade, but notes that they do collect taxes from opium production in regions they control. It also states that corruption fed by international spending helps fund the insurgency.

3. Is the Taliban winning or losing?

The report’s authors do appear to believe that the US-led military strategy has been having an effect on the insurgency, pressuring many of them to downgrade their operations or go to ground in Pakistan. Unsurprisingly, they see the kill-capture campaign as playing a key role:

“Unrelenting, pinpoint ISAF operations targeting specific command elements have had a demonstrable effect on the insurgents’ ability to conduct operations.”

At the same time however, there is a sense that, despite the vast number of insurgents who’ve been killed or captured, the Taliban’s momentum remains unchecked.

“Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding , and tactical proficiency remains intact. [...] Despite numerous tactical setbacks, surrender is far from their collective mindset. [...] As opposed to years past, detainees have become more confident in not only their potential to win, but the virtue of their cause.”

Indeed, the report is far more pessimistic about the Afghan government:

“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban. [The Afghan government] continues to declare its willingness to fight, yet many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents, seeking long-term options in the event of a possible Taliban victory. The Taliban recognize this trend and formalized a reconciliation system of their own.”

4. How does Pakistan help the Taliban?

The report levels harsh accusations of Pakistani cooperation with the insurgency, specifically with the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, noting that “senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the Government of Pakistan.”

At the same time though, the report is more cautious when it comes to the nature of the link between the ISI and the Taliban:

“Despite widespread open-source reports to the contrary, detainees have provided little evidence of direct ISI funding of Taliban operations or training of Taliban personnel. Similarly, there have been no credible reports from detainees in 2011 of ISI directly providing weapons to the Taliban. Rather, the majority of ISI support appears to be through intermediaries.”

The fact is that these militant groups have an existence independent of the Pakistani government in the border areas, where in many cases they enjoy deep sympathy among and roots within the local population. Nor would substantial logistical from an outside party support be necessary to maintain their low-intensity guerilla operations and occasional high-profile attacks.

5. Why is Pakistan helping the Taliban?

The report offers the common refrain that Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan is largely driven by its longstanding rivalry with its neighbor to the east, India. It therefore seeks to ensure that Afghanistan’s government is friendly to itself and hostile to India—criteria that make the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai unsatisfactory:

“Hamid Karzai is perceived as deeply influenced by India, Iran and the West, and therefore a potential strategic threat to Pakistani security. Most detainees believe that Pakistan will continue to overlook any concerns with Afghan-focused insurgent groups, in order to undermine [the Afghan government.]”

At the same time, however, the report acknowledges that Pakistan has its own legitimate interests in the current conflict. The Pakistani state is deeply threatened by insurgent groups within its borders, particularly the Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan, which has declared war on the government. In order to subdue the trouble in its border areas—which has been inflamed in part by US drone strikes and the war in Afghanistan—it has attempted to co-opt militant groups and direct their energies outwards:

“The Government of Pakistan has developed an innovative strategy for subduing the TTP through a combination of clandestine diplomacy and intense military action. ISI has directed much of its effort toward undermining the TTP from within, and subsequently redirecting insurgent efforts away from Pakistan.”

6. What about Iran?

Iran has long been alleged to be playing both sides of the conflict in Afghanistan, which the report makes clear:

“The Iranians have provided moderate support to what coalition forces refer to as the Herat Insurgent Faction, or “Mujahedin of Martyr Akbari”, which is a smaller insurgent group operating primarily in Herat and Badghis Provinces. However, Iran has offered far more support to Farsi-speaking groups, many of which currently support [the government of Afghanistan], rather than pro-Taliban elements.”

PART II: The Annotated Excerpts from the Report 

The US and NATO have suffered from a long series of damaging and embarrassing leaks over the years in Afghanistan, from the massive Wikileaks cache, to Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s infamous 2008 memo, to, most recently, a top-secret cable supposedly so sensitive that Ambassador Ryan Crocker sent it via the CIA rather than normal diplomatic channels to the US (where its contents were soon leaked to the Washington Post by military sources hoping to make the case for prolonging the troop deployments.)

There have been rumors that the military has instituted a form of leak-tracing technology that embeds a unique, invisible code in each copy of a document. There is reason to believe that this might be the case with the State of the Taliban Report, so we’ve copied out certain passages, and re-created key images, in order to give you a direct look without potentially compromising our source. (The New York Times copied out the full text here, out of the same concerns.) We’ve also redacted certain information that might compromise sensitive military details or the privacy of individual detainees.

The Maps

 The report includes several satellite images that are meant to illustrate the nature of cooperation between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban. Using the grid coordinates provided in the report, we were able to find open-source satellite imagery of the same areas. We’ve also reprinted the captions from the report, but we’ve redacted the coordinates.

One image shows a Pakistani Army border checkpoint on the border between the Afghan province of Khost and the Pakistan agency of North Waziristan (note how the Pakistani border post is shown on the Afghan side of the border.) The caption describes a common complaint that’s been voiced both by US military brass and soldiers alike — that they’ve observed first-hand a cordial relationship between the Pakistani Army and militants. In many cases, Pakistan’s Frontier Corp and the Taliban are drawn from the same Pashtun tribal groups that straddle the border, so certainly they will share cultural, if not political, affinities with one another. If, as the US has alleged, attackers on the US embassy came from the Haqqani Network, which is based in North Waziristan, they might very well have used this route, or one like it, to enter Afghanistan.

Familial Residence and Meeting Location for Haqqani Network Senior Leadership, North Waziristan Agency, PK (exact coordinates redacted)

The Haqqani family madrassa has a long pedigree going back to the war against the Soviet Union, when it was a locus of mujehadin resistance in the area. Today, the Haqqani Network is alleged to remains closely associated with Pakistan’s intelligence service, and the two share an uneasy coexistence in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, where the madrassa is located.

The Detainees

Sprinkled throughout the report are boxes with photos of detainees, along with a snippet from their interrogations. (Again, these are reproductions of the images.):

This hapless detainee’s tale of woe is increasingly typical of the foreigners who smuggle themselves to Afghanistan with the intent of doing jihad against the US forces there. Al Qaeda’s central leadership has been decimated and fractured by US military pressure, and they have little operational ability to field forces in Afghanistan, like they once did. Instead, individuals like this Moroccan-German are more likely to end up with one of the ad-hoc foreign fighter groups that are associated with a small number of Taliban fronts. This individual was picked up in Zabul Province, which is one of the only areas in southern Afghanistan where foreign fighters are active.

This is strange because Burhannudin Rabbani is the former leader of the Northern Alliance who was assassinated by a turban-bomb wearing militant last year—in other words, a staunch opponent of the Taliban.

That being said, in Afghanistan there are almost always a multiplicity of clandestine and confusing ties between ostensible enemies—given the number of different factions, and the constantly shifting alliances, you never know when you may need each other. It’s possible that this guy got picked up by the US for being in communication with the insurgency.

In any case, while it may be a little hyperbolic, his warnings about a civil war and a split along regional lines point towards a gloomy possible future for Afghanistan—a repeat of what happened after the Soviets left. We know how that turned out.

 

Please click on the link below to read the full report (minus some images redacted)

FULL REPORT ” State of the Taliban”

Acknowledgements: GQ Magazine, New York Times, Guardian

Syria: The terror operation of Jeffrey Feltman

 

BY

JERRY DANDRIDGE

Formally, the U.S. regime has agreed on an UN observer mission of up to 300 UN observers in Syria, which use is initially limited to 90 days, which also means that the United States agreed that the UN Observers monitor the ceasefire from all sides and the UN Security Council Resolutions 2042 and 2043rd for a peaceful political process of the situation in Syria.

With the adoption of the UN resolutions on Syria, the Zionist-Wahhabi U.S. plan has failed. The plan included to force a “regime change” in Libya and Syria, implemented  through propaganda, terror, sanctions, and an ultimately genocidal-bombing of the resistance. These steps should prepare the long-planned military regime change in Iran.

The terrorist gangs, which are subordinated to the Zionist U.S. Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman, and which terrorize the Syrian population in fancy names like “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), “Al Qaeda”, or “Farouk Brigade” by bombings and death squads, have in the ongoing democratic process in Syria, despite the massive support of Zionist propaganda and Wahhabi networks, no chance to come to power in Syria, because they are all rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Syrian population.

But behind the scenes, the Zionists and the U.S. government continue to work hard to destabilize Syria, together with the loose combination of the “enemies of the Syrian people” (“Friends of Syria”), in order to fomenting terrorism and the armed violence, because they want to undermine the so-called UN peace plan for Syria.

The recent talks by Jeffrey Feltman with his fascist-Wahhabi friends from the “March 14″ in Lebanon (Beirut) reveal the calculus behind it.
The U.S. reign of terror thinks that it would be useful to further destabilize Syria, at least, until next year (by terrorism), in order to also weaken Iran, at least, temporarily. And by the weakening of Syria, they have also a better chance to reach a “regime change” in Lebanon – at the latest in the Lebanese parliamentary elections in 2013, but a “regime change” in Lebanon is still also possible before this date.

Ultimately, the NATO Allies, who are dominated by Zionists, want the Zionist apartheid regime over Palestine and the Anglo-American dictatorships of Wahhabi-Arabia and Qatar, with the strategy of continuously terrorism in Iran and Syria – of course, also in order to weaken the Lebanese resistance-force, Hezbollah.

Disturbing for these goals is the UN peace plan. The NATO countries agreed on the UN peace plan under the pressure by unmasked propaganda lies in April.

Also disturbing for these goals are the UN observers, who mean a danger for them, because contrary to the strong Zionist and Wahhabi propaganda, it could become more and more clear that the Zionist apartheid regime, the states of the North Atlantic Terror Organization (NATO), under U.S. leadership, as well as the feudal extreme dictatorships, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, were behind the murderous terror in Syria in the past 15 months. Thousands of Syrian people are the victims of organized terrorism (under the false flag of democracy and peace).

To end the fragile peace in Syria officially and thus to get rid of those pesky UN Observers, Feltman`s gang implemented a complex terror and propaganda operation in Syria, consisting of at least two operative parts, just on time for the visit by Kofi Annan to Damascus.

The scheduled plan of the “Feltman operation” is assumed to include the following operation steps:

The main part of the “Feltman operation” was to make sure that about 100 heavily armed Feltman bandits enter the village “Hula” (Houla) near the Syrian city of Homs. (al Houleh, allegedly a name of a Syrian region with three villages near Homs). This armed gang had the order to force chaos and bloodshed in this village. They wildly shoot around, put houses on fire and attack a building of the Syrian security forces. These armed “Feltman rebels” also conquered the hospital of the area.

The Feltman-bandits should entrench themselves in the hospital then. During the attack, the UN observers would be alarmed by the news that the Syrian security forces carry out a massacre on opposition supporters and the civil society with heavy weapons in this area near Homs.

The UN observers should come to Hula (Houlah/al-Houleh), thus that they confirm that the Syrian security forces used (contrary to their obligations under the six-point peace plan by Kofi Annan) heavy weapons in the city. The UN Observers should also monitor the withdrawal of the Feltman-terrorists, who should pretend to be Syrian civilians and that they have defended the hospital against the violent Government forces.

This process would then be used to blame the Syrian government, at least, “semi-officially” confirmed by observers from the UN, with a serious breach of UN resolutions, in the commitment to the ceasefire.

The second part of the Feltman-operation was that some terrorists, with a short run-up to the major surgery, go to the nearby villages, such as al-Shumariyeh, and carry out simple massacre of innocent families to push this horrible violence in the shoes of the Syrian government.

The armed charge of this part of the Feltman operation should murder defenseless people, or especially children and women, the more senseless and cruel the better.

Afterwards, the Feltman-terrorists should take videos and pictures with the murdered victims, which were killed by them. The armed gang should pretend that they are neighbors, who just found the victims by accident.

Then they should explain that the victims were members of friendly families of them and also opponents of the Syrian governments, who were just killed by Syrian security forces. These armed people should also strongly indicate that the Syrian security forces are very close to them, namely in Hula, i.e. where the main operation of the complex Feltman-operation takes place, and currently carry out a massacre there, thus that UN observers are urgent and quickly needed in this area.

With the help of the satellite uplinks, which are described as “non-lethal opposition assistance” by the NATO and GCC countries, which also have provided this, the videos, taken by the Feltman-terrorists, should be uploaded to the Internet, so that the videos can be massive disseminated with the help of the Zionist-Wahhabi propaganda apparatus.

Subsequently, the part of the second Feltman operation should flee and also make the prosecution of them more difficult by e.g. arson.

The main task of the second part of the Feltman-operation was to ensure, that the gruesome pictures and videos of the operation in Hula (Houla/el-Houleh) quickly spreads over the whole world and gets disseminated in all media, so that UN observers quickly come to Hula in order that the desired propaganda effect of the local operation works; and e.g. will not fail because of lower coverage.

After the successful completion of the whole operation should the emerging branch of the Feltman-terrorists, called “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), make a public statement that it is no more possible for them to comply with the ceasefire of the UN resolution(s).

The co-operating regimes of states of NATO and the GCC should then condemn the Syrian government and declare their solidarity with the Feltman-terrorists. Afterwards, the governments should declare in a new UN Security meeting that they drop the previously UN Resolutions and stop the observer mission.

Of course, this should also include that they declare in public to supply the Feltman-terrorists in Syria with weapons and that they threaten Syria again, like it happened at the previous UN resolutions, with an aggressive war on humanitarian reasons.

The ceasefire agreement would thus officially ended, the UN observer mission to monitor the ceasefire would be over and the progress of the disturbing campaign of the UN observers in Syria, which were counterproductive for the terror plans, would also be no more problem, though perhaps not immediately, but no later than the end of the 90-day period.

Significant parts of the Feltman-operation succeeded as they were planned. The killing of innocent women and children in al-Shumariyeh was managed by the Feltman-terrorists, without getting caught by Syrian government forces in the horrible act. The massacres were also pushed by the Zionist-Wahhabi propaganda networks as planned; for example, the German news http://www.tagesschau.de and http://www.spiegel.de published this as top news.

This news in the leading media of the NATO countries was also given the needed headlines, so that it was mentioned that forces of the Syrian government could have massacred civilians, women and children in Hula – “Massacres in Syrian Hula: Opposition complains about dozens of dead children” and “Activists speak of massacres – apparently 110 dead after attacks in Syria” and so on.

Notorious lackeys of the Zionist lobby, such as the German and French foreign ministers, also have immediately condemned the Syrian government in public and also very harshly, as it were scheduled.

But in some parts of the Feltman-operation, it did not work as planned.

Some numerous German media in the NATO state Germany have reported, while citing “exile groups”, that strangers went from house to house and that these “insurgents” have indiscriminately murdered people, including children.

This created a risk that contrary to the scheduled scenario to make the Syrian government responsible for the horrible crimes of the Feltman-terrorists, that a “third force” could appear again. But with the crimes of the terrorists, the Syrian government forces should be made responsible, that was the Feltman plan. While heavy weapons like tanks and artillery should be named as murder weapons, because that was the only way to accuse the Syrian government that they have broken the ceasefire.

But the pictures of the murdered children reveal, however, at least in some cases, that they were purposefully murdered by shots from close in or with the help of stabbing, cutting and slashing. Victims of artillery look different.

This mistake leads to new difficulties for the Feltman-terrorists. The attempt to establish the general opinion, that these franctireur (“insurgents”) belong to pro-government forces, which were backed by Syrian security forces, was threatening to fail. It threatened to reach the public, that it actually were the Feltman-terrorists who have committed the horrible crimes.

While numerous German media have subsequently removed the term “insurgents” (franctireur) from their coverage of the Feltman-massacre, some propaganda outlets had this term also in the headlines and all know that the Internet has a persistent memory.

The Feltman-terrorists have made also a mistake in the presentation of the children in their propaganda movies. It is, for example, very evident that the Feltman-terrorists, who have filmed themselves and also have pretended to be neighbors and friends of the dead children and people, handled the bodies of the children like a raw piece of meat and not like friends and neighbors would do it.

Unplanned was also that the Syrian authorities have discovered some victims of the second part of the Feltman-operation already before the start of the operational phase of the main part of this horrible false-flag operation, and therefore the timeline of the story of the Feltman-terrorists has some problems.

Also the UN observers have not reacted in the way as it was scheduled by the Feltman-terrorists. The UN observers did not rushed to help immediately as it was planned by the operation of the Feltman terrorists and despite the cruel policies of the second operation part, so that the withdrawal of the Feltman-terrorists did not work out as planned.

Instead to use the expected propaganda line of the Feltman-terrorist tune, the UN observers condemned the murderous violence without naming a specific party in the conflict as guilty. The UN Observers have condemned the violence in the strongest terms, without accusing one of the sides. They also came to the place when the safety was restored and not on time as it was scheduled by the Feltman-terrorists.

It remains unclear whether the Feltman-terrorists and their NATO-GCC supporters are able to succeed in the manipulating the investigation of the UN Observers. It remains also unclear of the barbaric terrorist operation by Jeffrey Feltman will have the scheduled results – a long-running civil war in Syria to weaken Iran and Hezbollah.

Based on / Source: http://nocheinparteibuch.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/die-feltman-operation/

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Germany must not destroy the European order for a third time

By Joschka Fischer

The Daily Star

Europe’s situation is serious – very serious. Who would have thought that British Prime Minister David Cameron would call on eurozone governments to muster the courage to create a fiscal union – with a common budget and tax policy and jointly guaranteed public debt? And Cameron also argues that deeper political integration is the only way to stop the breakup of the euro. And this from a conservative British prime minister! The European house is ablaze, and 10 Downing Street is calling for a rational and resolute response by the fire brigade.

Unfortunately, the fire brigade is being led by Germany, and its chief is Chancellor Angela Merkel. As a result, Europe continues to try to quench the fire with gasoline – German-enforced austerity – with the consequence that, in a mere three years, the eurozone’s financial crisis has become an existential crisis for Europe.

Let’s not delude ourselves: If the euro falls apart, so will the European Union (the world’s largest economy), triggering a global economic crisis on a scale that most people alive today have never experienced. Europe is on the edge of an abyss, and will surely tumble into it unless Germany – and France – alters course.

The recent elections in France and Greece, together with local elections in Italy and continuing unrest in Spain and Ireland, have shown that the public has lost faith in the strict austerity forced upon them by Germany. Merkel’s kill-to-cure remedy has run up against reality – and democracy.

We are once again learning the hard way that this kind of austerity, when applied in the teeth of a major financial crisis, leads only to depression. This insight should have been common knowledge; it was, after all, a major lesson of the austerity policies of President Herbert Hoover in the United States and Chancellor Heinrich Bruning in Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Unfortunately, however, Germany, of all countries, seems to have forgotten this reality.

As a consequence, chaos looms in Greece, as does the prospect of subsequent bank runs in Spain, Italy and France – and thus a financial avalanche that would bury Europe. And then? Should we write off what more than two generations of Europeans have created – a massive investment in institution-building that has led to the longest period of peace and prosperity in the history of the continent?

One thing is certain: A breakup of the euro and the EU would entail Europe’s exit from the world stage. Germany’s current policy is all the more absurd in view of the bitter political and economic consequences that it would face.

It is up to Germany and France, Merkel and President François Hollande, to decide the future of our continent. Europe’s salvation now depends on a fundamental change in Germany’s economic-policy stance, and in France’s position on political integration and structural reforms.

France will have to say yes to a political union: a common government with common parliamentary control for the eurozone. The eurozone’s national governments already are acting in unison as a de facto government to address the crisis. What is becoming increasingly true in practice should be carried forward and formalized.

Germany, for its part, will have to opt for a fiscal union. Ultimately, that means guaranteeing the eurozone’s survival with Germany’s economic might and assets: unlimited acquisition of the crisis countries’ government bonds by the European Central Bank, Europeanization of national debts via Eurobonds, and growth programs to avoid a eurozone depression and boost recovery.

One can easily imagine the ranting in Germany about this kind of program: Still more debt! Loss of control over our assets! Inflation! It just doesn’t work!

But it does work: Germany’s export-led growth is based on just such programs in the emerging countries and the United States. If China and America had not pumped partly debt-financed money into their economies beginning in 2009, the German economy would have taken a serious hit. Germans must now ask themselves whether they, who have profited the most from European integration, are willing to pay the price for it or would prefer to let it fail.

Beyond political and fiscal unification and short-term growth policies, Europeans urgently need structural reforms aimed at restoring Europe’s competitiveness. Each of these pillars is needed if Europe is to overcome its existential crisis.

Do we Germans understand our pan-European responsibility? It certainly does not look that way. Indeed, rarely has Germany been as isolated as it is now.

Hardly anyone understands our dogmatic austerity policy, which goes against all experience, and we are considered largely off-course, if not heading into oncoming traffic. It is still not too late to change direction, but now we have only days and weeks, perhaps months, to act, rather than years.

Germany destroyed itself – and the European order – twice during the 20th century, and then convinced the West that it had drawn the right conclusions. Only in this manner – reflected most vividly in its embrace of the European project – did Germany win consent for its reunification. It would be both tragic and ironic if a restored Germany, by peaceful means and with the best of intentions, brought about the ruin of the European order a third time.

Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice-chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a leader in the German Green Party for almost 20 years.

THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate-Institute for Human Sciences © http://www.project-syndicate.org.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on May 30, 2012, on page 7.

YouTube Carries Anti-Syria Massacre Videos, Despite Ban On Showing Dead Bodies

“YouTube is not a shock site. Don’t post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies or similar things intended to shock or disgust.”

 U.N. observer head in Syria discovers 13 bound corpses

By Bassem Mroue

The Daily Star 

Screen Shot of  Executions in the field Diralzor – Alsger 13 bodies unknown 

BEIRUT: U.N. observers have discovered 13 bound corpses in eastern Syria, many of them apparently shot execution-style, the monitoring mission said Wednesday.

The announcement comes days after a massacre in Houla, in the central Homs province, which killed more than 100 people and prompted worldwide condemnation against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The Syrian government denied its troops were behind the killings and blamed “armed terrorists.”

The latest killings apparently happened in Deir el-Zour province. The corpses were found with their hands tied behind their backs, according to a statement by the U.N. mission. Some appeared to have been shot in the head from a short distance.

The head of the U.N. observer team, Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, said he was “deeply disturbed by this appalling and inexcusable act.”

The violence in Syria is spiraling out of control as an uprising against Assad that began in March 2011 has morphed into an armed insurgency.

In the wake of the Houla massacre, the United States and several other countries expelled Syrian diplomats to protest the killings. Survivors blamed pro-regime gunmen for at least some of the carnage in Houla.

The U.N.’s top human rights body planned to hold a special session Friday to address the massacre. Violence also continued elsewhere unabated. Syrian forces bombarded rebel-held areas in the same province where the Houla killings occurred, although no casualties were immediately reported, activists said.

Damascus had said it would conclude its own investigation into the Houla deaths by Wednesday but it was not clear if the findings would be made public.

Syria’s state-run media on Wednesday denounced the diplomatic expulsions as “unprecedented hysteria.”

The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria ordered top Syrian diplomats to leave on Tuesday.

Turkey, Syria’s neighbor and a former close ally, joined the coordinated protest on Wednesday. Turkey has been among the most outspoken critics of the Assad regime. It closed its embassy in Damascus in March and withdrew the ambassador. Its consulate in Aleppo remains open.

The Foreign Ministry said it ordered the Syrian charge d’affaires and other diplomats at the Syrian embassy in Ankara to leave the country within 72 hours. The consulate in Istanbul will remain open for consular duties only.

The Foreign Ministry said it also reduced the number of its personnel in the consulate in Aleppo, Syria, on Wednesday.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said new unspecified sanctions might be imposed against Syria in the coming days. The world “cannot remain silent in the face of such a situation,” he said.

Japan also ordered the Syrian ambassador in Tokyo to leave the country because of concerns about violence against civilians. Japan’s foreign minister, Koichiro Genba, said his country was not, however, breaking off diplomatic ties with Syria.

The announcements came a day after the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria ordered top Syrian diplomats to leave.

Syria’s ally, Russia, criticized the diplomatic moves.

“The banishment of Syrian ambassadors from the capitals of leading Western states seems to us to be a counterproductive step,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said. He said the move closes “important channels” to influence Syria.

U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan met with Assad on Tuesday in Damascus to try to salvage what was left of his peace plan, which since being brokered six weeks ago has failed to stop any of the violence on the ground.

The Al-Baath daily, the mouthpiece of Assad’s Baath Party, said Syria won’t be intimidated by such “violent rhythms” and would remain standing in front of such “ugly, bloody and dramatic shows.” It added that “Syria will not tremble as they think.”

The government’s Al-Thawra newspaper also blasted the Western decision, calling it an “escalation that aims to besiege Annan’s plan and inflame a civil war.”

Tensions have escalated as more information emerges about the May 25 killings in Houla.

The U.N.’s human rights office said most of the 108 victims were shot execution-style at close range, with fewer than 20 people cut down by regime shelling.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said there are strong suspicions that pro-Assad fighters were responsible for some of the killings, casting doubt on allegations that “third elements” – or outside forces – were involved, although he did not rule it out.

Meanwhile, activists said Syrian troops shelled restive suburbs of Damascus and rebel-held areas in the central city of Homs on Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees said at least five people were killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma. Both groups had no details about casualties in Homs, which is the provincial capital of the province that includes Houla.

(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

Azerbaijan Neutralizes Terrorist Bomb Plot Linked To Dagestan “Islamists”

Azerbaijan Thwarted ‘Terror Attack Plot’ during Eurovision

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية

by Naharnet

Azerbaijan foiled an attempt to stage “terrorist” attacks while it was hosting the Eurovision Song Contest last week and arrested dozens of suspected plotters, the security ministry said Wednesday.

“The main goal of the group was to stage terrorist acts in Baku during Eurovision,” the National Security Ministry said in a statement. “As a result of the measures taken, 40 members of the group were arrested.”

The group was planning attacks on the concert hall where Eurovision was held, on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, police buildings, hotels used by foreigners, mosques and other religious sites in the ex-Soviet state, it said.

The plotters “obtained Eurovision tickets with the aim of (committing) a terrorist act at the Baku Crystal Hall” where the pop competition was held, it said.

They were allegedly planning to hit the oil-rich, mainly Muslim country’s strongman leader Aliyev during his visit to Azerbaijan’s north-western regions last month.

They also intended to target the luxury Hilton and Marriott hotels in Baku by blowing up cars packed with explosives, according to the statement.

Security services detained the alleged gang during operations in the cities of Baku, Ganja and Sumgayit as well as several other regions of the country, the ministry said without giving dates.

“The National Security Ministry opted not to disseminate information about neutralizing the group during Eurovision in order not to provoke panic among citizens and foreign guests,” it said.

Some of the alleged plotters put up armed resistance and two suspects were killed, both of them Azerbaijani citizens, the statement said.

A large amount of firearms and explosives was also allegedly seized when the suspects were detained.

The plot was said to have been hatched during a meeting between three of the suspects and what the statement described as “Dagestani emirs” across the border in the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan in February 2011.

“The goal was to create an atmosphere of anarchy, to spread panic among citizens,” the ministry said.

After the attacks, the group was planning to hide in the forests of Dagestan and wait for more armed militants to join them, it said.

Eurovision, watched by more than 100 million people worldwide, was the biggest cultural event staged in Azerbaijan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The authorities spent hundreds of millions of dollars building the Crystal Hall venue and beautifying the capital ahead of the competition in an attempt to win acclaim for the Caspian Sea state previously known mainly as an energy exporter on Europe’s eastern fringe.

The contest’s grand final on Saturday was won by Swedish singer Loreen.

The Azerbaijani security services have thwarted a series of alleged attack plots in recent months, accusing some of the suspects of having links with neighbor Iran.

SourceAgence France Presse

India’s Poison Roots and Its Democratic Fruits

IndianNerve

SEE LARGER IMAGE

Baloch Rebels Claim That Pak Forces Massing South of Quetta, Laying Landmines On Public Roads

[Pakistan "plowing the road" ahead of TAPI pipeline laying?]

Preparations of massive military offensives are underway in Balochistan: BSO Azad

Balochistan: The central spokesperson of Baloch Students Organization, (BSO) has said that preliminary preparations of a gory military operation in a massive scale are underway in Balochistan. 

According to spokesperson’s statement, massive deployment of enemy forces have taken place in strategic area of “DashtGoran” in Kalat, “Laje” In Kharan, “AhmedWaal” in Noushki, and “Nimmurg” in Kalat. Expressing concern of collective punishment by forces the BSO (A) spokesperson said that standing crops of the poor Baloch peasants have been destroyed by armed forces and the water resources have been sprayed with chemical poisons. People are not being allowed to commute to cities to buy ration. All out and inlet routes of the areas have completely been blocked with the establishment of new check posts.

The spokesperson further said that preliminary preparations are the preamble of another gory military operation in Balochistan. The statement said that the forces laying landmines, in a large scale, on the general thoroughfares for common people commute. Citing an example the spokesperson said that a few days back, a landmine in “Samalo” of Kalat area exploded killing two innocent people.

Urging the international community the BSO spokesperson said that on humanitarian ground, it is their moral duty to prevent Pakistan from laying landmines and committing human rights violation in Balochistan so that human catastrophe is stopped before it started in the near future, because the mobilization of Pakistani armed forces on the large scale in Balochistan are the indications of a dangerous gory operation.

Translated By Archen Baloch
Courtesy: Dailytawar.com courtesy http://www.dailytawar.com/khabra_page/t12.htm

The Three Rogue Nations–Producing Order Out Of Chaos

[The researchers of the following article make some interesting points about the "modus operandi" of the global Shadow Government and their world destabilization plans.  NWO manipulators and trouble-makers share common occult beliefs in simple axioms, such as "Order out of Chaos," or "As above, so below," which apply to all of their sinister machinations. 

We know that their plans for a New World Order faithfully rely upon these beliefs to bring "order out of the chaos" which they create.  We know that they are acting upon those beliefs, when they try in so many ways to bend the people of the world, to recondition their minds into conformity to the masters' wills.  We know that one of their primary beliefs is that "thoughts create reality," so we also know that the world of chaos which they are shaping around us is but a reflection of the sick, demented fantasy worlds which exists inside their own big heads.  Is it possible to dream a new reality and then watch it take shape?  Can the conscious mind really be redirected by tampering with the sub-conscious?

How is it that "order" is brought out of "chaos"?  Can we believe our own eyes, or our own minds, when trying to counter disruptive forces that are constantly directed at us?  No, we cannot believe our own thoughts, when we live in a world run by men who have developed elementary mind-sciences.  We cannot believe our own perceptions, because those perceptions are not our own, not of our own making.  The new order slowly rising-up around us is based on managed perceptions that are drip-fed into our belief systems thanks to the wonders of television. 

In response to the theme of the following report, about three separate destabilization centers (Colombia, Israel and Pakistan), the "wars" we are fighting there are not real wars, just as the perceptions we share about the chaos radiating outward from those trouble-making regions are not real perceptions.  The wars and our perceptions about them are manufactured for us, implanted within our minds without our knowledge or awareness.

The Chaos, just like the wars and the false perceptions are not real, because they are all managed forms of conflict.  The chaos is not chaos, because there is always a secret current of control, leading back to the Shadow Government.  What we have is the perception of anarchy and chaos, when the truth is, the violent storms we see brewing across the face of the earth are not as chaotic as they appear to be.   A limited war is not actually a state of "war," but more closely resembles a show, a managed stage production, replete with sets, players and scripts, to carry the central plot forward, right into our sheep-like fuzzy heads. 

They control us by controlling what we think.  I think that it will be a New Day for all of mankind when we learn to look behind the seeming chaos and see the real "Devil in the details."  At that time, it will be true that those who have placed themselves above us all will be brought down low, justlike the rest of us.]

 by cosmicconvergence2012

When Corrupt Governments Are Formed and Maintained To Oversee State-sponsored Criminal Enterprises

Israel, Colombia and Pakistan share something in common which can only be properly explained when looking at the world geo-political chessboard through the lens of the New World Order (NWO) leadership. Each of these nations plays a pivotal role in their respective regions of the planet. Their roles are decidedly different from what you might expect of a sovereign nation, especially since they are engaged around the clock in so much illicit and clandestine behavior.

Of course, we all know that Israel was artificially created to drive a HUGE wedge into the oil-producing and political power structure of the Middle East. All the Arab and Muslim nations in that region are ‘perfectly’ controlled by this one tiny country possessing undeclared nuclear weaponry. Only through British and American coercion could such a theft of land from the Palestinians have been blessed by the United Nations in 1948, the year that the modern State of Israel was made official.

Likewise, the British artificially created Pakistan to perform the same chaos-producing function throughout south-central Asia. Only in the wake of Indian independence could such a Muslim nation have been formed through the granting of statehood to Pakistan by India in 1947. It has been in the middle of every regional conflict ever since by design of the World Shadow Government. The significant role that Pakistan plays vis-a-vis India, China, Afghanistan, Iran and other nations throughout the region is indisputable. That they possess nuclear weapons is again no accident.

Columbia was created as the drug capital of Western Hemisphere to perform a similar function throughout Central and South America. Even though it came into its own more recently than the other two during the sixties and seventies, it was being prepared by the world powers shortly after the end of WWII. Columbia has enjoyed remarkable success as an NWO bully for as long as drug running has been conducted. From its strategically located launchpad at the junction point between Central and South America, Columbia has controlled the drug trade throughout the entire continent – to the North and the South – until now.  

Throughout history we find a very powerful regional dynamic operating at the nexus of war and drugs. Israel, Columbia and Pakistan each illustrate the profound degree of control and chaos which can be generated by such a nexus. Israel actually functions as the international headquarters for the global drug trade. Things have not really changed since 1000 BC when Phoenicia (modern day Israel and Lebanon) was the major trading capital of the world. Well, it still is as it concerns the administration of worldwide drug running operations. There are very significant reasons why Israel appears to act with absolute impunity as it sits in the driver’s seat of the international drug cartel, as we shall soon see.

 

Afghanistan, Mexico and Lebanon

There is a dimension to this geo-political game which is often overlooked. These three rogue nations work in tandem with three other nations (often against their will) in their respective regions. In each case the tandem nation is used by the superpowers to sow seeds of great distraction and major confusion. Running interference in this manner permits the real culprits to get away with a lot more than they would otherwise be able to.

What better way to create order out of chaos than to marry drugs and war wherever there’s a convenient fit. What we find is a very well-planned intersection between war-making and drug running. If there’s not a real combat war going on, they simply create a War on Drugs or leftist guerilla war. Makes no difference who the new fabricated enemy is as long as enough pandemonium and mayhem is created to give cover for the drug running.

In Mexico it’s the drug cartels against the military and police. In Afghanistan we have NATO fighting the Taliban or anyone with a turban. And, in Lebanon we see the threat of war hanging over the head of its citizens every day, of every year for decades. See how each of these nations is really quite innocent of making mischief in their neighborhood; however, they are used by NWO controllers to fulfill a very important agenda.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how Israel and Lebanon, Columbia and Mexico, and Pakistan and Afghanistan relate to each other, especially where it concerns the global War on Drugs. Mexico has turned into a cauldron of drug wars unparalleled in modern history. Afghanistan has been invaded for its lucrative poppy seed production by the world powers over centuries. Where Israel is the world capital for both synthetic drug manufacturing and designer drug dissemination, Lebanon has been a major conduit for their movement and worldwide distribution.

Each of these tag teams demonstrate the NWO strategy of order out of chaos through war on civilian populations and the subsequent business of drug-running. The three rogue nations attempting to accomplish the same political, military and economic goals alone (for their masters, of course) could not even come close. This is one reason that Israel, Pakistan and Columbia have been the recipients of such an inordinate and disproportionate amount of financial assistance for decades. Billions of unaccountable dollars have been funneled to each of these countries ostensibly for defense in the form of military hardware and weaponry. There is virtually no way to track the use of the huge sums of money received by these rogue nations, so why else do they receive it year after year? Their military might is undoubtedly bolstered by additional transfers of military technology and weapons programs.

Answer:
The mere threat of military aggression must be plausible if they’re to be effective at controlling their neighbors. See how Israel threatens Iran daily; Pakistan threatens India regularly and Columbia threatens Venezuela whenever the USA wants them to. Talk about henchman whose main purpose is to keep all the neighbors on on pins and needles.

Where Mexico has provided a lot of cover these past many years for Columbia, Afghanistan has done the same for Pakistan. Lebanon has played a much more murky role in Middle Eastern geo-politics as seen during the last war between Israel and Lebanon. Israels’s northern neighbor is a nation under constant threat because of its dangerous proximity to the locus of real political power and strategic military capability within the Middle East.

Incidentally, what was that last war between Israel and Lebanon really all about anyway? A alleged kidnapping of a single Israeli soldier by Hezbollah triggers a full scale war response. Lebanon responds with a complete lack of defense of its sovereign territory? The country takes virtually no initiative to protect its own citizenry?! Israel’s war posture looked like a purposeful and calculated over-reaction. And so it was … to fertilize the field of military aggression for much bigger things to come. As well as confuse the appearance of the actual relationship that exists between Israel and Lebanon concerning covert commercial interests and ongoing collaborations around sabotaging the Mideast peace process.

Israel, Pakistan and Columbia: Change is on the horizon for all three

What has just been written about these three historically rogue nations may soon be a thing of the past. How so?

Some major developments have recently taken place which speak to profound changes in the way these 3 nations have been administered by the World Shadow Government. Major recent events in Columbia, Pakistan and Israel, particularly in relation to the USA, are testimony to a huge shift in the relationship which has been cultivated for decades. Many headlines have recently appeared in the MSM that reflect an unprecedented turning point in the waning influence of US political and military muscle, which has been ‘dutifully’ exerted on behalf of the World Shadow Government[1].

Part II of this series will reveal and elaborate on those changes.

Cosmic Convergence Research Group
Submitted: May 28, 2012
cosmicconvergence2012@gmail.com

Endnotes:
[1] Excerpt from “New World Order as Global Financial Matrix Self Destructs” by T. Anthony Michael (The Market Oracle: November, 2008)

©2012 Cosmic Convergence 2012®. All rights reserved
Permission is granted to post this essay as long as it is linked back to the following url: http://cosmicconvergence.org/?p=876

Blackwater agents involved in Syria unrest: Political analyst

Press TV

 

The agents of the US company Blackwater are operating inside Syria and are involved in the deadly turmoil in the Arab country that began in March 2011, a political analyst tells Press TV.

“We have real evidence now that the Blackwater company is working in Syrian territories,” said Taleb Ibrahim, a political analyst from Damascus, in an interview with Press TV on Monday.

Ibrahim also stated that there is a “third party” inside Syria that “wants to undermine” the six-point peace plan put forward by UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan in March.

“I accuse directly the Turkish intelligence and the Saudi intelligence and the Qatari intelligence.”

Over the past few months, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have expressed support for arming of the Syrian rebels.

The political analyst added that the third party seeks to “prevent any political resolution for the crisis in Syria.”

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011. Many people, including security forces, have been killed in the turmoil.

While the West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of the killings, Damascus blames ”outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

Sporadic clashes between Syrian forces and armed groups continue in Syria despite a ceasefire that took effect on April 12, and was part of the Annan plan.

Zionists’ Nabucco Pipe Dream Scuttled By BP

[Did you know?]

The name Nabucco was derived from a Verdi opera, which ” follows the plight of the Jews as they are assaulted, conquered, and subsequently exiled from their homeland by the Babylonian King Nabucco (short for Ital. Nabucodonosor, Eng. Nebuchadnezzar).”

Or that–

DELTA NIMIR KHAZAR LIMITED, UNOCAL KHAZAR, LTD, two of the ten corporations merged with the Azeri state oil co. in the SOCAR Corp.

In 1996, Delta Oil Company formed a joint-venture with Nimir Petroleum Company, a company controlled by Osama Bin Laden’s brother in law, financial backer, and sponsor of international terrorism Defendant Khalid Bin Salim Bin Mahfouz. This joint venture was known as Delta Nimir Khazar Limited.  Khalid bin Mahfouz is the former Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (or “BCCI”)

BP punches Nabucco below the belt

UK oil major BP said it was no longer considering shipping gas from its Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan through the Nabucco pipeline, dealing a blow to the troubled European project. But the European Commission said the “full-scale version” of Nabucco was still the main option under consideration.

Iain Conn, BP’s head of fuel refining and marketing, said in a speech last week that BP and Azeri state oil group Socar were now considering only two options for the pipeline’s route to Austria – a smaller, pipeline from the Nabucco consortium, known as “Nabucco West”, and the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP).

“Nabucco West” is a shorter line that would run from Turkey’s western border through Bulgaria and Romania to Austria. The full-scale Nabucco project involves new pipes all the way from Azerbaijan to the Baumgarten gas hub near Vienna.

BP: An interested party

BP is an interested party in the race for the Southern gas corridor and it is not the first time that the company makes statements harming Nabucco’s interests. One year ago, German energy giant RWE, a Nabucco shareholder, blamed BP for expressing concerns about Nabucco’s viability.

A major source for the Southern gas corridor is the Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, which is being developed by BP and Statoil of Norway, as well as by the Azeri state energy company Socar and some others. It is estimated to contain 1.2 trillion cubic metres of gas.

BP has its own pipeline project from Turkey through Bulgaria to the Romanian-Hungarian border, called the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP). Unlike Nabucco, SEEP is expected to make use of the existing gas infrastructure.

A “southern” branch of the Southern gas corridor running from Greece to Italy, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), is at an advanced approval stage. TAP’s Managing Director Kjetil Tungsland recently told EurActiv that for the “northern” branch, Socar would choose between SEEP and Nabucco West, and make a decision this summer.

An Austrian newspaper quoted today a Socar official who played down the statements by the BP official.

“We informed BP that we do not agree with this comment. BP apologised and described the comment as a private opinion,” Socar’s deputy head Elshad Nassirov was quoted as saying in an interview from Baku, printed by Die Presse.

EU still has faith in Nabucco

The full-scale version of the Nabucco pipeline is still under consideration, the European Commission said on 25 May. “To our understanding, the Nabucco classic version, is still on the table,” Commission energy spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said,  quoted by Reuters.

For the European Union – which is seeking to reduce its reliance on Russian gas – the name of the pipeline is not the most important thing, she added in emailed comments.

Rather it is crucial that the “content is Nabucco”, Holzner said.

Germany’s RWE says it is likely that the original plans for the Nabucco gas pipeline will still be discussed, even if a proposed shorter route is picked, board member Leonhard Birnbaum said.

“We are confident that Nabucco West will win the bid, and then I still think that the original Nabucco concept will be discussed again,” Birnbaum told Reuters in e-mailed comments.

Russia sees Nabucco as dead

In the meantime, the Russian press wrote that Nabucco was “unlikely to survive summer”. Russia is pushing forward its own project, South Stream, largely intended to make Nabucco irrelevant (see background).

Gennady Shmal, head of the Union of Russian Oil and Gas Producers, is quoted as saying that Azerbaijan has only a small amount of gas to supply to the Nabucco pipeline after meeting its domestic needs and fulfilling its contracts with Turkey and Georgia.

Regarding another possible supplier – Turkmenistan – Shmal says that it would not have much gas left for export to the West either, having already constructed two gas pipelines to China and building a third one. 

EurActiv.com

Jordan has denied reports of plans to deploy on its territory of U.S. military bases

Photo EPA / ITAR-TASS 

 

Kuwait, May 29. (ARMS-TASS). Jordan appeared in today denied media reports about the existence of a plan to host the permanent U.S. military bases, which can subsequently be used for intervention in neighboring Syria.

“Relationships of Amman and NATO are strong, but they do not imply its consent to the placement of U.S. bases on the territory of the kingdom. This question is not considered” – the newspaper “Al-Ghada” statement senior Jordanian representative.

As argued May 20 American newspaper “Washington Post,” the U.S. is carried out with several partner nations defense planning in case of a whole series of new crises in Syria, including the seizure of its chemical weapons by militants. Referring to the officials in the security forces and U.S. Middle Eastern countries, the publication notes that such military planning includes “at least seven states.” It’s Israel, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, as well as the main foreign ally of the Americans – Britain.

© ITAR-TASS.

UN Spokesman Says Most Houla Victims “Were Executed,” Not Killed By Artillery

Syria crisis: Most Houla victims ‘were executed’

BBC

Most of the 108 people killed in Syria’s Houla region on Friday were summarily executed, the UN says.

A spokesman for the UN’s human rights office says witnesses told investigators that pro-regime militias carried out most of the killings.

Survivors have described gunmen entering homes, firing indiscriminately and slitting the throats of children.

The UN statement comes as UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is meeting President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told journalists in Geneva that initial investigations suggested that fewer than 20 of the victims in the village of Taldou, near Houla, were killed by artillery or tank fire.

“Most of the rest of the victims in Taldou,” he added, “were summarily executed in two separate incidents.”

Earlier, survivors who spoke to the BBC said that those who carried out the killings were militiamen – shabiha – from nearby Alawite villages.

Mr Annan called the massacre “an appalling moment with profound consequences”.

‘Murderous folly’

Ahead of his meeting with President Assad on Tuesday, the former UN secretary general said the Syrian government had to take “bold steps” to show it was serious about peace.

The BBC’s Jim Muir, in neighbouring Lebanon, says it is make-or-break time for Mr Annan’s peace plan, and he has to get something out of his visit to stop the drift towards a vicious sectarian civil war.

Under the plan, both sides were meant to stop fighting on 12 April ahead of the deployment of monitors, and the government was to withdraw tanks and forces from civilian areas.

Western leaders have expressed horror at the killings, and the UK, France and US have all begun moves to raise diplomatic pressure on the Assad government.

France is convening another meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria group, which Russia does not take part in.

“The murderous folly of the Damascus regime represents a threat for regional security and its leaders will have to answer for their acts,” said President Francois Hollande’s office.

However Russia, who supplies arms to the Syrian government and has blocked UN resolutions calling for action against Damascus, said on Monday that both sides bore responsibility for Friday’s massacre.

On Tuesday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern that “certain countries” were beginning to use the Houla massacre “as a pretext for voicing demands relating to the need for military measures to be taken”.

Syrian leaders insist that the massacre was the work of hundreds of armed rebels, whom they called “terrorists”, who massed in the area and who carried out the killings to derail the peace process and provoke intervention by Western powers.

BBC Busted Trying To Inflate Casualties In Houla Massacre by Reposting Old Photo from Iraq

Posted on the BBC news website today under the heading

“Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows.”

The photograph was actually taken by Marco di Lauro in Iraq in 2003 

By Hannah Furness

Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.

The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.

It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.

The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.

A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

Tapi – still a long, long way to go

BR RESEARCH

The long wait is finally over as the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) has finally been inked between Pakistan and Turkmenistan on the much-hyped TAPI gas pipeline deal. Although, the government is obviously claiming it as a key milestone towards the completion of the project – it is anything but…

It has taken no less than 17 years for Tapi to just sign the GSPA, as the idea was originated back in 1995. How much more will it take is anybodys guess, but experts opine that even if everything goes fast-paced, it won be completed before 2016-17, as a lot of issues from awarding contracts to agreeing on transit fees, security premiums, arranging finances and the product price are yet to be drafted.

It is ironic that it has taken such long time to even reach at the beginners level, whereas China, on the other hand, originated the pipeline plan with Turkmenistan in 2003 and it was up and running by 2009. Chinas project was very identical to Tapi in terms of project cost, pipeline distance and quantity of gas imported. The only difference was that China was far more serious and focussed and more importantly its route faced no security concerns.

Tapi, which is backed by the US for obvious reasons faces one security obstacle too many as it is designed to pass through the troubled areas of Herat and Kandhar in Afghanistan and Quetta in Pakistan. The US in all likelihood will have left Afghanistan, if and when Tapi comes online, which will leave it on the mercy of either Taliban or militants in Pakistan.

This is why, experts argue that IP gas pipeline is a much more viable alternative for Pakistan, which carries low risk and could be completed much quicker as Iran has completed the bulk of work on its end. Moreover, the gas price too, is expected to be $2/mmbtu lower than Tapi, but since Iran faces US sanctions and Pakistan faces US pressure, the financing of IP remains troublesome. That said Iran is willing to offer assistance in financing of the pipeline project and the Pakistan government also has the room to utilise a decent sum of money collected via Gas Infrastructure Development cess. But, combating the American pressure remains the biggest obstacle in the progress of IP pipeline.

If the ongoing talks between Iran and UN on the nuclear programme bear some fruit, the IP dream could come an inch closer. But, Tapi will remain a distant dream, as industry sources claim that without security guarantee, it would be next to impossible to reach agreements on pricing and transit fees with other countries and the security premium attached to the project might well be over and above the project cost itself.

Pakistan finds itself between a rock and a hard place – where it has a more viable option for the taking but can go for it – and the other one seems an ambitious project with strong backing. It is time Pakistan uses its diplomatic channels wisely and opt in its best economic interests as succumbing to international pressure have not and will not yield results and energy security would remain an elusive dream.

Russia Says Assad Forces, Rebels to Blame for Syria Massacre

Both government forces and rebels were responsible for this weekend’s massacre in Houla, Lavrov said

© REUTERS/ Shaam News Network

MOSCOW, May 28 (Marc Bennetts, RIA Novosti)

Both government forces and rebels were responsible for this weekend’s massacre in the Syrian town of Houla, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.

“There can be no doubt that the authorities used artillery and tanks,” Lavrov said after talks with his U.K. counterpart William Hague in Moscow.

“[But] guilt should be apportioned objectively,” Russia’s top diplomat said. “It takes two to tango.”

Lavrov also said “dozens of players” were involved in the current violence in Syria.

At least 108 people, around a third of them children, were killed in Houla, near the former rebel stronghold city of Homs, according to United Nations observers. The UN Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent, veto-wielding member, unanimously condemned the Syrian authorities on Sunday over what it says was “an outrageous” attack.

“We are insisting on the carrying out of a probe into what happened in Houla,” Lavrov went on. “We need to understand how this happened to make sure it will never be repeated.”

Russian deputy UN ambassador Alexander Pankin told journalists ahead of Hague’s visit that Moscow did not rule out that the killings in Houla were a “provocation” carried out by rebel forces ahead of a visit by UN peace envoy Kofi Annan to Syria on Tuesday. He also refused to rule out the participation of foreign special forces in the attack.

The Kremlin has opposed attempts to impose UN sanctions on its ally, Syria, where Russia maintains its only foreign military base, over what Western powers say is the brutal suppression of a now more-than-one-year uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow, which continues to arm Damascus, says proposed UN resolutions on the violence-stricken country betray a pro-rebel bias.

Russia has, however, given its full backing to UN envoy Kofi Annan’s faltering six-point peace plan for Syria and Lavrov reiterated on Monday that Damascus needed to show more decisiveness to end the violence in the Middle Eastern country.

Hague said that the U.K. accepted that rebel forces bore responsibility for some of the violence.

“We are not arguing that all violence in Syria is the responsibility of the Assad regime, although it has the primary responsibility for such violence,” he said.

Both Hague and Lavrov insisted that Annan’s peace plan was the only way forward.

“We are very much agreed that the Annan plan is the best hope for Syria,” Hague said, adding that the alternatives were ever increasing chaos in Syria, and a dissent closer and closer to all out civil war.”

Lavrov said that Russia was applying pressure “daily” on Syria, but that it believed certain other countries were not fully committed to Annan’s plan.

“Russia has particular role in applying pressure,” Lavrov said. “We sense from our contacts that some other forces are not committed. We support Kofi Annan’s plan and they should do everything for this to succeed…There should no be external interference.”

Moscow has condemned Western suggestions that regime change in Syria is the solution to the spiral of violence, and Hague was keen to stress on Monday that Assad’s immediate fate was not the main concern.

We have said all the way back from last August that finding a solution involves him standing aside,” Hague said. “But the important thing is that the Annan plan is pursued. That is now the urgent priority.”

And Lavrov said the main thing for Moscow was not who was in power in Syria, but a successful implementation of Annan’s plan.

“The main thing is stopping the violence, and to create a political dialogue among the Syrian people. Everything else is secondary,” he said. “And if we want to stop the violence, we have to work together with the regime and the opposition. Kofi Annan’s plan is about consensus.”

Hague and Lavrov’s talks came as Syrian opposition activists alleged that over 40 people, including women and children, had been killed in the city of Hams by government artillery attacks and shelling.

Egypt’s Election Results: Palestinian Victory & Zionist Defeat?

Franklin Lamb

The official results of the first round of the historic Egyptian presidential elections, the first ever in Mother Egypt where the results were not known in advance, present an encouraging snapshot of “new democratic Egypt” given that close to 50% of Egypt’s approximately 50 million eligible voters, some standing in line to vote in scorching heat for hours, will not be officially announced until late May. It appears, based on exit polls and information from the Muslim Brotherhood media office, that the two candidates who will face each other in the June 16-17 final round of voting will be the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi (25%) facing Mubarak-era Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq (24%). Mr Mursi and Mr Shafiq represent very different strands of Egyptian society. Mr. Shafiq will continue to draw his support from people fearful of an Islamist takeover, and those exhausted by the upheavals of the past 16 months. Both finalists will carry substantial political baggage into Round Two. While Mursi will have the vast and competent Muslim Brotherhood organization working during the next two weeks to get out the vote for him, as well as the support of most Islamist parties, his candidacy still faces pervasive voter doubt over having the long outlawed MB control both the Egypt’s Parliament and its Presidency. Egyptian voters appear to be worrying that this kind of broad power effectively is too similar to the Mubarak era and also eliminates checks and balances needed to moderate MB’s pledge to enact Sharia law and to honor its commitment to scrap military rule. The following statement by the MB’s Mohammad Mursi, delivered just last week at a Cairo University campaign rally is raising concern: “The Quran in our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path, and martyrdom in the service of God is our goal.  We shall enforce Islamic Sharia, and shall accept no alternative to it.” Israel and the US will back Mr. Shafiq in various ways and he will benefit from the view that he represents Egypt’s military, many of the countries wealthy and powerful more conservative voting blocks, the business community, Coptic Christians, ( roughly ten percent of the voters) who understandably seek security above all else, and many others who will vote for what they calculate to be the “lesser of two evils”. Yet barring surprises such as ex-President Hosni Mubarak being found innocent of all charges on June 2 when the verdict is to be announced in his case, which many lawyers are predicting is exactly what will happen, Mohammad Mursi will very likely prevail in the mid-June run-off and become Egypt’s first democratically elected President. Many Middle East analysts, including American University of Beirut political sociology professor Sari Hanafi, believe this result will be good for the more than five million Palestinian refugees in the diaspora, those still under Zionist occupation in their own country, and welcomed by all who view the Palestinians full Return to their still occupied country and the dismantlement of the one remaining 19th century colonial enterprise, as a long overdue historical imperative. The Prime Minister of the Palestinian government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, declared on Thursday that “The Egyptian presidential election results will have a very positive affect on the course and future of the Palestinian cause as well as the role and place of the Muslim people in the world.” Haniyeh knows that the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas evolved, is highly sophisticated politically and while it tries to avoid attracting condemnation, or worse, from Washington and Tel Aviv, the MB intentions regarding Camp David, giveaway gas and other deals with Israel, and even diplomatic relations with the occupiers of Palestine are clear. A majority of Egyptians believe all will eventually be discarded as will the remaining 19th century colonial enterprise itself. Hamas officials have also acknowledged that they are looking more to Egypt and the Brotherhood for support as they move away from Syria and a top Hamas official, Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, settled in Cairo after fleeing the unrest in Syria and maintains close ties with the Brotherhood. Mursi has a long history of criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. He has referred to Israel’s Foreign Minister Lieberman as a “vampire” and the settler movement as “Draculas.” Mr. Mursi has also criticized the Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas for what he called gullible collaboration with Israel for believing they would voluntarily accept a Palestinian state, and he has praised Hamas for resisting the Israeli occupation. Brotherhood leaders have said they intend to use their influence with both Fatah and Hamas to urge them to compromise with each other to press Israel to recognize a Palestinian state. “The Brotherhood will gently pressure Hamas to be more pragmatic, although that is a direction that Hamas is already moving,” according to Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Doha Center. Speaking with MB representatives in Cairo and Beirut over the past several months, the party’s position expressed to this observer is that the common thread that stitches together all the continuing regional uprisings can be described as a fundamental quest for dignity and the casting off of humiliation either from western imposed despotic regimes or from their illegitimate and aggressive agent, Israel. Even before the completion of Egypt’s first democratic elections, which long-time election monitor Jimmy Carter has just labeled “very encouraging”, there is broad recognition in Egypt that basic dignity demands the return of Palestine and its holy places, not just to the 1.5 billion Muslims and nearly as many Christians worldwide, but to all people of good will. While no official MB decisions have been published regarding relations with Gaza and occupied Palestine, signs are everywhere from non-enforcement of Mubarak-Israeli-American pressures on Rafah, Gaza, travel and trade prohibitions that full normalization of relations between Egyptians and Palestinians under occupation is imminent. And Israel and its American lobby know it and are preparing. On Capitol Hill, and among the more than 60 intensively active and well-funded pro-Zionist organizations in the US, a campaign has already begun to neuter the Egyptian voter’s choice next month as surely as was achieved during the three decades of Mubarak rule. A couple of examples. AIPAC has launched a campaign to have the Obama administration, during the run-up to the coming election, now barely six months away, demand three things from the Mursi government: that the Mother Brotherhood scrap  key elements of its political program and disassociate itself for “Islamism”, that it publicly pledge to fight “terrorism” i.e. the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, and that the MB pledge  in writing to fully abide by the Camp David accords. Washington,  according to Israel  must insist that Egypt not only maintain its peace treaty with Israel, but Obama must tell the Brotherhood that any referendum on the Camp David Accords will be interpreted by the US as an attempt to destroy that agreement. According to Israeli government promoter Dennis Ross, “In recent conversations, Brotherhood leaders have expressed their belief that they would not be blamed if the treaty were revoked by a nationwide vote, as seems likely. They need to be told otherwise.” When measured against what the MB stands and has struggled for since its founding  in 1928 by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna as well as  the growing demands of the Egyptian public coupled with regional pleas for Egypt’s new government and to restore Arab and Muslim dignity, these Israeli-US demands are patently absurd. Ever in the service of Israel, Elliot Abrams, writing in the Zionist Islamophobic Weekly Standard, is proposing an approach that appears as fanciful and misguided as his WMD 2002-3 schemes to get the US to attack Iraq on behalf of Israel or his continuing five year campaign to get the US to bomb Iran for Israel. Abrams is arguing recently, apparently seriously, that since the MB will be Egypt’s new government, Israel can still prevail if his advice is followed. Obviously unhappy with the prospect of the Muslim Brotherhood governing Egypt, Abrams does what he is paid to do for Israel, i.e. he metaphorically paints Pigs hoping they will look like Princesses. Eliot is publicly blaming the US for not “standing by the Mubarak regime like the Russians are with Syria’s.”  He declared “Had Mubarak and the Army played their cards better; Shafiq might have been Mubarak’s successor without the harmful uprising that Egypt has experienced. Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel with all its blessings would be secure. Now, unless Shafiq wins, Camp David is finished but we (Israel?) still have some excellent options.” Abrams and elements of the Zionist lobby are telling Congress that “Israel must support Egypt’s “liberals” meaning, people who believe in democracy, liberty, and the rule of law rather than Islam as the guiding principles of Egypt and that the predicate must be that the electorate believes the MB had a clear chance and failed them.” He continued,“ If Shafiq were to win many Egyptians will believe the elections were stolen by the Army and the old regime’s machine, and in any event power will be divided between the MB on one side and the Army and president on the other. There will be no clear lesson to learn when conditions in the country then continue to deteriorate given that the previous annual 6.5 billion foreign infusion into Egypt’s economy has reversed to a current annual  $500,00 outflow with foreign investors fleeing and tourism in down  40% from when Mubarak was in charge.” Interestingly, Abrams and other spokesmen for AIPAC and the Zionist lobby are arguing that Mubarak’s most recent Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq’s victory next month is not necessarily something Israel and the West should favor or work to arrange. Given that the MB is the leading party in parliament and with the Salafists having an Islamist majority there, Abrams claims that this is actually good for Israel since its lobby will organize Congress to push the idea that MB control of both parliament and the presidency is dangerous and, “we can hold them and all Islamists in Egypt absolutely responsible for what happens to Egypt with its myriad problems and thus 100 percent of the responsibility for Egypt’s fate will drop on the MB.” Abrams continues, “If the MB’s Mursi wins and he will, the MB will be in charge–and be forced to deliver. And when they fail, as they will give Israel’s key friends in the international business community, it will be absolutely clear who was to blame and this is good for Israel. What is in Israel’s interest is to support Egypt’s military which it has worked closely with for years and encourage the army to fight with all its tools for its interests”. Abrams summarizes his thesis in an AIPAC email to donors: “So as far as Israel is concerned, a Mursi victory should not be mourned; given the situation in Egypt, in this election we can assure that the loser will pity the winner. Two cheers for Mursi! Now let’s get to work.” Franklin Lamb volunteers with the Sabra-Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.

Air Force Reservists To Be Deployed As First Wave of American Police State

Defense Department Seeks Legal Authority to Deploy Reservists onto American Streets

Susanne Posel  Occupy Corporatism

Thanks to Posse Comitatis, the US military are forbidden from responding on the streets of America whenever the whim is announced.

The Posse Comitatus Act, Section 1385, states that only under “circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress” can the military presence on American streets is allowed.

Yet, if the Defense Department has their way, a new authorization act will give them the power to order the armed forces to be used against the American public.

Air Force reservists are slated to be the new response team for domestic disturbances. Disseminated from Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) and other reserve agencies, these men and women could be called to be first response to natural disasters within the US. The legislation would extend mobilizations for indeterminate periods of time.

The AFRC affirms that reservists are traditionally not used in “homeland disaster response”. The governors of individual states can request the National Guard’s assistance during a natural disaster when local law enforcement becomes overwhelmed.

Our reservists have been asked and often volunteer to assist after disasters hit the homeland,” said Lt. Gen. Charles E. Stenner Jr., chief of Air Force Reserve and AFRC commander. “Mobilizing needed reservists will help sustain their support for longer periods and make operations more efficient. We mobilize reservists to handle contingencies overseas, so it makes sense that we do that to take care of our own country.”

Because of the specialized training that reservists are given in dealing with disasters, the US government has decided they would be perfect as a first response team.

Earlier this month, in Crookston Minnesota, there were armed US National Guardsmen that were patrolling a residential neighborhood .

These functions are called “urban operations training” where military personnel carry armed weapons with the command not to “utilize armory or pyrotechnics”.

Within the Air Force Reserve, there are other specialized units such as response personnel, supplies and equipment focused on disaster scenarios.

As recent as 2008 saw our National Guard unit in America under NORTHCOM as “domestic security”.

Stenner proclaims that this new authority will allow the armed forces to make greater contributions to Americans should there be a natural disaster. He is referring to the frustration chiefs of reservist experience because they are “unable to help their communities.”

The push for over-reaching authority allocated to the armed forces will negate local reservist’s purpose by Title 10, which gives them federal power that supersedes state authority in Title 32.

Armed Forces chiefs claim that there were reserve-component Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who were close at hand with the capabilities needed, but they didn’t have the authority to act,” said Army Lt. Gen. Jack C. Stultz, chief of Army Reserve. “Finally, we got the law changed. This new legislation says that now we can use Title 10 reserves.”

Without a declaration of emergency or disaster from the President, these armed forces could not act. With this new ability, they can . . . whenever and for whatever purpose they are ordered to.

The law specifies that local law enforcement is still mandated to provide initial response; yet if needed, the National Guard will become the first step requested by a state governor.

And then there is the matter of scenario that allows reservists to be deployed for a promised 120 days, which could be extended based upon request. “We just have to make sure we have the procedures and processes worked out,” Stultz remarked about the specifics that are now being worked out to avoid confusion of authority later on.

Stultz is very anxious to have this power at his fingertips. “Let’s not wait until a hurricane hits to say, ‘How do we do it?’”
These reservists are going to be the response team for any future (and assured) “overseas contingencies”.

As operations in the Middle East are winding down, Stultz can now refocus his attention on militarizing America.

2012 Ukrainian Parliament Fight, Part 2–After the Eggs and Smoke Subsided

These guys really know how to debate a bill!

Part 1

TAPI: A bridge too far? – Part I

May 27, 2012
M K Bhadrakumar, specially for RIR

While the TAPI signifies a rare regional initiative and may even herald a turning point in the tortuous history of the India-Pakistan relationship, it may also queer the pitch of the great game rivalries over Central Asia.

 

Gateway to “New Silk Road”

 

At the Caspian resort of Avaza last week, a milestone came into view in the geopolitics of energy in the Central Asian region when the petroleum ministers from New Delhi and Islamabad and their counterpart from Ashkhabad presided over the ceremony of the signing of a landmark agreement that takes the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, commonly known as ‘TAPI’ one step – possibly, a big step – to reality.

 

A project that was often ridiculed as a two-decade old “pipedream” finally seems to assume habitation and a name.

 

However, the paradox lies in that while the TAPI signifies a rare – even unprecedented – regional initiative and it would have a calming effect on several templates of the South Asian security scenario and may even herald a turning point in the tortuous history of the India-Pakistan relationship, it may also queer the pitch of the great game rivalries over Central Asia. The overlapping shadows of regional and global politics fall on it.

 

The clear winner, of course, will be Afghanistan, whose prospects of stabilization would look much less dismal if only TAPI got off the drawing board. The big question, of course, is the “if”.

 

The Indian officials have expressed the hope during media briefings in New Delhi that the 1735-kilometre pipeline, which would carry 90 million standard cubic meters [mmscmd] – of which 14 mmscmd would be bought by Afghanistan while India and Pakistan each would get 38 mmscmd for a 30-year period – will be operational by 2016. The initial expectation was that the gas for the pipeline would be sourced from the Daulatabad gas fields in Turkmenistan, but Ashkhabad has since suggested that the sourcing would be from the massive South Yolotan fields.

 

The most enthusiastic proponent of the project is the Asian Development Bank, which has played a lead role in coordinating and facilitating the TAPI negotiation process over the past 10 years. The ADB funded the feasibility study for the project and is expected to finance one-third of the cost of the project at the implementation stage. Following last week’s signing ceremony in Turkmenistan, a senior ADB official sounded euphoric: “This is a truly historic moment of unparalleled regional cooperation… The pipeline represents a win-win scenario for each TAPI country… marking this not only the ‘Peace Pipeline’, but a pipeline to prosperity as well.”

 

Close on the heels of the ADB has been the United States, although for a variety of different reasons. Washington sees the TAPI as the perfect antidote to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline concept, which it has been strenuously attempting to stifle but with mixed results so far. While India buckled under the US pressure and backtracked from the IPI and remains ambivalent over its future options, Pakistan has shown the gumption to press ahead with an Iran-Pakistan segment of the IPI keeping the hope that New Delhi might have a change of heart some day and rejoin the project.

 

Washington has described the TAPI as a “regional strategic priority” from many angles and has extended backing to it in a demonstrative way. For one thing, as recently as in March, the senior advisor to the US’ special envoy for Eurasian energy Daniel Stein flagged openly, “We would like to see a US company involved at some point in TAPI.”

 

Indeed, Washington and the TAPI idea go back a long way to the early 1990s even as the Taliban was being formed as a Pakistan-Saudi-US joint venture and projected as a superior force on the Afghan political landscape to replace the chaotic Mujahideen rule. Then too, the US got involved in the “stabilization” of Afghanistan under the Taliban, which would pave the way for the TAPI.

 

The US oil major UNOCAL most certainly funded the Taliban at some point in the mid-1990s and the oil major hosted in Texas a high-level delegation deputed by Mullah Omar for discussions on an energy pipeline from Turkmenistan. The present Afghan President Hamid Karzai served UNOCAL as a consultant, too.

 

Suffice to say, the Karzai government’s reported claim today that the Taliban have agreed not to disrupt the TAPI pipeline project despite their so-called “resistance” to the occupation by the US and NATO forces, may sound unreliable against the overall backdrop of the fragile security situation, but one cannot be dismissive of it, either.

 

“Key example of regional integration”

 

Of course, the US strategy today has assumed further dimensions beyond the race for the Caspian oil. Washington has scarcely missed an opportunity in the recent period to christen the TAPI as a “New Silk Road” project, whose unspoken agenda is to roll back the Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia and to integrate the countries of the region with the western market.

 

The US state department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said last week: “The TAPI is a perfect example of energy diversification, energy integration done right. We are very strong supporters of the TAPI pipeline… We consider it a very positive step forward and sort of a key example of what we’re seeking with out New Silk Road Initiative, which aims at regional integration to lift all boats and create prosperity across the region.”

 

Nuland added, “In this case, the case of the TAPI pipeline, you’ve got private sector investment, you’ve got new transit routes, you’ve got people-to-people links, you’ve got increased trade across a region that historically has not been well-linked, where there have been historic antipathies which are now being broken down by this positive investment project that’s going to give jobs, it’s going to give more energy, it’s going to give more technology to the people of all these countries.”

 

In essence, Nuland eloquently repeated the stated altruistic purpose of the New Silk Road project. Clearly, TAPI qualifies the description of being a “regional strategic priority” in the US’ regional policies. Turkmenistan, in particular, is emerging as a key supplier of energy for China. It began supplying gas to China through a newly built pipeline funded by Beijing, in 2009; a second route has also come online and the full capacity of the pipeline that reaches Xinjiang and connects with China’s 8000-kilomtere long East-West energy grid, is expected to touch 40 billion cubic meters by 2015. The Turkmen pipeline, which passes through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan as well, is the most visible locomotive of Chinese expansion in Central Asia. The pipeline virtually obliges China to step forward as a provider of security for the region.

 

Meanwhile, even as the Russian monopoly over Turkmenistan’s energy reserves has suffered some erosion in the recent years, the US’ robust campaign to prise Turkmenistan away from the orbit of Russian influence by connecting that country with the western market directly through various trans-Caspian pipelines has come to nothing. In particular, the prospects are that the Nabucco gas pipeline project, which was a flagship of the US campaign to tap into the Turkmen gas reserves bypassing Russian territory, is becoming moribund.

 

Indeed, if the latest Russian plan to build a second Nord Stream pipeline via the Baltic Sea to Germany and western European countries goes ahead in 2013, Nabucco’s fate will be sealed for the foreseeable future. Besides, the US itself has appeared as a supplier of Shale Gas to the European market. Thus, the TAPI is the only show in town for the moment for the US in the theatre of Caspian energy, which makes it difficult to exaggerate the project’s significance to the overall American strategy under the rubric of the “New Silk Road.”

 

To be continued

India To Guarantee Safe Transit for TAPI Gas Through Both Afghanistan and Pakistan?

[This is either state insanity of the worst kind, or proof that TAPI negotiations are a complete sham and India is a key part of that misleading process.  This would require the stationing of Indian troops in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Right.

Then again, it might be that India is able to influence the militants of the Baloch Liberation Army, as reported here, enough to convince the militants to keep their fight with Pakistan away from an India-protected pseudo-"Peace Pipeline."]

India to guarantee safe gas transit from Tapi

New Delhi: India will pay USD 13 for buying natural gas through the much-celebrated Tapi gas pipeline and will take indirect responsibility for safe transit of the fuel through high security risk areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

India on May 23 signed agreement to buy natural gas from Turkmenistan at a rate equivalent to 55% of crude oil price which, at USD 100 a barrel, translates into USD 9.17 per million British thermal unit, sources privy to the development said.

After adding transit fee and transportation charges, the gas through Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (Tapi) line would cost USD 12.99 per mmBtu at Indian border, three times the price paid to ONGC and Reliance Industries for producing natural gas from domestic fields, they said.

The rate agreed to flies in the face of oil ministry which has been stonewalling any increase in price to be paid to domestic producers arguing that a higher gas price would lead to an increase in power tariff and cost of fertiliser, thereby entailing higher government subsidy outgo, they added.

Besides the higher price, India has also in the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) signed in Caspian Sea resort of Avaza, Turkmenistan agreed to take delivery of natural gas at Turkmen-Aghan border.

State-run gas utility GAIL India, which signed the GSPA, will then entrust the delivery of the gas to a consortium which will operate the Tapi pipeline, they said, adding that GAIL will be a prominent member of the consortium building and operating the 1,680-km line.

Sources said GAIL will pay Turkmengaz, the national oil company of Turkmenistan, on delivery of gas at Turkmen-Afghan border. Thereafter, the consortium which will have GAIL as partner, will take responsibility for transit of the gas through Afghanistan — one of the top high security risk countries in the world, and terrorism hotbed Pakistan.

The safe transit of gas through 735-km stretch of the pipeline in Herat and Kandahar province of Afghanistan had a slim fighting chance in the past decade as Nato was still in the nation once ruled by Taliban.

The western troops pullout by 2014 from the still volatile Afghanistan has put a question mark on safe transit, the sources said.

Tapi pipeline is nearly 1,680-km long and the transit length in Afghanistan is 735 kilometres and in Pakistan is nearly 800 km or more. The 56-inch diameter pipeline is expected to cost USD 7.6 billion.

It will run from Turkmenistan’s Yoloten-Osman gas field to Herat and Kandahar province of Afghanistan, before entering Pakistan. In Pakistan, it will reach Multan via Quetta before ending at Fazilka (Punjab) in India.

Turkmenistan would export 90 million standard cubic meters per day of gas through Tapi, with Afghanistan getting 14 mmscmd and India and Pakistan 38 mmscmd each.

The gas will be sourced from the Yoloten Usman field, which ranks among the five biggest fields in the world. The field is being developed by Turkmensitan national oil firm Turkmen Gas.

Meanwhile, on pricing, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas R P N Singh had on May 22 told the Rajya Sabha that Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has stated that its Krishna Godavari basin deepsea gas find is not viable at a rate less than USD 5.2 per mmBtu.

ONGC’s UD-1 find in block KG-DWN-98/2 sits next to Reliance Industries’ KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block for which the government has fixed USD 4.205 per mmBtu as gas price.

Sources said if domestic producers are paid a higher price, the government gains most by way of higher royalty and taxes and profit petroleum it would earn.

PTI

Who Is Responsible for Houla Massacre?

Al Qaeda guy, in black, with UN in Syria. Some al Qaeda-affiliated fighters departed from Iraq to join the rebellion against Assad in Syria, Iraqi officials say. Website

HOULA MASSACRE

AANGIRFAN

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on May 25, 2012, allegedly shows the bodies of Syrian children who were killed in a deadly shelling by regime forces in Houla in the central province of Homs (AFP Photo / YouTube)

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) has said that ‘armed terrorist groups’ were responsible for the violence in Houla which reportedly killed 92 people.

Over the last few months many armed criminals have been arrested in Syria. Among these criminals there were 26 foreign Terrorists (many of the Al-Qaida members).

Reportedly, the terrorists are:

1. Suhail al-Saqasli – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 22 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida2. Majdi al-’Iyari – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 28 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida3. Muhammad al-Tarabulsi – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 29 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida4. Usama Hadhli – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 28 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

5. Walid Daffar – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 29 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

6. Sami Kamal – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 28 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

7. Bilal al-Iyari – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 05 April 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

8. Fahad Salih – Nationality: Libyan – Date arrested: 11 April 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

9. Fadi Musa – Nationality: Lebanese – Date arrested: 12 December 2011 – arms, ammunition and narcotic pills into the country from Lebanon on behalf of armed terrorist groups in Syria.

10. Rida Bay – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 29 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

11. Muhammad Dayfallah – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 14 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

12. Abu Bakr Bubtan – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 8 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

13. Wisam Halimah – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 7 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

14. Ramadan Sultani – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 7 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

15. Muhammad May – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 7 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

16. Abdulrahim Shibli – Nationality: Egyptian – Date arrested: 3 January 2012 – Armed terrorist who acted in concert with an armed terrorist group to attack army and security forces.

17. Ahmad Munaba’ah – Nationality: Jordanian – Date arrested: 3 August 2011 – Armed terrorist who acted in concert with an armed group to attack army and security forces.

18. Mas’ud Ghumah – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 8 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

19. Wahid Fadil – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 8 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

20. Bilal al-Marzuqi – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 28 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

21. Haykal Tuwayti – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 10 March 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

22. Uqbah al-Nasiri – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 02 April 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

23. Amin Nasibi – Nationality: Tunisian – Date arrested: 01 April 2012 – Charge: membership of Al-Qaida

24. Muhammad Amir – Nationality: Lebanese – Date arrested: 19 October 2011 – Member of an armed group that attacked Syrian military and security personnel.

25. Ayman Maghribi – Nationality: Palestinian-Lebanese – Date arrested: 27 October 2011 – Armed terrorist who intentionally committed acts of destruction and murder in concert with armed groups;  took up arms and attacked army and security personnel.

26. Ghazi Najm – Nationality: Lebanese – Date arrested: 22 December 2011 – Smuggling arms, ammunition and armed terrorist groups into Syria from Lebanon; participated in attacks against army and security services checkpoints.

Syrian Free Press

New Massacres by al-Qaeda-linked Terrorist Groups.

An Al Qaeda in Syria video has come to light.

It shows al Qaeda in Syria holding up the al-Qaeda flag.

Some of them wave the green-white-and-black flag of the CIA-run Syrian rebellion.

Al Qaeda flags in Syria.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s has stated that al-Qaeda was responsible for the blast outside one of Syria’s top intelligence services on 10 May, which reportedly killed 55 people and wounded 372.

“A few days ago there was a huge, serious, massive terrorist attack. I believe that there must be al-Qaida behind it,” Ban said at the UN headquarters in New York. “This has created again very serious problems.”

One Helicopter Kills 8 Family Members In Afghan Airstrike

[This is the death toll from a single US/NATO airstrike from a single helicopter.   How many Afghan children total have we killed?   Please allow me to answer my own question--As of the end of 2011, the Pentagon accepts responsibility for at least 3,120 civilian deaths  in Afghanistan since the beginning of the terror war.   Kind of puts that Syrian civilian casualty report into perspective, doesn't it?  How could a helicopter makes such a mistake, when they can hover over a target long enough to learn whether they are destroying the right house, or not?]

8 family members killed in airstrike

by Daud Tapan

GARDEZ (PAN): Eight members of a family, including children and women, were killed in an airstrike in the southeastern province of Pakita, an official said on Sunday.
The incident took place on Saturday evening when the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) helicopter bombed a house in the mountainous area of the Garda Serai district, the governor’s spokesman said.
Rohullah Samoon told Pajhwok Afghan News that the children and women were among the eight innocent people killed in the airstrike.
Three women, four children and a man were killed in the airstrike that hit a house in the Pakhri village, a tribal elder of the district, said on condition of anonymity.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that civilians were killed in the air attack.
In a statement, ISAF said they were pursuing a group of insurgents in the area  when the incident happened and they have launched a probe to check whether civilians were killed.

TOTAL, 2007-2011

8,558

3,120

1,115

12,793

66.90

Why Do So Many Journalists Pretend That the Saudis and the US Part Company Over Islamization?

[Washington embraced Wahabbism long ago, as a primary instrument of US foreign policy.  American gullibility allows faux-journalism to continue pretending that this connection between American foreign policy and the spread of the "global jihad" doesn't exist, or that US presidents have broken their connection with "jihadi" ideology after the end of the anti-Soviet crusade in Afghanistan.  The "global jihad" is the brainchild of the CIA--always has been, always will be.  As long as their are "Islamist militants" overthrowing governments that solid connection will remain intact. 

Wake-up Americans! 

You have been swallowing the lies and following the liars for far too long.  Every president since Reagan has used Islamist jihadis as the principle tool in the American toolbox, only we have always allowed them to pretend that this military process of sowing jihad was actually something called "limited warfare," or "conflict management."  Until We the People open our eyes to these obvious facts we will continue to fight unwinnable conflicts--BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY THAT THE PENTAGON WANTS IT.  What else explains the fact that the greatest military that money can buy, for the world's only "Superpower," has not won a single war since WWII?

I can't say it any plainer than this--

The CIA  continually creates the wars that American soldiers die in, while the President of the United States keeps giving the murderous spy agency the "green light" to start new wars for the express purpose of causing the bloody dismemberment of American troops and all of their innocent victims.  Every battle of the so-called "terror war" has been fought against CIA mercenary armies.  The real Army wages war against the CIA's "Blackwater" armies.  Why else do so many of us call them "Al-CIA-da"?

All that the treasonous American and British media can see, are the child victims of our terrorist aggression against Syria, only they report it as "Syrian aggression."  Go figure.... 

Why are they so blind to the piles of child victims that American and allied forces have piled high?]

Why the Saudis’ Downfall Could Impact America

By Erick Stakelbeck

CBN News Terrorism Analyst

WASHINGTON — The so-called Arab Spring just passed the 15-month mark and continues to leave chaos in its wake. Dictators are falling and radical Islamists are filling the gap across the Middle East and North Africa.

Now Islamists have their sights on a bigger prize, and it could send shock waves through the United States.

Saudis in Brotherhood’s Crosshairs?

The power gained by the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies throughout the Muslim world during the past year has also led to a growth in confidence.

They call 2011 the year the dictators fell, in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. In 2012, the Brotherhood is targeting the monarchies.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia sit on top of the list, and the Saudi royal family has wasted no time getting ahead of the game.

When anti-government protests broke out in neighboring Bahrain last year, Saudi tanks rolled in to keep unrest from spilling over the border.

Then, after governments fell in Tunisia and Egypt, the Saudi royals moved to appease their own restless subjects with billions of dollars in new welfare and housing programs.

“It is absolutely bribery. That’s what it is. When this uprising started, they started getting nervous,” said Dr. Ali Alyami, of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia.

Alyami believes the Royal Family’s days are numbered.

“The Saudi people suffer from corruption, lack of political freedom, lack of religious freedom, lack of press freedom, injustice, no accountability, no transparency,” he told CBN News.

“So the same problems that led all of these Arabs to take to the streets are in Saudi Arabia,” Alyami said. “So regardless of all the bribes — they know it, actually — they are not going to be spared the wrath of the people.”

Cost of Oil Dependence

So what would that mean for the United States? For decades, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have maintained an uneasy alliance based on oil.

On February 14, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt met with the Saudi King Abdulaziz on the U.S.S. Quincy and struck a deal.

“We Americans had fallen in love with our automobiles, and they were impoverished and needed a source of revenue, and they had oil under their earth,” explained Sarah Stern, author of Saudi Arabia and theGlobal Islamic Terrorist Network.

Since then, America’s reliance on Middle East oil has only grown. And from hand-holding to bows, successive administrations have shown deference to the Saudi monarchs. Stern said that deference has come with a high price.

In her book, she argues that from spawning 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, to spending billions to build radical mosques and Islamic schools worldwide, the Saudis have been willing accomplices to the global jihad.

“Any time anybody wants to open a mosque all they have to do is call Mecca or Medina and the Saudis will send an imam or they certainly send all their material,” Stern told CBN News.

“So here we have within the United States, the same kind of extraordinary anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-Israeli, anti-America, and certainly anti-humane materials that are being studied judiciously and religiously by young American Muslims,” she said.

That includes the Islamic Saudi Academy outside Washington, D.C. Controlled by the Saudi Ministry of Education, the K-12 school has been investigated for using textbooks that teach students to hate non-Muslims.

“They’re saying that Christians and Jews are the enemy, that Christians and Jews are infidel – that the struggle with Christians and Jews will continue and that Jihad can be used to spread the faith of Islam,” Nina Shea, of Freedom House, told CBN News.

Although the Saudis build mosques and schools throughout the West, churches, synagogues, Bibles, and Torahs are all banned in Saudi Arabia: the birthplace of Islam.

The most recent example of Christians’ suppression occurred in December, when 35 Ethiopian guest workers were arrested after Saudi authorities raided their house church.

Saudis Meet Their Match

In the Muslim Brotherhood, however, the Saudis may have met their match.

Brotherhood leaders received a warm welcome when they fled to Saudi Arabia after facing persecution in Egypt in the 1960s.

As the Brotherhood’s influence spread, however, it threatened the House of Saud.

“What they did was the opposite of what the Saudis wanted them to do or expected them to do,” Alyami explained. “They’ve started some organizations for themselves in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf.”

Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups have also had a strong presence in Saudi Arabia.

Days Numbered?

Yet the most immediate threat is Iran and the fear the Islamic Republic could instigate rebellion in eastern Saudi Arabia, where most of the country’s oil is located.

“The vast majority of the population in the oil region of Saudi Arabia are Shiites, and they could be directed by the Iranians,” former Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger told CBN News.

Leaked diplomatic cables show the Saudis want the West to take out Iran’s nuclear program by any means necessary.

But Alyami said they face an even greater fear than a nuclear Iran.

“Their biggest fear is to see the United States energy-independent – or the West,” Alyami said.

For now, a mixture of bribes, internal repression, and the West’s oil needs has enabled the House of Saud to hold on to power. But as dominoes continue to fall across the Middle East, the question could be, for how long?

The US Military Staged A Mock Drill On US Soil In Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act

The US military staged a mock drill in violation of 130+ years of the Posse Comitatus Act that bars domestic forces from active use on US soil.

The Imperial Mind

American rage at Pakistan over the punishment of a CIA-cooperating Pakistani doctor is quite revealing

BY GLENN GREENWALD

Americans of all types — Democrats and Republicans, even some Good Progressives — are just livid that a Pakistani tribal court (reportedly in consultation with Pakistani officials) has imposed a 33-year prison sentence on Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who secretly worked with the CIA to find Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Their fury tracks the standard American media narrative: by punishing Dr. Afridi for the “crime” of helping the U.S. find bin Laden, Pakistan has revealed that it sympathizes with Al Qaeda and is hostile to the U.S. (NPR headline: “33 Years In Prison For Pakistani Doctor Who Aided Hunt For Bin Laden”; NYT headline: “Prison Term for Helping C.I.A. Find Bin Laden”). Except that’s a woefully incomplete narrative: incomplete to the point of being quite misleading.

What Dr. Afridi actually did was concoct a pretextual vaccination program, whereby Pakistani children would be injected with a single Hepatitis B vaccine, with the hope of gaining access to the Abbottabad house where the CIA believed bin Laden was located. The plan was that, under the ruse of vaccinating the children in that province, he would obtain DNA samples that could confirm the presence in the suspected house of the bin Laden family. But the vaccine program he was administering was fake: as Wired‘s public health reporter Maryn McKenna detailed, “since only one of three doses was delivered, the vaccination was effectively useless.” An on-the-ground Guardian investigation documented that ”while the vaccine doses themselves were genuine, the medical professionals involved were not following procedures. In an area called Nawa Sher, they did not return a month after the first dose to provide the required second batch. Instead, according to local officials and residents, the team moved on.”

That means that numerous Pakistani children who thought they were being vaccinated against Hepatitis B were in fact left exposed to the virus. Worse, international health workers have long faced serious problems in many parts of the world — including remote Muslim areas — in convincing people that the vaccines they want to give to their children are genuine rather than Western plots to harm them. These suspicions have prevented the eradication of polio and the containment of other preventable diseases in many areas, including in parts of Pakistan. This faux CIA vaccination program will, for obvious and entirely foreseeable reasons, significantly exacerbate that problem.

As McKenna wrote this week, this fake CIA vaccination program was “a cynical attempt to hijack the credibility that public health workers have built up over decades with local populations” and thus “endangered the status of the fraught polio-eradication campaign, which over the past decade has been challenged in majority-Muslim areas in Africa and South Asia over beliefs that polio vaccination is actually a covert campaign to harm Muslim children.” She further notes that while this suspicion “seems fantastic” to oh-so-sophisticated Western ears — what kind of primitive people would harbor suspicions about Western vaccine programs? – there are actually “perfectly good reasons to distrust vaccination campaigns” from the West (in 1996, for instance, 11 children died in Nigeria when Pfizer, ostensibly to combat a meningitis outbreak, conducted drug trials — experiments — on Nigerian children that did not comport with binding safety standards in the U.S.).

When this fake CIA vaccination program was revealed last year, Doctors Without Borders harshly denounced the CIA and Dr. Afridi for their “grave manipulation of the medical act” that will cause “vulnerable communities – anywhere – needing access to essential health services [to] understandably question the true motivation of medical workers and humanitarian aid.” The group’s President pointed out the obvious: “The potential consequence is that even basic healthcare, including vaccination, does not reach those who need it most.” That is now clearly happening, as the CIA program “is casting its shadow over campaigns to vaccinate Pakistanis against polio.” Gulrez Khan, a Peshawar-based anti-polio worker, recently said that tribesman in the area now consider public health workers to be CIA agents and are more reluctant than ever to accept vaccines and other treatments for their children.

For the moment, leave to the side the question of whether knowingly administering ineffective vaccines to Pakistani children is a justified ruse to find bin Laden (just by the way, it didn’t work, as none of the health workers actually were able to access the bin Laden house, though CIA officials claim the program did help obtain other useful information). In light of all the righteous American outrage over this prison sentence, let’s consider what the U.S. Government would do if the situation were reversed: namely, if an American citizen secretly cooperated with a foreign intelligence service to conduct clandestine operations on U.S. soil, all without the knowledge or consent of the U.S. Government, and let’s further consider what would happen if the American citizen’s role in those operations involved administering a fake vaccine program to unwitting American children. Might any serious punishment ensue? Does anyone view that as anything more than an obvious rhetorical question?

There are numerous examples that make the point. As’ad AbuKhalilposes this one: “Imagine if China were to hire an American physician who would innocently inject unsuspecting Americans with a chemical to obtain information for China.  I am sure that his prison term would be even longer.” Or what if an American doctor of Iranian descent had done this on behalf of the Quds Force, in order to find a member of the designated Iranian Terror group MeK who was living in the United States (one who, say, has been working with Israel to help assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists and wound their wives, or one who was trained by the U.S.), after which Iranian agents invaded his American home, pumped bullets in his skull and shot a few others (his wife and a child) and then dumped his corpse into the Atlantic Ocean? Or take the case of Orlando Bosch, the CIA-backed anti-Cuban Terrorist long harbored by the U.S.; suppose a Cuban-American doctor sympathetic to Castro had injected American children as part of a fake vaccination program in order to help Cuba find and kill Bosch on U.S. soil; he’d be lucky to get 33 years in prison.

In fact, the U.S. Government tries to impose the harshest possible sentences on Americans who do far less than Dr. Afridi did in Pakistan. The Obama administration charged former NSA official Thomas Drake with espionage and tried to imprison him fordecades merely because he exposed serious waste, corruption and illegality in surveillance programs — without the slightest indication of any harm to national security. Right now, they’re charging Bradley Manning with “aiding the enemy” — Al Qaeda — and attempting to impose life imprisonment on the 23-year-old Army Private, merely because he leaked information to the world showing serious war crimes and other government deceit (something The New York Times does frequently) which nobody suggests was done in collaboration with or even with any intent to help Al Qaeda or any other foreign entity. Given all that, just imagine how harshly they’d try to punish an American who secretly collaborated with a foreign intelligence service — who created a fake vaccine program for American kids — to enable secret military action on U.S. soil without their knowledge.

But of course none of these comparisons is equivalent. It’s all different when it’s done to America rather than by America. That’s the great prize for being the world’s imperial power: the rules you impose on others don’t bind you at all. I’m quite certain that none of the people voicing such intense rage over Pakistan’s punishment of Dr. Afridi would voice anything similar if the situation were reversed in any of the ways I’ve just outlined. Can you even imagine any of them saying something like: yes, this American doctor injected American kids with ruse vaccines in order to help the intelligence service of Iran/Pakistan/China/Cuba conduct clandestine operations on U.S. soil without the knowledge of the U.S. Government, but I think that’s justified and he shouldn’t be punished.

If you read or watch any accounts of life in the Roman empire, what you will frequently witness is someone being severely punished for an act against a Roman citizen. That was the most severe crime and the one most harshly punished: one could do any manner of bad things to non-citizens, but not so much as raise a hand to a Roman citizen.

Watch how often that formulation is used in our political discourse: he tried to kill Americans, people will emphasize when justifying all sorts of U.S. government actions. In other words, there are ordinary, pedestrian crimes (like this one, from today: “An American drone fired two missiles at a bakery in northwest Pakistan Saturday and killed four suspected militants, officials said, as the U.S. pushed on with its drone campaign despite Pakistani demands to stop. This was the third such strike in the country in less than a week”). But then there is the supreme crime: he tried to kill Americans! It’d be one thing if this outrage were honestly expressed as self-interest (we give massive aid to Pakistan so they should do our bidding), but instead, it is, as usual, couched in moral terms.

That is the imperial mind at work. Its premises are often embraced implicitly rather than knowingly: American lives are inherently more valuable; foreign lives are expendable in pursuit of American interests; the U.S. has the inalienable right to take action in other countries that nobody is allowed to take in the U.S. (just imagine: “An Iranian drone fired two missiles at a bakery in the northwest U.S. Saturday and killed four suspected militants, Iranian officials said, as Iran pushed on with its drone campaign despite American demands to stop. This was the third such strike in the country in less than a week” or “Thirty five women and children were killed by a Yemeni cruise missile armed with cluster bombs which struck an alleged Marine training camp in Texas”).

These self-venerating imperial prerogatives are the premises driving the vast bulk of American foreign policy and military discourse. It is certainly what’s driving the spectacle of so many people pretending that the punishment of Dr. Afridi is some sort of aberrational act which the U.S. and other Decent, Civilized Countries would never do.

* * * * *

Two related points:

(1) NPR emphasizes what appear to be the genuine due process deficiencies in the punishment imposed on Dr. Afridi, though he certainly is receiving more due process than those informally and secretly accused of Treason by the U.S. Government and given the Anwar Awlaki treatment, or accused of Terrorism and targeted with a U.S. drone or locked for a decade or so in a cage without charges of any kind.

(2) Zaid Jilani, formerly of Think Progress, asks a really good question about the Hollywood Election Year film depicting the bin Laden raid being produced by Sony Pictures with the help of the Obama administration: “Will the movie feature Pakistani kids tricked into getting fake vaccines? Probably not.” If the film does mention this, I’d bet it will be to marvel at and celebrate the James-Bond-like ingenuity of the CIA.

This is a cross post from salon.com

This Is Syria’s “Kuwaiti Moment,” Comparable To Their Infamous Incubator Baby-Bashing Provocation

[American drone strikes in Pakistan have easily matched these reported numbers on Syrian child casualties and even exceeded them.  One reported strike on a madrassa in 2006 killed between 70-80 students, most of them were non-combatat children (SEE: Pakistan school raid sparks anger).]

Syria crisis: Houla child massacre confirmed by UN

UN’s Maj-Gen Robert Mood: “Deaths were an unacceptable attack” Amateur footage contained within this clip purportedly shows a mass burial

UN observers have counted at least 90 bodies, including 32 children, after a Syrian government attack on a town.

UN mission head Maj-Gen Robert Mood told the BBC the killing in Houla was “indiscriminate and unforgivable”.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said he would seek a strong international response to the “appalling crime” – France and the Arab League have also condemned the massacre.

Syria’s government has blamed the deaths on “armed terrorist gangs”.

This is one of the bloodiest attacks in one area since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

Activists say some of the victims died by shelling, while others were summarily executed, or butchered by the regime militia known as the “shabiha”.

France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and the Arab League also condemned Friday’s assault.

Mr Fabius said he was making immediate arrangements for a Paris meeting of the Friends of Syria group, which includes Western and Arab nations, but not Russia or China, who have blocked previous attempts to introduce UN sanctions.

Fighting in Syria has continued despite the deployment of some 250 UN observers monitoring a cease-fire brokered by UN envoy Kofi Annan – a ceasefire which the BBC’s Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says is now “pretty fictional”.

The UN says at least 10,000 have been killed since the protests began.

UN ‘refused to come’

Mr Hague said he would be calling for an urgent session of the UN Security Council in the coming days.

Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi called the assault a “horrific crime” and urged the Security Council to “stop the escalation of killing and violence by armed gangs and government military forces,” the Reuters news agency reports.

The opposition Free Syrian Army says it can no longer commit to the ceasefire unless the Security Council can ensure that civilians are protected, the AFP news agency reports.

Horrific video footage has emerged from Houla of dozens of dead children, covered in blood, their arms and legs strewn over one another. It is unverified, but our correspondent says such images would be difficult to fake.

International media cannot report freely in Syria and it is impossible to verify reports of violence.

A team of UN observers visited the town on Saturday and afterwards Maj-Gen Mood said they could confirm “the use of small arms, machine gun[s], artillery and tanks.”

But he did not say who was behind the killings.

“Whoever started, whoever responded, and whoever carried out this deplorable act of violence should be held responsible.”

Our correspondent says local people are angry that the observers failed to intervene to stop the killing.

Abu Emad, speaking from Houla, said their appeals to the monitors failed to produce action.

“We told them at night, we called seven of them. We told them the massacre is being committed right now at Houla by the mercenaries of this regime and they just refused to come and stop the massacre.”

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said more than 110 people died. The SNC’s Ausama Monajed told the BBC the regime was selecting vulnerable towns to “teach the entire country a lesson”.

“It is beyond humanity what we have seen,” he said.

Activists called a day of mourning on Saturday.

The BBC’s correspondent Paul Wood and cameraman Fred Scott report from the rebel stronghold of Rastan

Meanwhile, in a letter to the Security Council, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the Syrian opposition controlled “significant parts of some cities”.

He said that “established terrorist groups” could have been behind some of the recent bomb blasts in Syria judging from the sophistication of the attacks.

He said the situation remained “extremely serious” and urged states not to arm either side in the conflict.

Earlier this month, a bombing in Damascus left 55 dead in an attack which the government blamed on al-Qaeda. The attack came amid mounting fears that the terrorist group was taking advantage of the conflict to gain a foothold.

On Thursday, a UN-mandated panel said Syrian security forces were to blame for most abuses in the conflict, which has continued despite the presence of the UN observers.

Mr Annan’s six-point peace agreement ordered a cessation of violence on 12 April. While casualties appeared to fall after the truce, the fighting quickly resumed to previous levels.