Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Execute Two of Karzai’s Emissaries, Proving They Are ONE

[Two days ago, the Pakistani Taliban killed the son of another High Peace Council member, providing further evidence that the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban ARE ONE.  They are both waging war against Karzai's peace emissaries at the same time, proving that their actions are coordinated and their objectives are the same.  Both swear allegiance to Mullah Omar.  Mullah Omar and all of his armies owe allegiance to the Pak Army, since they are products of the Pakistani ISI. 

The purpose of terrorism is not to terrorize, but to motivate the victimized civilian populace into submission to unpleasant political conditions.  Those conditions can best be described as Wahhabi "Shariah."  Having the same goals since the beginning, the revived Taliban ("neo-Taliban") are there to give Pakistan control over Afghanistan,  If Obama actually intends to hand the Afghanistan transition to Pakistan, as rumored, he will be handing Afghanistan to the Taliban, completing his total "Islamization" of all Middle Eastern countries from Morroco to Islamabad.  Obama is pushing the radicalized faith upon the Muslim masses, just as surely if he has been the one issuing all of the jihadi "fatwas."]

“Hilal Ahmad Waqad was organizing a conference of Afghan and Pakistani religious scholars to oppose militancy.                                                                                                                                                                                    [He] was the son of Afghan cleric Amin Waqad, a member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is trying to engage the Afghan Taliban in peace talks.”

Afghan peace council official killed in south

KABUL, Afghanistan—Insurgents ambushed an Afghan government peace negotiator on Wednesday, killing him and two bodyguards as they headed to a meeting in the south to discuss plans for local troops to take over responsibility from the U.S-led coalition, Afghan officials said.

Malim Shah Wali Khan, 53, who sat on a council tasked with starting talks with the Taliban in hopes of ending the nearly 12-year-old war, was killed when attackers hit his convoy with a bomb and automatic rifle fire, Helmand provincial spokesman Omer Zawak said.

The province’s deputy governor, Masoud Bakhtawer, was also wounded in the attack, which took place in the same district where Afghan forces will shortly be in control. Helmand has been one the war’s bloodiest battlefields and a traditional Taliban stronghold.

Khan was the provincial director of the High Peace Council, a group formed by President Hamid Karzai to try and find ways to initiate peace talks with the insurgents. The council has so far failed to start any form of negotiations with the Taliban since U.S.-initiated peace talks collapsed last year.

In a statement, Karzai “strongly condemned” the attack that killed Khan and said that “the enemies of Afghanistan are trying to attack and martyr those individuals who are doing their best to bring peace and stability to the country.”

The U.S.-led coalition has been handing over responsibility for security in the province, and around the country, to Afghan forces as foreign combat troops prepare to withdraw by end-2014. So far, the Afghan government is in charge of areas representing 80 percent of the country’s population. It hopes to assume full control by the early summer.

The British Ministry of Defense on Wednesday also said three of its soldiers were killed in Helmand by a roadside bomb. NATO had announced the deaths on Tuesday but had not identified the nationalities of the soldiers.

The soldiers were on patrol when their armored vehicle struck the bomb. Insurgents have increased their attacks in recent weeks and since they announced the start of their spring offensive on April 27.

In other developments, health officials were investigating why nearly 70 students at a high school near the capital became ill on Wednesday.

Amanullah Eman, a spokesman for the Education Ministry, said some students were briefly hospitalized but all were doing well. He said a number of factors were being investigated, including the use of fertilizers in nearby farm land.

There have been numerous cases of dozens of school children falling ill during the spring, when Afghan students return to school. Although some officials in the past have blamed the Taliban for attempting to poison students, the insurgents have repeatedly denied any involvement and no proof has ever been found of deliberate poisoning. Experts have instead blamed mass hysteria for many of the cases.

—

Mirwais Khan contributed from Kandahar and Patrick Quinn from Kabul.

hanistan—Insurgents ambushed an Afghan government peace negotiator on Wednesday, killing him and two bodyguards as they headed to a meeting in the south to discuss plans for local troops to take over responsibility from the U.S-led coalition, Afghan officials said.

Malim Shah Wali Khan, 53, who sat on a council tasked with starting talks with the Taliban in hopes of ending the nearly 12-year-old war, was killed when attackers hit his convoy with a bomb and automatic rifle fire, Helmand provincial spokesman Omer Zawak sai

Zionist Brits Contemplating Plans To Allow Sharia Courts

[The best way to create resistance to Wahhabi Shariah law is to allow the lunatic Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to enforce it against the people.  Even the "Islamist" FATA Region of Pakistan turned against "Shariah" when the Army allowed the insane little Islamist Sufi Muhammad to establish his "Qazi courts" there.  Perhaps it is time to allow the same demonstration of intentions in Britain.]]

Salafi Cleric Says “Fighting Infidels” Only Way To Impose Sharia Law…

Muslim leaders ‘need to be clear on Sharia plans’

Chris Young, in Bradford

Islamic leaders “urgently” need to explain what they mean by the term Sharia to prevent “fear of the public lash,” according to a member of the Bradford Council of Mosques.

Ishtiaq Ahmed feels that although the UK is generally tolerant in allowing Muslims to freely practice their faith, the ideas behind Sharia need to be better explained if the community wants to move ahead with proposed Sharia councils.

He described the recent debate over the issue as “intense, fraught and multi-dimensional.”

Sharia is the moral code and religious law of Islam, and it recently hit the headlines when plans were announced to introduce a Sharia council in Bradford, which would deal with matters like marriage break-ups.

The move was particularly criticised by Keighley MP Kris Hopkins, who felt it would undermine the UK legal system. Last week he led a Parliamentary debate in which he argued that such councils should not be supported by the Government.

The Council of Mosques has since accused Mr Hopkins of misrepresenting their wishes, and insist that Sharia councils would only be there for guidance, and not to supersede UK law.

Mr Ahmed says there is a great deal of misunderstanding over the issue, but some of the responsibility for this lies with the Muslim community itself.

He said: “In the absence of an Islamic State, or where the state allows no provision for the Islamic community, the compliance of Sharia is a matter for personal discretion. This may be supported and guided by a community-based faith infrastructure, for example, Mosques, Sharia Councils or similar bodies.

“The anxiety is due partly to the misinterpretation of the Islamic community’s intentions, and the British establishment’s fear of public lash and not to be seen to be making concessions towards the Islamic community.

“The Islamic leadership must share some of the responsibility for the situation by not defining and stating its objectives clearly regarding the Islamic Sharia compliance in Britain.

“The need to do this is paramount and urgent.

“There is also a strong case for making the work of Sharia Councils more open and transparent to dispel fears that anyone may have about their roles and functions.”

Saudis Appear Frantic As They Attempt To Deflect Blame for Boston Bombing

[In a typical Saudi misdirection, the royals are anxiously trying to turn the investigation away from the one Saudi name that has been tied to the case, Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi.  The more they protest, and the louder their denials become, the more obvious it becomes that the masters of Sunni world terrorism have a lot to hide in this latest militant "Islamist" terror attack upon the citizens of the United States of America.  If our own FBI was not totally compromised by them and the never-ending cover-up of Saudi/CIA atrocities and an assortment of crimes against humanity, then they might pursue the Saudi connection to its logical conclusion, not to another predetermined dead-end.

FRY THE ROYALS!]

  Saudi foreign ministry, Prince Saud bin al-Faisal (R), had an unscheduled meeting with Obama in the Oval Office just two days after the Boston bombings

Saudi Arabia reportedly sent written warning to US about Boston Marathon bombing accused Tamerlan Tsarnaev

SAUDI Arabia reportedly sent a written warning to the US about Boston Marathon suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev last year and refused him entry to the country over security concerns.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wrote to the US Department of Homeland Security about the older Tsarnaev brother in 2012, a senior Saudi official says.

The official told the Daily Mail the warning was based on intelligence from Yemen and was separate to concerns raised by Russian intelligence.

He also revealed Tamerlan was refused an entry visa into Saudi Arabia for the Mecca pilgrimage in December 2011.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 and his younger brother Dzhokhar are accused of carrying out the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed three and wounded more than 264 at one of the world’s premier sporting events.

The Saudi official said the warning, which was also shared with the UK Government, was “very specific” and warned “something was going to happen in a major US city”.

The “government-to-government” letter “did name Tamerlan specifically”, the official told the Daily Mail.

An official from Homeland Security denied the department had received any such warning from Saudi Arabia.

“DHS has no knowledge of any communication from the Saudi government regarding information on the suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombing prior to the attack,” an unnamed offical told the Daily Mail.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police as he tried to flee the Boston area three days after the bombing.

Dzhokhar was wounded and captured, and now faces terror charges carrying a possible death sentence.

The Saudi official said the letter was sent by the Saudi Ministry of Interior in part so the US could inspect packages being sent to Tamerlan in the post.

“With Saudi Arabia it’s always code red,” he said.

“There’s no code orange, or code yellow. Always red.”

CIA Bribery Squandered Every Potential Gain of Operation Enduring Freedom

Millions in CIA “ghost money” paid to Afghan president’s office: New York Times 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during a news conference in Kabul January 14, 2013.              Credit:   Reuters/Omar Sobhani

(Reuters) – Tens of millions of U.S. dollars in cash were delivered by the CIA in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags to the office of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade, according to the New York Times, citing current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

The so-called “ghost money” was meant to buy influence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) but instead fuelled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan, the newspaper quoted U.S. officials as saying.

“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan“, one American official said, “was the United States.”

The CIA declined to comment on the report and the U.S. State Department did not immediately comment. The New York Times did not publish any comment from Karzai or his office.

“We called it ‘ghost money’,” Khalil Roman, who served as Karzai’s chief of staff from 2002 until 2005, told the New York Times. “It came in secret and it left in secret.”

For more than a decade the cash was dropped off every month or so at the Afghan president’s office, the newspaper said.

Handing out cash has been standard procedure for the CIA in Afghanistan since the start of the war.

The cash payments to the president’s office do not appear to be subject to oversight and restrictions placed on official American aid to the country or the CIA’s formal assistance programs, like financing Afghan intelligence agencies, and do not appear to violate U.S. laws, said the New York Times.

There was no evidence that Karzai personally received any of the money, Afghan officials told the newspaper. The cash was handled by his National Security Council, it added.

U.S. and Afghan officials familiar with the payments were quoted as saying that the main goal in providing the cash was to maintain access to Karzai and his inner circle and to guarantee the CIA’s influence at the presidential palace, which wields tremendous power in Afghanistan’s highly centralized government.

Much of the money went to warlords and politicians, many with ties to the drug trade and in some cases the Taliban, the New York Times said. U.S. and Afghan officials were quoted as saying the CIA supported the same patronage networks that U.S. diplomats and law enforcement agents struggled to dismantle, leaving the government in the grip of organized crime.

In 2010, Karzai said his office received cash in bags from Iran, but that it was a transparent form of aid that helped cover expenses at the presidential palace. He said at the time that the United States made similar payments.

The latest New York Times report said much of the Iranian cash, like the CIA money, went to pay warlords and politicians.

For most of Karzai’s 11-year reign, there has been little interest in anti-corruption in the army or police. The country’s two most powerful institutions receive billions of dollars from donors annually but struggle just to recruit and maintain a force bled by high rates of desertion.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell and Sarah Lynch in Washington; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Police state

Letter: Police state

There can be no denying that the police state has arrived in America.

Last Friday’s operation in and around Boston clearly demonstrated the police apparatus in full view. Some residents were actually forced from their homes at gunpoint, while police dressed in military garb searched their homes without prior consent in hopes of finding the bombing suspects. Sadly, as this situation unfolded before our eyes, most people willingly conceded their liberties for a little bit of security.

The American people are slowly being conditioned to accept the pervasiveness of the police state. As the country moves forward, look for the government to play upon our fears as it trumpets new measures to increase the police state.

Of course, the state harkens some novel doctrine called the “public safety exception rule”; in other words the public was in danger, which necessitated the state in locking down an entire city and suspending the people’s liberties. Such excuses have always been used to justify the expansion of the state at the expense of the people’s civil liberties.

It is exactly during these times that the people’s liberties need to be safeguarded at all cost. Once we compromise the rights of individuals, those rights are never fully restored, as the state almost invariably enacts new legislation to curb our liberties.

Slowly, as the police state grows, both the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are being shredded. It is time to speak up and protest these abuses.

MATTHEW PERRY

Hill

The American Plan To Liberalize “Islam”

[In 2003, long before any hint of an "Arab spring," the RAND Corp. produced the following document (click on title for pdf).  This is the strategy which has been followed by Barack Obama since Day One.  If the strategy is not a crime against humanity, or at least against religion itself, then it should be, since no man has the right to alter someone else's religion.  That is exactly what this strategy proposes and Obama has been fully committed to, changing Islam itself, from the inside out.  Liberalize it, so that it becomes as acceptable to the international community as any other religion.  This means removing all of the bloody parts of Islam, in order to manufacture a new liberalized product which resembles Sufi Islam, which is an acceptable substitute for Wahhabism. 

RAND proposes that we now introduce this Sufi-like anti-Wahhabism, in order to undo what we have done with the CIA's grand experiment in using American military power as a tool for social engineering.  The weaponized "Islam," followed by the weaponization of the Afghan "mujahedeen," who had received the new synthetic "Islam," produced the first generation of "jihadi" "holy warriors."   The incalculable damage which has been done to peace-loving Islam since then, by the introduction of the CIA's weaponized Wahhabi Islam to the Muslim world over the past three-and-a-half decades, is now to be undone in just one "Spring," or a half-dozen?  The scale of the arrogance shown by the American meddlers in purposely doing this, and now attempting to undo what they have done, in order to gain further advantage, is on the level of a Hitler, or a Mussolini. 

When is Obama, or some other evil wise ass going to straighten-out the deficiencies in Christianity, or (God forbid!) Judaism?  We have no right by any stretch of the imagination to do what has been laid-out in the 88-pages of Civil Democratic Islam.]

Civil Democratic Islam

RAND CORP.

2003 RAND Corporation

iii
PREFACE
The Islamic world is involved in a struggle to determine its own nature and values,
with serious implications for the future. What role can the rest of the world,
threatened and affected as it is by this struggle, play in bringing about a more
peaceful and positive outcome?
Devising a judicious approach requires a finely grained understanding of the
ongoing ideological struggle within Islam, to identify appropriate partners and
set realistic goals and means to encourage its evolution in a positive way.
The United States has three goals in regard to politicized Islam. First, it wants to
prevent the spread of extremism and violence. Second, in doing so, it needs to
avoid the impression that the United States is “opposed to Islam.” And third, in
the longer run, it must find ways to help address the deeper economic, social,
and political causes feeding Islamic radicalism and to encourage a move toward
development and democratization.
The debates and conflicts that mark the current Islamic world can make the
picture seem confusing. It becomes easier to sort the actors if one thinks of
them not as belonging to distinct categories but as falling along a spectrum.
Their views on certain critical marker issues help to locate them correctly on
this spectrum.
It is then possible to see which part of the spectrum is generally compatible
with our values, and which is fundamentally inimical. On this basis, this report
identifies components of a specific strategy.
This report should be of interest to scholars, policymakers, students, and all
others interested in the Middle East, Islam, and political Islam.

****************************

Chapter Three
A PROPOSED STRATEGY

The problem of Islamic radicalism—its manifestations, its underlying causes,
and its propensity to meld with other social and political conflicts—makes this
an extremely complex issue. There is no one correct approach or response, and
there certainly is not one identifiable “fix.” Instead, what is called for is a mixed
approach that rests on firm and decisive commitment to our own fundamental
values and understands that tactical and interest-driven cooperation is simply
not possible with some of the actors and positions along the spectrum of
political Islam but that possesses a sequence of flexible postures suitable to
different contexts, populations, and countries.
This approach seeks to strengthen and foster the development of civil, democratic
Islam and of modernization and development. It provides the necessary
flexibility to deal with different settings appropriately, and it reduces the danger
of unintended negative effects. The following outline describes what such a
strategy might look like:
• Support the modernists first, enhancing their vision of Islam over that of the
traditionalists by providing them with a broad platform to articulate and
disseminate their views. They, not the traditionalists, should be cultivated
and publicly presented as the face of contemporary Islam.
• Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis.
• Encourage secular civic and cultural institutions and programs.
• Back the traditionalists enough to keep them viable against the fundamentalists
(if and wherever those are our choices) and to prevent a closer
alliance between these two groups. Within the traditionalists, we should
selectively encourage those who are the relatively better match for modern
civil society. For example, some Islamic law schools are far more amenable
to our view of justice and human rights than are others.
• Finally, oppose the fundamentalists energetically by striking at vulnerabilities
in their Islamic and ideological postures, exposing things that neither the youthful idealists in their target audience nor the pious traditionalists
can approve of: their corruption, their brutality, their ignorance, the bias
and manifest errors in their application of Islam, and their inability to lead
and govern.
Some additional, more-direct activities will be necessary to support this overall
approach, such as the following:
• Help break the fundamentalist and traditionalist monopoly on defining,
explaining, and interpreting Islam.
• Identify appropriate modernist scholars to manage a Web site that answers
questions related to daily conduct and offers modernist Islamic legal opinions.
• Encourage modernist scholars to write textbooks and develop curricula.
• Publish introductory books at subsidized rates to make them as available as
the tractates of fundamentalist authors.
• Use popular regional media, such as radio, to introduce the thoughts and
practices of modernist Muslims to broaden the international view of what
Islam means and can mean.

****************************

Appendix C
STRATEGY IN DEPTH

The following describes, in somewhat more detail, how the recommendations
in Chapter Three could be implemented.
BASIC POINTS OF THE STRATEGY
Build Up a Modernist Leadership
Create role models and leaders. Modernists who risk persecution should be
built up as courageous civil rights leaders, which indeed they are. There are
precedents showing that this can work. Nawal Al-Sadaawi achieved international
renown for enduring persecution, harassment, and attempts to prosecute
her in court on account of her principled modernist stand on issues related to
freedom of speech, public health, and the status of women in Egypt. Afghan
interim minister of women’s affairs Sima Samar inspired many with her outspoken
stance on human rights, women’s rights, civil law, and democracy, for
which she faced death threats by fundamentalists. There are many others
throughout the Islamic world whose leadership can similarly be featured.
Include modern, mainstream Muslims in political “outreach” events, to reflect
demographic reality. Avoid artificially “over-Islamizing the Muslims”; instead,
accustom them to the idea that Islam can be just one part of their identity.1
Support civil society in the Islamic world. This is particularly important in situations
of crisis, refugee situations, and postconflict situations, in which a democratic
leadership can emerge and gain practical experience through local NGOs
and other civic associations. On the rural and neighborhood levels, as well, civic
associations are an infrastructure that can lead to political education and a
moderate, modernist leadership.
______________
1This idea is more extensively developed in Al-Azmah (1993). Al-Azmah is himself a “Euro-Muslim.”

 

Develop Western Islam: German Islam, U.S. Islam, etc. This requires gaining a
better understanding of the composition, as well as the evolving practice and
thought, in these communities. Assist in eliciting, expressing, and “codifying”
their views.
Go on the Offensive Against Fundamentalists
Delegitimize individuals and positions associated with extremist Islam. Make
public the immoral and hypocritical deeds and statements of self-styled fundamentalist
authorities. Allegations of Western immorality and shallowness are
a cherished part of the fundamentalist arsenal, but they are themselves highly
vulnerable on these fronts.
Encourage Arab journalists in popular media to do investigative reporting on
the lives and personal habits and corruption of fundamentalist leaders. Publicize
incidents that highlight their brutality—such as the recent deaths of Saudi
schoolgirls in a fire when religious police physically prevented Saudi firefighters
from evacuating the girls from their burning school building because they were
not veiled—and their hypocrisy, illustrated by the Saudi religious establishment,
which forbids migrant workers from receiving photographs of their newborn
children on the grounds that Islam forbids human images, while their own
offices are decorated by huge portraits of King Faisal, etc. The role of “charitable
organizations” in financing terror and extremism has begun to be more clearly
understood since September 11 but also deserves ongoing and public investigation.
Assertively Promote the Values of Western Democratic Modernity
Create and propagate a model for prosperous, moderate Islam by identifying
and actively aiding countries or regions or groups with the appropriate views.
Publicize their successes. For example, the 1999 Beirut Declaration for Justice
and the National Action Charter of Bahrain broke new ground in the application
of Islamic law and should be made more widely known.
Criticize the flaws of traditionalism. Show the causal relationship between
traditionalism and underdevelopment, as well as the causal relationship
between modernity, democracy, progress, and prosperity. Do fundamentalism
and traditionalism offer Islamic society a healthy, prosperous future? Are they
successfully meeting the challenges of the day? Do they compare well with
other social orders? The UNDP social development report (UNDP, 2002) points
clearly to the linkage between a stagnant social order, oppression of women,
poor educational quality, and backwardness. This message should be energetically
taken to Muslim populations.

Build up the stature of Sufism. Encourage countries with strong Sufi traditions
to focus on that part of their history and to include it in their school curricula.
Pay more attention to Sufi Islam.
Focus on Education and Youth
Committed adult adherents of radical Islamic movements are unlikely to be
easily influenced into changing their views. The next generation, however, can
conceivably be influenced if the message of democratic Islam can be inserted
into school curricula and public media in the pertinent countries. Radical fundamentalists
have established massive efforts to gain influence over education
and are unlikely to give up established footholds without a struggle. An equally
energetic effort will be required to wrest this terrain from them.
SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT THE STRATEGY
Thus, to accomplish the overall strategy, it will be necessary to
• Support the modernists and mainstream secularists first, by
— publishing and distribute their works
— encouraging them to write for mass audiences and youth
— introducing their views into the curriculum of Islamic education
— giving them a public platform
— making their opinions and judgments on fundamental questions of
religious interpretation available to a mass audience, in competition
with those of the fundamentalists and traditionalists, who already have
Web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and many other vehicles
for disseminating their views
— positioning modernism as a “counterculture” option for disaffected
Islamic youth
— facilitating and encouraging awareness of pre- and non-Islamic history
and culture, in the media and in the curricula of relevant countries
— encouraging and supporting secular civic and cultural institutions and
programs.
• Support the traditionalists against the fundamentalists, by
— publicizing traditionalist criticism of fundamentalist violence and
extremism and encouraging disagreements between traditionalists and
fundamentalists
— preventing alliances between traditionalists and fundamentalists

— encouraging cooperation between modernists and traditionalists who
are closer to that end of the spectrum, increase the presence and profile
of modernists in traditionalist institutions
— discriminating between different sectors of traditionalism
— encouraging those with a greater affinity to modernism—such as the
Hanafi law school as opposed to others to issue religious opinions that,
by becoming popularized, can weaken the authority of backward
Wahhabi religious rulings
— encouraging the popularity and acceptance of Sufism.
• Confront and oppose the fundamentalists, by
— challenging and exposing the inaccuracies in their views on questions
of Islamic interpretation
— exposing their relationships with illegal groups and activities
— publicizing the consequences of their violent acts
— demonstrating their inability to rule to the benefit and positive development
of their communities
— targeting these messages especially to young people, to pious traditionalist
populations, to Muslim minorities in the West, and to women
— avoiding showing respect or admiration for the violent feats of fundamentalist
extremists and terrorists, instead casting them as disturbed
and cowardly rather than evil heroes
— encouraging journalists to investigate issues of corruption, hypocrisy,
and immorality in fundamentalist and terrorist circles.
• Selectively support secularists, by
— encouraging recognition of fundamentalism as a shared enemy, discouraging
secularist alliances with anti-U.S. forces on such grounds as
nationalism and leftist ideology
— supporting the idea that religion and the state can be separate in Islam,
too, and that this does not endanger the faith.

World View: Obama’s Meeting with Jordan’s Abdullah may Signal Troop Deployment

View Larger Map

[Mossad source Debkafile reports that Obama has ordered 20,000 US troops w/equipment to King Hussein Air Base Mafraq, near the border with Syria.  Mafraq is also the location of several refugee camps, holding hundreds of thousands of Syrians.  With the help of the little Jordanian king Obama may be about to try to tilt the scales of the Syrian civil war in favor of the so-called "moderate" faction.  If this is the case, then he probably informed the pig of Qatar of his decision this week, telling him to hold back on any further terrorist support until called upon to resume.  If Obama is foolish enough to pour his final conventional military resources "down a rat hole," into a futile attempt to prevent the total "Islamist" takeover of Syria, then he will not only turn Syria into another quagmire "ala Bush," but he will very likely enable the Saudis and Qatar to establish the dreaded "Caliphate" that the right-wing is constantly crying about. 

I don't know about you, but I don't think that I can peacefully withstand another round of Imperialist war.]

by John J. Xenakis 

• Demonstrators in Jordan protest American troop presence
• Jordan’s King Abdullah and Obama meet to discuss Syria
• Sunni Jihadists pour into Syria

Demonstrators in Jordan protest American troop presence

Anti-American protesters in Amman, Jordan on Friday (Al-Monitor)

Last week, we reported that the U.S. announced the formal deployment of 200 troops to Jordan. The troops will be “ready for military action” if President Barack Obama were to order it. On Friday, Jordanians rallied against the deployment of the U.S. forces in Jordan. Demonstrators also burned a mock American flag. At the end of the demonstration, they gathered in a circle and danced, chanting about Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Al-Monitor

Jordan’s King Abdullah and Obama meet to discuss Syria

The question of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad continued to draw worldwide attention on Friday. President Barack Obama met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in the White House and said that “a line has been crossed” in Syria.

He said, “To use weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line in terms of international norms and laws… That’s going to be a game changer.” However, he declined to intervene militarily until a “vigorous investigation” had been completed to find more “direct evidence.”

However, Debka, which sometimes gets things wrong, is quoting its military intelligence sources as saying that the purpose of Obama’s meeting with Abdullah is to firm up an agreement for the U.S. to deploy a 20,000 troop “surge” into Jordan. The 200 troops announced last week are to lay the groundwork for the main body to take up quarters in the King Hussein Air Base Mafraq, near the borders of Iraq and Syria.

The purpose of the “surge” is to protect Jordan’s royal family both from jihadists from Syria and from an “Arab Spring” type revolt — a step that the Obama administration did not take with Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, or Yemen. The “surge” will be heavily coordinated with Israeli forces, and buffer zones will be set up on Syria’s borders to prevent attacks on both Jordan and Israel.

This “surge” comes at a time when thousands of fighters from Iran-backed Shia militias from Iraq and Hizbollah are aiding the al-Assad regime forces and are threatening to defeat the opposition rebels. The Hill and Debka

Sunni Jihadists pour into Syria

With thousands of fighters from Iran-backed Shia militias arriving in Syria to support al-Assad’s regime, it’s not surprising that thousands of Sunni jihadists are also arriving in Syria to fight the Shia militias. In particular, disaffected Muslims from Germany and elsewhere in Europe have been heading for Syria to receive training in weapons and terrorist techniques. German analysts are concerned that these fighters are gaining experience in Syria, making contacts, and will return to Germany and conduct terrorist attacks there. Spiegel

The West Masterminded Chechen War to Destroy USSR and Russia

[Armenia's unique history make it highly unlikely that an Armenian would convert to radical Wahhabi "Islam" (SEE: Did 'Misha' influence Tsarnaevs? In Watertown, doubts ).]

The West Masterminded Chechen War to Destroy USSR and Russia – June, 2010

 

It is now known that the twenty year old Islamic insurgency in the Caucasus (according to many experts an Al-Qaeda operation) and the arming of Georgia had been an integral part of a long-term Western plan to wrestle the northern Caucasus region away from Russian control and place it under what some experts refer to as an Islamic Caliphate. Ankara, Baku and Tbilisi, as well as a steady stream of Islamic militants trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, were the active participants in this agenda throughout much of the 1990s. Its funding and organization was carried out by a consortium of special interests in Washington and London and, most probably, in Tel Aviv and Riyadh as well. It is also now known that Western intelligence agencies also conspired to force Russia out of the Balkans (Yugoslavia in particular) and Central Asia by targeting pro-Russian bastions in those regions.

As it has been since the early 1980s, radical Islam was always the readily accessible tool the West exploited to carryout its geopolitical agenda.

Why should this seemingly Russian problem concern us Armenians? Armenians in general, diasporans in particular, seem to be having a hard time accepting that a weakened Russia in the Caucasus poses a serious long-term threat for Armenia. Those amongst us that do not possess clearness of thought regarding this matter, I would just like to say that the Caucasus without an effective Russian presence would prove disastrous not only for Armenia but for the entire Eurasian continent. Joining three important geopolitical zones – Europe, Asia and the Middle East – the Caucasus region is the gateway to Russia’s vulnerable south, its soft underbelly. The region is also a major hub for the strategic transfer of Eurasian energy and trade. Strategic planners have long realized that those who are able to control this region could potentially impact much of Eurasia and beyond.

As we all know, the Caucasus is not a bastion of Christianity or western civilization. The heavily Turkic and Islamic cultural and ethnic makeup of the region in question would not tolerate a non-aligned, a non-Turkic or a non-Islamic power in their midst – without a major outside power acting as a guarantor or as a counter weight. Against this Islamic and Turkic center-of-gravity, the Russian presence has been the only counter-influence in the region for the past two hundred years. And it is precisely because of this geopolitical reality in the Caucasus that we Armenians have been able to establish nation-state.

It is quite frightening that unbeknownst to most Armenians, because our collective attention has naturally been drawn to the Caucasus region’s east-west geopolitical plane, the northern Caucasus was actually on the verge of a radical Islamic/Turkic transformation throughout much of the 1990s. There is no doubt today that had the northern Caucasus fell victim to this agenda it would have been the south’s turn not much long thereafter.

In short, without a Russian presence in the Caucasus, the region in question will eventually transform itself into a Turkic/Islamic cesspool; and not even a million of our “fedayees” would be able to stop it from happening.

Had Western intentions for the Caucasus succeeded not only would we Armenians be lamenting the lose of Nagorno Karabakh today we would most probably be lamenting the lose of our fledgling republic as well. Under such a geopolitical scenario for the region, a best case scenario for Armenia would have been if it simply become politically and economically subordinate to Ankara, Baku and Tbilisi.

Those who complain about Armenia’s current dependence on Moscow need to take this geopolitical prospect into serious consideration.

Although Vladimir Putin’s Russia succeeded in crushing the Islamic terror onslaught in the northern Caucasus in the early 2000s and managed to defeat the Western backed regime in Georgia in 2008, Moscow nevertheless realizes that a potential threat continues to remain in the region. As a result, as long as ethnic Russians run the show in the Kremlin, Moscow will do everything in its power to have a strong presence in the Caucasus. And needless to say, Armenia is pivotal to the Kremlin’s regional agenda. As a result of the major setbacks suffered by Islamists and the West, Ankara has more-or-less abandoned its pan-Turkic agenda in the Caucasus and Central Asia and is currently seeking to move closer to Moscow.

Nevertheless, despite Ankara’s best efforts to befriend the Bear, Turks continue to fear Russia’s resurgence.

The following video presentations and articles deal with this topic. Those interested in learning more about the Islamic insurgency in the Caucasus and the grave threat it posed to the entire Caucasus region should read the following book – Chechen Jihad: http://www.amazon.com/Chechen-Jihad-Qaedas-Training-Ground/dp/0060841702

Arevordi

US Afraid That Little Pig of Qatar Is Running Hog-Wild with the Islamists of “Al-CIA-da”

The emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, waits in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

U.S. Wary As Qatar Ramps Up Support Of Syrian Rebels

 

President Obama has been hosting a series of visitors from the Middle East, and all of them have been urging the U.S. to get more involved in Syria.

 

They have included the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, whose country has been arming rebel forces in Syria. Obama wants to see such aid go to moderates — but that requires more cooperation with partners like Qatar. Problem is, they don’t always see eye to eye.

 

Qatar was already an important U.S. partner in the region when the Arab uprisings began, and the small, wealthy Gulf nation saw a new opportunity to gain influence when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled, says Tamara Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

 

“One of the consequences of the fall of Mubarak is that the U.S. lost in a way its central diplomatic partner in the Arab world,” Wittes says. “In many ways, the Qataris stepped up to play that role, in the Arab League, for example, on Libya and then on Syria.”

 

Impression Of Qatar ‘Taking Sides’

 

This was a time when the U.S. wanted others to take the lead. But there were risks in that approach, says Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and director of the center’s Gulf and Energy Policy Program.

 

Anti-Syrian regime protesters hold up a banner in Arabic reading, “Thank you Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait,” during a demonstration in Idlib province, northern Syria, in this March 2, 2012, file photo provided by Local Coordination Committees in Syria.

AP/Local Coordination Committees in Syria

 

“We stood to one side and let things happen in Libya, and the result was that most of the fighting was done by jihadis, who are very much in influence now,” he says. “In Syria we are standing further to one side, and the problem with jihadis persists.”

 

Henderson believes that’s because Gulf states like Qatar are taking the lead in arming Syrian rebels. He says Qatar is competing with Saudi Arabia for influence in Syria’s future, and they are backing different extremist groups.

 

“Qatar is punching above its weight at the moment and is prepared to have a pretty open competition in Syria,” Henderson says. “This is a battle, a contest, in which they are using both diplomatic influence and … military support, for the opposition.”

 

Qatar has also been pouring money into Egypt, to help the Muslim Brotherhood government avoid a financial collapse. At a dinner hosted by the Brookings Institution, Martin Indyk, the group’s vice president and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, asked Qatar’s prime minister why his government seems to be supporting Islamists throughout the region.

 

“Whether it’s your bailing out the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt or your support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria or , there’s the impression that you’re taking sides,” Indyk said.

 

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani called it a rumor spread by his rivals in the region. He said Qatar has been on the side of the people in the Arab uprisings. And on Syria, the prime minister said Qatar didn’t seek the limelight.

 

“We did not want to take the lead. We begged a lot of countries to start to take the lead and we will be in the back seat,” he said. “But we find ourselves in the front seat.”

 

U.S. Urged To Do More

 

The Qatari prime minister also said Syrian President Bashar Assad is testing the international community and crossing red lines, starting with Scud missile attacks on his people.

 

“You know we put a lot of red lines. Scud, he used Scud. Chemicals, he used chemicals. And there is evidence,” Thani said. “But he used it in pockets, small pockets. He wants to try your reaction. No reaction? He will escalate.”

 

And the longer the conflict in Syria drags on, the Qatari prime minister warned, the more the extremists will gain ground.

 

“The United States has to do more,” he said. “I believe that if we stopped this one year ago, we will not see the bad people you are talking about.”

 

But while Qatar is asking the Obama administration to do more, Wittes of the Brookings Institution says the White House had its own concerns to raise about various funding streams for the Syrian opposition.

 

“There seems to be a tendency by different actors to back different factions on the ground in a way that exacerbates conflict between the elements of the Syrian opposition, when what the United States is very focused on right now is trying to bring that opposition together,” she says.

 

That’s the only way, Wittes says, opponents of the Syrian government can show there is a real alternative to Assad.

Ruslan Tsarni Formerly Married To Daughter of CIA Official Graham Fuller

  Graham Fuller cia

Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official

MAD COW MORNING NEWS

  by Daniel Hopsicker

The uncle of the two suspected Boston bombers in last week’s attack, Ruslan Tsarni, was married to the daughter of former top CIA official Graham Fuller

The discovery that Uncle Ruslan Tsarni had spy connections that go far deeper than had been previously known is ironic, especially since the mainstrean media’s focus yesterday was on a feverish search to find who might have recruited the Tsarnaev brothers.

The chief suspect was a red-haired Armenian exorcist.  They were fingering a suspect who may not, in fact, even exist.

It was like blaming one-armed hippies on acid for killing your wife.

 

Ruslan Tsarni married the daughter of former top CIA official Graham Fuller, who spent 20 years as operations officer in Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong. In 1982 Fuller was appointed the National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia at the CIA, and in 1986, under Ronald Reagan, he became the Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, with overall responsibility for national level strategic forecasting.

At the time of their marriage, Ruslan Tsarni was known as Ruslan Tsarnaev, the same last name as his nephews Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged bombers.

It is unknown when he changed his last name to Tsarni.

What is known is that sometime in the early 1990’s, while she was a graduate student in North Carolina, and he was in law school at Duke, Ruslan Tsarnaev met and married Samantha Ankara Fuller, the daughter of Graham and Prudence Fuller of Rockville Maryland. Her middle name suggests a reference to one of her father’s CIA postings.

The couple divorced sometime before 2004.

Today Ms. Fuller lives abroad, and is a director of several companies pursuing strategies to increase energy production from clean-burning and renewable resources.

On a more ominous note, Graham Fuller was listed as one of the American Deep State rogues on Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery,. Edmonds explained it featured subjects of FBI investigations she became aware of during her time as an FBI translator.

Criminal activities were being protected by claims of State Secrets, she asserted. After Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to muzzle her under a little-used doctrine of State Secrets, she put up twenty-one photos, with no names.

One of them was Graham Fuller.

“Congress of Chechen International” c/o Graham Fuller

A story about a Chechen oik exec/uncle pairing up with a top CIA official who once served as CIA Station Chief in Kabul sounds like a pitch for a bad movie.

But the two men may have been in business together.

In 1995, Tsarnaev incorporated the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Maryland, using as the address listed on incorporation documents 11114 Whisperwood Ln, in Rockville Maryland, the home address of his then-father-in-law.

It is just eight miles up the Washington National Pike from the Montgomery Village home where “Uncle Ruslan” met—and apparently wowed, the press after the attack in Boston.

The Washington Post yesterday called him a “media maven,” while nationally syndicated Washington Post columnist Ester Cepeda , in a piece with the headline “The Wise Words of Uncle Ruslan” opined that he was her choice for “an award for bravery in the face of adversity.”

Success through indirection, mis-direction, redirection, and protection

Uncle Ruslan’s spy connections go far deeper than was already known, which was that he spent two years working in Kazakhstan for USAID.

But the mainstream media was lookng the other way.

Under the headline “Did ‘Misha’ influence Tsarnaevs? In Watertown, doubts,” USA Today reported: “Misha. A new name has emerged in the Boston Marathon bombing case—one familiar to the family of the two young men accused of the atrocity and apparently of interest to the Russian and American security services as well.”

Ruslan Tsarni was the first to bring up the supposed man’s supposed name. Or rather, he brought up a first name:  Misha. But it was enough. We were off to the races…

Attention all cars: Be on lookout for chubby Armenian exorcist

Tsarni described Misha to CNN as being “chubby, a big guy, big mouth presenting himself with some kind of abilities as exorcist . . . having some part-time job in one of the stores, not married. All of the qualifications of a loser, just another big mouth.”

According to Uncle Ruslan, Misha was the man who over a considerable period of time had radicalized Tamerlan.

It seemed strange, then, that  in contrast to his “you are there” verbal picture of the man, even with all his supposed concerns, and given his high level of education and abundant resources (Big Sky Energy was paying him in excess of $200,00 a year, according to documents filed with the SEC) Ruslan had somehow never found out just who the bad guy was.

He never got a name, something that in spook-dom is considered something of a faux pas. Then again, no one else had either.

Worse, Tsarni’s vivid description seemed to be taken from personal observation, from, in other words…real life. But that isn’t possible. Tsarni had stated he hadn’t been physically in the presence of his Boston relatives since December 2005. And Misha, if he existed, didn’t show up on the scene until 2008 at the earliest.

Still,  just a few days later, the entire family began chiming in. Misha anecdotes were flying fast & furious, and the nation’s scribblers were busy uncritically scribbling down their every word.

Maybe their Twitter account got hacked again?

No performance was nearly as masterful, however, as that of the Associated Press.

“Bomb suspect influenced by mysterious radical,” reported the Associated Press.

“Tamerlan’s relationship with Misha could be a clue in understanding the motives behind his religious transformation and, ultimately, the attack itself,” reported the Associate Press. Only to take it all back in the very next line.

“Two U.S. officials say he had no tie to terrorist groups.”

The AP’s “story” about the mysterious “Misha” was 1145 words, long enough for an editor to squeeze in a caveat.

“It was not immediately clear whether the FBI has spoken to Misha or was attempting to,” the national wire service reported. “Efforts over several days by The Associated Press to identify and interview Misha have been unsuccessful.”

The big difference: when you do it, its conspiracy theory. When we do it, its informed speculation.

In any other context, this might be seen as the rankest kind of “conspiracy theory.” But, apparently, when the Associated Press does it, its news.

Then Uncle Ruslan made a clear mis-step.

“An uncle of the alleged bombers claims that Misha, an Armenian convert to Islam, had a huge influence on the elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  Describing him as an “Armenia exorcist, Tsarni said, “Somehow he just took his brain.”

Armenians are a deeply-rooted Christian community, which is proud of the fact that their country was the first in the world to adopt Christianity as state religion in 301 AD.

Moreover this is the week every year when they remember the Armenian Holocaust, when as many as 1,000,000 Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish Muslims.

In the large and close-knit Boston Armenian community, a red-bearded Armenian named Misha becoming a radicalized Muslim would stand out.

“I’ve never heard of him, nor has anyone that I know,” Hilda Avedissian, executive director at the Armenian Cultural & Educational Centre.

So what if the guy was involved with biggest bank fraud in history?

“For an Armenian to convert to Islam is like finding a unicorn in a field,” Nerses Zurabyan, 32, an information technology director who lives in nearby Cambridge told USA Today.

The report reveals that the bomber’s Uncle, made famous for his outspoken condemnation of his nephew’s which aired repeatedly on international news networks, is a well-connected oil executive who at one point worked for a Halliburton shell company used as a front to obtain oil contracts from the Kazakh State.

Ruslon Tsarni was implicated in an investigation involving the laundering and theft of $6 billion. But everybody loves Uncle Ruslon. At least most of America’s mainstream media does.

There has, to date, been no speculation at all about whether an uncle of the men suspected of the bombing who had been involved in international intrigue at the hightest levels, and who married the daughter of a top CIA official, might warrant a closer look.

It’s enough, isn’t it, to turn even reasonably rational adults into—gasp!—conspiracy theorists.

“News,” someone once wrote, “is selection. And selection is always  based on an ideology and agenda, which is something to remember next time you watch, listen or read the ‘news.’”

Too true.

Obama Keeps Resisting Zionist “Red Lines,” Tripwires, Forcing His Hand On Syria

[Both Zionist Central in London and that shitty little Zionist cesspool in the Middle East urge Obama to accept whatever "evidence" that they produce of any chemical weapons's use within Syria as proof that the "red lines" have been crossed, even if the lines were violated by the terrorist rebels, instead of by Assad (SEE:  'Growing evidence' of chemical weapons use in Syria - UK).  They have managed to recreate the same scenario within Syria that they almost pulled-off in Iran, with the help of different terrorist friends of America, the anti-Shia MEK/Jundullah.  Just as he refused to cave-in to previous Zionist pressure to launch an airborne aggression against Iran, he is apparently resisting pressure to cross the line which he has drawn in the sand with his own hand.  This doesn't mean to imply that he is secretly a good guy, but that he does not like it when other people try to force him to take unpleasant, ill-advised actions.  Don't read this as hope on my part that Obama will choose to do the right thing when the time comes, because I still firmly believe that he will not hesitate to push the "big red button" when the time comes, probably with a big smile on his lips.  He will be smiling  when he follows his master's order to unleash Armegeddon, pleased with himself for having ignored the hyped screams of the Apocalyptic cheerleaders like McCain, Cameron and Netanyahu.  Mistakes have been made by all of the team players who have misjudged the resiliency of Assad and the core strengths of the Lebanese resistance forces, but jumping the gun on WWIII will not improve the Empire's chances of success.  The time for the Greater Middle East War has passed, since the momentum for that war has been missed by both Bush and Obama.  Bush missed it on several occasions, after Afghanistan, after Iraq and after Israel failed in Lebanon in 2006, failing yet one more time, after the failed Georgian tangent in 2008.  Obama's big failure was in his hesitation in the early days of the anti-Syrian war.   Failure to jump on the war wagon there gave Russia time to turn the tables.  Odds are, the American/world economies will be fully depleted before Obama can organize another attempt, meaning that nothing has changed except for the American ability to control the flow of future events.  World War III will probably happen by accident, the way it should all go down.  Taking steps to avoid such an extinction-level event should by the number one priority with all earthly governments.]

White House: Obama’s red line not crossed on Syria chemical weapons

(CBS News) For the first time, the White House says chemical weapons have been used in Syria’s civil war. The Obama administration said it believes President Bashar Al-Assad used sarin gas on people last month. That report is leading some to ask if the U.S. is ready to consider military action.

The White House said the evidence of Syrian chemical weapons attacks is still too thin and President Obama’s red line has not been crossed, and that means military intervention by the United States in the Syrian civil war is not imminent and not guaranteed but more study and investigation is needed.

Syria has likely used chemical weapons on a “small scale,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday.Hagel was the first to confirm the startling news. He read from a prepared statement: “The Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin.”

But Hagel, consistent with administration policy, laced his announcement with carefully crafted caveats. Hagel said, “We still have uncertainties about what was used, what kind of chemicals was used, where it was used, who used it.”

Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers that Syria used chemical weapons twice last month, once near Damascus and once in Aleppo. Victims appeared to have been gassed.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly said Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a red line and could move the U.S. closer to military intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Mr. Obama said on Aug. 20, 2012, “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.”

But top White House advisers insist the red line has not been crossed. In letters to Congress, the administration said it needs more proof — in its words, “credible and corroborated facts.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has continuously pressed Mr. Obama to intervene, said the president is ducking his own standard. “The president of the United States said that this would be a red line if they used chemical weapons. The president of the United States has now told us that they used chemical weapons,” McCain said. “We must give the opposition the capability to drive out Bashar Assad once and for all.”

U.S. intelligence says it has “varying degrees of confidence” Syria used chemical weapons. But the U.S. isn’t the only nation hedging its bets. British intelligence says it has “persuasive information chemical weapons were used.” French intelligence says it has clues but no proof. However, CBS News’ Major Garrett reported, “Definitive proof may be very hard to find amid the raging Syrian civil war.”

© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Have You Ever Heard Of “Al-CIA-da” Attacking Iran?

[I, myself, have been one of the loudest voices in the past, protesting that "Al Qaeda is Sunni and hates Iran," but the longer this game goes on, the more I come to see that Shia Iran has been an ally of the real "al-CIA-da" all along.  After all, wasn't it Iran that supplied most of the first recruits from the Afghan mujahedeen to ship to Bosnia for Clinton? (SEE:  Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre).  Can anyone remember ever hearing of an "al-CIA-da" attack upon Iran, or Shiites, for that matter?  For Westerners to admit that previous murders and terrorist attacks have been committed by the same bunch of intelligence operatives that we normally would label "al-Qaeda" anywhere else, would be an admission of our own major guilt in international terrorism, or our ISI surrogates, or the Saudis. 

As far as the timely "al-CIA-da" plots to bomb trains in Canada, involving Iranian sources, anything is possible in this messed-up world    (SEE: Conservative anti-terror bill and arrests match up beautifully, don’t they: Mallick).  The big problem with this bit of terrorist news, which coincidentally supports currently debated Canadian anti-terror legislation, is that it is old news; the reported plot is at least one year old (dormant). Like all news concerning the terrorist phenomenon known as "al-CIA-da," it is all conveniently-timed hype, intended to ease the democratic transition into a total police state.  Canada is behaving like a good subservient government should act.  Ottawa is walking the rocky path to Fascism blazed by Cheney and Bush.]

“No attack was imminent and the tip was a year old.”

Iran’s unlikely Al Qaeda ties fluid, murky and deteriorating 

Reuters

Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. — File photo

When Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri spoke in an audio message broadcast to supporters earlier this month, he had harsh words for Iran. Its true face, he said, had been unmasked by its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against fighters loyal to Al Qaeda.

Yet it is symptomatic of the peculiar relationship between Tehran and Al Qaeda that in the same month Canadian police would accuse “Al Qaeda elements in Iran” of backing a plot to derail a passenger train.

Shia Muslim Iran and strict Sunni militant group Al Qaeda are natural enemies on either side of the Muslim world’s great sectarian divide.

Yet intelligence veterans say that Iran, in pursuing its own ends, has in the past taken advantage of Al Qaeda fighters’ need to shelter or pass through its territory. It is a murky relationship that has been fluid and, say some in the intelligence community, has deteriorated in recent years.

“I wouldn’t even call it a marriage of convenience. It’s an association of convenience,” said Richard Barrett, former head of counter-terrorism for Britain’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service and later head of the UN Security Council’s monitoring team maintaining the world body’s Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctions blacklists.

“It’s not a strategic alliance. An Al Qaeda presence may suit the Iranians because it allows them to keep an eye on them, it gives them leverage in the form of people who are akin to hostages,” he added.

“There has been a lot of travel between Iraq and Pakistan and I cannot imagine the Iranians are not aware of that,” he said. But it was unlikely that Iran would take the risk of actively collaborating with Al Qaeda against North America: “I don’t think the Iranians would take it kindly if it turned out that there had been plotting by Al Qaeda on their territory.”

Canadian police have said there was no sign the plot had been sponsored by the Iranian state. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Al Qaeda’s beliefs were in no way consistent with Tehran’s.

As yet, many details of the alleged plot remain unclear. However, a US government source cited a network of Al Qaeda fixers based in the Iranian city of Zahedan, close to the borders of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The source said they served as go-betweens, travel agents and financial intermediaries for Al Qaeda operatives and cells operating in Pakistan and moving through the area.

Another Western source suggested that with relations deteriorating between Iran and Al Qaeda over the civil war in Syria, Tehran had acted recently to stop fighters crossing through from Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) to join Islamist militants fighting to overthrow Assad.

“Although the relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda has always been strained, this worsened after 2011 when the two sides lined up on opposite sides in the Syrian civil war,” said Shashank Joshi, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London.

“Syria’s strongest rebel group is allied to Al Qaeda, and both have sharply criticised Iranian support for the Assad regime.”

It is unclear whether the planning for the alleged Canadian plot, which Canadian police said had been in the works for some time, was carried out before Syria’s war deepened the strain between Tehran and Al Qaeda.

“There has been a loosening of the ties,” said Barrett, noting that documents released after US forces caught and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011 showed the Al Qaeda leader saying he was not able to trust the Iranians at all.

“Since then we have Zawahri castigating Iran quite recently. So clearly something had gone wrong.”

Iranian control far from clear

If indeed the Al Qaeda network was based in and around Zahedan — which lies on the main road to Pakistan and is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province — it is far from clear how easy it would be for Iran to control.

The region is home to a toxic mix of drug smuggling, illicit trade and gun-running by insurgents. Afghan refugees long ago crowded into poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of Zahedan, although Iran, like Pakistan, periodically tries to push them out, arguing they are a security risk.

Iranian authorities have also been battling a Sunni insurgency of their own in recent years by ethnic Baloch complaining of discrimination. The Jundollah group has claimed several attacks including a bombing that killed 42 people in 2009 — there is no sign it is linked to Al Qaeda, though it is often confused with a Pakistan-based group of the same name.

At the same time, on the Pakistan side of the border, Pakistani security forces are fighting an insurgency by secular Baloch separatists, while Al-Qaeda linked militants in the Sunni sectarian Lashkar-i-Jhangvi group have carried out a string of attacks against the Shia population there.

Pragmatic approach

Despite a common Western misconception that Iran, as the pre-eminent Shia power, is motivated by religion, it has always been much more pragmatic in pursuing its national interest, analysts and diplomats say, allowing it to turn a blind eye to Sunni Al Qaeda using its territory.

“The thing that has stymied people is that ‘Al Qaeda is Sunni and the rest of the people we are talking about here are Shia. They don’t mix and match.’ Well, they do. And they do it whenever they want to. They just look the other way,” said Nick Pratt, a retired US Marines colonel and CIA officer now with the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

Before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Iran cooperated with India and Russia against the Pakistan-backed Taliban then in power in Kabul. When Al Qaeda members fled Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban, it detained them under house arrest in Tehran.

“Since 9/11 a number of senior Al Qaeda figures including one of Osama bin Laden’s sons and senior commander and strategist Saif al Adel made their way to Iran,” said Nigel Inkster, former director of operations for Britain’s MI6.

“They were detained under quite strict conditions by the Iranian authorities who subsequently sought to use them as a bargaining chip with the US government in their ongoing dispute about Iran’s nuclear program,” added Inkster, who is now director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Vahid Brown, a US-based researcher who has written extensively on Al Qaeda, said in an article on the Jihadica website earlier this year that the men who fled to Iran constituted a dissident faction within Al Qaeda, which in recent years had become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Osama and Zawahiri.

Divided by their views on the advisability of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, broadly speaking, “the pro-9/11 group, including bin Laden and Zawahiri, fled to Pakistan, while the anti-9/11 group ended up in Iran, where they were placed under house arrest by Iranian authorities,” he wrote.

Iran had been willing to cooperate with the United States on Afghanistan initially, but relations soured after Tehran was denounced by then President George W. Bush as part of the “axis of evil” in 2002 and worsened further after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Later, analysts say, Tehran allowed Al Qaeda members — among them Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — to transit through Iran.

But Iran has been vulnerable to Al Qaeda as well. After one of its diplomats was kidnapped in Pakistan some years ago it released some of the Al Qaeda members it had under house arrest in exchange for his freedom, according to Pakistani media reports.

“About 18 months ago the Iranians released most if not all of those they were holding, for reasons still not entirely clear,” said Inkster.

“There may well be a residual AQ presence in Iran though I would be cautious about presenting it as something very structured or hierarchic,” he added.

“AQ is far from being the organisation it once was and what matters more are relationships between like-minded individuals. And that may well be what we are seeing in the Canada case. There seems to be no evidence of Iranian official involvement.”

Riyadh Freaking-Out Over the Danger of International Criticism

MOJ calls for verifying info from sources

Abdulrahman Al-Ali

JEDDAH — The Kingdom is ready to provide anyone with accurate information about any legal or criminal issue that takes place on its territories, Justice Minister Dr. Muhammad Al-Issa told the European Parliament in Brussels during his lecture on Monday.

He said the principles of justice entail that any false information promoted by some sources should be ascertained first before making any judgments.

He stressed the importance of checking sources because they do not always have any material evidence that proves their claims.

Besides, they have ulterior motives and want to achieve certain goals, he claimed.

Any piece of information that does not have material evidence should not be believed, let alone used to make judgments about certain issues, Al-Issa added.

He asked the audience whether it was logical to make judgments about a certain issue based on a piece of information by some source.

Many times these pieces of information have proved to be inaccurate and in some cases made up, he said.

He said: “The Kingdom is an open book and does not have anything to hide.

“Its courts are based on legal transparent procedures.

“Anyone can attend court sessions that are held in the Kingdom.

“No one in this universe is perfect and we are part of this universe.

“No one wants others to convey false information about him.

“But if he conceals the truth, he should be rightly blamed by everyone.”

There is a distinct difference between freedom and chaos and violation of laws, the minister said.

Freedom stops when it violates laws and disrespects others and infringe upon their freedoms.

Al-Issa met with Elmar Brok, chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, who called on the minister to arrange open meetings with Saudi justice officials to discuss several issues and exchange opinions.

Al-Issa’s lecture focused on Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s program to develop the judicial system.

Strategic Overview Invisible Wounds of War–US ARMY Surgeon General

The Army Surgeon General and Medical Commander, LTG Patricia Horoho, and Command Sgt. Maj. Donna Brock, U.S. Army Medical Command Senior Enlisted Advisor, signed a new Army Medicine Healthcare Covenant. The covenant signed 2 Feb., during the Army breakout and final day of the Military Health System Conference is leadership’s commitment to the health, wellness and resilience of the Force and their Families.

STATEMENT BY PATRICIA D. HOROHO

THE SURGEON GENERAL UNITED STATES ARMY

MENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH

APRIL10, 2013

Strategic Overview Invisible Wounds of War

Afghan Massacre Trial On Hold Until the Pentagon Comes To Grips With Reality

[The Army trial of Staff Sgt Robert Bales of Ohio for the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians is in complete disarray.  The big point of contention is that "the Army is confused about how to deal with the issue of PTSD, formerly known as 'battle fatigue,' or 'shell shock."'  They consider it a disipline problem, men unwilling to grow-up on command."  The Big Brass are afraid to let this media trial proceed, if it will expose the shockingly cruel callous Pentagon culture of "machismo," which refuses to believe in or to accept the concept of "post-traumatic stress disorder."  It is the macho delusion that this Army possesses superhuman capabilities, which prevents its generals from accepting the high toll that their polices have exacted upon American personnel (SEE: Army Shuts-Down Unmanly “New Agey” Therapy At Madigan Army Center ).  This delusional mindset led America directly into a quagmire, before the first forces were ever deployed, because the Generals pretended that their "all-volunteer force" was sufficient to fight two full-scale ground wars, even though the volunteer force could not supply sufficient manpower for one major war, without calling-out all of the reserves.  

Staff Sgt. Bales did not want to deploy to Afghanistan, after serving three tours in Iraq.  If anybody ever had a reason to suffer traumatic stress, it was Sgt. Bales and every other overworked soldier like him.  Just like the case of My Lai and Lt. William Calley, how could they be faulted for civilian massacres, when they saw similar slaugter taking place everyday?  As far as they knew, they were just being "gung ho" in the service of their country.  Gooks, towelheads, Chincs, Japs, these are all derogatory racial epethets which were supplied by the Pentagon chain of command to the men on the front lines.  Killing as many of them as possible, has always been the soldiers' primary mission.]

Defense seeks new expert in Afghan killings case

Attorneys for the U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians during a 2012 rampage have asked that a new psychiatric expert be appointed in the case.

By GENE JOHNSON

Associated Press

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. —

Attorneys for the U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians during a 2012 rampage have asked that a new psychiatric expert be appointed in the case.

Emma Scanlan, an attorney for Robert Bales, made the request during a hearing Tuesday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle.

Citing attorney-client privilege, Scanlan did not say why the request was made. The defense team provided its reasons to the judge – but not prosecutors – in a confidential court filing.

Prosecutors objected to the motion, saying it smacked of witness shopping.

Outside experts believe a key issue going forward will be to determine if Bales suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Bales served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A ruling on the defense team’s request will be made later.

At Tuesday’s hearing, attorneys also discussed which witnesses might be allowed to testify on Bales’ behalf, should the case reach a sentencing phase.

Defense attorneys also asked for a consultant to be appointed to help them pick jurors. The judge said he would rule on that later.

The defense also requested the handwritten notes of the first Afghan government officials who viewed the crime scene.

The defense team has received an official report about those findings, but lawyers said the notes could yield information left out of the report. Prosecutors said they so far have been unable to obtain the notes from the Afghans. At the judge’s request, they agreed to make another attempt through official channels.

“They took a lot of notes, and that’s what we want to see,” Major Greg Malson, one of Bales’ attorney, said after the hearing.

Bales is to be court-martialed on premeditated murder and other charges in the attack on two villages in southern Afghanistan.

The Ohio native and father of two is accused of slaying mostly women and children during pre-dawn raids on March 11, 2012.

Bales, 39, has not entered a plea. The Army is seeking the death penalty. The U.S. military has not executed anyone since 1961.

The slayings last year drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.

Bales’ defense team has said the government’s case is incomplete.

During a previous preliminary hearing, prosecutors built a strong eyewitness case against the veteran soldier, with troops recounting how they saw Bales return to the base alone, covered in blood. One soldier testified that Bales woke him up in the middle of the night, saying he had just shot people at one village and that he was heading out again to attack another. The soldier said he didn’t believe Bales and went back to sleep.

Afghan witnesses questioned via a video link from a forward operating base near Kandahar City described the horror of that night. A teenage boy recalled how the gunman kept firing as youths scrambled, yelling: “We are children! We are children!”

An Army criminal investigations command special agent testified earlier that Bales tested positive for steroids three days after the killings, and other soldiers testified that Bales had been drinking the evening of the massacre.

Putin Wins, Obama Loses in Boston Jihad, “Or Cui bono”?–(Who Benefits?)

Putin Wins, Obama Loses in Boston Jihad FORBES DELETED THIS ARTICLE

 Pundits tut-tutted when a left-wing publication hoped out loud that white, anti-tax, domestic terrorists perpetrated the Boston marathon massacre. They had reason to hope: Wouldn’t backwoods, pick-up-truck radicals pick tax day for their strike?  What a disappointment to learn that the terrorists were young Muslim devotees of jihadist web sites. Such liberal Wuenschtraueme [Dreams--ed.] were indeed in bad taste, but terror incidents do have political consequences, sometimes vast; so why shy away from discussing them? The Oklahoma City bombing by white anti-government terrorists resuscitated a faltering Clinton presidency. George Bush’s performance at the ruins of the World Trade Center in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was the high point of his presidency. Boston jihad should plague Barack Obama throughout his second term as it raises legitimate question about his handling of the war on terror. It will help Vladimir Putin remove the last vestiges of democracy and free press from his totalitarian Russia without a peep from the U.S. The Boston Marathon attack undermines Obama’s claimed foreign-policy achievement (“I killed Osama and Al Qaeda is on the run.”) on which he based his campaign. A newsman as respected as Tom Brokaw refuted Obama in clear words that could not be misunderstood: “With the death of Osama Bin Laden, Islamic rage did not go away. In fact, it is in some way more dangerous.” Imagine the effect of a Brokaw making such a statement on the eve of the election, but Obama no longer has to face the electorate. He is home safe. At a more fundamental level, Boston jihad calls into question Obama’s treatment of Islamic fundamentalism with excessive sensitivity, sympathy, and understanding. If we can understand the root causes of Islamic terror and recognize our own fault in the matter, we can them win over. Obama appears to believe. We must be slow to blame and not offend Muslim sensitivities. A Muslim-American army psychiatrist who shoots fellow soldiers with the cry “Allah is great” must have been mistreated or suffer from mental problems. His ties with a radical Muslim preacher are just coincidence. The fatal attack on our Benghazi consulate was by an unorganized mob enraged by an anti-Islam film. We must not mistreat suspected Islamic terrorists once in custody as did his insensitive predecessor (but we can kill them with drone strikes from the air). Boston jihad raises entirely legitimate questions about the Obama administration’s handling of the war on terror.  Over the past four years, tales of plots and conspiracies thwarted up by an almost infallible security team lulled us into a sense of security. Boston suggests this was either exaggeration or simply good luck. If we required a major investigation to pin blame for the unforeseeable World Trade Center attack, surely we now must ask: Why did the FBI fail to see the danger of the elder Tsarnaev brother after receiving tips from Russia, interviewing him, and learning of his growing radicalism? If the Tsarnaev brothers prove to be part of a sleeper cell, how did our homeland security miss this fact? Will the Obama justice department allow the younger Tsarnaev Miranda rights, when accomplices may be fleeing? Will he be tried in civilian courts? Will there be a full Congressional investigation of Boston jihad just as there was for 9/11? If so, who will the scapegoats be? Vladimir Putin is an entirely different story. He gets a windfall from Boston jihad. When President Obama telephoned Putin to thank him for his cooperation, it should have been Putin thanking Obama for boosting him both at home and abroad. The Chechen Boston jihadists suggest to America and the rest of the world glued to events in Boston that

it is Putin who vigilantly guards the front line against Islamic terrorism.

The Chechen brothers’ killing of innocent people shows what he is up against in Russia and why his troops and proxies have, at times, gone over the line of torture, murder, and bombing of civilians. (Estimates place Chechen civilian casualties between 50,000 and 200,000 in a population of 1.2 million). The Chechen origin of the Boston bombers gives Putin a freer hand to deal brutally and consequently with opponents/terrorists in Chechnya and move against the few human rights advocates left in Russia willing to take up the civilian Chechen cause. The timing of the Boston marathon slaughter also could not have been more propitious for Putin. Over Obama’s objections, Congress’s had just released its “Magnitsky List” of Russian human-rights abusers denied U.S. visas. Three officials on the list were charged with atrocities in Chechnya. Putin may have had some choice words for Obama during their phone conversation, such as “Take my people off your stupid Magnitsky List! Don’t you coddled Americans see what I am against? And, by the way, world journalists stop complaining about the unsolved murder of investigative reporter Anna Politovskaya. She had no business sticking her nose into Chechen business anyway.” Most of all, Putin wants the world to view Chechnya as part of the war against Islamic terror, not as  the suppression of an independence movement with legitimate grievances. He does not want outsiders to know that Chechen nationalists fight for national independence,  not against Christian crusaders or for a new caliphate. Chechens used their mountainous terrain and fierce warriors to remain free of the Tartar Yoke from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries and was the last independent region incorporated into the Russian Empire. Chechens paid a stiff price for their nationalism in the Soviet period. From the late 1930s through World War II, Stalin deported Chechens as traitors to Soviet power. As in Syria, the Chechen picture is a mixed one. The invasion of a Muslim republic by “Christian” Russian forces naturally attracted jihadists to Chechnya (and has provided international jihad with warriors, now including the Tsarnaev brothers). While Putin has fought an independence movement, which he interprets as a war against Islamic terrorism, the United States battles the fundamentalist Islam of Al Qaeda, and its numerous branches, offshoots, and copycats.  Putin is uninterested in joining the general fight against Islamic extremism. His only worry is Chechnya. Putin is the anti-Obama with respect to his brutal treatment of Chechen Muslims: In his first days in power, Putin publicly blamed Chechen terrorists for bombing civilian apartment houses even though evidence pointed to his own security forces. Putin’s scorched earth attack  left a Chechnya of ghost cities and tens of thousands of Chechen civilians dead. Journalists investigating horrible atrocities against Chechens were taken out by professional killers, who remain unpunished. Putin did not restrain his skin-head Nashi hooligans, when they targeted dark skinned people on the streets. Putin has made the cooperative Russian Orthodox Church the state religion, leaving little room for Russia’s massive Muslim population. Boston jihad cannot not be swept under the rug like Benghazi. The tragic Benghazi attack took place largely out of camera range. An incurious press played it as a security breach, not as evidence of organized Al Qaeda retaliation. The mayhem and carnage of Boston played out in full view of the world. The human images of pain, suffering, heroism and perseverance played 24/7. Boston and Benghazi form a potent combination that shows how vulnerable to terrorism both at home and abroad.

Canada Conforms To US Puppet Status, Hyping “al-Qaeda Train Plot” Before Emergency Debate On Anti Terrorism Bill

Canadians react to RCMP terror plot takedown

“Timing of this news release a coincidence? On the Monday when Harper wants to have an emergency debate on the Anti Terrorism Bill?” wrote CBCNews.ca reader ruthbl.

 

Agreeing, PattyCakes1234 on our story about the bill that “this is a pure scare tactic to take away our rights. The recent ‘alleged’ terror plot, I believe is just fear mongering. How convenient that the arrests occurred the day before the possible vote of the terrorism bill proposed by the conservatives.”

A Stephen Harper parody account weighed in on Twitter to the same effect. Not Steve Harper @pmoharper I’d like to thank the RCMP for detaining terror suspects the very same day my govt suddenly debates new terror laws.

As did several others.

William Gibson @GreatDismal Tories hoping to pass new anti-terrorism bill today, so timing of RCMP/CSIS presser on alleged plot a bit tacky.

Sana Saeed @SanaSaeed Bill S-7 authorizes pre-emptive detention of Canadians for up to 3 days without charge. RCMP arrested two men pre-emptively today. Um.

min reyes @Min_Reyes arrests were made today, the same day Bill S7 is to be debated… while suspects have been under surveillance for over a year.

Others were simply confused by the seemingly unusual circumstances.

“What is meant by “al Qaeda elements in Iran” exactly?” wrote CBCNews.ca reader awalli. “Most should know by now that al Qaeda is rooted in the Salafist movement, primarily out of Saudi Arabia, and are arch-enemies of the majority Itna Asharis of Iran. In large part, they don’t even speak the same language.”

As a militant Salafist Islamic movement, al-Qaeda preaches a radical anti-Shia ideology that places it firmly at odds with Shia Iran, according to BBC News Persian correspondent Mohammad Manzarpour.

Canadians react to RCMP terror plot takedown

 

by Lauren O’Neil

 

1. Canadians are full of questions today after the RCMP’s announcement that two men have been arrested in a connection with a thwarted terrorist attack involving a Via passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area.
2. Alleged terror plot thwarted by arrests in Ontario, Quebec – Politics – CBC News

   Greg Weston National Affairs Specialist Police have made a number of arrests in southern Ontario and Quebec following a joint operation b…
3. In a press conference Monday afternoon, Canadian police  accused two men — identified as Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, from Toronto — of conspiring to commit an “al-Qaeda-supported ” attack.
    

   Police said the two accused were getting “direction and guidance” from al-Qaeda elements in Iran, but also noted that there was no information to suggest the attacks were state sponsored.

   In the moments following the RCMP’s announcement, many online expressed shock, relief, and gratitude towards investigators for halting the attack before it could take place.

Gen. Kayani Speaks Fondly of Radical Islamist Militarism

Obsessive focus: Gen Kayani’s comments

PERHAPS it is a sign of the times that Gen Kayani’s comments at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul will attract little meaningful attention or comment. “Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never be taken out of Pakistan … The Pakistan Army will keep on doing its best towards our common dream for a truly Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” Gen Kayani said. In truth, however, both the timing and the content of Gen Kayani’s speech ought to be parsed carefully. Given the recent travails of election candidates facing new, and unwarranted, scrutiny of their Islamic credentials and a debate being triggered on the true ideology of Pakistan, the army chief ought to have considered whether weighing in on such matters at this time was the appropriate thing to do or not. The political battle lines have already been drawn, with religious elements and anti-democratic forces beating the drum of an exclusionist version of Pakistan’s ideology and trying to make it an election issue. Has Gen Kayani, wittingly or unwittingly, given those religious elements and anti-democratic forces a boost going into next month’s election?

The substance too of the comments requires close examination. Who is trying to take Islam out of Pakistan; where is the threat to the public’s right to practise their Muslim faith? In fact, the threat is in the opposite direction: to those of other faiths who are also Pakistani and some of whom don’t even enjoy the theoretical right to practise their faith without fear or intimidation. If Islam is in fact the core of the Pakistani state, does that mean non-Muslim Pakistanis have no place in this state and society? Even among Muslims, from the early 1950s, the question of which of the many different interpretations of and schools of thought in Islam ought to be given precedence over the rest has been a dangerously divisive issue when the state has seen fit on occasion to tackle it. More relevantly to Gen Kayani’s institution, the exclusive, obsessive even, focus on using Islam to galvanise the armed forces is precisely where the origins of the tragic and disastrous policy of state-sponsored jihad has arisen. Gen Kayani and the army high command should stick to questions of national security and leave it to the politicians to sort out for whom and why Pakistan was created. The ideology of Pakistan should be an issue for politics, not the armed forces.

Tsarnaev Brothers Are Russian NOT Chechen–Father Anzor Tsarnaev, “What Chechnya. They never lived in Chechnya.”

Tamerlan

[False flag nature of Boston attack starting to come to light.  The boys were Russian, not Chechen; the youngest boy had never even attended a mosque.  The fake rumors about Chechnya surfaced almost immediately after the attacks, almost as if they were already the new narrative waiting in the wings.  It didn't matter anymore, if the strain of "al-Qaeda" came from the Middle East or Central Asia.  In fact, there had to be some new terror attack upon Americans implicating "al-Qaeda in the Stans," since the new focus was already upon the CA region as the next target region.  The Boston false flag event was clearly Obama's plot to force Putin onto his side in terror war, just as the school shootings were done to convince all good Americans that giving-up our guns was the best defense against insane or criminal killers?]

Anzor Tsarnaev: I am a supporter of Kadyrov. My sons did not tell anything about Chechnya’s independence

KAVKAZ

Father of the Tsarnaev brothers said in an interview to the Chechen Service of the American Radio Liberty that his sons were framed by security services.

“This is pure staging. Someone did that on purpose. I do not know why this is done. I know my children. How can a man who has never prayed go and blow up something?.. The older son went to a mosque. We were often visited by security services which asked on his thoughts and ideas and the stuff … And the younger never even prayed“.

Answering a question if his son spoke about the independence of Chechnya, Anzor Tsarnaev literally exploded:

“What Chechnya. They never lived in Chechnya. They never had this in the head. There is no Chechnya, what independence? Especially since I’m a supporter of Kadyrov, what independence are you talking about? … I lived for 10 years in America, returned home to die, so I was not dragged out here and there… It’s all staging…”

Meanwhile, the wounded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was eventually caught after many hours of confrontation in the suburbs of Boston. US authorities reported that he was injured. However, no exact information about his condition was given.

News agencies report that Obama had a telephone conversation with Putin. A statement by the White House said that Putin expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in Boston, and Obama praised the Kremlin’s ringleader for “close cooperation that the United States received from Russia on counter terrorism, including in the wake of the Boston attack”.

In turn, FBI officials told news agencies that in 2011, security forces at a request of an unnamed foreign country questioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev – the older of the two brothers. During this conversation, Tsarnaev said nothing suspicious.

Tsarnaev brothers are a product not so much of Chechnya, but rather of the Chechen diaspora, commented on the situation for the BBC News Prof. Matthew Payne at Emory University in Atlanta. The Tsarnaevs fled from “fierce Russian-Chechen wars of the 1990s and early 2000s”, he said.

Meanwhile, people who knew the brothers describe them in a positive way:

A student named Zach Boyer, who lived in the dormitory next door to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told the BBC News that he was “a pretty nice person”. “I saw him all the time. He was often in my room… He did wrestling and played soccer. He was much liked”.

BBC News also reports that “high school friends of Tamerlan describe him as nice, sociable and funny. That was in 2006. Did he change recently? What happened?”.

It is to be recalled that, according to American authorities, Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia and spent six months there, and then returned to America.

According to the New York Times and CBS News, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, his mother and father got US citizenship last year. Tamerlan Tsarnaev also filed an application for the US citizenship, his papers have been half filled.

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

The Saudi Connection To Chechen Islamists

[Wahhabism, Ibn al-Khattab...This is a CIA attempt to rewrite the anti-terrorist narrative, right before our eyes.  We need new terrorist bogeyman, since the Afghan/Pakistani strain of Jihadism is a spent force (most of the memorable terrorists have already been popularized in America'a other "jihads," or they have been eulogized after being killed once or twice in Predator strikes.  We need new "bad guys," so the Wahhabis have produced some for us (SEE: If the Script Calls for Credible “Bad Guys,” Then Invent Some!).  The real problem with these new "Islamist" straw men and with the previous ones, is the Saudi connection.  How des the CIA manage to get two Chechen brothers to kill innocent Americans, and thereby implicate a whole new branch of Wahhabi terrorism without implicating the Saudis? 

The list of Saudi anti-American crimes has grown larger than our capacity for forgiveness.  Since 2001, Americans have stood silent, with their jaws dropped open in disbelief, as one Saudi after another is secreted out of the country under cover of a media blackout, followed by a whitewashing of any wrongdoing or court record documenting it.  If the  CIA command to kill Americans came from Saudi Arabia (even if those commands came in the form of subliminal hypnotic suggestions), then all America will rise-up against the desert kingdom, speaking with one voice, holding high the same clenched right fist.  Even if the CIA is untouchable, Saudi Arabia will be introduced to the infamous "dust bin of history."

According to SLATE, Tamerlan Tsarnaev had his own YouTube site.  He posted videos of a Saudi preacher reciting parts of the Quran. 

It is done with some sort of echo effect, making it sound like the infamous “Juba the sniper” video.  The hypnotic quality of this effect is inescapable to anyone who listens to one of the recitations.  Tsarnaev also posts an Al-Qaeda video of Khorasan, The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags From Khorasan.  Khorasan is allegedly the “al-CIA-da” name for the region from Afghanistan to Central Asia, the site of the first battle won against the Anti-Christ by the jihadi forces of the new Mahdi. 

The emir of “al-CIA-da” in Chechnya was Ibn al-Khattab.  He was a Saudi of Chechen heritage from the Jordanian border region.  There, al-Khattab (whose desire was to study in America, according to his brother) was recruited for higher education of unknown content by Aramco, the Saudi oil giant.  The first suspect in the marathon bombings was a Saudi, Abdul Rahman Ali-Alharbi.  Al-Alharbi has alleged links to “al-Qaeda.”   If this Saudi can be linked to the Tsarnaev brothers, even if there is a photo of them standing near each other in Boston, then it might be the nail in the Saudis’ coffin, or at least the match that will light the fuse on the Islamist powderkeg which they have chosen to sit upon.]

Khattabs real name is Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem.

The Saudi connection linking the Boston Marathon to September 11 

Albeit the dimensions are somewhat smaller, but the pain, fear, and anger are the same. America has again been caught off guard by foreign terrorists seeking to sow destruction and death.

By Ksenia Svetlova

Emergency workers aid injured people at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon following an explosion in Boston, Monday, April 15, 2013. Photo by AP

Almost 12 years have passed since that “great tragedy,” the attacks of September 11, and the United States has yet again experienced a national tragedy. Albeit the dimensions are somewhat smaller, but the pain, fear, and anger are the same. America has again been caught off guard by foreign terrorists seeking to sow destruction and death.

In September 2001 the terrorists were Saudis (15 out of 19) and Egyptian. This time, the culprits where to Chechen brothers, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev. If it turns out that their motivations were religious, the context of their country of origin will not be coincidental. Until now there has not been any testament from the two, neither written nor filmed – which is generally common practice in the case of such attacks – nor has there been any claim of responsibility from Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri. Al-Qaida also tends to take responsibility for attacks to which it was unconnected at the operational level, if it shares an ideological bond with those responsible. Despite this, it is very likely that there is a strong, ideological and operational connection between the attacks of 2001 and 2013.

Back in the early nineties, Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan became a stronghold in the Caucasus region for the radical stream of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism. Mosques and madrasas were opened; training camps for young combatants were established to prepare them for the “jihad against the infidels.” Until this day, the teachings of Said Buryatsky, a charismatic, Wahhabist radical, are among the most downloaded files in Chechnya.

This radical Islamist movement was founded in the Arabian Peninsula and adopted by tribes that founded a kingdom in the 18 century, which later became Saudi Arabia. This puritan, aggressive movement is considered by orthodox Muslims as heretic. Many approached it with suspicion and rejected it, but the situation changed once the “black gold” began to flow from Saudi Arabia’s soil. Thus the Wahhabists gained their much-wanted recognition, and began to send money to religious institutions around the world, including in Chechnya and Dagestan.

In addition to the money that began to emanate from Saudi Arabia in the late 1980’s, “preachers” began to travel the world as well. Scholars, religious figures, and jihadist combatants, trained in battles against the Soviets began to spread. One of them was Ibn al-Khattab, the well-known military commander of Saudi-Jordanian descent, who was killed by Russian forces in March 2002.

The spread of Wahhabism in Chechnya sparked a great deal of opposition within the local society, the strong ideals of which contradicted the traditional Islam practiced in the area, as well as the way of life in Chechnya and Dagestan. Fierce battles and political conflicts ensued in the 1990’s, and continued after the war in Chechnya. The institutionalization of Wahhabism in Chechnya happened not without a significant amount of force, as its supporters fought both the Chechnyans and the Russians. Despite the efforts of current Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to prevent his capital Grozny from becoming the “Dubai of the Caucasus,” the Wahhabist extremism attracts many youths from Chechnya and Dagestan.

Only recently, video clips were published featuring Chechen jihadists that traveled to Syria to fighting against President Bashar Assad’s regime. Kadyrov came out with a statement that “no Chechen is fighting in Syria,” later altering his statement by claiming that those fighting in Syria were mercenaries.

The extremist propaganda is functioning as always, and a new generation in Chechnya has grown up with conflict and propaganda. This generation is attracted to the simple ideological base of Wahhabism, and to the murderous romance of the jihad its leaders are calling for. The members of this new generation go to Syria and Iraq. Some of them maybe go to the U.S. and other places in the world in order to join the “army of believers,” according to them. It is not impossible to rule out that the Saudis who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the brothers from Chechnya who set off bombs at the Boston Marathon subscribed to the same radical Wahhabist ideology.

Immediately after reports were published that the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing were of Chechen origin, Kadyrov tweeted that “terror has no nationality.” Currently, his followers in Chechnya and Ingushetia will once again have to “deal with” the Wahhabist problem in Russia’s backyard. The question is if even a leader as powerful as Kadyrov can dismantle the Wahhabist institution fostering in the Caucasus for decades, receiving monetary and ideological support from Riyadh.

Ksenia Svetlova is a writer and analyst on Arab affairs for Channel 9, and has a doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Middle Eastern Studies.

Two approaches to fighting terrorism

Irfan Husain

IN Boston, three people were killed in an act of terrorism earlier this week, and it’s still headline news in the United States. President Obama has denounced the attack, and an FBI official has promised to hunt the perpetrator to “the ends of the earth”.

In Pakistan, a terrorist attack that claimed “only” three lives would probably be buried on page three of our national newspapers. As for the search for the killers, we’d be lucky if the police even registered the case.

Why this difference in approach to terrorism? The reason lies in the seriousness with which the two states take their primary duty of protecting their citizens.

In the United States, the intelligence failures that permitted 9/11 to occur prompted American leaders to ratchet up security, change laws and become highly proactive in fighting the scourge of terrorism.

Undoubtedly, these steps, taken under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, have eroded personal liberties and human rights. But it is a fact that the Boston bombing was the first successful act of terrorism after 9/11, apart from the Fort Hood shootings by Major Nidal Hasan in 2009.

In a number of sting operations, the FBI and local police have entrapped a number of suspects — usually Muslim — who agreed to participate in bizarre attacks.

Through wiretaps on telephone conversations and email intercepts, American intelligence agencies have disrupted a number of terrorist plots.

As a result of this vigilance, terrorism in the US has virtually been stamped out. It is precisely because of this success that the Boston attack has caused so much fear and outrage.

Compare this muscular, no-nonsense approach with Pakistan’s hopelessly inadequate response to terrorism.

For over two decades, Pakistanis have suffered from murderous attacks from a lethal brew of gangs killing and maiming in the name of Islam. Frequently, these criminals boast of their deeds, and post videos of beheadings on the internet.

Almost invariably, the state is a mute onlooker. Intelligence agencies are either incompetent or occasionally collusive. While brave but ill-trained and poorly equipped policemen, militiamen and soldiers have died in their thousands, politicians and generals have been unable to get their act together.

Despite the heavy casualties suffered in this vicious war, Rehman Malik, our ex-interior minister, can still pass the buck to provincial governments in the wake of the atrocities Shias have been subjected to recently.

In the US, the FBI has primary jurisdiction over all cases involving terrorism. In Pakistan, we have been unable to create a federal force along the same lines.

The result is a mishmash of agencies, ranging from covert military outfits to the Intelligence Bureau to local police who arrive at the scene of terrorist acts.

With little coordination, it should not surprise us if investigations seldom lead anywhere.

And when a suspect is actually arrested, even with illegal arms in his possession, he is likely to be let off by our courts. Witnesses are scared of reprisals, and judges terrified of the consequences of a guilty verdict. The result is before us in the shape of an increasingly violent jihadi insurgency.

When faced with a major threat to their sovereignty and to their citizens, states normally respond with force. Pakistan’s response to the existential threat we face has been equivocal and half-hearted. While our army and paramilitary units have fought bravely when called upon to do so, both our military and political leadership has been ambiguous and confused.

There has been talk of an elusive consensus at GHQ and the presidency. But leadership is about forging a consensus and taking the nation along in difficult decisions, not heeding divided counsel.

As we have seen in the ongoing Taliban campaign of targeting candidates in next month’s elections, there are wide variations in how these killers are viewed by different political parties. The Taliban, too, differentiate between parties: witness their threats against candidates from the PPP, the MQM and the ANP, all mainstream secular parties.

Clearly, apart from the religious parties, PML-N and PTI are both acceptable to the Taliban and their ilk. This is one reason our politicians have been unable to unite on a single platform and condemn these killers in unequivocal terms.

In other countries, any political party seeming to side with terrorists, or seeking their support, would pay a heavy price at the polls.

Not so in Pakistan. This reveals the confusion among people that has been sowed by politicians and the media. People like Imran Khan have been pretending that Islamic militancy is the result of the US-led war against Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. By blaming the Americans and their drone campaign, our leaders absolve the Pakistani Taliban of their vicious crimes.

Elsewhere, no politician can get away with letting terrorists off the hook by saying their violence is motivated by extraneous factors. But by using terrorists for their own ends in Kashmir and Afghanistan, the Pakistani establishment is reaping what it sowed. Over the years, various jihadi groups have gained legitimacy as well as support in our intelligence agencies.

Another reason for their growing self-confidence and success is the increasingly fanatical tilt in Pakistan’s public discourse.

Fuelled by a reactionary electronic media that demonises all things Western and openly justifies extremism, the deadly virus of Islamist violence grows ever more virulent.

No other country has provided as much space to terrorism as Pakistan has, and no other country has suffered as much as we have.

And yet, we continue to grope in the dark, unable to evolve a consensus or forge a strategy to confront and defeat the jihadi monsters we have ourselves unleashed.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

Army Shuts-Down Unmanly “New Agey” Therapy At Madigan Army Center

[This is a typical Army "snafu," it hires a New Age hypnotist/healer to allegedly "help" soldiers with PTSD deal with their stress-related problems, which she tries to do, using her so-called "Wiccan" methods.  Once this method starts to produce results, the Army decides that they are the wrong results.  The woman was trying to help soldiers to embrace their trauma as a first-step to getting past it; the Army preferred that they simply be taught the getting past the stress, without any "touchy-feely" hugs or "unmanly" tears (SEE:  US Army Stressed-Out Veterans, Butch Up!  ;  Report details flaws in Army’s handling of PTSD ). 

This is the basic problem--the Army is confused about how to deal with the issue of PTSD, formerly known as "battle fatigue," or "shell shock."  They consider it a disipline problem, men unwilling to grow-up on command.  Real men do not cry, or suffer emotional problems over the manly act of killing the "enemies of America."  The cure to most PTSD is for the Army to stop sending-in young men to murder innocent foreigners, in order to steal their resources.  The entire system is corrupt.  Human Nature Is the Enemy of the State.  Turning boys into killing machines is not a natural act.  If it is being done for any other reason than the defense of homeland, it is an abomination of nature and every one of these boys going through the brutality of "basic training" understands the situation that he is in.  Those brought-up with a high level of morality cannot accept this and crack under the stress of being forced to violate their most basic beliefs.]

Army panel shut down over ‘toxic’ training methods

An investigation concluded that leaders of the national program, based at Madigan Army Medical Center in Western Washington, sometimes used “bullying tactics” and created “a wolf pack mentality” when training its staff.

By Hal Bernton

  Claudette Elliott

A high-profile Army Medical Command task force charged with improving the health-care atmosphere among patients and staff was shut down late last year after an investigation found that it created a “toxic and intimidating working environment” in its own ranks.

The investigation concluded that leaders of the national program, based at Madigan Army Medical Center in Western Washington, sometimes used “bullying tactics” and created “a wolf pack mentality” when training its staff.

The investigative report also noted the use of questionable “Wiccan practices” in training, such as using stones and crystal bowls for “energy readiness.”

The Army Medical Command said Thursday the task force, which spent more than $3 million, was shut down because “it failed to execute its assigned mission and was promoting an internal hostile work environment.”

The 721-page report of the investigation, first obtained by KUOW Public Radio under the federal Freedom of Information Act, criticized the leadership of Claudette Elliott, director of the task force, who was identified by title but with her name redacted in the document.

Elliott, who describes herself as an “organizational development consultant,” led a 26-person task force that was charged with conducting training sessions at medical centers across the county. The training was intended to help build trust with patients, family members and staff.

Task-force staff at Madigan complained to the Army, which led to the investigation.

In one such session, according to the documents, a task-force employee being trained was made to relive combat-related trauma, “an experience that resulted in a PTSD diagnosis, where one had never been diagnosed.”

Elliott, 56, of Auburn, previously had Washington licenses as a registered counselor and as a hypnotherapist in the early to mid-2000s, when she was president of The Healing Tree, an “alternative wellness center.”

Elliott, who used the titles “Dr.” and “Ph.D.,” has a 2006 doctorate of philosophy and psychology from Warren National University, formerly Kennedy-Western University, an unaccredited school that the U.S. Government Accountability Office included in a 2004 report entitled “Diploma Mills.”

The Army investigator’s memo, which was heavily redacted, noted Elliott’s unaccredited degree and recommended that Elliott “immediately cease” using “Ph.D.” in all Defense Department actions.

Elliott, reached Thursday, said she had not yet seen the report. But she said the report’s findings, as summarized by a reporter, contained inaccuracies and represented just one side of the story.

Elliott said she had received lots of positive feedback from officers who had been helped by the training and also from trainers in the task force. She said that a doctorate was not necessary for her position and that her superiors knew where her diploma came from and encouraged her to use the title of doctor. She declined further comment until she could talk with her attorney.

The “Culture of Trust” task force was launched in September 2010 by then-Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoonmaker.

During Schoonmaker’s tenure, the Army Medical Command was trying to rebuild trust after a series of searing investigative reports in The Washington Post in 2007 that detailed shoddy outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Madigan also had problems. In the spring of 2010, Oregon National Guard members complained to their congressional delegation that they were treated as second-class soldiers as they returned from a tour of duty in Iraq and sought care at Madigan. One embarrassing Power Point presentation, developed by a Madigan employee, depicted National Guard soldiers as “weekend warriors.”

Schoonmaker said he was “appalled by the insensitivity” of the Madigan officer who developed the controversial Power Point presentation.

The “Culture of Trust” task force was intended to create an environment where medical professionals would thrive and patients would receive the best care, according to an Army public-affairs article.

“Every year, millions of dollars are lost from employee disengagement, which impacts mission accomplishment,” Elliott was quoted in the article. “We are creating an ambience of excellence within Army medicine.”

Another public-affairs article described a task-force training exercise conducted for 1,400 employees at Irwin Army Community Hospital in Kansas.

“It was very inspiring and the training broke through a lot of barriers with employees,” said Laura Dukes, a medical technician.

Yet within the task force, the Army’s investigator wrote in the 2012 report, employees endured a “strongest survive environment” and only “negative feedback was encouraged during team-building exercises.”

“It felt a lot like a gang of animals who would gang up on the most vulnerable individual,” said a task-force member who was interviewed by the investigator.

The Army investigation also criticized task-force spending, noting that members accumulated many hours of overtime, and “potentially excessive” temporary duty expenses.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com. KUOW reporter Patricia Murphy contributed to this report.

Photos of Military-Looking Suspects Photographed Carrying Backpacks Before Detonations At Boston Marathon

Excellent source of Boston Bombing photos: 

4chan ThinkTank 

 

Only from A West Virginian

[You would think that the Senator/former governor would understand that Mr. Gadahn, a.k.a. "Adam Pearlmen," is a nice Jewish boy, who no doubt works for the Mossad.  Gadahn has obviously not tried America's gun laws since becoming the "al-CIA-da" mouthpiece.  Manchin could only have come from a place that produced the DUCT TAPE BANDIT.]

Sen. Manchin: Even terrorists are ready to take

advantage of U.S. gun laws

Sen. Joe Manchin says America’s gun laws are so lax that at least one known terrorist is ready and willing to take advantage of them.

Mr. Manchin, West Virginia Democrat who is trying to push a bipartisan gun-control measure in the Senate, pointed to a picture of Adam Gadahn — an American-turned-al Qaeda operative — on Wednesday from the chamber floor.

---

SPECIAL COVERAGE: Second Amendment and Gun Control

---

“Our gun laws are so outdated and so out of whack, that even this person, who wants to damage and harm to every American — even this person — has figured out how to exploit them to arm themselves and people like him in our country,” Mr. Manchin said.

Mr. Manchin is one of the co-sponsors of a measure to expand gun-purchase background checks to sales online and at gun shows, although he indicated that proponents do not have the votes to pass it Wednesday.

Quoting Mr. Gadahn, the senator said, “‘America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms … so what are you waiting for?’”

“Well, I’m not waiting,” Mr. Manchin said. “I’m not waiting for him to get his hands on the guns.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/apr/17/sen-manchin-even-terrorists-are-ready-take-advanta/#ixzz2QkqYb0eU
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

3 Men Deported from Saudi for Violating Radical Wahhabi Prohibitions Against Beautiful People

[For those who believe in, or understand the concept of "anti-examples" (negative stereotypes used in dialectical "reverse reasoning"), this rediculous bit of Saudi news is a perfect corollary to the fundamentalist Wahhabi garbage ("scholarly reasoing") that has been regurgitated by the self-appointed Saudi religious authorities (Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) for the past three-hundred years.   Their "fatwas" have been forcing all Saudi women to fry in their black shrouds in the murderous oven of the Arabian sun, because of a fact of nature--Every woman is attractive to some man, or to men in general.  Now, after all this time, the religious quackery is targetting men who are just too "good looking," the Wahhabi wheel has ground a deep rut into the desert sand, finally coming full-circle.  When will the honest men of Saudi Arabia rise-up against this imposter religion and the self-appointed royalty, who have ruled them with a rod of iron, enforcing this psycho-babble--ALL in the name of their version of "Islam," which is nothing more than a reversed mirror image of "True Islam." 

These are the people to whom we have entrusted the making of American foreign policy to in the Greater Middle East project.  This is why "al-CIA-da" is suddenly, apparently revived, even though the Pentagon claims to have slain the beast in its Af/Pak terrorist incubator. 

THE SAUDI MONARCHY MUST FALL before the Beast is truly laid in the ground.  Maybe if Riyadh suffered an invasion of handsome men the regime would fall from its own dead weight and the contradictions built into the foundations of the harsh desert kingdom?]

REUTERS

Performers raise their swords in front of a portrait of Saudi King Abdullah during a traditional dance rehearsal for the opening of the 28th Janadriya Heritage and Culture Festival, in Janadriya, outskirts of Riyadh April 3, 2013. Three men from the United Arab Emirates were kicked out of the event on Sunday because they were deemed to be “too sexy” by religious police.

Saudi Arabia deports 3 men for being too sexy

• By MICHAEL BLAUSTEIN

Three men were booted out of Saudi Arabia because they were deemed “too handsome” by religious authorities who worried that women would become attracted to them.

Sitting in the stands as delegates from the United Arab Emirates at the Jenadrivah Heritage & Cultural Festival in Riyad on Sunday, nothing seemed to be wrong with the men in question but that didn’t stop the mutaween, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, from charging in and hauling the men away, according to Arabic language newspaper Elaph.

“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” the newspaper reported.

Drone Attack Upon Pak Showpiece In Sararogha

[The following snapshot (copy-block placed on article) details the latest CIA drone aggression in Sararogha, South Waziristan, the centerpiece of Gen. Kayani's highly-touted "Peace Through Development" puzzle.  The attack upon an alleged camp of Hakeemullah Mehsud in Sararogha took place in an area that has allegedly been free of TTP terrorists since operation "Rahe-Nijat"  (SEE:  The Effort To Disarm and Develop South Waziristan ).  If it was actually a Mehsud terrorist camp in the Sararogha "Quick Development Project" locality then there should have been an immediate reaction from the Pak Army, denouncing the attack, or the American attempt to sabotage Pakistan's peace program in the former FATA.  Lacking any noticeable Army reaction to the CIA penetration of the pacified area (an area described as a series of "ghost towns," because the displaced Mehsud tribes refuse to return to a war zone), it will be reasonable to put the blame for this S. Waziristan attack squarely upon the shoulders of Kayani and the ISI.  If the target was truthfully a "TTP camp," then the CIA drone attack would have been either in response to a Pak Army request to target Hakeemullah's terrorist forces, or another ISI deception like the one which killed Baitullah Mehsud.  The killing of Nazir was the first step in turning the area around Wana into an American "free-fire" zone; this was the second step. 

The heighth of hypocrisy is upon us, just in time for the Pakistani elections.]

http://www.thenewstribe.com/2013/04/17/alleged-ttp-commander-among-five-killed-in-waziristan-drone-attack/

R2P=I2I (“Instigate to Intervene” Disguised As “Responsibility to Protect”)

[SEE: The Obscenity of Humanitarian Warfare ]

“Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) Or “Instigate to Intervene” (I2I)

Anti-Human Rights, Chaosistan, Phenomenon of Terrorism, Syria

By Atul BHARDWAJ (India)

American democracy appears to be in jeopardy. Irrespective of the political dispensation at the White House, the policy of promoting proxy wars and covert military operations across the globe continues to mutate.

Any nation that decides to exercise its sovereign right to protect its citizens from armed insurgents incurs Washington’s wrath. America wants to permanently amend the rules of the game by stating that a nation’s right to protect is subordinate to the international community’s responsibility to Protect (R2P). Syria is the latest in the long list of nations that is suffering to sustain American imperialism.

R2P is the new name for humanitarian intervention, a norm adopted by the UNO in 2005. According to Gareth Evans, R2P equips everyone in the international community to prevent the “catastrophic human rights violations taking place behind sovereign state walls,” with “coercive military action as a last resort, not a first.”

The problem with analysts like Gareth is that their vision permits them to peep through the walls of sovereignty but not through the iron curtain of the empire that adheres to the doctrine of Instigate to Intervene (I2I). It is through use of such dubious norms and instigations that America attacked Libya and is now in the process of destabilizing Syria. Russia, China and Iran are the three countries preventing the Western military juggernaut to roll over Syria completely.

In an open defiance of well established international practices, Washington is blatantly using Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE to lead an armed insurgency inside Syria. As a result the three-year-old dissent in Damascus is now an international problem. The Western media, with an agenda to flare up the situation in Syria began beaming in the misdemeanors of Bashar Al-Assad and his dynastic rule; projecting the opposition as victims of political atrocity.

Political struggle is a part and parcel of any state. The problem begins when political fissures are exploited by external actors. This is exactly what has happened in Syria where the government’s legitimate actions against the opposition-armed militancy are being dubbed as human rights violations.

The branding of Assad as a tyrant is a ruse to plunge the nation into a war of attrition. Since the beginning of January 2012, the C-130 transport aircraft loaded with weapons have been regularly taking off at the American military base in Qatar to land at Turkish airports. From the airports, the arms consignments travel by road to rebel-military camps on the Syria-Turkey border.

The NATO’s encouragement to Syrian rebels is not limited to moral and material support; the NATO countries are also in the forefront to mobilize manpower to augment the foot soldiers of the Free Syria Army (composed of Syrian military officers who have defected from their parent outfit, a bunch of mercenaries and Al-Qaeda terrorists). According to a study by King’s college London, “Hundreds of Europeans have travelled to Syria since the start of the civil war to fight against the country’s President, Bashar al-Assad…600 individuals from 14 countries including the UK, Austria, Spain, Sweden and Germany had taken part in the conflict since it began in 2011. European fighters made up to between 7% and 11% of the foreign contingent in Syria, which ranged between 2,000 and 5,500 people.”

America has anointed the main opposition party, Syrian National Coalition (SNC) to occupy the official Syrian seat at the Arab League. It is perhaps for this reason that Moaz al-Khatib the former leader of SNC, admitted, “We thank all the governments who supported us, but the role to be played by the United States is much bigger.” To democratize the instigation to intervene, and retain American control, the US has appointed Ghassan Hitto, an IT professional from Dallas, US, as the head of the planned interim government.

The imperial American obduracy flows from the ideological belief that the nation-states’ ‘monopoly over organized violence’ is not a right that can be exercised without the approval of the empire. Thereby meaning that the states are authorized to use violence within their own territory, only to protect those people certified as victims by the empire. Any violence against the American certified victims is branded as human rights violations and genocide.

The Western fetish for R2P and their so-called ‘good intentions’ have already caused mayhem in the lives of ordinary Iraqi or Libyan. The Russian President Putin says,

“The state is falling apart, Inter-ethnic, inter-clan and inter-tribal conflicts continue.”

However, the Americans will not abandon R2P because it is a tool to re-order the states in accordance with what Stephen Gill has identified as “new constitutionalism – imposition of new constitutional and quasi-constitutional political and legal frameworks – with respect to the state and the operation of strategic, macroeconomic, microeconomic and social policy.”

Atul Bhardwaj is a researcher at School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi. He can be contacted at atul.beret@gmail.com.

Libyan Wahhabis Continue To Slander True Islam, By Desecrating the Dead

[Victorious Muslim Brotherhood foot soldiers do what Wahhabis do best, embarass The Prophet (PBUH).  Bottom Line, every Wahhabi attack upon fellow Muslims is an attack upon Islam itself.]

Gravestones are seen damaged by an Islamist group in protest at the burning of the Koran by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, in Benghazi Military Cemetery February 24, 2012. The cemetery, which is home to soldiers who died during the second world war, was built by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
(© Esam Al-Fetori / Reuters/REUTERS)

Lone guard at Canadian’s Libyan gravesite no match for Islamist mobs

GEOFFREY YORK

BENGHAZI, LIBYA

 

With his 9-millimetre pistol tucked in his belt, bleary-eyed volunteer guard Naser al-Werfali is the last line of defence for the windswept graves of the “Desert Rats” who defeated the Nazis in North Africa.

More than 150 graves, including that of a Canadian war hero, were smashed or desecrated last year by a mob of Islamist extremists who invaded the Commonwealth war cemetery in Benghazi. Months later, the cemetery was attacked again, wreaking further destruction to the graves and memorial crosses.

Now the lone guard is asking for help. “As long as I’m alive, I’ll protect this place,” he told an early morning visitor in February, as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “I keep asking for more support and security, and nobody helps. I’m risking my life, and nobody cares.”

The assaults on the cemetery, where at least nine Canadians are among the 1,200 soldiers buried or commemorated, are a sign of the persistent power of the hard-line Islamist militias that control much of Libya since the demise of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Nobody has been brought to justice for the destruction of the war graves. The Islamists operate with impunity. They are a small minority in Libya, yet they are so heavily armed and aggressive that few people are willing to tangle with them, and the Libyan government is too weak to restrain them.

With their purist views on religion, radical Islamists have attacked Coptic and Orthodox churches, assaulted priests, fired grenades at Red Cross offices that were accused of proselytizing and destroyed dozens of shrines of the Sufi sect of Islam. Under the influence of the same ideology, Libyan military authorities arrested more than 50 Egyptian Copts and other foreign Christians in Benghazi on suspicion of proselytizing or distributing Christian pamphlets.

This year alone, a Coptic church in Misrata was bombed, killing two Egyptian Christians, and a Coptic church in Benghazi was torched, nearly killing its priest.

The Canadian government is among those who have protested against the attacks. “Canada is deeply concerned about the recent attacks on religious minorities in Libya and condemns the recent burning of a Coptic Christian church in Benghazi,” said a statement last month by Michael Grant, the Canadian ambassador to Libya.

When the mob attacked the Benghazi war cemetery in February last year, one of the headstones that they smashed was on the grave of Flying Officer Martin Northmore, a pilot from Toronto whose fighter plane crashed in 1943 as he was escorting a convoy in the Allied campaign against the Nazi forces in North Africa.

Before going overseas, Mr. Northmore was stationed on Prince Edward Island, where he had eloped while on leave. The RCAF officer, who died right before his 26th birthday, was buried inside Benghazi War Cemetery.

That month, the Toronto Star reported, his aunt, Leila Bishopp Martin, wrote a poem titled Broken Fight mourning his loss.

Your love so fond – your spirit true and gay,

Soared high to reach the stars beyond the night;

But groping still – along our dusty way –

We search the skies, above a broken flight.

A video posted on YouTube shows a mob of armed men deliberately toppling the yard’s gravestones, targeting Christian and Jewish graves, and destroying a large “Cross of Sacrifice” memorial. “Crazy people did it – extremists with beards,” Mr. al-Werfali said. “The extremists don’t like to see crosses.”

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, based in Britain, promised to replace the destroyed headstones and memorial cross, but Benghazi was considered too dangerous for foreign workers so the restoration was delayed for most of the past 14 months. A replacement cross and headstones were sent to the cemetery to be installed, but the cross was attacked again and smashed into rubble.

Leaders of Libya Shield, one of the biggest Islamist militias in Benghazi, deny any knowledge of the cemetery attacks. They said the attacks were “totally wrong” – the work of “illiterate” people. But they could not explain how the mob was able to assault the cemetery so openly, in broad daylight, with nobody stopping them and nobody punished for the attack, and then were able to repeat the assault a few months later.

Although the Islamist radicals are a minority of public opinion in Libya, their military muscle and ability to intimidate their rivals could be crucial over the next year as Libya tries to draft a post-Gadhafi constitution. A key question is whether the constitution will enshrine Islamic sharia law as the supreme law of the land.

The attacks on Christian and Sufi sites are part of a larger struggle for power by the Islamists across Libya, observers say. “Behind the scenes, they’re trying to take control of the government, the country,” said Abdullah Banun, a prominent Sufi lawyer and head of a Sufi teaching centre in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Mr. Banun, who has endured death threats and attacks on his family, says the anti-Sufi campaign is spearheaded by Salafist radicals who follow the agenda of extremists in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. “They’ve already succeeded in taking control of the mosques,” he said in an interview. “They’ve expelled many imams and replaced them with younger imams who agree with them. They’re all filled with Salafist ideas, and they’re strongly attacking the Sufis.”

Some towns in eastern Libya, such as the town of Derna near Benghazi, have turned into “Islamist emirates” under the control of the radicals, Mr. Banun said. “They don’t want the country to stabilize. Whether they seize power or not, they’re very organized and they have weapons, and the Libyan military can’t stop them. My biggest fear is that they’ll take over the country. Their understanding of sharia law is just chopping off hands.”

Drug policy says it all: We are a police state

I’m amazed California taxpayers want to accept cutbacks in the courts ($1 billion in judicial budget cuts the past five fiscal years and a $3.7 million deficit this year), higher college tuitions, furloughed workers and other public service cuts rather than address the real underlying problem: our sentencing laws, especially for drug offenses.

Fifty percent of all federal inmates are incarcerated for drugs. One in every 30 people is under some form of corrections supervision nationwide. Sixty-seven percent of Kern County’s general fund goes to criminal justice. California spends $184 million a year (and rising) trying to execute a handful of inmates on death row.

California spends more on incarceration than its universities and is responsible for 47 percent of all parole violations nationwide. Some states have one-year parole (babysitting business) no matter what the crime. Violating a parolee for missing his curfew by five minutes or an appointment is harassment and only aggravates prison realignment. The money could be better spent through re-entry programs.

When do we admit we are a police state? Until government and society address the underlying problem of prison overcrowding — as Portugal’s reformed drug laws did — and accept the fact long sentences don’t deter crime, we’ll only get more reduced public services.

Government likes to shift things around (prison realignment) and doesn’t try to solve the underlying problem. District Attorney Lisa Green’s recent recommendation: “Someone needs to take a hard look” at whether another prison or two can be built. The last one, in Delano, cost $850 million.

Mike Francel

Bakersfield

Thatcher/Reagan Destroyed the World Economy for Elitists’ Profit, But Germany Is Still Thriving

Few countries embraced Thatcher’s capitalism

From Mr Marc McDonald.

Sir, In “Right about Britain, Europe and nearly everything” (Comment, April 9), Niall Ferguson writes that Margaret Thatcher was “right about most things”. If this is true, why is Thatcher not fondly remembered today by most British people?

Thatcher’s central economic policy was to deregulate virtually everything, slash social services to the bone and embrace hardcore, dog-eat-dog capitalism. But today who advocates this sort of thing, outside of perhaps a dwindling number of Tea Party extremists in the US?

Prof Ferguson attacks “left-leaning Brits” for being supposedly wrong about Thatcher. But as I recall, Thatcher’s foes predicted that her policies would decimate the middle class. They have been vindicated.

A great deal of the economic prosperity of the Thatcher years was really more because of the North Sea oil bonanza, rather than the Iron Lady’s policies.

Outside of the US, few nations have ever embraced Thatcher’s slash-and-burn methods. In continental Europe today, for example, few people want anything to do with “Anglo-American” capitalism. The same is true of much of today’s Latin America.

As far as Thatcher’s crushing of the unions and deregulating the economy, I would challenge Prof Ferguson as to whether even this was necessarily a good thing.

Germany, for example, still has some of the most powerful unions in the world, as well as a heavily regulated economy. And yet Germany today still has a strong middle class and a world-beating high-technology manufacturing base. Germany is one of the world’s leading capital surplus nations, while Britain runs massive current account deficits. And yet Germany accomplished its enviable economic success by rejecting the Thatcher/Reagan economic model.

Marc McDonald, Fort Worth, TX, US