CIA Chickens Come Home To Roost–’Phoenix jihadist’s’ dad claims son worked in Syria for CIA

‘Phoenix jihadist’s’ dad claims son worked in Syria for CIA

As US Army veteran Eric Harroun awaits trial in Virginia for allegedly fighting alongside al-Qaeda supporters, the man’s father claims he was working for the CIA and was reporting back to the agency from Syria.

Harroun, a 30-year-old American from Phoenix, Arizona, has been charged by the US government for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely a rocket propelled grenade launcher) to conduct an attack against the Syrian government. The US Army veteran dubbed by media ‘Phoenix jihadist’ appeared in numerous videos alongside members of the al-Nusra Front, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization in December, but which has also been fighting alongside the Syrian opposition to take down the Assad regime. To date, 29 US-backed Syrian opposition groups have linked with al-Nusra, and have signed a petition calling for the support of the Islamist group that the White House believes is a branch of al-Qaeda.

According to FBI documents, Harroun traveled to Turkey last November and joined the fight led by the Free Syrian Army shortly thereafter. His father, Darryl Harroun, on Thursday told reporters that he doesn’t understand why the US government arrested his son, who he says was working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

He referred to his son as a ‘patriotic’ American who would never get involved with al-Qaeda, and claims he was  gathering information for the US government.

“I know he was doing some work for the CIA over there,”  the man’s father said. “I know for a fact that he was passing information onto the CIA.”

After seeing the documents regarding his son’s charges, Harroun told a CBS News reporter that it is all inaccurate and misleading and that the truth will eventually come out, since his son was simply gathering intelligence.

“About 99 percent of that stuff that you read on there is a bunch of bull,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any truth in any of this – he’s very patriotic”

The CIA is known to have contributed to the opposition fighters’ initiatives in Syria. Last week, the New York Times published an article describing how the agency has allegedly been helping foreign governments contribute to the Free Syrian Army. Unnamed US officials told the paper that the CIA has been secretly airlifting arms and other military equipment to Arab governments and Turkey, who provided them to the country’s opposition fighters.

With the agency’s alleged involvement in the conflict, some believe it is very possible for the CIA to also have sent their own agents into Syria. Paul Joseph Watson suggests on InfoWars that Harroun’s arrest may have something to do with the lack of communication and rivalry between the FBI and the CIA.

The FBI affidavit makes no mention of Harroun having any sort of connection to the CIA, but includes transcripts of interviews in which the man describes being treated like a prisoner in the al-Nusra camp and eventually being accepted by the members. Soon thereafter, he was helping them conduct several attacks on the Syrian regime. He also recalled being questioned about why the US government designated the group as a terrorist organization.

But the FBI is worried that while he may have gone into Syria with good intentions, he may also have become radicalized. A main component of the affidavit focuses on a Facebook status Harroun allegedly posted, in which he states that “the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.”

But the man did not seem to try to hide any of his acitivities in Syria. He frequently uploaded pictures of himself in the conflict zone and made opinionated statements regarding the Assad regime. He allowed journalists to interview him over Skype and labeled himself as a “freedom fighter”, working on behalf of the opposition movement that the US supports.

His alleged CIA involvement has so far only been mentioned by the man’s father, but could play a major part in the case as Harroun awaits trial. He faces a maximum of life imprisonment.

Minorities in Pakistan and Islam–(deleted from Dawn)

Minorities in Pakistan and Islam

THE Badami Bagh incident shocked the whole country. A mob radically and illicitly destroyed many houses and shops of Christians on the basis of alleged blasphemy.

Since the implementation of the blasphemy law, many members of minority communities, particularly Christians, have been killed and thousands have been forced to leave the country.

The assassination of Salmaan Taseer was also shocking for the entire world, and even secular Islamic scholars and statesmen preferred not to speak. This further created a situation of complete despondency amongst minorities.

More shockingly the government and authorities concerned did nothing to stop the wrath in the name of blasphemy against the minorities. The government and the media need to stand up and do their respective jobs sincerely.

Islam’s real peaceful image should be implemented and a few countable anti-peace and anti-human people should not be allowed to destroy the image of the country and image of Islam for their vested interests.

Thomas Carlyle in his book Hero and Hero Worship had truly presented the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) as the most exemplary peace-loving personality in the history of mankind.

Hence, we need to present the true picture of Islam and the Holy Prophet, and those countable fanatics should be mutilated and obliterated before they take their roots deep.

SAJJAD RUSTAMANI
Hyderabad

U.S. Army Veteran Charged For Helping Al-Qaeda Terrorists Try To Overthrow Syrian Regime

U.S. army veteran charged for conspiring with Al-Qaeda group to topple Syrian regime

Matthew Barakat, Associated Press

YouTubeEric Harroun of Phoenix was charged Thursday in federal court in northern Virginia with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S. He appears in an online video in which he celebrates bringing down a helicopter in Syria.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A U.S. Army veteran is charged with conspiring with an Al-Qaeda group to wage war against the Syrian regime.

Eric Harroun of Phoenix was charged Thursday in federal court in northern Virginia with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S. An affidavit states Harroun has been engaged in military action in Syria, siding with rebel forces against the Syrian government. It says he used rocket-propelled grenades in the fighting earlier this year.

On his Facebook page, he claimed credit for downing a Syrian helicopter.

Prosecutors say one of the groups with which Harroun, dubbed “The American” served is the al-Nusrah Front, which is commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Harroun has made an initial court appearance. A public defender was appointed to represent him in a detention hearing scheduled for Tuesday.

Harroun served in the military from 2000 to 2003 and was medically discharged after he was in a car accident, the court affidavit reads. A video posted to YouTube and Facebook, and referenced in the affidavit, appears to show Harroun celebrating shooting down a helicopter in Syria.

Harroun also posted photos to Facebook of himself holding machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Darryl, Harroun’s father, told FoxNews.com that his son wasn’t raised Muslim and he’s worried he’ll soon receive a phone call telling him his son is dead.

“We scratch our heads and wonder what the hell he’s doing. I told him, ‘You’re never going to change those people’s minds over there,’” Darryl told FoxNews.com from Arizona.

“But he says they treat him like a hero.”

With files from National Post staff

Saudis Aim To Colonize Lebanon, Creating A Single Islamic Emirate From North Lebanon To the Homs

Coming Soon: Al-Nusra Front in Lebanon

NOVANEWS by crescentandcross

english.al-akhbar.com

Lebanon has become an integral part of the plans of al-Nusra Front. Al-Qaeda’s fastest-growing offshoot is seeking to merge Lebanon’s extreme Islamist factions into a united front.

In mid-February, at a location in the barren hills surrounding the Lebanese town of Ersal, H. A. Dergham posed for pictures with dozens of his armed followers. Under the banner of Syria’s al-Nusra Front and behind a table draped with the Syrian “revolutionary” flag, he brandished a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in one hand and made a victory sign with the other.

Dergham is a principal suspect in the February 2013 attack on an army patrol near Ersal in which a captain and lieutenant were killed and several soldiers injured. The assault followed the attempted arrest of Khaled Hamid, who was described as the top al-Nusra Front “facilitator” in Lebanon.

Dergham’s group also works closely with al-Nusra Front in Syria, and has been playing a leading role in plans to establish a “branch” of the organization in Lebanon.

Al-Nusra Front was formed in Syria in 2011. It rapidly grew into the most prominent of all the country’s armed opposition groups once it was joined by like-minded former members of the Lebanese-based groups Jund al-Sham and Fatah al-Islam.

In March 2012, a group led by Majed Bin-Mohammed al-Majed, Saudi emir or “commander” of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, moved from the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon to Syria.

The rise of Islamist forces with an ideological affinity to al-Qaeda was aided by the declining influence of Fatah and the other Palestinian nationalist factions in Ain al-Hilweh.Their intended aim was to take over the leadership of al-Nusra Front, and replace its commander, known as Abu-Mohammed al-Joulani, with Majed. But once in Syria, many of his followers turned against him and sided with Joulani. He returned to Ain al-Hilweh.

Meanwhile, the ex-members of Fatah al-Islam and Jund al-Sham got on with the task of training and organizing Joulani’s men. Within a few months they managed to improve al-Nusra Front’s performance and organization, turning it into the most formidable armed faction in Syria and an important front for al-Qaeda’s global jihad.

Al-Nusra Front’s Reach in Lebanon

Currently, about a year and half since its launch, the Front has a network of associated groups based in Lebanon. Its members come from a variety of different countries, which provide it with logistical, material, and combat support, especially in its battles in the vicinities of Homs and Damascus.

These Lebanese groups have plans to merge militarily and organizationally into a unified Lebanese chapter of al-Nusra Front. Dergham’s group is the most closely associated with the plan. Based around Ersal, it provides extensive logistical support to al-Nusra Front.

The rise of Islamist forces with an ideological affinity to al-Qaeda was aided by the declining influence of Fatah and the other Palestinian nationalist factions in Ain al-Hilweh. Their involvement in the Syrian jihad has bolstered support for their extremist views. This is at the expense of Hamas’ Usbat al-Ansar, to whom they previously used to defer in exchange for protection.

The other main component of the planned Lebanese al-Nusra Front is the so-called Tripoli bloc, consisting mainly of Hussam al-Sabbagh’s group of 300-400 fighters in the city. A number of smaller groups based in North Lebanon and the Bekaa are also expected to join the merged organization.

One proposal, espoused by Sabbagh, is to establish a single Islamic emirate spanning from North Lebanon to the Homs countryside. Another suggestion is to mount a series of surprise actions in different parts of Lebanon, with the aim of suddenly raising security tensions throughout the country, and announcing: We’re here, our time has come.

Reports indicate that the organizational steps needed to form the merged Lebanese al-Nusra Front are complete, but the Front is awaiting the right political circumstances for its launch.

Using Terrorism To Pound the Pakistani People Into Submission Before They Beg for A Return To Military Dictatorship

[Pakistan will never be free from the scourge of "Islamist" terrorism, as long as the Army is unwilling to round up all of the Lashkar Jhangvi, Sipah Sahaba, TTP sectarian terrorists which it has trained and let loose upon the unsuspecting Pakistani people. This commentary is total hogwash, in that the author claims that the solution to terrorism is adequate protection from the police.  Nobody cares now if Shia are murdered by the dozens; why would that change?  The mass-murderers of Pakistan target every congregation of poor people.  Will there ever be enough police to protect all such meeting places?  No.  (I think that he is trying to inflate the importance of his former employers in this respect.)  The Army still rules Pakistan, using the terrorist outfits to punish the people until they become amenable to military solutions.  Do Pakistanis not yet realize the part that coddling terrorists played in the Sufi Mohhamad affair?  The Army let him have his way in FATA, so that the people would understand what life under his false Wahhabi/Deobandi "Shariah" really meant.  The romance of "jihad" quickly faded from their minds.  Until the military has a free hand throughout Pakistan, political terrorism will continue.  Look for a return of the real Dictator after his fellow officers pave the way for his return.]

Counterterrorism strategy

Tariq Khosa

THE military commanders have spoken. The message is loud and clear. The war against terrorism will go on.

“It was reiterated in unequivocal terms that a comprehensive strategy will be followed by the armed forces to combat the terrorist threat being faced by the country,” the principal military advisory body proclaimed after the recent Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee’s quarterly meeting. This military policy statement comes in the wake of two important developments. One, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) withdrew its peace talks offer on account of what it called the “non-serious attitude of security forces and the government”.

Second, while the federal and provincial chief executives were involved in a political tug-of-war over the establishment of caretaker governments, the military chose to fill this political void by raising a forceful voice against the threat of internal terrorism, in the process indirectly conceding that there was a serious civilian-military disconnect in pursuing a concerted policy and strategy on internal security issues during the last few years.

There is a clear message for the new caretaker governments that the armed forces want to pursue a “comprehensive strategy”, and that “all elements of national power would be utilised to combat and root out terrorism from the country”.

Another announcement by the military commanders pertains to their commitment to support and assist the Election Commission of Pakistan in the forthcoming elections.

It is an important promise that needs to be kept, especially in the wake of the TTP’s warning to the public to stay away from electoral activities as it regards elections as “un-Islamic”. It has also indicated that it will target “secular” politicians in the coming days.

Against this tense and grim scenario, the recent military declaration to combat and root out terrorism from our midst will come up against many road blocks and unexpected turbulence. This will happen especially if all the elements of national power are not engaged in this decisive phase against the terrorists and non-state actors who want to unravel the state of Pakistan.

Therefore, in the absence of political expediencies and compromises during the tenure of the interim caretaker governments, all state stakeholders dealing with national security need to forge a comprehensive policy framework. They must translate their resolve through determined and sustained counterterrorism operations so that the coming elections are not marred by violence and bloodshed.

All security agencies must realise that the great effectiveness multiplier in the use of state power against violence is the allegiance and support of the public.

It is hugely symbolic that 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai has returned to school in Birmingham for the first time after she was shot in the head by militants last October.
She represents the resilience of a young spirit and a beacon of hope for our society that is willing to incur sacrifices in the battle for the true spirit of faith.

Security experts firmly believe that capturing, killing, or imprisoning criminals who commit violent acts is possible only if the identification of perpetrators or targets is guided by precise intelligence.

The recent arrest of Qari Abdul Hayee, allegedly involved in the 2002 murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, in Karachi is a case in point. The security and intelligence agencies finally succeeded in nabbing him through precise technical and human intelligence. The slain journalist’s family has hailed this arrest in a message from Los Angeles.

Similarly, intelligence-driven operations have led the Karachi police to apparently account for one of the killers of the respected social activist Parween Rahman and also trace and identify the culprits responsible for the sectarian carnage in Abbas Town.

Counterterrorism is primarily the responsibility of the police. Civil armed forces like the Rangers and Frontier Corps, intelligence agencies like Inter-Services Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau, and the military play a basically supporting role.

The police can prevent and control terrorism in three ways: one, by protecting vulnerable people and places on the basis of assessments of the likelihood of attack i.e. target hardening; two, by investigating, arresting and prosecuting terrorist suspects, thus providing deterrence against future attacks; and three, by taking pre-emptive action designed to stop attacks before they occur on the basis of intelligence.

The protection of people and places should be ensured by specially trained armed police. Their protective ability will be increased substantially if the public itself takes protective measures, such as being alert to suspicious activity, monitoring access to premises and installing surveillance equipment.

Neighbourhood watch schemes and additional deployment of private security companies can be helpful. Police need to be able to work cooperatively with the private sector, coordinating activities and sharing information.

The key to the successful prosecution of terrorist suspects is reliable testimony from perpetrators, accomplices and witnesses. Recent legislation should make the police less dependent on public assistance as now they are allowed to submit evidence collected by covert means. However, supervisory officers need to make sure that no human rights violations take place while collecting such vital evidence.

Specialised counterterrorism segments of both the federal and provincial police departments should now play a greater role in achieving success against the terrorists.

The National Counter Terrorism Authority should achieve better coordination among all the state agencies dealing with terrorism. The ISI should have a legal framework to monitor and foil the designs of terrorists using our soil for refuge or to launch nefarious activities.

Joint interrogation teams should be notified by the interior ministry and home departments to assist the provincial crime investigation departments in finalising investigations against those accused of being involved in acts of terrorism.

All the law enforcement agencies, especially the police, can gain public trust and support on account of their professionalism, integrity, courage and total impartiality if the war against terrorism is to be won. Failure is not an option if we are to survive as a nation.

The writer is a retired police officer.

 

The Road to World War 3

The Inate Evil of the American Terminator Program Cannot Be Hidden Under A Pentagon Banner

[The Pentagon and CIA have both been running parellel drone assassination programs concurrently in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  For some unknown reason, all drone attacks have been attributed to the CIA, even though no one outside of those two agencies really knows which drones carried-out the day's murders, or whether the war crimes were committed by piloted aircraft, or even whose air force that day's air assassins belonged to.  It seems that the CIA is often blamed for PAF attacks within FATA.  All terminator drone programs have been run out of US and Pakistani military bases.  For Obama to think that he can hide the more repulsive, better publicized CIA murder program beneath or within the Pentagon's drone program, now that the political backlash against all drones is rapidly building, is ludicrous, although keeping within the parameters defined by the complete hypocrisy inherent in all of Obama's "innovative" approaches to continuing the evil wars of George Bush.  All missile assassinations must end, as well as all illegal, criminal 'paramilitary" (terrorist) operations.] 

Exclusive: No More Drones For CIA

Three senior officials tell Daniel Klaidman that the Obama administration is poised to shift the CIA’s drone program to the Pentagon.

At a time when controversy over the Obama administration’s drone program seems to be cresting, the CIA is close to taking a major step toward getting out of the targeted killing business. Three senior U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast that the White House is poised to sign off on a plan to shift the CIA’s lethal targeting program to the Defense Department.

In this Jan. 31, 2010 file photo, an unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)

The move could potentially toughen the criteria for drone strikes, strengthen the program’s accountability, and increase transparency. Currently, the government maintains parallel drone programs, one housed in the CIA and the other run by DOD. The proposed plan would unify the command and control structure of targeted killings, and create a uniform set of rules and procedures. The CIA would maintain a role, but the military would have operational control over targeting. Lethal missions would take place under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which governs military operations, rather than Title 50, which sets out the legal authorities for intelligence activities and covert operations. “This is a big deal,” says one senior administration official who has been briefed on the plan. “It would be a pretty strong statement.”

Officials anticipate a phased-in transition in which the CIA’s drone operations would be gradually shifted over to the military, a process that could take as little as a year. Others say it might take longer but would occur during President Obama’s second term. “You can’t just flip a switch, but it’s on a reasonably fast track,” says one U.S. official. During that time, CIA and DOD operators would begin to work more closely together to ensure a smooth hand-off. The CIA would remain involved in lethal targeting, at least on the intelligence side, but would not actually control the unmanned aerial vehicles. Officials told The Daily Beast that a potential downside of the Agency relinquishing control of the program was the loss of a decade of expertise that the CIA has developed since it has been prosecuting its war in Pakistan and beyond. At least for a period of transition, CIA operators would likely work alongside their military counterparts to target suspected terrorists.

The policy shift is part of a larger White House initiative known internally as “institutionalization,” an effort to set clear standards and procedures for lethal operations. More than a year in the works, the interagency process has been driven and led by John Brennan, who until he became CIA director earlier this month was Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser. Brennan, who has presided over the administration’s drone program from almost day one of Obama’s presidency, has grown uncomfortable with the ad hoc and sometimes shifting rules that have governed it. Moreover, Brennan has publicly stated that he would like to see the CIA move away from the kinds of paramilitary operations it began after the September 11 attacks, and return to its more traditional role of gathering and analyzing intelligence.

Lately, Obama has signaled his own desire to place the drone program on a firmer legal footing, as well as to make it more transparent. He obliquely alluded to the classified program during his State of the Union address in January. “In the months ahead,” he declared, “I will continue to work with Congress to ensure that not only our targeting, detention, and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and systems of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”

Shortly after taking office, Obama dramatically ramped up the drone program, in part because the government’s targeting intelligence on the ground had vastly improved and because the precision technology was very much in line with the new commander-in-chief’s “light footprint” approach to dealing with terrorism. As the al Qaeda threat has metastasized, U.S. drone operations have spread to more remote, unconventional battlefields in places like Yemen and Somalia. With more strikes, there have been more alleged civilian casualties. Adding to the mounting pressure for the administration to provide a legal and ethical rationale for its targeting polices was the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior commander of al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate, who also happened to be a U.S. citizen. (Two weeks later, his 16-year old son was killed in a drone strike, which U.S. officials have called an accident.) The recent nomination of Brennan to head the CIA became a kind of proxy battle over targeted killings and the administration’s reluctance to be more forthcoming about the covert program. At issue were a series of secret Justice Department legal opinions on targeted killing that the administration had refused to make public or turn over to Congress.

It looks like the White House may now be preparing to launch a campaign to counter the growing perception—with elites if not the majority of the public—that Obama is running a secretive and legally dubious killing machine. For weeks, though the White House has not confirmed it, administration officials have been whispering about the possibility that Obama would make a major speech about counterterrorism policy, including efforts to institutionalize—but also reform—the kinds of lethal operations that have been a hallmark of his war on terrorism. With an eye on posterity, Obama may feel the time has come to demonstrate publicly that his policies, for all of the criticism, have stayed within the law and American values. “Barack Obama has got to be concerned about his legacy,” says one former adviser. “He doesn’t want drones to become his Guantanamo.”

But for the president to step out publicly on the highly sensitive subject of targeted killings, he’s going to have to do more than simply give an eloquent speech. An initiative like shifting the CIA program to the military, as well as other aspects of the institutionalization plan, may be just what he needs.

How does the CIA’s targeted killing program differ from the military’s—and what are the implications of shifting one program into the other? Perhaps most important is that the CIA’s program is “covert”—which is to say it is not only highly classified, it’s deniable under the law. That means the CIA, in theory, can lie about the existence of the program or about particular operations. The military’s targeted killing program, however, is “clandestine”—which means it is secret but not deniable.

Losing its drone program will, at some level, be a blow to the CIA’s identity.

There are other important differences between how the two programs are run, especially the process by which killing decisions are made. Since the inception of the drone program, targeting decisions have been made inside the CIA with little or no input from other agencies, though the White House sometimes weighs in. In deciding who should be placed on its kill list, the military, on the other hand, subjects itself to robust interagency vetting, where officials and lawyers from across the national security bureaucracy weigh in on individual targeting “nominations.” While the CIA’s process is said to be extremely rigorous—in some ways even more rigorous than the military’s—the opportunity for, say, the State Department legal adviser to be heard on lethal activities adds an extra layer of accountability. With the CIA’s program moving to the Pentagon, DOD’s vetting procedures will prevail.

Another difference is the role of Obama himself. Upon taking office, Obama had decreed that he would sign off on individual kill or capture operations conducted by the military away from traditional battlefields; he does not, by contrast, sign off on all CIA strikes. (Obama’s sign-off authority on military drone strikes was a subject of contention during the recent Brennan-led internal reform process, according to a current and a former administration official. At one point, the military pushed hard to take the commander-in-chief out of the process. But the State Department and other agencies argued that letting the president call the shots was the ultimate form of accountability—and Obama ultimately retained his authority.)

There are other ways in which the military’s program is more constrained than the CIA’s. Typically, though not always, the military’s lethal activities occur under a congressional grant of authority in the context of an armed conflict. The CIA can resort to lethal force simply when the president issues a covert finding—one that the American people may never know about. Another key legal difference: the military considers itself bound by international law and specifically the laws of war. The CIA, on the other hand, has signaled that while it follows “all applicable law,” international law does not necessarily apply to all of its activities.

To be sure, even with these distinctions, it is not clear that the bureaucratic shift will usher in a new era of openness and accountability. For one thing, targeted killing operations will likely be run by the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command, the umbrella organization for shadow warriors like the Navy SEALs and DELTA Force. And while they run clandestine, rather than covert operations, JSOC is not known for its eagerness to advertise its operations with the press or Congress.

In fact, there’s at least a chance that the change could mean less congressional oversight rather than more. There’s nothing in the law that says the military has to brief congressional committees about its lethal activities. The CIA, on the other hand, is compelled under Title 50 to notify Congress of its intelligence activities. Says Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and former Justice Department official during the Bush administration: “Moving lethal drone operations exclusively to DOD might bring benefits. But DOD’s lethal operations are no less secretive than the CIA’s, and congressional oversight of DOD ops is significantly weaker” compared to congressional oversight of the CIA. (Still, as a matter of policy, the Obama administration has taken it upon itself to “back brief” Congress after any of its targeted killings away from conventional battlefields.)

Losing its drone program will, at some level, be a blow to the CIA’s identity. The program has given the Agency a prominent and—ironically—highly visible role in the terror wars. And the spies can take credit for severely degrading, if not decimating, al Qaeda’s core organization in Pakistan. At the same time, according to multiple officials, there has been relatively little pushback from the CIA’s top leadership. One reason might be a sense of relief that the CIA would no longer own such a controversial program. The more likely reason? The man who engineered the idea—John Brennan—is now in charge.

Klaidman, a former NEWSWEEK managing editor, is writing a book on President Obama and terrorism to be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

Long-Running War In Khyber Originally Cultivated By Saudis and CIA

[CIA used Bara extremist Haji Namdar (who had undergone ten years of Wahhabi indoctrination in Saudi Arabia) to set-up first "Radio Mullah" station and first Talibanized "religious police" in Khyber, to stage Shariah-enforcement attacks.  He even used the same name for his thugs as the Saudis, “Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue.”(SEE:  Waging War Upon Ourselves).  Namdar focused upon local Barelvi preacher Pir Saifur Rehman and his followers, before bringing-in radical Mufti Shakir for reinforcements.  Both sides raised their own radical armies, Pir Rehman formed Ansar Ul-Islam, Shakir formed Lashkar i-Islami, which he turned over to Mangal Bagh after arrest by government forces.  Ansar today wages war against both the LI and their supporters, the TTP of Hakeemullah Mehsud.]

Pakistan’s Islamist Militia Ansar Ul-Islam And Its Fight For Influence

Qazi Mehboob ul-Haq (left), the chief of Ansar ul-Islam, with supporters

 

By Abubakar Siddique

January 29, 2013

A banned Pakistani militia whose formation can be traced to its loyalties to a Sufi cleric is now positioning itself as the last bastion of hope against extremists intent on controlling regions surrounding the historic Khyber Pass.

Ansar ul-Islam, which in recent days has been engaged in bloody skirmishes with the most hard-line and violent Taliban faction in Pakistan, has a history of fighting against fellow militant Islamist groups in the region.

In recent days residents of the Khyber Agency, located in Pakistan’s northwest FATA tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, are crediting Ansar ul-Islam with fiercely resisting the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Since January 25, more than 80 civilians and fighters have died in skirmishes between the two groups in the remote Tirah region of Khyber.

Ansar ul-Islam, like the TTP, is officially banned by the Pakistani government and has been accused of reprisals and killings. Critics claim it aims to control the Afridi tribe, the largest tribe in Khyber Agency, in order to take over the lucrative trade that passes through the district.

‘They Are Not Terrorists’

Latif Afridi, a secular politician from the region, says that Ansar ul-Islam is fighting against a coalition of the TTP, Al-Qaeda, and Lashkar-e-Islam — its hard-line nemesis in Khyber.

Afridi says Ansar ul-Islam is essentially acting as a defense force for the region.

Supporters of Ansar ul-Islam note that the group allows and protects schools in the regions it controls, while they are the targets of attacks by other Pakistani Taliban factions.

​​​​”They are not terrorists. They have never been involved in terrorist activities such as suicide bombings,” Afridi says. “They are just fighting for protecting their region. They have always helped the government in its efforts to establish peace in the region.”

Ansar ul-Islam arrived on the scene when followers of an Afghan Sufi preacher, Pir Saifur Rehman, formed the militia in 2004 to counter the Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam) formed by Mufti Munir Shakir, a hard-line Sunni cleric who opposes Sufism.

Rehman and Shakir followed two different sects of Sunni Islam. The former preached Brelvi Islam inspired by Sufism, while the latter advocated puritanical Deobandi Islam.

The two engaged in a propaganda war, branding each other “infidels” through their own illegal FM radio stations.

Pakistani authorities expelled both clerics from Khyber in 2006 and Rehman later died in Lahore, but their followers kept Ansar ul-Islam and Lashkar-e-Islam alive as rival militias.

The group allows and facilitates government officials to make identity papers to tribesmen in Khyber’s Tirah Maidan region.

​​The two groups moved their fight from the lowland trading town of Bara into the highlands of Tirah, where clans and families among the Afridi Pashtun tribe supplied their fighters.

Ansar ul-Islam counted on local support and covert government aid, while Lashkar-e-Islam established an alliance with the TTP.

Thousands have died and tens of thousands of families have been displaced by the fighting between the two groups since 2006.

Afridi says that, over the years, Ansar ul-Islam has emerged as a more moderate faction focused on protecting its supporters.

‘Government Needs Such Groups’

Most significantly, it has moved away from preaching sectarian hatred, which wins it more support among the Afridis of Khyber.

​​”In a way, they are good people. Pakistan today needs such people,” Afridi says. “They do not engage in sectarian hatred and are tolerant. You can sit with them and they will even listen to your advice or criticism. The government needs such groups.”

According to Farhad Shinwari, a correspondent for RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal in Khyber Agency, Ansar ul-Islam helps the local authorities to deliver health care and education in regions it controls.

“They often meet officials and always ask for more development projects,” Shinwari says. “All the schools are open in the regions they control. None of the public schools has been blown up. A large number of students regularly attend these schools. They have also helped in administering successful polio-vaccination campaigns here.”

Afridi says that the current fighting erupted after Ansar ul-Islam resisted a TTP move to expand its control within Khyber Agency. Recently, the TTP began to move eastward into the district’s Maidan region, which is controlled by Ansar ul-Islam.

He says that the TTP forcefully evicted some 1,300 Pashtun families from the western part of Khyber Agency in the summer of 2012 to provide shelter for Al-Qaeda fighters targeted by relentless drone strikes in their North Waziristan base, some 300 kilometers south of Khyber.

Afridi says that a defeat of Ansar ul-Islam would have far-reaching consequences.

A tiny minority of Sikhs still live in the regions of Khyber Agency controlled by Ansar ul-Islam.

​​He says that if the TTP and Al-Qaeda were to establish control over Maidan in Tirah, peace in Khyber and the surrounding regions would be severely threatened. A stranglehold over the mountainous region would facilitate their attacks against targets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province’s capital, Peshawar, which abuts Khyber to the east.

“It will make it very difficult for the displaced Afridi tribesmen to return to their homes and will also stir an even greater displacement crisis,” Afridi says.

In recent weeks, the TTP has intensified its violent campaign. It has staged numerous high-profile attacks in Peshawar, including the assassination of senior government minister Bashir Bilour in late December.

The Wahhabi War Against Religion In the Levant

Sayyeda Zeinab: the 7th Century Heroine of Karbala

by FRANKLIN LAMB

Sayyeda Zeinab Shrine

Damascus.

It is well known in this region that powerful foreign and domestic forces in nearly every country, but particularly Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, are increasingly acting, for purely political purposes, to ignite a bloody internecine conflict within Islam. Indeed, the 3/17/13 attacks targeting four Sunni sheiks in Beirut that led to immediate road blockings in Beirut, Sidon and the Bekaa Valley is a reminder of the vulnerability of Lebanon’s own delicate sectarian balance to potential chaos.

The seemingly rapid escalation of Shia-Sunni sectarian strife pulsating back and forth across Syria and in and out of Iraq and Lebanon appear to some analysts to be unstoppable.  This week the UN Security Council expressed alarm that rising sectarian violence threatened a return to civil war in Lebanon. The sect targeted for destruction, is mainly, but not exclusively, Shia Muslims and a potential conflagration among a few Muslim sects is smoldering from Yemen to Libya to Pakistan and in more than a dozen countries. Places of worship are being attacked with the hope of creating flight and destruction among so-called kuffar (infidels) and other alleged “enemies of Allah.”

As the violence continues in parts of Syria it is not always clear who exactly is behind, for example, the thefts of antiquities from museums and shops, the carting off of medical equipment from hospitals, the widespread stripping of certain factories in places like Aleppo and moving their assets to Turkey, apparently with little if any objection from Ankara, and the damaging of mainly Christian and Shia places of worship. But there is little doubt that Islamist extremists, are behind many of these crimes. 
Against this backdrop of targeting religious institutions and  shrines of minority sects in Syria, it is little wonder that following serious attacks on the Sayedda Zeinab Shrine near the village of Zoa south of Damascus, one as recently as last month, that Shia Muslims and others across the world are deeply concerned about its safety. Three recent attacks on the resting place of Zeinab bint Ali, the granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) has also led to speculation that certain elements may launch a ‘false flag’ attack to ignite conflict between Sunni and Shia. Al-Qaeda affiliated groups such as Jabhat al Nursa and Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) have pledged to defeat Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the name of Allah.

Tens of thousands of Shia pilgrims and others from around the world visit this Damascus suburb every year, most to pray at the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine. It was also one of the reasons why I wanted to go there.

But trying to get to Sayyeda Zeinab has not been easy these past few months. In fact this observer’s new lucky number may be five.  Because that is the number of times I thought I had a deal with a driver to take me from central Damascus to the Zeinab shrine. But each time, shortly before our scheduled departure, the driver invariably called to tell me his car broke down or he had to attend a family event or that the road had been hit by a mortar and was impassable, or he could not find any benzene. Taxis are understandably a bit spooked in Damascus these days and as with the road to the airport there are sometimes snipers peering around and an occasional IED or two.  Fortunately some fellows from Lebanon who are among those guarding the shrine sent me a message that it was ok to come and I trusted their judgment.  Finally I found a driver and he took me to Fao without problems.  However, he was unwilling to wait for me while I visited the Shrine and he abruptly split, even before I had a change to pay him, leaving me to find another way to return to Damascus.

As this observer exited the Shrine, having performed absolution type prayers for myself and friends in Lebanon and Syria who specifically asked me to, I was approached by a middle-aged woman who turned out to be from Homs.  She had lost her home and her neighborhood was emptied by shelling so she came to the village of Fao which she thought would be safe. But as she told me later she wanted also to be near Zeinab bint Ali, the 7th Century Heroine of Karbala, during these uncertain times.

One resident who lives near the Sayedda Zeinab told this observers that during the most recent attack on the shrine, the bomber detonated an explosives-packed van that he drove into a parking lot about 50 meters from the shrine. The blast shattered the shrine’s windows, knocked down chandeliers ceiling fans and cracked some of its mosaic walls. He added that militiamen at Sayyeda Zeinab were motivated partly by the desire to prevent a repeat of the wholesale sectarian violence that followed the 2006 attack on the Iraq’s Shiite Imam al-Askari Mosque, blamed on Al-Qaeda, which cost thousands of lives, both Sunni and Shia.

The story of Zeinab at Karbala, and her subsequent life, like the passion play of Karbala itself, is history that one never tires of hearing.  I had read about both but when this obviously devout woman who told me her name was Miriam, approached me, assuming I guess, that I was a tourist unfamiliar with this holy place,  which was true, I was pleased to sit with her, to be quiet,  and to listen.

Miriam summarized the Battle of Karbala in October 680, in present day Iraq,  and how it is commemorated during Ashoura (October tenth) by millions across religious divides because of its universal message of resistance to oppression, relentless pursuit of justice and even sacrificing one’s life for the good of the community. The actual battle pitted a grandson of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Hussein bin Ali, one of two of Zeinab’s brother killed that day, against the caliph of the time in the first of a series of succession crises that shaped the unfortunate historic split between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

I was amazed that like me, and others from various countries and cultures that I have crossed paths with over the past few years in this region, who were also raised in a Christian tradition, that my new friend Miriam, viewed the 7th century suffering of Hussein Ibn Ali and those who were martyred at Karbala, in some ways similar to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ at Calvary, 700 years earlier. We both lite up at the realization that the other exactly understood this connection and the historic resistance ethos that Karbala and Calvary have meant for mankind and the current relevance of both working together for humanity as pillars of the Resistance.

But Miriam shed even more light for this admittedly dim observer by mentioning another woman, in some ways much like Zeinab, who was from Europe.  As a group of chadored Iranian women gathered around us, with a Farsi interpreter relating Miriams words, our group shared a common and rapt spirituality. Miriam told us that during this month of recognizing women’s accomplishments, she was reminded of the similarity between Zeinab bint Ali and La Pucelle d’Orléans, known as Jeanne d’Arc who was falsely accused of heresy and burned alive at the stake for resisting the English occupation of her country.

Miriam explained many parallels, between the “two sisters of Resistance” as she called them even quoting from memory the historic speech of Zeinab in Damascus to Yazid, the killer of her family including her bothers Hussein and Abbas and their dozens of followers and relatives at Karbala in present day Iraq.

On the 11th Muharram, 61 AH, after the battle of Karbala, the caravan of the captives, including Zeinab, were marched through the city of Kufa and Sham. For one year they stayed captives in Damascus prison. Zainab encouraged resistance among her fellow prisoners and fearlessly faced Yazid and recited to him the wrongs he had done. Her address to Yazid ends with a black-clad Zeinab addressing Yazid. “You will not succeed in erasing our memory,” she says.

Miriam explained that Zeinab bint Ali like La Pucelle d’Orelans was devout, frugal and unstintingly generous to the poor, homeless and parentless. Both communicated with Allah and were fierce defenders of justice, the cause for which they both willingly sacrificed themselves. Through her good works Zeinab helped her community to know the principles and practices of Islam.

Concerning Joan, the uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orleans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in just nine days. Several additional swift victories, against overwhelming odds led to Charles VII’s coronation at Reims and hastened the departure of the British.  Despite her achievements, Joan was accused of heresy. Joan’s trial record demonstrates her remarkable intellect Miriam explained. The transcript’s most famous exchange is an exercise in subtlety. “Asked if she knew she was in God’s grace, the illiterate farm girl answered: ‘If I am not, May God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.’” The question of course was a prosecutorial trap carefully set for Joan. Church doctrine held that no one could be certain of being in God’s grace. If Joan had answered yes, then she would have convicted herself of heresy. As the still preserved trial transcript proves, Joan’s trial was a fraud from beginning to end and she insisted, even when threatened with torture and facing  death by fire, that she was guided by God to liberate her country form occupation.

Miriam told us that “one of the legacies of the sisters Zeinab bint Ali and Joan d’Arc is that every women should realize that she can always make a positive difference for mankind. She can always reach for and achieve the better. Those men alone cannot win independence and prosperity, neither can the women. Together, and under the banner of resistance at Karbala and Calvary and following the examples of Zeinab and Joan d’Arc they can achieve to justice and defeat occupation and hegemony.”

One Lebanese druze pilgrim explained to this observer that Sayedda Zeinab represents all women and all who seek justice in the face of tyranny and that the Sayyeda is “everywoman” meaning that Zeinab does not belong just to the Shia or Muslims but to all people of goodwill.

Zeinab bint Ali continues to rest in peace at the sacred shrine at Foa village southwest of Damascus —her final community.  Repairs at Sayedda Zeinab havebeen made and the beauty and tranquility the holy site has been fully restored.

No doubt to the relief of untold millions, the Heroine of Karbala is being protected by her own–Muslims from different sects as well as Christians like Miriam among others—for they, and all who are part of the culture of resistance to injustice, are truly among Zeinab’s own. It is right that we should protect her for Zeinab bint Ali, like Karbala, belongs to all of us.

As I was trying to figure out how to get back to Damascus and we said good-bye that Miriam told me she was Christian. She understood me perfectly and gave me a warm knowing smile when I gestured toward the glorious Sayyeda Zeinab resting place, and opined that it seems likely that spiritually, we are both Shia-Christian and Christian-Shia.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com

Zionist Slime Continues To Slither, Pressuring for Obama “Green Light” To Bomb Syria

[Stinking Fascist Cry-Babies!]

Israel to ask Obama to use air strikes in case of Syrian missile transfer

 

einstein letter warning of zionist fascism in israel…,

 SUBREALISM

Letters to the Editor

New York Times

December 4, 1948

 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

 

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

 

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughoutthe world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

 

 

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement. The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

 

Attack on Arab Village

 

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants ? 240men, women, and children – and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

 

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

 

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

 

Discrepancies Seen

 

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.

 

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

 

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

 

ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ

HANNAH ARENDT

ABRAHAM BRICK

RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO

ALBERT EINSTEIN

HERMAN EISEN, M.D.

HAYIM FINEMAN

M. GALLEN, M.D.

H.H. HARRIS

ZELIG S. HARRIS

SIDNEY HOOK

FRED KARUSH

BRURIA KAUFMAN

IRMA L. LINDHEIM

NACHMAN MAISEL

SEYMOUR MELMAN

MYER D. MENDELSON

M.D., HARRY M. OSLINSKY

SAMUEL PITLICK

FRITZ ROHRLICH

LOUIS P. ROCKER

RUTH SAGIS

ITZHAK SANKOWSKY

I.J. SHOENBERG

SAMUEL SHUMAN

M. SINGER

IRMA WOLFE

STEFAN WOLF.

 

New York, Dec. 2, 1948

The Brilliant Pentagon Plan To Ignite Holy War In the Middle East and the Unacceptable Price That Civilians Must Pay

[SEE:  America’s “Islamists” Go Where Oilmen Fear to Tread ;  f the Script Calls for Credible “Bad Guys,” Then Invent Some! ]

New Excuse for Greater CIA Involvement in Iraq

Lobe Log

by Wayne White

With a long history of misguided, damaging American intervention and meddling in the Middle East, the reported CIA effort to target the al-Nusra Front in Syria by helping Iraqi anti-terrorism units to attack its roots in Iraq seems to be the former and possibly destined to be the latter.

The Sunni Arab politics of Iraq, already complicated by the 2003 American invasion, have been further harmed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s unremitting hostility toward Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. He and his Shi’a cronies bitterly opposed the American deal with Sunni Arab insurgents back in late 2006 through 2008, and attempted to undermine the arrangement while US-Sunni Arab Awakening efforts to take down much of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) were in progress.

In the years since, Maliki has been rather consistent in his exclusion of the bulk of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs from the Baghdad political mainstream. He has driven away many of those who have sought or secured office using the machinery of so-called “de-Ba’thification” and has even purged, assassinated or arrested large numbers of former Awakening cadres as well as various other key Sunni Arabs, often on trumped up charges of terrorism (or no formal charges at all — frequently employing his own extrajudicial security forces or Iraq’s mainly Shi’a Anti-Terrorism Service, which answers directly to him).

In this context, it is hardly surprising that a robust measure of Sunni Arab extremism flourishes in Iraq (apparently more now than back in 2008 when most Sunni Arabs were, by contrast, relatively more war-weary and eager for some sort of enduring engagement with the government in Baghdad). Resentment over Maliki’s disinterest in anything that would re-integrate Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority into much of the country’s core activities has done a lot to sustain a drumfire of AQI bombings inside Iraq and, since late 2011, sent gaggles of Islamic fighters from Iraq’s Sunni Arab northwest into the raging battle for Syria.

Al-Nusra probably is to a large extent an arm of AQI, as the US alleges, but also could be the recipient of many Iraqi fighters simply enraged over the plight of Sunni Arabs in their own country more generally. Additionally, there are quite a few historic tribal and family connections that extend far beyond the Syrian-Iraqi border, making events in Syria that much more palpably personal for quite a few Sunni Arabs inside Iraq.

So al-Nusra most likely is more than an organization; a phenomenon welling up from the profound resentment among many Sunni Arabs toward hostile political orders in both countries. If so, that’s not something that can be surgically extracted. Unfortunately, there always is the possibility that somewhere down the road a frustrated Washington (after Baghdad inevitably fails to address al-Nusra, just as it has been unable to deal a crippling blow to AQI) might think drones offer such a capability. If, however, they ever were employed over Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, the anger currently aimed primarily at the Maliki government and the Assad regime would become far more focused on the US.

Al-Nusra clearly is an unwelcome and dangerous player on the opposition side amidst the fighting in Syria. Yet, the sheer length, brutality, mass destruction, horrific casualties and more than a million refugees generated by the violence so far, predictably have rendered more extreme certain elements of the opposition. The seeming rise in regime-like rebel atrocities most likely is linked to some extent to the duration of the carnage.

The US already has become unpopular in broad Syrian opposition and popular circles for not providing desperately needed military assistance. At first, this frustration centered upon frantic requests for a US/NATO no fly zone over Syria. Since hope for that evaporated, attention shifted to arms and ammunition needed by rebels to take on regime-armored vehicles and air power. Some oppositionists in Syria may understand why the US remains wary of providing surface to air missiles that could very well fall into the hands of international terrorist groups, but anti-tank rockets are less of a concern in that respect. Yet, Washington decided not to send any arms whatsoever to opposition fighters — even vetted ones — late last summer and once again recently.

The US designation of al-Nusra as a terrorist group does not appear to have reduced that group’s high military profile as the tip of the opposition’s combat spear against the forces of the Assad regime. And involving the US in a campaign against al-Nusra’s support base in Iraq now could easily be perceived more broadly as being anti-Sunni Arab. After all, many of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs might ask pointedly why the US has chosen not to take a stronger stand against Maliki’s ongoing persecution of and human rights violations against Iraq’s Sunni Arab community — concerns that extend far beyond AQI and its supporters.

Iraq essentially remains in a state of sectarian conflict with Maliki playing the leading role as provocateur. The opposition effort to take down the Assad regime in Syria also has become, in large measure, a sectarian conflict.

By doing little to cross Maliki about his mistreatment of Sunni Arabs, going after al-Nusra in Iraq and providing meager support to the Syrian opposition, Washington potentially is setting itself up to be viewed — at least by Sunni Arab participants in these struggles — as anti-Sunni Arab across much of the greater Arab al-Jazira region as well as the northern Levant. The US faces enough grievances in the region as it is. Why add more to the list?

Saudi Arabia Wants the Entire Middle East, Except for the Zionist Toilet

Saudi Fuel, Syrian Fire

Sunni Rollback: the Second Front

by Peter Lee – China Matters

“If Syria falls, we are liberated; if we are liberated, Syria will be liberated. We have the same battle with Iran – by defeating them we break the Shia crescent of Iran, Syria and Lebanon.”

Readers of this blog know I have been promoting the ideathat Saudi Arabia, in particular, will not be interested in negotiating an end to the bloodshed in Syria that involves anything less than an overthrow of Assad and a triumph by the largely Sunni rebels.

That’s because I believe Saudi Arabia has its eyes on the prize: a Sunni resurgence that captures Iraq as well as Syria and isolates Iran.  And it isn’t going to endanger the regional Sunni insurgency by letting peace break out in Syria and standing idly by as Western and non-Sunni governments mop up the extremist foot soldiers (as happened in the “Sunni Awakening” a.k.a. the violent suppression of Al Qaeda in Iraq coordinated by the US military with more moderate Sunni sheiks).

So the pot is going to stay boiling, in my opinion, with Saudi fuel thoughtfully provided via western Iraq as well as directly to Syria.

On the subject of Iraq—the second Sunni front, by my formulation–two data points torn from the headlines.

First, from the Guardian’s Ghaith Abdul-Ahad on the apparently snowballing (if such a simile is apt for the torrid deserts of western Iraq) Sunni insurgency against the Maliki regime and the major buy-in it has received from the Gulf:

In Mosul and Falluja, tent cities have sprung up in public squares. Some have even demonstrated in Sunni areas of Baghdad, braving the draconian Friday security measures imposed on them.

But perhaps more remarkable is the scene inside the tent. Among the tribal sheikhs and activists around Abu Saleh are former enemies and victims, men who feared him and men who hunted him on behalf of the Americans. Sensing an opportunity, Sunni factions have put aside their differences to mount a common front against Baghdad.

Abu Saleh, rotund and balding, explains how a week after the first demonstrations in Sunni cities, he and other fighters commanding the remnants of Sunni insurgent groups held a series of meetings to form a pact and use the momentum in Sunni cities.

“Call us the honourable nationalistic factions – people here are still sensitive to using words like mujahideen or resistance. We decided to sign a truce with the tribal sheikhs, other factions and even moderate elements in al-Qaida,” he said.

“The Sunnis were never united like this from the fall of Baghdad until now. This is a new stage we are going through: first came the American occupation, then the resistance, then al-Qaida dominated us, and then came internal fighting and the awakening … now there is a truce even with the tribal sheikhs who fought and killed our cousins and brothers.

“The politicians have joined us and we have the legitimacy of the street. To be honest, we had reached a point when people hated us, only your brother would support you.”

One of the things that transformed the reputation of men such as Abu Saleh in the eyes of their fellow Sunnis has been their involvement in the Syrian conflict, a few hundred miles west along the highway.

The conflict pitted Sunni rebels against government forces and Alawites, backed by Iran, also patrons of Iraq’s Shia leadership. Weapons flowed to the rebels from the Iraqi tribes – sold for a comfortable profit – while the Iraqi Shia prime minister toed the Iranian line and lent his support to the Syrian regime. With both sides using the same sectarian rhetoric, it was easy to join the dots between the two conflicts.

Abu Saleh found himself fighting his old war in a new field. He lent a hand to the novice Syrian rebels and joined the fight, commanding a unit of his own operating in the city of Aleppo and the countryside north of it.

“We taught them how to cook phosphate and make IEDs. Our struggle here is the same is in Syria. If Syria falls, we are liberated; if we are liberated, Syria will be liberated. We have the same battle with Iran – by defeating them we break the Shia crescent of Iran, Syria and Lebanon.”

Abu Saleh claims that once he and his men had been accepted back in Ramadi, they formed three battalions that had hit convoys carrying supplies to Syria as well as an Iraqi army helicopter.

In another echo of recent Arab uprisings, Abu Saleh says he and other Sunni leaders have now secured support from wealthy Gulf state figures who funded them during the early years of their insurgency against the Americans.

After the truce between Sunni groups, he says, a meeting was set up in the Jordanian capital, Amman, between a united front of Iraqi factions and representatives of “charities” from the Gulf.

The Iraqis asked for money and weapons; after a decade of war their arsenals were almost depleted. What didn’t get destroyed by US or Iraqi forces was sold to the Syrians. They needed money to train and recruit new fighters but more importantly a religious sanction from the religious authorities for a new round of fighting.

The Gulf figures asked for more time and a second meeting was held in Amman, this time attended by a higher-ranking group of officials from the both sides. The answer was yes: the “charities” would offer support as long as the Iraqi Sunnis were united and used their weapons only after Iraqi government units used force against them. Another Sunni leader confirmed to the Guardian that the Amman meetings had taken place.

“There is a new plan, a grand plan not like the last time when we worked individually,” another commander told me. “This time we are organised. We have co-ordinated with countries like Qatar and Saudi and Jordan. We are organising, training and equipping ourselves but we will start peacefully until the right moment arrives. We won’t be making the same mistakes. Baghdad will be destroyed this time.”

And, at LobeLog, ex-US diplomat Wayne White describes the Iraq/Syria synergies and writes about the somewhat desperate (and in his view deluded and self-defeating) US efforts to assist the Maliki government in putting a lid on Sunni extremism inside Iraq—as a parallel to the well-publicized US efforts to funnel arms preferentially to more friendly or, at least, more tractable elements of the Free Syrian Army as a counterweight to Islamist groups:

With a long history of misguided, damaging American intervention and meddling in the Middle East, the reported CIA effort to target the al-Nusra Front in Syria by helping Iraqi anti-terrorism units to attack its roots in Iraq seems to be the former and possibly destined to be the latter.
…
Resentment over Maliki’s disinterest in anything that would re-integrate Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority into much of the country’s core activities has done a lot to sustain a drumfire of AQI bombings inside Iraq and, since late 2011, sent gaggles of Islamic fighters from Iraq’s Sunni Arab northwest into the raging battle for Syria.

Al-Nusra probably is to a large extent an arm of AQI, as the US alleges, but also could be the recipient of many Iraqi fighters simply enraged over the plight of Sunni Arabs in their own country more generally. Additionally, there are quite a few historic tribal and family connections that extend far beyond the Syrian-Iraqi border, making events in Syria that much more palpably personal for quite a few Sunni Arabs inside Iraq.

 I have a feeling that the United States, when it opportunistically encouraged the bedraggled Syrian opposition not to negotiate with Bashar al Assad, did not realize that what it would get in return was not an admirable but weak and easily led democracy in Syria but a near-total loss of control of the Middle East agenda to the Gulf autocracies and a narrative of trans-national sectarian aggression.

Not the Obama administration’s finest hour, perhaps.

Manufacturing Terrorists–How FBI sting operations make jihadists out of hapless malcontents

[SEE:  The Informants]

Manufacturing Terrorists

How FBI sting operations make jihadists out of hapless malcontents

Michael German

Imagine a country in which the government pays convicted con artists and criminals to scour minority religious communities for disgruntled, financially desperate, or mentally ill patsies who can be talked into joining fake terrorist plots, even if only for money. Imagine that the country’s government then busts its patsies with great fanfare to justify ever-increasing authority and ever-increasing funding. According to journalist Trevor Aaronson’s The Terror Factory, this isn’t the premise for a Kafka novel; it’s reality in the post-9/11 United States.

The Terror Factory is a well-researched and fast-paced exposé of the dubious tactics the FBI has used in targeting Muslim Americans with sting operations since 2001. The book updates and expands upon Aaronson’s award-winning 2011 Mother Jones cover story “The Informants.” Most readers likely have heard about several alleged conspiracies to attack skyscrapers, synagogues, or subway stations, involving either individuals whom the FBI calls “lone wolves” or small cells that a credulous press has tagged with such sinister appellations as the Newburgh 4 or the Liberty City 7. But they may be astonished to learn that many of these frightening plots were almost entirely concocted and engineered by the FBI itself, using corrupt agents provocateurs who often posed a far more serious criminal threat than the dimwitted saps the investigations ultimately netted.

Drawing on court records and interviews with the defendants, their lawyers, their families, and the FBI officials and prosecutors who oversaw the investigations, Aaronson portrays an agency that has adopted an “any means necessary” approach to its terrorism prevention efforts, regardless of whether real terrorists are being caught. To the FBI, this imperative justifies recruiting informants with extensive criminal records, including convictions for fraud, violent crimes, and even child molestation, that in an earlier era would have disqualified them except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

In addition to offering lenience, if not forgiveness, for heinous crimes, the FBI pays these informants tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, creating a perverse incentive for them to ensnare dupes into terrorist plots. Aaronson quotes an FBI official defending this practice: “To catch the devil you have to go to hell.”

Such an analysis might make sense when police leverage one criminal to gain information about more-serious criminal conspiracies—in other words, to catch a real “devil.” But Aaronson’s research reveals that the targets in most of these sting operations posed little real threat. They may have had a history of angry anti-government rhetoric, but they took no steps toward terrorist acts until they received encouragement and resources from government agents.

Aaronson describes the case of an unemployed and practically homeless 22-year-old named Derrick Shareef, befriended by an FBI informant with an armed robbery conviction who gave him a place to live. When Shareef couldn’t (or wouldn’t) raise the money to buy weapons needed for a plot suggested by the informant, he was introduced to a faux weapons dealer who was willing to trade four hand grenades and a pistol for Shareef’s used stereo speakers. The fact that Shareef believed a real weapons dealer would accept such a barter provides a clue as to his criminal experience.

Aaronson correctly takes pains to avoid portraying those caught in the stings as completely innocent of malice. But he demonstrates that they almost universally lack violent criminal histories or connections to real terrorist groups. Most important, while they may have talked about committing violent acts, they rarely had weapons of their own and, like Shareef, usually lacked the financial means to acquire them. Yet the government provided them with military hardware worth thousands of dollars that would be extremely difficult for even sophisticated criminal organizations to obtain, only to bust them in a staged finale.

This aspect of Aaronson’s narrative is most troubling to me, as a former FBI agent who worked undercover in domestic terrorism investigations before 9/11. Prior to September 11, 2001, if an agent had suggested opening a terrorism case against someone who was not a member of a terrorist group, who had not attempted to acquire weapons, and who didn’t have the means to obtain them, he would have been gently encouraged to look for a more serious threat. An agent who suggested giving such a person a stinger missile or a car full of military-grade plastic explosives would have been sent to counseling. Yet in Aaronson’s telling, such techniques are now becoming commonplace.

My concern is partly that the artificially inflated scale of the threat in these cases seems designed to overwhelm judges, jurors, and the general public, who might otherwise view such methods as illegal entrapment. The FBI often announces these arrests with great fanfare, highlighting the scope of the damage that could have been caused by weapons provided entirely by the government. Such pretrial publicity creates a climate of fear that is likely to influence judges and jurors.

Indeed, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon severely criticized the investigation that led to the 2009 arrest of James Cromitie, a small-time ex-con from Newburgh, New York, whose apparent reluctance to join a fake missile plot was overcome when an informant offered him $250,000 to participate. At his sentencing, Judge McMahon observed that “only the government could have made a terrorist out of Mr. Cromitie, whose buffoonery is positively Shakespearean in scope.” Yet McMahon let the jury’s conviction stand and sentenced Cromitie to 25 years in prison. Of 150 defendants charged in these schemes, Aaronson documents only two acquittals.

The exaggerated significance of these manufactured terrorist plots also raises the possible penalties for those charged, due to “terrorism enhancement” sentencing provisions. The majority of defendants plead guilty to mitigate draconian penalties, raising an additional question of whether the purpose of this government tactic is to avoid judicial and public scrutiny altogether. Law enforcement has no business staging theatrical productions that intentionally exaggerate the seriousness of a defendant’s criminal conduct.

Even more unsettling is the flawed reasoning that drives the use of these methods. FBI agents have been inundated with bigoted training materials that falsely portray Arabs and Muslims as inherently violent. The FBI also has embraced an unfounded theory of “radicalization” that alleges a direct progression from adopting certain beliefs, or expressing opposition to U.S. policies, to becoming a terrorist. With such a skewed and biased view of the American Muslim community, the FBI’s strategy of “preemption, prevention, and disruption” results in abusive surveillance, targeting, and exploitation of innocent people based simply on their exercise of their First Amendment rights.

Aaronson fails, however, to recognize that these tactics are neither new to the FBI nor exclusively used against Muslims. The FBI’s earliest documented use of agents provocateurs with criminal backgrounds was revealed during congressional investigations of labor “radicals,” pacifists, and socialists in 1918. The bureau’s investigations of radicals led to nationwide warrantless raids, resulting in thousands of arrests and hundreds of deportations, yet solved no terrorist bombings and discovered less than a handful of firearms. Although reforms were implemented, decades later the Church Committee’s inquiries revealed that covert operations conducted as part of the FBI’s COINTELPRO investigations had targeted civil rights and anti-war groups because of their First Amendment–protected activities from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Recalling this history is important because in both cases, reform of these improper practices was implemented by restricting FBI intelligence activities and requiring a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before initiating investigations. These restrictions have once again been relaxed, and the rapid increase in sting operations under the Obama administration that Aaronson documents is directly attributable to amendments made to the FBI’s guidelines in 2008, authorizing the use of informants without requiring any factual predicate of wrongdoing. The FBI also has used these dubious tactics against aged anti-government militiamen and misfit anarchists, so Muslims are not the only targets in its crosshairs.

Without reforms to FBI guidelines, anyone holding unorthodox views or challenging government policies could find himself targeted by overzealous federal agents using unscrupulous informants. The FBI should be investigating violent crime, not inventing it.

US drones violate Pakistan’s sovereignty, says UN

AP

US drone strikes are highly unpopular in Pakistan.—File Photo

ISLAMABAD: The head of a UN team investigating casualties from US drone strikes has concluded that the attacks violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, says the Pakistani government made clear to him it does not consent to the strikes.

He says Pakistani officials told him they have confirmed at least 400 civilian deaths by US drones.

A Pakistani analyst helping Emmerson’s team, Imtiaz Gul, said Friday that he gave the UN investigator case studies of 25 strikes that allegedly killed civilians.

Emmerson’s statement was released on Thursday, following his three-day visit to Pakistan that ended Wednesday.

US officials have disputed claims that drones have killed many civilians in Pakistan. They have also alleged Pakistan secretly consents to the strikes.

Paris, London To Arm Syrian Terrorists Even Without EU Support

[If Paris and London move to arm the very "Al-Qaeda" terrorists whom we have all allegedly been fighting against for the past ten years, for the purpose of overthrowing another "sovereign nation," then the good citizens of Britain and France have every right to overthrow their own tyrannical governments and state supporters of terrorism.]

Paris, London to arm Syria rebels even without EU support

French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius (AFP/Pierre Andrieu)

PARIS: France and Britain are prepared to arm Syrian rebels even without unanimous EU support, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Thursday.

Paris and London will call for moving up the date of the next European Union meeting on the Syria arms embargo, and will decide to arm the rebels if the 27-member EU does not give unanimous agreement, he said.

France and Britain ask “the Europeans now to lift the embargo so that the resistance fighters have the possibility of defending themselves,” he told France Info radio.

If unanimous EU support for lifting the measure is lacking, the French and British governments will decide to deliver weapons, Fabius said.

France “is a sovereign nation,” he added.

The next EU meeting to study the embargo is planned for the end of May, but Fabius said Paris and London want to have the meeting earlier.

“We must move quickly,” and “and we along with the British will ask for the meeting to be moved up,” he said, not ruling out a gathering before the end of March.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that Britain would consider ignoring an EU arms ban and supplying weapons to Syrian rebels if it would help topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The EU last month amended its embargo to allow member nations to supply “non-lethal” equipment and training to the opposition but stopped short of lifting the embargo entirely.

Wahhabi Islam’s Egyptian Success Reveals the Pseudo-Religion As A Threat To True Islam

[Contrary to conventional wisdom (formerly a domain of the "legitimate media"), like this wisdom offered by CNBC (SEE: Commentary: Saudis Gain Upper Hand on Syria’s Battlefields), the Saudis, backed by Obama, have misread their fellow Muslims, causing them to overplay their hand full of "Islamist" cards.  Their pushing of the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood into the revealing light of day in Egypt and their sponsorship of "Al-Qaeda" in Syria, as well as their brutal crushing of the Shia in Bahrain and in Eastern Saudi Arabia, have all helped to paint in broad red strokes a very clear picture of the true nature of Saudi "Islam."  

In my opinion, giving this victory to political Islam in Egypt was a brilliant stroke by whoever is watching over the human race and over the repressed people of Egypt and all of the Middle East.  By giving the Brotherhood (the Ikhwan) the power to enforce their plans, these plans have been revealed as the true crimes against man which they truly are.  By trying to enforce the false "Shariah" of Saudi Islam on the educated middle class and the poor of Egypt, the people were made aware of the idiocy that they were being forced to abide by and to submit to.  Using the analogy of the wisdom given in the article below, hoping that Egypt would not become Pakistan, it becomes very easy to see the dangers of giving the bloodthirsty pseudo-Islamists a little power.  

In Pakistan's Swat Region, once the pseudo-"Islamists" were given power over the people there, the people eventually demanded that the authorities bring them all to real justice, even though the people themselves were the ones who voted for Sufi Muhammad's "Shariah" courts.  Thankfully, in Egypt, the people wised-up very quickly to the Brotherhood's plans for them.  In Egypt, as in all such experiments that dabble with the Ikhwan, their false "Shariah" turns-out to be virtual carbon copies of that which has been historically enforced by the Taliban.  

All Talibanized "Shariah" reflects these teachings of the original "Ikhwan," who emerged from the deserts of Saudi Arabia to seize the Great Mosque in Mecca.  Their leader,  Juhayman al-
Otaiba, preached a form of "rejectionist Islamism," which was later embraced and protected by the Saudi authorities after the siege was ended, to be exported wherever the vile seeds of Wahhabism could be successfully transplanted.

From the "the letters of juhayman"

1. "FULL COVERING, THE BODY IS TABOO".
2. "STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS ARE
SINFUL."
3. "PICTURES IN HOMES ARE ANTI-RELIGIOUS."
4. "EMPLOYMENT IS A SIN."
5. "AVOID THE CHRISTIANS AND ALLOW THEM NOT

Using the template provided by the Saudis, Wahhabi acolytes have since been sent-out all over the Muslim world, to murder their fellow Muslims, those who refused to conform to the the false Saudi "Shariah."  Witnessing the Taliban (Students of Wahhabi "Islam") as they brutally enforced their ideas about God's Law, seeing atrocities that they never, ever expected to see, such as public floggings, beheadings and the bombing of Mosques, it does not take long to turn stomachs and to change minds.

Give the corrupt, murderous Saudi and Qatari regimes enough ropes and someone will eventually use it to hang all of the so-called "Royal" psychopaths.]  

Islam’s enemy!

Mahmoud Salem

It goes without saying that the Egyptian crisis is now beyond repair. None of the parties involved, including the military, have the power to resolve the conflict that the country seems destined to engage in. At some point there was hope for such a solution, but it now all seems that we are heading to an unprecedented economic and political disaster of epic proportions, with the complete collapse of all state institutions, alongside with the economy.

On the flipside, such disasters offer some unique opportunities for those entrepreneurially minded; for example, anyone starting a private security company now will be making insane money in the near future.

Given that I mainly work in the area of social media, my new business of choice will be a dating website for former Muslims to find like-minded partners in their countries. I bet that by the end of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule of Egypt, I can have as many users as Facebook does in this blessed country. As the old saying (that I just made up) goes “Wherever there is a crisis of faith, there is an opportunity”.

I am not the first or the last person to write about Egyptian Muslims’ crisis of faith that started the moment Islamists took power and enlightened Egyptians on the fantastic legislations and policies they wanted to implement in the name of Shari’a, with Islamic jurisprudence to back it up. I also will spare you anecdotal evidence on the rise of atheists in Egypt, or the kind of conversations that are now acceptable to have in Egyptian society.

I will simply propose the following argument: What is happening in Egypt, no matter how unfortunate, seems to have a single silver lining, which is the complete and utter defeat of the political Islam project worldwide. At this point, it seems that Egypt’s destiny is to either defeat or contain Islamism, thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood, who is now officially the most ferocious enemy that Islam as a faith has ever seen.

Locally it is easy to make that case. The utilisation of Islam and Shari’a as the sine qua non for all political events and legislation- no matter how absurd, corrupt or self-serving- was bound to run out of effectiveness eventually. Once that started happening, the intellectual bankruptcy of the Islamist ideology became clear.

Their Islamic state is nothing but a reshuffling of the Mubarak state, without actually reforming or fixing it in any real way, nor an actual vision of how an actual model for an Islamic state would function. Their “Shari’a constitution”, while centralises power, preserves corruption and removes checks and balances, does not truly represent or openly preach Shari’a, much to the chagrin of many Salafis.

Their Islamic economic plans and policies are notions or fantasies that show that they have the understanding of economic policy of an eighth grader, and their social policies, especially when it comes to women, seems to truly aim at bringing back the middle ages.

Having that level of failure associated with Islam generally, and political Islam specifically, is bound to make them both lose credibility even amongst the truest of believers, half being in shock of what can be done in the name of their religion and the other half openly wondering where is the divine blessings that are supposed to be showered upon them from heaven due to supporting Allah’s people. As disenchantment with political Islam grows, so does disenchantment with the religion itself, which many believers are finding both distressing and inescapable. Secularism would have saved you that trouble.

On the international level, it is safe to say that what is happening in Egypt is destroying the international Muslim Brotherhood project, as Egypt is becoming less of a role model and more of a cautionary tale. While Pakistan infamously announced that they do not intend to follow the Egyptian model, this was only the harbinger of what was to come.

Moroccan politicians have openly warned of the Egyptianisation of Morocco as they attack talking points against the Moroccan Brotherhood. The UAE government is now openly at war with Brotherhood cells, along with Kuwait, who are calling the local branch as agents of Egypt.

The Jordanian government has effectively used what is happening in Egypt to discredit and marginalise their local branch, and the Syrian opposition is becoming equally wary with aligning with any Islamist, whether Brotherhood or others.

When it comes to the west, the damage is even greater.  In the US, the myth that the Muslim Brotherhood are democratic reformers is all but dead, and the notion that they are reliable partners is also being equally challenged. Europe, on the other hand, only had one question that they needed answered: Is Islam compatible with Democracy and human rights? The answer that they received from observing the situation so far has been “No”.

The effect of them reaching that realisation will have serious consequences in regards to European immigration policies and laws, let alone elections of parties with extreme, if not prejudiced views, towards Muslims. A friend of mine who is a professional Islamic apologist, who spent the past 10 years jet-setting Europe being invited to inter-faith dialogue conferences where he would argue Islam’s democratic heritage and values, informed me that the invites to such conferences have stopped coming for a while now. “They are not interested in listening anymore,” were his exact words.

Of all three Abrahamic religions, Islam seemed to be the one with the most staying power, and the one destined to take over Europe over the next half century. This is no longer the case, with every enemy or critic of Islam or Islamism now has all the evidence they ever needed to back their fair or unfair arguments thanks to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

As for Egyptian citizens, they are very close to an open civil conflict with the Islamist forces, which will either end in the defeat of the Islamists and their rhetoric forever, or with the Islamist forces hanging by a thread to power here as the entire society shifts away from the religion, much like Iran did, but on a much faster pace.

Egypt’s Islamists have waited 80 years to get into power, and now that they have, the countdown to their now-inevitable fall has begun. One day we will all live in a secular Egypt, and it will all be thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood.

About the author

Mahmoud Salem

Mahmoud Salem is a political activist, writer, and social media consultant. His writings could be found at http://www.sandmonkey.org and follow him @sandmonkey on Twitter

View all articles by Mahmoud Salem »

Jewish Think Tank Nails Obama’s Pro-Islamist Tilt

Obama’s Islamist Tilt

 

By Kyle Shideler

Important overseas populations are drawing the conclusion that the Obama administration is quietly realigning itself in the Middle East, toward the Islamists.

Recently returning from a visit to Egypt, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) noted that many of the Coptic Christian minorities he met believe the United States supports the Muslim Brotherhood’s vicious rule there:

“I was told people think the United States is developing relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood because it believes the party is going to remain in power,” Wolf said. “[T]he feeling is that as long as the Brotherhood protects the United States’ interests in the region, it can act with impunity within its borders.”

Such sentiments are increasingly common in Egypt. Protestors against Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Cairo stood outside the Egyptian Foreign ministry, and accused the U.S. of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.  The leadership of the primary Muslim Brotherhood opposition, the National Salvation Front, refused to meet with Kerry, citing his “pro-Morsi stance.” And U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson has been repeatedly accused of leading an effort to transform Egypt “into Pakistan,”  which is to say, a militarized, hardline-Islamist state. For his trip to Cairo, Kerry brought with him news of the release of $250 million in aid for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government, a figure which would have been larger still had Congress not intervened.

Nor are the Egyptian opposition the only ones convinced that America has become the strongest ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, or their even more violent Islamist brethren.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently accused the U.S. of partnering with the Taliban in a cynical strategy to prolong the military campaign in Afghanistan.  Karzai’s statement is ridiculous on its face since it’s difficult to give credence to any argument in which the Obama Administration appears anxious to remain in Afghanistan.

But given the repeated U.S. efforts to conduct negotiations with the Taliban, grant them an embassy,  and resist declaring them terrorists, one wonders if Karzai is quite as far off the mark as an objective observer would think he would be. Even if Karzai were speaking to a domestic audience only, shouldn’t the idea that the U.S. is partnering with the Taliban be so laughable as to be completely inconceivable even among isolated Afghan tribal peoples?

And, of course, if the idea of the U.S. collaborating with the Taliban should be considered as likely as flying pigs, then the idea that, in Syria, the U.S. is actively arming Jihadist groups, including Al Qaeda-affiliates, should be an idea popular with only the tinfoil hat crowd.

But increasingly it’s not.

As long time specialist on Syria, Barry Rubin, notes:

The United States is helping arm and perhaps helping to train radical Islamist guerrillas who want a Sharia state in Syria, who believe Israel should be wiped off the map, and who may soon be murdering and oppressing Christians and other groups in Syria itself.

Author of the Long War Journal, and an authority on Al Qaeda, Bill Roggio agrees:

The State Department announced that it would provide $60 million in direct aid to the Syrian Opposition Coalition, an alliance of Syrian groups that has come out in support of the Al Nusrah Front after the US designated it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and al Qaeda in Iraq’s affiliate in Syria in December 2012.

The struggle for Syria is becoming a repeat of the prior situation in Libya.  There, the U.S. provided assistance, including air cover, for Libyan rebels with openly admitted Al Qaeda ties. And we continue to reap the consequence0efits”  of that decision today from Benghazi to Mali. Now, the U.S. is doing the same for the Al Qaeda-affiliated Syrian groups.

Apropos the concerns of the protesting Egyptians, not only does U.S. policy risk turning Egypt into Pakistan, but increasingly, in our own way, we are turning our own country into Pakistan. We are, objectively speaking, supporting Islamic fundamentalists, and yes, even terrorists with the one hand, while opposing them with the other. We have transformed ourselves, in the span of a decade, from a nation that declares, “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists,” to a nation that is credibly accused of arming terrorists.

And as in Pakistan, there is perhaps some room for debate over whether this schizophrenic policy is due largely to an increasingly incompetent bureaucracy (of the sort that invites a virulent twitter anti-Semite to be awarded a women’s rights award) or if it is by Machiavellian design.

But there’s no question over what gave rise to the increasing belief that the United States is backing the Muslim Brotherhood over religious minorities in Egypt, providing aid and comfort to the Taliban, or supporting violent jihad in Syria and Libya. What gave them that idea? We did.

Kyle Shideler is the Director of Research and Communications at the Endowment for Middle East Truth (www.emetonline.org).

Commentary: Saudis Gain Upper Hand on Syria’s Battlefields

[By supporting Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as they wage war against the "Shia crescent," we are once again using ethnic cleansing as a weapon of war.  By following a policy of attempted genocide, as we wage war against a people because of their religious beliefs, assisting Sunnis, as they seek to destroy their Shiite competition, we are following the same path as did Hitler in Europe.  (SEE: Be Careful: Russia Is Back to Stay in the Middle East ; Syria, L'Enfant Terrible of Foreign Politics ; IRAN-IRAQ: Pipeline to Syria Ups Ante) ]

By: Felix Imonti

Daniel Leal-Olivas | AFP | Getty Images

Syrian rebels gather around a T-72 tank, captured from government forces, in the flashpoint Syrian province of Idlib near the border with Turkey.

As the war in Syria moves into a third year, there are serious concerns that the violence will spread throughout the Middle East. No one seems to have the answer how to bring the war to an end, but now it appears the Saudis are going to try.

When Sunni tribes in Syria make appeals for protection from the brutality of the Al-Assad regime, their Sunni kinsmen in the Gulf States of Saudia Arabia and Qatar have a hard time ignoring them. The blood ties are broad and deep; moreover, the appeals came at an opportune moment for Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is troubled by the “Shia Crescent” that has extended from Iran through Iraq, into Syria and to the Mediterranean shores of Lebanon. The uprising in Syria created an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to use tribal bonds to destroy the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar Al-Assad. His fall would break the Shia (read as, Iranian) chain of power through the region and begin the process of pushing back its influence. The Gulf States have their own potentially volatile Shia minorities to worry about–to the Gulf States, the more limitations on Iranian influence, the better.

With Al-Assad driven out, the Saudi-based, fundamentalist Wahhabi Sect that had been established among the Syrian tribes can, the reasoning goes, secure the continuation of Sunni domination there. That would protect the security of the Kingdom and the wealth and power of all of the other rulers along the Gulf.

Qatar agrees with the Saudis that Al-Assad has to be removed, but has a much less religiously radical vision for Syria’s future. The successor regime that Qatar envisions would be a government under the leadership of the social elite that would bring a modern government and economy to the country.

“Working at arm’s-length through Qatar enabled the U.S. and Ambassador Chris Stevens to maintain the fairy tale that it was providing only non-lethal equipment to Syria’s rebels.”

At first, it was Qatar that had the tactical advantage in promoting its vision. The Emirate had sent Special Forces to Libya to remove Gaddafi. Qatar spent an estimated $2 billion to arm, train, and to lead Libyan forces against the government, which included the funding of the February 17th Martyr Brigade and its leader Abdel Hakim Belhadj.

From the time that Ambassador Chris Stevens was named liaison with the rebels in Libya in March 2011, he worked closely with the leader of the February 17th Martyr Brigade. When President Obama authorized in 2012 the distribution of heavy weapons to the rebels, it was Abdel Hakim Belhadj with his Qatari credentials who gave the ambassador an open channel.

Working at arm’s-length enabled the U.S. to maintain the fairy tale that it was providing only non-lethal equipment to Syria’s rebels. After the murder of the ambassador, the supply chain to the arms of Libya was broken.

Circumstances have shifted to favor the Saudis. The United States no longer has an organization that it can use as a weapons-smuggling front and insists that Washington will provide only non-lethal materials to the rebels.

American dithering worries the Saudis, with their memories of the growth of Al-Qaeda and the rise of Osama Bin Laden–the battlefields of Afghanistan nurtured the radicals who turned on their former benefactors. That could happen again in Syria if the war continues and more radicalized warriors are released upon the world.

Saudi Goal: End the War ASAP

King Abdullah had anticipated that the Al-Assad regime would collapse much sooner than is proving to be the case. Every day that the war continues is seen in Riyadh as a threat to the stability of the Kingdom. One means to bring the war to an end is to control the flow of weapons; the Saudis have moved in that direction by turning to an unusual source for heavy weapons that would force recipients to depend exclusively upon the Saudis for additional supplie: the former Yugoslavia.

The former Yugoslavia had developed a major munitions industry that has survived the break-up of the Communist state. M60 recoilless weapons and M79 Osa anti-tank rocket launchers from Croatia are appearing in large quantities throughout Syria. According to an article in the New York Times, the source of these and other weapons has been traced to the Saudis. Recipients appear to be the more moderate, indigenous members of the Free Syrian Army that have objected to the influx of the more radicalized foreign Jihadists.

At the same time, the Saudis are seeking an alternate course to end the fighting through a political settlement with Syria. Riyadh has opened negotiations in Jordan with Al-Assad’s government. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the son of the Saudi king, is leading the Saudi delegation.

Even Russia Has Reason to Fear Saudis

And what of Al-Assad’s other big ally, Russia? Al-Assad’s dependence on Russian determination is itself a weakness in his defenses. The Russians have indicated that they do not anticipate a NATO invasion. Without NATO intervening, there is the possibility for some kind of settlement that would preserve Russia’s interests — even if it excludes Al-Assad.

The Saudis may be able to get the Russians to bend. Saudi Arabia has the means to make life for the Russians dangerous. Wahhabi cadres operating in the Moslem regions of Russia are already starting uprisings. Once-peaceful areas in Russia are no longer safe, and Moscow has not figured how to deal with the problem.

Is Russia prepared to sacrifice its own stability to save Al-Assad? The Saudis are in a position to force Putin to consider seriously the answer to that question.

Afghanistan: Atrocity against Civilians. The Fiction of US Troop Withdrawal

No amount of lying Pentagon propaganda can hide the reality that the war has been an unmitigated disaster for the Afghan people and for the thousands of dead and tens of thousands of maimed troops sent to kill and die there in the interests of empire

By Richard Becker

On March 1, a U.S./NATO helicopter gunship killed two Afghan brothers, seven and eight years of age, as they tended cattle in Uruzgan province. According to reports from residents, the boys were listening to a radio, which the helicopter crew interpreted as “radio signals” from Afghan resistance fighters.

The latest killing comes amidst a series of atrocities against civilians that has further enflamed opposition to the ongoing occupation.

On. Feb. 24, Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-installed “president” of Afghanistan, announced that he was demanding the withdrawal of all U.S. Special Forces troops from Wardak province within two weeks. Wardak is a key strategic region and an area of active resistance to the U.S./NATO occupation.

Will NATO commanders pay any more attention to Karzai’s latest “order” than the many earlier ones that NATO forces ignored and Karzai quietly dropped? Not likely.

Eleven and a half years of U.S./NATO war and occupation have been a disaster for all but a tiny sliver of the Afghan population.
Afghanistan ranks as the worst country in the world for infant mortality, with a shocking 122 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. (CIA World Factbook 2013) By way of comparison, the infant mortality rate is 6 per 1,000 in the U.S. and 4.8 per 1,000 in Cuba. Life expectancy is just 49 years. Afghanistan is listed as 172nd out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index, with the average adult having 3.3 years of schooling.

Global Research, Mar. 5, 2013

What prompted Karzai’s latest proclamation was explained in a statement from his office, which read in part: “After a thorough discussion, it became clear that armed individuals named as US special force[s] stationed in Wardak province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.

“A recent example in the province is an incident in which nine people were disappeared in an operation by this suspicious force and in a separate incident a student was taken away at night from his home, whose tortured body with throat cut was found two days later under a bridge.”

While U.S. commanders predictably denied the accusations, the level of popular anger in Wardak was made clear by street protests and threats by civilian groups to join the armed resistance if U.S. forces were not withdrawn.

On Feb. 26, 500 people marched in protest of the killings. “If the situation remains like this, this province will collapse very soon,” protester Haji Abdul Qadim told the Reuters news service. “People will join the insurgency very soon because of the abuses of these forces.”

In another recent incident brought to international attention on Feb. 26, a Swedish organization that operates health clinics in Afghanistan said that U.S. military forces occupied and damaged one of their clinics in Wardak on Feb. 11.

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan said in a statement: “Foreign soldiers entered the health facility by force, tied up and blindfolded the guard on duty, and occupied the facility.”

Afghan protesters throng the streets following the killing of four people in a NATO raid during an anti- US demonstration in Taloqan, Takhar province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, May 18, 2011. (Photo: Fulad Hamdard/AP)

Andreas Stefansson, director of SCA, said that it was the second time one of SCA’s clinics had been occupied by NATO troops. The previous occupation lasted three days. Stefansson said that NATO has promised that such an occupation would not happen again.

“What we are seeking is that they actually live up to what they say,” Stefansson said. (Reuters, Feb. 26)

On Feb. 13, 10 people, including women and children, were killed in a NATO air strike in Kunar province. On June 6, 2012, 18 civilians were killed in a strike in Logar province. The grisly list of “accidental” killings stretches back a decade.

A ‘president’ in name only

These atrocities and the daily abuses that inevitably accompany imperialist occupation are the source of burning anger among the Afghan people. In the eyes of the population, Karzai shares blame with the occupiers for these outrages. Thus, Karzai’s repeated “orders” forbidding Afghan army units from calling in U.S./NATO air support and for U.S. troops to withdraw from Wardak and stop the hated “night raids” on people’s homes.

In reality, the lowest level U.S. commander has greater military authority than does the ‘president’ of the country.

Afghan children killed in a 2011 NATO air strike (Photo: Uruknet)

But his proclamations continue to be disregarded by the occupation forces, exposing the actual power relationship in the country. In reality, the lowest level U.S. commander has greater military authority than does the “president” of the country.

Further illuminating both this relationship and the U.S. intention to maintain a dominant role in Afghanistan was a Feb. 3 joint interview with then-Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. Panetta and Dempsey reaffirmed that the United States would sustain a “strategic partnership” with Afghanistan, citing a decision by the NATO heads of state during a 2012 summit meeting in Chicago to maintain a long-term presence in the country despite a drawdown in the number of U.S. ground troops in the country.

“We’re committing to an enduring presence,” Mr. Panetta said on Feb. 3.

“Strategic partnership” and “enduring presence” are more Washington weasel words for continuing colonial domination over Afghanistan.

On Feb. 26, it was revealed that claims of resistance attacks inside the country declining by 7 percent in 2012 were just one more Pentagon lie. The 7 percent figure was posted on the International Security Assistance Force (the official name of the U.S./NATO force in Afghanistan) website in January, to bolster the administration’s “positive track” line about the war.

When the Associated Press made inquiries about the statistics, NATO officials in Kabul immediately backtracked, stated that they had “erred,” and admitted that in fact, there was no decline at all.

Costs of war

Eleven and a half years of U.S./NATO war and occupation have been a disaster for all but a tiny sliver of the Afghan population.

Despite tens of billions of dollars in U.S.-funded “reconstruction aid,” Afghanistan remains one of the very poorest countries on the face of the Earth. The total U.S. budget for the Afghanistan war is over $640 billion and counting. (Center for Strategic and International Studies)

While U.S. and other NATO-country contractors, and elements of the Afghan elite, have become incredibly rich from this “aid,” the Afghan government presently spends a miniscule $46 per year on health care per person. (GlobalHealthFacts.org)

Afghanistan ranks as the worst country in the world for infant mortality, with a shocking 122 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. (CIA World Factbook 2013) By way of comparison, the infant mortality rate is 6 per 1,000 in the U.S. and 4.8 per 1,000 in Cuba. Life expectancy is just 49 years. Afghanistan is listed as 172nd out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index, with the average adult having 3.3 years of schooling.

In addition to the tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands wounded in the war, more than 2.7 million Afghans remain external refugees, most in Pakistan and Iran, and 425,000 are internally displaced. (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2012

No amount of lying Pentagon propaganda can hide the reality that the war has been an unmitigated disaster for the Afghan people and for the thousands of dead and tens of thousands of maimed troops sent to kill and die there in the interests of empire.

Another UnIslamic Pakistani Preacher Incites Mob Attack Upon Christians, Dozens of Homes Burned In Lahore

[SEE:  Almost Rwanda?]

Alleged blasphemy: Mob burns scores of Christian homes in Lahore

Rana Tanveer

A protester burns belongings from Christian houses in Lahore on Saturday. PHOTO: ABID NAWAZ/ EXPRESS

LAHORE: A highly-charged mob of thousands burnt more than 40 Christian houses in Badami Bagh area of Lahore on Saturday to “take revenge of the blasphemy” allegedly committed by a Christian two days earlier.

Express News had earlier reported that around 100 houses were burnt by the mob.

Eyewitnesses said that the mob broke into the houses, looted them and burnt the remaining belongings on the roads.

SSP Operations Suhail Sukhera and the SHO of Badami Bagh were also reportedly injured when the mob pelted a police party with stones.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told Express News that he saw no reason for the mob’s violence especially after the person accused of blasphemy had been arrested on Friday. He added that cases have been registered against those responsible for Saturday’s vandalism and that they will be prosecuted.

Sanaullah added that all those whose property had been damaged will be compensated within five days.

Shahi Imran, who had filed the blasphemy FIR, told The Express Tribune that he was not responsible for the incident and he had left the area when the mob arrived to burn the houses. He maintained that the accused should be taught a lesson but the other Christian families should not be harmed.

SSP Sukhera, when contacted, denied that the houses were set on fire and said that the police personnel was present in the area.

President Asif Ali Zardari took notice of the incident and sought a report from authorities,reported Radio Pakistan.

On Friday, a mob of almost 3,000 people forced the Christian community to flee for their lives, leaving behind their houses and possessions unprotected.

The charged group had gathered around Joseph Colony on Noor Road, led by Shafiq Ahmed, who was in search of the accused Savan, alias Bubby. The mob then attacked Savan’s house, setting it on fire and pelting it with stones. Other houses in the locality – home to about 150 Christian families – were also attacked.  Many residents, including women and children, hastily fled to save themselves.

Savan was arrested and shifted to an undisclosed location.

get the Nazis out of our government

[It is little wonder that the United States of America is hurtling down the road to dictatorship at warp speed, when both of our premier intelligence bureaus (both foreign and domestic services) have been built-up around solid cores of the worst Nazis available to them.  Basically, the remnants of the Gestapo and the SS were absorbed by the FBI and the CIA for their anti-Communist capabilities.  The CIA used them to gain access to their Russian and Eastern European networks.  The FBI apparently used them for the same purposes inside the US, to infiltrate Soviet bloc expatriate communities.  How could America become anything other than another brutal police state, with people like this controlling the intelligence which would guide our elected decision-makers?  Things like this tend to validate our "extremist" beliefs that our current form of government must be cast-off, so that Democratic government might be returned to our floundering Constitutional Republic.]  

It doesn’t take a “conspiracy theorist” to understand the plain, simple truth, that we have to get the Nazis out of our government.

The FBI’s shameful recruitment of Nazi war criminals

By Richard Rashke

This essay is adapted from Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals, which was recently published by Delphinium Books.

A trove of recently declassified documents leads to several inescapable conclusions about the FBI’s role in protecting both proven and alleged Nazi war criminals in America. First, there can be no doubt that J. Edgar Hoover collected Nazis and Nazi collaborators like pennies from heaven. Unlike the military and its highly structured Operation Paperclip — with its specific targets, systematic falsification of visa applications, and creation of bogus biographies — Hoover had no organized program to find, vet, and recruit alleged Nazis and Nazi collaborators as confidential sources, informants, and unofficial spies in émigré communities around the country. America’s No. 1 crime buster was guided only by opportunism and moral indifference.

Each Nazi collaborator that his agents stumbled upon, or learned about from the CIA, was both a potential spy and a potential anticommunist leader. Once they were discovered, Hoover sought them out, used them, and protected them. He had no interest in reporting alleged Nazi war criminals to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the Justice Department, or the State Department for possible deportation or extradition. He appeared smug in his simplistic division of Americans into shadeless categories of bad guys and good guys, communists and anticommunists.

Hoover was careful about the number of former Nazis and Nazi collaborators he placed on the FBI payroll. If Congress or its investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, ever insisted on a tally, he could say with a straight face that there were only a handful of paid confidential sources and informants. But if one adds the war criminals he informally cultivated and used, the number ranges well into the hundreds. Although some of the snapshots may be out of focus, the big picture is now clear. Hoover and the FBI knew the identities, addresses, and backgrounds of up to a thousand alleged Nazis and Nazi collaborators on whom he had files but did not report to INS, Justice, State, or the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) unit of the Justice Department.

Among the newly revealed Nazi collaborators that Hoover and the FBI used and protected were John Avdzej, Laszlo Agh, and Vladimir Sokolov. During the war, Belorussian John Avdzej had been installed as the Nazi’s puppet mayor of the Niasvizh district in western Belorussia, once part of Poland. His first mayoral job was to rid his district of all Poles. As a first step, he gave the Gestapo a list of 120 Polish intelligentsia that included journalists, professors, priests, and former military officers, according to recently declassified intelligence files. Then he took part in their execution, as well as in the murder of thousands of Jews under his political jurisdiction.

The Polish Home Army condemned him to death in absentia. The United States was responsible for bringing Avdzej to America. Hoover snapped him up and protected him until 1984, when OSI charged him with visa fraud. Facing trial and possible extradition for war crimes, Avdzej voluntarily left the United States for West Germany, where he died a free man in 1998.

Laszlo Agh was a wartime member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, an anti- Semitic group of fascists responsible for the murder of 10,000 to 15,000 Hungarian Jews and the deportation to Auschwitz of another 80,000. According to 12 eyewitnesses, Agh had personally rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and killed hundreds of Hungarian Jews. The torture included forced calisthenics to the point of unconsciousness, burial in the ground up to the neck until dead, and orders to jump on ground studded with partially buried bayonets.

Agh intrigued Hoover. A bitterly anticommunist leader had fallen into his lap and Hoover quickly recruited him as an unofficial informant. When the INS began to investigate Agh, the FBI refused to cooperate. As a result, Agh was never tried for visa fraud. Like Avdzej, he died a free man.

Russian Vladimir Sokolov (aka Vladimir Samarin) was a senior editor and writer for Rech (Speech), a German-controlled, anti-Semitic Russian newspaper. He entered the United States in July 1951. Sokolov penned articles calling for the extermination of Russian Jews as enemies of the people. Jews advised Stalin, he wrote, started the German-Soviet war, and controlled the White House. Only Germany and its allies had the wisdom to understand the international Jewish conspiracy and the courage to fight “the Kikes of the world.” After the war, Moscow placed Sokolov on its most-wanted list, claiming it had concrete proof that he had worked with the Gestapo as a propagandist and had personally identified Jews for execution. The FBI, on the other hand, considered Sokolov a “sincere, outspoken anti-Communist [and] a potential source.”

At one point, he even taught Russian language and literature at Yale University. “How a man with no high academic credentials suddenly procured such a prestigious position is a mystery,” wrote historian Norman Goda. “It is clear that the FBI used him as an informant while at Yale, possibly to report on Russian students.”

If Sokolov was spying for a U.S. intelligence agency, he was probably an asset in Redcap, a CIA program to collect information on Soviets living and studying abroad. The CIA as well as the FBI wanted to know if a Soviet alien was a KGB mole and, if not, whether he or she could be flipped. Redcap assets were asked to collect information on selected targets. Besides a photograph and handwriting sample, Redcap wanted: a list of non-Soviet contacts; a description of personality, habits, and hobbies; his or her political vulnerability; and the planned date of return to the Soviet Union. Of particular interest to Redcap was information on extramarital affairs that could be used for blackmail.

OSI filed charges against Sokolov for visa fraud and won its case. A federal court stripped him of his U.S. citizenship. To avoid deportation to the Soviet Union, where he would face a public trial and certain execution, Sokolov fled to Canada. He died a free man in 1992.

However shocking and reprehensible, Hoover’s use of alleged Nazis and Nazi collaborators is just a small part of the FBI story. To focus only on that dimension diverts attention away from a more important issue. In choosing to take the low moral ground, Hoover and the FBI betrayed the trust of Americans, living and dead. And in perpetrating a 50-year conspiracy of silence, the FBI shamed Americans and made them unwitting hypocrites in the eyes of the world. Most Americans find morally repugnant — if not criminal — the behavior of European citizens who cheered or merely stood by in silence while Nazis and Nazi collaborators dragged away their neighbors, looted their homes, shot them in the forest, or crammed them into boxcars heading east. How then must Americans judge the cadre of unelected, powerful men who welcomed some of those same murderers to America and helped them escape punishment in the name of national security?

White House Continually Hampered By Pentagon Sabotage of Administration Foreign Policy

[The following article details how Gen. James Jones derailed Ambassador Holbrooke's intended $50 billion investment in Pakistani development, with an insincere bluff of a secret civilian nuclear deal.  The photo used below is of Jones and the head of Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), the Iranian terrorist outfit, before testifying before Congress for taking Washington and Saddam Hussain's favorite terrorists off the State Dept. terror list.  The MEK are the hands of the CIA and Mossad within Iran.  They are responsible for bombings, assassinations of nuclear scientists and obtaining photos which are to be used to create convincing, false propaganda about Iranian programs.  Apparently, Gen. Jones was tasked with sabotaging all roads which did not lead to war with Iran, or war on Pakistan.]

Holbrooke wanted $50bn for Pakistan

Anwar Iqbal

Gen. James Jones and Maryam Rajavi (President elect, wife of Massoud Rajavi, founder of terrorist MEK).

WASHINGTON: A former US National Security Adviser offered Pakistan an ‘off script’ civilian nuclear deal in exchange for its counter-terrorism cooperation, a former member of Richard Holbrooke’s team wrote on Wednesday.

In an article he wrote for the Foreign Policy magazine, Vali Nasr said his time in the Obama administration “turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience”.

He recalled how former National Security Adviser James Jones travelled to Pakistan for high-level meetings without informing the State Department or Mr Holbrooke, who was the special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He said that during one trip to Pakistan, Gen Jones “went completely off script and promised Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani… a civilian nuclear deal in exchange for Pakistan’s cooperation”.

“Panic struck the White House. It took a good deal of diplomatic tap-dancing to take that offer off the table.”

Mr Nasr said that Mr Holbrooke wanted Washington and the international community to commit $50 billion to stimulate Pakistan’s economic development and convinced former secretary of state Hillary Clinton of forging a strategic partnership with the country.

“The true key to ending the war, Mr Holbrooke often told us, was to change Pakistan… but to convince Pakistan that we meant business, we first had to prove that America was going to stay,” he wrote.

Mr Holbrooke understood that the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA wanted Pakistan to cut ties with the Taliban and do more to fight terrorism. “That would never happen, however, without at least some semblance of a normal relationship between Pakistan and the United States,” Mr Nasr wrote.

He said that in 2009, half the US diplomatic mission in Pakistan worked on intelligence and counter-terrorism rather than diplomacy or development.

“The US Consulate in Peshawar was basically bricks shielding antennas. And it paid big dividends,” Mr Nasr wrote.

Based on the information it received from intelligence sources, “the Obama administration began carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan on an industrial scale”.

Pakistani Taliban execute, behead soldiers in South Waziristan

[Sorry that I was unable to post the video included at Long War, but since the discontinuation of the "Vodpod" service, we, here at WordPress sites, can only post from YouTube.]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f12_1362419460

By Bill Roggio

 

Warning: the video below contains graphic footage of the aftermath of the Taliban killing several Pakistani soldiers. The Taliban remove the heads of the Pakistani soldiers.

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan released a videotape on the fighting in the Mehsud areas of South Waziristan which includes graphic footage of the mutilation of several Pakistani soldiers who appear to have been killed in a firefight last summer.

The videotape, which was sent to The Long War Journal by a spokesman from Umar Media, the media arm of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, is titled “Strike of a Believer.” It focuses on the Taliban’s fight against the Pakistani military in the tribal agency of South Waziristan, and includes a statement from the terror group’s emir, Hakeemullah Mehsud.

A three-minute segment shows what appears to be the aftermath of a clash with Pakistani soldiers in a mountainous area of South Waziristan. The Taliban are seen taking the soldiers’ weapons. The soldiers are seen with their Pakistani Army-issued weapons, body armor, and helmets.

At least three of what appear to be six soldiers who were killed and beheaded are shown. Their heads are displayed on top of rocks. The body of one Pakistani soldier, who was not beheaded, was thrown down the mountainside.

Although the date of the Taliban attack on the Pakistani soldiers was not provided in the video, a spokesman for Umar Media told The Long War Journal that “this fight was held on 22 June 2012.”

The Pakistani media did not report the deaths of Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan within three days before or after June 22, 2012. The nearest report of Pakistani soldiers killed in South Waziristan was on June 18, 2012, when two soldiers were said to have been killed in an attack on the Ladha area of South Waziristan.

Hakeemullah threatens the US and Britain

In addition to the graphic Taliban clip, a speech by Taliban emir Hakeemullah Mehsud was also featured in the lengthy tape. Hakeemullah vowed to continue to attempt to execute attacks on US and British soil.

“At present we are waging defensive jihad but our resolve is very strong,” Hakeemullah said, according to a translation of the videotape which was provided by the SITE Intelligence Group. He continued: “We resolve to enter Britain and America. They come here and target us, so we will go to America and Britain and target them. These will be blessings of jihad. Allah willing, we will have access there and avenge inside America and Britain.”

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan nearly detonated a car bomb in Times Square in New York City on May 1, 2010. The bomb was placed by Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen who was born in Pakistan and returned home to train for an attack on the US. Both Hakeemullah and Qari Hussain, another Taliban commander, claimed credit for the attack. Hakeemullah was later seen on tape with Shahzad, boasting about the plot.

Videotape the latest to show Taliban executions of Pakistani security forces

In the past, the Taliban have released several videos of the execution and beheading of Pakistani troops. Most recently, in September 2012, the Taliban released a videotape of the aftermath of the beheadings of several Pakistani soldiers who were captured after fighting in Bajaur.

In June 2012, a video showing the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers who had served in the district of Dir, which is near Bajaur, was released by the Taliban. [See LWJ report, Pakistani Taliban release video of beheaded Pakistani soldiers.]

In June 2011, the Taliban released a video of the execution of 16 Pakistani policemen in Dir. The Taliban lined them up, and executed them via firing squad. The policemen had been captured after the Taliban crossed the border from Kunar. [See LWJ report, Video of brutal Taliban execution of Pakistani policemen emerges.]

In February 2011, Hakeemullah released a videotape of the execution of a former Pakistani military intelligence official known as Colonel Imam. Although Imam, a senior officer in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, was a favorite of the Afghan Taliban for his support of Mullah Omar, the Pakistani Taliban accused him spying against the terror group. [See LWJ report, Video: Pakistani Taliban execute Colonel Imam.]

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/03/pakistani_taliban_ex_1.php#ixzz2Mmb4mbI4

Al-Nusra in Syria Remains True To Founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

[SEE:  Syrian citizens: Jabhat al-Nusra trying to 'control everything']

Iraqi analysts: Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria mirrors al-Qaeda in Iraq

By Mohammed al-Qaisi in Baghdad

Al-Qaeda in Iraq attacks places of worship, culture and education deeming them blasphemous, officials say. Above, a theatre in Samarra, Salaheddine province, lays in ruin, after an AQI attack in 2008. (Mohammed al-Qaisi/Mawtani)

As tensions increase between Syrian citizens and members of extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN) Iraqi officials, researchers and security leaders warned of similarities between JAN and al-Qaeda in Iraq in terms of ideology and strategy.

They called on the Syrian people and other opposition group to prevent members of the JAN from taking over their revolution, warning that though both sides share the common goal of toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad, JAN has other intentions.

“We are monitoring with concern the recent attacks conducted by the extremist JAN in Syria because it is ruining the situation there,” said acting Iraqi Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi. “JAN is turning its attacks on the people, just as al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups did in Iraq.”

He said attacks on churches and destruction of statues, archaeological sites and sacred shrines bears resemblance to what al-Qaeda did in Iraq in past years.

In February, Syrians from the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan accused JAN of cutting off the head of a statue in town of the poet Abu al-Alaa al-Maari, who was born there, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

They posted pictures online of a headless dark brown bust riddled with bullet holes, lying on the ground near its former pedestal.

In December 2012, the Universal Syriac Union Party condemned alleged JAN attacks on citizens’ houses, private possessions and houses of worship in Ras al-Ain, Hasakeh province.

The party said the violations included the desecration of religious symbols as well as attacking the Syriac school and destroying its contents.

JAN attacks indicate only one thing, al-Dulaimi told Mawtani. “They are terrorists and different from the other revolutionaries”.

“This confirms al-Qaeda’s ideology and style are the same, anytime, anywhere, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen or Syria,” al-Dulaimi said.

The Syrian people alone can determine their future, and they “must not allow anyone to take away their freedom, because allowing terrorist groups to proliferate there is a repeat of the Iraqi scenario”, he said.

JAN TIES TO AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ

According to a recent report published by counter-extremism think tank Quilliam Foundation, “many members of JAN come from the jihadist network of Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi”, which was created in 2000 and solidified in Baghdad in 2002.

“Syrians who had been with al-Zarqawi in Herat, Afghanistan, in 2000 were sent to build branches of his network in Syria and Lebanon,” the report said.

“With approximately 5,000 members, JAN is by no means the largest group fighting in the [current] conflict, although it has often been described as the most effective,” Quilliam said.

Lt. Gen. Radhi al-Malhamy, commander of Iraqi army operations in Anbar province, which borders Syria, spoke to the similarities between JAN and al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group al-Zarqawi eventually joined.

“Attacks by JAN in Syria remind us of horrific attacks by al-Qaeda that targeted houses of worship, such as churches, husseiniyas, mosques, sacred shrines, archaeological sites, statues, monuments and even artwork, which are all considered by al-Qaeda in Iraq as blasphemous and atheistic,” he told Mawtani.

“Syrians cannot trade a fever for certain death, nor can Syria be reduced to one faction. It is a country with multiple sects, religions and cultures, and groups [like JAN] will eventually begin to target people’s personal freedoms and their beliefs, and may even ban women from driving cars, wearing modern clothes or listening to music,” al-Malhamy said.

He advised Syrians to tighten the noose on JAN and boycott it completely, saying “after everything is over”, it will turn to kill them inside their homes.

“We are confident the Iraqi experience is sufficient for all people to learn the lesson of al-Qaeda and the terror it unleashed in past years,” he said.

According to al-Malhamy, JAN’s spread in Syria would not only threaten security in the country, but in the region as a whole.

He called on the Free Syrian Army to “assume responsibility for protecting Syria against them, and preventing them from hijacking the revolution from the people”.

‘ACT SWIFTLY TO REJECT JAN’

Meanwhile, Col. Mohammed al-Rubaie, deputy commander of border guard forces along the Iraqi-Syrian border, said the “majority of the terrorists involved in killing hundreds of Iraqis fled to Syria after security forces killed or cornered many of their fellow criminals”.

They formed JAN “after they found in the troubled situation in Syria a suitable environment for establishing an al-Qaeda branch, as happened in Iraq the first time”, he said.

He said the blood of their Iraqi victims — children, women and the elderly — has not dried yet.

“Soon you will be like them unless you act swiftly to eradicate [JAN members] by boycotting and rejecting them. At the present moment, it is possible to deal with them and wipe them out as a social disease, but if they spread and expand more than they have so far, it will become very difficult,” he added.

Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha, head of the anti-al-Qaeda Iraqi Sahwa Council, also appealed to “all mothers and fathers in all Syrian cities to prevent your sons, particularly teenagers and enthusiastic youth, from joining those who promote the terrorist project JAN — the ones with beards, black banners and resonant slogans”.

He said now JAN members are destroying statues and the arts, and “afterwards they will move to destroy people by way of killings, arsons and torture, if the people do not side with them.”

He said that by then, “all the sacrifices of the Syrian people will have gone in vain”.

‘AL-QAEDA CANNOT BE A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AGAINST PERSECUTION’

Fouad Ali, an expert on al-Qaeda in Iraq and member of the security committee at Anbar provincial headquarters, told Mawtani “al-Qaeda cannot in any way be a revolutionary movement against persecution”.

It cannot be “because it is an ideology based on calling others apostates, and opposing the principles of democracy and freedom. It is presently fighting in Syria not to establish a free, pluralistic, democratic system, but rather to find an alternative to [being in] Iraq, after security forces triumphed over it”, he said.

Ali said JAN now resembles to a large extent the Tawhid wal Jihad group when it came to Iraq, “which soon enough revealed its name as al-Qaeda”.

“JAN will reveal its identity openly under the name of al-Qaeda in Bilad al-Sham, but we hope and wish the Syrians do not fall into the trap as Iraqis did in the past,” he said.

Hard Evidence on Turkish Government Involvement in Stealing hundreds of Syrian Plants: Shehabi

DAMASCUS,ST) Chairman of the  Federation of the Syrian Chambers of Industry Fares Shehabi stressed that Aleppo Chamber of Industry has all the evidence on the involvement of the Turkish government   in stealing production lines and machines of  hundreds of different laboratories from  the city of Aleppo and in smuggling them into the  Turkish territory,  in clear violation of international laws.

 

In a statement to SANA, al-Shehabi indicated that terrorists  looting of factories and laboratories in Aleppo aimed at the destruction of the Syrian economy,  damaging the Syrian industry  which competes the Turkish products and making a rift between the national  business and the government in Syria, , adding that  industrialists in Aleppo accuse the Turkish government of deliberate  terrorism and criminality against the Syrian industry and demanding the formation of a neutral international commission to investigate facts about stealing and looting  factories in Aleppo, at the full knowledge of the Turkish government.

He demanded  the current Turkish government to compensate for the damages inflicted upon Aleppo industry, by facilitating the transit of terrorists, who stole the Syrian  factories ‘s machinery and production lines and smuggled them across the border from Syria   into Turkey.

” There are no accurate estimates for  industrialists on  total losses in Syria by armed terrorist groups because of the inability to have  access to certain plants,” he said,  explaining that terrorists stole about 1,000 factories  in the city  of  Aleppo.

He continued  that initial estimates of the damage inflicted on Aleppo ‘s industrial plants caused by terrorist acts exceed  200 billion  Syrian Pounds, indicating that “this sum does not include the destruction of buildings and  ancient markets , nor  the growing accumulated losses borne on a  daily basis on industrialists.

He pointed  the importance of eliminating terrorists in all areas of Aleppo and the restoration of  security and safety  so as industrialists could return to their factories to take part in the  relief, reconstruction and reconciliation efforts in the country.

” In a time record,  industrialists will be able to rebuild  factories , much better than before,” he stressed.

He  called more efforts to be exerted as to secure fuel oil  for   remaining factories  to continue  working to meet the increasing demand for  the local market under the current circumstances.

” These terrorist acts are but  a crime against the Syrians, targeting  everyone  in livelihood , housing and daily  needs, including the traders and industrialists  .” he emphasized.

T. Fateh

Sec. Kerry discusses Iran, Syria in meeting with Saudi foreign minister

[It is highly significant that the Fat Pig of Qatar was not invited to this soiree.  It is not that Qatar has suddenly become the Black Sheep of Arabia, but that conspiracies must keep up appearances.  Somebody has to take the fall when this latest terrorist operation blows-up in the CIA’s face, and all of its terror operations eventually do just that.  The contradiction between what they do and what they say always arises to mess-up their super-spy wet dreams. 

Qatar is openly (almost) and bravely picking-up the “Al-CIA-da” ball in nearly all ongoing Islamist plots.  From Syria to Mali, Qatar sponsors the local “al-Qaeda,” meaning the criminal gangs and the CIA private contractors, who always dress like the local loonies, so that they cannot tell the spy from the real religious fanatic, by “fanatic,” I mean Wahhabi.  The top Wahhabi at this meeting with Kerry claimed that Saudi Arabia had a “moral duty” to stop the “slaughter” in Syria.  He never mentioned that the so-called Royal Kingdon was and is the primary sponsor of all of the real terrorists in Syria.   Now they want credit for turning-off the terror tap in Syria, just as they originally turned it on.  Future historians will find the hypocrisy of our generation to be beyond belief.  They will find it impossible to believe that anyone could have been as hypocritical as those sell-outs to the human race, who were in bed with the Saudis.]

 

Kerry discusses Iran, Syria in meeting with Saudi foreign minister

Mar. 4, 2013: Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah, second from right, is greeted as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, second from left, speaks with an advisor. (AP)

 

Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the Syrian government is receiving support from multiple nations including Iran and warned the window of opportunity for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear problem “cannot by definition remain open indefinitely.”

Kerry, who was meeting in Riyadh with the foreign ministers of Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman as well as the Saudi crown prince and foreign minister, added that “there is time to resolve this issue providing the Iranians are prepared to engage seriously” on proposals to defuse it.

“But talks will not go on for the sake of talks and talks cannot become an instrument for delay that will make the situation more dangerous,” he said. Kerry said he and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal “discussed our shared determination to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

Saud said that Saudi Arabia “supports the efforts to resolve the crisis diplomatically in order to alleviate all doubts surrounding the program.”

“Therefore, we hope that the negotiations will result in putting an end to this problem rather than containing it,” he said, “taking into account that the clock is ticking and negotiations cannot go on forever.”

In addition to Iran, Kerry, who is on his first overseas trip as secretary of state after succeeding Hillary Clinton, also held discussions about the situation in violence-torn Syria.

Kerry said that unfortunately the “bad actors” in Syria are receiving support from Iran, Hezbollah and Russia.

“The United States will continue to work with our friends to empower the Syrian opposition to hopefully be able to bring about a peaceful resolution, but if not, to increase pressure on Assad,” he said. The United States last week agreed to increase non-lethal aid to Syrian opposition groups.

Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states are believed to be involved in shipping weapons to Syrian rebels, who have yet to receive lethal aid from the West.

“The Kingdom stressed the importance of enabling the Syrian people to exercise its legitimate right to defend itself against the regime’s killing regime,” Saud said.

Saud said that Syrian President Assad has lost all authority, saying he has never heard of a regime that would use missiles against innocent women and children in cities.

“Saudi Arabia will do everything within its capacity, and we do believe that what is happening in Syria is a slaughter,” he said, “… and we can’t bring ourselves to remain quiet. Morally we have a duty.”

Kerry also was to meet in Riyadh with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is visiting the Saudi capital.

Kerry’s working lunch with Abbas was coming two weeks before the secretary is to accompany President Obama to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan to explore ways of restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Kerry travels next to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar before returning to Washington Wednesday.

Fox News’ James Rosen and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Bashar Assad Speaks the Truth About British Meddling, Saudi/Qatari Terrorism and Their American Accomplices

[SEE:  Speech By the Syrian President Bashar Assad At the Opera House in Damascus, Jan. 6, 2013–(FULL TRANSCRIPT)]

‘Bullying’ Britain fanning the flames in Syria, warns Bashar al-Assad 

• BY:HALA JABER IN DAMASCUS
• From:The Times 

Syrian President Bashar Assad speaks during an interview with The Sunday Times in Damascus on Thursday. Picture: Sunday Times via AP video Source: The Times

 

AFTER 23 months of a conflict that has ripped his country apart, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was in no mood to contemplate giving up the fight and going into exile.

“No patriotic person will think about living outside his country. I am like any other patriotic Syrian,” he said in an interview last week, when I asked if he would leave to improve the prospects for peace. In any case, he said, it was nonsense to suggest that the conflict was about the president and his future.

“If this argument is correct, then my departure will stop the fighting. Clearly this is absurd, and recent precedents in Libya, Yemen and Egypt bear witness to this.”

Assad spoke softly throughout the hour-long interview, his first with a western newspaper for more than a year, but he had harsh words for his opponents.

He vowed that Syria would retaliate against Israel for an airstrike on a research centre in Damascus last month.

He accused John Kerry, the American secretary of state, of wasting time by trying to ease him out of power, saying his leadership was an internal matter, “so I am not going to discuss it with anyone who is coming from abroad”.

His most withering criticism, however, was directed at Britain. Instead of pushing for peace talks, he said, David Cameron’s “naive, confused, unrealistic” government was trying to end an EU arms embargo so that the rebels could be supplied with weapons.

This, he said, would fan the flames of war at a time when an al-Qa’ida-backed element of the uprising, Jabhat al-Nusra, was already “killing, beheading, torturing and preventing children from going to school”.

“We do not expect an arsonist to be a firefighter,” he said, dismissing any suggestion that Britain could help to resolve the conflict.

“To be frank, Britain has played a famously unconstructive role in our region on different issues for decades, some say for centuries … The problem with this government is that their shallow and immature rhetoric only highlights this tradition of bullying and hegemony…

“How can we ask Britain to play a role while it is determined to militarise the problem? How can we expect them to make the violence less while they want to send military supplies to the terrorists?”

Yet Assad adopted a conciliatory tone towards the Syrian opposition, inviting it to join in a national dialogue aimed at ending the crisis.

“We are ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms,” he declared. “We are not going to deal with terrorists who are determined to carry weapons, to terrorise people, to kill civilians, to attack public places or private enterprise and to destroy the country.”

He concluded: “We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition, but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists. We fight terrorism.”

I WAS waiting in a first-floor reception room at Al-Muhajireen palace, a relatively modest building where Assad often works, away from the grandeur of the main presidential palace, when I was told to look out of the window. An ordinary black saloon car with tinted windows was coming up the drive.

I realised it could be the president but I was surprised to see him emerging not from a rear door opened by a chauffeur, but from the driver’s seat. He was the only person in the vehicle and there was no sign of a security convoy.

It was explained to me that despite regular explosions, Assad insists on maintaining a normal lifestyle including – to his security chief’s dismay – driving to the office in the morning. He has apparently told his security men that if ever he has to wear a flak jacket to move around Damascus, he might as well step down.

We met in a room with artisanal chandeliers and window frames inlaid with mother of pearl. Through the open shutters, one could see residential buildings on the other side of a courtyard. It was a quiet morning, with a lull in the shelling of the suburbs that can be heard daily from the city centre.

More than 3 million Syrians have been driven from their homes and, as the death toll soars, barely a family in Syria has been left untouched – not even the president’s.

His brother-in-law, General Assef Shawkat, was blown up last July in a bombing that also killed three other senior members of the security forces. Had this made Assad fear for his own life, I wondered? Did he lie in bed at night, listening to the explosions and worrying about the security of his British wife, Asma, and their children Hafez, 10, Zein, 9 and Karim, 7?

“Can anybody be safe, or their family be safe, if the country is in danger?” he replied. “In reality, no. If your country is not safe, you cannot be safe, so instead of worrying about yourself and your family, you should worry about every citizen and every family in your country.”

The interview was timed to coincide with Kerry’s first foreign tour as secretary of state. Kerry met Syrian rebels in Rome last Thursday and announced that pounds 40m of “non-lethal” US aid would go directly to them for the first time.

“The intelligence, communication and financial assistance being provided is very lethal,” Assad countered, pointing out that “non-lethal” technology had been used to deadly effect in the 9/11 attacks.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, is expected to announce a package of British assistance this week.

“The British government wants to send military aid to moderate groups in Syria, knowing all too well that such moderate groups do not exist in Syria,” Assad said. “We all know that we are now fighting al-Qa’ida, or Jabhat al-Nusra, an offshoot of al-Qa’ida, and other groups of people indoctrinated with extreme ideologies.

“This is beyond hypocritical,” he added, echoing Hague’s comment about him.

“A recent survey in the UK showed that a good proportion of the British people want to ‘keep out of Syria’ and they do not believe that the British government should send military supplies to the rebels. In spite of this, the British government continues to push the EU to lift its arms embargo on Syria and to start arming the militants with heavy weapons. That is what I call detached from reality – when you’re detached from your own public opinion.”

Today Kerry is due to visit Saudi Arabia before moving on to Qatar. Both countries actively support the rebels, who have seized large swathes of northern Syria and appear to be advancing in parts of Aleppo, the biggest commercial centre, while being beaten back in Damascus.

The best way for anyone to help Syria, Assad said, would be to “go to Saudi Arabia and Qatar and tell them: stop financing the terrorists in Syria”.

Support for the opposition could backfire now the extremists were in the ascendant, he warned. Jabhat al-Nusra has been blamed for a series of bombings, including one in Damascus 10 days ago in which the president said 300 people had been killed or injured.

The “irreversible” spread of al-Qa’ida’s ideology was even more dangerous than its armed attacks.

Describing Syria as “a melting pot of religions, sects, ethnicities and ideologies”, he added: “We should be worrying about the majority of moderate Syrians who, if we do not fight this extremism, could become the minority – at which point Syria will cease to exist. If you worry about Syria, you have to worry about the Middle East, because we are the last bastion of secularism in the region. If you worry about the Middle East, the whole world should be worried about its stability.”

WITH the conflict about to enter its third year, a change of attitude on both sides towards peace talks has brought a glimmer of hope, albeit a tiny one.

Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the opposition alliance Syrian National Coalition, was reported last month to have dropped his insistence on the departure of Assad before any talks could take place.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, said Khatib’s proposal had challenged the government to show it was ready for a peaceful settlement. However, rifts in the opposition have since emerged, with some saying Assad must step down.

Assad himself said he wanted to include many groups in talks. “The dialogue is about the future of Syria. We are 23 million Syrians and all of us have the right to participate in shaping the country’s future,” he said.

He criticised the West for promoting the rebel Free Syrian Army as a unified entity when in reality it consisted of “hundreds of small groups”.

I asked whether his demand for fighters to lay down their arms would prevent talks from getting under way. Had this been his plan all along, as his critics suggested, because he knew that negotiations would lead to his downfall?

The opposite was true, Assad claimed. “They say that dialogue will bring the downfall of the president and I am inviting them to the dialogue. Why don’t they then come to the dialogue to bring about downfall?”

Could there ever be a negotiated settlement while he remained in power? “We have a plan and whoever wants to deal with us can deal with us through our plan,” he replied.

Some of Assad’s opponents want to see him stand trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Court as the person ultimately responsible for his army’s actions. I asked if he was troubled by this.

“Are they going to take the American and British leaders who attacked Iraq in 2003 and claimed more than half a million lives?” he retorted. “They are not going to do it. The answer is very clear.”

He was equally unhappy with the UN, which has estimated the death toll in the conflict at 70,000. The figures had been manipulated to justify outside intervention, he claimed, just as they had been in Libya before French and British airstrikes two years ago.

“You have noted those figures as though they were numbers from a spreadsheet,” he told me. “We see thousands of families who have lost loved ones and who unfortunately will grieve for many years to come. Nobody can feel this pain more than us.”

I recalled meeting a boy aged seven who had lost an arm, a leg and five members of his family in an explosion caused by the Syrian military. What could he say to such a child?

“Children are the most fragile link in any society and unfortunately they often pay the heaviest price in any conflict,” Assad replied.

“As a father of young children, I know the meaning of having a child harmed by something very simple, so if they are harmed badly or if we lose a child, it is the worst thing any family can face.

“Whenever you have conflicts, you have these painful stories that affect any society. This is the most important and the strongest incentive for us to fight terrorism.”

The fear of many in the Middle East since the conflict began has been that it would draw in surrounding countries. I asked Assad if he would retaliate against Israel for last month’s airstrikes on the research centre. Some reports have said the dead included an Iranian general working with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Assad said Syria had always retaliated for Israeli actions, “But we retaliated in our own way, and only the Israelis know what we mean. Retaliation does not mean missile for missile or bullet for bullet. Our own way does not have to be announced.”

He refused to elaborate. Nor would he discuss claims that Syria has been moving its chemical weapons, apparently to prevent them from falling into the hands of extremists.

“We have never, and will never, discuss our armaments with anyone,” he said.

He denied reports that Russia, Hezbollah and Iran had sent soldiers to Syria, saying: “Russia has been very constructive, Iran has been very supportive and Hezbollah’s role is to defend Lebanon, not Syria.

“We are a country of 23 million people with a strong national army and police force. We are in no need of foreign fighters to defend our country.”

In conclusion, Assad warned of grave consequences if the West armed the rebels, directly or indirectly.

“You know the crime is not only about the victim and the criminal but also the accomplice providing support, whether it is moral or logistical support,” he said.

“Syria lies at the fault line geographically, politically, socially and ideologically. So playing with this fault line will have serious repercussions all over the Middle East.

“Any intervention will not make things better. It will only make them worse. Europe and the United States and others are going to pay the price sooner or later with the instability in this region. They do not foresee it.”

The Sunday Times

“Al-CIA- DA” Posers Advocate the “Terrorism” of Flattening Tires–What’s Next “Keying” Car Doors?

[That invisible fraud known as "al-Qaeda," which the intelligence agencies have enabled to impersonate an international terrorist organization, has revealed its true nature today--a bunch of incompetent morons with zero technical terrorist skills, riding on the legends generated by the real CIA terrorists in the world.  The dummies are just there for window-dressing and to take the fall for real state terrorism, American/Saudi/Israeli terrorism.  That state terrorism is committed by battalions of those dummies, who have received actual technical training along the way by their Arab and Western instructors.  Even most of those guys are babbling, fanatical idiots, consider as a typical example, the morons who were captured early on in Northern Syria, around Aleppo.  They were certain that they had been waging jihad against the Israelis:

"You won't believe this...,One of our prisoners told me: 'I didn't realise Palestine was as beautiful as this.' He thought he was in Palestine to fight the Israelis!"--Reuters

These types of guys are typical of the real "al-Qaeda," just a bunch of terrorist wannabes, who don't even know whether they are fighting for or against the Zionist invaders.]

 

Al-Qaeda magazine lowers expectations, asks for ‘small’ terror operations like torching cars

Stewart Bell 

InspireThe latest edition of the English-language online manual for would-be terrorists explains how to set fire to vehicles using gasoline concealed in apple juice bottles, and suggests sabotaging highways with motor oil and five-inch nails.

The Al-Qaeda propaganda magazine Inspire has reappeared after a nine-month absence to urge extremists living in the West to conduct “small operations” such as torching parked cars and “causing road accidents.”

The latest edition of the English-language online manual for would-be terrorists explains how to set fire to vehicles using gasoline concealed in apple juice bottles, and suggests sabotaging highways with motor oil and five-inch nails.

“The goal is, Inshallah [God willing], that if enough Muslims fulfill their obligations of jihad, the kuffar [non-Muslims] and their insurance companies will be so sick of the terror caused and money wasted by these simple operations that they will press their government to stop the tyranny against Muslims,” it says.

While the magazine vows to terrorize the West into submission, it can’t help sounding desperate.

With its camps targeted by drones, leaders dead or imprisoned, and threats to repeat 9/11 unfulfilled, al-Qaeda has been reduced to encouraging automobile vandalism.

“How much more safe will the West feel parking their vehicles when they know they’re up for TORCHING,” it says, advising would-be arsonists to ensure the cars they target belong to non-Muslims.

“Go to known non-Muslims suburbs to be safe.”

Underscoring the impression of impotence is the magazine’s front-page declaration that, “We are all Osama,” inadvertently likening al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates to a decomposing corpse the U.S. Navy buried at sea almost two years ago.

Related

• Next up on al-Qaeda hit list: the West’s freedom-loving trees

But terrorism experts said Friday it would be a mistake to trivialize the call for attacks in the West, including Canada, which is listed under the heading, “Other important targets for individual jihad.”

“The fashion of course these days is to see al-Qaeda as defeated and desperate, and I suppose if one is inclined to that view, then this can be viewed as proof positive,” said Prof. Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies.

“While that may be true, I don’t think these ‘helpful terrorism tips’ necessarily prove that or really tell us anything. The power and influence of Inspire was always inflated — it reaps disproportionate attention only because it is colorful, glossy, provocative and most importantly published in English.”

The latest edition is the tenth to surface since Inspire first appeared in 2010. Produced by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, it offers step-by-step instructions on how to set fire to parked cars by dousing them in gasoline.

InspireSome inside pages from an older issue of Inspire.

“The West should taste some burning. They should pay for bombarding and burning our Muslim brothers and sisters’ homes and our holy Koran.”

It goes on to explain how to use nails and a wooden board to make a “tire-burster” that will cause drivers to lose control at high speed. It also says to pour “lubricative oil” or cooking oil on highway turns, bridges, tunnels and mountain roads, preferably on Sunday nights, when it says most non-Muslims will be driving drunk. A copy of the magazine was obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group.

“Small operations occupy the enemy’s time. Hitting him in his backyard drives him crazy. So these small operations of today are the stepping stones of tomorrow’s victory by the grace of Allah. Rely on Allah. Answer his call: jihad.”

It advises saboteurs to “work alone. Let it be a secret between Allah and you.”

Like all Islamist extremist propaganda, it justifies terrorism by claiming the West is waging an imaginary war on Islam.

Rick Dubin, vice-president of investigative services at the Insurance Bureau of Canada, said while he had long harbored concerns that auto thefts and staged collisions might be funding terrorism, the call for attacks on cars was news to him.

“We weren’t aware of it and we haven’t run into it.”

The decision to target cars reflects the evolving strategy of terrorists.

Unable to conduct mass casualty atrocities in the West, they have instead begun encouraging supporters already living in Western countries to attempt small-scale attacks.

In testimony to the Senate national security committee last month, CSIS director Richard Fadden mentioned Inspire and said al-Qaeda “has been saying that individuals can do as much harm … by using material that is readily available to them, can do as much good for the cause as somebody who would make a big bang.”

National Post

sbell@nationalpost.com

The Return of Empires, Part 3

The Return of Empires (III)

By Dmitry MININ (Russia)

Part I

Part II

«Smart power» in the service of the American empire

The dissociation of the United States from a number of international problems by shifting these problems onto allies and delegating authority to them, a result of the United States’ «imperial overheating», is based on the currently popular concept of «smart power», the very emergence of which suggests that America’s former sources of power have been exhausted… The time when America’s leadership went unquestioned has passed. Nowadays, maintaining leadership demands considerable intellectual and political efforts from the rulers of the American empire.

At the official level, the name of this concept was first heard in a speech given by Hillary Clinton at the Senate on 13 January 2009 before she confirmed her candidacy for the post of Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton called for the use of «smart power» in order to maintain America’s leadership in the world, referring to the full range of tools at America’s disposal – «diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal and cultural – picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation».

The idea of «smart power» is a development of the «soft power» concept formulated in 1990 by Harvard professor and politician Joseph Nye, who successfully served as chairman of the National Intelligence Council and was a candidate for National Security Advisor in the team of John Kerry, who went on to lose in the presidential elections. Their closeness suggests that the new Secretary of State is making use of his former colleague’s suggestions with much greater enthusiasm than Hillary Clinton.

In 2004, Nye’s ideas were finalised in his book «Soft Power». Nye’s principal idea is that the United States ought to achieve its stated objectives in the international arena through «engagement» rather than «coercion». Hence the need to use social and cultural values as tools of foreign policy. The dominant power should be attractive in everything it does and offer its own example of development guidelines to others. The theory was well received in Washington and has been actively used in some places, for example in the «colour revolutions» and during the «Arab Spring», although it has since been shown as inadequate since its effect is prolonged and not always obvious. In addition, nobody was prepared to give up «hard power» based on force.

Whereupon Nye suggested combining both concepts within a universal «smart power». In 2006, the renowned research centre CSIS organised the Bipartisan Commission on Smart Power, headed by Joseph Nye and «neocon» Richard Armitage. In 2007, the Commission presented a paper entitled “A Smarter, More Secure America”, which laid out the principles for reorganising world order whilst preserving America’s power.

The concept of «smart power» gave the theory of «soft power» some strategic direction. Its leitmotif was the need for a balanced combination of the resources of both types of power, «soft» and «hard». Of course, everybody already understood what the «carrot and stick» policy is all about. The achievement of modern theoreticians has been the detailed elaboration and operationalisation of ideas that are, by and large, clear to everybody. The concept of «smart power» is not just a synthesis of soft and hard power (combining public diplomacy mechanisms with military interventions, for example), but a new philosophy of interrelations with other powers. Its bottom line is that America’s leadership position should not be realised through the single-handed resolution of international problems, but through the organisation of joint actions. Which, for example, is how America operated during the Libyan war; experts called this «leadership from behind».

«America must learn to do things that others want and cannot do themselves, and to do so in a cooperative fashion», the document reads. In the new approaches, it is also possible to detect a division of the leadership concept into two elements – spacial (control over territories) and functional (superiority in addressing problems on a global scale). The US is prepared to give up part of its spatial leadership for the sake of preserving its functional leadership in all key issues of international life.

The concept of «smart power» allows for the fact that power resources are being redistributed in the modern world and new centres of power are emerging. A complex, multi-tiered cobweb of actors is replacing the pyramidal world order with a hierarchical structure. The hierarchy between them is being preserved, just not as rigidly formalised as before. The one proving to be the most influential in this world is the one who is the most involved in widespread and interlinking networks. As another of the creators of the «smart power» concept, Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, noted, «The state with the most connections will be the central player, able to set the global agenda, and unlock innovation and sustainable growth».  Slaughter is the one responsible for the idea of creating «a league of democracies», a kind of super-empire on federalist principles whose members should manage the world through joint efforts. Under Bill Clinton, and on the initiative of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, an alliance like this was even established, but was not developed any further for a number of reasons, including the fact that at that time, the US was not seriously ready to share its authority to manage the world, even with its closest allies. Time has inexorably brought them back to this problem.

In line with the concept of «smart power», in 2010 Barack Obama announced the United States’ commitment to the multilateral (read: in partnership with their closest allies and satellites) resolution of all world problems and international conflicts in their newly outlined National Security Strategy. The document states that, «…we must recognize that no one nation – no matter how powerful – can meet global challenges alone». In addition, their willingness to share the burden of maintaining world order was not postulated as a way to democratise international relations, but as a method to preserve «America’s leadership» in the world under new conditions, «based upon mutual interests and mutual respect», obviously. Such «engagement» is expected to begin with their «closest friends and allies – from Europe to Asia; from North America to the Middle East», among which were named Great Britain, France and Germany.

An active transition to the adoption of this policy was clearly timed to coincide with the beginning of the president’s second mandate. In this respect, US Vice-President Joseph Biden’s speech at the International Security Conference held in Munich in February 2013 is revealing. Biden confirmed that the US was switching its attention to the Asia-Pacific Region, having called upon their European allies to be more active in their zone of responsibility «with the unfailing support of the USA». According to Biden’s assurances, «Europe remains the cornerstone and catalyst for America’s engagement with the world». Biden also spoke of the United States’ support for democratic states in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. Having outlined the claims to America’s newly-established spheres of influence in this way, Biden condemned the notion itself, as usual, but in a rather remarkable way. He declared that America will not recognise the right of any state to have «a sphere of influence», linking this to the non-recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. And this means that the USA is not going to concede its own positions in the Caucasus alongside Caspian Oil and will continue to regard the post-Soviet world as a geopolitical space, the consolidation of which will not be tolerated.

In Europe, Biden’s speech was seen as a bid to redistribute its spheres of influence. The German newspaper Die Welt wrote: «Europeans are anticipating that, in the future, nothing will remain as it is now. Either with NATO or without this organisation, Washington is no longer able to secure them against the consequences of the weakening of their leadership role and their disorientation. The new world order is worsening the disease identified as «imperial overstretch». At the same time, a new balance is taking shape in the Pacific Region, and without its naval, air force and cyber power, it will be difficult for America to oppose the Chinese Middle Kingdom». According to Die Welt, it has fallen to Joseph Biden to «take Europeans on a journey towards the Pacific Ocean and warn them that America is no longer able, and no longer wants, to carry the burden of maintaining world order alone».

The policy of delegating authority to allies or vassals was discernible in Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress on 12 February, in which he set forth his policy priorities for a second term. Having placed the main emphasis on resolving pressing social and economic problems being faced by America, the President reported that over the next year, 34,000 American servicemen will return home from Afghanistan. «This drawdown will continue and by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over», Obama said. From the President’s address it follows that, from now on, America will not wage war on terrorists abroad: «to meet this threat, we don’t need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad or occupy other nations. Instead, we’ll need to help countries like Yemen, and Libya, and Somalia provide for their own security, and help allies who take the fight to terrorists, as we have in Mali».

And so a formula has been found: «as in Mali»! In other words, from now on America will work towards others fighting for their interests, like the «conqueror of Timbuktu», François Hollande, while they themselves will prefer to exercise «leadership from behind».

To be continued…

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Zionism Was A Jewish/German Conspiracy To Export Nazi Germany’s Political Problems To the Middle East

[Zionism is a corrupt pre-nazi era Germanic political philosophy, which masquerades as a religious movement, promoting a policy of war against the Palestinian People, for the purpose of exporting Europe's intractible conflicts, biases and hatred to the Middle East.  Zionism tapped into German fear and hatred, into Jewish money, power and influence, to use as political blackmail over the Western governments, for the purpose of forcing them to manufacture a completely new state out of thin air, to be built upon land already owned and occupied by Palestinian Arabs (Semitic cousins of the Sephardic Jews of the Middle East).  The considerable Jewish political and economic influence in the world economy were exerted upon the British government, forcing London to issue the Balfour Declaration in 1917.  This conjured-up a previously non-existent "Jewish right" to buy-up the land and to "return" to Palestine. 

In 1947, the same political/economic arm-twisting was used to force the United States government to create an entirely new Jewish state  in Palestine (with a ready-made army and air force), selling it as the reincarnation of the ancient, totally extinct state of "Israel."  No extinct state, nor imaginary "citizens" of that "state," have "rights" to any land, or to anything else, which is derived from an actual state, any more than "Romans" or "Macedonians," can claim such "rights."   Purported "titles" to that land, which are obtained from probable works of fiction (Old Testament), carry no legal weight, and would have been dismissed outright if such claims had been taken before any judicial authority. 

Whether or not the so-called "Israeli" Russians, who have claimed shares in these pseudo "rights," are, in fact, hereditary "Jews" (even though almost all of them are the offspring of Khazarians, not coming from refugees from the Middle East), is irrelevant to the claim that neither Britain nor the United States of America, nor the United Nations, for that matter, have any authority to create "new" nations.   Therefore, any revival of an ancient, extinct state, previously known as "Israel," which has been savagely recreated on Palestinian land is an illigitimate entity, posing as a legitimate "state."  Any lawful body which attempts to create a completely new state in place of an already existing country, for the single purpose of giving legitimacy to an existing terrorist army that is already waging war against the native population, is party to the war crimes and international acts of aggression committed by that terrorist army.  War crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an organized campaign of ethnic-cleansing de-legitimizes both the so-called "state" aggressor and the authorizing body which created it.  As long as Zionist Israel exists, world peace is impossible.  If the citizens of that country decide to drop the "Zionist" partition, making Israel/Palestine an inclusive Jewish/Arab state, then that would write a new chapter in human history, one where a happy ending for all mankind is actually possible. 

That is the cold, hard truth, which makes Erdogan absolutely correct in calling Zionism out as another "crime against humanity  (SEE: Erdogan Surprises Everybody At the UN, Calling-Out Zionism As the Crime Against Humanity That It Is)."]

US, Israel irked by Turkish PM’s remarks on Zionism

AP

ANKARA: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday joined the United States and Israel in rejecting statements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who compared Zionism to fascism at a United Nations meeting aiming to promote dialogue between all faiths.

Addressing the UN Alliance of Civilizations conference in Vienna this week, Erdogan complained of prejudices against Muslims and said Islamophobia should be considered a crime against humanity ”just like Zionism, like anti-Semitism and like fascism.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply condemned the remark late Thursday calling it a ”dark and mendacious statement the likes of which we thought had passed from the world.”

In Washington, US National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor said the characterisation about Zionism, the movement to establish and maintain a Jewish state, was ”offensive and wrong.”

”We encourage people of all faiths, cultures, and ideas to denounce hateful actions and to overcome the differences of our times,” he said.

Turkey is a co-sponsor, along with Spain, of the UN initiative to promote tolerance and understanding between various religions and a UN statement said: ”If the comment about Zionism was interpreted correctly, then it was not only wrong but contradicts the very principles on which the Alliance of Civilizations is based.”

The statement said Ban ”believes it is unfortunate that such hurtful and divisive comments were uttered at a meeting being held under the theme of responsible leadership.”

US State Secretary John Kerry is expected to raise the issue when he meets with Erdogan and other Turkish leaders in Ankara on Friday.

Turkey’s state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported Erdogan’s remarks on Wednesday but removed the reference to ”Zionism” in a correction sent out an hour later. It said the correction was ”made by the source” but gave no other explanation.

Turkey and Israel were once important allies but relations have deteriorated sharply after an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship in 2010 which killed nine pro-Palestinian activists.

Erdogan, whose ruling party has roots in Turkey’s Islamic movement, frequently criticises Israeli actions against Palestinians but rarely speaks out against Zionism. In November, he accused Israel of state terrorism and of an ”attempt at ethnic cleansing,” a euphemism used to describe how violence can be used to force a population from an area.