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Paul Merrell

Russia & France to Coordinate Attacks against Daesh: US & Turkey to close Border to Syr... - 0 views

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war & peace Syria Russia France Turkey bombers border-crossings U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Following in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, November 13 and Moscow’s conclusion that the Russian Airbus 321 that crashed in Egypt’s North Sinai province on October 31; and following recent talks on Syria in Vienna and talks on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, the military dynamics pertaining Syria and the international fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State has changed, significantly. 
  • French President Francois Hollande and his administration responded to the attacks in Paris by declaring a three months state of emergency while deploying the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle to the Mediterranean to upscale French participation in the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a.k.a. Daesh, ISIS or ISIL. Hollande announced that the carrier would leave port on September 19., adding that: “This is going to triple our military power [as part of the operation against the Islamic State]. I am not talking about deterring the IS but about eliminating it totally.” On Tuesday the Chief of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, announced that the crash of the Russian Kogalmavia (Metrojet) Airbus 321 in Egypt’s North Sinai on October 31 had been caused by a bomb on board the plane.
  • The of Flight KGL9268 claimed the lives of all 224 passengers and crew on board. The plane was brought down about one month after Russia launched its airstrikes against Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusrah and other insurgencies in Syria. President Putin has briefed the Russian military command on the deployment of the French aircraft carrier and instructed the Russian naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Russian air forces in Syria to cooperate with the French military and to coordinate their military operations.
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  • Russia has further up-scaled its military engagement in Syria by including Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers in the operations in Syria. On Tuesday Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin on the deployment of the bombers, saying: “Today, in a period from 05:00 a.m. to 05:30 a.m. Moscow time, twelve Tu-22 bombers hit Islamic State targets in Raqqah; in a period from 09:00 a.m. to 09:40 a.m. Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers fired 34 air-launched cruise missiles at terrorist targets in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. A total of 127 sorties against 206 terrorist targets were scheduled for Tuesday, of which 82 sorties have already been flown and 140 targets have been hit. The operation is underway.” Russian air forces have thus far delivered about 4,000 air strikes in Syria, report official Russian military sources. A greater number than delivered by the US-led coalition against Daesh within one year. Putin noted, however, that this was not the time to focus on differences, but time to focus on an international effort aimed at defeating Daesh and terrorism.
  • The administrations of Turkish President R. Tayyip Erdogan and the administration of US President Barack Obama, for their part, have reportedly agreed on closing the entire Turkish – Syrian border. Turkey has previously been strongly criticized for allowing the illegal import of oil from Daesh while allowing the flow of weapons, munitions and insurgents for Daesh at the eastern part of the border while allowing Jabhat al-Nusrah to cross the border in the western section of the border. Whether the latest developments result in the formation of a genuine international alliance against Daesh and other terrorist organizations in the region remains to be seen. Moscow has reportedly begun to communicate with insurgents which it designates as “reasonable opposition” to avoid bombing their positions, while Moscow, in return, receives intelligence about Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusrah.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 15
     
    Is the U.S. finally getting serious about taking down ISIL? Closing the Turkey border crossings that have allowed ISIL resupply is a strong measure, if actually implemented effectively. Russian movement of bombers into the fray likewise cranks up the heat on ISIL and al Nusrah.
Paul Merrell

Risking World War III in Syria | Consortiumnews - 0 views

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war & peace Syria Turkey U.S. Saudis Qatar Russia invasion

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Risking World War III in Syria February 6, 2016 Exclusive: After Saudi-backed Syrian rebels balked at peace talks and the Russian-backed Syrian army cut off Turkish supply lines to jihadists and other Syrian rebels, the U.S. and its Mideast Sunni “allies” appear poised to invade Syria and force “regime change” even at the risk of fighting Russia, a gamble with nuclear war, writes Joe Lauria.By Joe LauriaDefense Secretary Ashton Carter last October said in a little noticed comment that the United States was ready to take “direct action on the ground” in Syria. Vice President Joe Biden said in Istanbul last month that if peace talks in Geneva failed, the United States was prepared for a “military solution” in that country.The peace talks collapsed on Wednesday even before they began. A day later Saudi Arabia said it is ready to invade Syria while Turkey is building up forces at its Syrian border.
  • The U.N. aims to restart the talks on Feb. 25 but there is little hope they can begin in earnest as the Saudi-run opposition has set numerous conditions. The most important is that Russia stop its military operation in support of the Syrian government, which has been making serious gains on the ground.A day after the talks collapsed, it was revealed that Turkey has begun preparations for an invasion of Syria, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. On Thursday, ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said: “We have good reasons to believe that Turkey is actively preparing for a military invasion of a sovereign state – the Syrian Arab Republic. We’re detecting more and more signs of Turkish armed forces being engaged in covert preparations for direct military actions in Syria.” The U.N. and the State Department had no comment. But this intelligence was supported by a sound of alarm from Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
  • Turkey, which has restarted its war against Kurdish PKK guerillas inside Turkey, is determined to crush the emergence of an independent Kurdish state inside Syria as well. Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan stopped the Syrian Kurds from attending the aborted Geneva talks.A Turkish invasion would appear poised to attack the Syrian Kurdish PYD party, which is allied with the PKK. The Syrian (and Iraqi) Kurds, with the Syrian army, are the main ground forces fighting the Islamic State. Turkey is pretending to fight ISIS, all the while actually supporting its quest to overthrow Assad, also a Turkish goal.Saudi Arabia then said on Thursday it was prepared to send its ground forces into Syria if asked. Carter welcomed it. Of course Biden, Erdogan, Carter and the Saudis are all saying a ground invasion would fight ISIS. But their war against ISIS has been half-hearted at best and they share ISIS’ same enemy: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. If the U.S. were serious about fighting ISIS it would have at least considered a proposal by Russia to join a coalition as the U.S. did against the Nazis.
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  • The excuse of the Geneva collapse is a ruse. There was little optimism the talks would succeed. The real reason for the coming showdown in Syria is the success of Russia’s military intervention in defense of the Syrian government against the Islamic State and other extremist groups. Many of these groups are supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States in pursuit of overthrowing Assad.These three nations are all apparently poised for a ground invasion of Syria just as, by no coincidence, the Syrian Arab Army with Russian air cover is pushing to liberate perhaps the greatest prize in the Syrian civil war — Aleppo, the country’s commercial capital. The Russians and Syrians have already cut off Turkey’s supply lines to rebels in the city.On Saturday, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates joined the Saudis in saying they would intervene only as part of a U.S.-led ground invasion. The Obama administration has maintained that it would not send U.S. ground forces into Syria, beyond a few hundred special forces. But these U.S. allies, driven by fierce regional ambitions, appear to be putting immense pressure on the Obama administration to decide if it is prepared to lose Syria. Though Carter said he welcomed the Saudi declaration he made no commitment about U.S. ground forces. But Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri told al-Arabiya TV that a decision could be made to intervene at a NATO summit in Brussels next week. Carter said the matter would be on the agenda.
  • The U.S. cannot likely stand by and watch Russia win in Syria. At the very least it wants to be on the ground to meet them at a modern-day Elbe and influence the outcome.But things could go wrong in a war in which the U.S. and Russia are not allies, as they were in World War II. Despite this, the U.S. and its allies see Syria as important enough to risk confrontation with Russia, with all that implies. It is not at all clear though what the U.S. interests are in Syria to take such a risk.
  • As a fertile crossroad between Asia and Africa backed by desert, Syrian territory has been fought over for centuries. Pharaoh Ramses II defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh near Lake Homs in 1247 BCE. The Persians conquered Syria in 538 BCE. Alexander the Great took it 200 years later and the Romans grabbed Syria in 64 BCE.Islam defeated the Byzantine Empire there at the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. In one of the first Shia-Sunni battles, Ali failed to defeat Muawiyah in 657 at Siffin along the Euphrates near the Iraq-Syria border. Damascus became the seat of the Caliphate until a coup in 750 moved it to Baghdad.Waves of Crusaders next invaded Syria beginning in 1098. Egyptian Mamluks took the country in 1250 and the Ottoman Empire began in 1516 at its victory at Marj Dabik, 44 kilometers north of Aleppo — about where Turkish supplies are now being cut off. France double-crossed the Arabs and gained control of Syria in 1922 after the Ottoman collapse. The Nazis were pushed out in the momentous 1941 Battle of Damascus.We may be now looking at an epic war with similar historical significance. All these previous battles, as momentous as they were, were regional in nature.
  • What we are potentially facing is a war that goes beyond the Soviet-U.S. proxy wars of the Cold War era, and beyond the proxy war that has so far taken place in the five-year Syrian civil war. Russia is already present in Syria. The entry of the United States and its allies would risk a direct confrontation between the two largest nuclear powers on earth.
Paul Merrell

Obama "on verge of" launching another bombing campaign in Libya, after dropping 23,144 ... - 0 views

www.salon.com/...bombs_on_six_countries_in_2015

war & peace Libya U.S.-foreign-policy bombing

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The U.S. dropped at least 23,144 bombs on six Muslim-majority countries in 2015 — Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.The government has not officially declared war in Syria, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, but this hasn’t stopped it from bombing them, or from waging a secretive drone war in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia for more than a decade.Yet it appears these wars are not enough. The Obama administration is “on the verge of taking action” against ISIS in Libya, Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Politico.The U.S. insists it does not plan to deploy ground troops to the oil-rich North African country, but Obama said the same thing about Iraq and Syria, and there are now 3,700 American soldiers in the former and scores of special operations forces in the latter.
  • The notion that the U.S. is considering another bombing campaign in Libya in order to fight ISIS is almost laughably ludicrous, because it was in fact the first U.S.-backed bombing campaign in Libya that brought ISIS into the North African nation in the first place.
  • Hawkish Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton played a pivotal role in this war, essentially leading it as secretary of state. The Washington Post reports that she has since “repeatedly defended the Libya military intervention as U.S. ‘smart power at its best.'”When Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was sodomized with a bayonet by rebels, Clinton gloated live on TV, declaring “We came, we saw, he died.”The real Benghazi scandal is that the once bustling city is in ruins today, in the wake of the NATO war, with large chunks of it under the control of extremist group Ansar al-Sharia.
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  • American military intervention in Afghanistan has been much the same. “The Taliban now control more of Afghanistan than at any time since October 2001,” journalist Antony Loewenstein, an author of numerous books and Guardian columnist who has spent time in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan reporting on the U.S. war and occupation, told Salon in a forthcoming interview about his book “Disaster Capitalism.” advertisement You Might Also Like Fifteen years of U.S. war and occupation in Afghanistan have only brought us back where we started — with an estimated quarter of a million Afghans dead in the process.
  • The U.S. bombing in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria is clearly not working; the idea that it somehow will in Libya is absurd.In his report on the 23,144 bombs the U.S. dropped in 2015, which he notes is a conservative estimate, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Micah Zenko notes that “The primary focus — meaning the commitment of personnel, resources, and senior leaders’ attention — of U.S. counterterrorism policies is the capture or killing (though, overwhelmingly killing) of existing terrorists.”“Far less money and programmatic attention is dedicated to preventing the emergence of new terrorists,” Zenko points out.
Paul Merrell

Bulk Collection Under Section 215 Has Ended… What's Next? | Just Security - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...lk-collection-ended-whats-next

surveillance state NSA-reform 215 bulk-collection EO-12333

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The first (and thus far only) roll-back of post-9/11 surveillance authorities was implemented over the weekend: The National Security Agency shuttered its program for collecting and holding the metadata of Americans’ phone calls under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. While bulk collection under Section 215 has ended, the government can obtain access to this information under the procedures specified in the USA Freedom Act. Indeed, some experts have argued that the Agency likely has access to more metadata because its earlier dragnet didn’t cover cell phones or Internet calling. In addition, the metadata of calls made by an individual in the United States to someone overseas and vice versa can still be collected in bulk — this takes place abroad under Executive Order 12333. No doubt the NSA wishes that this was the end of the surveillance reform story and the Paris attacks initially gave them an opening. John Brennan, the Director of the CIA, implied that the attacks were somehow related to “hand wringing” about spying and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) introduced a bill to delay the shut down of the 215 program. Opponents of encryption were quick to say: “I told you so.”
  • But the facts that have emerged thus far tell a different story. It appears that much of the planning took place IRL (that’s “in real life” for those of you who don’t have teenagers). The attackers, several of whom were on law enforcement’s radar, communicated openly over the Internet. If France ever has a 9/11 Commission-type inquiry, it could well conclude that the Paris attacks were a failure of the intelligence agencies rather than a failure of intelligence authorities. Despite the passage of the USA Freedom Act, US surveillance authorities have remained largely intact. Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act — which is the basis of programs like PRISM and the NSA’s Upstream collection of information from Internet cables — sunsets in the summer of 2017. While it’s difficult to predict the political environment that far out, meaningful reform of Section 702 faces significant obstacles. Unlike the Section 215 program, which was clearly aimed at Americans, Section 702 is supposedly targeted at foreigners and only picks up information about Americans “incidentally.” The NSA has refused to provide an estimate of how many Americans’ information it collects under Section 702, despite repeated requests from lawmakers and most recently a large cohort of advocates. The Section 215 program was held illegal by two federal courts (here and here), but civil attempts to challenge Section 702 have run into standing barriers. Finally, while two review panels concluded that the Section 215 program provided little counterterrorism benefit (here and here), they found that the Section 702 program had been useful.
  • There is, nonetheless, some pressure to narrow the reach of Section 702. The recent decision by the European Court of Justice in the safe harbor case suggests that data flows between Europe and the US may be restricted unless the PRISM program is modified to protect the information of Europeans (see here, here, and here for discussion of the decision and reform options). Pressure from Internet companies whose business is suffering — estimates run to the tune of $35 to 180 billion — as a result of disclosures about NSA spying may also nudge lawmakers towards reform. One of the courts currently considering criminal cases which rely on evidence derived from Section 702 surveillance may hold the program unconstitutional either on the basis of the Fourth Amendment or Article III for the reasons set out in this Brennan Center report. A federal district court in Colorado recently rejected such a challenge, although as explained in Steve’s post, the decision did not seriously explore the issues. Further litigation in the European courts too could have an impact on the debate.
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  • The US intelligence community’s broadest surveillance authorities are enshrined in Executive Order 12333, which primarily covers the interception of electronic communications overseas. The Order authorizes the collection, retention, and dissemination of “foreign intelligence” information, which includes information “relating to the capabilities, intentions or activities of foreign powers, organizations or persons.” In other words, so long as they are operating outside the US, intelligence agencies are authorized to collect information about any foreign person — and, of course, any Americans with whom they communicate. The NSA has conceded that EO 12333 is the basis of most of its surveillance. While public information about these programs is limited, a few highlights give a sense of the breadth of EO 12333 operations: The NSA gathers information about every cell phone call made to, from, and within the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, and possibly other countries. A joint US-UK program tapped into the cables connecting internal Yahoo and Google networks to gather e-mail address books and contact lists from their customers. Another US-UK collaboration collected images from video chats among Yahoo users and possibly other webcam services. The NSA collects both the content and metadata of hundreds of millions of text messages from around the world. By tapping into the cables that connect global networks, the NSA has created a database of the location of hundreds of millions of mobile phones outside the US.
  • Given its scope, EO 12333 is clearly critical to those seeking serious surveillance reform. The path to reform is, however, less clear. There is no sunset provision that requires action by Congress and creates an opportunity for exposing privacy risks. Even in the unlikely event that Congress was inclined to intervene, it would have to address questions about the extent of its constitutional authority to regulate overseas surveillance. To the best of my knowledge, there is no litigation challenging EO 12333 and the government doesn’t give notice to criminal defendants when it uses evidence derived from surveillance under the order, so the likelihood of a court ruling is slim. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is currently reviewing two programs under EO 12333, but it is anticipated that much of its report will be classified (although it has promised a less detailed unclassified version as well). While the short-term outlook for additional surveillance reform is challenging, from a longer-term perspective, the distinctions that our law makes between Americans and non-Americans and between domestic and foreign collection cannot stand indefinitely. If the Fourth Amendment is to meaningfully protect Americans’ privacy, the courts and Congress must come to grips with this reality.
Paul Merrell

Is There a US-Russia Grand Bargain in Syria? - 0 views

sputniknews.com/...us-russia-syria-bargain.html

war & peace Syria Russia U.S.-foreign-policy Iran Iraq Hezbollah

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • It’s spy thriller stuff; no one is talking. But there are indications Russia would not announce a partial withdrawal from Syria right before the Geneva negotiations ramp up unless a grand bargain with Washington had been struck.Some sort of bargain is in play, of which we still don’t know the details; that's what the CIA itself is basically saying through their multiple US Think Tankland mouthpieces. And that's the real meaning hidden under a carefully timed Barack Obama interview that, although inviting suspension of disbelief, reads like a major policy change document. Obama invests in proverbial whitewashing, now admitting US intel did not specifically identify the Bashar al-Assad government as responsible for the Ghouta chemical attack. And then there are nuggets, such as Ukraine seen as not a vital interest of the US – something that clashes head on with the Brzezinski doctrine. Or Saudi Arabia as freeloaders of US foreign policy – something that provoked a fierce response from former Osama bin Laden pal and Saudi intel supremo Prince Turki.
  • Tradeoffs seem to be imminent. And that would imply a power shift has taken place above Obama — who is essentially a messenger, a paperboy. Still that does not mean that the bellicose agendas of both the Pentagon and the CIA are now contained.
  • Russian intel cannot possibly trust a US administration infested with warmongering neocon cells. Moreover, the Brzezinski doctrine has failed – but it’s not dead. Part of the Brzezinski plan was to flood oil markets with shut-in capacity in OPEC to destroy Russia. That caused damage, but the second part, which was to lure Russia into an war in Ukraine for which Ukrainians were to be the cannon fodder in the name of “democracy”, failed miserably. Then there was the wishful thinking that Syria would suck Russia into a quagmire of Dubya in Iraq proportions – but that also failed miserably with the current Russian time out. 
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  • As much as Russia may be downsizing, Iran (and Hezbollah) are not. Tehran has trained and weaponized key paramilitary forces – thousands of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan fighting side by side with Hezbollah and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). The SAA will keep advancing and establishing facts on the ground. As the Geneva negotiations pick up, those facts are now relatively frozen. Which brings us to the key sticking point in Geneva – which has got to be included in the possible grand bargain. The grand bargain is based on the current ceasefire (or "cessation of hostilities") holding, which is far from a given. Assuming all these positions hold, a federal Syria could emerge, what could be dubbed Break Up Light.
  • And yet, in the shadows, lurks the possibility that Russian intel may be ready to strike a deal with the Turkish military – with the corollary that a possible removal of Sultan Erdogan would pave the way for the reestablishment of the Russia-Turkey friendship, essential for Eurasia integration.
  • Only the proverbially clueless Western corporate media was caught off-guard by Russia’s latest diplomatic coup in Syria. Consistency has been the norm. Russia has been consistently upgrading the Russia-China strategic partnership. This has run in parallel to the hybrid warfare in Ukraine (asymmetric operations mixed with economic, political, military and technological support to the Donetsk and Lugansk republics); even NATO officials with a decent IQ had to admit that without Russian diplomacy there’s no solution to the war in Donbass. In Syria, Moscow accomplished the outstanding feat of making Team Obama see the light beyond the fog of neo-con-instilled war, leading to a solution involving Syria’s chemical arsenal after Obama ensnared himself in his own red line. Obama owes it to Putin and Lavrov, who literally saved him not only from tremendous embarrassment but from yet another massive Middle East quagmire.
  • Russia will be closely monitoring the current “cessation of hostilities”; and if the War Party decides to ramp up “support” for ISIS/ISIL/Daesh or the “moderate rebel” front via any shadow war move, Russia will be back in a flash. As for Sultan Erdogan, he can brag what he wants about his “no-fly zone” pipe dream; but the fact is the northwestern Syria-Turkish border is now fully protected by the S-400 air defense system. Moreover, the close collaboration of the “4+1” coalition – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah – has broken more ground than a mere Russia-Shi’te alignment. It prefigures a major geopolitical shift, where NATO is not the only game in town anymore, dictating humanitarian imperialism; this “other” coalition could be seen as a prefiguration of a future, key, global role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
  • As we stand, it may seem futile to talk about winners and losers in the five-year-long Syrian tragedy – especially with Syria destroyed by a vicious, imposed proxy war. But facts on the ground point, geopolitically, to a major victory for Russia, Iran and Syrian Kurds, and a major loss for Turkey and the GCC petrodollar gang, especially considering the huge geo-energy interests in play. It’s always crucial to stress that Syria is an energy war – with the “prize” being who will be better positioned to supply Europe with natural gas; the proposed Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline, or the rival Qatar pipeline to Turkey that would imply a pliable Damascus. Other serious geopolitical losers include the self-proclaimed humanitarianism of the UN and the EU. And most of all the Pentagon and the CIA and their gaggle of weaponized “moderate rebels”. It ain’t over till the last jihadi sings his Paradise song. Meanwhile, “time out” Russia is watching.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 16
     
    Pepe Escobar.
Paul Merrell

Is the US preparing to stash 3,000 terrorists near the Ukrainian border? - OrientalRevi... - 0 views

orientalreview.org/...ists-near-the-ukrainian-border

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy MEK Iran Iraq Ukraine Romania

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • After removing the extremist organization Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) from its list of terrorist organizations in 2012, the US State Department has been unsuccessfully trying to move militants from this group out of Iraq and closer to sites that are being readied for future armed hostilities.
  • Washington seems to feel that Romania would be an auspicious location for 3,000 of these militants, specifically the city of Craiova, which is located near the Bulgarian border. Massoud Khodabandeh, who was previously a highly placed leader within the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, referred to the Bulgarian press in his claims that the issue of their resettlement was discussed during the meeting between the American secretary of state, John Kerry, and the Romanian foreign minister, Titus Corlatean, in Brussels in early December 2013. Early last year, Albania and Germany announced their willingness to accept a few hundred of the 3,000 fighters. However, the MEK insists that all the members of the group be resettled together in one area, something to which the governments of these countries have not been prepared to agree. Despite Hillary Clinton’s decision to the contrary, the MEK is still considered a terrorist organization in Iraq and Iran.  Iraq’s Shiite government, which rose to power after the US invasion in 2003, has an adversarial relationship with the members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq and insists that any countries that provide the group with support also be willing to accept its members for resettlement within their own borders. At present, MEK militants are being housed at a former American military base near Baghdad, and their camp has more than once been the target of rocket attacks in recent months (the latest incident was on Dec. 27, 2013).  Mojahedin-e-Khalq militants blame the Iraqi authorities for the attacks, but the latter have denied any involvement.
  • The MEK is a militant organization that is waging an armed struggle against the Iranian regime.  The group has been responsible for the deaths of about 50,000 people, including the assassination of the president, prime minister, and dozens of senior Iranian officials.  After its relocation to Iraq in 1986, Saddam Hussein often received assistance from the organization’s members during the Iran-Iraq war and also employed them to suppress the Kurdish separatist movement. From the beginning of the US campaign against Saddam Hussein, the organization became a focus of interest of the American government.  In 1994 the State Department sent Congress a damning 41-page report conclusively proving the MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, and as a result, the group was included in the State Department’s 1997 list of terrorist organizations.  The report specifically stated, “It is no coincidence that the only government in the world that supports the Mujahedin politically and financially is the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein.” After the American military invasion in 2003, the group came under US control.  The MEK actively lobbied to be removed from the official list of terrorist organizations, and the US put its members to use as part of America’s clandestine commando operations against Iran. It has now emerged that the Bush administration secretly brought members of the MEK to the US for military training that included signals intelligence and other skills related to covert espionage.  Presumably the program ended just before the Obama administration took office.  Apparently, the MEK was then placed under the control of Mossad, which utilized it to kill Iranian nuclear scientists.  Thanks to an article by Justin Raimondo, the writer and founder of the Antiwar.com website, the group was dubbed “Hillary’s Terrorists.”
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  • It is obvious that the Mojahedin-e-Khalq is not a peaceful organization.  In fact, it would be better compared to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, or Jubhat al-Nusrah, other groups which also enjoyed the tacit support of the United States until they became too unruly.  In addition, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan have still been unable to extricate themselves from the aftermath of the MEK’s activities within their borders. One can only guess at what awaits Romania should this army of 3,000 militants come calling at its door.  Harboring so many fighters so close to Ukraine, a country that has been afflicted with EuroMaidan fever for the past month and a half, could pave the way for any number of coercive scenarios for regime change.
Paul Merrell

Syria may turn out to be Obama's defining legacy | Asia Times - 0 views

www.atimes.com/ay-turn-obamas-defining-legacy

Auction 2016 war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Russia Aleppo

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • By M.K. Bhadrakumar October 5, 2016 9:54 AM (UTC+8) Share 0 Tweet Print Email Comment 0 Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. On Monday, the Barack Obama administration fulfilled its week-old threat to suspend bilateral talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis. Does this signal that the dogs of war are about to be unleashed? The thought may seem preposterous but tensions are palpable. US spy planes are spotted ever more frequently in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea over Russian bases, especially Tartus and Hmeimim in Syria.
  • Russia has deployed SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems in Syria, the first-ever such deployments outside Russia. Western analysts see it as a pre-emptive step to counter any American cruise missile attack. Russia is not taking any chances.
  • Moscow factors in that the US may use some rebel groups to ensure that Russian “body bags” are sent to Moscow, as threatened explicitly by US state department spokesman John Kirby last week. Moscow suspects American involvement in the missile attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus — “Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped the Americans”, a Russian statement in New York said on Tuesday. Indeed, passions are running high. There could be several dozen western intelligence operatives trapped with the rebel groups in east Aleppo. Clearly, the turning point was reached when the US and western allies undertook a fierce air attack on the Syrian army base at Deir Ezzor lasting an hour and killing 62 government troops. The US explanation of that being an accident lost credibility, since within an hour of the airstrike, extremist groups of al-Qaida followed up with ground attack as if acting in tandem.
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  • Trust has consequently broken down. The Russians are convinced that the US was never really interested in separating the moderate groups from extremists despite repeated promises, because Washington sees a use for al-Qaida affiliates, which happen to be the only capable fighting force to push the ‘regime change agenda in Syria. Put differently, Russians are inclined to agree with what Tehran has been saying all along. Moscow, therefore, switched tack and put its resources behind the Syrian operations to capture the strategic city of Aleppo and the military campaign is within sight of victory.
  • That is, unless there is US intervention in the coming days to tilt the military balance in favor of extremist groups trapped in the eastern districts of Aleppo with supply lines for reinforcements cut.
  • With no prospect of getting reinforcements, facing relentless air and ground attacks from the north and south, the rebels are staring at a hopeless battle of attrition. The point is, with the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian war becomes a residual military operation to purge the al-Qaida affiliate Jubhat al-Nusra from Idlib province as well, which means regime forces would secure control over the entire populous regions of Syria, all main cities and the entire Mediterranean coast. In a nutshell, the Syrian war ends with President Bashar al-Assad ensconced in power. The specter of “total victory” for Assad haunts Washington. It explains the string of vituperative statements against Moscow, betraying a high level of frustration. Theoretically, Obama can order missile attacks on the victorious Syrian government forces, but that will be like pouring oil on fire. On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry warned the Pentagon that any US military intervention to remove Assad would result in “terrible tectonic shifts” across the region.
  • In considering the war option, Obama has three things to take into account. First, Washington’s equations with Ankara and Riyadh are hugely uncertain at the moment and both regional allies are key partners in Syria.
  • Second, Turkish President Recep Erdogan is unlikely to gamble on another confrontation with Russia when his country’s legitimate interests in Syria can be secured by working in tandem with President Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table.
  • Third, and most important, Obama is unlikely to lead his country into a war without any clear-cut objective to realize when the curtain is coming down on his presidency. In this current state of play, Assad stands between the West and the deluge.
  • But what rankles is that Russian victory in Syria would mark the end of western hegemony over the Middle East, and historians are bound to single it out as the defining foreign-policy legacy of Obama’s presidency. Certainly, Moscow cannot but be sensing this. Russia may offer at some point a face-saving exit strategy — but only after the capture of Aleppo. After all, there is really no hurry between now and January to salvage Russia-US ties.
  • The debris of Russia’s ties with the US lies all around and no one knows where to begin a clean-up. Relations got worse when Obama called the Kremlin leadership “barbarous” in regard to Aleppo. Then, on Monday, Moscow explained its decision to suspend cooperation in getting rid of excess plutonium (that could be used to make nuclear weapons) as being due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions” by the US. This was a decision that Moscow could have deferred until Obama left office. After all, it meant suspending the sole Russian-American nuclear security initiative carrying Obama’s imprimatur. However, Moscow couldn’t resist depicting a Nobel Prize winner who promised to ensure “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” as someone who actually enhanced the role of nuclear weapons in the security strategy of the US.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16
     
    If you haven't been following the Syrian War in the last couple of weeks, you'd have missed that the U.S. government has gone bats**t crazy lately, since the ceasefire agreement Kerry negotiated with Lavrov fell apart because the U.S. couldn't deliver its fundamental promise to separate the "moderate" Syrian opposition from Al-Nusrah and ISIL The U.S. problem was two-fold: [i] the Pentagon mutinied and ended all talk of intelligence sharing with Russia by bombing a Syrian Army unit, killing over 60 and wounding over 100, followed within minutes by a coordinated Al-Nusra ground attack; and [ii] all the "moderate Syrian opposition groups refused the U.S. instruction to separate from the head-choppers, saying that ISIL and Al-Nusrah were their brothers-in-arms. (In fact, there are no "moderate" Syrian rebels; just agents of ISIL and Al-Nusrah who fly a different flag when it's time to pick up their supplies and ammunition from the U.S.) What's the Empire of Chaos to do when the mercenaries refuse to obey orders? So with all major elements of al-Nurah surrounded in an East Aleppo noose with the knot rapidly tightening (Aleppo will be taken before Hillary takes her throne), it's up to Obama to decide whether to unleash the Pentagon to save the CIA's al-Nusrah from destruction. He can't kick that can down the road to Hillary (or Donald). MSM is flooding its viewership with anti-Putin propaganda of the most vituperative kind as well as horror stories about all those poor freedom fighters and their kids being ruthlessly killed by Russia in East Aleppo. James Clapper dutifully trotted out an announcement of sorts blaming the Russian government for attempting to hack the U.S. election process, so Hillary could red-bait Donald's "I'd get along with Putin" position in the last debate. The choice must be painful for Obama. Does he want his legacy to be the President who lost the Middle East or the President who waged a war of aggression to protect al-Qaeda from destructio
Paul Merrell

As Wall Street Sinks Global Markets, China's Economic Policies Build Independence & Imm... - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...237608

war & peace China economy

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Feb 18 - No Cached
  • The recent economic “correction” in the U.S. markets, which saw stocks drop back down from recent record-highs, has begun to spread to the east, reaching the stock exchanges in Tokyo, Taiwan and Shanghai. While all three of these markets depend, to some extent, on the performance of Wall Street, one is likely to emerge stronger as the U.S. market corrects itself. Many Western economic analysts — such as those at the pillar of U.S. financial journalism, Bloomberg — have continued to predict future financial downturns would be caused by Chinese debt, or the country’s massive “shadow” economy (or, more specifically, low level loans that aren’t tightly regulated by the central government). This latest downturn, however, shows once again that Wall Street is still the primary factor in sinking global markets. China has been faced with — and continued to grow throughout — a previous U.S.-triggered global recession just under a decade ago. While the current condition of the markets is nothing like the end of 2008, there is still the same fear in the West that China is somehow on the brink of catastrophe. Yet China pulled through the Great Recession, despite a huge decrease in demand for Chinese export goods. Beijing presided over GDP growth only falling below 8 percent in the last quarter of 2008 and first of 2009 and made a faster recovery than any Western nation.
  • China is obviously in a position much different now from that of 2008. Now — as a clear competitor with the U.S. in key economic sectors such as cutting-edge technology, and playing a unifying role for a large portion of the global population — Beijing is making even more major domestic economic reforms and preparing to project its new prosperity outward. In order to better understand how China is likely not just to survive any fluctuations in the U.S. market but also to thrive, it is best to understand both how China managed to recover from the last recession faster than any other country and the new economic policies of President Xi Jinping, which will harness the power of the world’s largest planned economy in its march into the future.
Paul Merrell

Prediction of False-Flag Chemical Attack in Syria Fits US Escalation Plans - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...241930

war & peace Syria WMD false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 May 18 - No Cached
  • hough last month’s unilateral bombing of Syria by the U.S., U.K. and France came and went, the threat of foreign military intervention targeting the Syrian government remains, particularly given Syria’s success in defeating the foreign-funded terrorist proxies that have prolonged the Syrian conflict for seven long years. While Israel seems to have taken it upon itself to militarily intervene in Syria to prevent the Syrian government from continuing to reclaim its lost territory, the other major powers that have long sought the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have seemed to step back from intervening in Syria, unless another chemical weapons attack were to take place and be blamed on Assad. For that reason, a recent article, published in early May by Russian news agency RIA Novosti, should raise concern, as it exposes alleged plans for another gas-attack provocation in Syria. According to the report, preparations for a staged chemical weapons attack began late last month as civilians were relocated to a territory near Jafra oil field in Eastern Syria, where they will participate in a staged filming of a chemical-weapons attack scene. According to South Front, a U.S. military garrison was recently established in this area. The report, based on the testimony of an anonymous member of the Syrian security services, claimed that an attack was being planned by U.S. security services and would employ “prohibited substances” against a group of civilians. The source also noted that the operation itself was being led by a former Daesh (ISIS) militant, Mishan Idris Hamash. Though this may seem unusual, the U.S. and its proxy force in Eastern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have been known to collaborate with former Daesh forces, including militias composed of former Daesh fighters under the SDF banner.
  • While no new information has since emerged that would corroborate Novosti’s report, it is true that the U.S. — as the occupying force in the area where the provocation is allegedly being planned – does have a motive to conduct such a false flag attack, as the U.S. and Israel stand to benefit the most were the worst to occur. As MintPress has reported over the course of the war in Syria, the U.S. has long had the goal of regime change in Syria and it – along with many of its allies – have helped foment and prolong the Syrian conflict in pursuit of this end. However, timing here is key. Such a provocation, and the retaliation it would inspire, would come just as Israel and Syria are the closest to outright war in decades, as Israeli airstrikes targeting Syria earlier this week were extensive and have led to the relocation of significant military assets, including tanks, to the Golan Heights, the portion of southern Syria under illegal Israeli occupation. Were a U.S. and Western military intervention – provoked by another alleged chemical weapons attack blamed on Assad – to occur while Israel is actively preparing for a major conflict with Syria, it would put pressure on Assad from the U.S.-occupied east while Israel attacks from the south, making any military campaign against the Syrian government much more effective for those forces that have long sought the destruction of the Syrian state.
Paul Merrell

Daesh, Creature of the West - 0 views

sputniknews.com/...1928836-daesh-western-creature

war & peace ISIL-origins

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • James Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Emerging Threats at NATO – now that’s a lovely title – recently gave a talk at a private club in London on the Islamic State/Daesh. Shea, as many will remember, made his name as NATO’s spokesman during the NATO war on Yugoslavia in 1999.After his talk Shea engaged in a debate with a source I very much treasure. The source later gave me the lowdown.  According to Saudi intelligence, Daesh was invented by the US government – in Camp Bacca, near the Kuwait border, as many will remember — to essentially finish off the Shiite-majority Nouri al-Maliki government in Baghdad.
  • It didn’t happen this way, of course. Then, years later, in the summer of 2014, Daesh routed the Iraqi Army on its way to conquer Mosul. The Iraqi Army fled. Daesh operatives then annexed ultra-modern weapons that took US instructors from six to twelve months to train the Iraqis in and…surprise! Daesh incorporated the weapons in their arsenals in 24 hours. In the end, Shea frankly admitted to the source that Gen David Petraeus, conductor of the much-lauded 2007 surge, had trained these Sunnis now part of Daesh in Anbar province in Iraq. Saudi intelligence still maintains that these Iraqi Sunnis were not US-trained – as Shea confirmed – because the Shiites in power in Baghdad didn’t allow it. Not true. The fact is the Daesh core – most of them former commanders and soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s army — is indeed a US-trained militia. True to form, at the end of the debate, Shea went on to blame Russia for absolutely everything that’s happening today – including Daesh terror. 
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