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Russian Military Adviser Killed in Syria, Says Kremlin - 0 views

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    Russian accusations that one of their military advisers was killed in Syria are made in the midst of Russian-led bombings of the region. The bombings have effectively halted all sorts of peace talks in the area, perpetuating the violence.
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Syrian Civil War: New Russian Weapons Sent To Assad's Forces - 0 views

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    An article from the International Business Times discussing the involvement of Russian troops in the Syrian Civil War and a video of Russian troops "training" in Syria. I've put the word "training" because I believe that as much is I believe that as much as I believe Pres. Kennedy when he said we sent "advisers" to Vietnam.
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'Hezbollah still far from realizing its goal of attacking Israel from Syria' - Middle E... - 0 views

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    Ultimately, Hezbollah's goal is to turn Syria into an extended springboard for attacks against Israel, but it is still far off from being able to realize this vision, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
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Houthis request Iran to stay out of Yemen crisis - 0 views

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    According to the article, a Houthi official rebuffed Iran after one of its generals offered to send military advisers to help Houthi forces. The Iran have long been supporting the Houthis as they fight against Saudi-led forces.
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Saudi oil minister adviser: annual oil demand seen growing up to 1 mln bpd - 0 views

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    Saudi Arabia's oil minister claims expected annual growth by up to 1 million barrels per day
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Blair's doctrine in Egypt: the 'anti-terrorism' industry and counter-revolution | Middl... - 0 views

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      This article on Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the UK, talks about how he is now advising Sisi in Egypt on "economic reform". This article critiques Blair's message by saying that his "anti-terrorism" tactics are actually preventing Egypt from moving forward, it just promotes the status quo. This article goes on to talk about how to control state terrorism and non-state terrorism. The argument is that terrorism is a reaction, and when you have nothing to legitimize terrorism as a reaction to non-state issues, what can you do? Basically this article outlines what the UK thinks Egypt should do to regain stabilization after the uprisings.
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Can Libya Rebuild Itself After 40 Years of Gaddafi? - 0 views

  • the man has hollowed out the Libyan state, eviscerated all opposition in Libyan society, and, in effect, created a political tabula rasa on which a newly free people will now have to scratch out a future.
  • Jamahiriya, a political system that is run directly by tribesmen without the intermediation of state institutions
  • the problem is, of course, that much like in the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, virtually everyone at one point or another had to deal with the regime to survive.
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  • Libya is truly a case apart.
  • the disastrous Italian legacy in Libya, has been a constant element in Gaddafi’s speeches since he took power
  • inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser, neighboring Egypt’s president, whose ideas of Arab nationalism and of the possibility of restoring glory to the Arab world, would fuel the first decade of Gaddafi’s revolution.
  • he was unimpressed with the niceties of international diplomacy,
  • In a brilliant move that co-opted tribal elders, many of whom were also military commanders, he created the Social Leadership People’s Committee, through which he could simultaneously control the tribes and segments of the country’s military.
  • When it turned out that Libya, which was still a decentralized society in 1969, had little appetite for his centralizing political vision and remained largely indifferent to his proposals, the young idealist quickly turned activist.
  • Green Book, a set of slim volumes published in the mid-1970s that contain Gaddafi’s political philosophy, a blueprint is offered for a dramatic restructuring of Libya’s economy, politics, and society. In principle, Libya would become an experiment in democracy. In reality, it became a police state where every move of its citizens was carefully watched by a growing number of security apparatuses and revolutionary committees that owed loyalty directly to Gaddafi.
  • Having crushed all opposition by the mid-1970s, the regime systematically snuffed out any group that could potentially oppose it—any activity that could be construed as political opposition was punishable by death, which is one reason why a post-Gaddafi Libya, unlike a post-Mubarak Egypt, can have no ready-made opposition in a position to fill the vacuum.
  • The tribes—the Warfalla, the Awlad Busayf, the Magharha, the Zuwaya, the Barasa, and the smallest of them all, the Gadafa, to which he belonged—offered a natural form of political affiliation, a tribal ethos that could be tapped into for support. And perhaps, in the aftermath of Gaddafi, they could serve as a nucleus around which to build a new political system.
  • Gaddafi feared they might coalesce into groups opposing his rule. So, during the first two decades after the 1969 coup, he tried to erase their influence, arguing that they were an archaic element in a modern society.
  • comprehensive reconstruction of everything civic, political, legal, and moral that makes up a society and its government.
  • After systematically destroying local society, after using the tribes to cancel each other out, after aborting methodically the emergence of a younger generation that could take over Libya’s political life—all compounded by the general incoherence of the country’s administrative and bureaucratic institutions—Gaddafi will have left a new Libya with severe and longstanding challenges.
  • the growing isolation of Libya as international sanctions were imposed.
  • Lockerbie was the logical endpoint for a regime that had lost all international legitimacy.
  • while the regime still had the coercive power to put down any uprisings that took place in the 1990s, it became clear to Gaddafi’s closest advisers that the potential for unrest had reached unprecedented levels.
  • way out was to come to an agreement with the West that would end the sanctions, allow Libya to refurbish an aging oil infrastructure, and provide a safety valve by permitting Libyans to travel abroad once more.
  • intent to renounce weapons of mass destruction in December 2003—after a long process of behind-the-scenes diplomacy initially spearheaded by Britain
  • “The Revolution Everlasting” was one of the enduring slogans of his Libya, inscribed everywhere from bridges to water bottles.
  • regime that had, for four decades, mismanaged the country’s economy and humiliated its citizens
  • country was split in half, with eastern Cyrenaica and its main city Benghazi effectively independent—a demonstration of the kind of people’s power Gaddafi had always advocated. Reality, in effect, outgrew the caricature.
  • used a set of divide-and-rule policies that not only kept his opponents sundered from each other, but had also completely enfeebled any social or political institution in the country.
  • Beyond Gaddafi, there exists only a great political emptiness, a void that Libya somehow will need to fill.
  • the creation of a modern state where Libyans become true citizens, with all the rights and duties this entails.
  • the terrorist incidents
  • Regimes can use oil revenues strategically to provide patronage that effectively keeps them in power.
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    This article from News Week basically paints a picture of Libyan history and how Gaddafi's reign devastated the state economically, socially, and politically. Author Dirk Vandewalle uses the phrase "a political tabula rasa" which in Latin means a blank slate, to describe the fate of Libya after Gaddafi's rule and convey the extent to which the country has to literally reconstruct every component that makes up a society and its government. He highlights major events that led to the downfall of both the Gaddafi regime and the Libyan state as a whole such as Arab nationalism, Jamahiriya, the Green Book, security apparatuses snuffing all opposition, terrorist incidents, isolation and international sanctions, the Lockerbie bombing, weapons of mass destruction, human right violations, divide and rule policies, and his use of oil revenue to fuel his insurgency. Vandewalle concludes the article with uncertain ideas thoughts towards Libya's future and the way the state is going to literally rebuild themselves from this "blank slate" that Gaddafi left behind. 
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Reckless onslaught could aid ISIL, military warns - 0 views

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    Presidential candidates and hawkish members of Congress are stepping up their cries for more robust military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - but Pentagon leaders and government terrorism advisers caution that a reckless escalation of the war could help the group recruit disaffected Muslims around the world.
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Is Saudi Arabia guilty of war crimes in Yemen? - 0 views

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    This is interview with the former adviser to the Saudi royal family, Jamal Khashoggi. According to him, Saudi Arabia military intervention in Yemen is to prevent the country from succumbing to a sectarian dictatorship.
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Egypt fills its prisons, but don't worry, it'll make more - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of th... - 0 views

  • gypt's worsening human rights abuses are not going unnoticed.
  • People are being assaulted on many fronts, from travel restrictions and false imprisonment to limits on freedom of expression, torture and killings.
  • pproved 16 new prisons in only 2½ years in response to the detention of thousands of young people. Some facilities are still under construction. The number of prisons in Egypt has risen from 42 to 52 since 2011,
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  • 10,000 detainees are under investigation or awaiting trial in detention centers and prisons, and Eid wrote in a Jan. 13 Twitter post that Egypt now houses around 60,000 political prisoners.
  • The statement condemned the arrest of journalists and a number of activists affiliated with certain social movements, primarily the April 6 Youth Movement. T
  • he movement has said it considers the regime’s attempts to crush it as "failures," further characterizing this era of Egypt’s judiciary as bleak.
  • Egyptian authorities are not content with merely preventing some citizens active in society from leaving the country. They also are barring the return of others who they allege pose a security risk
  • he was questioned for about 16 hours and her personal laptop and cellphone were searched. She was subsequently denied entry and deported back to Tunisia, an incident that rights organizations consider blatant police interference in academic liberties.
  • In October, Alexandria University canceled, for “security reasons,” a lecture by Essam Heggy, a NASA scientist and former adviser to Mansour. Heggy is known for his critical views about the Egyptian government.
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    This is an article which criticizes all of the Prison growth in Egypt. It has risen from 40 into the 60's in the last two years. There have been huge human rights violations involving the police.
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Iraq divisions undermine battle against IS - BBC News - 0 views

  • More than in any other country, Iraq's future is intimately bound up with the fate of self-styled Islamic State (IS).
  • Territory that was lost in a day or two is taking many months to claw painfully back.
  • But even if initially successful, such an ambitious project, indeed, any further moves to oust IS, could go badly wrong if the foundations are not sound
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  • The IS fighters were able to lodge so easily in the Sunni Arab heartlands because the people there had been largely alienated by the sectarian policies and practices of the Shia Arab-dominated Baghdad government under Nouri al-Maliki, who was finally prised out of the prime minister's office in August 2014.
  • gislation to empower the Sunnis by devolving security and financial responsibilities to the provinces has not happened.
  • Nor have measures to reverse the persecution of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, or the random arrests, detentions, and to assuage other Sunni grievances.
  • he US, who have about 3,500 military personnel training and advising Iraqi government forces on the ground, also seems to be aware that military muscle is not enough.
  • If that process continues and the militants are defeated, the way Iraq fits together - if it does - will be decided by who pushes them out, and how the resulting vacuum is filled.
  • osul is an almost wholly Sunni city with a population of about two million.
  • Some residents may still see IS - about 85% of whose fighters in Iraq are believed to be Iraqi - as their protectors against an Iranian-backed, Shia-dominated Baghdad government.
  • When the Iraqi army collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the IS eruption in June 2014, it was a motley array of hastily-assembled Shia irregulars, loosely banded into the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) that prevented the militants reaching Baghda
  • Ramadi gave a boost to the embattled Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi.He has scant support even from his own Shia Daawa party, and is seen across the board by Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians as weak, hesitant, lacking in leadership and unable to stand up to the militias.But there was a down-side to the Ramadi victory too: heavy destruction, and the displacement of the entire population.
  • Nor can the formula that finally and slowly worked in Ramadi simply be applied at Mosul. It took government forces with coalition backing seven months to regain Ramadi. Mosul is 10 times bigger.
  • He omitted to mention coalition air support, which would also clearly be crucial to the campaign.Some Iraqi analysts believe outside ground forces would also be needed. US military leaders, while reticent, clearly want to up the pace and have not ruled out more boots on the ground. In the absence of serious moves towards national reconciliation, one senior government figure also saw a campaign to retake Mosul as a vital way of forging national unity.
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    This article is about the Iraq divisions which undermine the Iraqi purpose of war. This is a result of an unstable foundation to build plans off of. They are trying to find foundation because they do not want to fall back into an IS state five years down the line. 
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Oil's Decline Takes Toll on Saudi Conglomerate - 0 views

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    A construction conglomerate at the center of Saudi Arabia's petrodollar-fueled economic boom is teetering under billions of dollars of debt, bankers and financial advisers familiar with the matter said, showing the strain of cheap oil on the kingdom and its companies.
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