Report details flaws in Army’s handling of PTSD

[The Army's flawed approach to treating battle-related stress disabilities has been apparent for many years (SEE:  Human Nature Is the Enemy of the State).  Developing better, more efficient behavioral control techniques, that will allow soldiers to get over their mental hang-ups and teach them ways to "man-up" has not helped to stop the escalation of war-related military suicides and violent crime sprees.  The reason that so many returning veterans cannot live with their memories is the shame and guilt for the things that they have seen and done.  There is no way to disconnect a man from well-earned remorse and no reliable method for ensuring that he can forget his past.  Until this happens, decent men will return home to their families, which eerily resemble the decimated families seen by the soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq.  There will continue to be a fairly large percentage of American recruits who cannot rationalize the killing of foreign families to keep American fuel prices low.  Their minds will continue to snap like overstretched, sun-dried rubber bands, as long as they are used and abused to wage wars of aggression.]

An Army report released Friday finds the service still has trouble diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, despite more than doubling its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers over the past five years.

By GENE JOHNSON

Associated Press

SEATTLE —

An Army report released Friday finds the service still has trouble diagnosing and treating soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, despite more than doubling its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers over the past five years.

Confusing paperwork, inconsistent training and guidelines, and incompatible data systems have hindered the service as it tries to deal with behavioral health issues, the report said. It’s a crucial issue: After a decade of war, soldier suicides outpace combat deaths.

Last May, the Army commissioned a task force to conduct a sweeping review of how it evaluates soldiers for mental health problems at all its facilities. The review came under pressure from Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, who was upset to learn that hundreds of soldiers at Madigan Army Medical Center south of Seattle had had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a forensic psychiatry team, resulting in a potential cut to their benefits and questions about whether the changes were made to save money.

About 150 of those soldiers eventually had their diagnoses restored.

“I am pleased that the Army completed this review and has vowed to make fixes over the next year, though I am disappointed it has taken more than a decade of war to get to this point,” Murray said in a statement. “Many of the 24 findings and 47 recommendations in this report are not new. Creating a universal electronic health record, providing better rural health access, and standardizing the way diagnoses are made, for instance, have been lingering problems for far too long. Our service members and their families deserve better.”

The report noted that the Army had made strides in some areas, including cutting how long it takes soldiers to obtain a disability evaluation and publishing a guide to the process.

On a conference call with reporters, Army brass emphasized that many of the report’s recommendations are already being put into effect. For example, over the past year the Army has been assigning behavioral health workers to brigade combat teams so soldiers will feel more familiar with them and more comfortable about getting help, said Lt. Gen. Patricia D. Horoho, who heads the Army’s Medical Command.

Horoho also stressed that there was no evidence that malice motivated the altered diagnoses at Madigan; rather, the changes amounted to difference of opinion, she said.

The task force interviewed 750 people stationed around the globe, conducted listening sessions with 6,400 others and reviewed more than 140,000 records. The Medical Command reviewed diagnoses for all soldiers evaluated for behavioral health problems from October 2001 until last April.

Since September 2001, the report found, 4.1 percent of all soldiers deployed wound up in the disability system with a behavioral health diagnosis such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury.

Nationwide, the report said, 6,400 soldiers had behavioral health diagnoses “adjusted” by medical evaluation boards, with approximately equal numbers having PTSD added as a diagnosis and removed as a diagnosis.

Two locations where medical evaluation boards are held had slightly higher rates of diagnosis changes than the Army-wide average – Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort Irwin in California, Horoho said. Cases from those locations are being reviewed to ensure no soldiers were improperly affected, but part of the reason for the higher rates may be because those bases rely heavily on civilian health workers, she said.

Last year the Army – and the military as a whole – suffered the highest number of suicides ever recorded, prompting then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to declare it an epidemic. The Army had 183 suicides among active-duty soldiers, up from 167 in 2011, and the military as a whole had 350 suicides, up from 301 the year before.

Among the problems the report documented was that Army bases don’t have a person on site dedicated to overseeing behavioral health issues, despite the many problems they can cause: suicide, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and child and spouse abuse. Each installation needs someone with a view of all those programs to make recommendations to the commander, the report said.

Army Secretary John M. McHugh said in a statement that the Army will work to place behavioral health experts “at the command and installation levels to provide better consultation, guidance, coordination and recommendations to improve behavioral health care for our soldiers.”

The task force found that of the soldiers surveyed, 37 percent had never received any information about the Army’s disability evaluation system or had to seek the information out on their own. It also said it was confusing and inefficient for troops to navigate the vastly different disability systems maintained by the Army and the Veterans Administration.

The Army and VA plan to have a joint disability system, by which health care providers in either organization will have access to records, by 2017.

“Some changes can be made immediately,” McHugh said. “Others will require more time and coordination. Importantly, this report reviewed our systems holistically – recommending not only short-term solutions, but longer term, systemic changes that will make care and treatment of our soldiers and family members more effective.”

—

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

—

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

get the Nazis out of our government

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

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

The FBI’s shameful recruitment of Nazi war criminals

By Richard Rashke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Killing Americans on U.S. Soil: Eric Holder’s Evasive, Manipulative Letter

[SEE:  Does Eric Holder know the law?]

source

By Conor Friedersdorf

The attorney general should be brought before Congress and interrogated about his notion of what the president could do in the aftermath of an attack.

On December 7, 1941, Japanese war planes bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Six decades later, Al Qaeda terrorists flew hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Neither President Franklin Roosevelt nor President George W. Bush targeted and killed Americans on U.S. soil in the aftermath of those attacks. Doing so wouldn’t have made any sense.

How strange, then, that Attorney General Eric Holder invoked those very attacks in a letter confirming that President Obama believes there are circumstances in which he could order Americans targeted and killed on U.S. soil. “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws … for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” he wrote. “For example, the President could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on December 7, 1941 and on September 11, 2001.”

The very scenario to be guarded against is a president using the pretext of a terrorist attack to seize extraordinary powers. Isn’t that among the most likely scenarios for the United States turning into an authoritarian security state? To be sure, if Americans are at the controls of fighter jets en route to Hawaii, of course Obama could order that they be fired upon. If Americans hijacked a plane, of course it would be permissible to kill them before they could crash it into a building. But those are not the sorts of targeted killings that Senator Rand Paul asked about in a letter to White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, prompting Holder’s response.

If you read to the end of Holder’s letter, to the passage where he says, “Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the president on the scope of his authority,” it becomes clear that, despite invoking Pearl Harbor and 9/11, even he isn’t envisioning a response to an attack in process, which would have to happen immediately. So what does he envision? If he can see that a “for example” is necessary to explain, he ought to give us a clarifying example, rather than a nonsensical one that seems to name-check events for their emotional resonance more than for their aptness to the issue.

Elsewhere in his letter, Holder writes that “the US government has not carried out drone strikes in the United States and has no intention of doing so. As a policy matter moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat.” Interesting they reject it “as a policy matter,” but aren’t willing to reject military force in the United States as a legal matter, even in instances where law enforcement would better incapacitate the threat. For the Obama Administration, conceding that the executive branch is legally forbidden to do certain things is verboten, despite the fact that an unchecked executive is much more dangerous than the possibility of a future president failing to do enough to fight back against an actual attack on our homeland*.

Any thinking person can see that Holder’s letter is non-responsive, evasive, and deliberately manipulative in its sly reassurances, right down to the rhetorically powerful but substantively nonsensical invocation of 9/11. (Being more subtle about it than Rudy Giuliani doesn’t make it right.) To credulously accept this sort of response, on an issue as important as this one, is behavior unfit for any citizen of a free country, where safeguarding the rule of law is a civic responsibility.

Rand Paul deserves tremendous credit for eliciting this response. In its wake, he needs help from his colleagues and his countrymen. The time to discuss the appropriate scope of the president’s authority is now, not in the aftermath of a catastrophic attack on the nation, as Holder suggests. The fact that he disagrees speaks volumes about Team Obama’s reckless shortsightedness.

__
*Does anyone imagine, in the aftermath of a future Pearl Harbor or 9/11, that Congress would refuse to authorize whatever reasonable authority the executive branch required to kill or capture the perpetrators? It is difficult to imagine anyone even worrying over so implausible an outcome.

The Day of Reckoning

[The big unknown in all of this—

How many of us will pick our guns up, when we are ordered to lay them down?

This is the unknowable variable that induces hesitancy in the feverishly power-drunk bureaucratic minds, actually serving to keep the government at bay, so far— too afraid to declare martial law and seize our guns, for fear that they will set-off an American insurgency, which will dwarf anything that the Pentagon has so far faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

In the dramatic, though realistic scenario laid-out for us by Mr. Owens, beneath the following intro, we see that logically, one-percent or less of all American citizens are fully prepared to defend their Second Amendment Right to own a gun for the purpose of self-defense.  A government that is hostile to the very Constitution which it claims to represent is a very real threat to all life, liberty and personal property rights, at least as great a threat as any burglar knocking-in your back door. 

Such a government would no longer within the Republican parameters set for it in the Constitutional division of powers outlined by our Founding Fathers.  It would have exposed itself as a Facist Dictatorship.  Each and every American Patriot owes it to his Family, to posterity and to himself, to oppose such a dictatorship if one ever rises-up above us, down to his last breath and to his last bullet. 

I am still breathing and I have not yet begun to run out of bullets.  How about you? 

Will you be one of the Last American Patriots, when the Dictatorship comes out of the closet?] 

When Gun Confiscation Starts. How Will a Rebellion Play Out Nationwide?

Charleston Voice

Posted by The Watchdog

It is hard to say what will happen. County Sheriffs and police chiefs vowed to stand down and not give material support or help to the federal agencies involved trying to disarm the American people. Many in the US Military will stand down like the East German Military shortly before the Berlin Wall came down. Soon after communism collapsed in Russia and eastern Europe.

It is hard to say if it will bloodless or a blood bath in the streets if the US government tries to come after the guns. It is my hope the US Government collapse flinching when the US Military and Federal Agents hesitate when ordered to disarm the American people, most of all disarm the veterans.

Blogger Bob Owens has written “What Will You See in the Rebellion,” a likely scenario  how a revolt against the US government will possibly unfold.

What you’ll see in the rebellion

Written By: Bob - Dec• 28•12

Let me explain, gun grabbers, how your confiscatory fantasy plays out. Let us imagine for a moment that a sweeping gun control bill similar to the one currently suggested is passed by the House and Senate, and signed into law by a contemptuous President.

Perhaps 50-100 million firearms currently owned by law-abiding citizens will become contraband with the stroke of a pen. Citizens will either register their firearms, or turn them in to agents of the federal government, or risk becoming criminals themselves. Faced with this choice, millions will indeed register their arms. Perhaps as many will claim they’ve sold their arms, or had them stolen. Suppose that as many as 200-250 million weapons of other types will go unregistered.

Tens of millions of Americans will refuse to comply with an order that is clearly a violation of the explicit intent of the Second Amendment. Among the most ardent opposing these measures will be military veterans, active duty servicemen, and local law enforcement officers. Many of these individuals will refuse to carry out what they view as Constitutionally illegal orders. Perhaps 40-50 million citizens will view such a law as treason. Perhaps ten percent of those, 4-5 million, would support a rebellion in some way, and maybe 40,000-100,000 Americans will form small independently-functioning active resistance cells, or become lone-wolves.

They will be leaderless, stateless, difficult to track, and considering the number of military veterans that would likely be among their number, extremely skilled at sabotage, assassination, and ambush.

After a number of carefully-planned, highly-publicized, and successful raids by the government, one or more will invariably end “badly.” Whether innocents are gunned down, a city block is burned to ash, or especially fierce resistance leads to a disastrously failed raid doesn’t particularly matter. What matters is that when illusion of the government’s invincibility and infallibility is broken, the hunters will become the hunted.

Unnamed citizens and federal agents will be the first to die, and they will die by the dozens and maybe hundreds,  but famous politicians will soon join them in a spate of revenge killings, many of which will go unsolved.

Ironically, while the gun grab was intended to keep citizens from preserving their liberties with medium-powered weapons, it completely ignored the longer-ranged rifles perfect for shooting at ranges far beyond what a security detail can protect, and suppressed .22LR weapons proven deadly in urban sniping in Europe and Asia.

While the Secret Service will be able to protect the President in the White House, he will not dare leave his gilded cage except in carefully controlled circumstances. Even then he will be forced to move like a criminal. He will never be seen outdoors in public again. Not in this country.

The 535 members of the House and Senate in both parties that allowed such a law to pass would largely be on their own; the Secret Service is too small to protect all of them and their families, the Capitol Police too unskilled, and competent private security not particularly interested in working against their own best interests at any price. The elites will be steadily whittled down, and if they can not be reached directly, the targets will become their staffers, spouses, children, and grandchildren. Grandstanding media figures loyal to the regime would die in droves, executed as enemies of the Republic.

You can expect congressional staffs to disintegrate with just a few shootings, and expect elected officials themselves to resign well before a quarter of their number are eliminated, leaving us with a boxed-in executive, his cabinet loyalists trapped in the same win, die, or flee the country circumstance, military regime loyalists, and whatever State Governors who desire to risk their necks as well.

Here, the President will doubtlessly order the activation of National Guard units and the regular military to impose martial law, setting the largest and most powerful military in the world against its own people. Unfortunately, the tighter the President clinches his tyrannical fist, the more rebels he makes.

Military commands and federal agencies will be whittled down as servicemen and agents will desert or defect. Some may leave as individuals, others may join the Rebellion in squad and larger-sized units with all their weapons, tactics, skills, and insider intelligence. The regime will be unable to trust its own people, and because they cannot trust them, they will lose more in a vicious cycle of collapse.

Some of these defectors will be true “operators,” with the skills and background to turn ragtag militia cells into the kind of forces that decimate loyalist troops, allowing them no rest and no respite, striking them when they are away from their most potent weapons. Military vehicles are formidable, but they are thirsty beasts, in terms of fuel, ammo, time, and maintenance. Tanks and bombers are formidable only when they have gas, guns, and can be maintained. In a war without a front, logistics are incredibly easy to destroy, and mechanics and supply clerks are not particularly adept at defending themselves.

Eventually, the government will turn upon itself. The President will be captured or perhaps killed by his own protectors. A dictatorship will form in the vacuum.

If we’re lucky, the United States of America, or whatever amalgam results, will again try to rebuild. If we’re very lucky, the victors will reinstate the Constitution as the law of the land. Just as likely though, we’ll face fractious civil wars fought over issues we’ve not begun to fathom, and a much diminished state or states will result, perhaps guided by foreign interests.

It will not be pretty. There will be no “winners,” and perhaps hundreds of thousands to millions of dead.

Yet, this is the future we face if the power-mad among us are not soundly defeated at the ballot box before they affect more “change” than  we, the People, are willing to surrender to would-be tyrants.

[author's note: This article is just one of an evolving series of posts reacting to current events that many are interpreting as possible threats to our Republic and the Constitution. Please proceed to the main page to keep up to date. Thank you.]

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

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

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

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

 

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

Stewart Bell 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related

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

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

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

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

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

InspireSome inside pages from an older issue of Inspire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

National Post

sbell@nationalpost.com

The Return of Empires, Part 1

The Return of Empires (I)

By Dmitry MININ (Russia)

 Part I , Part II  

«Larger spaces» versus chaos in international relations?

The recent expeditions of the French in Africa clearly smack less of neoimperialism than they do neocolonialism, and have prompted many to wonder whether the events are the start of a new cycle of world politics in which an outgoing unipolarity is perhaps being replaced by a forthcoming multipolarity not hailed by everyone, or something different, something new or maybe a repeat of history, but in new packaging? Maybe something that would allow, for example, the United States «to leave without actually leaving», to continue implementing their global plans in a more complex system of interstate relations? If so, then the imperial projects and vassal relations of by-gone eras that had seemingly vanished forever will turn out to be much in demand…

One of the first instances of this trend was noted and identified by Jürgen Habermas, a well-known German philosopher, at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s first mandate. He observed, for example, that the «realistic» school of international relations that had restored its influence in Washington after Bush differed from the «neocons» not so much in its aims to preserve America’s global hegemony, as the way these aims would be realised. According to Habermas, the desired world order of this school is largely in response to Carl Schmitt’s theory of larger space (Großraumtheorie). Schmitt thought of «larger spaces» as the spheres of influence of dominant imperial powers and their «strong ideas».

One could say that America was still at a crossroads during Obama’s first mandate, leading rearguard actions to preserve its global leadership, while at the same time becoming increasingly aware of the inefficiency and onerousness of its attempts, especially amid the global financial crisis. From the beginning of his second term in office, however, Obama is starting to decisively reformat the world. The problem being faced by Washington is not only that maintaining its unipolarity is becoming impossible, but that multipolarity is undesirable. Washington is already uncomfortable with the fact that while preserving the existing order, China will eventually arrive at the point of global hegemony and could behave exactly as America itself is doing. As Habermas shrewdly observed: «It is more in America’s own interests to attempt today to bind tomorrow’s global powers to the kind of international order that no longer needs a superpower».

Meanwhile, more and more research is appearing in the West showing that a natural rebirth process of the imperial policies of a number of former parent states has begun in reaction to the devolution of America as global leader and the growing chaos of global politics, and often not in the direction that America would find favourable. The return of empires is described metaphorically in the Italian geopolitical magazine Limes: «Empires will never die so long as their roots are not dug up or covered with salt. Their spirit lives on in many generations of descendants and ascendants, as well as subordinate nations. They are ready to rise again at the first available opportunity, the moment geopolitical pressure on them begins to wane and the systems that have been declared immortal turn out to be brittle and dilapidated». Unable to withstand this «hurricane», the White House, according to proposed recommendations, should be at the head of this process and send it in the «necessary direction». It is advisable to contrast the natural formation of new empires with the organised construction of the kind of empires that America would be able to act jointly with, whilst as far as possible slowing down the creation of potentially hostile formations.

Thus in the newspaper National Interest, Dov Zakheim, former undersecretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the US Department of Defense, points to «the growing triumphalism of several empires manqué». According to Zakheim, «In East Asia, China is increasingly flexing its political, economic and military muscles as a commanding power to which others must perform the kowtow ritual of subservience. In the Middle East and Central Asia, Turkey is exploiting its newfound economic and political prowess to extend its influence over the many states that once constituted the Ottoman Empire. And Russia is drawing upon the power and influence it derives from its energy resources to pursue a neo-czarist policy in Europe and in the outlying regions of the old Russian Empire. Nor should one overlook the influence in South Asia of India, whose economy dwarfs that of its neighbors and where the Moghuls once were the dominant force, and Brazil’s inheritance of the Portuguese Empire’s mantle in Africa, facilitated by its own increasing economic clout. The imperial legacies of these states have provided impetus to their nations to cut a greater figure not only within their regions but also on the world stage. When visiting these countries or meeting with their elites, one senses a growing sense that they are reverting to their traditional roles as major powers».

Most worrying to Zakheim, however, is that «all believe that the United States, and even more so Europe, no longer should monopolize decision making for the international community. They reject the post-World War II settlement as outdated and will not automatically accept American leadership on any given issue. Washington policy makers, currently obsessed with that other imperial legatee, Iran, would do well to recognize that there is more to these states than impressive economic growth, military expansion and political influence. Americans are known for their lack of historical sensitivity. They will need all the sensitivity they can muster in order to deal successfully with states whose claim to a greater role on the world stage is motivated as much by past glory as by present success».  It is not difficult to see that Zakheim’s misgivings are akin to those expressed in Samuel Huntington’s prophecies regarding a future «clash of civilizations».

One of the main dilemmas being faced by the United States’ imperial policy at the present moment, according to the German academic Herfried Münkler and expressed in his book «Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States», is the discrepancy between recognising the irrelevance of further expansion and the fear that this will be perceived by others as a sign of weakness. «It is harder to put down an imperialist, civilizing, humanitarian, value-expanding mission by which an empire has defined itself, without being seen – by those within the empire as well as by others – as in decline». Another peculiarity of America, as defined by Münkler, is that America is, by nature, an «empire in a hurry», a consequence of its short four-year election cycle. «Probably, Washington’s growing tendency in recent years to use the military for problem-solving also has something to do with the time pressure built into democratic mechanisms. Military solutions offer themselves with a suggestion of speed and finality, so that an «empire in a hurry» may grasp at them more often than would be sensible or advisable».

Academics also believe distinct traces of imperial ambition are evident in the policies of the European Union. In an article entitled “The Imperial Re-Bordering of Europe: the case of the European Neighbourhood Policy” (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, June, 2012), it has been pointed out, for example, that the European Neighbourhood Policy could be interpreted as a declaration of the European Union’s imperial intentions. In particular, the fact that the EU’s neighbouring countries would be more like its subordinate subjects than equal partners, according to the plans for integrated relations laid out in the policy, could also be part of its imperial strategies. In keeping with the strategies of a multicultural empire, the European Union is using the European Neighbourhood Policy to create new borders and division lines between its neighbours following the example of the Balkans. According to the article’s author, the imperial policy of transforming borders being carried out by the European Union uses less noticeable, but more importunate instruments of control based on voluntary subordination and the acceptance of imposed regulations.

And so the construction of «larger spaces» in global politics has begun. There is undoubtedly no point in waiting for the borders of these new/old empires to be formalised or officially announced. After all, the point here is not their direct reinstatement with all the accompanying paraphernalia (that would look like a farce), but the return to an appropriate modus operandi for projecting the interests of former parent states. The future global hierarchy which is emerging at the behest of Washington will, in every way possible, avoid identifying itself with the colonial empires of former times, for fear of stirring up the memories of nations. And not just the former colonies who were subjected to ruthless exploitation, but the imperial capitals themselves, whose inhabitants are not so keen on saddling themselves with a burden they have already shaken off and who do not want to see the arrival of new and overwhelming streams of migrants from these territories. Neither is there any point waiting for conventions or agreements similar to the capitulation regimes or acts of vassalage, since modern legal bondage can be far stronger evidence of the dependence of former times. The neoimperialist renaissance of Western powers is easier to follow when it comes to the logic behind their ideas and actions, if one does not attach too much importance to the «high moral standards» they hide behind.

 To be continued…

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Oklahoma Passes Forced Drug-Testing On the Poor

[Forced compliance with any medically unnecessary drug testing is comparable to the "loyalty oaths" which were so popular in the 1950s with the Right Wing during the McCarthy witch hunts.  Forced taking of bodily fluids to prove that you are a good citizen who abides by every law is a violation of privacy and individual Constitutional rights, specifically, the 5th Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.  If it is forced upon destitute people, at their own expense, then it should also be forced upon every other citizen of the state, even the Congressmen who wrote the bill and his kids. (SEE: New Drug Screening Law In Oklahoma Takes Effect On Thursday--Updated: Oct 30, 2012).]

House Bill 2388 to drug-test Oklahomans on public assistance passes first hurdle

Rep. Sean Roberts: One of five authors of the bill, he calls it a “common sense” measure to protect tax dollars from misuse by drug addicts.
By WAYNE GREENE World Senior Writer
Published: 2/21/2012  2:42 AM
Last Modified: 2/21/2012  7:38 AM

OKLAHOMA CITY – Drug testing would be required of people applying for public assistance if a measure approved Monday by a House subcommittee becomes law.

“This is a common-sense idea that is long overdue,” said Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy. “The law-abiding families of Oklahoma should not have their tax dollars used to subsidize someone’s drug addiction.”

Roberts is one of five authors of House Bill 2388, which would require applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – TANF – to take drug tests at their own expense. Any applicant who failed the drug test would be denied assistance for one year and then would be eligible for retesting. Children of parents who fail TANF drug tests could be eligible for benefits through third parties who pass the drug testing.

A similar bill passed a state Senate committee last week.

An estimated 40,634 potential TANF recipients would be affected by the legislation, said Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, another author of the proposal.

“When a private employee tests positive for drugs, the employer can fire that person,” Bennett said. “Those receiving state services are being paid by the taxpayers of Oklahoma, and we should have the right to fire them if they abuse drugs.”

Bennett cited a report from the Foundation for Government Accountability that says a drug-testing requirement for Floridians seeking state aid resulted in denial of taxpayer-funded assistance to 9.6 percent of applicants, saving $923,000 in the first month of the law’s implementation.

“In Florida, they were seeing $5.71 in savings generated for every $1 spent to administer the drug-testing program,” Bennett said.

Opponents of the measure said it was insulting and un-American.

“When did being poor become a crime? When did having to apply for benefits mean that you’re suspected of being a drug abuser?” asked Ryan Kiesel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma.

Kiesel said that in Florida 2 percent of the applicants tested positive for drugs – lower than the drug-using population of the general public.

Drug testing by private employers is different from drug testing by the government as a prerequisite for benefits, Kiesel said. The Fourth and 14th amendments to the Constitution protect against suspicionless searches by the government, he said.

Requiring TANF applicants to pay for their own testing adds insult to injury, he said.

“Before they can get this assistance, they have to shell out money that they already don’t have to pay for a drug test to prove that they’re not a criminal. I think that that’s just a ridiculous proposition,” Kiesel said.

It’s too early to say whether the ACLU would challenge the proposal in court, he said.

Rep. Guy Liebmann, R-Oklahoma City, the bill’s first author, rejected the idea that there is any substantial difference between an employer testing job applicants for drugs and the government testing TANF applicants.

“I guess if they’re going to take money from the state, that’s their employer for a while,” Liebmann said. “It’s something that needs to be done. I’m tired of paying a lot of taxes – both to the state and the feds – and seeing it turned around and buying drugs.”

He said he would also push for drug tests for food stamp applicants, but that policy is prohibited by the federal government.

Rep. Jeannie McDaniel, D-Tulsa, was one of two House appropriations subcommittee members who voted against the proposal Monday. McDaniel said she wasn’t convinced that the idea addressed a pressing problem for the state and didn’t want to put the support of needy children at risk without better evidence.

An Oklahoma Department of Human Services liaison told the committee that the agency already has the authority to drug-test people who receive benefits if there is reason to suspect that they are abusing drugs, McDaniel said. The liaison told the committee that about 5 percent of those tested have positive drug results, McDaniel said.
Key points of House Bill 2388

All applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families would be tested for controlled substances.

In two-parent households, both parents would have to test.

Testing would be paid for by applicants.

Applicants who test positive would be ineligible for benefits for one year.

Applicants who test positive again after one year would be ineligible for benefits for three more years.

Applicants who lose benefits could reapply after six months if they complete substance abuse treatment.

TANF benefits for dependent children would not be affected. A “protective payee” who passed a drug check could receive the benefits for the child.

Rules would take effect Nov. 1 if proposal becomes law.
Original Print Headline: Drug-test bill advances

Wayne Greene 918-581-8308
wayne.greene@tulsaworld.com
By WAYNE GREENE World Senior Writer

Counter-Terrorism As An Excuse for Everything Else

[The following article from Russia Today claims to highlight "new thinking" in the effort to counter terrorism, but it is just another Establishment excuse for NOT doing anything to end the flow of drugs, guns, or terrorism.  NEW THINKING on this compound issue would immediately insist that the Establishment end its sponsorship of all of those things.  Recent revelations about drug money serving as a "safety valve" for bankrupt corporations and economies (SEE:  Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor) confirm the direct Establishment connection to the drug "pipelines." These drug pipelines transport contraband at maximum capacity, twenty-four hours a day, sending drugs, guns and militants/terrorists throughout the world .  It was state suppliers who put powerful weapons like automatic weapons and grenade launchers into the hands of terrorists and other criminals (Fast and Furious).  In the Mexican drug war, it was America's selective drug war policies which elevated the Sinaloa Cartel over the rest (SEE:  US Government Informant Helped Sinaloa Narcos Stay Out of Jail). 

Finally, and most vital to any real understanding of "international terrorism," is the link between governments and terrorists.  You can get a glimpse of all of these elements in the reports on Saudis and Qataris buying guns from the Bosnian and Croatian "al-CIA-da"-linked terrorists empowered by the West (SEE: Saudi Arabia Supplies Syrian Militants with Croatian Arms: Report), shipping Bosnian and Croatian heavy weapons through their Albanian "al-CIA-da" drug pipeline, to their Libyan "al-CIA-da" terrorists, who have been relocated to Syria, to overthrow the government there for the Americans and Saudis. 

If it was not for state-sponsorship, then there would be no terrorism of any magnitude today.  If it was not for America and Arab sponsorship of Sunni terrorism in the world then there would be no terrorists to fight.]

New thinking to tackle new terrorism

Dr Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Deputy foreign minister (2005-2011).

AFP Photo / Al-Andalus / TV grab

Terrorism and violent extremism are very dangerous trends which are spreading under slogans of reformed democracy, and calls for street protest.

Lately there has been a growing destructive wave of radicalism, which provoked tensions in various regions and created favourable conditions for bringing new adherents, especially young people, into the movement.

Recent events show that the threat of terrorism has not diminished but has acquired a new dimension and gravity. It is adapting to new realities, spreading to regions previously untouched. Terrorism has crossed all borders, it is fast-arming, and it develops new funding sources. Al-Qaida and the Taliban in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region continue to generate terrorist threats, with a heavy reliance on the drugs trade. Terrorists have strong connections to organized crime, including in West Africa and the Sahel region.

This is a threat to international peace and security which is hard to predict and address. Transnational cooperation is crucial if this threat is to be dealt with effectively. Much has been done to create the effective global response system, which includes a solid treaty base.

In June 2012 the UN General Assembly recommitted the international community to the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, thus strengthening the resolve to support victims of terrorism everywhere and to adopt a comprehensive anti-terrorism approach based on respect for human rights and the rule of law. No counter-terrorism policy could be effective without addressing conditions that are terrorism’s breeding grounds. Development and security were critically linked.

Three conferences on the subject of terrorism will be held in the near future. In April, the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) Working Group on human rights while countering terrorism, a new project on human rights training for counter-terrorism law enforcement officials, would hold its first conference in Amman, Jordan. In two weeks, the CTIFT United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre would hold an International Conference on National and Regional Counter-Terrorism Strategies, in Bogota, Colombia. And this summer, the CTITF and the Swiss Government would host a conference of counter-terrorism focal points aimed at addressing conditions conducive to terrorism’s spread. States are in need of capacity-building to respond to the financing of terrorism. The Counter-Terrorism Committee’s special meeting on that subject last November, chaired by India’s Permanent Representative, was an important step.

We attach huge importance to the work of the Counter-Terrorism Committee, the “1267″ and “1988″ Committees on, respectively, Al-Qaida and the Taliban. It is also critical to maintain a focus on sanctions and to prevent nuclear terrorism.

The UN Security Council needs a common approach, yet it displays a lack of unity, especially in the context of the Syrian events unfolding against the backdrop of Al-Qaida-linked terrorism.

The United Nations has an essential coordinating role to play. At the same time, the level of participation must be expanded. Counter-terrorism also requires improved cooperation of law enforcement agencies. Timely and appropriate reaction remains a priority for the United Nations and its Security Council.

Humanitarian, security and politicians have to engage in an open, sustained policy dialogue to ensure that anti-terrorism measures never thwart timely delivery of aid to civilians. It is very important that all states cope with increasing humanitarian emergencies around the world, citing challenges in Mali and the broader Sahel region, where terrorism was feeding on extreme destitution and undermining development through violence, intolerance and human rights abuses.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

So-Called “Militias” That Are Indistinguishable from Terrorists, or Criminal Gangs

[The effort is now on to soften the blow of this deadly cut to the American psywar in Afghanistan, by describing the war crimes committed in Wardak and Logar simply as "unprofessional behavior" or "misconduct."  How could it have been merely unprofessional conduct, when the actions described by the Karzai spokesman are clearly acts of terrorism, committed by men who had been trained and armed by the Special Operators who worked with the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, which are the cornerstone of the NATO strategy.  The activities conducted by the Special Forces Operators in Wardak and Logar were identical to past SpecOp-enabled tragedies.  The so-called "Self Defense Forces" of Colombia are comparable as an identical older example.  The "militias" that were created there were no more than thugs, just like those described to Karzai.  They strong-armed their fellow citizens, while hiding under a mantle of legitimacy, that was derived from their having been trained and armed by American Green Berets and Navy Seals, just like the "Los Zetas" of Mexico.  

Normally, American client states accept the basic barbarity employed by Washington's Special Operators without daring to criticize American actions in the press.  The fact that Karzai has come forward and done this, implies that he is burning his bridges to the Americans and the perks which they offer.  Further Karzai actions have disrupted counterinsurgency operations in the eastern provinces, which made use of Pakistan's TTP militants Mullah Faqir and Mullah Fazlullah as sledgehammers against the Pak Army (SEE:the Militants Floodgate Into Waziristan ), who operated in safety from Afghanistan.  All of these roadblocks to Special Operations in the east are in addition to the Karzai order for an end to airstrikes against civilian homes (SEE:  NATO to follow order to halt Afghan airstrikes),  adding-up to a clear and explicit Afghan rebuff to further American military actions.  What hand Pakistan has had in all of this is uncertain, but there is clear motive to either suspect that they might be retaliating for the American scrambling of Pak counterinsurgency, or working backroom deals to remove the obstacles to them settling the Afghan problem after we allegedly leave in 2014.]

A US Special Forces night raid in an Afghan family home in September, 2011. “Study: US Night Raids Aimed at Afghan Civilians (Obama Death Squads)“

ISAF to investigate alleged U.S. forces misconduct in Afghan province 

KABUL, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) — The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will take on all allegations of misconduct of coalition forces in an eastern Afghan province, said an ISAF spokesman on Monday.

“ISAF is aware of the decision made at the (Afghan) National Security Council yesterday. We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and go to great lengths to determine the facts surrounding them,” spokesman Brigadier General Gunter Katz told reporters at a weekly press briefing.

In a meeting of Afghanistan’s National Security Council chaired by President Hamid Karzai on Sunday which discussed the security situation in the provinces of Wardak and neighboring Logar province, the president had tasked the Afghan Defense Ministry to make sure the U.S. special forces leave Wardak province within two weeks, according to a statement of the presidential palace said.

The statement said a team assigned by president Karzai found armed individuals named as U.S. special forces were engaged in ” harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people. “

The presidential statement also said that “effective from February 24, 2013 onward, the ISAF has to stop all its special force operations in Wardak province.”

Over the past few weeks there have been various allegations of U.S. special forces conducting themselves in an unprofessional manner in Wardak, Katz said, adding, “So far we could not find evidence that would support these allegations.”

However, he said that ISAF will work with representatives of the Afghan government to find a solution to the concerns of the citizens in the province 35 km west of capital Kabul.

“We regard the situation in Wardak as very serious and we will resolve it in full cooperation with our Afghan partners,” the ISAF spokesman noted.

Hyderabad Bombing Leaves 16 dead and 120 injured

Specific alert was sent to Hyderabad yesterday morning: Govt

PTI

The two blasts on February 21, 2013 left 16 dead and 120 injured.

NEW DELHI: A specific alert warning attack by Pakistan-based terrorist group was shared by central security agencies with Hyderabad police on Thursday morning, home ministry officials said on Friday.

Twin blasts ripped through a crowded market in Hyderabad on Thursday, leaving 16 dead and 120 injured.

The ministry had sent specific alert yesterday morning to four cities — Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore and Hubli — warning them of probable attacks by terrorists, they said.

Besides, Maharashtra and Gujarat police forces were also sent the alert, the officials said.

According to home ministry officials, the alerts were also sent to all states on February 19 and 20, that Pakistan-based terrorist groups may carry out attacks in a major city to avenge the hanging of 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab and Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

They said the central security agencies had sent an advisory on Tuesday asking all states to tighten security in sensitive places as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen may launch attacks.

The security agencies sent another advisory on Wednesday saying banned Indian Mujahideen may carry out terror attacks to avenge the hanging of Kasab and Guru.

Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde had on Thursday said all states were alerted about a possible terror strike by militant groups.

However, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy had said those were general alerts which often keep coming from the Centre.

Hazara killers — supported from Punjab to the Middle East

[SEE:  The Stunning Investigative Story on the Birth of Balochistan Liberation Army]

Zofeen Ebrahim

 

The February 16 bombing that killed over 90 people and injured more than 160, many of them critically, was the second major attack on Pakistan’s minority Shia Hazaras this year. — AP/File Photo

In the aftermath of the Quetta massacre, the arrests of a few Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militants have been looked upon warily as nothing more than a ploy to placate an angry nation.

If there was sincerity and strategic considerations behind this move, however, the headquarters of the Sunni extremist group in Punjab would have been dismantled much earlier.

But with elections approaching, a full-fledged and whole-hearted operation against such militant groups seems highly unlikely, especially in the Punjab, the breeding ground of sectarian militants. This has much to do with the fact that in Punjab, extremist and militant groups have a strong electoral presence.

“I doubt that there will be a real crackdown,” says author and journalist, Zahid Hussain, talking to Dawn.com: “The Punjab government has been looking the other way for too long and pursues the policy of appeasement.” He added that it had even made a covert deal for the release of LeJ leader Malik Ishaq.

Seconding Hussain, defence analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi added: “The Punjab Government is known for patronising the LeJ and (its predecessor) Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).”

But it’s not only the Punjab government complicit in the inaction against extremist sectarian outfits. The centre hasn’t appeared earnest about the issue either.

Hussain has serious reservations about Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority, for example. The authority was created in 2009 under an executive order. “It remains dormant and a toothless body because the bill has yet to be passed in the National Assembly. There is also the unresolved matter of whether it should fall under the umbrella of the interior ministry when in the original charter, it was to be under the prime minister,” he explains.

And so the scourge of extremism will continue, as was seen last week when terror revisited the Shia Hazaras on Kirani Road in the south-western Pakistani city Quetta. The attack was also a grim reminder that without a national consensus in Pakistan on how to deal with domestic terrorism, the next attack is not far behind.

The bomb that killed over 90 people and injured more than 160, many of them critically, was the second major attack on Pakistan’s minority Shia Hazaras this year. A twin-suicide attack at a snooker club on January 10 had killed 92 and wounded 121. With the Hazara community living huddled together in certain localities, they have become an even easier prey and large numbers can be annihilated in minutes.

Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) Chairperson Abdul Khaliq Hazara told Dawn.com that the terror and fear had reached such a crescendo that the Hazaras had stopped venturing out of their locales. “There is no place left in Quetta that remains safe for Hazaras, be it an educational institution, school, bus stops, government offices or a marketplace. Public space is increasingly shrinking for us,” he said.

Where the LeJ derives power from

The LeJ, which claimed responsibility for these attacks, is born out of SSP. It also has ties with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In fact, some of the top TTP leaders, like the current spokesperson, Ehsanullah Ehsan, were all members of LeJ in Punjab, before they became part of the TTP.

“These groups morph and gel and even support each other,” says Rizvi, who fears that “unless the government adopts a tough position and keeps up the pressure over an extended period of time” these attacks will continue.

Equally, if the government decides to pull the rug from under them, and has some successes to show to the people, it will gain legitimacy. “Nothing succeeds like success, and we saw that in Swat once the government decided to go all out; their efforts were lauded not criticized,” he points out.

The HDP chairperson agreed that “The state is more powerful than the militants. We believe the state knows who the culprits are and if it wants it can round up the militants, cleanse the city off them, even kill them, in just three days.” But, he adds, “They don’t want to.”

According to Rizvi, “Organisations like the LeJ, the SSP and the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ) are politically convenient, especially for all the Punjab-based political parties and even the present Punjab government – and they will not go beyond a certain point to enrage them.”

“So while they will condemn acts of sectarian attacks and militancy, they will never muster the courage to condemn a particular group,” he explains.

In addition, says Rizvi, these groups have embedded themselves in society by setting up schools, hospitals, mosques and other welfare organisations and created a strong support base, including those in the lower ranks of the police and the intelligence agencies.”

“There is no place left in Quetta that remains safe for Hazaras, be it an educational institution, school, bus stops, government offices or a marketplace. Public space is increasingly shrinking for us.”

It is very easy for the LeJ, a predominantly Punjabi group to thrive in Balochistan, he further explains. “With a non-existent provincial government and the support of the Taliban, the place became a safe haven.”

The LeJ made inroads in Balochistan and had steadily spread its wings (since 2004-05), where the ethnic Hazara community has been their main target. Talking to Dawn.com, senior journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai said: “Call it infiltration, or what you will, but the LeJ has succeeded in recruiting many Baloch, once considered quite secular.”

According to Hussain, the Baloch have “been indoctrinated into hating the Hazara community.”

Khaliq points out that the whereabouts of the militant camps was common knowledge. According to reliable sources, the training camps are run in Mastung and Khuzdar, from where earlier attacks on Shia pilgrims going to Iran have taken place. Those who are apprehended, meanwhile, are released for want of enough evidence – and if the evidence is there, it’s not produced in the courts.

The desire to eliminate Shias altogether is also constantly fed from the outside. “A proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is being waged in Balochistan.” says Khaliq. It is widely held that these anti-Shia militants receive funding from the Sunni-Wahabi sheikhdoms of the Arab world. The Shias, on the other hand are perceived to be supporting Iran.

Hussain, meanwhile, expresses surprise over the mushrooming of madressas in Balochistan, which lacks “even the most basic facilities for locals”. The senior journalist adds that it’s common knowledge such ‘nurseries’ of extremism were being financed by Sunni-Wahabi leaning Middle Eastern countries.

So where do the agencies come in?

Some experts are also of the view that these assaults are carried out to deflect international attention from the ongoing separatist movement in Balochistan.

The HDP spokesperson insists that such acts of terrorism are carried out in collusion with the security and intelligence agencies.

Yusufzai, however, does not believe in this commonly held viewpoint. “These agencies would never allow their own country to get destabilised and they would never want to eliminate the Shia community. After all there are many Shias within these organisations too,” he points out.

According to Yusufzai, the intelligence agencies’ ‘incompetence’ can be attributed to “overwork”.

“Their hands are full with the ongoing separatist movement in one province, and the attacks by the TTP in others – and then these other militants fanning sectarianism. And if that were not all; these agencies are also being used for political purposes!” says Yusufzai.

Hussain plays down the involvement of the agencies, but adds, “They have the knowledge of who the culprits are but they are not focused on fighting these groups. So while they may not be in direct collusion; by their inaction they are helping these extremists gets stronger.”

Prime Minister Ashraf Orders Targeted Operation Against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) In Quetta

PM orders targeted operation in Quetta

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.—File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has ordered on Tuesday the security forces to begin targeted operations in Quetta, DawnNews reported.

According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, Prime Minister Raja ordered for the initiation of targeted operations in Quetta adding that those responsible for the Quetta carnage should be targeted.

The statement further said that immediate action should be taken in those areas where information indicates presence of terrorist elements and that security forces should conduct targeted operations.

The spokesman further said that the prime minister would monitor the Quetta operation.

Moreover Prime Minister also ordered for the removal of Balochistan’s Inspector General of Police, Tariq Umer Khatab, and replaced him with Mushtaq Sukhera media channels reported. The prime minister also ordered the transfer of various other police officials posted in Balochistan.

Meanwhile, thousands of Shia protested for a third day in Quetta, demanding the army take control of the city and launch a targeted operation against sectarian militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

The group claimed responsibility for the bombing Saturday that killed 87 people and one in January that killed at least 93.

US-Saudi funded terrorists sowing chaos in Pakistan

Pakistani Shia Muslims gather around the coffins of bomb attack victims as they demonstrate in Quetta on February 18, 2013.

Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, bordering both US-occupied Afghanistan as well as Iran, was the site of a grisly market bombing that has killed over 80 people.

According to reports, the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. Billed as a “Sunni extremist group,” it instead fits the pattern of global terrorism sponsored by the US, Israel, and their Arab partners Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group was in fact created, according to the BBC, to counter Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the 1980′s, and is still active today. Considering the openly admitted US-Israeli-Saudi plot to use Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups across the Middle East to counter Iran’s influence, it begs the question whether these same interests are funding terrorism in Pakistan to not only counter Iranian-sympathetic Pakistani communities, but to undermine and destabilize Pakistan itself.

The US-Saudi Global Terror Network

While the United States is close allies with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is well established that the chief financier of extremist militant groups for the past 3 decades, including al-Qaeda, are in fact Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While Qatari state-owned propaganda like Al Jazeera apply a veneer of progressive pro-democracy to its narratives, Qatar itself is involved in arming, funding, and even providing direct military support for sectarian extremists from northern Mali, to Libya, to Syria and beyond.

France 24′s report “Is Qatar fuelling the crisis in north Mali?” provides a useful vignette of Saudi-Qatari terror sponsorship, stating:

“The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and MUJAO [movement for unity and Jihad in West Africa] have all received cash from Doha.”

A month later Sadou Diallo, the mayor of the north Malian city of Gao [which had fallen to the Islamists] told RTL radio: “The French government knows perfectly well who is supporting these terrorists. Qatar, for example, continues to send so-called aid and food every day to the airports of Gao and Timbuktu.”

The report also stated:

“Qatar has an established a network of institutions it funds in Mali, including madrassas, schools and charities that it has been funding from the 1980s,” he wrote, adding that Qatar would be expecting a return on this investment.

“Mali has huge oil and gas potential and it needs help developing its infrastructure,” he said. “Qatar is well placed to help, and could also, on the back of good relations with an Islamist-ruled north Mali, exploit rich gold and uranium deposits in the country.”

These institutions are present not only in Mali, but around the world, and provide a nearly inexhaustible supply of militants for both the Persian Gulf monarchies and their Western allies to use both as a perpetual casus belli to invade and occupy foreign nations such as Mali and Afghanistan, as well as a sizable, persistent mercenary force, as seen in Libya and Syria. Such institutions jointly run by Western intelligence agencies across Europe and in America, fuel domestic fear-mongering and the resulting security state that allows Western governments to more closely control their populations as they pursue reckless, unpopular policies at home and abroad.

Since Saudi-Qatari geopolitical interests are entwined with Anglo-American interests, both the “investment” and “return on this investment” are clearly part of a joint venture. France’s involvement in Mali has demonstrably failed to curb such extremists, has instead, predictably left the nation occupied by Western interests while driving terrorists further north into the real target, Algeria.

Additionally, it should be noted, that France in particular, played a leading role along side Qatar and Saudi Arabia in handing Libya over to these very same extremists. French politicians were in Benghazi shaking hands with militants they would be “fighting” in the near future in northern Mali.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is Part of US-Saudi Terror Network

In terms of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as well as the infamous Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the 2008 Mumbai, India attack killing over 160, both are affiliates of Al Qaeda, and both have been linked financially, directly to Saudi Arabia. In the Guardian’s article, “WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists,” the US State Department even acknowledges that Saudi Arabia is indeed funding terrorism in Pakistan:

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton.

“More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,” says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,” she said.

Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been financially linked to the Persian Gulf monarchies. Stanford University’s “Mapping Militant Organizations: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” states under “External Influences:”

LeJ has received money from several Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates[25] These countries funded LeJ and other Sunni militant groups primarily to counter the rising influence of Iran’s revolutionary Shiism.

Astonishingly, despite these admission, the US works politically, financially, economically, and even militarily in tandem with these very same state-sponsors of rampant, global terrorism. In Libya and Syria, the US has even assisted in the funding and arming of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups, and had conspired with Saudi Arabia since at least 2007 to overthrow both Syria and Iran with these terrorist groups. And while Saudi Arabia funds terrorism in Pakistan, the US is well documented to be funding political subversion in the very areas where the most heinous attacks are being carried out.

US Political Subversion in Baluchistan, Pakistan

The US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been directly funding and supporting the work of the “Balochistan Institute for Development” (BIFD) which claims to be “the leading resource on democracy, development and human rights in Balochistan, Pakistan.” In addition to organizing the annual NED-BFID “Workshop on Media, Democracy & Human Rights” BFID reports that USAID had provided funding for a “media-center” for the Baluchistan Assembly to “provide better facilities to reporters who cover the proceedings of the Balochistan Assembly.” We must assume BFID meant reporters “trained” at NED-BFID workshops.

There is also Voice of Balochistan whose every top-story is US-funded propaganda drawn from foundation-funded Reporters Without Borders, Soros-funded Human Rights Watch, and even a direct message from the US State Department itself. Like other US State Department funded propaganda outfits around the world – such as Thailand’s Prachatai – funding is generally obfuscated in order to maintain “credibility” even when the front’s constant torrent of obvious propaganda more than exposes them.

Perhaps the most absurd operations being run to undermine Pakistan through the “Free Baluchistan” movement are the US and London-based organizations. The “Baloch Society of North America” almost appears to be a parody at first, but nonetheless serves as a useful aggregate and bellwether regarding US meddling in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The group’s founder, Dr. Wahid. Baloch, openly admits he has met with US politicians in regards to Baluchistan independence. This includes Neo-Con warmonger, PNAC signatory, corporate-lobbyist, and National Endowment for Democracy director Zalmay Khalilzad.

Dr. Wahid Baloch considers Baluchistan province “occupied” by both the Iranian and Pakistani governments – he and his movement’s humanitarian hand-wringing gives Washington the perfect pretext to create an armed conflagration against either Iran or Pakistan, or both, as planned in detail by various US policy think-tanks.

There is also the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, or BSO. While it maintains a presence in Pakistan, it has coordinators based in London. London-based BSO members include “information secretaries” that propagate their message via social media, just as US and British-funded youth organizations did during the West’s operations against other targeted nations during the US-engineered “Arab Spring.”

And while the US does not openly admit to funding and arming terrorists in Pakistan yet, many across established Western policy think-tanks have called for it.

Selig Harrison of the convicted criminal, George Soros-funded Center for International Policy, has published two pieces regarding the armed “liberation” of Baluchistan.

Harrison’s February 2011 piece, “Free Baluchistan,” calls to “aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression.” He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating:

“Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.”

Harrison would follow up his frank call to carve up Pakistan by addressing the issue of Chinese-Pakistani relations in a March 2011 piece titled, “The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis.” He states:

“China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power-but only up to a point. ”

He continues:

“To counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar.”

While aspirations of freedom and independence are used to sell Western meddling in Pakistan, the geopolitical interests couched behind this rhetoric is openly admitted to. The prophetic words of Harrison should ring loud in one’s ears today. It is in fact this month, that Pakistan officially hands over the port in Gwadar to China, and Harrison’s armed militants are creating bloodshed and chaos, attempting to trigger a destructive sectarian war that will indeed threaten to “oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar.”

Like in Syria, we have a documented conspiracy years in the making being carried out before our very eyes. The people of Pakistan must not fall into the trap laid by the West who seeks to engulf Baluchistan in sectarian bloodshed with the aid of Saudi and Qatari-laundered cash and weapons. For the rest of the world, we must continue to uncover the corporate-financier special interests driving these insidious plots, boycott and permanently replace them on a local level.

The US-Saudi terror racket has spilled blood from New York City, across Northern Africa, throughout the Middle East, and as far as Pakistan and beyond. If we do not undermine and ultimately excise these special interests, their plans and double games will only get bolder and the inevitability of their engineered chaos effecting us individually will only grow.

TC/JR

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer. He has been published on many alternative media websites, including Alternative Thai News Network and LocalOrg. His writings deal with world events from a Southeast Asian perspective as well as promoting self-sufficiency as one of the keys to true freedom. His website is Land Destroyer Report. More articles by Tony Cartalucci

Time for Shias to leave Pakistan?

Murtaza Haider

It is a massacre alright. Sunni extremists, aligned with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, are killing Shias by the dozens in Pakistan.

I was yet to compile the list of the 106 (mostly Shias) killed in the twin bomb blasts in Quetta last month, that the news of another bomb blast killing yet another 84 (mostly Shias) in Quetta came over the wire. As the Shia massacres in Pakistan gain momentum, the State, including the Superior Courts, appear completely impotent.

In such troubling times some Shias may have a choice. They may sit and wait for a messiah or relocate to a Shia-exclusive enclave elsewhere, or to escape from Pakistan altogether. It may sound harsh, but it is an inescapable truth that Pakistan has been run over by the extremists and life is going to be even tougher for the minorities and moderate Sunnis in the near future.

In the two consecutive months this year, bomb blasts have killed hundreds of Shia Hazaras in Quetta, a Garrison town where each and every street is manned by intelligence operatives. Still, the militants operate with impunity. Saturday’s bomb blast, which has killed over 80 and injured hundreds, occurred almost within a month of the last bomb blast that delivered even a higher death toll.

Space is fast running out in Shia graveyards in Quetta. It may be the time for Shias to relocate to protect their next generation.

Many naively believe that peace will prevail in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the scheduled withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan in 2014. While I vehemently oppose prolonging the stay of the Nato forces in the region, still I believe this would spell even a bigger disaster for the minorities in Pakistan. The battle-hardened veterans of the Afghan war will return to Pakistan to target Shias, Ahmadis, and other religious minorities. Even Barelvis may not escape the wrath of the mostly Deobandi-led militancy.

There are reasons for my pessimism. I saw the same happen in the late nineties when the Afghan war veterans were pushed into Indian-administered Kashmir. The resulting militancy left over 70,000 dead in Kashmir but failed to make any tangible progress towards the resolution of the dispute that has pitched India, Pakistan, and Kashmiris in a deadly decades old conflict.

What looked like a gory beginning of a new millennium in Indian-administered Kashmir, the security landscape however suddenly transformed in 2002 when the militants started to relocate to Pakistan and Afghanistan to join the Pashtun Taliban. The result was a decline in militancy which is evident from the graph below that shows the drop in the number of news reports about militancy in Srinagar starting after 2002.

Source: Tabulations by the author using the Factiva (2013) database.

A spike in militancy in Pakistan however is observed at the same time when militancy subsided in Indian-administered Kashmir. See the graph below that documents the number of civilians and security force personnel who became victims of terrorist violence in Pakistan. Since 2003, Pakistan has been the target of terrorism orchestrated by the very agents who once afforded the state its strategic depth.

Source: http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm (Feb. 15, 2013).

Shias and other religious minorities are the most targeted in Pakistan. No city is safe anymore. The past few weeks saw the targeted killing of Shia lawyers, doctors, and other professionals in Peshawar. Shia legislators were shot dead in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. While the State is struggling to suppress violence against Shias, the deep-rooted support for militants in society and the inadequate judicial system in Pakistan has created the situation where hardly any terrorist has been convicted of sectarian or other terrorism in Pakistan. In the past few years, several known militants have been set free by the courts because of the archaic judicial system that is incapable of convicting those involved in the modern-day guerilla warfare.

Some, not all, Shias have a choice. They can abandon the death traps in Quetta and Peshawar by relocating to the Shia majority areas in Karachi, Lahore, and other cities. A better option is to plead with the embassies in Islamabad for asylum for the Shia, especially the Hazara, youth.

Seeking asylum abroad may not win the approval of Pakistan’s superior courts, who have recently mocked those who held dual citizenship. However, it is better to be alive in exile than to be splattered on a wall in Pakistan.

---

Murtaza Haider, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. He can be reached by email at murtaza.haider@ryerson.ca

Bahrain Revolutionaries Try Their Hand At Bombmaking, Again

[This latest Bahraini attempt to build an effective IED was preempted.  Their last try was sort of amateurish (SEE:  Bahrain police injured in bomb attack).  Doesn't a lack of progress in revolutionary bombmaking skills sort of prove that the Iranians are playing no part in the Bahrain revolution, other than spiritual support?  Is it hard to understand just how easy it would be to smuggle someone into Bahrain with bomb-building expertise, equivalent to that level which we taught to "al-Qaeda"?   All that they would need would be someone like Ramsi Yousef, who could make powerful devices from common chemicals.  Why doesn't some good patriotic American veteran, who fits this description, find his way to Manama, Bahrain?]

Bahrain police find bomb on causeway to Saudi Arabia

A Bahraini protester flashes the sign for victory as he holds up a scarf during an anti-government rally to demand political reforms on February 15, 2013, in the village of Shakhurah, west of the Bahraini capital Manama. AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH

ABU DHABI: Bahrain police found a bomb planted on a busy causeway linking the island to Saudi Arabia, and four officers were shot and wounded in a village, officials said in the latest violence to hit the kingdom on the second anniversary of its uprising.

The 2 kg bomb, discovered on Thursday near a mosque on the Bahraini end of the route used by thousands of people a day, was safely defused, said the Information Authority in the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state.

Late on Friday, four officers were hit by birdshot pellets in the Shi’ite Muslim village of Karzakan, the authority added, quoting the island’s chief of public security Major-General Tariq Hassan al-Hassan.

The announcements came as thousands were expected to take to the streets of the capital on Saturday for the funeral of a teenager the opposition said was killed in clashes between police and activists earlier this week.

The violence has cast a shadow over talks launched this week between mostly Shi’ite Muslim opposition groups and the Sunni Muslim-dominated government to try to end political deadlock in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Bahrain has seen almost daily demonstrations in the run-up to the anniversary of the pro-democracy revolt, which has put the kingdom on the front line of a region-wide tussle for influence between Shi’ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain accuses Iran of stirring up trouble in the kingdom, which Tehran denies.

Mass protests that erupted in February 2011 at the height of the Arab Spring were crushed, but demonstrations demanding greater rights for Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority and an end to the absolute power of the Sunni ruling family have continued.

Thousands took to the streets again on Friday, leading opposition group al-Wefaq said on its website, with clashes breaking out with security forces in several villages and districts.

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

Time for the Regional Storm To Blow Back Into Lebanon

[First we hear about the Israelis crossing Lebanese airspace to bomb the mystery targets within Syria, then comes this flurry of reports on preparations being made on both sides for the next Israeli war upon Lebanon (SEE:  Israeli spy drones over South  ;  Hezbollah moves into south Lebanon villages ; 12 Israeli warplanes violate Lebanese airspace ).  Echoes coming from the Middle East report loudly that we stand on the cusp of a major regional conflagration, perhaps one on each end of the Mideast zone of turmoil.   If  a new Israeli aggression can be successfully blamed upon Hezbollah, instead of Syria, or Iran, then it will be unlikely that the Kremlin will want to intervene, which would effectively "checkmate" further Russian moves.  If, however, the Zionist forces can impel the Pentagon to bring American air superiority to bear in defense of the Israeli aggression, before Russia finds a way to block it, then the Libyan scenario will have been reenacted within Lebanon, the back door to Syria.  If Obama thinks that this use of American air power can defeat Hezbollah and steamroll over the war-battered Syrians, then we will not allow a repeat of the humiliating Israeli ass-whooping that the Zionist butchers suffered in 2006.]

,

Iron Dome System (Consists of radar and 20 tube launcher)

Israeli Iron Dome missile is launched

Israel on Alert

Israel appears to be readying for conflict with Lebanon

BY: Adam Kredo
February 11, 2013

Senior Israeli officials have indicated that the Jewish state is gearing up for a major “war with Lebanon,” according to sources close to the Israeli government.

The Israeli military has reportedlydeployed missile defense systems to the northern part of the country, which sits near Lebanon, and has ordered all civilian aircraft to evacuate Haifa airport, the Jewish state’s northernmost air hub.

Senior Israeli officials have warned of an impending conflict in closed-door meetings in Washington, D.C., sources said.

The “world needs to be prepared for the next war with Lebanon,” a senior military adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said during aprivate meeting with representatives of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a D.C. think-tank.

“All of Lebanon is now South Lebanon,” the official reportedly said, referring to Israel’s ongoing attempts to prevent the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah from replenishing its weapons cache.

Jonathan Schanzer, FDD’s vice president of research, recalled being “struck by the blunt nature of this senior officials’ comments.”

“He seemed to be saying this is a matter of when not if,” Schanzer told theFree Beacon. “If you’re looking at the big picture, the Israelis continue to move chess pieces to the North. Something is happening on the Lebanese front.”

The Israeli official’s remarks suggest Israel is now willing to penetrate deep inside Lebanese territory in order to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring sophisticated weaponry.

Israel offered similar warnings during a recent meeting with officials from theUnited Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which is tasked with maintaining peace between Israel and Lebanon, according to reports.

“Israel told U.N. peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon to ‘take precautions’ amid growing fears of a regional conflict,” the Lebanese news site NOWreported over the weekend.

“There are dangers of an Israeli strike against Lebanon,” Lebanese parliamentarian Jean Ogassapian was quoted as saying. “There is information that Israel told UNIFIL to take precautions.”

Israel conducted a surprise military operation inside Syria late last month to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining sophisticated Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles, according to reports.

Israel then bombed a Hezbollah-run transmission tower several days later,according to the Times of Israel. Hezbollah later denied the attack had taken place.

Israeli officials have increasingly made clear that its military is willing to conduct similar operations in the future in order to prevent heavy weapons from reaching terrorist forces in Lebanon.

That declaration has led to concerns Hezbollah could begin to launch retaliatory attacks along Israel’s populous northern border.

There are several indications Israel is preparing to ward off an attack.

Israel has deployed a third Iron Dome missile defense system to the north in recent days. Additionally, Israel stepped up its military surveillance in Lebanon, reportedly deploying drones deep in Lebanese airspace.

“What they’re doing, especially with the Iron Dome, is contingency preparation,” said Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I don’t think they have a plan of releasing a general attack … but they have to be ready.”

Israel has “sent out enough fertile warnings” that it is prepared “to act as necessary to stop any flow of weapons to Hezbollah,” White said.

As Hezbollah works to restock its arms, Israel “must be ready to act against specific shipments and retaliation on some scale,” White explained. “They also have to be ready to act if there’s a rapid escalation.”

A spokesperson in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.

ABSOLUTE PROOF–People Power Stopped Infrared Surveillance Drone Deployment In Seattle!!!

Seattle grounds police drone program

Mayor Mike McGinn ordered the Seattle Police Department to abandon its plan to use drones after residents and privacy advocates protested.

By Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter

ALAN BERNER / The Seattle Times

The Police Department had purchased two 3.5-pound Draganflyer X6 Helicopter Tech drones with money from a regional Homeland Security grant.

All surveillance policy involving U.S. citizens should be open to public debate and no… (February 8, 2013, by jimjbear) MORE

Due to its’ past actions the SPD is no where near trustworthy enough to merit these… (February 8, 2013, by ghostly) MORE

About time! A heartfelt thank you to all of those that expressed their… (February 7, 2013, by Dual Processor) MORE

Saying police need to stay focused on “community building,” Mayor Mike McGinn has pulled the plug on the department’s controversial drone program even before it got off the ground.

In a brief statement Thursday, McGinn said he and police Chief John Diaz agreed that it was time to end the program so the Seattle Police Department “can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department’s priority.”

McGinn said the two drones purchased by the city with federal funds will be returned to their vendor.

When reached for comment, Seattle police referred questions to the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office declined to elaborate on McGinn’s statement.

The announcement came one day after the city held a public hearing on a proposed ordinance outlining restrictions for the department’s drone program, which drew vocal opposition from numerous citizens concerned with intrusions into their privacy. The ordinance was expected to come up for a vote later this month.

The Police Department is among dozens of law-enforcement agencies, academic institutions and other agencies that were given approval last year by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to train operators in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly known as drones. The FAA action came after President Obama signed a law that compelled the agency to plan for safe integration of civilian drones into U.S. airspace by 2015.

The Police Department purchased two 3.5-pound Draganflyer X6 Helicopter Tech drones with money from a regional Homeland Security grant, envisioning uses during hostage situations and search-and-rescue operations and after following natural disasters. One of the helicopters was expected to be used by the King County Sheriff’s Office.

Police said the unmanned systems would allow the city to have some of the public-safety benefits of a manned helicopter without the prohibitive costs.

But the proposed use of drones by police drew “tremendous, widespread concern among the general public,” according to Doug Honig, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington. When police introduced the program during a public presentation last fall, officers were shouted down by opponents who feared misuse.

Honig said Thursday the ACLU was pleased with McGinn’s action.

“It’s a wise decision,” he said. “Drones would have given police unprecedented abilities to engage in surveillance and intrude on people’s privacy and there was never a strong case made that Seattle needed the drones for public safety.”

But Councilmember Bruce Harrell, chair of the Council’s Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee, criticized McGinn for taking “the easy way out.”

“It’s harder to define a policy where, in rare circumstances, (drones) could be useful,” said Harrell, who is running for mayor against McGinn. “We could have been a model for other cities to follow.”

Harrell had sponsored the pending council legislation that he hoped would balance the usefulness of the technology with privacy concerns.

The proposed ordinance discussed Wednesday would have banned the use of drones for general surveillance or for flights over open-air assemblies. It also would have required police to obtain a warrant before using drones for all but emergency circumstances, such as situations involving hostages, search-and-rescue operations, the pursuit of armed felons, bomb threats and the detection of “hot spots” in fires, or for the collection of traffic data.

City Councilmember Tim Burgess, another mayoral candidate, said McGinn’s cancellation of the program provides the city with an opportunity to reassess the grant money given to the city for homeland security.

But he went further, questioning the Police Department’s recent installation of 30 surveillance cameras along the city’s shoreline, from Fauntleroy to Golden Gardens. The project is funded by a $5 million federal grant aimed at increasing security at the Port of Seattle and improving the city’s ability to respond to hazards and emergencies.

Police said the cameras, which could be operational by March 31, will provide them with a sweeping view of the port facilities, Elliott Bay and the shoreline.

“We should also assess the cameras at Alki,” Burgess said. “Unfortunately, there has not been the strong, decisive leadership from the mayor on public safety so these things just occur without the kind of oversight and policy discussions we should be having.”

McGinn’s mention of “community building” comes amid police community-outreach efforts following a Department of Justice investigation that found evidence of biased policing and routine use of unconstitutional force. That finding led to an agreement calling for mandated reforms within the department.

The debate in Seattle over drones echoes one taking place across the nation as law-enforcement agencies seek to utilize drone technology. Earlier this week, Charlottesville, Va., ordered a two-year moratorium on the citywide use of unmanned aircraft. It was the first city in the nation to do so, supporters say.

Honig, the ACLU spokesman, said the organization would like to see legislation placing restrictions on the acquisition and use of drones by all Washington state law-enforcement agencies. He also said the acquisition of such technology should be driven by policies and decisions made with public input, not simply by the availability of federal funds.

When King County Sheriff John Urquhart took office last year, he said he returned his department’s drone to Seattle police.

“I came in and said, ‘We’re not going to fly that.’ We hadn’t done our homework, and I don’t think the time is right,” he said Thursday. “What’s happening to Seattle is exactly what I hoped to avoid.”

Christine Clarridge: cclarridge@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8983.

Staff reporter Lynn Thompson contributed to this report.

Obama Administration Running Scared Over Killer-Drone Inquisition

[Gen. McChrystal was just quoted in the press admitting that drone murders were a bad idea, which only served to "multiply our enemies."  If you have two high mucky-mucks like Gen. Stanley McChrystal and former CIA chief Gates openly making simultaneous admissions that the assassination program has a downside, then it seems obvious that the Administration believes it is running into some serious trouble.  The entire assassination program is no more than a continuing series of war crimes, covered over with legal technicalities and diplomatic niceties, which were dreamed-up by a bunch of American lawyers.  All of these criminal assaults were based on arguments made, which derived their assumed authority from a delusional reading of the Congressional resolution which originally authorized the use of American forces in this war, the  "Authorization for Use of Military Force.''

"That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."--SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. (a)

This single paragraph has somehow been stretched to cover all of the criminal wars which have followed the original effort in Afghanistan, beginning with Iraq, none of which had even a remote connection to the 911 attacks.  The problem with that, is that the war authorization now is invoked to justify giving military support to the same "al-Qaeda" forces, who were blamed for the attacks in the original war resolution.  The contradiction in this is astounding--a single war resolution, which allegedly provides the legal basis for the "Islamist" war against the Syrian government, as well as the Afghan war against the same "al-Qaeda," even though many of those same "Islamist" veterans fighting in Syria  honed their skills by killing Americans in Afghanistan or in Iraq.

All of this evidence of criminal behavior in the waging of this war in the highest levels of the Federal government is coming-out during hearings for John Brennan for the next CIA director.   He is currently being grilled by the Congress about his love for the deadly terminator-drones, questioning the legality and morality of their use in non-war zones.  Other issues of CIA mal- and misfeasance are being raised by Senators like Lindsay Graham, who wants answers about agency wrongdoing in the Benghazi debacle.  Now is the time for all of those concerned citizens of the Earth, or of the United States to make known their own objections to the criminal activities of the CIA. 

Whatever protest you feel moved to make, then make it now.  By the time they close their drone network over the entire United States, it will probably be too late.]

Gates backs lawmakers’ oversight of drone program

By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press

FILE – In this Feb. 7, 2013 file photo, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., right, welcomes CIA Director nominee John Brennan on Capitol Hill in Washington, prior to the start of Brennan’s confirmation hearing before the committee. Lawmakers are considering whether Congress can set up a court to decide when drones can kill U.S. citizens overseas, much like the secret courts that now grant permission for surveillance. It’s another sign of the U.S. philosophical struggle over remote warfare, raised after CIA head nominee John Brennan’s vigorous defense of the drones. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Gates, a former defense secretary and spymaster, is backing lawmakers’ proposal to form a special court to review President Barack Obama’s deadly drone strikes against Americans linked to al-Qaida.Gates, who led the Pentagon for Presidents George W. Bush and Obama and previously served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s director, said Obama’s use of the unmanned drones follows tight rules. But he shares lawmakers’ wariness over using the unmanned aircraft to target al-Qaida operatives and allies.

“I think that the rules and the practices that the Obama administration has followed are quite stringent and are not being abused. But who is to say about a future president?” Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

The use of remote-controlled drones — Obama’s weapon of choice to strike al-Qaida with lethal missiles in places such as Pakistan and Yemen — earned headlines last week as lawmakers contemplated just how much leeway an American president should have in going after the nation’s enemies, including its own citizens.

“We are in a different kind of war. We’re not sending troops. We’re not sending manned bombers. We’re dealing with the enemy where we find them to keep America safe. We have to strike a new constitutional balance with the challenges we face today,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

“The policy is really unfolding. Most of this has not been disclosed,” the second-ranking Senate Democrat added.

The nomination of John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser who oversaw many of the drone strikes from his office in the West Wing basement, kick-started the discussion.

During Thursday’s hearing, Brennan defended drone strikes only as a “last resort,” but he said he had no qualms about going after Anwar al-Awlaki in September 2011. A drone strike in Yemen killed al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, a Denver native.

Those strikes came after U.S. intelligence concluded that the elder al-Awlaki was senior operational leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plotting attacks on the U.S., including the failed Christmas Day bombing of an airplane as it landed in Detroit in 2009.

“I think it’s very unseemly that a politician gets to decide the death of an American citizen,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “They should answer about the 16-year-old boy, al-Awlaki’s son who was killed not as collateral damage, but in a separate strike.”

Many lawmakers suggested uneasiness about the unfettered program.

“It just makes me uncomfortable that the president — whoever it is — is the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the executioner, all rolled into one,” said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine.

The potential model that some lawmakers are considering for overseeing such drone attacks is a secret court of federal judges that now reviews requests for government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases. In those proceedings, 11 federal judges review wiretap applications that enable the FBI and other agencies to gather evidence to build cases. Suspects have no lawyers present, as they would in other U.S. courts, and the proceedings are secret.

Some Republicans were wary of such an oversight proposal.

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said his members review all drone strikes on a monthly basis, both from the CIA and Pentagon.

“There is plenty of oversight here,” said Rep Mike Rogers, R-Mich.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said a separate oversight panel would be “an encroachment on the powers of the president of the United States.”

“But what we need to do is take the whole program out of the hand of the Central Intelligence Agency and put it into the Department of Defense, where you have adequate oversight,” McCain said. “Since when is the intelligence agency supposed to be an air force of drones that goes around killing people? I believe that it’s a job for the Department of Defense.”

Gates, Paul and King spoke with CNN’s “State of the Union.” Durbin appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Rogers was interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” McCain was on “Fox News Sunday.”

Training and arming Islamist terrorists is what the Pentagon does best

[In a clear contradiction of all of the hype being generated about Gen. Dempsey by people like Lyndon LaRouche (SEE:  Gen. Dempsey Takes the Fight to London and Dublin), neither Martin Dempsey, nor any other Pentagon brass is actually willing to stand-up for this Country and oppose the world conquest plans of Barack Obama and the Imperial Establishment.  So far, Dempsey has created the appearance of being in opposition to an escalation of the Syrian insurrection, by merely opposing only those particular escalations which appeared to lead directly to World War III (SEE:  Tel Aviv Shocked To See Top General Unload Zionist Baggage). 

Arming another few thousand crazed "Islamists" runs true to the Pentagon's "Take-Over-the-World Plan."  After all, a majority of the "Islamist" terrorists active in the world today were either trained by US Special Forces,  or by other people which had previously been trained by them, like the Los Zetas in Mexico, or else they received their journeyman terrorist training from either British or Israeli Special Forces, like Yar Klein, the Israeli commando who was responsible for training both sides in the Colombian civil war.  Perhaps the best example of the negative results of training by US Special Forces is to be found in the sectarian civil war which erupted in Iraq after these professional killers began to train the Sunni terrorists in Anbar Province.

Training and arming Islamist terrorists is what the Pentagon does best.]

Top US general backs arming militants in Syria

 

The top U.S. military officer said on Sunday he favored the idea of arming Syrian militants during discussions within the Obama administration about how to help resolve the country’s crisis, but there was never a specific plan under review.

 

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he thought arming the insurgents might help end the crisis more quickly and avert the collapse of government institutions, which could lead Syria to become a failed state.

 

“Conceptually I thought if there were a way to resolve the military situation more quickly it would work to the benefit not only of the Syrian people but also us,” Dempsey told reporters aboard his plane from Afghanistan, where he attended a change-of-command ceremony for NATO-led forces.

 

“A failed state is defined by the collapse of its institutions,” he said. “And so conceptually we thought about ways to prevent that from happening. Conceptually I was in agreement. Now there were enormous complexities involved that we still haven’t resolved.”

 

Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged their support for arming Syrian insurgents during a Senate hearing last week, the first time they had been queried about the issue. Reuters

 

FACTS & FIGURES

 

In December 2012, the Sunday Times of London reported that the United States was launching a covert operation to send weapons to the armed groups fighting against the government forces in Syria.

 

President Barack Obama on December 11, 2012, declared that the U.S. officially recognized the Syrian Opposition Coalition as the sole “legitimate representative” of its country’s people.

 

Russia lashed out at the United States for recognizing the opposition coalition, saying it ran against agreements to seek political transition in the Middle Eastern nation. Reuters

 

Russia has also warned the United States that the conflict in Syria will escalate if the U.S. provides arms to militants and continues to push for the overthrow of the Damascus government. Examiner

 

As the London Guardian reported in July, 2012, militants in Syria are admittedly being led by al-Qaeda terrorists, who meet with them “every day” and train them how to make bombs.

US officials confess to targeting Iran’s civilian population

Franklin Lamb

Condemned by every syllable they utter Tehran – Azadeh, a graduate law student from Tehran University, on the Sidelines of Iran’s Third Annual Hollywoodism ( Www.hollywoodism.orghttp ) reminded her interlocutors, of the obvious Damming admissions last week by two U.S. politicians: “It would be a defense lawyer’s worst nightmare wouldn’t it? I mean to have one’s clients, in this case the Vice-President of the United States and the outgoing Secretary of state confess so publicly to serial international crimes against a civilian population? “ The confessions and the crimes, she correctly enumerated to her audience, were those admitted to by US Vice-President Joe Biden and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this past week. Both of the US officials, in discussing US relations with the Islamic Republic, openly admitted that the US-led sanctions against Iran (and Syria) are politically motivated and constitute a “soft-war” against the nearly 80 million people of Iran (23 million people in Syria) in order to achieve regime change. Mrs. Clinton, was the first of the dynamic duo to be heard from. She acknowledged that the harsh US sanctions were intended to target and send the people of Iran a message. ”So we hope that the Iranian people will make known their concerns … so my message to Iranians is do something about this.” Some listening concluded she meant food riots and inflation riots to overthrow the Iranian government. An Australian Broadcasting Company interviewer asked Clinton on January 31 of last year: “If you have issues with the government of Iran, why destroy the Iranian people with the current sanctions in place? It’s very difficult to find certain medicines in Iran. Where is your sense of humanity? “ What the Clinton interrogator had in mind, she explained later, were the US-led sanctions reducing Iran’s GDP growth (-1.1% GDP) resulting in an inflation of 21.0% that is being felt mostly by the civilian population. As well as periodic food shortages in the supermarkets of such staples such as rice, there are price rises on everything. For example, per page printing for students is up as much as 400% and the cost of a used car up 300%. In general, supermarket items have risen 100 to 300 percent or higher over the past twenty-four months and, devasTating for many, certain lifesaving medicines are no longer available. Clinton: “Well, first, let me say on the medicine and on food and other necessities, there are no sanctions.” This statement is utter nonsense and Mrs. Clinton knows it. The targeting process by the US Treasury Department is well entrenched in Washington. When dear reader is next in Washington, DC, perhaps on a tour bus riding down NW Pennsylvania Avenue following a visit to the US Capitol, consider getting off the bus at 15th and Pennsylvania at the US Department of the Treasury. Walk around the main building and you will see an Annex building. This building, as Clinton knows well, and like Biden, has visited more than once, houses the Office of Financial Assets Control (OFAC). The well-funded agency’s work includes precisely targeting “food and medicines and other necessities” in order to force the civilian population of Iran to achieve regime change. For more than two hundred years, since the War of 1812, when OFAC was founded to sanction the British, the office has become expert at imposing sanctions and it has done so more than 2000 times. OFAC currently uses a large team of specialists and computers to think-up, design, test, and send to AIPAC and certain pro-Zionist officials and members of congress their work-product topped off by recommendations. OFAC and its Treasury Department associates have had a hand in virtually every US sanction applied to Iran since President Jimmy Carter issued Executive Order 12170 in November 1979 freezing about $ 12 billion in Iranian assets, including bank deposits, gold and other properties. From the State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act in 1979 to the Syria Accountability Act of 2004, more than a dozen Presidential Executive Orders including the 2011-2012 Executive orders which froze the US property of high-rankling Syrian and Iranian officials and more broadly EO 13582 which froze all governmental assets of the Syrian government and prohibited Americans from doing business with the Syrian government and banned all US import of Syrian petroleum products. What OFAC does with its data base is science not art. It can calculate quite precisely the economic effect on the civilian population of a single action designating one company, bank, government entity or infrastructure system of a country. OFAC, on behalf of its government, electronically wages a cold war against its civilian targets. This week OFAC and the Treasury Department blacklisted Iran’s state broadcasting authority, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, responsible for broadcast policy in Iran and overseas production at Iranian television and radio channels, potentially limiting viewing and listening opportunities for Iran’s civilian population. Its director, Ezzatollah Zarghami, was included in the action. Additionally sanctioned are Iran’s Internet-policing agencies and a major electronics producer. David S. Cohen, the pro-Zionist Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, who oversees the OFAC sanctions effort, reportedly following meetings with Israeli officials, said last week’s actions were meant to “tighten the screws and intensify the economic pressure against the Iranian regime.” In reality, the sanctions target the civilian population and the “Iranian regime” won’t be much affected. The same applies to Syria. Despite the public relations language that “food and medicine are exempted from the brutal US-led sanctions, as OFAC well knows, the reality is something else. They know well the chilling effects of the sanctions on international suppliers of medicines and food stuffs with respect to a targeted country. The US Treasury department has thousands of gigabytes of data confirming that the boards of directors of international business do not, and will not allow their companies to risk millions of dollars in profits by technically violating any of the thousands of details in the sanctions – many of which are subject to interpretation – for the sake of doing business with Iran or Syria. This is why there are severe shortages of medicines and certain foodstuffs in these sanctioned countries and to state otherwise is Orwellian News-Speak. OFAC does not operate in a vacuum. It works closely with other US agencies including the 16 intelligence agencies that together make up the UN Intelligence Community. Together they have applied sanctions of great breadth and severity against the civilian populations of Syria and Iran. These sanctions have been bolstered on occasion by several direct and / or green-lighted Israeli assassinations and cyber-assaults, hoping to foment civil unrest to achieve regime change and other political goals. A few days after Mrs.Clinton’s somewhat inadvertent confession that the US government intentionally targets the civilian population of Iran, Vice President Joe Biden chimed in on the 4th of February that the US was ready to hold direct negotiations with Iran but added the caveat, “We have also made clear that Iran’s leaders need not sentence their people to economic deprivation, “acknowledging as did Hillary that the US sanctions are intended to target and harm the Iranian and Syrian people. A senior Obama administration official described the latest step as” a significant turning of the screw, “meaning that the people of Iran face a” stark choice “between bowing to US demands and reviving their oil revenue, the country’s economic lifeblood or more and more sanctions will follow until they do. This targeting of Iran’s and Syria’s civilian population by US-led sanctions is a massive violation of the principles, standards and rules of international law and their most fundamental underpinnings which is the protection of civilians. Some examples: The 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit any measure that has the effect of depriving a civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival. Article 70 of Protocol I mandates relief operations to aid a civilian population that is “not adequately provided” with supplies and Article 18 of Protocol II requires relief operations for a civilian population that suffers “undue hardship owing to a lack of supplies essential for its survival , such as foodstuffs and medical supplies. “ Prohibition on Starvation as a Method of Warfare • Under international humanitarian law, civilians enjoy a right to humanitarian assistance during armed conflicts. • Art. 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention obligates states to facilitate the free passage and distribution of relief goods including medicines, foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under 15, expectant mothers, and maternity cases. • Art. 70 of Additional Protocol I prohibits interfering with delivery of relief goods to all members of the civilian population. • US-led sanctions are prohibited by the principle of proportionality found in Arts.51 and 57 of Additional Protocol I. • Under the terms of Art. 3 common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, humanitarian and relief actions must be taken. Pursuant to Art. 18 (2) of Additional Protocol II, relief societies must be allowed to offer their services to provide humanitarian relief • The US-led sanctions violate the Rule of Distinction between civilians and combatants The Right to life The US-led sanctions violate the right to life incorporated in numerous international human rights instruments including Art. 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966; Art. 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950; and Art.4 of the African Charter of Human Rights, 1981. The Rights of the Child One of the groups most vulnerable to US-led sanctions in Syria and Iran are children. The rights of children are laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, which currently stands as the most widely ratified international agreement. Most relevant in the context of the US-led sanctions are Arts. 6 and 24 of the Convention, according to which every child has the inherent right to life and the right to the highest attainable standard of health and access to medical services. If “terrorism” means, as the United States government defines it as the targeting of civilians in order to induce political change from their government, what is it called when the American government itself applies intense economic suffering on a civilian population, causing malnutrition, illnesses , starvation and death in order to induce regime change? The US-led sanctions against Iran and Syria are illegal, inhumane, ineffective, immoral and outrageous. They must be resisted every day by every person of good will, everywhere, until they are withdrawn. Franklin Lamb is doing research in the Islamic Republic of Iran and is reachable c / o Fplamb@gmail.com

Source: Al-Manar Website

Obama Feared Syrian Escalation, but Why?

[The report below attributes Obama's resistance to further escalation of the Syrian war to fear of flushing more militant "Islamists" into the civilized world.  Was it fear of Islamists or fear of war with the Russians?]

White House opposed plan backed by Pentagon, State, CIA to arm Syrian rebels

By Elise Labott and Adam Levine

The White House knocked down a proposal last summer from top national security leaders, including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus, to arm Syrian rebels, according to U.S. officials, one of whom said the issue appears dead for now.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said in testimony to a Senate committee on Thursday that they also backed the plan to provide weapons to opposition fighters.

But officials, who requested anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive subject, said the White House rejected the idea.

“The reason we have not armed them is because the White House has no appetite for it,” a U.S. official familiar with the deliberations told CNN.

The official said the ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, was among those in the State Department who “advocated for it pretty strongly.”

The issue of arming the rebels “is dead in the water for now because folks are resigned to the fact that White House will not budge,” the official added.

The Obama administration has resisted arming the rebels, citing concerns about the infiltration of extremists groups who could possibly use those weapons against other targets.

For now, the U.S. government has provided millions in humanitarian aid to the rebels fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The CIA has also sent agents to vet the opposition group to try to better understand its composition.

The United States in December designated a key Syrian rebel group, the al-Nusra Front, as a terrorist entity.

U.S. officials argued it was a necessary step that would not weaken the ability of other rebels to combat the Syrian military.

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Panetta and Dempsey were asked by Arizona Sen. John McCain, the leading Republican proponent of a more aggressive backing of Syrian rebels, whether they supported the idea of arming them.

“We do,” answered Panetta.

“We did,” answered Dempsey.

They did not get a chance to explain as McCain moved on to another topic.

But McCain used the brief answers to urge President Barack Obama to consider the plan, saying in a statement that “the time to act is long overdue, but it is not too late.”

“The crisis in Syria represents a graphic failure of American leadership. I urge the president to heed the advice of his former and current national security leaders and immediately take the necessary steps, along with our friends and allies, that could hasten the end of the conflict in Syria,” McCain said in the statement.

State Department Victoria Nuland declined to comment when asked about the matter, calling it an internal policy deliberation.  The White House also refused to comment.

Obama spoke last month about hesitation to get more involved in the civil war in Syria.

“Syria is a classic example of where our involvement, we want to make sure that not only does it enhance U.S. security, but also that it is doing right by the people of Syria and neighbors like Israel that are going to be profoundly affected by it. And – and so it’s true sometimes that we don’t just shoot from the hip,” he told CBS News.

Post by: By CNN’s Adam Levine

Seattle Citizens Resist Activation of Obama’s National Drone Surveillance Network

Heated hearing airs distrust over SPD drones

A public hearing Wednesday on the Seattle Police Department’s plans to deploy drones drew sharp criticism from numerous speakers.

By Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter

There was no shortage of strong opinions — or strong words — when a Seattle City Council committee took up the issue of unmanned police drones during an often heated hearing Wednesday.

“You’re more dangerous than Nazi,” Alex Zimmerman, an activist with Stand Up America, told the members of the council’s Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee. “You’re more dangerous than Communist; more dangerous than Gestapo; more dangerous than KGB.”

Another speaker called committee members “idiots” for even considering an ordinance that would govern the Seattle Police Department’s use of drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Systems.

“Not only ‘no drones,’ but no more council. You guys are crooks. You guys are idiots. You’re telling us they got them already, we have to use them … You guys are becoming a police state … The people do not want this,” said Samuel Bellomio, also with Stand Up America.

The meeting, called to discuss a proposed ordinance that would set restrictions on how and when the police department can use the tiny aircraft, ended with committee Chairman Bruce Harrell saying the conversation had been helpful and would likely lead to the measure being refined.

The proposal is to go back before the committee for a possible vote Feb. 20, then on to the full council Feb. 25.

Jennifer Shaw, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said the ACLU would prefer that Seattle police did not have drones. However, since the department had purchased two with money from a federal Homeland Security grant, she said, it’s important for the city to establish “strong restrictions.”

She recommended that the ordinance be refined to include a more “robust audit provision” and language stating the drones are part of a pilot program.

“We’d like to be able to see if it’s effective and then have the council determine if it should still be going on,” Shaw said.

The proposed restrictions were written after the police department received approval last year from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate drones, sparking an uproar among residents, privacy advocates and civil-rights activists.

The FAA approval was granted after President Obama signed a law that compelled the agency to plan for safe integration of civilian drones into American airspace by 2015.

The restrictions would ban the use of drones for general surveillance or for flights over open-air assemblies.

It also would require a warrant be obtained in all but “exigent” or emergency circumstances, such as situations involving hostages, search-and-rescue operations, the pursuit of armed felons, bomb threats and the detection of “hot spots” in fires, or for the collection of traffic data.

The proposed restrictions would ban the use of drones for the collection of information on anyone not specifically named in a warrant, but specify that information collected inadvertently while an unmanned system was being operated in good faith would not violate the ordinance.

That last clause was troubling to members of the audience, including Chris Stearns of the Human Rights Commission, who said the city should make it illegal to use data inadvertently collected by drones in criminal prosecutions.

Committee member Nick Licata said the term “exigent” was too broad and that he would like the ordinance to specify that the drones can only be used for hostage situations and bomb threats.

He also suggested the ordinance specify that the use of drones in emergency circumstances would require the written authorization of an assistant police chief or captain, instead of a lieutenant as proposed.

The ordinance also states that any data collected by drones would be deleted after 30 days unless there was a “reasonable belief that the data is evidence of criminal activity or civil liability.”

The measure would also set up provisions for audits and an annual review.

The issue has ignited strong feelings among opponents. During a public meeting in October, protesters shouted down police speakers during a presentation on the aircraft.

 

Christine Clarridge:

206-464- 8983 or cclarrdge@seattletimes.com

City of Seattle Legislative Information Service

Information retrieved on February 7, 2013 12:43 PM 

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Council Bill Number: 117707 

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AN ORDINANCE relating to the regulation of unmanned aircraft systems operated by the Seattle Police Department; adopting City policies regarding the acquisition and operation of unmanned aircraft systems; and establishing a new Chapter 14.18 in the Seattle Municipal Code.

Status: In Committee

Date introduced/referred to committee: February 4, 2013
Committee: Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Technology
Sponsor: HARRELL; CO-SPONSOR CLARK

Index Terms: LAW-ENFORCEMENT, CRIME-PREVENTION, POLICE, AIRCRAFT

Fiscal Note: Fiscal Note to Council Bill No. 117707

 

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Text
 

AN ORDINANCE relating to the regulation of unmanned aircraft systems operated by the Seattle Police Department; adopting City policies regarding the acquisition and operation of unmanned aircraft systems; and establishing a new Chapter 14.18 in the Seattle Municipal Code.

WHEREAS, the U.S. Congress has authorized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to approve the use of unmanned aircraft systems by public agencies for domestic purposes; and

WHEREAS, FAA regulations are primarily focused on safety issues related to unmanned aircraft operations; and

WHEREAS, absent federal regulations, it falls on local jurisdictions to regulate unmanned aircraft operations to protect the public’s reasonable expectation of privacy and civil liberties; and

WHEREAS, unmanned aircraft may help public agencies gather information in certain public safety situations, such as natural disasters, search and rescue, police investigations, and significant traffic accidents; and

WHEREAS, the Seattle Police Department may operate a limited number of unmanned aircraft under certain circumstances; NOW, THEREFORE,

BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY OF SEATTLE AS FOLLOWS:

Section 1. A new Chapter 14.18 of the Seattle Municipal Code is established as follows:

Chapter 14.18 Unmanned Aircraft Systems — Pilot Program

14.18.010 Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to authorize the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to conduct a pilot program to use unmanned aircraft systems and to establish City policies regarding unmanned aircraft operations. No other City of Seattle department may acquire or operate unmanned aircraft. The policies described in this Chapter 14.18 apply to unmanned aircraft as defined in this Chapter 14.18. Unless otherwise specified, the policies contained in this chapter apply to all persons employed or retained by the City of Seattle, including agents retained on a temporary, contract, or voluntary basis.

14.18.020 Definitions applicable to this chapter

“Data collection” means the acquisition of information by use of one or more sensing devices.

“Sensing device” means a device capable of acquiring data from its surroundings. Sensing devices include, but are not limited to cameras (both still and video, using either visible, ultraviolet, or infrared frequencies), microphones, thermal detectors, chemical detectors, radiation gauges, and wireless receivers in any frequency (including cellular, WiFi, or other data frequencies).

“Target” means one or more individuals or areas for which data collection is authorized in the documentation justifying deployment of an unmanned aircraft.

“Unmanned aircraft” or “unmanned aircraft systems” means an unmanned vehicle or device carrying sensing equipment.

14.18.030 Authorization of pilot program

SPD is authorized to operate up to two Draganflyer X6 unmanned aircraft consistent with the regulations contained in this Chapter 14.18. SPD must obtain ordinance authority prior to acquiring or operating any additional unmanned aircraft beyond the two Draganflyer X6 in its possession as of January 1, 2013.

14.18.040 City policies regarding the operations of unmanned aircraft

A. Unmanned aircraft shall not be used to conduct general surveillance.

B. Unmanned aircraft shall be used only for data collection.

C. Unmanned aircraft shall not be equipped with weapons.

D. Unmanned aircraft should be used for data collection only on the target (as specified in the warrant or written documentation authorizing the operation of the unmanned aircraft as required in Section 14.18.050). SPD should avoid data collection on individuals, homes, or other areas other than the target. Inadvertent data collection is not a violation if such data is collected while an unmanned aircraft is operated in good faith.

E. SPD may use facial recognition or biometric matching technology on data collected by unmanned aircraft only to confirm the identity of the target specified in the warrant or written documentation required in Section 14.18.050.

F. Operations of unmanned aircraft are prohibited between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the American Air Almanac, converted to local time.

G. Unmanned aircraft operations shall not be conducted over populated areas or heavily trafficked roads unless specifically authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration.

H. Unmanned aircraft operations shall not be conducted over an open-air assembly of people.

I. Data collected inadvertently on an individual, home, or area may be used only in those cases where such data evidences significant risk of personal injury or property damage. In such rare circumstances, the data may be used for any purpose consistent with current law.

14.18.050 Circumstances under which SPD may deploy and operate unmanned aircraft

A. Prior to deploying and operating unmanned aircraft, SPD shall obtain a warrant based upon probable cause, with the exception of the circumstances described in subsection 14.18.050.B.

B. For the following circumstances, a warrant is not required unless otherwise needed under the law.

1. Exigent circumstances, when time is of the essence for data collection needed to reduce the risk of serious bodily harm to a member of the public. Examples include hostage situations, search and rescue, hot pursuit of armed felony suspects, bomb threats, and detection of ‘hot spots’ in fires;

2. Data collection of a traffic accident; or

3. Training exercises, provided that data shall not be collected on individuals unless those individuals have consented to the collection.

Prior to deploying unmanned aircraft under this subsection 14.18.050.B, written authorization at or above the rank of Lieutenant is required using a standard form that specifically identifies the target on which data is to be collected.

14.18.060 Data retention, record keeping, and public disclosure

A. Data collected by an unmanned aircraft shall be deleted within 30 days unless there is a reasonable belief the data is evidence of criminal activity or civil liability, or the data is collected under subsection 14.18.050.B3.

B. SPD shall maintain a log recording each use of an unmanned aircraft. The log shall include the date, time, and location of use; the target of data collection; the type of data collected; the justification for the deployment; the operator(s) of the unmanned aircraft; and the person who authorized the use. Each log entry shall be maintained for a minimum of three years.

C. Prior to deploying unmanned aircraft, SPD shall develop written data retention and record-keeping policies that address the following:

1. The time period for which data collected by unmanned aircraft will be retained beyond the time period specified in subsection 14.18.060.A.

2. How the records are to be labeled; the method selected must allow for personnel to readily search and locate records, or know with certainty that they have been deleted.

3. The system to be used to store the records.

4. Who may access the records and the specific procedures for doing so.

5. A method for tracking who views unmanned aircraft records, including the date, time, the personnel involved and the reason(s) for viewing the records.

6. Who has authority to obtain copies of the records and how the existence and location of copies will be tracked.

7. The unit or individuals responsible for ensuring compliance with SPD’s data retention and record-keeping policies for unmanned aircraft.

D. Notwithstanding the provisions of this Chapter 14.18, SPD shall comply with the Public Records Act, RCW Chapter 42.56.

14.18.070 Annual report

SPD shall provide a written report by March 1 of each year to the Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Technology Committee, or its successor committee, on the deployment of unmanned aircraft for the preceding year. Each report shall include the date of each unmanned aircraft deployment, the specific circumstances under which it was deployed (per Section 14.18.050), the reasons for deployment, whether and how the data collected proved useful for public safety or law enforcement purposes, and whether the data collected for each incident was deleted within 30 days or retained. The report shall also include all costs associated with the unmanned aircraft pilot program (operating and capital), and any additional information Council may request.

14.18.080 No effect on admissibility

A. Neither compliance with nor a failure to comply with the policies contained in this chapter shall affect the admissibility of video recordings as evidence in criminal, civil, or administrative proceedings.

14.18.090 Civil liability

A. No cause of action may be based upon the activity of departmental personnel in complying with a court order, or an action authorized by this Chapter 14.18.

B. The City reserves all defenses at law consistent with this Chapter 14.18, including but not limited to consent, privilege, participation, and waiver, and as to departmental personnel or a City official, any defense arising in the employer/employee or principal/agent relationship.

C. No cause of action may be based upon this Chapter 14.18 against the Mayor, the City Council, any City department head, any departmental personnel, or any other City officer or employee, individually, for any action or omission made in good faith in the scope and course of his or her duties. In the event such a lawsuit is brought against a City officer or employee, individually, for such an action or omission, and the officer or employee cooperates fully in defense of the lawsuit, the City Attorney may represent the individual and defend the litigation. If the claim is deemed a proper one or judgment is rendered against the City officer or employee individually, the judgment shall be paid by the City in accordance with its procedures for the settlement of claims and payment of judgments.

14.18.130 Employee discipline

A. Any City personnel who violates policies contained in this Chapter, 14.18 or any implementing rule or regulation, may be subject to the disciplinary proceedings and punishment authorized by the City Charter, Article XVI.

B. For City personnel who are represented under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, Section 14.18.130 prevails except where it conflicts with the collective bargaining agreement, any memoranda of agreement or understanding signed pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, or any recognized and established practice relative to the members of the bargaining unit.

Section 2. The City Auditor is requested to review SPD’s policies and procedures for compliance with Seattle Municipal Code 14.18, with a written report due to the City Council by September 30, 2014.

Section 3. This ordinance shall take effect and be in force 30 days after its approval by the Mayor, but if not approved and returned by the Mayor within ten days after presentation, it shall take effect as provided by Seattle Municipal Code Section 1.04.020.

Passed by the City Council the ____ day of ________________________, 2013, and signed by me in open session in authentication of its passage this

_____ day of ___________________, 2013.

_________________________________

President __________of the City Council

Approved by me this ____ day of _____________________, 2013.

_________________________________

Michael McGinn, Mayor

Filed by me this ____ day of __________________________, 2013.

____________________________________

Monica Martinez Simmons, City Clerk

(Seal)

VallesC LEG UAS ORD January 29, 2013 Version #1

 

Imbecilic NATO Chief Rasmussen Revives Western “Missile Gap” Bogeyman and Multiplies It By Three

[Ratmussen sounds like MacNamara, Cheney and Wolfowitz rolled into one, as he restates the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) warning about other powers that might purchase the capabilities to prevent our aggressions against weaker resource-rich Third World nations.  This mouthpiece for the owners of the world is trying to scare Westerners away from making long-overdue defense cuts, since the Rockefellers and the Bilderbergers and the fuckin' Queen of England don't have real, world-class militaries of their own, they must keep the NATO war machine alive, until they have finished raping all the little countries of the world as well as all of those bigger countries with insignificant military forces of their own.  NATO is a threat to the entire human race, most of all to Americans and Europeans themselves.  The hungry beast will devour us all for fuel for the perpetual war machine.  It is time for the peace-loving people of the world to declare war upon the massive bureaucracies which make all of this possible.] 

NATO unveils three key threats to West interests

BRUSSELS

The NATO chief warns that declining defense budgets will put the alliance’s military power and political influence at risk, saying that NATO could find itself facing three serious gaps

NATO Secretary Rasmussen. AFP photo

Declining defense expenditure within NATO could compromise the alliance’s ability to contribute to international crisis management efforts while emerging powers boost theirs, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned yesterday.

In his annual report, Rasmussen said defense spending among the allies is increasingly uneven, not just between North America and Europe, but also among European allies, as some cut defense spending more than others. “Total defense spending by the allies in recent years has been going down, while the defense spending of new and emerging powers has been going up. If these spending trends continue, we could find ourselves facing three serious gaps that would place NATO’s military capacity and political credibility at risk,” he said.

“There is a risk of a widening intra-European gap. While some allies will continue to acquire modern defense capabilities, others might find it difficult to do so.” This would limit the ability of allies to work together in international crisis management, according to the NATO chief. As a second risk, the growing transatlantic gap would limit the practical ability of NATO’s European nations to work together with their North American allies. But it would also risk weakening political support for the alliance in the U.S.

“Finally, the rise of emerging powers could create a growing gap between their capacity to act and exert influence on the international stage and our ability to do so,” he said.

“Together, these three gaps could gradually compromise the alliance’s ability to contribute to international crisis management efforts and cooperative security initiatives,” he added.

Rasmussen also warned that defense budgets have declined at a time when the alliance has undertaken it’s most demanding and significant mission ever, the Afghanistan mission, and when the need for investment in capabilities is essential. He said that overly deep defense cuts could worsen the West’s economic crisis by weakening defense industries that are key drivers of innovation, jobs and exports. “Investment in defense cannot solve our economic problems. But if we cut defense spending too much, there is the risk that we could make the economic situation worse,” he said.

Cost of insecurity higher

The global financial crisis has forced many NATO allies into drastic measures to reduce their budget deficits, leading to sometimes sharp cuts in defense spending. Only a handful of the 28 NATO allies, the U.S., Britain and Greece, last year spent more on defense than the two percent of Gross Domestic Product target set by NATO.

Rasmussen also noted that the cost of insecurity can be much higher as there is a price to pay for security. “Any decisions we take today will have an impact on the security of our children and grandchildren. This is why NATO Allies must hold the line on defense spending in 2013,” he said.

Large Cache of Explosives and Detonators Seized In Quetta, Baloch Hazara Relieved

Heavy cache of explosives seized

by Parvez Jabri

 QUETTA: A law enforcement agency (LEA) has seized heavy cached of explosives from a car at Balili check-post on outskirts of the city late Tuesday night.

LEA sources told that security personnel deployed on Balili check-post signalled an 86-Car to stop but the driver tried to accelerate the vehicle, left it and managed to escape when the LEA vehicles chased it.

During search, LEA personnel along with bomb disposal squad recovered explosives from the car including 400 Detonators, one piece Explosive Wire, 200 meter roll, one piece explosive cotton weighs 125 kg and 1500 kg ball baring.

The seized explosives were to be used in sabotage act.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2013

America’s Plans for “Islamist” Greater Middle East Collapsing In Chaos

Egypt Army chief warns state could “collapse”

A masked Egyptian protester flashes the victory sign during clashes with riot police, background, near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Jan. 28, 2013. / AP

CAIROEgypt’s army chief warned Tuesday of “the collapse of the state” if the political crisis roiling the nation for nearly a week continues.

 

The warning by Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, also the defense minister, comes as the country sinks deeper into chaos and lawlessness. Attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood-backed president to stem a wave of political violence appear to have made no headway.

 

Some 60 people have been killed in the unrest that began last Thursday.

 

El-Sissi’s warning came in an address to military academy cadets. His comments were posted on the armed forces’ official Facebook page.

 

“The continuation of the conflict between the different political forces and their differences over how the country should be run could lead to the collapse of the state and threaten future generations,” he said.

 

President Mohammed Morsi, right, meets Lt. Abdul Fattah El-Sissi, Minister of Defense at the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 13, 2012.

 / AP

 

It is unclear whether el-Sissi, the former head of military intelligence, meant to try and coax anti-government protesters off the streets with his dire warning, or whether he was himself questioning President Mohammed Morsi’s ability to quell the unrest.

 

Protesters battled police for hours in Cairo on Monday and thousands marched through Egypt’s three Suez Canal cities in direct defiance of a night-time curfew and state of emergency, handing a blow to the Morsi’s attempts to contain five days of spiraling political violence.

 

Nearly 60 people have been killed in the wave of unrest, clashes, rioting and protests that have touched cities across the country but have hit the hardest in the canal cities, where residents have virtually risen up in outright revolt.

 

The latest death came on Monday in Cairo, where a protester died of gunshot wounds as youths hurling stones battled all day and into the night with police firing tear gas near Qasr el-Nil Bridge, a landmark over the Nile next to major hotels. In nearby Tahrir Square, protesters set fire to a police armored personnel carrier, celebrating as it burned in scenes reminiscent of the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

 

CBS News’ Alex Ortiz reports that the lobby and shops in the ground floor of Cairo’s sprawling Intercontinental Hotel were smashed up and looted by a gang of people during the melee on Monday. It was unclear whether the looters were part of the opposition protest, or simply criminal elements taking advantage of the lack of security in the area. Nobody was injured at the hotel, which is frequented by Westerners.

 

“I will be coming back here every day until the blood of our martyrs is avenged,” said 19-year-old carpenter Islam Nasser, who wore a Guy Fawkes mask as he battled police near Tahrir square.

Angry and at times screaming and wagging his finger, Morsi on Sunday declared a 30-day state of emergency and a nighttime curfew on the three Suez Canal cities of Suez, Ismailiya and Port Said and their provinces of the same names. He said he had instructed the police to deal “firmly and forcefully” with the unrest and threatened to do more if security was not restored.

 

But when the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew began Monday evening, crowds marched through the streets of Port Said, beating drums and chanting, “Erhal, erhal,” or “Leave, leave” — a chant that first rang out during the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but is now directed at Morsi.

 

“We completely reject Morsi’s measures. How can we have a curfew in a city whose livelihood depends on commerce and tourism?” said Ahmed Nabil, a schoolteacher in the Mediterranean coastal city.

 

In Suez and Ismailiya, thousands in the streets after curfew chanted against Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which he hails. In Suez, residents let off fireworks that lit the night sky.

 

“Oh Morsi, Suez has real men,” they chanted.

 

In Ismailiya, residents organized street games of soccer to emphasize their contempt for the curfew and state of emergency.

 

On Morsi’s orders over the weekend, army troops backed with tanks and armored vehicles have deployed in Port Said and Suez — the two cities worst hit by the violence — to restore security, but they did not intervene to enforce the curfew on Monday night.

 

The commander of the Third Field Army in charge of Suez, Maj. Gen. Osama Askar, said his troops would not use force to ensure compliance. Army troops in Port Said also stood by and watched as residents ignored the curfew.

 

Adding to Morsi’s woes nearly seven months into his turbulent presidency, the main political opposition coalition on Monday rejected his invitation for a dialogue to resolve the crisis, one of the worst and deadliest to hit Egypt in the two years since Mubarak’s ouster.

 

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© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc.

Portraying Fathers of the Syrian Revolution

By Armine AKOPYAN (Armenia)

During the whole of the “Arab Spring” and the Syrian war in particular, the Arab press has kept the actions of the emir of Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s royal family and the leader’s of Israel and Turkey in their crosshairs. When confronted with the published facts, it is possible to believe that not a single one of these sides is acting alone, that they are united by common aims and interests and in achieving these, it is the people of the Middle East who are paying with their own blood and their own futures.

With reference to Syrian information sources, the Islam Times reports on the activities of a group of foreign agents in Syria. This group is serving the interests of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and Turkey and consists of 16 members who are all citizens of either Israel, Turkey, Qatar or Saudi Arabia. Foreign agents have been operating under the guise of militant terrorists and the Syrian Freedom Army and have been kidnapping and murdering Syrians as well as Palestinian scientists and experts from a variety of fields. The Syrian army recently announced that seven members of this gang had been arrested and were being questioned.

A second gang of marauders has been putting rare museum pieces from Syria onto the international black market. Naturally, all of this is being done through Turkey. Factories are also being dismantled and and shifted to the Turkish territory. Trade in human organs is being established in Turkey just as it was in Kosovo at the beginning of the 2000s. The reluctant donors are Syrian refugees without the means to keep their families in Turkish refugee camps.

Director General of Saudi Intelligence Agency Prince Bandar bin Sultan

The head of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, along with the leader of the Lebanese opposition party and member of the anti-Syrian coalition “14 March”, Samir Farid Geagea, are playing an important role in destabilising and aggravating the situation in Syria and neighbouring Lebanon. They are the ones sending armed groups of terrorists to fight with Syria and after Syria has fallen it will become the Lebanese Shi’ites turn. In addition, the Arabic online publicationIslam Times also mentions Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s other activities as Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005; he only managed to get himself appointed as head of the Saudi Intelligence Agency after organising several fatal terrorist attacks against high-ranking Syrian officials. The prince is now dreaming of making it to the royal throne in his own country and the only way he will manage this is if Syrian President Bashar Assad is assassinated.

Lebanese oppositionist Samir Geagea also has his eye on the very highest post – the presidential chair – and the only way he will be able to achieve that is by removing the Shi’ite Hezbollah.  As the publication points out, Israel and the USA have been pushing for the “mutual cooperation” of both. The only effective way to achieve if not Assad’s assassination then at least his downfall is terrorism. Al-Qaeda and its offspring “Jabhat an-Nusra” are just the kind of convenient instruments that can help interested parties overthrow any state system sooner or later. It has been reported that two “Jabhat an-Nusra” instructors have undergone Israeli training.  The plan is that in the future they will not just be fighting Hezbollah, but Lebanese Salafists as well. Among the militants are also Kurds, who are under the command of the Kurdish leader within al-Qaeda. Samir Geagea sees yet one more advantage for himself as a result of the Syrian war:  the concentration of Syrian Christian refugees in the Lebanon could lead to a political shift in religious terms and prepare his own path to the presidency.

Since 2010, Americans and Qatar have been buying up weapons from tribes in South Afghanistan. This was reported to the Iranian press by Afghan middleman Habibullah Kandahari and besides him, the Americans had also ordered weapons from seven other Afghans. Kandahari reports that he personally had provided 4,000 units over a period of six months. These included handguns and other types of firearms, for which their former owners were paid large sums of money. The Afghan middlemen handed over the purchased weapons to the Americans at Kandahar airport and were told nothing about the future fate of the weapons. So as not to cause any unnecessary curiosity or suspicion, the Americans said that the weapons were being bought to guarantee the safety of their own soldiers from the local population. According to Habibullah Kandahari, he had noted privately that the Americans had never been attacked by peaceful civilians, only armed groups. Weapons in Afghanistan were loaded onto Qatar aeroplanes and then taken through Jordan to Syria, where they ended up in the hands of terrorists. Qatar aircrafts, the same as American aircrafts, were able to land at airports in Afghanistan without difficulty and even without the knowledge of the local authorities. During one of the meetings of the National Security Council, the country’s president even ordered that the total lack of authority when it came to the Americans be looked into and clarified who should give consent for Qatar and American aircraft to land in Afghanistan without prior agreement and how this should be done. An Afghan security expert notes that in 2010, nobody had openly bought such quantities of weapons and dispatched them to Jordan, but following the first peaceful protests and demonstrations in Syria in 2011, weapons had been bought up openly.

Elections for the 19th Knesset were held in Israel on 21 January and were won by the party of the current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli politician’s pre-election campaign was paid for by the emir of Qatar. Leader of the opposition party “Kadima” and former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ehud Olmert’s cabinet, Tzipi Livni, told journalists that it had cost approximately USD 3 million. She also added that she was very close friends with the emir’s wife.

In getting rid of Palestinian leaders and scientists it finds undesirable both in Palestine itself and in Syria, and now paying for the pre-election campaign of an Israeli politician with extremely right-wing views, Qatar is aiming to close the Palestinian question for all Arabs once and for all and place it under the watchful control of the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Egyptian government, in other words. It will also tackle the issue of Jordan in the future, if the royal regime there can be toppled and power transferred to the Brotherhood. It would mean that the Palestinian question is laid to rest forever, since in the future part of the Palestinian population would have been resettled in Jordan and part of the population in Sinai. Which, as a matter of fact, is what the USA is trying to achieve with Israel.

The Lebanese coalition “14 March” has once again shown that it is not the interests of Lebanon that are being served, or even the interests of Christians, but centres that are completely strange and alien to Lebanon. The coalition’s activities are particularly damaging against the backdrop of the Syrian war, where anti-Syrian sentiment among part of the Lebanese population is escalating to such a level that it could spill over from the political arena into armed conflict and civil war.

With regard to everything that has been said here, one is reminded of a quote by Yitzak Rabin: “I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won’t happen, and a solution must be found” . It seems that the emir of Qatar and Netanyahu have come up with the same solution. And not just for Palestine…

Source in Russian: Национальная Идея

Translated by ORIENTAL REVIEW.

When Is It Time To Ally With “Al-Qaeda” and When Is It Time To Fight It?

[The following is an excellent analysis of the American "Islamist" ploy.  My only criticism of it is that it doesn't articulate the unavoidable conclusion--the "al-Qaeda" phenomenon is an illusion.  If there actually were an international terrorist organization, then its objectives and ideology would be the same wherever the group chose to stand and fight.  If there were an actual "terrorist international," then they could not possibly fight for the Zionist French in Syria and against them in Mali.  According to the French jurist quoted below, the only question for us is a matter of timing--Whether we fight for the same cause at this time.  In a world war against "al-Qaeda" terrorism, allying ourselves with "al-Qaeda"-linked terrorists, at any point, invalidates the entire justification for the war.  Exposing American alliances with al-Qaeda not only invalidates the war effort, it pulls back the curtain on the treachery of Western leaders.] 

“There are many young jihadists who have gone to the Turkish border in order to enter Syria to fight Bachar’s regime, but the only difference is that there France is not the enemy. Therefore we don’t look on that in the same way. To see young men who are at the moment fighting Bachar Al-Assad, they will be perhaps dangerous in the future but for the moment they are fighting Bachar Al-Assad and France is on their side. They will not attack us. Here (in Mali) the problem is that we are not on the same side.”–French “anti-terrorist” judge Marc Trévidic

Good Terrorist, Bad Terrorist

European authorities admit NATO and Al Qaeda are allies in Syria

by Gearóid Ó Colmáin

The chief of the Spanish police Enrique Baron told La Razon newspaper on January 24 that Spanish “jihadists” have left Spain for Syria where they are fighting in Japhat Al Nousra, the Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group currently at war against the Al Assad government, while other Spaniards have gone to Mali to join the fighting against French forces there.

According to the report, three Spanish jihadists have already been killed in Syria. Baron expressed concerns that these terrorists could pose a future threat to Spanish national security. On March 11 2004, several trains were bombed in Madrid killing 191 people and wounding hundreds more. The barbaric attacks were blamed on Al Qaeda.

In December 2011, former Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar wrote an article for CNBC where he outlined the dangers presented by the Islamist direction of the Arab Spring and the war in Libya. He noted that the Libyan rebel military commander Abdul Hakim Belhadj was “one of the suspects involved in the Madrid bombing of March 2004.”

Belhadj was made “governor” of Tripoli by NATO during its conquest of Libya in 2011. The Libyan terrorist also enjoyed a brief stint as a columnist with Britain’s “left-wing” Guardian newspaper, where the Islamist claimed to promote “democratic” values.

As calls for president Assad to step down continue to be heard, a strange alliance between Western liberal democracies and Islamic terrorism is manifesting itself throughout Europe. The presence of jihadist fighters from Britain is also well documented. Yet the British government seems blithely indifferent.

Ireland has the distinction of having provided one of the most important jihadi psychopaths for the destruction of Libya in 2011 and the current war on Syria, a Dublin-based thug called Mehdi al-Herati.

Ireland, a country that fought colonialism for hundreds of years, is constitutionally a neutral country. During the War of Independence in 1919, the British government sent dozens of death squads, known as the Black and Tans into Ireland to terrorize the country into submission. This is precisely what NATO is doing to Syria today, yet the Irish Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore, joins his pals in NATO to blame the Syrian government for doing precisely what his forefathers did to protect the motherland against foreign aggression and colonialism.

According to German daily Die Welt, over one hundred European jihadists are now fighting for Al Qaeda in Syria, where they are preparing a base for operations against European citizens. Florian Flage and Clemens Werginwrite:

According to Western intelligence sources, Al Nousra commander Abu Mohammad Al-Dschulani is already planning to extend his operations base from Syria through Turkey into Europe. He is preparing for the day for the fall of Assad, in order to make Syria a centre for Jihadist activity in other countries.

Yet the German and EU governments continue to support these criminals in Syria while claiming to fight them in Mali. The hollow, mortifying chant of Western governments and corporate media that Assad is “killing his own people” is finally being exposed, as people in Europe wake up to the nightmare that they are being ruled by the mentally ill.

French jihadists are also fighting in Syria. Jacques Bérès, a doctor fromMédecins Sans Frontières, said last year that many of the patients he treated in a hospital in Aleppo were jihadists from Paris. Responding to the revelation that French terrorists were fighting the Assad government in Syria, French “anti-terrorist” judge Marc Trévidic smiled and said “they are our friends, how can we call them terrorists.” It is difficult to know if Trévidic’s smile was meant to indicate the unutterable absurdity of French foreign policy or rather an open admission that the French security state will decide who is a terrorist in accordance with its geopolitical interests.

In an interview with French state radio France Inter on January 5, Trévidicwarned that an unlawful system of incarceration similar to Guantanamo Bay could be put in place if France was to experience a wave of terrorist attacks. Yet this same judge openly admits that the French state is aiding Islamist terrorists in its war on Syria. In a normal society Trévidic would have been accused of condoning Islamist terrorism. But ours is not a normal society!

On January 11th Trévidic was interviewed again by France Inter where he was asked if the French jihadists fighting the Syrian government could present a danger to French national security, Trévidic declared that:

There are many young jihadists who have gone to the Turkish border in order to enter Syria to fight Bachar’s regime, but the only difference is that there France is not the enemy. Therefore we don’t look on that in the same way. To see young men who are at the moment fighting Bachar Al-Assad, they will be perhaps dangerous in the future but for the moment they are fighting Bachar Al-Assad and France is on their side. They will not attack us. Here (in Mali) the problem is that we are not on the same side.

Trévidic went on to warn that if the Assad regime does not fall, Assad could attempt to bomb Paris! Terrorists are ok as long as they serve our political interests. Assad and not Al Qaeda could bomb Paris. Reality is turned upside down!

He we have an open admission that the West is helping Islamist terrorists to destroy the Syrian nation while supposedly fighting Islamist terrorists in Mali from the mouth of France’s top anti-terrorist judge! In the same programme Jean-Pierre Filiu, a terrorism expert from Science Po university stated that the terrorists France is fighting in Mali are nothing more than drug trafficking criminals. But it is perfectly acceptable to fight alongside such people in Syria when NATO geopolitical interests seek to replace the government there with their own gang of neo-colonial puppets.

Independent media and geopolitical analysts alerted the world to NATO’s plan to recruit Mujahedeen terrorists to fight in Syria at the very start of the Levantine tragedy in 2011.

Now as many mainstream media sources and Western legal authorities themselves are admitting that this is the case, the infernal rhapsody of “Assad must go” and “Assad is killing his own people”, this sick, psychopathic cover story continues to block the voices of reason that occasionally punctuate the mainstream media matrix.

The infinite cynicism, hubris, absolute hypocrisy, and collective pathology of the Western ruling elite bode ill for the future of humanity.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin was born in Cork, Ireland, and is currently based in Paris. He is a former bilingual columnist with Metro Eireann. His interests include geopolitcs, globalisation, philosophy and the arts. He is a member of Pôle de renaissance communiste en France (PRCF) a political movement which advocates Marxism-Leninism and the formation of a revolutionary communist party in France. Read other articles by Gearóid, or visit Gearóid’s website.

Paying-Up for All of Those Years Contracting-Out US Foreign Policy To the Barbaric Saudi Royals

[Some of the "news" in the report below is wrong, but it makes an important point about US regrets about its latest experiments with radical "Islamism."  This report from PressTV claims that the younger Zawahiri was arrested/captured in Syria on Jan. 6, but other reports (all leading back to Mossad front, MEMRI TV) show photos and video allegedly from a January 18 Salafi protest in front of the French Embassy in Cairo.  So, Mr. Al-Z wasn't captured in Syria, but the thrust of the article is the important point, America's "Islamists" are more trouble than they are worth.  

Those fanatic jihadis are extremely predictable, so there is no excuse for our government having used them in Libya and Syria in the first place.  That was all Bandar's doing.   (That is what we get for letting him run our covert operations for us.)  The terrorists are like a bunch of mad dogs, chomping at the chains which hold them back, or better yet, they more closely resemble a bunch of termites.  You can count on them to undermine an enemy's position, along with everything else.   At some point,  you have to flush them out and repair everything that they have damaged and they have damaged everything.  Wherever we use these guys, nothing but desolation is left--look at Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria.  I guess nobody considered the possibility that they would destroy Syria without destroying the Syrian government.  

Zawahiri has been on the American payroll for decades, just like his brother, the infamous "Number 2" of "al-Qaeda."  One organized the flow of "Islamists" ("al-Qaeda") and guns through America's smuggling pipelines, leading to Bosnia and Chechnya, Egypt, Syria and Libya, while the other Zawahiri brother organized the flow of heroin and money.  Their parent organization, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, provided the foundation for everything we ever called "al-Qaeda."  Whatever Bandar has in mind for Egypt, it will surely make the Benghazi incident look like a fistfight.

It should be pretty obvious to everyone by now just how bad an idea it was to contract America's covert war policy out to the Saudis.   

Just today, Prince Turki was quoted whining in the British press that the solution to the Syrian conflict was to give his boys better anti-tank rockets and sophisticated surface-to-air missiles.  Look at the militant Wahhabis armed with similar Libyan weapons in Mali and the trouble that they are causing there to understand just how warped are the minds of Prince Turki al-Faisal and his cousin, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the rest of the Saudi royal family.  

They are the true enemies of the West.]

Fundamentalism fears pushing US to change course on Syria

 Jan. 18, 2013

Photo from the Salafi-Jihadi Protest at the French Embassy

Al-Zarqawi, Al-Zawahri and Jabhat Al-Nusra: terms that have two things in common: Al-Qaeda and lately Syria. Recently two leading Salafists who joined the armed Syrian opposition were killed by Syrian forces. One of them was the brother in law of Abou-Mesaab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed by US forces in Iraq in 2006. Al-Zarqawi was Al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq and considered by the US as one of the most wanted terrorists responsible for killing US soldiers. Reports have also said that Syrian forces have arrested the brother of Ayman Al-Zawahri, the leader of Al-Qaeda. In addition the so called mufti of Jabhat Al-Nusra was also recently killed in a Syrian air raid in Deraa. All this has raised questions about future US policy towards Damascus.

What’s more is that in his inaugural speech US president Barack Obama did make it clear that foreign military intervention in Syria was not on the agenda.

Experts believe that the US will eventually pressure its allies to change their course in the campaign against Bashar Al-Assad. Among these allies are Israel who labeled Assad as part of an axis of evil along with Iran and Hezbollah. Israel’s ambassador to Washington Michael Oren even went so far as to say that Assad is worse for Israel than Al-Qaeda. Other countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been the main providers of weapons and financing for the armed opposition.

Major US media outlets have said that the support provided by some Arab states to armed groups in Syria runs contrary to Washington’s interests. And last December the State Department blacklisted Jabhat Al-Nusra.

Many of those who were predicting the end of Bashar Al-Assad are now having second thoughts. One major factor behind this is the US position. The rising fundamentalist trend in Syria is a grave concern and comes at a time when the US congress is holding hearings on the killing of the US ambassador in Benghazi at the hands of extremists. That incident would probably have not occurred were it not for Nato military intervention in Libya

International Jewish Brain-Conference On “cognitive modifiability,” the Plasticity of Human Behavior

[I don't know why they would invite me to this, but they did.  It seems frightening, but not unexpected, that a bunch of Jewish psychiatrists and behavioralists would meet in Jerusalem in their quest for the means to modify the mind of Goy-man.  After all, modern psychiatry, especially the field of behaviorism is a predominately Jewish profession, or one which is led by Jewish researchers in the field.  With the Jewish domination of Western media outlets, it is easy to see the dangers of a bunch of Jewish "shrinks" brainstorming for ways to use their knowledge of bending the minds of Goy-man to accommodate Jewish plans for us, twisting human nature until we more closely resemble the "cattle" that we apparently are.]

DR. REUVEN FEUERSTEIN

The Conference   

(2-5 June 2013)

This conference brings together revolutionary developments in two disciplines: cognitive modifiability and the neurosciences. Neuroscience brings evidence that modifiability is possible, while cognitive modifiability shows how to make it happen. This meeting offers the opportunity for a worldwide gathering of scientists, practitioners, therapists, and educators who come from different professional perspectives, but share common interests to explore and become familiar with the developments in these related fields. The common theme is modifiability. Revolutionary developments in brain sciences support the theory and belief that basic human behaviors and functions can be modified.

The Potential to Respond to Critical Needs

From the perspective of both disciplines, it is now clear that systematic application of dynamic methods of assessment and intervention has the potential to produce cognitive and structural change. The advances of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and the growing awareness they have generated, indicates that the three conventionally accepted resistances to change can be overcome: etiology, critical periods,  and severity of the condition

However, we are at the frontier of this knowledge. There is much to be learned in order to understand the implications of the convergence of cognitive modifiability and the revolution in the brain sciences and bring them into wide acceptance and practice. The conference aims at providing researchers, psychologists, occupational and speech therapists, as well as special and regular education specialists with new conceptual tools for dealing with the question of modifiability in the laboratory, clinic, and the classroom.

Outcomes and Opportunities

The multicultural interaction between presenters and participants from different fields and professions is going to develop better understanding of the challenges and enrich us with the new available methods and ideas. Personal professional experience, research results, theories and practice will be discussed and new techniques will be presented in order to open new horizons for each one of the conference participants.

This is a critical period in the development of this dialogue and an opportunity for sharing knowledge and hope. Jerusalem, as a modern centre for technological and academic activity and research also symbolizes the historical core of human faith and soul. Is there a more appropriate place to host such a conference?

Franklin Lamb Reporting On Western War Crimes In Syria

Barring Medicines in Syria…

US-led Sanctions Contribute to the Destruction of Syria’s Millenary History

by FRANKLIN LAMB

What a difference a week can make. The heaviest snow in Syria in a quarter-century, some claimed, last week’s storm closed for a time even the main highway from Damascus to Beirut.

But that was then and now its spring in Damascus, or so it feels to those of us used to New England Januarys. It’s nearly downright balmy here. Spring flowers are bursting out all over and the city parks are crowded with mothers pushing baby carriages, kids playing and young lovers cooing softly on the park benches. Park workers are raking the dead leaves and others trimming the palm trees and piling the branches neatly on flatbed trucks.

What “civil war”? What “crisis”? One is tempted to ask himself even though there continues to be intermittent “thuds” and a jet streaking overhead now and then en route apparently to one of the suburbs where clashes erupt intermittently.

It’s been a rough winter and perhaps we are just experiencing here a false spring. Yet one senses a palpable sigh of relief and even some optimism while talking to citizens, NGO staffers and some officials. It could be partly the wonderful weather but perhaps also a realization that a corner may have been turned, peace and security will be restored and the killing ended. Some refugees are to be seen returning to Damascus. Syrians and Palestinians from Lebanon — yet there are still traffic backups with cars piled high with personal belongings crossing over to Lebanon at the Masnaa border checkpoint. Meanwhile the Ministry of Interior in Damascus has pledged various forms of help to those who heed the governments call to “come back home to your people.”

Energized by the exhilarating park ambiance this observer decided to walk to UNESCO headquarters for an appointment. Plus it can be kind of tough at times to find a taxi these days.

Perhaps I should have remained in the park. Lord knows that this observer has experienced his share of irate women shouting at him over the years. Being raised by three older sisters and a no-nonsense German/Italian mother- all of them unmercifully wanting to correct my behavior was a mere harbinger of things to come. But, even with this “training”, I was ill prepared for what the lady at the UNESCO office here in central Damascus unleashed on me.

And I had not done the lady wrong.

Except, perhaps, that I happen to be an American and there is plenty of anger here among the Syrian public, the NGO’s, and increasingly the international legal community among others — not toward the American people but toward the US government — over the effects of its sanctions which are severely and illegally targeting the civilian population. At the same time they are directly contributing to prospects of irreparably damaging many of this millenary country’s historic sites.

According to archeological experts here, Syria, with its six UNESCO world heritage sites testifying to its deserved reputation as being one of the most archeologically well-preserved cradles of civilization, may soon to be the most wantonly destroyed in modern times (Iraq being the other). This frequently-predicted catastrophe is a result, not only of war in the usual sense, but war in its more subtle form of US-led sanctions aimed at political regime change.

Of particular concern to UNESCO, whose UN mandate includes registering and protecting World historical sites, is the preservation of the Ancient Cities of Damascus, Bosra, Palmyra, Aleppo, Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’ at Salah El-Din, as well as the ancient villages of Northern Syria.

This week, the Syrian Directorate of Antiquities and Museums has released its detailed report of acts of vandalism and illegal excavations by armed groups and foreign thieves across Syria. The Directorate has documented violations against archeological sites and Syrian museums, as well the emerging phenomenon of artifact forgery. In Aleppo, the Antiquities division reported that al-Diriya caves in Samaan Mountain suffered from acts of sabotage, adding that “terrorists have looted the equipment of excavations, wooden columns and timbers.”

Also, this week, Human Rights Watch issued a report that Saudi-Qatar-US backed militants destroyed religious locations following a four-day investigation in the provinces of Latakia and Idlib. According to HRW, a Husseiniyah (a congregation hall for Shia commemoration ceremonies) was destroyed by the militants in Idlib, while two Christian churches were looted in Latakia. The Middle East director at the Human Rights Watch, Sarah Leah Whitson claimed that Syria “will lose its rich cultural and religious diversity if armed groups do not respect places of worship.”

Against this backdrop, it is not totally surprising that my UNESCO hostess, less than half a minute after I entered her office, literally threw at me a statement in French from Director Irina Bokova of the UNESCO HQ in Paris. It read:

“I am deeply distressed by the daily news about the escalation of damage to cultural heritage throughout Syria. We saw damage to the Citadel in July and the souks ten days ago, and the Umayyad Mosque, heart of the religious life of the city, one of the most beautiful mosques in the Muslim world, is being severely endangered. In Northern Syria, the region of the Ancient Villages inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2011 is heavily struck and it seems that the invaluable Saint-Simeon Byzantine complex might have been torched.”

Before I could finish reading, the lady exclaimed: “These testimonials from the past!…” raising her voice and glaring at me while pointing to the posters of Syrian historical sites on her wall, “the destruction of this heritage for which your sanctions are partly responsible. Your government is responsible today and will be tomorrow, for the whole of humanity.” When I was eventually able to get a word in sideways, I explained that I had come to her office precisely because I have been studying the immoral, illegal and “un-American” sanctions and that I was spending my time in Syria learning first-hand about the sanctions’ utter disregard for the humanitarian concerns of the Syrian people — in contravention to what one hears repeatedly from US officials.

When I added, I don’t know any Americans who would condone what the Congress and our government have been doing, if they knew the facts on the ground, she did calm down a bit and said she understood what I was saying and more or less agreed. She then mentioned a national poll conducted on 13 January by the Better World Campaign, an organization that works to support U.S.-U.N. relations, that showed that 83 percent of US citizens believe it is important that their country provide funding to UNESCO and want the US to lift its sanctioning of UNESCO and pay its withheld budget contribution, which accounts for 22% of the UN specialized agency’s budget.

“Let me tell you something!” she exclaimed and launched into describing the dire effects of the current US-led sanctions on UNESCO’s work in preserving and protecting historical sites. In her view, the American assault on UNESCO and its work began when UNESCO committed a sin in March of 2011 by admitting Palestine as a full member.

She explained: “For months our offices had been warned by Israeli officials and then Americans, that there would be a big price-tag were we to admit Palestine.” And there was. In October 2011, the U.S. cut off funding to UNESCO as payback for admitting Palestine as a member and in November 2012, the United States was one of nine member states out of 193 in the General Assembly who, on behalf of the Zionist occupiers of Palestine, tried to unsuccessfully bar Palestine from gaining non-member observer state status at the UN.

UNESCO and some other NGO staff here claim that much of the damage here could have been prevented if there was a lifting of the US 2011 cut-off of UNESCO’s budget. As a direct result, UNESCO cannot even replace more than 400 staffers who left from normal attrition or even hire “neighborhood watch,” local volunteer personnel, to coordinate the guarding by of many archeological sites around Syria.

Regarding the other layers of US-led sanctions targeting the civilian population here, a survey by NGO’s on the impact of the fake “medicine and foods” exemptions will soon be released. Its indictment of the US-led sanctions is severe. Contrary to Washington and NATO mythology, the “medicine and foods” exemptions do not exist in reality because suppliers of both fear being accused of violating the great number of sanction details. Washington and Brussels are acutely aware of this fact.

Among the data that will be presented in the soon-to-be released analysis, are cases of cancer patients who need weekly medicines but are now only able to receive them twice a month, with the expected dire consequences. The same obtains for many other long term care patients who need specific medicines, even as generic as penicillin, which are no longer available as they were before the US-led sanctions.

Just as I was preparing to leave her office, she softened a bit and asked this observer. “See here, I generally like Americans who we come in contact with here but how can you explain these sanctions — or those in Iraq or Afghanistan that have killed so many?”

I tried to explain that we have a culture clash in America that means that many Americans overwhelmingly support UNESCO and the work of all sixteen of the UN Specialized Agencies but we also have politicians like Arizona Senator John McCain and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham who never saw a war they did not like. The former just returned from another visit to the region and apparently learned nothing except that he still wants a military solution.

The latter, who is known for his jokes on Capitol Hill that as a “true southerner” he never got over the American Civil War or what it did to American society, has repeatedly expressed his view of US “economic” sanctions by declaring recently, “Sanctions are good but they need to be tougher! Cut the bastards off at the knees.”

Senator Graham also noted his agreement with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who made the repulsive statement that the deaths of 500,000 children in Iraq from a US “economic sanctions” regime that “exempted foods and medicine” but in reality was a starvation program “was worth the price.”

Ironically, it was the arch-nemesis of the Confederacy, Yankee General William Tecumseh Sherman, who might agree with Graham regarding sanctions against a civilian population. What has bothered Senator Graham since he first studied the Civil War in school, according to one Congressional source, is that the Yankee February 17, 1865 captured Graham’s state capital of Columbia, South Carolina. It was not pretty and most of the central city was destroyed. But the Yankee and the Confederate might just agree on targeting civilian populations with economic sanctions. Wrote Sherman, shortly before his March to the Sea which fatally cut the south in two:

“We are not fighting against enemy armies, but against an enemy people, young and old, rich and poor, and they must feel the iron hand of war in the same way as organized armies.”

I left the UNESCO office sort of crestfallen. Not because of the lady’s roughness with me, but rather because of the realization, yet once again, that our species quite simply does not learn much from history and apparently will repeat it until the end of times. May God protect the people, everywhere, from the politicians.

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