Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items tagged Islamic-Conference

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Paul Merrell

Al Qaeda: The Database | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...24738

war & peace al-Qaeda database

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • This article originally published by Global Research in 2005 sheds light on the nature of Al Qaeda, an intelligence construct used by Washington to destabilize and destroy sovereign countries, while sustaining the illusion of  an outside enemy, which threatens the security of the Western World.
  • Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. “I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .
  • “In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs. “It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network. “[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.” “In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium. “These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida. “Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are ‘rogue states’ and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world. “Because of the presence of ‘rogue states,’ it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the ‘rogue states’ used to fight. And the ‘rogue states’ included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages.
  • “Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property . . . The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to ‘punish’ Prime Minister Erdogan for being a ‘toot tepid’ Islamic politician. ” . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact ‘rogue states,” specially the US and other NATO countries. ” Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the ‘liberal” economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them. “The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”
  • In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel’s case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel’s character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system “got him” for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group. It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of “Al Qaeda.” We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. French officer Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel, who knew the truth about “Al Qaeda” — Another target of the neo-cons.
  • This article originally published by Global Research in 2005 sheds light on the nature of Al Qaeda, an intelligence construct used by Washington to destabilize and destroy sovereign countries, while sustaining the illusion of  an outside enemy, which threatens the security of the Western World. *       *       * Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. “I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .
  • “Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment. “For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ‘You’ll be noted in ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ‘You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ‘You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ‘the decision database.’ It meant ‘you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ‘Al Qaida.’
Paul Merrell

Al Qaeda: The Database | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...24738

war & peace al-Qaeda-history U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence. “I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . . “Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment. “For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ‘You’ll be noted in ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ‘You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ‘You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ‘the decision database.’ It meant ‘you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ‘Al Qaida.’
  • “In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs. “It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network. “[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.”
  • “In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat. “In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium. “These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida. “Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are ‘rogue states’ and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “Because of the presence of ‘rogue states,’ it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the ‘rogue states’ used to fight. And the ‘rogue states’ included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages.
  • “Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property . . . The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to ‘punish’ Prime Minister Erdogan for being a ‘toot tepid’ Islamic politician. ” . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact ‘rogue states,” specially the US and other NATO countries. ” Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the ‘liberal” economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them. “The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”
  • In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel’s case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel’s character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system “got him” for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group. It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of “Al Qaeda.” We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. French officer Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel, who knew the truth about “Al Qaeda” — Another target of the neo-cons.
Paul Merrell

How Many Muslim Countries Has the U.S. Bombed Or Occupied Since 1980? - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...u-s-bombed-occupied-since-1980

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy War-on-Muslims

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Barack Obama, in his post-election press conference yesterday, announced that he would seek an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) from the new Congress, one that would authorize Obama’s bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria—the one he began three months ago. If one were being generous, one could say that seeking congressional authorization for a war that commenced months ago is at least better than fighting a war even after Congress explicitly rejected its authorization, as Obama lawlessly did in the now-collapsed country of Libya.
  • To get a full scope of American violence in the world, it is worth asking a broader question: how many countries in the Islamic world has the U.S. bombed or occupied since 1980? That answer was provided in a recent Washington Post op-ed by the military historian and former U.S. Army Col. Andrew Bacevich: As America’s efforts to “degrade and ultimately destroy” Islamic State militants extent into Syria, Iraq War III has seamlessly morphed into Greater Middle East Battlefield XIV. That is, Syria has become at least the 14th country in the Islamic world that U.S. forces have invaded or occupied or bombed, and in which American soldiers have killed or been killed. And that’s just since 1980.
  • Let’s tick them off: Iran (1980, 1987-1988), Libya (1981, 1986, 1989, 2011), Lebanon (1983), Kuwait (1991), Iraq (1991-2011, 2014-), Somalia (1992-1993, 2007-), Bosnia (1995), Saudi Arabia (1991, 1996), Afghanistan (1998, 2001-), Sudan (1998), Kosovo (1999), Yemen (2000, 2002-), Pakistan (2004-) and now Syria. Whew. Bacevich’s count excludes the bombing and occupation of still other predominantly Muslim countries by key U.S. allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, carried out with crucial American support. It excludes coups against democratically elected governments, torture, and imprisonment of people with no charges. It also, of course, excludes all the other bombing and invading and occupying that the U.S. has carried out during this time period in other parts of the world, including in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as various proxy wars in Africa.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • When Obama began bombing targets inside Syria in September, I noted that it was the seventh predominantly Muslim country that had been bombed by the U.S. during his presidency (that did not count Obama’s bombing of the Muslim minority in the Philippines). I also previously noted that this new bombing campaign meant that Obama had become the fourth consecutive U.S. President to order bombs dropped on Iraq. Standing alone, those are both amazingly revealing facts. American violence is so ongoing and continuous that we barely notice it any more.
  • There is an awful lot to be said about the factions in the west which devote huge amounts of their time and attention to preaching against the supreme primitiveness and violence of Muslims.
  • Employing the defining tactic of bigotry, they love to highlight the worst behavior of individual Muslims as a means of attributing it to the group as a whole, while ignoring (often expressly) the worst behavior of individual Jews and/or their own groups (they similarly cite the most extreme precepts of Islam while ignoring similarly extreme ones from Judaism). That’s because, as Rula Jebreal told Bill Maher last week, if these oh-so-brave rationality warriors said about Jews what they say about Muslims, they’d be fired. But of all the various points to make about this group, this is always the most astounding: those same people, who love to denounce the violence of Islam as some sort of ultimate threat, live in countries whose governments unleash far more violence, bombing, invasions, and occupations than anyone else by far. That is just a fact.
  • Those who sit around in the U.S. or the U.K. endlessly inveighing against the evil of Islam, depicting it as the root of violence and evil (the “mother lode of bad ideas“), while spending very little time on their own societies’ addictions to violence and aggression, or their own religious and nationalistic drives, have reached the peak of self-blinding tribalism. They really are akin to having a neighbor down the street who constantly murders, steals and pillages, and then spends his spare time flamboyantly denouncing people who live thousands of miles away for their bad acts. Such a person would be regarded as pathologically self-deluded, a term that also describes those political and intellectual factions which replicate that behavior. The sheer casualness with which Obama yesterday called for a new AUMF is reflective of how central, how commonplace, violence and militarism are in the U.S.’s imperial management of the world. That some citizens of that same country devote themselves primarily if not exclusively to denouncing the violence and savagery of others is a testament to how powerful and self-blinding tribalism is as a human drive.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Nov 14
     
    Glenn Greenwald.
Paul Merrell

M of A - Sistani Orders Turkey Out Of Iraq - Syria Oppo-Conference Fails - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...ria-oppo-conference-fails.html

war & peace Iraq Turkey invasion peace-talks Ahrar-al-Sham

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • After the U.S. invasion of Iraq the U.S vice consul Paul Bremer tried to install a handpicked Iraqi government.  The top Shia religious authority in Iraq, Grand Ajatollah Sistani, demanded a democratic vote. The issue was thereby decided. There was no way the U.S could have circumvented Sisitani's edict without a massive revolt by the 65% of Iraqis who are Shia and mostly follow his advice. Bremer had to fold. Now Ajatollah Sistani takes position against the Turkish invasion of Iraq: Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on the government on Friday to show "no tolerance" of any infringement of the country's sovereignty, after Turkey deployed heavily armed troops to northern Iraq. Sistani's spokesman, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbala'i, did not explicitly name Turkey, but a row over the deployment has badly soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad, which denies having agreed to it. ... "The Iraqi government is responsible for protecting Iraq's sovereignty and must not tolerate and side that infringes upon on it, whatever the justifications and necessities," Karbalai'i said in a weekly sermon. The issue is thereby decided. Turkish troops will have to leave or will have to decisively defeat all Shia of Iraq (and Iran). If Erdogan were smart he would now order the Turkish troops stationed near Mosul to leave Iraq.
  • The Russian President Putin also increased pressure on Turkey: President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered Russia's armed forces to act in an "extremely tough way" in Syria to protect Russian forces striking Islamic State targets there. "Any targets threatening our (military) group or land infrastructure must be immediately destroyed," Putin said, speaking at a Defence Ministry event. Note to Erdogan: Beware of funny ideas...
  • There was some Syrian opposition conference yesterday in Saudi Arabia were the Saudis tried to bribe everyone to agree on a common position. But the conference failed. Some 116 delegates took part under "international guidance" of their various sponsors. A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda aligned Ahrar al Sham, which closely cooperates with the al-Qaeda entity Jabhat al Nusra in Syria, also took part. No women were present. The conference resulted in the decision to hold another conference. The 116 delegates at the conference decided to select 33 delegates for a conference which would decide on 15 delegates to confer and maybe take part in some negotiations with the Syrian government side. The NYT's Ben Hubbard, who was there, tweeted: Ben Hubbard @NYTBen ...The meeting created yet another new opposition body, a high commission, meant to oversee negotiations. There was debate about how large it should be and what proportion should represent armed groups. Final was 32, changed after meetings to 33. Those 33 now tasked with choosing a 15 person negotiating team. So, yeah, umbrella groups making a new umbrella.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The political demands the conference agreed upon include non-starters for negotiations like the demand that the Syrian President Assad would leave within 6 weeks of the negotiations start. There was also this illuminating word game: Islamist delegates objected to using the word “democracy” in the final statement, so the term “democratic mechanism” was used instead, according to a member of one such group who attended the meeting. The Ahrar al-Sham delegate at the meeting signed the deal while the Ahrar al Sham bigwigs, who took not part, damned the deal and announced they were completely against it. They demand an Islamic State in Syria that would follow their militant Salafi line of believe. Hubbard again: Ben Hubbard ‏@NYTBen Re: @Ahrar_Alsham2. It's main delegate did not walk out. Before meeting ended, members not present released statement announcing withdrawal. The session's moderator said Ahrar delegate was not aware of statement by his group until later, but did sign the final communiqué. Then Ahrar members like @aleesa71 and @a_azraeel complained on Twitter, suggesting a split between military and political leaders.
  • The Saudi and Qatari Wahhabi rulers want Ahrar al Sham to be part of any future solution in Syria. They hired "western" think tanks like Brookings Doha to propagandize that Ahrar is "moderate". But Ahrar can not be "moderate" when it is fighting together with al-Qaeda and kills civilians because they are "unbelievers". It is now in an uncomfortable position. If it takes part in a peace conference with the Syrian government its Jabhat al-Nusra ally will roast it, if it doesn't take part its Saudi and Qartari financiers will fry it. Since the start of the war on Syria no unity has been achieved in the opposition of the Syrian government. The U.S., in form of the CIA head John Brennan, teamed up (again) with al-Qaeda while the State Department tried to sponsor more "moderates". The ensuing chaos continues today. To prevent further blowback from this nonsense strategy will obviously require a change towards a position that supports the Syrian government. It is doubtful that the U.S. is capable of such foresight and flexibility.
Paul Merrell

Organization of the Islamic Conference gathers in Istanbul for Jerusalem - 0 views

www.hurriyetdailynews.com/-istanbul-for-jerusalem-124024

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Jerusalem Islamic-Conference

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • High-level representatives, including some heads of states from the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), will come together on Dec. 13 in Istanbul at a summit to consider a joint stance against United States’ recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Turkey, as the term president of the OIC, will host leaders from Muslim-majority countries on Dec. 13, with a joint position of Muslim countries to be announced under the title of the Istanbul Declaration.  The move comes after U.S. President Donald Trump instructed the State Department to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in line with the 1995-dated Jerusalem Embassy Act.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will preside over the OIC meeting in Istanbul and will address the opening and closing ceremonies of the summit. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Bangladeshi President Abdoul Hamid and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are among 22 heads of state and government who will be present at the summit. Some 25 foreign ministers will also be represented, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Saudi Arabia will be represented by Islamic Affairs Minister Salih bin Abdulaziz al-Shaikh.
  • A very strong message will be delivered from the summit,” Çavuşoğlu said, adding that this message will stress that the decision taken by the U.S. unilaterally breaches international law, and will call all nations to stand against it while also calling nations to recognize the State of Palestine. “If we don’t defend Jerusalem today, when will we defend it? If we don’t defend Jerusalem, one of the three most sacred places of Islam, what will we defend?” he stated, hinting that the text would cite East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine with pre-1967 borders.
Paul Merrell

Mission creep in Iraq continues as US launches airstrikes in Amerli - Threat Matrix - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...ion_creep_in_iraq_continue.php

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Iraq ISIL mission-creep

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • The US military and humanitarian mission in Iraq continues to suffer from what is known as "mission creep," which is defined as "a gradual shift in objectives during the course of a military campaign, often resulting in an unplanned long-term commitment." When the Obama administration ordered limited military intervention against the Islamic State beginning on Aug. 7, the objectives were twofold: to halt the Islamic State's advance on Irbil to protect US personnel based there, and provide humanitarian relief to the Yazidi minority who fled Sinjar and other towns and were trapped on Mount Sinjar. Within a week, the objectives were modified, and the US military was now tasked with serving as the air force to Kurdish and Iraqi forces "to protect critical infrastructure" and "support Iraqi security forces and Kurdish defense forces, who are working together to combat ISIL [the Islamic State]." Yesterday, the US began launching airstrikes against Islamic State fighters who are besieging the ethnic Turkmen town of Amerli. Note that Amerli is in Salahaddin province and doesn't constitute a critical threat to US personnel in Irbil, nor does it host critical infrastructure. Below is the full press release that was issued yesterday by US Central Command:
  • It has been clear from the beginning that the Obama administration does not have a strategy to deal with the Islamic State. President Obama admitted as much in a press conference last week. But what is clear is that the Obama administration is doing exactly what it said it wouldn't do: get sucked into Iraq's civil war and serve as Iraq's air force. If President Obama wants to defeat the Islamic State, a group that he described as a "cancer," he needs to quickly develop a comprehensive strategy and articulate it to the American public. Otherwise, the administration is employing tactical solutions to the strategic problem that is the Islamic State, and adjusting these tactics on the fly.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Aug 14
     
    Considering that no U.S. military intervention in the Mideast since WWII has produced anything but disaster, in my carefully studied opinion, the only sensible solution is a U.S. military hands-off-the-Mideast policy. Of course, our Israel Lobby-controlled Congress would never allow that before the Israel Lobby is widely recognized as a cancer within the U.S. body politic. 
Paul Merrell

Saudi Arabia Hosting Training Camps For Syrian Rebels - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/-training-syrian-rebels-2014-9

war & peace ISIL Syria Saudis moderate-rebels training U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has agreed to host training camps for moderate Syrian rebels as part of President Barack Obama's broad strategy to combat Islamic State militants who have taken over parts of Syria and Iraq, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The agreement, outlined by Obama's aides on the night of his speech to the American people laying out his expanded campaign against the Islamist group, appeared to reflect the depth of Saudi concern about Islamic State's threat to the region. Obama announced he had authorized stepped-up U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and for the first time would extend the aerial assault into Syria, where he also vowed to beef up support for moderate rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. officials said a critical component of the plan to train and equip the Syrian insurgents, who have received only modest American backing so far and have failed to coalesce into a potent fighting force, was the Saudis' willingness to allow use of their territory for the U.S. training effort.
  • "Now what we have is a commitment from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... to be a full partner with us in that effort, including by hosting that training program," a senior U.S. official told reporters in a conference call. The Saudi decision came to light after Obama spoke by phone earlier in the day with Saudi King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia, the main Arab Sunni power in the region, was dismayed last September when Obama backed off air strikes against Assad's forces over the use of chemical weapons, and had pressed Washington to do more to strengthen the poorly organized moderate Syrian rebels. "Both leaders agreed that a stronger Syrian opposition is essential to confronting extremists like (Islamic State) as well as the Assad regime, which has lost all legitimacy," the White Housesaid. The Obama administration wants the Syrian rebels to play a role in the fight against the stronger Islamic State forces inside Syria. U.S. officials declined to specify where on Saudi territory the rebels would be trained. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on a Middle East mission to drum up support for a coalition against Islamic State, is due to fly from Amman to Saudi Arabia on Thursday. He will have talks there with senior officials from Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which comprises Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates,Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, is unnerved by the rapid advance of Islamic State this year and fears it could radicalize some of its own citizens. Arab League foreign ministers agreed on Sunday to take all necessary measures to confront Islamic State.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Sep 14
     
    "Moderate rebels" from Syria willing to travel to Saudi Arabia to be trained to fight both ISIL and Syria. Moderate, my a-s.  Obama decided that he did not need Congressional authorization because the post-9/11 authorization for use of military force was sufficient authority. Oh, really? Broad enough to encompass waging war against Syria? The 2001 AUMF authorized the Executive "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." Are we now to pretend that Syria played any such part? Or that ISIL, which has been specifically disavowed by Al Qaeda as too radical, had such a role? 
Paul Merrell

Iran Arming Iraqi Kurds Against Islamic State | News | teleSUR - 0 views

www.telesurtv.net/...lamic-State-20140826-0066.html

war & peace ISIL Kurds weapons Iran

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Iran has provided weapons and ammunition to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, said the region’s President on Tuesday in a joint a press-conference with the Iranian foreign minister. "We asked for weapons and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition," said Masoud Barzani during the press conference in Arbil.
  • On Tuesday, Iranian deputy foreign minister held talks in Saudi Arabia on the Islamic State. “The meeting took place in a very positive and constructive atmosphere,” said Hossein Amir Abdollahian to Reuters. Abdollahian's visit to Saudi Arabia, is the first by a senior Iranian official since the election of Iranian president Hassan Rohani in August last year. Rouhani pledged at the time he would seek to improve relations with Saudi Arabia. The meeting follows a Saudi departure from supporting the Islamic State. The country, along with Qatar and in collaboration with the United States, has until recently financially and militarily aided the group, among other extremist militants in the region.  The Saudi strategy seems to have shifted now that the Islamic State has became a serious threat to the country. On Tuesday, the group reportedly threatened attacks on the Saudi kingdom during the forthcoming Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha.
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu and Trump: A Shared Focus on Terrorism « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/mp-a-shared-focus-on-terrorism

terrorism™-history Israel Netanyahu

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Scholars of terrorism credit a specific 1979 symposium in Jerusalem as a turning point in the U.S. and international usage of “terrorism” as we understand it today. The Jonathan Institute, founded following the death of Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother Yonatan during a raid to rescue hostages from a PLO hijacking, hosted a 1979 conference in Jerusalem— and a follow up in 1984 in Washington—on “International Terrorism.” Directed by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jonathan Institute maintained close ties to the Israeli government. Current and former Israeli officials across the political spectrum—including Golda Meir, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Ezer Weizman, Moshe Dayan, and Shimon Peres—dominated its administrative committee. Lisa Stampnitsky, in her 2013 book Disciplining Terror, discusses how the Jonathan Institute helped internationalize Israel’s use of the term to describe terrorist violence as both irrational and illegitimate in both means and ends, and as primarily targeting democracies and “the West.” Previously, she notes, terrorism referred largely to rational political violence, either state or individual, and was dealt with as an issue of criminality and law. The shift helped Israel delegitimize the political aims of certain groups, such as the Palestinian resistance to its colonization and territorial occupation. One cannot be a “freedom fighter” if one’s political aims are demonized as illegitimate or irrational. Stampnitsky argues that the shift to using terrorism to describe violence outside the law also set the stage for retaliatory strikes (such as the 1986 U.S. air strikes in Libya in response to a bombing at a Berlin disco that killed an American soldier) and eventually for the doctrine of preemptive force that has characterized the post-9/11 “War on Terror.”
  • Israel’s role in the development of a specifically anti-Muslim discourse of terrorism is deeply intertwined with the foreign policies of American politicians. As Deepa Kumar and others have pointed out, American neocons and Israel’s Likud party jointly developed a shared language around Islamic terrorism. The 1979 Jonathan Institute conference was attended by prominent American officials and political figures, including future President George H.W. Bush and representatives of the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Commentary magazine who brought the ideas, and later a follow-up conference, back to the U.S. Intended to serve as an intervention into the international discourse on terrorism, the explicit aim of the Jerusalem conference was to awaken the Western world to the problem of terrorism as defined by the conference organizers. It contributed to entrenching in the minds of American conservatives what was popularized a few years later as the “clash of civilizations,” firmly situating Israel in the category of Western democracies threatened by Soviets and Palestinians. The follow-up conference in the United States in 1984 went further by emphasizing the relationship between Islam and terror. As Netanyahu himself wrote in the book that came out of the conference: “the battle against terrorism was part of a much larger struggle, one between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism.” Then, as now, Netanyahu presented Israel as the bulwark against terrorism, a specific kind of illegitimate political violence that threatens not just Israel but all democracies and the Western world.
  • Echoes of this framing of the debate on terrorism can be found in how Western politicians, including Netanyahu and Trump, discuss the issue. Terrorism, which has no single agreed-upon definition in U.S. or international law, now serves as a moniker applied to all violence that established states deem illegitimate. Most often these days, Western democracies use “terrorism” to describe violence committed by Muslims. As journalist Glenn Greenwald writes, “In other words, any violence by Muslims against the West is inherently ‘terrorism,’ even if targeted only at soldiers at war and/or designed to resist invasion and occupation.” The term functions not as a descriptive tool but an ideological one. It doesn’t merely identify a particular kind of violence. It justifies and even requires a particular kind of forceful response by the state. Israel today presents itself as the world’s expert on counterterrorism. It maintains a profitable security industry predicated on selling expertise and technology tested in its interactions with Palestinians. American tax dollars have been funneled into this industry through U.S. military aid, over 25% of which Israel was allowed to spend domestically (the new military aid deal signed by the Obama White House will phase out this allowance over the next 10 years, sending the rest of the $3.8 billion per year to U.S. defense contractors). The United States and Israel collaborate on counterterrorism initiatives, including joint military exercises and police exchange programs. Here tactics and skills are developed and exchanged for surveillance and violent repression of protests that primarily impact Muslims and people of color in the U.S. and Palestinians and Black Jews in Israel.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In this context, Trump’s framing of his anti-Muslim immigration policies as a national security priority to keep out terrorists is nothing new. What is new in this political moment is the extent to which the U.S. public is seeing straight through this discourse and rallying against discrimination and bigotry. Ahead of Trump and Netanyahu’s meeting this week, there’s an opportunity to pay attention to how these discourses have enabled Israel to justify decades of military occupation and human rights abuses with the discourse of national security and counterterrorism. As the Trump administration goes back to the drawing board to devise restrictive immigration policies that will hold up in court, Netanyahu and Israel’s example shouldn’t be far from mind.
Paul Merrell

Entire Leadership of ISIS Opposition Wiped Out by 'Unexplained' Explosion - 0 views

www.breitbart.com/...ISIS-Opposition-Killed-Bomb

war & peace Syria moderate-rebels leadership up-in-smoke Ahrar-al-Sham

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Nearly fifty senior commanders of a major coalition of Islamic 'moderates' opposed to ISIS in Syria have been killed by an explosion at their secret command bunker as they met to discuss strategy against the the Islamic State. The blast in the Northwest region of Idlib, Syria on Tuesday killed senior members of rebel group the Ahrar-al-Sham brigade (AaS), including leader Hassan Abboud and 45 others including senior members from other rebel alliance groups, reports The Times. The Idlib region stands in AaS territory, but it is close to the front-line with ISIS in neighbouring Aleppo. Sources dispute the source of the blast, with it being unclear whether it was an opposition group, suicide bomber, or accidental explosion at a nearby ammunition dump. Regardless, the incident will destabilise and possibly tear apart the AaS group and associated Islamic Front Coalition which was recently described as "the most powerful armed group in Syria". Islamic group Ahrar-al-Sham, whose name translates as 'The Free Men of Syria', is one of many movements competing in the inter-rebel conflict in Syria. A number of rebel groups are presently fighting each other as well as besieged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose power base is in West and South-West, for overall control of the Region.
  • As the main rival to ISIS for control of Syria, the AaS blast if not orchestrated by the Islamic State will certainly be greatly beneficial to them. The 'decapitation' strategy, targeting Ahrar-al-Sham’s political, military and spiritual leadership is reminiscent of the United States’ targeted strikes against the leadership of Al-Qaeda. The death of Abboud and his followers in Idlib highlights the difficulty of Western involvement in the conflict, where enemies of the apparent first enemy ISIS also make fairly poor potential allies. Many members of AaS have come from groups like Al-Qaeda and would in any other context be considered hard line Islamists. The Ahrar-al-Sham brigade has also been extremely critical of Western involvement in the conflict. In an interview before his death leader Abboud rejected the Geneva peace conference saying: "We see Geneva as a tool of manipulation; to derail the Syrian revolution away from its goals and objectives .... Whatever outcome the conference may yield, will be binding on the Syrian National Coalition only. For us, we will continue to fight for our revolution until we restore our rights”. Ahrar-al-Sham has appointed a new leader, Hashim al-Sheikh, who will attempt to hold together the fragile coalition which has lost most of its senior thinkers and strategists. al-Sheik said the attack "will only make us more resilient to fight and continue the fight until we liberate our homeland" on Wednesday.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Sep 14
     
    There went Obama's plan for Syria: "Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition.  Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.  In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people - a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost.  Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria's crisis once and for all." - Barack Obama (September 10, 2014) And there goes Hillary's election campaign stump speech on Syria. http://goo.gl/psjYQy
Paul Merrell

​Syria and the Geneva 2 charade - RT Op-Edge - 0 views

rt.com/...syria-geneva-two-charade-015

war & peace Syria negotiations

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In the summertime, people flock to Montreux, Switzerland, to follow the jazz festival. This week, though, the 'performance' is by a positively un-swinging lot, part of the (in theory) very serious Geneva 2 conference on Syria. What is Geneva 2 for? It has nothing to do with 'peace' . It won't yield an international deal to end the Syrian tragedy. The horrible war facts on the ground will remain facts, and horrible; many perpetrators won't be gathering in Montreux. Syrian civil society has not even been invited. And then the whole charade degenerated into pitiful parody even before it started.
  • Meet 'good' and 'bad' Al-Qaeda Time to break it down. Washington ruled that Iran cannot be in Montreux because it supports Assad. It's as simple as that. Washington dictating to the UN is the norm. Washington dictating to the Exiled Syrian 'Opposition' is Also the norm. Everyone is a puppet in this lethal comedy. As for Western spin doctors, they are dizzier than flies over corpses. As Part of the New Western Myth That the Saudi Arabia-Sponsored Islamic Front - Last September Formed Against the US-backed Supreme Military Council - are nothing but 'Al-Qaeda good' , now we have TOP 'Rebels' routinely acknowledging to Western corporate media they are, well, Al-Qaeda. Tens of thousands of foreign jihadis using Al-Qaeda's network of safe houses in Turkey - well, that's not such a big deal. As the Narrative Goes, 'our New friends' in the Islamic Front are just 'conservative Salafi Muslims' . What if they are fond of the odd torture binge and will think nothing of slaying the odd Shiite or Christian? Not such a big deal. As for the 'bad' Al-Qaeda gang - from Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - They are on A roll. After all, they are the ones with fighting experience / leverage on the ground. And when push comes to shove, they just run yet another ring around clueless Western necks. Take Ahrar al-Sham. They now lead the Islamic Front - and talk to the Americans. And guess what; they're going to Montreux! The icing on this cake is Takfiri That, Ultimately, Their "interests" are Being Defended by no less than US Secretary of State John Kerry. Washington promoting al-Qaeda? Well, we've seen that movie before.
  • Washington is the Selling Fiction it is 'leading' Geneva 2 to 'reconstruct' Syria. This is utter nonsense. Theoretically - and even that is still extremely debatable - the Obama administration's core interest in Southwest Asia is to negotiate a very complex deal with Iran, which will take most of 2014. Ultimately, this whole charade is between Washington and Tehran. The US Navy will not make Assad 'go' Anytime soon - or Ever; everything so, in Theory, Remains on the table.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • And everyone else, the UN, the Holy See, the House of Saud, are just onlookers, even as several players, from the EU to India, China and Japan, can think of nothing but finally normalizing everything with Iran. The Syrian government, for its part, will be in Montreux; it had agreed to the conference long ago. Yet President Assad Laid down ; he will not 'Leave' , as President Barack Obama US demanded The. He will not Let the foreign-Sponsored 'Opposition' Take over. And he may even contest the next presidential elections. Assad went for the jugular when he said Geneva 2 Should be About His own 'War on Terror' . Terror, incidentally, widely supported by the West. So under this perspective, even Washington needs Assad not to go. The bottom line is that the only players who really want Assad to go are the House of Saud and the House of Thani in Qatar. Many in the West have now Realized Assad must Fight to Stay 'the Terrorists' .
  • What's even more farcical is what Ford may have told the SNC stalwarts - still subject to much debate across the Middle East. If Ford really Said That Bandar Bush's Strategy has Been A Total Failure (in Fact turning Syria into an Al-Qaeda Hub) then this points to the Obama Administration, for All Practical Purposes, Sharing the Same Objective as Assad's: Fighting 'Terror' . Still, Geneva 2 will not 'Solve' anything. Iran and Russia will keep supporting Damascus. The desert wasteland from Syria to Iraq will keep being occupied by Bandar Bush-supported and Gulf-supported hardcore sectarian jihadis. The war will keep spreading deeper into Lebanon. The government in Damascus won't collapse. The refugee crisis will soar. And the West Will Keep Striking A pose of Being Concerned with 'Terror' .
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Jan 14
     
    What a hoot! Hillary's Free Syrian Army defected to the jihadis after the missile strikes on Syria did not happen. Now Obama and Kerry are trying to sell the spin of "good" vs. "bad" Al Qaeda, a fact that in itself underscores that Al Qaeda are a bunch of mercenaries whose services go to the highest bidder.  
Paul Merrell

M of A - UK Accuses U.S. Of Supporting Terrorists But Sells Out To Saudi Arabia - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...sells-out-to-saudi-arabia.html

war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy terrorists™ U.S.-support UK

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • On October 30 an international conference on Syria  agreed on a framework for ending the conflict in Syria. The communiqué states: While substantial differences remain among the participants, they reached a mutual understanding on the following: 1) Syria’s unity, independence, territorial integrity, and secular character are fundamental. ... 6) Da'esh, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the U.N. Security Council, and further, as agreed by the participants, must be defeated.... Ministers will reconvene within two weeks to continue these discussions.” Secretary of State Kerry had already accepted the "secular" point in earlier talks with his Russian colleague. The next meeting this Friday will mainly be about the question of who is a terrorist and must thereby be defeated. Propagandist for the Jihadis call this a "Russian trap".
  • So far the U.S. and its allies have supported various fundamentalist groups who's deeds and proclaimed philosophies surely put them into the same category as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. The British Foreign Minister accuses the U.S. of supporting such terrorist groups and said that this needs to change: The world powers trying to end the civil war in Syria are drawing up a list of "terrorist" groups, Britain said Tuesday, warning that some countries may have to drop support for allies on the ground. "It will require deep breaths on several sides, including the US side," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warned, speaking to reporters in Washington. Some of the groups that qualify as terrorists, so Hammond, do get support from the U.S. and it will take a "deep breaths" by the U.S. to refrain from further supporting them. As part of this, Hammond said, the countries backing various factions within the country would have to decide which are moderate enough to be included in the political process and which would be excluded. "I'm not so sure I would write off the possibility of agreeing on who is a terrorist," he said, in remarks at the British embassy the morning after talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry. But he warned that there would be horse trading ahead.
  • Can one "horse trade" who is a terrorist? Is it "moderate enough" to only cut off the heads of prisoners of war instead of burning them alive? How much would that "trade" cost? Hammond seems to believe that a money-for-values deal is possible and needed. Here is his horse trade: On one side the Saudis want the Jihadists they support to be recognized as non-terrorists: "The Saudis are never going to sign up to Ansar al-Sham being categorized as terrorists," he said, citing the example of one Sunni armed group reported to receive outside Arab backing. "So we have to see whether we can reach a pragmatic solution on these areas," Hammond added.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • On the other side Hammond wants to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia despite its abysmal human rights record: In an interview with Newsnight, Mr Hammond was asked if he would like to see the current £5.4billion of weapons trade with Saudi Arabia increase. He replied: “We’d always like to do more business, more British exports, more British jobs and in this case very high end engineering jobs protected and created by our diplomacy abroad.” So there is the Hammonds "pragmatic solution" - the UK will support the Saudi position on the terrorist groups Ahrar al Shams, which is related to and closely cooperating with al-Qaeda, and the Saudis will buy more British weapons. There is only a slight problem. The framework submitted by the October 30 conference, excerpted above, agreed of the fundamental "secular character" for the Syrian state. But even a now revisionist Ahrar al-Shams insists that Islamic law must the constitutional base of Syria. A state build on Islamic law is certainly not "secular". Unless of course one redefines what secular means. And that is exactly what Hammond, hearing the cash register ringing, now proposes: While Mr. Hammond declined to offer any details on which groups could eventually take part in political negotiations, his comments suggested that the West might be prepared to back Sunni Islamist groups with close ties to allies, including Saudi Arabia. “What we mean by a secular constitution, and what people in the Muslim world will understand by secular will be two different things,” Mr. Hammond said.
  • British orientalism at its finest: The Salafi jihadists of Ahrar al-Shams are not "terrorists" because the Saudis will buy more British weapons. A Syria based on Islamic law will be "secular" because those [censored] Arabs don't even know what that means. Maybe the U.S. should also offer to buy more British weapons? Foreign Minister Hammond would than surely recognize that the terrorists the U.S. supports in Syria are "moderate enough" hardline Islamists to fit his deranged definition of "secular".
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    UK accuses U.S. of supporing terrorist groups in Syria. Whoda'thunk? 
Paul Merrell

EU Realignment on Saudi Arabia and Iran? « LobeLog - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/nment-on-saudi-arabia-and-iran

war & peace EU Saudis human rights

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • In a rare move, the European Parliament (EP) recently adopted a strongly worded resolution condemning human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia by a vote of 460 to 153. The focus of the resolution was Raif Badawi, a blogger that the Saudi authorities charged with blasphemy and sentenced to 1,000 lashes, 10 years of prison, and a 228,000 euro fine for founding a liberal website. But the resolution took a broader view on the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. The European MPs didn´t mince words. Although they took note of some cautious reforms undertaken by the late king Abdullah, they charged that the Saudi political and social system “remains profoundly undemocratic, makes women and Shia Muslims second-class citizens, seriously discriminates against the country’s large foreign workforce and severely represses all voices of dissent.” They portrayed the Badawi case “as a symbol of the Kingdom’s characteristic policies of intolerance and extremist interpretation of Islamic law.” In particularly damning paragraphs, the EP took Saudi Arabia to task for playing “a leading role in financing, disseminating and promoting worldwide a particularly extremist interpretation of Islam, which, in its most sectarian vision, has inspired terrorist organisations such as the so-called Islamic State and al‑Qaeda.” In language that is certain to provoke Riyadh´s ire, the MPs noted that the so-called Islamic State (ISIS or IS) and Saudi Arabia prescribe near-identical punishments for a host of crimes, and that Saudi claims to be a partner to the EU in fighting IS and al-Qaeda would have been more credible “if it did not engage in anachronistic and extremist practices, such as public beheadings, stoning and other forms of torture, similar to those committed by IS.”
  • By way of conclusion, the MPs asked the EU and the Member States “to reconsider their relationship with Saudi Arabia, in a way that allows it to pursue its economic, energy and security interests, whilst not undermining the credibility of its core human rights commitments.” This unprecedented criticism of Saudi Arabia, officially an “ally,” by a EU institution contrasts with the relatively milder treatment accorded to Iran, an official “foe” and Saudi Arabia´s regional antagonist. In its last resolution adopted in May 2014, the EP criticized Iran for its human rights abuses, but the overall tone was much more positive, highlighting an array of possible areas of cooperation.
  • the EP resolution sends an important political message. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, it echoes a growing realization among policymakers, diplomats, and the wider security community that Saudi Arabia´s track record of supporting extremist groups may be a root cause of the terrorist threat, while Iran´s opposition to IS and al-Qaeda could help Europe tackle this threat. The prospects for regional cooperation with Iran in countering IS, al-Qaeda, and also the Taliban, are a staple of think-tank conferences in Europe these days. The idea of Iran´s potentially stabilizing role in the region is becoming mainstream.
Gary Edwards

A New Reserve Currency to Challenge the Dollar | Veterans Today - 0 views

www.veteranstoday.com/...ng-on-in-the-straits-of-hormuz

Banksters GOLD David-Malone Oil Islamic-Wars

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 12
     
    Author David Malone digs into world events, suggesting that all the saber rattling over Iran and nuclear weapons is really about GOLD!   He argues that the dollar is rapidly being replaced as the world's "settlement" currency.  As a function, "settlement" is different than "reserve", but since WWII and the Basel Conference, the USA Dollar has been both the currency of "reserve" and settlement".  That is now changing, and fast! David further suggests that the Iraqi wars with Saddam Hussein were also about his use of the Euro to "settle" oil purchases.  It could also be argued that Muamma Gaddafi in Lybia was removed because he was organizing all of Africa to "settle" oil and other commodity purchases in GOLD, and not the USA Dollar. Are the Islamic wars really about oil?  Or are they about how oil purchases are "settled"? David further argues that Russia, India, China and Japan are actively pursuing a GOLD based settlement currency agreement series where the Chinese Yuan plays a central role.  Interestingly, all of these countries have cut agreements with Iran.  Which seems to have triggered the December 2011 Obama response banning any banks, both private and government controlled, from dealings with Iran.   It's increasingly looking like it's not the Iranian nuclear weapons program that is upsetting to Obama and his Bankster buddies.  It's the rapid replacement of the worthless paper USA dollar as a settlement currency. One of the interesting points the venerable "Veterans Today" news sight is making is that our military is being used to forcefully prop up an inflationary Bankster Dollar, and force oil producing countries into accepting that inflated Bankster Dollar as payment.  The one thing the International Bankster Cartel doesn't want is for the trade of important commodities, especially energy, to be paid for in GOLD instead of the worthless paper they control. excerpt: I think the stand-off with Iran in the Straits of Hormuz over sanctions is a
Paul Merrell

Afghan Opium Production 40 Times Higher Since US-NATO Invasion - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...219974

war & peace opium-production Afghanistan ISIL Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Since the U.S.-led NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the production of opium in the country has increased by 40 times according to Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, fueling organized crime and widespread death. The head of the FSKN, Viktor Ivanov, explained the staggering trend at a March U.N. conference on drugs in Afghanistan. Opium growth in Afghanistan increased 18 percent from 131, 000 hectares to 154, 000, according to Ivanov’s estimates. “Afghan heroin has killed more than one million people worldwide since the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ began and over a trillion dollars has been invested into transnational organized crime from drug sales,” said Ivanov according to Counter Current News.   Prior to the invasion of Afghanistan, opium production was banned by the Taliban, although it still managed to exist. The U.S. and its allies have been accused of encouraging and aiding in the opium production and the ongoing drug trafficking within the region. Ivanov claimed that only around 1 percent of the total opium yield in Afghanistan was destroyed and that the “international community has failed to curb heroin production in Afghanistan since the start of NATO’s operation.”
  • Afghanistan is thought to produce more than 90 percent of the world’s supply of opium, which is then used to make heroin and other dangerous drugs that are shipped in large quantities all over the world. Opium production provides many Afghan communities with an income, in an otherwise impoverished and war-torn country. The opium trade contributed around $US 2.3 billion or around 19 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP in 2009 according to the U.N.
  • The Islamic State Group is reported to have recently taken over opium production and trafficking. In November, the extremist group was estimated to be earning over $US 1 billion from the opium trade. Profits also go to international drug cartels and money-laundering banks.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 16
     
    Since early in the Viet Nam War, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has dominated the production and smuggling of opium. After the Viet Nam War, that operation was largely transferred from Southeast Asia's "Golden Triangle" to Afghanistan, with primary shipment initially through Pakistan. That production center was threatened when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996, as the Taliban began shutting down the growing of opium poppies in that nation. So it was no surprise that Afghan production of opium skyrocketed after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Indeed, there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that al-Qaeda was blamed for the 9-11 attack precisely to justify invasion of Afghanistan to block the Taliban's interference with the CIA's production of opium. Opium, like cocaine production in South America, provides enormous amounts of off-the-books financing for CIA covert activities. For such reasons, there are strong reasons to suspect that ISIL would not be taking over opium production in Afghanistan without the CIA's acquiescence and participation. (For example, ISIL would need to use the CIA's shipment and marketing capabilities in Pakistan to bring their product to market. So I regard ISIL's rise in opium production as further evidence that the CIA and ISIL are joined at the hip, that ISIL is a CIA operation.
Paul Merrell

Trump offers 'Russia-loving' Michael Flynn national security adviser post - RT America - 0 views

www.rt.com/...5-trump-flynn-national-adviser

Trump-administration Flynn National-Security_Adviser

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • President-elect Donald Trump has named retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his new national security adviser, according to a close source. The former DIA chief has been criticized in US circles for refusing to take an anti-Russian stance. The 57-year-old three-star general, who once ran the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), is considered a controversial figure in US circles for a number of reasons. In May, he claimed in an Al Jazeera interview that the rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East, including the emergence of Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, was not the result of chance or ignorance – but of calculated thinking.General Flynn dismissed Al Jazeera’s suggestion that the Obama administration had simply overlooked the DIA’s analysis, instead arguing that the government had “turned a blind eye” on his agency on purpose.“I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision,” the former DIA chief said, referring to a highly-contentious 2012 DIA memo.
  • The Pentagon veteran, who was a key figure in the Bush administration’s War on Terror, also lambasted Washington for criticizing Russia’s plans to fight Islamic State in Syria. Flynn told RT in October that he strongly believes that “Russia and the United States working together and trying to work with the other partners that we all have in this region can come up with some other solutions.”“We have to understand as Americans that Russia also has foreign policy; Russia also has a national security strategy. And I think that we failed to understand what that is,” said the former DIA chief.Flynn was heavily criticized for taking this position. In a Washington Post interview, Dana Priest tried to portray him as a supporter of Russia, and therefore the antithesis of everything Washington stands for. The interviewer grilled Flynn about a trip he had taken to Moscow, when he was among the speakers and panel guests at an RT conference celebrating its first 10 years on air, and met with President Vladimir Putin. When Priest questioned Flynn about his opinion of RT, the general replied that he didn’t see a difference between the work of RT and US news networks like MSNBC and CNN.
  • Appointment to the post of national security adviser does not require confirmation by the Senate, and the choice of the former DIA chief was merely a rumor until it was confirmed on November 18 by NBC, which spoke to an official close to the transition. They would not say yet if Flynn has accepted the post.Flynn will be replacing Susan Rice, and is considered to be part of Donald Trump’s cabinet reshuffle that aims to reflect a tougher stance toward both friends and rivals. Flynn was DIA chief in 2012-2014, but reportedly left early due to clashes with senior Obama officials. He is also known for proposing an overhaul of the DIA that was met with opposition.
Paul Merrell

Largest Syrian rebel groups form Islamic alliance, in possible blow to U.S. influence -... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...3-9372-92606241ae9c_print.html

war & peace Syria U.S. foreign policy Russia Geneva SNAFU

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • BEIRUT — American hopes of winning more influence over Syria’s fractious rebel movement faded Wednesday after 11 of the biggest armed factions repudiated the Western-backed opposition coalition and announced the formation of a new alliance dedicated to creating an Islamic state. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, is the lead signatory of the new group, which will further complicate fledgling U.S. efforts to provide lethal aid to “moderate” rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
  • Gen. Salim Idriss, the head of the moderate Supreme Military Council and the chief conduit for U.S. aid to the rebels, cut short a visit to Paris after the announcement of the alliance overnight Tuesday and will head to Syria on Thursday to attempt to persuade the factions to reconsider, according to the council’s spokesman, Louay al-Mokdad.The new alliance stressed that it was not abandoning Idriss’s council, only the exiled political opposition coalition, which, it said in a statement, “does not represent us.”The creation of the bloc nonetheless leaves Idriss’s council directly responsible for just a handful of small units, calling into question the utility of extending aid to “moderate” rebels, according to Charles Lister of the London-based defense consultancy IHS Jane’s. If the development holds, he said, “it will likely prove the most significant turning point in the evolution of Syria’s anti-government insurgency to date.”“The scope for Western influence over the Syrian opposition has now been diminished considerably,” he added.
  • Mokdad acknowledged that by aligning themselves with Jabhat al-Nusra, the other rebel factions could jeopardize hopes of receiving outside military help, just as the Obama administration says it is starting to step up its support after more than a year of hesitation.But, he said, the United States and its allies are to blame, for failing repeatedly to deliver on promises to provide assistance as the death toll in Syria, now well over 100,000, steadily mounted. The development appeared to take the Obama administration by surprise. A senior State Department official, briefing reporters Tuesday night on a meeting at the United Nations between Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Syrian Opposition Coalition Chairman Ahmad al-Jarba, was unaware of the rebel announcement that had been made several hours earlier.In a statement Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that officials had “seen the reports” and were “discussing with the moderate opposition what impact this will have going forward.”“A divided opposition benefits the Assad regime and opportunists who are using the conflict to further their own extreme agenda,” Psaki said. U.S. aid would continue, she said, “taking into account that alliances and associations often change on the ground based on resources and needs of the moment.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • At a time when the United States and Russia are accelerating efforts to hold a peace conference in Geneva that would bring together the government and the opposition, the defection of some of the most significant rebel factions comes as a reminder that any negotiated settlement will also have to take into account the wishes of those who wield power on the ground, said Amr al-Azm, a history professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio who is Syrian and supports the opposition.
  • Mokdad said that Idriss had called some of the rebel leaders Wednesday, “and they told us they signed this because they lost all hope in the international community.”“They said: ‘We are really tired, Bashar al-Assad is killing us, all the West is betraying us, and they want to negotiate with the regime over our blood.’ ”Abu Hassan, a spokesman for the Tawheed Brigade in Aleppo, echoed those sentiments, citing rebel disappointment with the Obama administration’s failure to go ahead with threatened airstrikes to punish Assad for using chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus last month, as well as its decision to strike a deal with Russia over ways to negotiate a solution. “Jabhat al-Nusra is a Syrian military formation that fought the regime and played an active role in liberating many locations,” he said. “So we don’t care about the stand of those who don’t care about our interests.”
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Sep 13
     
    And Hillary's Syrian Opposition Coalition, on the eve of the Geneva peace talks, suddenly finds itself without any military forces left, virtually all defected to the "non-moderate" wing of the Syrian government's opposition on the ground. So what will you do next, Mr. Obama? According to the State Dept., you are going to continue to supply weapons to the opposition even though it's now united with Al Nusrah, an official U.S. government "terrorist organization. Does Obama have any option left other than a military strike on the Syrian government to try to bring *some* of the opposition back into an uneasy Alliance with the U.S., et ilk?  A "damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead" Hail Mary pass?  
Paul Merrell

Russia Sending Advanced Anti-aircraft Missiles to Syria - World - Haaretz - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1.675707

war & peace Russia Syria anti-aircraft-missiles

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Moscow is sending an advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Syria, two Western officials and a Russian source said, as part of what the West believes is stepped-up military support for embattled President Bashar Assad. The Western officials said the SA-22 system would be operated by Russian troops, rather than Syrians. It was on its way to Syria but had not yet arrived.  "This system is the advanced version used by Russia and it's meant to be operated by Russians in Syria," said one of the sources, a Western diplomat who is regularly briefed on U.S., Israeli and other intelligence assessments.  A U.S. official separately confirmed the information.  The Russian source, who is close to the Russian navy, said the delivery would not be the first time Moscow had sent the SA-22 system, known as Pantsir-S1 in Russian, to Syria. It had been sent in 2013, the source said. 
  • "There are plans now to send a new set," the source said, without detailing how far along the process was. However, the Western diplomat said the version of the SA-22 on its way to Syria was newer than previous missile systems deployed there. Syrian officials could not be reached for comment.  The United States has been leading a campaign of air strikes in Syrian air space for a year, joined by aircraft from European and regional allies including Britain, France, Jordan and Turkey. U.S. forces operating in the area are concerned about the potential introduction of the weapon, the diplomat said. U.S. officials say they believe Moscow has been sending troops and equipment to Syria, although they say Russia's intentions are not clear.
  • Lebanese sources have told Reuters that Russian troops have begun participating in combat operations on behalf of the Assad government. Moscow has not commented on those reports. Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was sending military equipment to Syria to help the Assad government combat Islamic State fighters, and had sent experts to help train the Syrian army to use it.  However, the dispatch of advanced anti-aircraft missiles would appear to undermine that justification, since neither Islamic State nor any other Syrian rebel group possesses any aircraft. Lavrov also said coordination was needed between Russia's military and the Pentagon to avoid "unintended incidents" around Syria. Russia was conducting pre-planned naval drills in the eastern Mediterranean, he said.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • This year has seen momentum shift against Assad's government in Syria's 4-year-old civil war, which has killed 250,000 people and driven around half of Syria's 23 million people from their homes. An ally of Damascus since the Cold War, Moscow maintains its only Mediterranean naval base at Tartous on the Syrian coast, and protecting it would be a strategic objective. Recent months have also seen talk of a new role for outside forces in Syria, with NATO-member Turkey proposing the creation of a "safe zone" free from both Islamic State and government forces near its Syrian border. Even if Russians operated the missiles and kept them out of the hands of the Syrian army, the arrival of such an advanced anti-aircraft system could also unsettle Israel, which in the past has bombed sophisticated arms it suspected were being handed to Assad's Lebanese guerrilla allies, Hezbollah. 
  • "In the Middle East you never know what will happen. If the Russians end up handing it (SA-22) over to the Syrian military I don't think the Israelis would intervene but they would go bananas if they see it heading towards Hezbollah in Lebanon," the diplomatic source said. An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the missile system. A senior Israeli defense official briefing reporters on Thursday said Israel was in contact with Moscow and would continue its policy of stopping advanced weapons reaching Hezbollah. "We have open relations with the Russians who have come to save Assad in the civil war. Along with this, we will not allow our sovereignty to be compromised or the transfer of advanced or chemical weapons (to Hezbollah). We are following the developments and keeping open channels with Moscow." 
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Sep 15
     
    There is debate over the truthfulness of reports that Russia is stepping up its military defense of the Assad government. If this report is true, the only conceivable targets for the missiles are aircraft of the U.S. coalition and their role is likely to be protection of Russia's naval base and deterrence from those aircraft flying air support for anti-assad government forces. 
Paul Merrell

U.S. Stockpiling Fighting Vehicles, Gear in Kuwait Ahead of Anti-ISIS Offensive - US News - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...t-ahead-of-anti-isis-offensive

war & peace Syria ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy weapons invasion

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Since June, the U.S. military has been slowly stockpiling massive amounts of its gear coming out of Afghanistan at a depot in Kuwait adjacent to a bustling commercial port, in preparation for ultimately shipping it across the border into Iraq for an allied offensive against the Islamic State group.
  • The gear, primarily from the Army, will be fixed up and held as top U.S. planners in Iraq determine what they’ll need to defeat the Islamic State group in the coming months, says Air Force Maj. Gen. Rowayne “Wayne” Schatz, the director of operations and plans for U.S. Transportation Command. “From June to December, we’ve worked a lot on moving items into Kuwait,” he says. “The Army is holding the gear there, and it has room to hold it, as the mission fleshes out.”
  • “I don’t want to disclose any timelines,” Lt. Gen. James Terry, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said during a news conference at the Pentagon. The task force is focusing on supporting, rebuilding and training Iraq's fractured military and National Guard forces to prepare them to take on the vicious extremist army. Terry cited Mosul and Anbar province, along with the cities of Ramadi and Baiji, as key areas his forces will try to wrest away from Islamic State group control.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 14
     
    And yes, President Obama promised no American boots on the ground in the "war against ISIL." No American troops will drive those thousands of MRAPS in Iraq or Syria; the vehicles are being fitted with remote control devices and will be driven by CIA personnel stationed in the U.S. who will concurrently operate protective drones. And of course, their target will be ISIL. Mr. Obama has no intention of giving in to Saudi Arabia's demand that the Assad regime be removed first, John Kerry's deal with the Saudis notwithstanding. Fauugh! 
Paul Merrell

The Missing Pages of the 9/11 Report - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...-pages-of-the-9-11-report.html

war & peace 9-11 28-pages Saudis

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The lead author of the Senate’s report on 9/11 says it’s time to reveal what’s in the 28 pages that were redacted from it, which he says will embarrass the Saudis.A story that might otherwise have slipped away in a morass of conspiracy theories gained new life Wednesday when former Sen. Bob Graham headlined a press conference on Capitol Hill to press for the release of 28 pages redacted from a Senate report on the 9/11 attacks. And according to Graham, the lead author of the report, the pages “point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier” of the 9/11 hijackers.
  • It all signals that the decades-long bipartisan policy of always keeping the Saudis happy, and never rocking the boat, may be coming to an end. In Sarasota, Florida, a federal judge is reviewing 80,000 pages of documents that relate to a prominent Saudi family and its extensive contacts with three of the hijackers when they attended flight school in Sarasota.
  • “This may seem stale to some but it’s as current as the headlines we see today,” Graham said, referring to the terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris. The pages are being kept under wraps out of concern their disclosure would hurt U.S. national security. But as chairman of the Senate Select Committee that issued the report in 2002, Graham argues the opposite is true, and that the real “threat to national security is non-disclosure.” Graham said the redacted pages characterize the support network that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur, and if that network goes unchallenged, it will only flourish. He said that keeping the pages classified is part of “a general pattern of coverup” that for 12 years has kept the American people in the dark. It is “highly improbable” the 19 hijackers acted alone, he said, yet the U.S. government’s position is “to protect the government most responsible for that network of support.”   The Saudis know what they did, Graham continued, and the U.S. knows what they did, and when the U.S. government takes a position of passivity, or actively shuts down inquiry, that sends a message to the Saudis. “They have continued, maybe accelerated their support for the most extreme form of Islam,” he said, arguing that both al Qaeda and ISIS are “a creation of Saudi Arabia.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • When the 800-page Senate report was made public in 2002, Graham recalled that he and Republican Sen. Richard Shelby were “shocked to see an important chapter in the report has been redacted.” All but three Senate Democrats, joined by one Republican and one independent, signed a letter calling on President Bush to declassify the 28-page section detailing the role of foreign governments in bankrolling the 9/11 attackers. “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters,” the redacted portion, begins midway through the report, on page 395. Despite the title, then-CIA Director Porter Goss and the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission all called for it to be declassified, yet it has stayed secret for a dozen years, fueling conspiracy theories that Graham says can only be put to rest by its release.   
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 15
     
    Graham went farther than before, now saying that the deleted section is about Saudi Arabia's involvement in the 9-11 attack. But is this all to reinforce the narrative of 19 Islamic hijackers -- none of whom had the necessary pilot skills, flying airliners into targets on 9-11? Why no investigation of Israeli and U.S. government participation in the attack?  
1 - 20 of 63 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page