“Al-Qaeda” Is Anybody the President Chooses To Call Al-Qaeda

Obama War Powers Under 2001 Law ‘Astoundingly Disturbing,’ Senators Say

 

WASHINGTON — The war authorization that Congress passed after 9/11 will be needed for at least 10 to 20 more years, and can be used to put the United States military on the ground anywhere, from Syria to the Congo to Boston, military officials argued Thursday.

 

The revelations came during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee and surprised even experts in America’s use of force stemming from the terrorist attacks in 2001.

 

“This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution today,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) told four senior U.S. military officials who testified about the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force and what it allows the White House to do.

 

King and others were stunned by answers to specific questions about where President Barack Obama could use force under the key provision of the AUMF — a 60-word paragraph that targeted those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

 

“I learned more in this hearing about the scope of the AUMF than in all of my study in the last four or five years,” said Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith, who was called by the committee to offer independent comments on the issue. “I thought I knew what the application [of the AUMF] meant, but I’m less confident now,” he added later.

 

Concerns emerged largely from questions by senators who approve of an aggressive strategy to combat terrorism, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who asked if the AUMF gave Obama the authority to put “boots on the ground” in Yemen or the Congo.

 

 
Robert Taylor, the acting general counsel for the Department of Defense said yes, as long as the purpose was targeting a group associated with al Qaeda that intended to harm the United States or its coalition partners.

 

“Would you agree with me, the battlefield is anywhere the enemy chooses to make it?” asked Graham.

 

“Yes sir, from Boston to FATA [Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas],” answered Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense who oversees special operations.

 

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) later raised the specter of the AUMF being used to intervene in Syria, where the group Al Nusra, believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda, is active. Al Nusra has not been linked to 9/11.

 

Sheehan said yes, if defense officials determined the group was becoming a threat. The same criteria applied to other groups, even if they were locally focused and operating in other nations. Taylor confirmed that AUMF also would cover individuals, even those who had not been born by 9/11, if, as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked, they someday were to “become associated with a group that associates with Al Qaeda.”

 

When asked about an expiration date for the war authorization, Sheehan said it would be when al Qaeda had been consigned to the “ash heap of history.” “I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years.”

 

While none of the senators suggested dialing back efforts to stop terrorists, they were clearly disturbed at the power being asserted by the military.

 

“I’m just a little old lawyer from Brunswick, Maine, but I don’t see how you can possibly read this to be in comport with the Constitution,” King said, arguing that the defense officials’ interpretation of the AUMF makes the war power of Congress “a nullity.” “Under your reading, we’ve granted unbelievable powers to the president and it’s a very dangerous precedent.”

 

Kaine found the suggestion that the AUMF could be used to go into Syria especially disturbing. “The testimony I hear today suggests the administration believes that they would have the authority to do that,” Kaine said. “But I don’t want us to walk out of the room leaving an impression that members of Congress also share the understanding that that would be acceptable.”

 

The DOD officials repeatedly defended the authority they’ve claimed, noting that al Qaeda is not a traditional enemy, and that it shifts locations and changes its tactics. The broad interpretation of the AUMF, they argued, gives them the flexibility to deal with the changing threat in a lawful, effective manner.

 

But even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who generally agrees with Graham in pursuing a vigorous war on terror, said the AUMF has been stretched past the breaking point.

 

“This authority … has grown way out of proportion and is no longer applicable to the conditions that prevailed, that motivated the United States Congress to pass the authorization for the use of military force that we did in 2001,” McCain said.

 

“For you to come here and say we don’t need to change it or revise or update it, I think is, well, disturbing,” McCain said, noting that the AUMF also is used to justify things like drone strikes that were never contemplated by Congress. “I don’t blame you because basically you’ve got carte blanche as to what you are doing around the world.”

 

No one suggested specific solutions, but did say the Senate will deal with the problem later this year when the committee takes on the National Defense Authorization Act for 2014.

 

The broad assertion of authority by the military is likely to disturb civil libertarians on the left and right who have complained that the AUMF and a previous version of the NDAA give the military power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens. Obama has issued orders banning such practices, but DOD officials apparently believe the law grants them the power to act anywhere.

Israel Preparing New Syrian Airstrikes, Warns Assad Against Retaliation of Any Kind

[If, after all the stink that has been raised over the previous Israeli aggressions upon Syria in the midst of the US/Saudi war to destroy Syria, Israeli bombers attack again, and Assad fails to retaliate again, then it will prove some level of Israeli control over Assad (SEE: When the Hummus Hits the Fan, Israel Will Choose Bashar al-Assad Over Radical Islamists).  Such a Zionist revelation, coupled with recent news of an Israeli/Saudi alliance, will also reveal the true Patron/Client relationship between the Fascist Shit-hole and the Arab royal dictatorships, who have been the traditional alleged "protectors" of the rights of the Palestinian people.  The Mideast monarchies have given hope that one day they would avenge the "Nakba" ethnic-cleansing of Palestine by returning millions of refugees back to their rightful homes. 

Such is the nature of the "Bizarro world" that we live in. 

Good always turns-out to be evil in the end.  The power of weakness is a Christian delusion.  When we are meek before the enemies of the human race, then the most bloodthirsty criminals will determine the vile nature of the next step in the spiritual/psychological evolution of mankind.]

 

Report: Israel warns Assad not to retaliate to airstrikes

Israeli senior official tells New York Times Israel considering further military strikes on Syria to stop transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. ‘If Assad reacts, he will risk forfeiting his regime,’ he says

A senior Israeli official signaled on Wednesday that Israel was considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants, and warned Syrian president Bashar Assad, that his government would face crippling consequences if it retaliated against Israel, the New York Times reported.

“Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah . The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region,” the official said in an interview.

“If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”

The newspaper noted that the Israeli official has been briefed by high-level officials on the Syria situation in the past two days and had contacted The New York Times on Wednesday.

The paper considered the timing of the statements. “The precise motives for Israel’s warning were uncertain: Israel could be trying to restrain Syria’s behavior without undertaking further military action, or alerting other countries to another strike. That would ratchet up the tension in an already fraught situation in Syria,” the report said.

Foreign reports claim Israel carried out a total of three airstrikes in Syria since the civil war there began two years ago. The first allegedly took place in January when a convoy was bombed near the Syria-Lebanon border.

The target was reported to have been an arms shipment to Hezbollah that included Russian-made SA-17 missiles – possibly “game changing” weapons in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Damascus later conceded there had been an attack claiming the target was a military research center in Jamraya.

The second airstrike allegedly occurred in early May and was reported by US media. The target was an arms shipment from Iran to Hezbollah. Another strike was reported 48 hours later. According to Syria, the Jamraya military center had been bombed again.

Israel did not comment on the reports.

One of the Terrorists That America Has Contracted To Fight Our “Humanitarian War” Against Syria

When the Hummus Hits the Fan, Israel Will Choose Bashar al-Assad Over Radical Islamists

Peter Chamberlin

Once again (just as in the recent US Embassy bombing in Ankara) a spectacular terrorist attack takes place in Turkey and the government immediately blames another obscure Marxist terrorist group, that they have conveniently resurrected from Turkey’s distant past.  The individual faction of this group has also allegedly been identified, as “Mirhac Ural,” who has recently been named by the Syrian opposition as the man behind the latest alleged “ethnic cleansing” in a town called Banias, along the Syrian coast (SEE:  Syria: Enter the ethnic cleanser of Banias).

Ural was originally a founding member of TPLP-C (Acilciler), a Marxist/Leftist/revolutionary group which was formed to fight US imperialism within Turkey, specifically, to act as a counter-force to US “Gladio”/”Gray Wolves” operations.  The TPLP-C supported its sister organization, the DHKP/C, which was blamed for the recent bombing outside the American Embassy in Ankara.

Ural is also a close friend of terrorist PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.  He allegedly introduced Bashar al-Assad to Ocalan.  It was allegedly Ural who persuaded Assad to play the “Kurdish” card against Erdogan.  Erdogan thought that he had trumped this move when he negotiated the latest peace agreement with the PKK, until Iraq’s government refused to accept the expatriated Kurdish guerillas.  The Kurds cannot be blamed for using Syrian-based assets against Turkey in this terror bombing in Reyhanli over the denial of new sanctuary in northern Iraq, because the attack was clearly intended to help the Turkish Prime Minister to persuade Obama to intervene in Syria on Turkey’s behalf, and this would not help the Kurds in any conceivable way.

It is claimed in the Saudi/Arab press that Bashar Assad has become desperate in his resistance to the Imperial terrorist invasion, choosing at this time to gather his forces to him in the center of his Alawite home turf, as he ethnically cleansing Syria of the majority Sunnis.  They have reinforced this ethnic cleansing theme in the reports emerging from the Imperial press Turkish outfit, Zaman, about an alleged “Banias massacre.”  This massacre supposedly took place the day after Ural was quoted on YouTube, saying, “We need to cleanse Banias of traitors at the earliest.”

From the video, if it is genuine, it seems that Ural could be a legitimate leader of a Syrian counter-terrorist cell.  If that is true, then he would certainly have plenty of reasons to want to close the supply lines from Turkey.  But there is much more to this incident than this simple explanation.  If Ural is an anti-Islamist fighter, then why would he be immortalized in the Islamist press?  The story about an “Alevi rump state” along the coast of Syria, builds upon Sunni fears that they are about to also be ethnically cleansed from around Hatay, Turkey–Giving them a good reason to fight a sectarian war.  This benefits the Saudi-Israeli alliance, up unto the point where the destabilization plot it increases ethnic tensions on the wrong side of the border.  Proper conflict management prevents the various sub-plots from getting out of control and, as a consequence, over-driving the main destabilization plot and thereby, unintentionally causing the opposite effects, instead of the planned reactions.

Always, in these destabilization plots, there are two primary parties working the target–the destabilizing power and a patsy partner within the target entity (corporation, organization, state) that is to be destabilized.  Since the Saudis and Israel are obviously working together to carry-out the Imperial diktat for the Middle East, then it is clear that it is the Saudis who will eventually be the losing party.  Whether they will lose more than they can afford to pay is the risk that they are willing to take to eject Assad.  It is not in Israel’s interests to see an Islamist victory in Syria, but the Saudis and friends erroneously believe that it is in theirs.  It is unlikely that the Saudis would support an effort to divide Syria if it would harm Turkey, or make it harder to get weapons over the Syrian border to the terrorist front.

If the bombing of Turkey is clearly not in the Islamists’ interests, but does no harm to Israeli interests, then it may mean that Israel is using another PKK-related terror group to rein-in Prince Bandar’s Islamist attack dogs, in order to save Assad, in order to maintain the quagmire in Syria.  Consider the points raised in this piece from Zaman (SEE:  Opposition commander: Assad defeated, we are fighting Iran, Hezbollah).  The Gulenist mouthpiece Zaman interviews an alleged Syrian rebel commander,  of the al-Tawhid Brigade, Commander Abdulkader Saleh.  He makes the extraordinary claim that Israel and Iran are secretly working together against the Syrian terrorists:

“Bashar al-Assad’s regime does not have the strength to carry on its battle against opposition fighters, adding that Iran and Hezbollah are the forces behind the protracted war….Iran and Hezbollah are the ones who are continuing the war in Syria,”  

“Furthermore, Iran and Hezbollah are cooperating with Israel to be able to support Assad. Assad has protected Israel’s border for 40 years,”

“The opposition was going to take over arms, so Israel attacked. There is evidence pointing to this. There were some high-ranking officers with whom [the opposition forces] got into contact. [Those officers] were going to defect from [the Assad administration], handing over arms to the opposition. Israel hit these posts in fear that the opposition would take over the arms. The arms included heavy artillery as well as air defense systems. This assault, of course, was intended to support the Assad administration,” Saleh explained.

The first time I read the Saleh interview, I laughed it all off as nonsense, until I read the article in Foreign Affairs magazine, written by former head of Mossad, Efraim Halevy (1998 to 2002).  He affirmed to the world that Bashar Assad is Israel’s Man in Damascus (or “Why Jerusalem Doesn’t Want the Assad Regime to Fall”).

It is obviously in Israel’s interests to preserve the Assad dynasty, as opposed to the radical, unpredictable Islamists.  It may be impossible to determine the truth about Israeli conniving with Arab leaders until someone makes a big messy mistake.  If there were any honest news sources in the Middle East, then maybe we could figure-out just exactly who has benefitted from Israel’s latest bombings of Syria.  Would the Zionist state really have committed an “act of war” against Syria and Lebanon, just to prevent Hezbollah forces from upgrading a few of their missiles?  Was the Syrian military or government informant/traitor warning Israel about the imminent acquisition of “game-changing weapons” by Hezbollah, or by the Free Syrian Army?

If all of this proves to be true, that Israeli bombers were destroying heavy weapons and killing a lot of Syrian soldiers, in order to keep the weapons out of the hands of Syria’s terrorists, or that Mossad manipulated PKK-related killers to murder more than 40 innocent people in Reyhanli, then what does that say to the rest of the world, which is drowning in despair over the Syrian conflict?   What advantage is there in a Saud/Israeli alliance, when the Israelis are there to play the part of “spoiler” to all of the Islamist plans?  Above all else, Mossad/Israeli objectives are constant and unwavering, to establish Jewish dominance over every square inch of the Middle East, as a stepping stone to Jewish world dominance.  This justifies the spoiler role for Israel, support the Goyim’s plans, until the advantage shifts to Jewish interests, at which time all partners are double-crossed.  

the Saudi Gazette (SEE: Israel’s strategy in Syria ).

“But the bigger threat to Israel is the growth of democracy in the Arab world. If the Arab world were ever to become a democracy, it would expose Israel as the democracy fraud that it is.

Israel fears the Arab Spring because the Arab Spring augments the voices of freedom and calls for freedom throughout the region, not just in the Arab world, but in Israel too. And Israel is one of the most oppressive country’s in the Middle East. Although most Jewish citizens of Israel enjoy unprecedented freedoms and benefits from the state, non-Jews suffer simply because they are non-Jews. Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs are victimized by Israel both as so-called “citizens” and as imprisoned victims in the occupied lands.”

If the Syrian terrorist forces have suffered devastating losses because of Israeli actions, then they will know the truth–That they have just been attacked by “friendly” forces allied to the Arabs and to the West….This can be expected to be reflected in the spirit of the anti-Assad forces and in their communiques to the outside world.  If they have been demoralized by these betrayals, then they can be expected to show that in subtle ways.  Their positive response to Western calls for an international Syrian peace conference, to be organized jointly by the US and Russia, may be just such a sign.

“Syria’s opposition will consult with backers Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey before it decides whether to take part in a peace conference proposed by the United States and Russia, its acting chief said Monday.”  Syria opposition to consult backers on peace talks.  This is a complete reversal to all previous dismissals of negotiations with Assad out of hand.  Such a conference confirms Obama’s complete reticence in expanding the Syrian conflict into a regional war.  If Erdogan was hoping that the terror bombings in Turkey would sway Obama’s opinion about bringing-in American or NATO support against Syria, then he is likely to be disappointed when they meet in DC this week.

As far as the possibility that Turkey will escalate the confrontation with Syria on its own (SEE: Turkey says it won’t be drawn into Syria conflct), there is very little chance that Erdogan will make this misstep, especially when he cannot really be certain exactly who is on his side.

therearenosunglasses@hotmail.com

UAE Charges 94 Protesters With Belonging To Wrong “Islamist” Outfit

UAE coup plot suspects seek independent probe into abuse claims

Associated Press

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates –  A group of 94 suspects charged with plotting against the United Arab Emirates is seeking an independent investigation into their claims of abuses in custody.

Their letter to the UAE’s president, released by activists on Thursday, comes after the prosecution wrapped up its case this week, claiming the Emirati suspects are linked to Islamist networks opposed to the country’s Western-backed ruling system.

The charges reflect wider crackdowns across the Gulf Arab states.

The letter repeats claims of torture and harassment of their families. It says their Islamic society, known as Al-Islah, had the backing of UAE leaders in the past and is loyal to the UAE’s leadership.

It urged for an independent probe and to “hold accountable” police and others.

A verdict in the trial is expected later this month.

4 Saudi Arabians Arrested After “Al-Qaeda” Bombing Of Catholic Church In Tanzania

[All terrorism linked to Saudis is "al-Qaeda," since the international Islamist terror front would not exist without the Saudis, to instigate the terrorist nightmare of Wahhabi "Shariah" attacks.]

Tanzania police: 4 Saudi Arabian nationals arrested after bomb attack on Catholic church

Associated Press

• 
• 

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania –  A police commander in Tanzania says four Saudi Arabian citizens have been arrested following a bomb attack on a Catholic church.Magesa Mulogo said Monday that the four Saudi nationals were among six people arrested.

Mulongo said two people died in Sunday’s bombing of a newly opened church in the northern city of Arusha. Nearly four dozen people were wounded in the blast just before the church’s inaugural Mass, which was attended by the pope’s envoy to Tanzania.

Mulogo said eyewitnesses reported that the bomb was thrown from a motorcycle into the church. Mulogo said the driver of the motorcycle is among those arrested.

Turkey vs Iraq–We Are Witnessing the Next Regional War Setting-Up In The Middle East

[Obama and all previous American presidents like to lead, until plans go sour, then it becomes advantageous to let our underlings take the heat for us.  We are now letting Turkey "take one for the team" all over the Middle East and in parts of Central Asia, as they become the focal point for the anti-Iranian ambitions of the Gulf/Israeli coalition, who carry the ball for Western interests in the Mideast.  The Sunni Gulf States help provide the black ops financing to the Saudi Islamist project (otherwise known as "al-Qaeda"), which supplies the foot soldiers for Israel's terrorist operations throughout the Muslim world.  The Mossad, helps the CIA and the Pentagon to locate and acquire the weapons needed by this Sunni "Islamist" army, which facilitates CIA plans for a regional war, stretching from Central Africa into Pakistan.  In both Iraq and in Syria, Turkey is fully prepared to accept global oppobrium for having led the charge straight into a grand civil war within Islam itself. 

opprobrium \uh-PRO-bree-uhm\ , noun:
1. Disgrace; infamy; reproach mingled with contempt.
2. A cause or object of reproach or disgrace.

Perhaps the saddest part of this grand tragedy is that the tragic civil war unfolding in Iraq was always part of a cleverly crafted plan, a plan designed to amplify the great conflict within Islam, the never-ending argument between the Sunni and Shia faiths.  One side teaches that the Quran's authority and the mantle of The Prophet (PBUH) rests upon the actual bloodline of Mohammad (PBUH), the Shia opinion, the other side teaches that the Muslim elite should choose the most popular scholar of the Quran (Sunni).  The Sunnis even elevate the teachings of these Islamic scholars to a level of prominence equal to that of the Sacred Book itself. 

The American/British/Israeli "Zionist" plan to throw all of our weight behind the Sunnis in this conflict (intending to force a violent resolution of the issue) is obviously immoral, thus necessitating the American need for cover, whenever this ugly fact threatens to be revealed, that Christian/Judaic powers are waging a covert "Crusade" against Islam.  This Judeo-Christian Crusade to destroy Islam would never have been possible without the Sunni collaborators from the Middle East who have actually executed the plan.  Turkey stands at the top of this long list of Islamic traitor nations, who have collaborated intimately with the West to destroy the faith of 1.3 billion Muslims.  As long as the great Muslim majority can be kept in the dark about the Arab/Israeli union at the center of this Crusade they can be expected to allow all of this to continue indefinitely, enabling Turkey to escape that well-deserved popular revulsion for its acts of treachery.]

Saadun al-Dulaimi: Turkey controls Sunni protests against Maliki

BAGHDAD – Acting Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi on Sunday accused Turkey of controlling Sunni anti-government protests in Iraq, saying the demonstrations are a haven for “terrorists and killers.”

“There are foreign agendas controlling these sites,” Dulaimi said of the protests.

“It is like Anbar, or Mosul or Samarra are part of the Ottoman Empire,” he said, referring to Sunni areas in Iraq.

Areas of what is now Iraq were part of the Ottoman Empire, which was governed from Istanbul in what is now Turkey, before the empire’s dissolution after World War I.

Ties between Baghdad and Ankara have been strained by issues including Turkey hosting Tareq al-Hashemi, Iraq’s fugitive former vice president who has been sentenced to death on charges including murder.

Dulaimi also had harsh words for the protesters themselves.

“Shame… on those sites that are opening their doors to Istanbul or any other country,” he said.

“Protest sites have become a safe haven for terrorists and killers and those who call for strife, sectarianism and hate.”

The protests broke out in Sunni areas of Shiite-majority Iraq more than four months ago.

Demonstrators have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and criticised authorities for allegedly targeting their community with wrongful detentions and accusations of involvement in terrorism.

On April 23, security forces moved on protesters near the town of Hawijah in Kirkuk province, sparking clashes that killed 53 people.

Dozens more died in subsequent unrest that included revenge attacks targeting security forces, raising fears of a return to the all-out sectarian conflict that claimed tens of thousands of lives between 2006 and 2008.

 

 

Israel Becomes “Al-Qaeda’s Air Force” In Syria–Joins Arab Coalition, Then Bombs Syrian Govt. Targets

“The new Israeli aggression is a clear attempt to raise the gunmen morale after the painful blows they received at the hands of our valiant army in several places and after the achievements which were realized on the ground by our armed forces to restore security and stability to Syria.

The new Israeli aggression shows the direct involvement of the Zionist entity in the conspiracy against Syria and the relationship that links the armed terrorist groups with the Israeli hostile schemes backed by the Western, regional and some Gulf states.”– Sana

[SEE:  Al-Qaeda’s Air Force]

Israeli strikes on Syria ‘co-ordinated with terrorists’

Israeli strikes on Syrian army targets show co-ordination with “terrorists” including al-Qaeda linked militants, the Syrian foreign ministry has said.

The strikes had led to a number of casualties and widespread damage, it reported in a letter sent to the UN.

State media said a research centre and other sites had been hit overnight. Israeli sources said weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon were the target.

The strike, the second in two days, drew condemnation from the Arab League.

Syria’s government refers to rebels fighting against it as “terrorists”.

On Friday, Israeli aircraft hit a shipment of missiles near the Lebanon border, according to unnamed US and Israeli officials.

The BBC’s Yolande Knell in Jerusalem says the latest developments are a significant escalation in Israel’s involvement in the conflict.

The Syrian foreign ministry statement said three military sites had been hit – a research centre at Jamraya, a paragliding airport in the al-Dimas area of Damascus and a site in Maysaloun.

“The flagrant Israeli attack on armed forces sites in Syria underlines the co-ordination between ‘Israel’, terrorist groups and… the al-Nusra Front,” the statement said, referring to al-Qaeda militants fighting with the rebels.

“The Israeli attack led to the fall of a number of martyrs and wounded from the ranks of Syrian citizens, and led to widespread destruction in these sites and in the civilian districts near to them.”

The statement added: “This leaves no room for doubt Israel is the beneficiary, the mover and sometime the executor of the terrorist acts which Syria is witnessing and which target it as a state and people directly or through its tools inside.”

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi said Israeli air strikes have “opened the door to all possibilities”

The Syrian cabinet held an emergency meeting on the attacks, after which Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi read a statement at a news conference.

He said the attack made the Middle East “more dangerous” and “opens the door wide to all possibilities”.

Syria had the right and the duty “to defend its people by all available means,” he added.

‘Biggest explosion’

In the latest attack, Damascus was shaken by repeated explosions coming from the north-western suburbs.

Amateur video footage and eyewitness testimony suggested rocket attacks had hit weapons dumps, triggering dramatic orange-flamed blasts.

The area houses numerous military facilities, including the Jamraya research centre, designated by Syria as a scientific research centre “in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence”.

Damascus-based journalist Alaa Ebrahim told the BBC it was “the biggest explosion” the city had seen since the conflict began two years ago.

He said residents living near Jamraya reported feeling a “mild earthquake” just before the blast, indicating that the rockets may have hit an underground facility.

Our correspondent says the Israeli attack is a high-risk strategy, and it has drawn strong reaction from the rest of the Arab world.

The Egyptian presidency said they “violated international law and principles that will further complicate the situation”.

“Despite its strong opposition to bloodshed in Syria and the Syrian army’s use of weapons against its people… Egypt rejects at the same time the assault on Syria’s capabilities, violation of its sovereignty, and exploitation of its internal crisis under any pretext,” the presidency’s statement said.

And the Arab League, which has given its Syria seat to the rebels, called on the UN Security Council to “act immediately” to end the attacks.

The Jamraya facility was also apparently hit in an Israeli air strike in January.

Israeli officials confirmed the January strike, but insisted trucks carrying missiles to Hezbollah were the target.

After the latest attack, unnamed Western intelligence sources said the target was a weapons cache heading for Lebanon.

Israel has repeatedly said it would act if it felt advanced weapons were being transferred to militant groups in the region, especially Hezbollah.

“It Is Our Right, It Is Our Duty” To Abolish Despotic Government–WE MIGHT NEED OUR GUNS

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”–The Declaration of Independence.

Nearly A Third Of Americans Think Armed Revolution Might Be Necessary

 

Underpinning some concerns about new gun control legislation, a new poll found nearly a third of registered voters in the U.S. think an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect personal liberties.

The poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind showed that 29 percent of voters think an armed revolution might be necessary, while another five percent are unsure.

Among those that think an armed revolution might be necessary, only 38 percent support additional gun control legislation, compared with 62 percent of those who don’t think an armed revolt will be needed.

Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson, said, “The differences in views of gun legislation are really a function of differences in what people believe guns are for.”

“If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons and you’re going to be wary about government efforts to take them away,” he added.

The poll found that just 18 percent of Democrats think an armed revolution may be necessary, compared to 44 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of independents.

Overall, fifty percent of registered voters, including 73 percent of Democrats, support new gun control laws, while 39 percent, including 65 percent of Republicans, are opposed to new laws.

 

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

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

FRY THE ROYALS!]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zionist Wahhabis

[SEE:  Saudi Arabia working with Mossad against Iran, WikiLeaks suggests ;  Saudi Arabia is Israel’s last hope: report ]

The Saudi/Israeli Alliance

deLiberation

by Dean Henderson
Monday, April 9th, 2012

(Excerpted from Chapter 5: Persian Gulf Rent-a-Sheik: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)

Iran’s Press TV reported yesterday that both the US and the Saudis began funding Syrian rebels eight months ago. After funding Libyan Islamist rebels to overthrow Qaddafi, the Saudis and their fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) despots have moved on in an effort to bring down Syria’s Assad government on their road to Tehran.

Both the Muslim Brotherhood House of Saud and Cabalist Israel share a long history with their Freemason brethren at British intelligence dating back to the Egyptian Mystery Schools.

The inbred Illuminati banker oligarchy runs all three secret societies and controls the global economy via central bank monopoly and hegemony over oil, arms and drug trades.

This Rothschild-led cabal of trillionaire Satanists manufacture fanatics within the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths to divide the people and maximize war profits.

Since Chevron discovered oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938, the House of Saud monarchy has increasingly served as paymaster for Rothschild covert military adventures.  It’s part of an oil for arms quid pro quo.

The Saudis sent over $3.8 billion to the CIA-trained Afghan mujahadeen.  Their emissary to the Americans was Osama bin Laden.

They gave $35 million to the Nicaraguan contras. Northrup/Lockheed bribe recipient Adnan Khashoggi played a key role in supplying Richard Secord’s Enterprise with House of Saud funding.  But while contra and mujahadeen efforts got the most newsprint, the House of Saud was busy bankrolling counterinsurgency around the world.

In Africa the Saudis provided support decades ago for the National Front for Salvation (NFS), which operated from bases in Chad in its attempts to overthrow Libyan President Mohamar Qaddafi.

Chad has long been an important country in Exxon Mobil’s North Africa oil production schemes.  In 1990- following a successful Libyan-backed counter-coup against the Chad government which was sponsoring NFS- the US evacuated 350 NFS leaders with Saudi financing.  The US restored $5 million in aid to the dictatorial Kenyan government of Daniel Arap Moi so Kenya would house the NFS leaders, whom other African governments refused to take in.  Arap Moi later aided CIA covert operations in Somalia, which the Saudis financed.

The Saudis bankrolled Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebels in Angola in their brutal effort to topple the socialist government of MPLA President Jose dos Santos.  Upon CIA request, the Saudis sent millions to Morocco to pay for that country’s training of UNITA.  Angola has huge oil reserves.  In 1985 Chevron Texaco accounted for 75% of Angola’s oil revenue.  In 1990 29% of Exxon Mobil’s US-bound crude came from Angola. An annual report of De Beers- the Oppenheimer-family tentacle which monopolizes the world diamond trade- bragged of buying up UNITA diamonds.  Savimbi was welcomed at the White House by President Reagan.

The Saudis funded RENAMO in their CIA-backed Pink Plan terror campaign against the nationalist government of Mozambique.  In the mid-1980s both the Saudis and Oman sent weapons to RENAMO through the Comoros Islands on behalf of Israel and apartheid South Africa.  Two Comoros Presidents- Ali Soilah and Ahmed Abdullah Abderemane- were assassinated by mercenaries who were protecting the arms traffic.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – formerly Zaire- Illuminati puppet Mobutu Sese-Seiko ruled with an iron fist for nearly four decades. He served as City of London guard dog of Zaire’s rich cobalt, uranium and molybdenum reserves- all of which are vital to the US nuclear weapons program.  Zaire is also rich in copper, chromium, zinc, cadmium, tin, gold and platinum.  While Mobutu amassed over $5 billion in Swiss, Belgian and French bank accounts, Zaire’s people lived in squalor.

Mobutu was installed in the early 1960’s after CIA agent Frank Carlucci- later Reagan and Bush Defense Secretary and now chairman of bin Laden family investment advisor Carlyle Group- worked with gangsters to assassinate the first prime minister of the Congo Patrice Lumumba.  Under Mobutu’s reign the US had military bases at Kitona and Kamina- from where the CIA prosecuted covert wars against Angola, Mozambique and Namibia with House of Saud funding.  Mobutu’s DSP palace guard was trained by the Israeli Mossad.  In the late 1970’s the Saudis paid for imported Moroccan troops to save Mobutu from Katanganese secessionists led by Laurant Kabila.

Mobutu was deposed in 1998 by forces loyal to Kabila- a friend of Fidel Castro.  The Saudis began financing military forays into the Congo by the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. This destabilization of the Lake’s region led to the Rwandan genocide.  Kabila was assassinated in 2000, after he refused to play Illuminati ball.  Over four million people have died in the DRC over the past decade.

Lumumba and Kabila weren’t the first African nationalists targeted for elimination by the inbreds.  During the 1950′s and 1960′s the CIA and French intelligence assassinated Moroccan nationalist Mehdi Ben Barka- whose Union Nationale de Forces Populaire threatened US puppet monarch King Hassan II.  Giunea’s leftist President Sekou Toure and Tunisian socialist Habib Bourgiba were also assassinated by Western intelligence agencies.

In 1993 Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir accused the Saudis of providing arms to Johnny Garung’s Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).  The southern part of Sudan- which the SPLA is trying to partition- is rich in oil.  Mossad has supplied the SPLA for years through Kenya.  In 1996 the Clinton Administration announced military aid to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda. The aid was funneled into an SPLA offensive on Khartoum.  The crisis in Darfur is a direct result of Saudi/Israeli/US meddling on behalf of Big Oil.

Algerian President Chadli Benjladid accused the Saudis of bankrolling the barbarous Armed Islamic Group (AIG) who- after Algeria protested US ignition of the Gulf War- launched a reign of terror targeted at the Algerian people. Benjladid was forced to resign. This was followed by hasty passage of the Hydrocarbon Law- which opened the historically socialist country’s oilfields to the Four Horsemen.  The CIA then helped AIG terrorists travel to Bosnia, where they helped destroy socialist Yugoslavia.

Algeria has a long history of defying Big Oil. President Houari Boumedienne- one of the great Arab socialist leaders of all time- initiated calls for a more just international economic order in fiery speeches at the UN. He encouraged producer cartels as a means to Third World emancipation from the London bankers.  Independent Italian oilman Enrico Mattei began negotiating with Algeria and other nationalistic OPEC states who wanted to sell their oil internationally without having to deal with the Four Horsemen.  In 1962 Mattei died in a mysterious plane crash.  Former French intelligence agent Thyraud de Vosjoli says his agency was involved.  William McHale of Time magazine, who covered Mattei’s attempt to break the Big Oil cartel, also died under strange circumstances.

In 1975 the US sent $138 million in military aid through Saudi Arabia to Yemen, in hopes of heading off a Marxist revolution there.  The effort failed and the country split into North and South Yemen for two decades before merging again in the 1990’s. US/Saudi aid to both Yemen and Oman continues to this day in an effort to stamp out nationalist movements in those countries, which border the Kingdom and its vast Four Horsemen-controlled oilfields.

During the US-led effort to partition Bosnia from Yugoslavia, Saudi King Faud led calls for an end to the UN arms embargo.  When the embargo was lifted, the Saudis funded Bosnian Muslim arms purchases.  Later the Saudis bankrolled the heroin-kingpin Kosovo Liberation Army, as well as NLA Albanian separatists attacking the nationalist government of Macedonia. The Saudis even funded CIA covert operations in Italy, where they plunked down $10 million in 1985 to help destroy the Communist Party.

Recently Saudi Prince Bandar donated $1 million to the Bush Sr. Presidential Library and another $1 million to a Barbara Bush literacy campaign. On the evening of September, 11, 2001- Prince Bandar smoked cigars in the White House with President Bush, while members of the bin Laden family were evacuated from the US in airspace shut down to all other traffic.

Were the Saudis simply playing their historic paymaster role in the prosecution of 911?

The largest shareholder in News Corporation – parent of both the banker mouthpiece Wall Street Journal and the Fox News psyop – is Rupert Murdoch. The 2nd largest owner is Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal.

Is Fox News a covert Rothschild mind control operation against the American people?

Sources:

1. “Mercenary Mischief in Zaire”. Jane Hunter. Covert Action Information Bulletin. Spring 1991.
2. Hot Money and the Politics of Debt. R.T. Naylor. The Linden Press/Simon & Schuster. New York. 1987. p.238
3. Hunter
4. Earth First! Journal. Vol. 26, #1. Samhain/Yule. 2005
5. “US to Aid Regimes to Oust Government”. David B. Ottaway. Washington Post. 11-10-96
6. The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence and International Fascism. Henrik Kruger. South End Press. Boston. 1980. p.43
7. The Gulf: Scramble for Security. Raj Choudry. Sreedhar Press. New Dehli.
8. 1983. p.14
9. Dude, Where’s My Country. Michael Moore. Warner Books. New York. 2003.
10. ABC News Online. 10-19-04

Dean Henderson is the author of Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries and Das Kartell der Federal Reserve. Subscriptions to his Left Hook blog are FREE at www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com

The American Plan To Liberalize “Islam”

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

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

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

Civil Democratic Islam

RAND CORP.

2003 RAND Corporation

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

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

Chapter Three
A PROPOSED STRATEGY

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

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

Appendix C
STRATEGY IN DEPTH

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

 

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

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

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

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

View Larger Map

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

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

by John J. Xenakis 

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

Demonstrators in Jordan protest American troop presence

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

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

Jordan’s King Abdullah and Obama meet to discuss Syria

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

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

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

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

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

Sunni Jihadists pour into Syria

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Impression Of Qatar ‘Taking Sides’

 

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

 

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

AP/Local Coordination Committees in Syria

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

U.S. Urged To Do More

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

West/Saudis Pushing “al-CIA-da” Into Losing Battle With Hezbollah

[SEE:  Al-Qaida threatens Hezbollah over its support of the Syrian regime]

Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah

by FRANKLIN LAMB

Beirut

(Beirut) – “This is one damn fine idea, what took us so long to see a simple solution that was right in front of our eyes for Christ’s sake”, Senator John McCain of “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and “no-fly zones for Syria” notoriety, reportedly demanded to know from Dennis Ross during a recent Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) brain storming session in Washington DC.

(Daniel Pipes, Photo:  left)

Ross, a founder of WINEP with Israeli government start up cash (presumably reimbursed unknowingly by American taxpayers) and currently WINEP’s “Counselor”, reportedly responded to the idea of facilitating Al Qeada to wage jihad against Hezbollah with the comment: “Shiites aren’t the only ones seeking death to demonstrate their ‘resistance’ to whatever. Plenty of other Muslims also want to die as we saw last week in Boston. Let ‘em all go at it and Israel can sweep out their s— when it’s over.”

One Congressional staffer attending the WINEP event emailed me, “Dennis spoke in jest — well I assumed he did — but who knows anymore? Things are getting ever crazier inside some of these pro-Israel think-tanks around here.”

Featured on the front page of its April 25 edition, the Zionist-compliant New York Times writes that the Assad regime is apparently recovering but, “it must be understood that for all of the justified worries about the (al Qaeda affiliated) rebels “Assad remains an ally of Iran and Hezbollah. “

The Times adopts the views of Islamophobe, Daniel Pipes, who recommends that the US try to keep the two sides in Syria fighting as long as possible until they destroy each other.  Pipes, now serving as an advisor to John McClain, wrote in the Washington Times on April 11, “Evil forces pose less danger to us when they make war on each other. This keeps them focused locally, and it prevents either one from emerging victorious and thereby posing a greater danger. Western powers should guide enemies to a stalemate by helping whichever side is losing, so as to prolong their debilitating conflict.”

Both Jeffrey Feltman, U.N. Under-Secretary General for Political Affairs and Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N, have at a minimum impliedly joined in the intriguing idea of siccing Jabhat al Nusra on the Party of God. This scheme, if launched, would be Feltman’s 14th attempt to topple Hezbollah and defeat the Lebanese National Resistance to the occupation of Palestine since he first arrived in Beirut from Tel Aviv in 2005 to become US Ambassador to Lebanon.  This observer, among others in this region sense that given the aura still enveloping the American Embassy here,  that Jeffrey never really left his Lebanese ambassadorial post and continues to occupy this position from his new UN office.

This week Feltman warned that the spillover of Syria’s war continues to be felt in Lebanon as Susan Rice, echoed him and condemned Hezbollah for “undermining the country’s “dissociation policy.” The latter being a bit obscure in meaning but connoting something like sitting around doing nothing while this country is being shelled by jihadists from among the 23 countries currently fighting in Syria.  Feltman informed the media on 4/22/13 that “The Secretary-General is concerned by reports that Lebanese are fighting in Syria both on the side of the regime and on the side of the opposition, hopes that the new government will find ways to promote better compliance by all sides in Lebanon with the “disassociation policy.”

Given current divisions in Lebanon that will not happen anymore than Lebanon’s June 9th Parliamentary elections will be held on time.

For her part, Susan lectured the UN Security Council that “Hezbollah actively enables Assad to wage war on the Syrian people by providing money, weapons, and expertise to the regime in close coordination with Iran.” This position was expressed also through a statement by US. State Department spokesman , Patrick Ventrell, who said that Washington “has always been clear concerning Hezbollah’s shameful role and the support it is providing for the Syrian regime and the violence it is inducing in Syria.” Ventrell added: “We were clear from the start concerning the destructive role played by Iran as well as the Iranian role.”

Several Israeli agents in Congress are today promoting a Jabhat el Nusra-Hezbollah war even as the Obama administration terror-lists the jihadist group. Meanwhile, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s neocon Islamaphobe acolyte, goes a bit further and explains to Fox News, once Assad falls and Hezbollah is out of the picture “We can deal with these (jihadist) fellas.”

Recent history in Libya instructs otherwise. As Turkish commentator Cihan Celik recently noted: “A divorce with al-Nusra will not be easy in Syria”

The past two years in Libya, that shadow of a country, reveals countless examples, three witnessed firsthand by this observer, during the long hot summer of 2011. What we saw was Gulf sponsors and funders offering young men, often unemployed, $ 100 per month, free cigarettes, and a Kalashnikov to do jihad.  Plenty down and out lads still accept these offers in Libya, as they do in Syria. One reason why the militias proliferated so quickly in Libya and never melted away was the phenomenon of a wannabe jihadists deciding to be a leader and recruiting perhaps a brother or two, maybe a few cousins or tribe members, and presto, they have created a militia with power they never dreamed of.

Their new life can offer many perceived benefits  from running rough shod over the civilian populations and setting up myriad mini but potent criminal enterprises specializing in kidnappings, robberies, drugs, trafficking in women, and assassinations for cash.  How many of these young men have turned in their weapons in Libya and returned to their former lives?   Or will do so when instructed by the likes of McCain or Graham?

On 4/24/13 Jabhat Al-Nusra Front intensified its threats to officials here including the Lebanese president by releasing a challenge from its media office: “…we inform you – and you may think of that as a warning or an ultimatum – that you must take immediate measures to restrain Hezbollah, otherwise, the fire will reach Beirut. If you do not abide by this within 24 hours, we will consider that you are taking part in the massacres committed by the Hezbollah members and we will unfortunately have to burn everything in Beirut.” In addition they are calling for Jihad and the establishment of the “Resistance Factions for Jihad against the Regime in Syria” and also in Saida and Tripoli, Lebanon.

Israeli officials appear to be in agreement with the Ross/Pipes proposal to arrange for Al Qeada to launch a war against Hezbollah.  The Director for External Affairs at “The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, repeatedly claimed that the Shia are the real threat to Israel, not the Sunni and with the least threat coming from the Gulf monarchs.  He offered the view recently that “Israel is now a partner of the Sunni Arab states.”  Indeed, Israel hopes that Hezbollah will forget Israel when tasked with trying repel Al Nusra and other al Qaeda affiliate attacks.

According to various Israel officials who have issued statements on the subject, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and several other members of the Arab League constitute an “alliance of anxiety for Israel” because they claim that “Sunni Arabs are not as competent as the Shia and Iran and as a result they express doubts that Israel can rely on the Sunni states in the same way that the Sunni states can rely on Israel.”

In a documentary about the Iraq war, an American soldier explains:  “Actually, we don’t really have much of a problem with the Sunnis.  It’s the Shias who we are afraid of.  The problem has something to do with their leader who was killed centuries ago and these fellas are willing to lay their life down for the guy.  Anyhow, that is what they told us in Special Ops class.”

Al Nusra fighters currently occupying parts the south west areas of Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in south Damascus, recently expressed eagerness to fight Hezbollah which they claim would give them credibility with Sunni Muslims and, oddly, in this observers view, “credibility with western countries”, who supposedly are al Qaeda’s sworn enemies. It’s sometimes hard to know who precisely is whose enemy these days in Syria as the rebels continue using areas east and southwest of Damascus as rear bases and as gateways into the capital.

Despite boasts to the contrary from Jihadist types in Syria and Lebanon, it is not clear to this observer if Jihadist and al Qaeda-affiliated groups living among Hezbollah communities in Lebanon like Fatah al Islam, Jund al Sham or Osbat al Ansar which have been here for years would actually join the Zionist promoted anti-Hezbollah jihad.

But it is evident that some Lebanese Islamists and jihadists directly connected to al Qaeda do have the ability to target Hezbollah.   Elements from each of these groups are startling to associate and identify with Jabhat al Nusra, inspired partly by their successful military operations in Syria.

Again, we saw the same thing in Libya.  Enthusiastic, ambitious young men who want to improve their lot in life try to go with a winner.  According to sources in the Ain al Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, jihadist leaders such as Haytham and Mohammed al Saadi, Tawfic Taha, Oussama al Shehabi and Majed al Majed are recruiting followers and fighters in Lebanon and offer a ticket out the the squalid army-surrounded, Syrian-refugee-inflated camp.

Homs-based media activist Mohammad Radwan Raad claims that “the embattled residents of the rebel-controlled Homs province town of Al-Qusayr welcome Saida, Lebanon-based Sunni Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s call for Jihad in Syria. Claims Raad, “Al-Qusayr residents welcome Assir’s call and hope the Lebanese people help kick out Hezbollah members in the area…We need anyone who can get rid of them.” This week Assir urged his followers to join Syrian rebels fighting troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. Al-Qusayr has been under rebel control for more than a year and on the scene reports indicate that it is about to be returned to central government control.

In response, two Salafist Sunni Lebanese sheikhs urged their followers to go to Syria to fight a jihad (religious war) in defense of Qusayr’s Sunni residents. “There is a religious duty on every Muslim who is able to do so… to enter into Syria in order to defend its people, its mosques and religious shrines, especially in Qusayr and Homs,” Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir told his followers. For now, experts say, such calls on the part of Lebanon’s Salafists are largely bluster because the movement is far from able to wield either the arsenal or the fighting forces of Hezbollah.

Local analysts like Qassem Kassir argue that Jabhat al Nusra and friends are not organized enough to fight against Hezbollah in a conventional war, but they could cause great damage by organizing bomb attacks against the Party of God’s bases and militants. The latter would be enough initially for Ross and WINEP and their Zionist handlers. Creating chaos in Lebanon being one of their goals but more importantly weakening the National Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah and also challenging Syria and Iran.

In a recent speech, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah offered his party’s view about a Western-promoted Sunni-Shia clash, with Al-Nusra, AlQaida and all the groups which flocked to Syria, saying that what was wanted of them was to kill and get killed in Syria, in a massacre which will only serve the enemies of the Arabs and Muslims.

The coming months will reveal to us if  the several pro-Zionist Arab regimes as well as Islamophobes, including those at WINEP and other Israel-first think-tanks, are delusional in believing that John McCain’s “simple solution” to those resisting the Zionist occupation of Palestine, would be to assist  Jabhat el Nusra type jihadists to make war against Hezbollah.

Whether they could defeat Hezbollah is uncertain but whether Jabhat al Nusra and friends are capable of igniting yet another catastrophe in this region is the looming question.
   Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and Syria and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and Syria and is reachable c/o
fplamb@gmail.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Obama To Thank Qatari Despot for Being A Good Oinker

Qatari ruler Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani at the White House (file photo)

Obama to thank Qatari despot for aiding US intrusive bids in region 

US President Barack Obama plans to thank the Qatari ruler during his Washington visit for hosting an American air base in the Persian Gulf and his help with many US intervention bids in Muslim nations, including channeling of arms to militant gangs in Syria.

Obama reportedly also intends to “press” Qatar’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani “to ensure” that the massive amounts of weapons Qatar is purchasing and shipping to anti-Damascus insurgents does not end up with the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front militants “and other extremist groups” fighting the Syrian government when he welcomes the Qatari dictator to the White House on Tuesday, The Washington Post reports.

According to the report, “allegations” that “some Qatari aid is flowing to extremist” militant gangs in Syria have been made “primarily by Qatar’s Persian Gulf neighbors, which are rivals for regional influence” and have their own aims and objectives in the anti-Damascus intervention.

“All are friends of the United States, and their rivalry has put the Obama administration in a difficult position as it tries to establish the parameters of its Syria policy,” the influential US daily adds in its Tuesday report.

Further pointing to Washington’s efforts to keep its anti-Syria so-called “core group” together, the report adds that Obama also held talks earlier this month with United Arab Emirates (UAE) Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Arabia’s long-time Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal in separate meetings in Washington.

In addition to US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the US-led ‘core group’ includes France, Britain, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Jordan, UAE and Egypt.

In the next few weeks, the daily adds, Obama will also host Jordanian despot King Abdullah and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Washington to further discuss the US-led armed intervention efforts to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the only country in the region that has actively supported Palestinian resistance against premier American foreign ally, the Israeli regime.

Turkey and Jordan share borders with Syria and play host to thousands of Syrian refugees, displaced by the ongoing foreign-backed insurgency in the country.

The Post report also cites “a senior State Department” official as claiming that Persian Gulf Arab government are not the only source of weapons shipped to anti-Damascus terror gangs in Syria and that rich Arab businessmen in the Persian Gulf also ship large amounts of arms to the militant groups.

“Some of my men, through their own connections, family and friends, know people in the gulf, business people who can literally get them millions of dollars in cases within a few days. How do I tell my guys don’t take that money from that business guy who is backed by an Islamist network?” a top anti-Damascus militant commander is quoted as saying by the unnamed US official.

Meanwhile, amid growing reports of a US plan for a military invasion of Syria under the pretext of securing the country’s chemical weapons, Director of American National Intelligence James Clapper stated in remarks at the US Senate last Thursday that collapse of the Syrian government would constitute “a huge strategic loss to Iran.”

This is while Washington has also claimed “an Iran threat” to justify major arms deals with the Israeli regime, Saudi Arabia and Qatar that are to be signed this week during visits by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to the region this week.

Clapper, however, also expressed concerns that the foreign-backed unrest in Syria is destabilizing neighboring Jordan and Lebanon.

Syria has been gripped by a deadly unrest since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of government forces, have been killed in the violence.

Damascus says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants fighting the Syrian government are foreign nationals.

MFB/MFB

The Saudi Connection To Chechen Islamists

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

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

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

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

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

Khattabs real name is Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem.

The Saudi connection linking the Boston Marathon to September 11 

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

By Ksenia Svetlova

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another Terrorist Attack, Another Saudi To Be Spirited-Out of the US, 911 Style?

Another Terrorist Attack, Another U.S.-Saudi Cover-Up?

-

• 
• Diana West

 

After the FBI rescheduled another postponed briefing on the Boston Marathon Massacre for 8 p.m. on Wednesday night — and then canceled that one, too — that was it. I was going to give the news circus a rest until morning.

Came the dawn I heard that terrorism expert Steven Emerson had dropped a bombshell Wednesday night on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. Emerson reported that Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national first identified as a “person of interest” and then downgraded, like a tropical storm, to “witness,” would be deported from the United States “on national security grounds.” This, Emerson added, “is very unusual.”

Yes. But also no. Amid similar conditions — a terrorist attack, an ongoing investigation and Saudi diplomatic pressure — we have seen Saudi nationals spirited out of the country en masse in the past rather than be exposed to any part of an investigative process.

I refer, of course, to the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when following a private meeting on Sept. 13 between President George W. Bush and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, “something strange began to happen,” as former Florida Sen. Bob Graham writes in his 2004 book “Intelligence Matters.” (As Senate Intelligence committee chairman, Graham co-chaired the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11.)

“Although the FAA had ordered all private flights grounded, a number of planes began flying to collect Saudi nationals from various parts of the United States.” Within a week, Graham continues, 140 Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, had been flown out of the country without ever having to answer a single question about anything.

What’s almost worse is that for nearly three years, as Graham reports, “the White House and other agencies insisted that these flights never took place.” Bush lied, Saudis flied.

It seems beyond question that such Saudi collusion will be omitted from the archives at the George W. Bush library, which opens later this month in Texas — thanks to $500 million from anonymous donors.

But such collusion was just the beginning of the perfidious role the Bush administration played to strong-arm and block the investigation of Saudi involvement in 9/11 — a role that now makes me deeply regret voting for President Bush, particularly in 2004. The Bush administration cover-up would climax with the redaction of a 28-page chapter of the 9/11 Commission report regarding foreign, particularly Saudi, support for some of the al-Qaida hijackers.

Interview With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad–(4-18-2013)

The situation in Syria is better than the beginning of the crisis Great Syrian people do not worry him April 18, 2013 Damascus, (SANA) - Mr. President Bashar al-Assad in an interview with Channel News Syrian about the risks to Syria from global war and developments in the region, we need much more to hold on to the sense of Galaa and meanings of independence to be a holiday Galaa for us past glory and present dignity, pointing out that Syria is exposed to try to colonize new all means and various ways. President al-Assad said .. There are major powers, particularly the Western powers led by the United States historically does not accept that there are countries that have autonomy, even in Europe, how the third world countries. President al-Assad stressed that the Syrian people are a great people do not concern him, and draw optimism from the citizens and particularly the powerful families of martyrs and there is no option we have only a victory, pointing out that the situation in Syria now is better than the beginning of the crisis. President al-Assad pointed out that Erdogan is ready to give all his country against himself, pointing to the losses suffered by the politically inside Turkey against the backdrop of the failure of the so-called policy of zero problems, which turned into a zero policy and zero friends and zero ethics. Kerry’s visit to the region President al-Assad stressed that this shows that the external factor is a key factor in what is happening in Syria since the first day and that whenever we have achieved successes will see a further escalation. President al-Assad said that it is not possible to believe that thousands walk in with their equipment to Syria from Jordan in the time that Jordan was able to stop or arrest a person carrying a weapon one simple resistance in Palestine over the past years. The following is the full text of the interview: Question .. We live festival atmosphere Galaa .. What would you like to Tugeoh of the Syrian people in so on, especially in light of what is going through Syria from the events … Mr. President: It is axiomatic that connects holiday Galaa the withdrawal of foreign troops from any country but the first question we ask in such circumstances and in the Arab general conditions that preceded this crisis .. What if I came out colonizer and took with him the sovereignty and decision … No value to evacuate .. Independence real real Galaa is when Wigley colonized about the land and restore sovereignty with all means of the word meanings .. If there is an occupied land but its people free is much better than that we have liberated land and the people of loss of sovereignty and state devoid of national decision .. So you must understand Galaa and independence .. Galaa and independence in its comprehensive sense .. I think that Syria is in such circumstances are to try new colonization by all means and in different ways .. There is an attempt to invade Syria come from outside forces of different nationalities if they follow a new tactic differs from the traditional tactic of colonization, which we used to call modern colonialism that had come marching into the region and the end of the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan .. There is also an attempt to occupy Syria of cross-cultural point of a two-way intellectual invasion .. Either for Syria to go toward subordination and submission of major powers and the West in particular or the other direction, which undergo forces of obscurantism takfirist. We need much more to hold on Galaa words and meanings of independence I think that on this occasion we need much more to hold on to the sense of Galaa and meanings independence .. Since we were children he meant to us this holiday a lot of pride .. Today should remain this site and rise to be holiday Galaa for us the past glory and present dignity. Question .. Mr. President .. Mention what is going through Syria situations .. Events have evolved in this country from the crisis passed security events and then what Smeetmoh once you say about that war .. Today is exactly what is happening in Syria how Tocefh … Mr. President: In fact what is happening is a war .. It is not a security events .. Perhaps appeared initially in the form of security incidents and some still deal with it until this moment, raises questions and assessments through the fact that what is happening is the security incidents. The truth is war all carry this sense of the word .. There is a major power and specifically the Western powers led by the United States historically does not accept that there be countries that have autonomy, even in Europe .. Europe wants submissive how third world countries .. How small countries … Must be submissive to work for the interests of those countries. At the same time Syria is in a very important geopolitical desire to control Syria is also something historic and traditional policy of the colonial powers .. These countries play a role in this battle through the provision of political and public support in the beginning. There are a group of mercenaries that take money from abroad for certain acts of sabotage And recently moved publicly to provide material and logistical support and we believe that they support them also in the field of armaments. There are countries that regional Arab and non-Arab countries such as Turkey, for example .. These countries, sold and bought a lot and created a position for itself on the Arab and Islamic arena through virtual support for the Palestinian cause and it seems that this role has gone too far in excess of what is allowed by the Masters .. Any major countries was not necessary to undo this role .. Here transparent Syrian role towards various issues, including the Palestinian issue, including the issue of the rights and dignity exposes these countries .. Survival of the Syrian role as embarrassing to them .. It has become the Syrian issue, the Syrian issue, or a matter of the Syrian crisis to embarrass them and a matter of life or death in political terms for these countries Vzjoa the all their strength in order to hit Syria and tons and people. There are internal factors .. There are a group of thieves .. There are a group of mercenaries that take money from abroad for certain acts of sabotage .. And there التكفيريون or rule or Front victory .. All of them fall under the umbrella of an intellectual one. What is happening now is that we are facing mainly powers takfirist Indeed, what is happening now we are faced with basically those expiatory forces .. The first and second elements are practically wounded too harsh strikes Either they ended up in some places, or they have moved forcibly to work under the umbrella of al-Qaeda against their will in order to be part of it .. Fmili We now fight takfir powers. Question .. For as long as you have said, Mr. President, that Syria has become an embarrassment .. They always find new and Tra to it يعزفوا whenever they fail to stage .. Now is a lot of talk about that Syria witnessing sectarian اقتتالا and perhaps ideologically and other phenomena occur here and there .. Frankly .. Mr. President .. Are not you afraid of becoming sectarian sometimes rears its head in Syria .. Mr. President: In every society there are groups of people who carry intellectually limited and narrow horizon and carry a weak sense of national .. These groups appear in all the crises .. Appear on arena Pfla and performance harmful .. May not be detrimental to the broad level but appear in the form of spots .. This is what happened in Syria in the eighties during the crisis of the Muslim Brotherhood, who also used the sectarian thought in spite of the lack of Internet and satellite TV at that time .. Nevertheless managed to marketing thought and sectarian appeared those spots .. But when you defeat the Muslim Brotherhood returned the situation in Syria to the nature of the Syrian society. Syrian people is a great people do not concern it The only thing that bet in this case is the awareness of the people .. And the Syrian people actually proved unprecedented during the two years that the people of conscious .. Otherwise, we would have seen a very different situation in Syria so if entered directly to the answer to the question that I can say without exaggeration that the situation in Syria now better than in the beginning of the crisis .. In the beginning of the crisis use sectarian rhetoric and appeared Albur strongly and there was concern and loss of balance among many on this point .. With time there has been an increase in awareness of the dangers of what is happening and understanding of fraud happening in the media and awareness of the meaning of Syria which we live, but probably do not we see the importance of what we live in safety, security and harmony .. I do not say these words are not coexistence minutes. So I can say that after two years of the steadfastness of the Syrian people in this way in the face of those media attack with satellite channels seeking to deploy Takfir and sectarian discrimination and .. I would say that the Syrian people is a great people do not concern it. Question .. In this sense, Mr. President, do not seem worried never so conversations are promoted and perhaps entrenched … Mr. President: Absolutely .. I say just the opposite .. On the principle of the vaccine .. Vaccine is a bacterium weak .. If kills immune Vsaattiyk. Martyrdom Bouti saddened everyone, without exception, of various denominations We have many examples we experienced and showed national unity .. But another example is the death of Dr. Bouti .. Martyrdom Bouti saddened everyone, without exception, of various denominations and seen it on the boards of solace spontaneous .. The state has no role in this issue .. and Dr Buti did not communicate with a lot of these .. However saw consolation councils and we have seen the grief of the Christian Brothers .. Not only Muslims .. It means that there is a genuine national unity .. These outposts in people with limited sectarian thought does not scare us .. I’m not worried about them at all. Question .. Mr. President .. Frankly .. We hear a lot recently in the media and through the speakers, Arabs and foreigners that there are liberated areas .. Any beyond the control of the state .. We see the situation in Aleppo and tenderness in Homs sometimes .. Is there already areas beyond the control of the state today in Syria … Mr. President: We sometimes deal with this situation in military terms is similar to deal with a traditional enemy .. When the enemy comes in the traditional way to occupy part of the ground, whereupon the national forces to attack the enemy and defend the country and expel the enemy out .. It does not matter if they ruled on the enemy or not rob them of it .. Maybe just come out without eliminating it .. But what is important in this case is the liberation of the land .. In this case we are dealing with a completely different situation .. A new war .. New style .. We are dealing with the intervention groups in cities .. Some of which are non-Syrian .. Arab foreign .. And some of them Syrian intervention in cities and neighborhoods and conducts sabotage. We are now in the process eliminate terrorists At the beginning of military actions carried out by the armed forces to expel terrorists from cities .. Sometimes it takes a few hours work .. We think that these terrorists came out of the place and went to another place to escape or maneuver .. It means to spend the whole time the liberalization process of the land without end. To be precise on this point .. Now we do not do the editing process to talk about the land liberated areas .. We are now in the process eliminate the terrorists .. The big difference between the first and second .. If not overturn the terrorists does not make sense for the Liberation of any region in Syria. If we understand this point we understand what happens on the ground .. There is another side when the armed forces or state military plans they develop or adopt plans on a number of grounds, including for example, the importance of the site in terms of political and media .. Including the human side of any suffering of the citizens and the military side .. Details of military logistics. Always a priority for us is a humanitarian point of view .. Protect the lives of citizens and alleviate the suffering of the areas to which enters the terrorists .. The political and media do not give priority .. Sometimes the benefit of the other party .. It does not matter .. Important fact .. Sometimes neglect the media side they start the process of “tattoo and honk” to show the victories .. This does not concern us, but often imposing nature of the battle that there is no consensus between the priority of military and humanitarian priority .. Of course temporarily and partially in some areas .. There are things that imposed the battle but for us it is a priority of the human hand. Question .. The problem is that there are many conversations promoted .. There are people who are talking about the division of geographic and sectarian division and even doctrinal .. Mr. President .. Is this really true .. Or is it included in the framework of intimidation and psychological warfare which is still a cornerstone of the ongoing war on Syria. I do not think there are real grounds for the division .. He must partition the limits of religious, sectarian or ethnic .. In practice these lines do not exist Mr. President: As long as we are not afraid of sectarianism .. I do not think there are real grounds for division. He must partition the limits of religious, sectarian or ethnic .. In practice these lines do not exist because the Syrian society is integrated in almost every region of Syria .. And sometimes in every village of the small villages .. Sometimes at the level of what we call “farms” It is the smallest of villages and non-existent on the map administrative .. We see this integration at the level of mating and families, it is hard to be there without division lines of this type .. But I think that what is published maps or marketed in different ways and leaking to the Syrians at various levels is part of the psychological war and part of the defeat that always talking about what I call virtual defeat or defeat free .. Any to send a message to the Syrians and Iguenauhm, .. B, “you will not be able anymore to live as you were in the past .. unified country .., you are not able to live with each other .. you people divided by its very nature,” the suggestion process intended to devote this conviction, the Syrians .. Also this argument does not worry me as long as the first IPO a sectarian offering .. It is the most serious has failed .. There is virtually no longer one of the foundations to build upon these maps .. Or any leaks and ideas can be transferred to us similarly. Question .. But, Mr. President, is talk that there may be separation between some major cities and rural areas .. For example, in Aleppo Aleppo season from its countryside .. In areas north and north-east are also talking about the subject of tenderness as well as Qamishli .. Also rumored that there are actually divided lines may be beyond the control of the state and perhaps Bracken is separate and isolated from Syria .. So this applies characterization submitted shortly before .. Mr. President: I do not .. This is not in the framework of the division .. Is not built on the basis of ethnic or sectarian lines .. Built on the places where the terrorists .. In practice if we are even talking about state control of the sense of presence, there is no place I tried to enter the armed forces only managed to enter .. If there is no fixed lines. So I say .. It is for us the humanitarian and military priorities are imposing presence places and military tactics. We must look to Syria as a bloc on the pots المستطرقة way .. If we put fluids in a number of vessels and arrived including Climate pipes, the water level in place affects all other receptacles .. Same thing for terrorists .. When beating in place a positive impact on other places .. Valtktic military sometimes imposes on the State to intervene in another place before that exist in place before that exist elsewhere .. Is a time delay for purely military targets .. But absolutely not linked to the subject of the division .. The issue of buffer zones. Question .. Turkey apparently will be up to the crisis with the Kurdish problem and there is talk that Erdogan might give the State of the Kurds .. As well as possibly waive some of the demands and perhaps access to divide Turkey. If there is a state will be set up for access to the presidency .. What about the situation in Syria and the particular situation of the Kurds … Mr. President: For Erdogan .. Of course he is willing to give all his own for the same .. This is true .. This is for the first part of the question and you are given the answer. But for the Kurds in Syria .. I want to repeat what I always say when I put this subject. Kurds in Syria are a natural and essential part of the Syrian fabric and they are present in this region centuries ago Kurds in Syria are a natural and essential part of the Syrian fabric and they are present in this region many centuries ago, like the Arabs, Turks, Persians, and others were present in this region. Are not guests or Tarin .. Most of the Kurds in Syria are Syrian nationalists .. But always in any society .. There are people who are opportunists trying to use specific addresses for their personal interests .. So we have seen a number of gatherings calling itself the Kurdish parties in Syria and has always been growing on the so-called Kurdish issue or the persecution of Kurds in Syria .. This is not true at all .. They were talking about the subject of naturalization Kurds .. About 110 thousand, which was about two years ago .. They considered the issue .. Naturalization .. Moved to the words of another language for Multi .. Now approved State months ago the subject of the Kurdish language and Kurdish literature as taught in the colleges of Arts in Syria .. And other procedures .. But always discuss from time to time about something that is used in order to find them on the national scene .. This case we see from time to time .. This is something that does not worry because the majority are with the Syrian homeland .. In order not to say words structurally .. I will not return to the role of the Kurds in the Syrian revolution and at different stages of the struggle against colonialism .. But I will talk about current events .. Many of the families of the martyrs who met her are Kurds .. I do not know that they are Kurds or Arabs because I do not care about this subject .. But through their talk they tell us we are the people of the martyr .. We Kurds .. Is it possible for someone who does not believe in the country and seeks to secede .. It also raises from time to time .. To submit his or her life or the lives of his sons for this country .. This is not logical. Question .. But, Mr. President, when we talk about this very sensitive point .. We followed through the policy of the Turkish government recently it has been used a lot of paperwork .. But the paper said that this is probably the last Kurdish securities Erdogan, however, specifically will not be simply indispensable .. It will be more aggressive in order to achieve a result at least in Syria .. At this particular time are seeking to bring about a settlement .. The extent to which monitors the Syrian leadership precisely this point .. And what is in the case has been anything in the face of this country .. Mr. President: This is an important topic .. Can not be simplified .. But Erdogan has a purpose internal and external target. Conditions for the Kurdish issue in Syria is quite different from Turkey in terms of the history of the relationship External goal is to Syria .. Any to embarrass Syria in the subject, taking into account that the conditions for the Kurdish issue in Syria is quite different from Turkey in terms of the history of the relationship .. We did not massacres against the Kurds did Ndthdhm as happened with them since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire stage .. Situation is completely different .. there is homogeneity in Syria and there is a real delay .. And put in the subject Kurdish put in Syria just a few decades ago by some opportunistic forces .. And our relationship Kurds are always a good relationship .. Even with the Kurdish parties, which were struggling for their rights in Turkey .. The other goal for Erdogan is an internal goal .. After the losses suffered by the politically inside Turkey against the backdrop of the failure of the so-called policy of zero problems and which turned out to be zero and zero policy vision and zero friends and zero credibility and zero ethics .. Other zeros in all directions except zero problems .. Losing so much of his loyalists .. Was to be the use of the subject of Kurdish in order to take advantage of the large Kurdish bloc in Turkey in order to get votes probably next in the Constitution through which thought to be the president of the Republic of wide powers .. So we care about this issue because what is happening in any neighboring country will affect us positively or negatively, but without being worried .. Except that there is no credibility to Erdogan in such a subject towards the Kurds and this is what our response to the recent friendly Kurdish forces that work on the Turkish and Syrian arena .. They do not trust Erdogan. Question .. There are also two contradictory points are accused by the Syrian state recently .. Opinion says that the Syrian state is a secular religion fights .. Others say that Syria backed away from secular cope with the recent events on the contrary, become more religious .. What is the truth Thread Mr. President .. Supports secular religions do not stand in the face Mr. President: We always drown terminology and discuss the content .. Drown in the linguistic sense .. But what is important is to practice .. For example was there Achtrakiat .. But all were called socialist .. There are those who practiced as a secular atheism and turn as they were in Turkey at various stages against religion fights religion .. There are secular which we understand .. Some say a secular open an eye for us freedom of religion .. We are a diverse community .. Every followers law or sect them the freedom to follow rituals and يمارسوها of the way that they deem appropriate .. This also means we should not treat as a state based on religion .. When it comes to a number of people to apply to a job, for example .. Do not ask of any religion or race this person belongs .. May not make a distinction on the basis of religion and not on the basis of race .. This is the concept .. I think that this concept is the concept of positive and good citizens .. As long as it is not a secular atheism, it means that it can not be against religion .. As long as we talk about freedom of religion, it means that this supports the secular religions do not stand in the face .. Completely contrary to religion is about morality, we need to morality and therefore we need religion .. The development process, for example .. Had a lot of people ask why stumble upon this process in different places .. I tell them .. Because you do you see the development process in Syria as a set of laws .. While it is built on ethics laws .. When they do not exist in the field of ethics can not develop community .. I secular means not differentiate between persons .. But this does not mean that I am not a Muslim and a Christian believer or a believer .. Quite the contrary, this picture is wrong .. The pictures that have been developed in the past about the conflict between Arabism and Islam .. Either you are a national or Islamic .. No .. I am an Arab and Muslim .. Arabic and Christian .. If the discrepancy between the two is the word incorrectly .. But that being said we moved from a secular direction of religious .. In Syria built since 1970 until today eighteen thousand Mosque .. Had against religion or secular We practice against religion .. How to allow construction of 18 thousand a mosque .. Built 220 schools and secondary legitimacy legitimacy, etc. .. Built dozens of institutes to train preachers .. If the religious side in Syria has always been an important aspect .. More importantly, if we want to say that secularism is atheism, as happens in a number of countries or as interpreted by other countries, it is impossible .. Because the state is the mirror of society .. If the community is committed to his religion must be a state based on religious grounds even though the secular .. Can not be the state does not devout religious and community .. And vice versa .. Can not be a form of state religion and society is not committed to his religion .. If we are a mirror of society .. Thus offering the first and the second offering both incorrect and inaccurate and reflects a lack of understanding of the fact and the meaning of the Syrian state and the meaning of secular Syrian state. Question .. But, Mr. President, we are talking here about the actions and decisions taken during the crisis .. Them to approve the establishment of a religious channel .. To allow advocates to work public advocacy … Committed to their religion in Syria, whether they are Muslims or Christians are the most during this national crisis .. It spoke of sectarianism is not these slides Mr. President: raise this issue both personally and directly with me in conversations with people or through some writings .. This shows the ignorance of the writing on this subject .. Because these things have nothing to do with the crisis at all .. In fact, the first signs or warning signs of danger after the invasion of Iraq began .. And specifically in 2004, when it began to show signs of extremism on the Syrian arena but it was at that time in most of the movement of people and thought extreme transient Syria .. Iraq beginning and later Lebanon .. And began trying to spread in Syria .. At that time basically has control of the security way .. The first disturbing incident was the incident of the attack on the radio and television building in 2006 by some of their seducer who told them the extreme Wahhabi Sheikh that this place is a hotbed of corruption and Kafr .. And they attacked him .. But the biggest warning when he got the first suicide bombing in Syria in 2008 and in the month of Ramadan by the Syrian people .. This was a major warning sign .. Against the backdrop of this explosion you meet with a number of senior clerics in Syria and we discussed the matter and we say that treatment is no longer sufficient security .. This is intellectual terrorism is terrorism primarily and intellectual Mnchoeh not need to fight it .. Can not fight terrorism or religious extremism only true religion .. This is the first treatment .. Come other means as complementary tools .. And put forward several ideas and one of them was Noor Sham TV .. At that time were not called Noor Sham TV .. But we need a way to face takfirist channels that began to sweep the space in the Arab and Muslim worlds .. Why are late in 2008 for the year 2011, a period of three years .. Because the idea was initially to launch this channel by the private sector .. For various reasons delayed .. We took the decision to نطلقها we, as a channel to be Islamic University do not express the thought of a particular religion or a particular religious stream .. For advocates also in 2008 and was one of the same procedures .. Especially that the advocacy work for women at that time was an act of secret gets in homes .. Or not to tell a secret, at least not under the eyes of the state because it is not official .. Was the idea that this is not a political act .. We are with the call .. Call to religion is something positive .. But when this call under the eyes of the state and state is Almsuulh of all sectors of society, including the religious sector, it holds the state responsible and at the same time if there is an attempt to exploit the invitation to targets outside the framework of the religious essence of the call can be for the state to correct this deviation .. And this experience has proven to be a good experience and useful .. These actions and others did not have a crisis, absolutely nothing .. On the contrary .. Crisis came to prove since the first day that religious institutions were the most disciplined .. To prove that committed to their religion in Syria, whether they are Muslims or Christians are the most during this national crisis .. It spoke of sectarianism is not these slides .. But from platoons .. Either of the species deviant religion towards religious extremism .. Or of secularism bidders family .. The moderate and committed nationally fact was .. So these actions are not linked to the crisis. Question .. Mr. President .. If we want to remain in the internal affairs .. If you will allow you to be talking about a political solution .. Since the government commissioned the implementation of the three stages of this solution began implementing the first phase of the boot and an end to violence for dialogue .. Currently consultations are is .. But, Mr. President, so far the street probably does not realize what are prohibitions dialogue and determinants of this dialogue in relation to the subjects as well as persons .. This dialogue with the ultimate … نحاور envious of Syria .. It did not deal with Israel overtly or covertly Mr. President: There is considerable confusion about what is happening now for dialogue for citizens .. First, there is the National Dialogue Conference, which is part of a political solution which I talked about in the “oratorical latter” in January .. This dialogue is not a dialogue between the state and the other party .. Is a dialogue between all the components of the Syrian society .. Private and political components .. About the future of Syria .. What is the political system required .. Parliamentary system .. Or a presidential .. Semi-presidential .. Anything else .. What about the Constitution .. What about the political and media laws, etc. .. Or any other topic .. The State here implemented as agreed upon by the conferees .. There is what is happening now than during a meeting of the Ministerial Committee chaired by the Prime Minister with the various parties in Syria .. Some believe that this is the dialogue .. This is not a dialogue .. These sessions consultations in order to determine how to begin dialogue .. If we want to go to the national dialogue conference .. Invited to the conference and on what basis is called … How is … Do we stand for a person or ten people .. Are you associated with the number of members in the representation of a particular party .. How do we call .. Clans or events .. We call .. There is no perception we do not want to build this conference only on perceptions of the state .. We want everyone to participate, we do these consultations maturation process of dialogue .. How poses Thread .. How to vote for him … And many details of things .. If we went to the national dialogue conference was not mature these grounds it failed before the conference starts .. Another aspect has to do with the state dialogue .. Now we are regardless of this initiative can talk with anyone .. نحاور envious of Syria .. It did not deal with Israel secretly or openly .. Both not flirts Israel .. All of the money not received in order to sell the home .. Each emphasizes the independence of Syria .. These are the basics .. This I consider a national foundation. Question .. Means national opposition .. Mr. President: the national opposition in the sense used become something different .. With every Unfortunately since the beginning of the crisis .. Some have an inferiority complex .. Some feel defeatism from the inside became national distributed free of charge to everyone .. All calls national opposition .. Take the examples .. There are those who appear on television and talking in each screen in a different language .. Speaking at every stage in a different language .. Is this a national opposition … Or oscillatory opposition … Can not be a national unless they are stable .. We have been in the country for the first day of the crisis we spoke one language .. We fight terrorism .. Struggle of trying to interfere in the internal affairs from the outside .. We reject domination .. At the same time the doors open for dialogue .. There are forces refused to dialogue in the beginning .. And later agreed to it .. If they are missed فليتفضلوا and say we were wrong .. Our assessment was wrong .. When we got out of Lebanon delivered a speech in 2005, I said we were wrong .. We had mistakes in Lebanon .. At the beginning of the crisis delivered a speech and said that there were errors .. Those they start just by changing their words .. Do you change speechless .. I do not I set .. For that he was arrested money which specifies the direction of speech … I speak frankly and clearly .. Is it because this person or that side was betting on specific bets that the state will fall within weeks or months, and thus is not interviewing of fall .. Will find a place for himself with the next, as some was thinking .. Some of these were silent when terrorist operations began .. Not denouncing terrorism, which began .. Find even justifications for terrorists .. Some of those did not support the military .. And all countries of all peoples in the world boasts of its armed forces as they express their unity and nation with all its components .. Some of them were attacking the army, rather than to stand with him in the army targeted the crisis before anything else because the address unity and steadfastness address .. All of these oscillations and variegated chameleon can not put it under the national title .. We have to ask questions intuitive .. Someone who was not or barely gets on the profiteers day .. We see today the aircraft moves from one place to another and sits in luxury hotels .. Personal finances this and that side .. Talking away from diplomacy .. No place for diplomacy now .. Funded .. If there is funding this uncertain .. It means that the decision depends on the decision of who pays .. How can a national if his decision in abroad .. Add to it .. All sit in the opposition abroad voluntarily forcibly they will tell you .. But in fact they are sitting abroad voluntarily .. Can not be this human nationally .. Especially in crisis .. If you expatriate in normal circumstances it must come to stand with your country .. Especially when they give lessons on national television .. How can you claim to national and fugitive abroad .. Where is the national … Asking people to move and give them lessons in patriotism They suffer every day in Syria and you are relieved abroad .. Where this convenience God knows .. There are many questions you should ask her so I expand on this topic .. Many questions must be asking before we oppose national .. So in this issue is not a place to compliment no place for hypocrisy .. Will Nnavq any one .. You must tell the traitor a traitor and an agent and client defeatist defeatist .. To Aotunai tell him no national .. Is it true that all opposition is a national opposition .. As for the opposition, it is by definition opposition .. If we had a million people are opposed to Syrian state policies .. Does this mean that these so-called opposition .. Can not نحاور a million people .. Can not share a million people in the government .. For example, practically opposition political sense in all countries of the world are elected opposition has a popular base .. If .. Of themselves that they know where the opposition is the election that determined the size of the opposition .. There are many questions you should ask her to define before these .. So if the question with talk … We have parties in Syria now .. Are still emerging but parties and national parties does not recite .. Not mortgage itself to the outside .. There are forces in the national home .. There are many Syrians national .. Do not stop the case on the issue of who fired on the same or himself enjoys a national opposition, which represents the people .. We know they do not represent only themselves. Question .. If proved determinants as well as the basics of the dialogue will remain a parliamentary regime in Syria, or there will be a presidential Parliament … There is no problem in question will be how Syria .. Presidential parliamentary system … This is determined by the people Mr. President: determinants course open .. Anything can be discussed .. There are no red lines only two things .. Syria’s independence .. This means there is no external interference in any internal affair .. This unresolved issue for us .. And stand with the terrorists .. If you do not tolerated stand with the terrorists, apart from that there is no problem in question will be how Syria .. Presidential parliamentary system … This is determined by the people .. For us, as determined by the people agree with it. Question .. Including the post of President of the Republic … I mean I mean even you, Mr. President … Mr. President: Position thing I do something else .. I mean, the job linked to the political system .. And the political system determines the powers of each position .. When changing the political system must be to change the powers of office in any direction .. This is something self-evident and, of course, this includes everything, even the powers of the president .. The President and ask him this subject is linked to the person and this is different from the powers .. Each person seeking to despise position .. So I see things .. If the job is just a tool and not a goal .. The project goal is provided by the person to the community and the people’s support for this project .. And access to the best condition for Syria .. What was done by hostile media in general .. Arab and other .. Is that they tried to show that the problem is not in the project and external forces come from abroad, not in extremism .. The problem is that the President is rejected by the people and this president adheres to the chair he kills his people for the Holy .. This raises continuously .. Therefore raised the issue of stepping down .. The fact that the job has no value .. If there is no support Popular Vamouncb No offers something for everyone .. What is the administrator must fight for is public support and satisfaction popular .. So I say to be decided by the people in this topic is the basis for the survival of the President or gone. Question .. Some fired term to negotiate with the system .. And no dialogue with the regime .. And our understanding of some Syrian officials that they have rejected this term .. What Vhmtamoh from term to negotiate with the regime and negotiations … Assumes himself as follows to external forces, as is the case for some, it could put the word negotiation Mr. President: I always like a country, state or society or nation family .. When sitting head of the family or family housewife with boys or boys sitting with each other or sit with each family .. They do not negotiate, but to engage in dialogue .. When you sit down with each other Syrians talk .. We say dialogue between the Syrians do not say negotiations between the Syrians .. If suppose the same person that strange “فيستطيع the negotiation call” .. If suppose himself as follows to external forces, as is the case for some, it could put the word negotiate .. But to accept them also therefore the foundations and the determinants of .. You negotiate your peers .. If you state you negotiate state .. The state does not negotiate persons .. If you are a party negotiation parties .. But not negotiate persons .. If you are a party you do not negotiate base people who call themselves the name of the party or stream or anything, but they have no base .. There is a kind of symmetry when put to negotiate .. For poses negotiation to determine the same .. Is it a Syrian dialogue with the Syrians .. Or an alien .. It represents. Question .. A quick tour of the area .. Find a visit to Kerry .. Israel as well as an apology from Turkey .. The resignation of the government of Lebanon and to assign Tammam Salam new government .. Striking is the situation in Daraa and what was said about the role of Jordan these events .. Is what is going on from the events accompanied by diplomatic and political events on the ground are pure coincidence in Syria today .. Mr. President: I think that there is a consensus that what happened recently is not a coincidence .. I think that if you ask anyone in this region and in Syria in particular .. Early and non-followers of the policy .. Will tell you that this things interconnected timetable .. In practice, Mr. who is the master and run one .. Clear this topic in the media .. It is not a secret pursuant .. Obama came and Kerry come to the same countries concerned by this escalation .. Especially what is happening in Daraa .. If things ربطنا with some of this indicates two things .. First indication that the external factor is a key factor as is happening in Syria since the first day .. This was difficult to persuade people to do .. Secondly, that whenever we have achieved successes will see a further escalation .. Because those external forces will not give up .. I am with you that the process is not a coincidence but it is wrong not to expect in advance or not we see clear. Question .. Mr. President .. Increasing talk a lot lately that Jordan has become a fixture in the ongoing war on Syria .. Means training camps .. The headquarters of the meetings .. The military leadership s even for terrorist groups on the ground .. Perhaps entry of large numbers of militants and weapons across the border this might also explain things in Daraa return to square one after a period of calm .. What’s the role played by Jordan .. It is not possible to believe that thousands walk in with their equipment to Syria at a time when Jordan was able to stop or arrest a person and a simple one carrying a weapon for the resistance in Palestine Mr. President: We got a lot of this information formally .. Some of them, of course, via media, قرأناها and heard all .. Some of them through diplomatic channels .. Some security Alakhrabr channels .. And all are in the same direction .. We immediately send a political envoy from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in private to Jordan, less than two months ago in order to put these data with Jordan officials and warns of the risks of what is happening will not only affect Syria .. Of course, heard all that would deny these facts .. Then he got in Daraa escalation .. We saw that thousands of militants and terrorists with arms and ammunition come from Jordan .. So we send a security official about a month ago or a little less also met with his counterparts security in Jordan and explained to them our existing data and also heard the complete denial about the involvement of Jordan before them all what is happening .. This is illogical .. Assume first that there are no camps .. Because what to put on the training camps unaudited information for us .. But what is uncertain Checker and confessions of terrorists and those who see us is they come through the Jordanian border .. It is not possible to believe that thousands walk in with their equipment to Syria .. At a time when Jordan was able to stop or arrest a person carrying a weapon one simple resistance in Palestine over the past years .. This talk is not convincing .. We hope some Jordanian officials who are not aware of the seriousness of the situation in Syria and what it means for Jordan .. It also means for other countries .. To be more aware in the estimation of this thing because the fire does not stop at our borders, and everyone knows that Jordan Exhibition him as Syria is exposed to him .. We wish to learn from the lessons we have learned from the stage of the Muslim Brotherhood .. These dangerous phase .. We wish them to learn to teach Iraqi officials who fully understand the importance of stability in Syria .. Regardless of some of the differences that existed between us and them in previous years .. But as a result of this awareness and as a result of the lessons learned that the fire in Syria must be transmitted to the neighboring countries .. This is what we wish. Question .. Mr. President .. Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia .. Most of the Gulf countries .. Of course talking about here is a faction of Lebanon .. There is also the governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen .. Talking about governments are not talking here about people Is it reasonable that they are all wrong and you are right .. Is it possible to be 300 million Arabs are wrong and a few tens of officials on the right Mr. President: Let’s ask the question another way .. These countries were together and we were part of the Arab summits .. At least since the first Arab summit in 2000 against the backdrop of the second Palestinian uprising .. And after the war in Iraq and then with the project of the Middle East and the road map on the back of the victory of America’s invasion of Iraq as it was marketed at that time .. And peaks on the background of the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 and then in 2008 in the war on Gaza .. In all these joints .. You are an Arab citizen and you are a citizen of Syria Do you have confidence in any of these summits summit .. Did not hear from all Arab citizens of all kinds of slander for these peaks and us as officials Arabs sit in that room .. This makes us ask the question from your question .. Is it possible to be 300 million Arabs are wrong and a few dozens of officials in the hall on the right .. This gives us the answer is clearly .. The second point .. these countries we are talking about should not Nlomha the much because it is independent .. The decision is not in her hand .. Some of which the U.S. is strongly Mr. .. Some of which recently came through NATO .. And the other on tipping He lives in a troubled country and its people are not satisfied with him .. They need to before you give us legitimacy legitimacy .. As I said a few days ago .. Arab League are all legitimate need to .. But let’s put aside all this talk and take it in the trash for the simple reason that all these not Aanonna .. Who determines if we are right or wrong is the Syrian people I personally and all the Syrian official responsible to the Syrian people .. The Syrian people is just that we say we were or wrong .. We are right or wrong .. And any other hand does not concern us. Question .. Also if we went from these countries to Iraq’s neighbors .. Al Qaeda in Iraq recently announced that the Front victory affiliates .. and victory contrast Front pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri .. Mr. President .. Fighting in Syria now .. Fight al-Qaeda or terrorist groups or armed fighters fight moderates .. Both carry weapons and assaults on citizens is a terrorist .. Term “moderates fighters” is an American style of justification in front of their own people Mr. President: All of carrying arms and assaults on citizens is a terrorist .. Whether it belongs to the base or any other .. If we want to divide terrorists or base is the base of this is possible and this fact .. Had the tyrant rule is now in Syria under the title victory Front .. The term “moderate fighters” is a method to justify the U.S. in front of their own people .. America fought the Taliban after the events of 2001 and after many years she discovered she did not accomplish nothing in Afghanistan .. فالخسائر many American and hatred for America is becoming increasingly spread over terrorism in the world .. So I wanted to justify the dialogue with these groups and used against each .. Or perhaps to other political objectives .. She said that there is a good Taliban and bad Taliban .. Now they talk about moderate terrorist .. There are no moderate terrorist .. Is a terrorist. They call armed .. They call armed opposition .. This term offers to their people in the media because they have gone away to portray the situation as a conflict between the governor and the governed oppressed .. Thus the picture .. The back of terrorism and later appeared the identity of this terrorism is terrorism extreme western media could not hide this fact .. what then justify support the opposition .. What do you justify sending money, weapons and logistical support under different headings .. Non-lethal support … Non-lethal aid .. Civilian aid .. In the end can only be justified under the title “moderate militants”. Question .. But you said a little while ago that al-Qaeda is the predominant element in Syria now in terms of preparing and gear .. If this sense, the West arming al-Qaeda and funded .. How to understand it .. Mr. President: The truth is that the West always uses any item that appears in the arena even if it is against this element .. Proof that they are fighting al-Qaeda in Mali and support them in Syria and support them in Libya .. The same extremist groups that fought in Syria was supported in Libya, the same support Mali and Qatloha in Mali .. This is called double standards and I’ll call three standards and four standards .. And if there are a thousand standard I do not mind to have .. They use any paper detrimental to any country do not accept him .. Thus in the case of Syria are happy to come Qaeda .. They first dispose of these elements in different regions whether they يحاربونهم in Libya or in Mali or in Afghanistan or anywhere .. These elements come to Syria and this relieves the pressure in other areas .. On the other hand this leads to sabotage in Syria, regardless of who wins .. State or triumphed triumphed al-Qaida or other .. بالمحصلة Syria will pay the price, and the price will be dearly. West does not know or maybe does not realize now that this terrorism will return to the Western press has begun talking about the return of these risks We now see the results of vandalism for infrastructure and for sabotage in Syria thought .. This means that even if you win the state will be a weak state .. This is the aim of the west of this support .. But at the same time that the West does not know or maybe does not realize now that this terrorism will return to the Western press has begun talking about the return of these risks. In fact .. It also financed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan at the beginning and paid the price dearly later .. Now they support in Syria and Libya and elsewhere and pay the price later in the heart of Europe and in the heart of the United States. Question .. Another term heard from him for a period of humanitarian intervention. Mr. President: recently put the term humanitarian intervention, and we have seen examples of this process of humanitarian intervention .. We’ve seen in the west parking with the Palestinian people sixty years ago against the Israelis for the Palestinian people .. We saw humanitarian intervention in Vietnam .. We’ve seen in the Korean War .. In the Korean War, I read several numbers .. At a minimum three million were killed .. There are those who say that the number of fire deaths of nine million U.S. in North Korea alone .. And we have seen in Iraq, and you know better than anyone the results .. And we’ve seen recently in Libya .. And we’ve seen in Syria .. Put in parallel with another term humanitarian intervention now a moral responsibility .. I think that humanitarian intervention sole purpose of human destruction Syrian simply and moral responsibility they are talking about recently is the responsibility of the withdrawal of the moral foundations in the destruction of the moral foundations upon which the Syrian society, particularly the dignity and uphold the rights .. Means to be people خانعا and admit that he can not defeat the big powers .. Dedicate this idea and reinforcing the principle of subservience .. You should know that these terms are dedicated for us something opposite .. That we always say not for the meek ​​or dependency or to surrender or defeat. Question .. Mr. President .. Than two years ago, and the ongoing crisis .. In your opinion, what prolonged the Syrian crisis .. Mr. President: various factors .. There are external factors and internal factors .. External factors we talked about .. The internal factors When you work on the scene the problem you must be a national consensus .. There is no doubt that we had a problem in the beginning to convince many Syrians fact what is happening .. You remember the first oratory in Parliament and the criticism directed at him .. Uncle talking .. Any plot .. Whenever something happens you say it’s a conspiracy .. With that I talked about in a simple and I said at the end of the speech we are ready to face .. They said that the issue emotional issue .. Any that if I went to the shield to the problem solved .. And I said to many at the time that the case did not start to finish fervent affection .. This scheme .. It is true that there are problems and gaps and internal factors built it .. but the issue is essentially external schema .. We were in front of a problem in convincing them that what is happening in the external media and rigging that killed demonstrators is not the state .. And that there are other points of the shooting on both sides in order to inflame feelings .. It was difficult to later convince them that these militants are not free army .. It is linked to Army and not free .. Works with money and kills through the money .. It was difficult to convince them that the bulk of the paid-up demonstrations .. Look at the early stages .. When she appeared Qaeda .. It was hard to convince many people that entered the base on the line until they saw all these things with their own eyes .. Unfortunately with all of our segments see things when it is late too late .. National Valajamaa in many cases necessary .. It is an important point .. How much time we need to convince them that the state does not destroy the mosques .. The last incident at the Omari Mosque .. Seen on YouTube and on TV how they blew up the minaret .. For the massacres .. All were placed massacre draw the Syrian Arab Army .. Unfortunately with all our slice was going versa .. Create a base for chaos in Syria .. If not weapons Fbalvkr .. There are stop with the terrorists without feeling .. I Athmh bad faith, but out of ignorance and without feeling .. Pen-and-modern thought and faulty logic .. They blocked .. Some of them or less vast discovered they are wrong, but some have yet to discover the truth .. This is the biggest obstacle. Question .. These elements of the continuing crisis, Mr. President .. But what about the elements of the steadfastness of the state until now .. In spite of all this mobilization .. Not for this people for everything that is not collapsed weeks as سوقوا but a few days .. Location strength of people’s strength and weaknesses of poor people Mr. President: I did not say the state has withstood .. I tell people survived .. This great nation has stood in this war two years .. Even the people themselves do not know what is the size of the attack .. Many people do not know what is the size of the attack .. But is touching the repercussions .. However withstood .. This fact .. Great people .. This underlines the essence of Syria .. Were it not for this people for everything that is not collapsed weeks as سوقوا .. But a few days .. I do not say that withstood the state .. Location strength of people’s strength and weaknesses of poor people .. And the resistance in Lebanon in 2006, its people triumphed by fighters .. Were it not for the people supporting her and steadfast with them could not stand .. This is the situation in each country .. And Syria is no exception. Question .. Mr. President .. We talked about everything that is political and field .. But let me turn a little to the humanitarian notch .. You father .. Why تشرحون for your children happening in Syria .. What do you say to them … Mr. President: By the way .. I’ve got three sons and not five as some marketed .. To return to the question .. Topic of this year .. I أتشارك the cap with all the parents .. There is no doubt that the events experienced by Syria and its repercussions and its economic, psychological, social and what we’ve seen on our television screens and hear children in the schools of dialogues and discussions are different from what they used before the crisis will leave serious effects and negative on the future of Syria, because they will be the next generation .. This is one of the objectives of the attack .. It is, as I said just before the destruction of human .. The first thing that we need to focus on is that this child out of the Syrian crisis is more faith in God .. Because more than the words used in the sabotage is “Allahu Akbar” .. How can you explain to a child that there is no link between the words “Allahu Akbar” and between absolute evil which is killing an innocent human being .. This issue will not be easy .. We have to explain to them how this word means good and loving and national unity .. Each absolute good in. .. The child must understand this point .. Because it is the basis of this faith, then you can proceed to the other faith, a faith strongly homeland and nation and the unity of the homeland .. If you believe in Allah and the nation have a solid belief in himself and a master .. Then reassure Syria .. I think that the responsibility comes in this framework if we are to maintain our home and work on children is because we we are faced with a generation drink a lot of misconceptions and bad and evil. There is no choice before us only victory Question .. How optimistic you look at the end of the day, Mr. President .. Mr. President: if there is no optimism in Syria in general and especially those who put their lives .. As we say colloquially .. On their palms and fighting for that we should live together .. If there is not what we fought primarily optimism and what صمدنا Syrians .. But this optimism نستمده as officials and a state of the people .. And أستمده I personally meet with citizens .. But particularly from the families of the martyrs .. This powerful families .. Jabara each carry a sense of the word .. When you sit with a mother or father and brothers, sons and say we made ​​the first martyr ready to offer second, third and fourth .. This is a national and boundless .. This is what motivates us to be optimistic .. There is the option of choice but victory .. If we win Syria ends .. I do not think that this is an acceptable option for any citizen in Syria. Broadcaster .. Thank you very much. Mr. President: I also want to thank you again and I applaud all the actors in the Syrian news channel and convey through you salute each Syrian citizen in this precious occasion and the university .. The occasion of Eid Galaa .. Which I hope, God willing, to come in the next year and be Syria has exceeded its crisis and ضمدت wounds.

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

[SEE: The Obscenity of Humanitarian Warfare ]

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

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

By Atul BHARDWAJ (India)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GEOFFREY YORK

BENGHAZI, LIBYA

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your love so fond – your spirit true and gay,

Soared high to reach the stars beyond the night;

But groping still – along our dusty way –

We search the skies, above a broken flight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Documents Reveal “Al-Qaeda” Rarely Targeted Or Killed In Pak Drone Strikes–Out of 482 Pakistanis Killed, Only 6 “Al-CIA-da”

Docs Show CIA’s Mass Drone Death Strikes Killed Few al-Qaeda Leaders

Jason Mick (Blog)

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A broad range of militants were deemed to dangerous to be left alive in recent operations

Under fire over its defense over potential drone killings of Americans deemed as “terrorists” on U.S. soil, the Obama administration’s growing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is being intensively scrutinized by both politicians and the media.

I. Deadly, But Not Very Precise

New documents obtained by McClatchy’s reveal that of the 95 drone strikes in the Pakistan region between Oct. 2010 and Sept. 2011, many did not target al-Qaeda and those that did were not as accurate as thought.

The drone campaign managed to kill 482 people, but only 6 were high-ranking members of al-Qaeda.  Analyst Jonathan Landay reports, “At least 265 of up to 482 people who the U.S. intelligence reports estimated the CIA killed during a 12-month period ending in September 2011 were not senior al Qaida leaders but instead were ‘assessed’ as Afghan, Pakistani and unknown extremists.”

_{[Image Source: McClatchy's]}

In the past the Obama administration has claimed that the death strikes by armed Predator and Reaper drones, employed primarily by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, were used only on “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces.”

Micah Zenko, an expert with the bipartisan foreign-relations think-tank Council on Foreign Relations, says that the administration is misleading Americans, commenting, “[The Obama administration is] misleading the public about the scope of who can legitimately be targeted.”

_{Reaper drones have been used in numerous Pakistan and Yemen death strikes.
[Image Source: The Real Revo]}

But White House national security spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden says that the administration does not need to specify explicitly who it is targeting and to make no assumptions.  She remarks, “You should not assume [CIA Chief John Brennan] is only talking about al-Qaeda just because he doesn’t say ’al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces’ at every reference.”

So who was the administration targeting in the 43 out of 95 drone strikes that did not target al-Qaeda?  According to McClatchy’s, the documents indicate that the strikes in question targeted “Haqqani network, several Pakistani Taliban factions and the unidentified individuals described only as ‘foreign fighters’ and ‘other militants.’”

The documents also reveal that U.S. efforts to kill terrorist leaders often accidentally instead killed friends or family members.  Drone strikes were even used to target somber occasions, such as individuals leaving funerals.

II. Is the U.S. Killing Civilians, Allies Accidentally?

One major complaint of the administration’s critics is lack of transparency in the deadly offensive.  The administration has refused to release a list of “terrorist” organizations that it considers “associated forces” of al-Qaeda.  So far only Afghanistan’s Taliban has been officially acknowledged as an al-Qaeda ally.  Also not revealed was whether the administration conducted so-called “signature killings” — killings of locals who met with al-Qaeda or exhibited other behavior deemed suspicious.

_{Survivors pick through the rubble looking for relatives after an Oct. 2012 drone strike in Yemen.
[Image Source: Reuters]}

New CIA chief John Brennan in February acknowledged that the drone strikes sometimes miss the mark and kill innocent civilians, but he defended the program saying the U.S. paid the families of people it accidentally killed.  He commented, “Where possible, we also work with local governments to gather facts, and, if appropriate, provide condolence payments to families of those killed.”

Condolence payments range from $1,000 to $7,500 according to various reports [1][2][3], depending on the circumstances.

_{As CIA director  have grown.
[Image Source: BIJ (top); The Long War Journal (bottom left)}

_{; Reuters (bottom right)]}

Four American citizens with ties to terrorism — Kamal Derwish, Anwar al-Awlaki, 16-year-old Abdulahman al-Awlaki, and Samir Khan — have been killed to date in drone strikes in Yemen.  Family members of the dead American citizens have sued the Obama administration with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In August 2012, a drone strike in Yemen killed a 40-year-old moderate cleric Salem bin Ahmed bin Ali Jaber just two days after he delivered a speech denouncing al-Qaeda.  The irony is that the al-Qaeda officers who were targeted in the strike, reportedly came into town to threaten Mr. Jaber for his support of the U.S. and pacifistic leanings.

_{Some feel the President shouldn’t have the power to order the warrantless killings of Americans on U.S. soil. [Image Source: Drone Wars UK]}

It’s clear more questions need to be asked about the program.  But don’t expect the answers to come easy from an administration who explicitly ordered its Press Secretary to dodge questions about drone strikes.

Source: McClatchy’s

Obama Admin. Opens Washington Office for MEK Iranian Terrorist Group One Block From White House

Formerly Banned Iranian Group Opens Office Near White House Payvand Iran News… By Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL WASHINGTON — Until not long ago the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) was on the list of the U.S. State Department’s terrorist organizations. On April 11, that seemed like a distant memory as the group celebrated the opening of its Washington office just a block away from the White House, with tea and Iranian snacks. The U.S. representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Soona Samsami, says that the U.S. policy of engagement with Tehran has failed and it’s time to direct all efforts toward democratic change in Iran. The opening of the office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella group dominated by the MKO (aka the People’s Mujahedin of Iran), was attended by several former U.S. officials, NCRI members, and their legal team, who described it as a “great day” for the Iranian people, for democracy in Iran, and for the values the United States cherishes. The group’s U.S. representative, Soona Samsami, a petite woman wearing a blue head scarf and a blue suit, referred to the NCRI as “Iran’s main opposition movement” and said that the opening of the office came at a crucial moment in Iran’s history. Samsami added that now that the State Department has delisted the group — which it branded a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and banned from operating in the United States in 2003 — the principle obstacle to change in the Islamic republic had been removed. She said that the U.S. policy of engagement with Tehran had failed and it’s time to direct all efforts toward democratic change in Iran. Without offering specifics, she said the NCRI was determined “to maximize” its efforts toward that objective. Speaking To Iranians? The opening of a Washington office is likely to upset Iranian officials, who blasted the delisting of the MKO, which they consider a terrorist organization. Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corporation, says the opening of the NCRI office will certainly not improve U.S.-Iran ties. But its effect should not be exaggerated. “The [government of the] Islamic republic, like many Iranians, may have distaste for the MKO, but it also realizes that the group’s capabilities are limited,” he says. U.S. officials have said that they don’t consider the MKO a viable Iranian opposition group or believe it can promote democratic values in Iran. The group, which many Iranians dislike because it sided with Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, is widely seen in the country as a cult with reportedly rigid rules for its members. Yet at the April 11 reception, speakers were full of praise, describing the MKO as an organization that reflects the views of the Iranian people and is capable of bringing democratic change to the country. Among those speaking was President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, U.S. General James Jones. He said the opening of the office was an “important moment” and “a step in the right direction.” Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley, former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy, and the former deputy director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, John Sano, were also in attendance. In the past, former U.S. officials have reportedly been paid large sums of money to speak at the MKO’s public events and lobby the State Department on its behalf. Crowley told RFE/RL he hadn’t been paid to attend the event and make brief remarks. “I support the cause of democratic change in Iran,” he said. He also said Washington would do well to listen to the MKO. “The NCRI has demonstrated itself over a number of years to be an organized outside opposition, interested in a different kind of Iran. They are one voice. I think the United States would be well to listen to that voice and see how it influences U.S. thinking and U.S. policy,” he said. “One day we’re going to celebrate the opening of the same office in Tehran.” Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, says the opening of the D.C. office is a victory for the MKO that will allow the group to expand its lobbying efforts. “Given the importance of Washington, D.C., the MKO will be able to do more lobbying and work with neocons to push more sanctions on Iran,” Boroujerdi says. But he says the efforts are unlikely to change U.S. policies toward Iran, because the Obama administration has “made it clear that they’re not like-minded with the MKO.” On this occasion, however, supporters had nothing but high hopes. As one told RFE/RL, “One day we’re going to celebrate the opening of the same office in Tehran.” Copyright (c) 2013 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org Related Stories: Iran condemns US for ‘double standards’ over MEK terror de-listing MEK Delisting is a Gift to the Regime, a Disaster for the Iranian People and the US Five lessons from the de-listing of MEK as a terrorist group Iran cuts off Google services Iranian exiles, DC lobbyists and the campaign to delist the MEK How ‘Terrorists’ Become ‘Freedom Fighters’?: Tom Tancredo and the Iranian Mujahedin MEK Pays US Officials, But Where Do The Iranian Exiles Get Their Money? U.S. Officials Must Cut Ties with Confirmed Iranian Terror Group Behind the Assassination of Iranian Scientists: The Original Sin Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News   … Payvand News – 04/12/13 … – © Copyright 2013 NetNative (All Rights Reserved)

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“I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.”–A. Judd

[If the Democratic Party activist, who spied on McConnell had actually recorded malicious plans to lie about the "flaky" Hollywood actress, rather than simply catching the politicians discussing the known negatives about the little "briar-hopper," (Ohio slang for Kentuckian, Tennesseans are "ridge-runners"), then this all might have turned-out differently.  There was no slander, if they were telling the truth.]

“The ‘flaky’ actress ‘openly supports’ President Obama. She’s an ‘out of touch’ Hollywood liberal. She once said San Francisco is her ‘American city home’and has a cellphone with a 415 prefix. She’s against coal, for cap-and-trade. She supports Obamacare, abortion rights and gay marriage. She views Christianity as a ‘vestige of patriarchy.’ She enjoys ‘native faith practices’ and has used the phrase ‘Brother Donkey’ and ‘Sister Bird’ to describe animals’…. And then comes the rough stuff: ‘This sounds extreme,’ says a voice on the tape, ‘but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.’….excerpt from a Judd speech:’The last time I came home from a trip, I absolutely flipped out when I saw pink fuzzy socks on a rack. I mean, I can never anticipate what is going to push me over the edge.’”–LA Times

Progress Kentucky has close ties to Democratic Party

Matthew Vadum

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The left-wing organization reported to be behind the alleged illegal wiretapping of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office is not, as some media coverage suggests, a an independent agent operating but a group with close ties to the Democratic Party.

In fact Shawn Reilly, the executive director of Progress Kentucky, the controversial super PAC allegedly involved in the recording, is a notable Democratic Party activist and veteran community organizer.

If Reilly has ceased to be a senior Democratic Party official, it is a very recent development.

Reilly attended the 2012 Democratic national convention in Charlotte, N.C, describing himself in a photo on his Twitter account as a delegate to the convention. He also describes himself as a delegate in another photo that shows him in a television screen grab from CNN coverage of the convention.

“Before starting Progress Kentucky, he was a member of the executive committee of the state Democratic Party,” according to a Huffington Post article from January that Progress Kentucky posted on its own website.

Although Reilly appears to be a member of the Democratic Party establishment, media outlets are now propagating a version of the illegal bugging story in which Democratic officials claim to have been blindsided by a scandal foisted on them by an unaccountable outside group.

Jacob Conway, a member of the executive committee of the state Democratic Party in Jefferson County, Kentucky, told Fox that two Progress Kentucky leaders admitted to him that they secretly recorded a February strategy meeting McConnell held with aides. The senator and campaign staffers discussed the approaching campaign and the political vulnerabilities of actress Ashley Judd, who at the time was considering running against McConnell next year.

Conway identified the two leaders as Reilly and a man named Curtis Morrison.

“I don’t know why they were at the grand opening of his campaign office. … They overheard the conversation going on,” Conway said. “To me it was an extremely tacky conversation … but it was a private conversation nonetheless.”

Conway added, “They told me they were there. They told me they were in the hallway. They have a recording. So you know, you can draw your own conclusions.”

Conway said he came forward because he didn’t want the unfolding scandal to hurt the Democratic Party.

Reilly previously worked as an organizer for a left-wing anti-war group.

In 2007 he was a “field organizer” for the Iraq Summer Campaign, a project of Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

Daily Kos diarist “briansmith” brags that the group silenced McConnell when he tried to make a speech at a public event in 2007. “The din of opposition was so great that Mitch bailed from the podium in mid-sentence,” he writes.

According to his LinkedIn bio, Reilly became executive director of Progress Kentucky in January 2013. From August 2008 to January 2013 he was a financial advisor in the Louisville office of asset management firm Waddell & Reed.

Progress Kentucky has certainly been stirring the pot lately.

In February, the super PAC received a warning letter from the Federal Election Commission after failing to disclose donors and expenditures.

Progress Kentucky was also accused of racism after its tweets mocked the Chinese ethnicity of McConnell’s wife, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.

“Dufus” AF General Wants NATO To Arm Only the “Nice” Syrian Terrorists

US Gen. backs lethal aid to Syria militants

Gen. Philip Breedlove, the US president’s nominee to become NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, says he backs providing lethal assistance to militants in Syria.

At his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, Breedlove said he supports the idea of arming the militants in their fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Breedlove, who is serving as the Commander of the US Air Force in Europe and Africa, also said that it was important for Washington to ensure that the arms do not fall into the wrong hands in Syria.

“If we could assure that the weapons were going to the right people and that we would not have to face them in the future, that would be helpful to removing the regime [in Syria],” Breedlove said.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization approved the nomination of Philip Breedlove to the post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe in March.

Washington has publicly claimed that it only offers “nonlethal” aid to the militants trying to overthrow the Syrian government.

However, media reports have indicated that the US trains the foreign-sponsored militants in the crisis-hit country, in addition to coordinating arms shipments to them.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants fighting in the country are foreign nationals.

MN/MHB

President Sleiman Wants International Community To Stop Zionist Violations of Lebanon’s Border

President Sleiman: Israeli Threats against Lebanon Violate 1701

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman urged the international community on Thursday to pressure the Zionist entity into ending its threats against Lebanon and slammed the Jewish authorities for violating U.N. Security Council resolution 1701. In a statement issued by Baabda palace, Sleiman said: “The international community should pressure Israel to stop adopting the policy of threats and aggression against Lebanon and to cooperate with international and Arab peace initiatives in the Middle East.” “Israel’s continued threats to launch a military operation against Lebanon in addition to daily violations of (Lebanese) airspace are flagrant violations of resolution 1701,” which enforced a ceasefire that ended the Zionist army’s inconclusive 2006 war against Lebanon, he said. The Jewish entity regularly sends warplanes on surveillance flights over Lebanon. Last week, the Zionist so-called Defense Forces Home Front Command Chief Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg warned that the next war with Lebanon will be ten times fiercer than in 2006. He noted that prior to 2006, Hezbollah was capable of launching 500 rockets at Gush Dan in the occupied territories. He said should a war erupt today, Gush Dan would be the target of some 5,000 Hezbollah rockets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fat Pig of Qatar Struts and Twirls His Curly Tail At Captive Arab Summit In Doha-(Updated)

Emir of Qatar Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, center, attends the opening session of the Arab League Summit in Doha, Qatar, Tuesday, March 26, 2013. Syrian opposition representatives took the country’s seat for the first time at an Arab League summit that opened in Qatar on Tuesday, a significant diplomatic boost for the forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime. (AP Photo/Ghiath Mohamad)

Arab League summit showcases Qatar’s swagger

Country has stepped into void of leadership.

By BRIAN MURPHY

The Associated Press

First Published 5 hours ago • Updated 5 hours ago

Doha, Qatar • Qatar’s emir looked over an assembly of Arab leaders Tuesday as both cordial host and impatient taskmaster. His welcoming remarks to kings, sheiks and presidents across the Arab world quickly shifted to Qatar’s priorities: Rallying greater support for Syrian rebels and helping Palestinians with efforts such as a newly proposed $1 billion fund to protect Jerusalem’s Arab heritage.

No one seemed surprised at the paternal tone or the latest big-money initiative. In a matter of just a few years, hyper-wealthy Qatar has increasingly staked out a leadership role once held by Egypt and helped redefine how Arab states measure influence and ambition.

Little more than a spot to sink oil and gas wells a generation ago, Qatar is now a key player in nearly every Middle Eastern shakeout since the Arab Spring, using checkbook diplomacy in settings as diverse as Syria’s civil war, Italian artisan workshops struggling with the euro financial crisis, and the soccer pitches in France as owners of the Paris Saint-Germain team.

As hosts of an Arab League summit this week, Qatar gets another chance to showcase its swagger.

With power, however, come tensions. Qatar has been portrayed as an arrogant wunderkind in places such as Iraq and Lebanon where some factions object to its rising stature, and Qatar’s growing independent streak in policy-making has raised concerns among its Gulf Arab partners. It also faces questions — as do other Gulf nations and Western allies — over support for some Arab Spring uprisings while remaining loyal to the embattled monarchy in neighboring Bahrain.

“The adage that money buys influence could very well be the motto of Qatar,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of regional politics at Emirates University outside Abu Dhabi. “But it goes beyond that. Qatar also has learned the value of being flexible and, at the same time, thinking big.”

It’s hard these days to find a point on the Mideast map without some link back to Qatar.

In recent years, Qatar mediated disputes among Lebanese factions and prodded Sudan’s government into peace talks with rebels in the Darfur region. Qatar’s rulers even broke ranks with Gulf partners and allowed an Israeli trade office — almost a de facto diplomatic post — before it was closed in early 2009 in protest of Israeli attacks on Gaza. And Doha has been atop the Arab media pecking order as headquarters of the pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera, which was founded with Qatari government money in 1996 and is now expanding its English-speaking empire into the United States.

But it was the Arab Spring that opened the way for Qatar to stake out an even bigger role in regional affairs, filling the vacuum for regional powerhouse Egypt as that country was mired in turmoil after the revolution that ousted longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.

Qatar was among the few Arab states offering active military assistance to NATO-led attacks against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Libya and, at the same time, was a key arms-and-money pipeline for Libyan rebels. In Egypt, Mubarak’s fall offered Qatar’s rapid-reaction outreach a head start over other Gulf states because of its longstanding ties with the now-governing Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who attended the Doha summit, has turned to Qatar to help prop up the country’s stumbling economy.

“We expect that financial pledges will be respected,” Morsi said in a message to Qatar and other Arab countries that have promised money for Egypt.

Almost nothing happens in the Syrian opposition without a voice from Qatar, which has played matchmaker for a broader political coalition against Syrian President Bashar Assad and leads appeals to provide rebel fighters more heavy weapons in attempts to turn the tide in the 2-year-old civil war. On Tuesday, Qatar led the official transfer of Syria’s Arab League seat from the Assad government to the opposition Syrian National Coalition.

The New York Times reported Monday that the CIA has helped Turkey and Arab governments, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to sharply increase military aid to Syria’s opposition in recent months with secret airlifts or arms and equipment. The Associated Press also reported, citing American officials and others, that the U.S. is training secular Syrian fighters in Jordan in a bid to stem the influence of Islamist radicals in the splintered Syrian opposition.

To view Qatar’s rise as purely a triumph of extreme wealth gives an incomplete picture, analysts say. True, Qatar’s pockets are deep. The most recent budget surplus swelled to $26 billion and Qatar has one of the world’s most well-heeled sovereign wealth funds whose acquisitions include stakes in luxury brands such as Tiffany and the Valentino fashion house as well as David Beckham’s new club, Paris Saint-Germain.

But Qatar represents a shift in Arab clout toward a new style: A country squarely in the Western-leaning camp, but far more willing to embark on policies and plans that could ruffle the U.S.

“Qatar believes it doesn’t have to wait for others to try to shape the direction and conversation in the region,” said Theodore Karasik, a security and political affairs analyst at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “That kind of confidence opens up all kinds of new political equations.”

A clear example was a centerpiece of the Arab League summit welcoming address by Qatar’s ruler, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who pledged $250 million toward a proposed $1 billion fund to defend the Arab identity and history of Jerusalem against an expanding Israeli presence in traditional Arab districts.

“The Palestinian, Arab and Muslim rights in Jerusalem are not negotiable, and Israel must realize this,” the emir said after telling other Arab states that it is their responsibility to kick in another $750 million.

Such Qatar-led initiatives are likely to deepen its influence among Palestinians and, indirectly, appear to further challenge Washington as the main outside policy-shaper in Israel-Palestinian disputes. Last year, Qatar’s emir traveled to the Gaza Strip with promises for funds and assistance that also sought to undercut Iran as the principal backer for Hamas.

Hamas on Tuesday welcomed the emir’s invitation to meet in Cairo with the rival Palestinian Authority for another round of reconciliation talks, which began last year in Qatar.

“Qatar has money to spend and the political will to use it as an extension of its foreign policy,” according to Karasik, the analyst. “That’s a powerful combination.”

The Qatar government guest book is a case in point.

Qatar has offered debt-battered Italy and Greece separate 1 billion euro ($1.29 billion) funds for small businesses and traditional workshops if the countries match the amount. In the past few months, the prime ministers of Italy and Greece have come calling in Doha with words of thanks.

Lebanon Wants Rebel Arms Flow Halted, Arabs Want To Arm Sunni Factions, Government

Doha summit pledges support for Lebanon’s unity, stability

Sleiman meets with Abdel-Aziz in Doha.

BEIRUT: Arab leaders meeting Tuesday in Qatar expressed solidarity with Lebanon, promising political and economic support for its government to help it maintain the country’s national unity, security, stability and sovereignty over all its territories.

The leaders praised the Lebanese Army’s role in asserting state sovereignty in the south and safeguarding stability and civil peace, according to a final statement issued at the end of a one-day summit chaired in Doha by Qatari’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

The Arab League summit underlined the need for bolstering the capabilities of the Lebanese Army and security forces to enable them to carry out their security missions.

However, it was not immediately clear whether the leaders would provide military or financial assistance to shore up the Army’s military capabilities.

The summit also voiced its support for “the right of Lebanon’s government, people and resistance to liberate and recover the Shebaa Farms and the village of Ghajar, [areas occupied by Israel], and defend Lebanon against any [Israeli] aggression by all available means.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon employed its policy of disassociation toward the crisis in neighboring Syria during the Doha summit and urged members of the Arab League to shoulder responsibility in protecting its stability.

Addressing the summit, President Michel Sleiman urged both local parties and regional powers to help implement the Baabda Declaration, which calls for distancing Lebanon from regional conflicts, particularly the 2-year-old bloody conflict in Syria.

“Out of fear of the Lebanese being plunged into strife and violence as a result of the ongoing fighting in Syrian territories, the parties to the Lebanese National Dialogue Committee agreed on the so-called Baabda Declaration on June 11 last year to spare Lebanon the potential negative repercussions of the Syrian crisis by distancing it from regional and international conflicts and [regional] axis policies,” Sleiman said in his speech.

“On this basis, we disassociate ourselves from the [summit] decision pertaining to Syria,” he added.

Sleiman was apparently referring to the Arab summit’s decision to give Syria’s Arab League seat to Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, leader of the Syrian National Coalition, and also to allow member states to offer military assistance to Syrian rebels.

Sleiman told the leaders that Lebanon’s policy of neutrality toward the Syrian crisis needed to be strengthened with their help, citing the failure of Lebanese sides to abide by the Baabda Declaration.

“Nine months since the adoption of the Baabda Declaration, there is a pressing need to bolster it internally and regionally in light of opposing [domestic] sides having failed to abide by its provisions, which called for keeping [Lebanon] away [from regional developments] and preventing Lebanon from being used as a sanctuary, conduit or base for smuggling of weapons and fighters to Syria,” he said.

“But this also requires that the Syrian opposition sides in turn cease using Lebanon and its territories for military operations,” Sleiman added.

He said Lebanon and other Arab countries had the duty of ensuring adherence to the Baabda Declaration and preserving the country’s stability.

“The responsibility of abiding to the Baabda Declaration, maintaining the stability of Lebanon, its unity and civil peace is Lebanon’s responsibility first and foremost,” Sleiman said. “But from the standpoint of sisterly [relations] and solidarity, it is a joint Lebanese-Arab responsibility.”

Sleiman also said Lebanon’s foreign policy aimed at preserving the best of the ties with Arab states.

“Despite the freedom of expression in Lebanon, within the limits of the law, it is certain that the policy of the Lebanese state, represented by its president here, is one of keenness of preserving the best of ties with sisterly Arab states on the basis of ties and solidarity and a rejection of interference in their internal affairs,” he said.

Sleiman met on the sidelines of the summit separately with Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdel-Aziz, Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, Jordan’s King Abdullah, in addition to heads of governments and foreign ministers.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2013/Mar-27/211572-doha-summit-pledges-support-for-lebanons-unity-stability.ashx#ixzz2OjjTDJVm
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)