Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items tagged truce

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Paul Merrell

Saudi-Iranian Truce on Syria is Welcome   :    Information Clearing House: ICH - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32131.htm

war & peace saudis Iran syria

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Aug 12 - No Cached
  •  Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz’s invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend an emergency Islamic summit in Makkah later this month caught many observers by surprise. The invitation was extended at a time when relations between the two key Gulf powers have reached a new low over the very issue the summit is designed to deal with — Syria. More surprising was Tehran’s response. Ahmadinejad is said to have accepted the invitation and is preparing to lead his country’s delegation to the summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which will be held on August 15-16.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Aug 12
     
    Must Read for those tracking war and peace issues in the Mideast and want to know the current status between the major Arab powers. Written by the dean of the Faculty of International Relations & Diplomacy at a major university in Syria.
Paul Merrell

Massacre in Shujaiya: Dozens killed as Israel shells eastern Gaza City - photos | The E... - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...hells-eastern-gaza-city-photos

war & peace Israel Palestine Gaza Shujaiya-massacre

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Dozens of men, women and children were killed in the early hours of Sunday as Israel indiscriminately shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya. Some sixty bodies have already been removed from the rubble of homes and apartment buildings, and the number of injured is more than two hundred, Palestinian health ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra told local media.
  • But the true death toll could be even higher. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it coordinated a two-hour “humanitarian truce” to allow the rescue of the injured and the removal of bodies.
  • The latest massacre brings to more than 420 the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, now entering its second week. More than 3,000 people have been injured and tens of thousands have fled their homes, with many seeking shelter in UN-run schools.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Some journalists entered Shujaiya during the pause in the Israeli attack and tweeted images of what they saw. Others tweeted images from in or near Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital.
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Jul 14
     
    Background: An Israeli Defense Force armored personnel carrier hit a landmine in Shujaiya, killing all 7 soldiers aboard. Israel responded with a massive and lengthy artillery bombardment, destroying much of Shujaiya. They also destroyed an ambulance carrying injured civilians, a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention.  
Paul Merrell

Reported US-Syrian Accord on Air Strikes | Consortiumnews - 1 views

consortiumnews.com/...s-syrian-accord-on-air-strikes

war & peace Syria ISIL U.S.-foreign-policy limited-truce

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Exclusive: A problem with President Obama’s plan to expand the war against ISIS into Syria was always the risk that Syrian air defenses might fire on U.S. warplanes, but now a source says Syria’s President Assad has quietly agreed to permit strikes in some parts of Syria, reports Robert Parry.
  • The Obama administration, working through the Russian government, has secured an agreement from the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to permit U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State targets in parts of Syria, according to a source briefed on the secret arrangements. The reported agreement would clear away one of the chief obstacles to President Barack Obama’s plan to authorize U.S. warplanes to cross into Syria to attack Islamic State forces – the concern that entering Syrian territory might prompt anti-aircraft fire from the Syrian government’s missile batteries.
  • In essence, that appears to be what is happening behind the scenes in Syria despite the hostility between the Obama administration and the Assad government. Obama has called for the removal of Assad but the two leaders find themselves on the same side in the fight against the Islamic State terrorists who have battled Assad’s forces while also attacking the U.S.-supported Iraqi government and beheading two American journalists.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The usual protocol for the U.S. military – when operating in territory without a government’s permission – is to destroy the air defenses prior to conducting airstrikes so as to protect American pilots and aircraft, as was done with Libya in 2011. However, in other cases, U.S. intelligence agencies have arranged for secret permission from governments for such attacks, creating a public ambiguity usually for the benefit of the foreign leaders while gaining the necessary U.S. military assurances.
  • Just last month, Obama himself termed the strategy of arming supposedly “moderate” Syrian rebels “a fantasy.” He told the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman: “This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards.” Obama’s point would seem to apply at least as much to having the “moderate” rebels face down the ruthless Islamic State jihadists who engage in suicide bombings and slaughter their captives without mercy. But this “fantasy” of the “moderate” rebels has a big following in Congress and on the major U.S. op-ed pages, so Obama has included the $500 million in his war plan despite the risk it poses to Assad’s acquiescence to American air attacks.
  • In a national address last week, Obama vowed to order U.S. air attacks across Syria’s border without any coordination with the Syrian government, a proposition that Damascus denounced as a violation of its sovereignty. So, in this case, Syria’s behind-the-scenes acquiescence also might provide some politically useful ambiguity for Obama as well as Assad. Yet, this secret collaboration may go even further and include Syrian government assistance in the targeting of the U.S. attacks, according to the source who spoke on condition of anonymity. That is another feature of U.S. military protocol in conducting air strikes – to have some on-the-ground help in pinpointing the attacks. As part of its public pronouncements about the future Syrian attacks, the Obama administration sought $500 million to train “vetted” Syrian rebels to handle the targeting tasks inside Syria as well as to carry out military ground attacks. But that approach – while popular on Capitol Hill – could delay any U.S. airstrikes into Syria for months and could possibly negate Assad’s quiet acceptance of the U.S. attacks, since the U.S.-backed rebels share one key goal of the Islamic State, the overthrow of Assad’s relatively secular regime.
  • Without Assad’s consent, the U.S. airstrikes might require a much wider U.S. bombing campaign to first target Syrian government defenses, a development long sought by Official Washington’s influential neoconservatives who have kept “regime change” in Syria near the top of their international wish list. For the past several years, the Israeli government also has sought the overthrow of Assad, even at the risk of Islamic extremists gaining power. The Israeli thinking had been that Assad, as an ally of Iran, represented a greater threat to Israel because his government was at the center of the so-called Shiite crescent reaching from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut and southern Lebanon, the base for Hezbollah.
  • The thinking was that if Assad’s government could be pulled down, Iran and Hezbollah – two of Israel’s principal “enemies” – would be badly damaged. A year ago, then-Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren articulated this geopolitical position in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. “The greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc,” Oren said. “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.” He said this was the case even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda. More recently, however, with the al-Qaeda-connected Nusra Front having seized Syrian territory adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – forcing the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers – the balance of Israeli interests may be tipping in favor of preferring Assad to having Islamic extremists possibly penetrating directly into Israeli territory.
  • In the longer term, by working together to create political solutions to various Mideast crises, the Obama-Putin cooperation threatened to destroy the neocons’ preferred strategy of escalating U.S. military involvement in the region. There was the prospect, too, that the U.S.-Russian tag team might strong-arm Israel into a peace agreement with the Palestinians. So, starting last September – almost immediately after Putin helped avert a U.S. air war against Syria – key neocons began taking aim at Ukraine as a potential sore point for Putin. A leading neocon, Carl Gershman, president of the U.S.-government-funded National Endowment for Democracy, took to the op-ed pages of the neocon Washington Post to identify Ukraine as “the biggest prize” and explaining how its targeting could undermine Putin’s political standing inside Russia. “Ukraine’s choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” At the time, Gershman’s NED was funding scores of political and media projects inside Ukraine.
  • The Russian Hand Besides the tactical significance of U.S. intelligence agencies arranging Assad’s tacit acceptance of U.S. airstrikes over Syrian territory, the reported arrangement is also significant because of the role of Russian intelligence serving as the intermediary. That suggests that despite the U.S.-Russian estrangement over the Ukraine crisis, the cooperation between President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin has not been extinguished; it has instead just gone further underground. Last year, this growing behind-the-scenes collaboration between Obama and Putin represented a potential tectonic geopolitical shift in the Middle East. In the short term, their teamwork produced agreements that averted a U.S. military strike against Syria last September (by getting Assad to surrender his chemical weapons arsenal) and struck a tentative deal with Iran to constrain but not eliminate its nuclear program.
  • Direct attacks on Israel would be a temptation to al-Nusra Front, which is competing for the allegiance of young jihadists with the Islamic State. While the Islamic State, known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, has captured the imaginations of many youthful extremists by declaring the creation of a “caliphate” with the goal of driving Western interests from the Middle East, al-Nusra could trump that appeal by actually going on the offensive against one of the jihadists’ principal targets, Israel. Yet, despite Israel’s apparent rethinking of its priorities, America’s neocons appear focused still on their long-held strategy of using violent “regime change” in the Middle East to eliminate governments that have been major supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, i.e. Syria and Iran. One reason why Obama may have opted for a secretive overture to the Assad regime, using intelligence channels with the Russians as the middlemen, is that otherwise the U.S. neocons and their “liberal interventionist” allies would have howled in protest.
  • By early 2014, American neocons and their “liberal interventionist” pals were conspiring “to midwife” a coup to overthrow Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych, according to a phrase used by U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in an intercepted phone conversation with Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who was busy handpicking leaders to replace Yanukovych. A neocon holdover from George W. Bush’s administration, Nuland had been a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and is married to prominent neocon Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for a New American Century which prepared the blueprint for the neocon strategy of “regime change” starting with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
  • The U.S.-backed coup ousted Yanukovych on Feb. 22 and sparked a bloody civil war, leaving thousands dead, mostly ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. But the Gershman-Nuland strategy also drove a deep wedge between Obama and Putin, seeming to destroy the possibility that their peace-seeking collaboration would continue in the Middle East. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons’ Ukraine-Syria-Iran Gambit.”] New Hope for ‘Regime Change’ The surprise success of Islamic State terrorists in striking deep inside Iraq during the summer revived neocon hopes that their “regime change” strategy in Syria might also be resurrected. By baiting Obama to react with military force not only in Iraq but across the border in Syria, neocons like Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham put the ouster of Assad back in play.
  • In a New York Times op-ed on Aug. 29, McCain and Graham used vague language about resolving the Syrian civil war, but clearly implied that Assad must go. They wrote that thwarting ISIS “requires an end to the [civil] conflict in Syria, and a political transition there, because the regime of President Bashar al-Assad will never be a reliable partner against ISIS; in fact, it has abetted the rise of ISIS, just as it facilitated the terrorism of ISIS’ predecessor, Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Though the McCain-Graham depiction of Assad’s relationship to ISIS and al-Qaeda was a distortion at best – in fact, Assad’s army has been the most effective force in pushing back against the Sunni terrorist groups that have come to dominate the Western-backed rebel movement – the op-ed’s underlying point is obvious: a necessary step in the U.S. military operation against ISIS must be “regime change” in Damascus.
  • That would get the neocons back on their original track of forcing “regime change” in countries seen as hostile to Israel. The first target was Iraq with Syria and Iran always meant to follow. The idea was to deprive Israel’s close-in enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial support. But the neocon vision got knocked off track when Bush’s Iraq War derailed and the American people balked at extending the conflict to Syria and Iran. Still, the neocons retained their vision even after Bush and Cheney departed. They also remained influential by holding onto key positions inside Official Washington – at think tanks, within major news outlets and even inside the Obama administration. They also built a crucial alliance with “liberal interventionists” who had Obama’s ear. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Dangerous Neocon-R2P Alliance.”]
  • The neocons’ new hope arrived with the public outrage over ISIS’s atrocities. Yet, while pushing to get this new war going, the neocons have downplayed their “regime change” agenda, getting Obama to agree only to extend his anti-ISIS bombing campaign from Iraq into Syria. But it was hard to envision expanding the war into Syria without ousting Assad. Now, however, if the source’s account is correct regarding Assad’s quiet assent to U.S. airstrikes, Obama may have devised a way around the need to bomb Assad’s military, an maneuver that might again frustrate the neocons’ beloved goal of “regime change.”
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Sep 14
     
    Robert Parry lands another major scoop. But beware of government officials who leak government plans because they do not invariably speak the truth.  I am particularly wary of this report because Obama's planned arming and training of the "moderate Syrian opposition" was such a patent lie. The "moderate Syrian opposition" disappeared over two years ago as peaceful protesters were replaced by Saudi, Qatari, Turkish, and American-backed Salafist mercenaries took their place. Up until this article, there has been every appearance that the U.S. was about to become ISIL's Air Force in Syria. In other words, there has been a steady gushing of lies from the White House on fundamental issues of war and peace. In that light, I do not plan to accept this article as truth before I see much more confirmation that ISIL rather than the Assad government is the American target in Syria. We have a serial liar in the White House.
Paul Merrell

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly | The Whit... - 0 views

www.whitehouse.gov/...nited-nations-general-assembly

war & peace Obama-speech U.N. hypocrisy

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly United Nations General Assembly Hall New York City, New York 10:13 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen:  We come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope. Around the globe, there are signposts of progress.  The shadow of World War that existed at the founding of this institution has been lifted, and the prospect of war between major powers reduced.  The ranks of member states has more than tripled, and more people live under governments they elected. Hundreds of millions of human beings have been freed from the prison of poverty, with the proportion of those living in extreme poverty cut in half.  And the world economy continues to strengthen after the worst financial crisis of our lives. 
  • And yet there is a pervasive unease in our world -- a sense that the very forces that have brought us together have created new dangers and made it difficult for any single nation to insulate itself from global forces.  As we gather here, an outbreak of Ebola overwhelms public health systems in West Africa and threatens to move rapidly across borders.  Russian aggression in Europe recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition.  The brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness.
  • First, all of us -- big nations and small -- must meet our responsibility to observe and enforce international norms.  We are here because others realized that we gain more from cooperation than conquest. 
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Recently, Russia’s actions in Ukraine challenge this post-war order.  Here are the facts.  After the people of Ukraine mobilized popular protests and calls for reform, their corrupt president fled.  Against the will of the government in Kyiv, Crimea was annexed.  Russia poured arms into eastern Ukraine, fueling violent separatists and a conflict that has killed thousands.  When a civilian airliner was shot down from areas that these proxies controlled, they refused to allow access to the crash for days.  When Ukraine started to reassert control over its territory, Russia gave up the pretense of merely supporting the separatists, and moved troops across the border. This is a vision of the world in which might makes right -- a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed. America stands for something different.  We believe that right makes might -- that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, and that people should be able to choose their own future.
  • nd these are simple truths, but they must be defended. America and our allies will support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy.  We will reinforce our NATO Allies and uphold our commitment to collective self-defense.  We will impose a cost on Russia for aggression, and we will counter falsehoods with the truth.  And we call upon others to join us on the right side of history -- for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions. Moreover, a different path is available -- the path of diplomacy and peace, and the ideals this institution is designed to uphold.  The recent cease-fire agreement in Ukraine offers an opening to achieve those objectives.  If Russia takes that path -- a path that for stretches of the post-Cold War period resulted in prosperity for the Russian people -- then we will lift our sanctions and welcome Russia’s role in addressing common challenges.  After all, that’s what the United States and Russia have been able to do in past years -- from reducing our nuclear stockpiles to meeting our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to cooperating to remove and destroy Syria’s declared chemical weapons.  And that’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again -- if Russia changes course. 
  • This speaks to a central question of our global age -- whether we will solve our problems together, in a spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect, or whether we descend into the destructive rivalries of the past.  When nations find common ground, not simply based on power, but on principle, then we can make enormous progress.  And I stand before you today committed to investing American strength to working with all nations to address the problems we face in the 21st century.
  • America is pursuing a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue, as part of our commitment to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and pursue the peace and security of a world without them.  And this can only take place if Iran seizes this historic opportunity.  My message to Iran’s leaders and people has been simple and consistent:  Do not let this opportunity pass.  We can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful.  America is and will continue to be a Pacific power, promoting peace, stability, and the free flow of commerce among nations.  But we will insist that all nations abide by the rules of the road, and resolve their territorial disputes peacefully, consistent with international law. 
  • In other words, on issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule book written for a different century.  If we lift our eyes beyond our borders -- if we think globally and if we act cooperatively -- we can shape the course of this century, as our predecessors shaped the post-World War II age.  But as we look to the future, one issue risks a cycle of conflict that could derail so much progress, and that is the cancer of violent extremism that has ravaged so many parts of the Muslim world. Of course, terrorism is not new.  Speaking before this Assembly, President Kennedy put it well:  “Terror is not a new weapon,” he said.  “Throughout history it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example.”  In the 20th century, terror was used by all manner of groups who failed to come to power through public support.  But in this century, we have faced a more lethal and ideological brand of terrorists who have perverted one of the world’s great religions.  With access to technology that allows small groups to do great harm, they have embraced a nightmarish vision that would divide the world into adherents and infidels -- killing as many innocent civilians as possible, employing the most brutal methods to intimidate people within their communities.
  • I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism.  Instead, we’ve waged a focused campaign against al Qaeda and its associated forces -- taking out their leaders, denying them the safe havens they rely on.  At the same time, we have reaffirmed again and again that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.  Islam teaches peace.  Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice.  And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there is only us -- because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country. So we reject any suggestion of a clash of civilizations. Belief in permanent religious war is the misguided refuge of extremists who cannot build or create anything, and therefore peddle only fanaticism and hate.  And it is no exaggeration to say that humanity’s future depends on us uniting against those who would divide us along the fault lines of tribe or sect, race or religion.
  • But this is not simply a matter of words.  Collectively, we must take concrete steps to address the danger posed by religiously motivated fanatics, and the trends that fuel their recruitment.  Moreover, this campaign against extremism goes beyond a narrow security challenge.  For while we’ve degraded methodically core al Qaeda and supported a transition to a sovereign Afghan government, extremist ideology has shifted to other places -- particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where a quarter of young people have no job, where food and water could grow scarce, where corruption is rampant and sectarian conflicts have become increasingly hard to contain.   As an international community, we must meet this challenge with a focus on four areas.  First, the terrorist group known as ISIL must be degraded and ultimately destroyed.
  • The second:  It is time for the world -- especially Muslim communities -- to explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of organizations like al Qaeda and ISIL.
  • Later today, the Security Council will adopt a resolution that underscores the responsibility of states to counter violent extremism.  But resolutions must be followed by tangible commitments, so we’re accountable when we fall short.  Next year, we should all be prepared to announce the concrete steps that we have taken to counter extremist ideologies in our own countries -- by getting intolerance out of schools, stopping radicalization before it spreads, and promoting institutions and programs that build new bridges of understanding.
  • Third, we must address the cycle of conflict -- especially sectarian conflict -- that creates the conditions that terrorists prey upon.
  • The good news is we also see signs that this tide could be reversed.  We have a new, inclusive government in Baghdad; a new Iraqi Prime Minister welcomed by his neighbors; Lebanese factions rejecting those who try to provoke war.  And these steps must be followed by a broader truce.  Nowhere is this more necessary than Syria.  Together with our partners, America is training and equipping the Syrian opposition to be a counterweight to the terrorists of ISIL and the brutality of the Assad regime.  But the only lasting solution to Syria’s civil war is political -- an inclusive political transition that responds to the legitimate aspirations of all Syrian citizens, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of creed.
  • My fourth and final point is a simple one:  The countries of the Arab and Muslim world must focus on the extraordinary potential of their people -- especially the youth.
  • We recognize as well that leadership will be necessary to address the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.  As bleak as the landscape appears, America will not give up on the pursuit of peace.  Understand, the situation in Iraq and Syria and Libya should cure anybody of the illusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the main source of problems in the region.  For far too long, that's been used as an excuse to distract people from problems at home.  The violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace.  And that's something worthy of reflection within Israel.
  • Because let’s be clear:  The status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable.  We cannot afford to turn away from this effort -- not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region and the world will be more just and more safe with two states living side by side, in peace and security. So this is what America is prepared to do:  Taking action against immediate threats, while pursuing a world in which the need for such action is diminished.  The United States will never shy away from defending our interests, but we will also not shy away from the promise of this institution and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- the notion that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of a better life. 
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Sep 14
     
    Epic hypocrisy. He bows to international law while waging multiple wars in direct defiance of it. And that's just in the first few paragraphs. It gets worse the farther he gets in his speech.
Paul Merrell

Did Israeli army deliberately kill its own captured soldier and destroy Gaza ceasefire?... - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...tured-soldier-and-destroy-gaza

war & peace Israel Gaza Rafah-Massacre Hannibal-Directive war crimes

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • On Saturday evening, the Israeli army stated that Hadar Goldin, the soldier it claimed Hamas had captured on Friday morning, is dead: on Twitter A special IDF committee has concluded that Lt. Hadar Goldin was killed in combat in Gaza on Friday. May his memory be a blessing.— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) August 2, 2014 It was on the pretext of searching for the missing soldier that Israel slaughtered at least 110 of people in the southern Gaza town of Rafah since Friday morning, destroying what was supposed to be a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire. But the toll is rising as more bodies are found. “Such was the savagery of Israel’s bombardment in Rafah, such was the quantity of dead bodies, that there was simply no other option but to use vegetable refrigerators as makeshift morgues,” journalist Mohammed Omer, who hails from Rafah, reports.
  • One wonders whether US President Barack Obama will now retract his hasty statement – no doubt based on misinformation from Israel – blaming Hamas for capturing the soldier and demanding that he be “unconditionally” released. Now that Israel has, like Hamas, concluded that Goldin is dead, the question remains whether someone in the Israeli army gave the order to shell Rafah to kill him and prevent Hamas taking a live prisoner.
  • Friday turned into yet another day of horror for Palestinians in Gaza, as Israel committed massacres and atrocities claiming the lives of at least 100 people. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Friday was meant to be the first day of a three-day “humanitarian ceasefire” announced on Thursday evening by the United Nations and the United States.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Israel has long had a murky procedure called the Hannibal Directive that some interpret as an order to do whatever it takes to prevent a soldier’s capture, even if it means killing him in the process.
  • Here’s Israel’s version, as reported in Ynet: According to an announcement by the IDF [Israeli army], at 9:30 am Friday, terrorists opened fire at IDF forces in southern Gaza. Initial information from the scene indicated that there is a chance that an IDF soldiers [sic] was kidnapped [sic] during the incident. Israel claims that the soldiers were working to destroy a resistance tunnel and that such “defensive” activities were permitted by the ceasefire agreement. What Israel does not dispute is that its occupation forces were carrying out operations in the Gaza Strip.
  • But an interesting observation comes from this tweet: on Twitter Just returned from Southern gaza - got to border with Israel multiple artillery barrages whilst there an hour after supposed ceasefire— Rageh Omaar (@ragehomaar) August 1, 2014 If Omaar is right, this would mean that Israel was already heavily shelling in the Rafah area by around 9am, since the ceasefire was supposed to begin at 8am. And if the artillery barrages followed the killing and alleged capture of Israeli soldiers by Qassam it would also mean that the incident could have occurred before 9:30am.
  • Around 10am many more reports started to come in of mass casualties from “indiscriminate shelling” on George Street, east of Rafah. If the shelling indeed began between 9 and 10am, it would mean that Israel launched a massive and indiscriminate barrage at just about the time it says its soldier was captured. This makes no sense if Israeli forces wanted to ensure the captured soldier’s safety. After all, he could be killed along with his captors.
  • Qassam did not comment for the whole of Friday on Israel’s assertion that one of its soldiers was captured. Early on Saturday it issued a new military communiqué condemning the “ongoing horrifying massacre of civilians in Rafah” and reaffirming its earlier version and timeline of events. But it has these important additions: We lost contact with the group of fighters that were stationed at that location and we believe that all members of the unit were martyred and the soldier the enemy says went missing was killed in the Zionist shelling, assuming that the fighters did capture him during the confrontation. We in Qassam have no knowledge up to this moment about the missing soldier, nor his whereabouts nor the circumstances of his disappearance. It is reasonable to assume that Qassam has no motive to be deceptive about this; a captured Israeli soldier is a valuable asset. If they had him they would either boast about it or keep quiet and perhaps seek to trade information about him for concessions from Israel.
  • If the Israeli soldier was killed, it is possible that it was unintentional “friendly fire.” But again, forces that were intent on protecting and rescuing a missing soldier would be foolhardy to launch massive air raids or barrages of artillery fire in the area where he was captured. This leaves open the question of whether Israeli forces intended to kill the missing soldier. The Hannibal Directive The “Hannibal Directive” captured the Israeli imagination in the mid-1980s, when ongoing incursions and occupation in Lebanon, following the 1982 invasion, confronted the Israeli army with opportunities to experience capture. Popular understanding of this directive is phrased as “a dead soldier is better than a kidnapped [sic] one” – which was taken to mean that it would be better to kill a captured prisoner of war than have him remain alive.
  • There was much discussion on Twitter about this being the reason for the shelling of Rafah on Friday morning, including in reports from Ynet’s military reporter Attila Somfalvi, that the words “Hannibal! Hannibal!” were shouted over military communication systems.
  • Journalist Haim Har-Zahav reminisced that it took 50 minutes before the directive was put into practice on the Lebanon border, in 2006 and almost an hour in 1991, but that his own brigade took only a few minutes. Sports commentator Ouriel Daskal stated outright: “what I deduce from what’s happening in Rafah is that there’s an implementation of the Hannibal Directive. Let’s hope not.” Moreover, blogger Richard Silverstein reported a few days ago that another soldier was killed in Gaza under the directive. Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman confirmed in a radio interview, with respect to an earlier incident, that in Gaza the procedure “was tested in practice and apparently the soldiers acted in accordance with that directive.”
  • But these indications, combined with the fact that Israel bombed Rafah so viciously make it a reasonable hypothesis that someone giving orders on Friday morning wanted the soldier dead rather than captured. If that is the case, then it is Israel that destroyed the humanitarian ceasefire, in the process murdering dozens more innocent people and pushing the death toll from the ongoing massacre in Gaza to more than 1,600 people.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14
     
    Ali Abunimah pieces together rather compelling evidence that the Israel Defense Force's utter devastation of Rafah, Gaza by artillery fire was an attack intended to kill one of its own soldiers they believed had been captured, and broke a cease-fire agreement to do so then lied about it, pursuant to the IDF's unwritten Hannibal Directive, that it is better to kill one of their own than to allow him to be kept captive. A serious war crime slaughtering over 100 civilians even without that.    
Paul Merrell

Report: Israel agrees to extend truce for 24 hours | Maan News Agency - 0 views

www.maannews.net/...ViewDetails.aspx

war & peace Gaza Israel Palestine casualties

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The Palestinian death toll in Gaza rose to well over 1,000 on Saturday, as search teams recovered bodies from destroyed buildings during the brief ceasefire.Some 151 bodies were recovered during the 12-hour window, according to the Ministry of Health.Nearly 6,000 Palestinians have been injured in the offensive.
Paul Merrell

News Roundup and Notes: August 18, 2014 | Just Security - 0 views

justsecurity.org/...s-roundup-notes-august-18-2014

war & peace Iraq Israel Palestine mission-creep

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Over the weekend, the U.S. military carried out further airstrikes in Iraq, targeting Islamic State militants near the Mosul Dam, involving “a mix of fighter, bomber, attack and remotely piloted aircraft.” The nine strikes on Saturday and 14 strikes on Sunday were carried out under authority “to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq,” to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, and to support Iraqi and Kurdish defense forces [U.S. Central Command]. President Obama notified Congress of the latest American involvement yesterday, stating that “[t]he failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, endanger U.S. personnel and facilities, including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.” Obama said the operations will be “limited in their scope and duration.” The significantly expanded air campaign, including the first reported use of U.S. bombers, has strengthened the Kurdish forces’ ground offensive to reclaim the strategic dam from Islamic State control [Wall Street Journal’s Matt Bradley et al.; Washington Post’s Liz Sly et al.]. Iraqi state television reported early today that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are now in control of the dam [Reuters], although there are reports of continued heavy fighting around the Mosul Dam [Al Jazeera]. Joe Parkinson [Wall Street Journal] covers how the U.S. has gained a “controversial new ally” in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as a number of PKK fighters joined the U.S.-backed Kurdish battle in northern Iraq over the weekend.
  • Israel-Palestine With the five-day truce between Israel and Hamas set to expire tonight, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are continuing discussions in Cairo, although significant gaps remain between the two sides. While Israel is pushing for tougher security measures, Palestine is demanding an end to the Gaza blockade without preconditions [Associated Press; Reuters’ Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller]. Israeli troops have demolished the homes of two Palestinians suspected to have been behind the abduction and killing of the three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank in June [Haaretz’s Gili Cohen]. An IDF spokesperson said that the demolition “conveys a clear message to terrorists and their accomplices that there is a personal price to pay when engaging in terror and carrying out attacks against Israelis” [Al Jazeera]. Haaretz’s editorial board notes how the Israeli offensive in Gaza has generated “a very public crisis in relations between Israel and the United States” and warns that “Netanyahu must ease the tension with Washington and act to repair the rift with Obama.” The Wall Street Journal (Joshua Mitnick) explores how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “containment strategy” in the ongoing conflict is “a contrast from the tough talk against terrorism that fueled his political ascent.”
  • ulian Borger [The Guardian] notes how the potential International Criminal Court investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza by both Israeli and Hamas forces has become a “fraught political battlefield.” Marwan Bishara [Al Jazeera] explains how and why the UN has been “sidelined” in the Middle East conflict. Meanwhile, the British government is facing a legal challenge over its decision to not suspend existing licenses for the sale of military hardware to Israel following the launch of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last month [The Guardian’s Jamie Doward].
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Texas Governor Rick Perry [Politico Magazine] writes that “[c]learly more strikes will be necessary, with nothing less than a sustained air campaign to degrade and destroy Islamic State forces.” The Hill (Alexander Bolton) notes that Democrats in both chambers have called for a vote in Congress over military strikes in Iraq, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “almost certainly wants to avoid [a vote] as he seeks to keep the upper chamber majority in his party’s hands.” The United Kingdom has also expanded its military involvement in Iraq, with Defence Secretary Michael Fallon confirming that British warplanes are no longer confined to the initial humanitarian mission to assist Iraq’s Yazidi minority [The Guardian’s Nicholas Watt]. The UN Security Council has placed six individuals affiliated with extremist organizations in Iraq and Syria, including the Islamic State, on its sanctions list [UN News Centre]. Army Col. Joel Rayburn, writing in the Washington Post, considers the legacy of Nouri al-Maliki. While Maliki has agreed to step down as prime minister, Rayburn argues that “the damage he has wrought will define his country for decades to come.” Mike Hanna [Al Jazeera America] explains why Maliki’s ouster “is no magic bullet for Iraq,” noting that a “change of prime minister doesn’t in itself alter Iraq’s political or security equation.” And Ali Khedery [New York Times] writes how the latest change in government “really is Iraq’s last chance.”
  • Journalist James Risen, who faces prison over his refusal to reveal the source of a CIA operation story, has called President Obama “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation” [New York Times’ Maureen Dowd]. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has promised to co-operate with an investigation to be carried out by the nuclear watchdog, following a “useful” meeting in Tehran [Reuters’ Fredrik Dahl and Mehrdad Balali]. Sky News reports that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is planning to “soon” leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, after spending more than two years inside the building. Assange said he is planning to meet with the British government to resolve his “lack of legal protection.”
  • If you want to receive your news directly to your inbox, sign up here for the Just Security Early Edition. For the latest information from Just Security, follow us on Twitter (@just_security) and join the conversation on Facebook. To submit news articles and notes for inclusion in our daily post, please email us at news@justsecurity.org. Don’t forget to visit The Pipeline for a preview of upcoming events and blog posts on U.S. national security.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Aug 14
     
    Until about a month ago, I thought that Barack Obama would leave only two lasting accomplishments for future history books: [i] first African-American President; and [ii] ending the U.S. war in Iraq. Make it item 1 only now. It's no longer U.S. military "mission creep" in Iraq; it's full bore reinvasion topped off with a U.S. enguineered coup of the Iraqi government.   Just Security is a very high quality politico-legal site for issues involving U.S. and U.S.-sponsored violence and surveillance issues. It's based at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law. Their emailed weekday newsletter is great for the topics I try to follow.  
Paul Merrell

News from The Associated Press - 0 views

hosted.ap.org/...EU_ISLAMIC_STATE_AL_QAIDA

war & peace Syria ISIL al-Nusra truce

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Militant leaders from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida gathered at a farm house in northern Syria last week and agreed on a plan to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents, a high-level Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander have told The Associated Press. Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington's strategy against the IS group. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming "moderate" rebel factions to push them back on the ground. Those rebels, already considered relatively weak and disorganized, would face far stronger opposition if the two heavy-hitting militant groups now are working together.
Paul Merrell

AP sources: IS, al-Qaida reach accord in Syria - 0 views

bigstory.ap.org/...es-al-qaida-reach-accord-syria

war & peace Syria ISIL al-Nusra truce

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Militant leaders from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida gathered at a farm house in northern Syria last week and agreed on a plan to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents, a high-level Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander have told The Associated Press. Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington's strategy against the IS group. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming "moderate" rebel factions to push them back on the ground. Those rebels, already considered relatively weak and disorganized, would face far stronger opposition if the two heavy-hitting militant groups now are working together. IS — the group that has seized nearly a third of Syria and Iraq with a campaign of brutality and beheadings this year — and al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, have fought each other bitterly for more than a year to dominate the rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Gary Edwards

Ukraine's Oligarchs Turn on Each Other | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...s-oligarchs-turn-on-each-other

Ukraine Corporate-Oligarchs Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • n the never-never land of how the mainstream U.S. press covers the Ukraine crisis, the appointment last year of thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to govern one of the country’s eastern provinces was pitched as a democratic “reform” because he was supposedly too rich to bribe, without noting that his wealth had come from plundering the country’s economy.In other words, the new U.S.-backed “democratic” regime, after overthrowing democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych because he was “corrupt,” was rewarding one of Ukraine’s top thieves by letting him lord over his own province, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, with the help of his personal army.
  • Last year, Kolomoisky’s brutal militias, which include neo-Nazi brigades, were praised for their fierce fighting against ethnic Russians from the east who were resisting the removal of their president. But now Kolomoisky, whose financial empire is crumbling as Ukraine’s economy founders, has turned his hired guns against the Ukrainian government led by another oligarch, President Petro Poroshenko.Last Thursday night, Kolomoisky and his armed men went to Kiev after the government tried to wrest control of the state-owned energy company UkrTransNafta from one of his associates. Kolomoisky and his men raided the company offices to seize and apparently destroy records. As he left the building, he cursed out journalists who had arrived to ask what was going on. He ranted about “Russian saboteurs.”It was a revealing display of how the corrupt Ukrainian political-economic system works and the nature of the “reformers” whom the U.S. State Department has pushed into positions of power. According to BusinessInsider, the Kiev government tried to smooth Kolomoisky’s ruffled feathers by announcing “that the new company chairman [at UkrTransNafta] would not be carrying out any investigations of its finances.”
  • Yet, it remained unclear whether Kolomoisky would be satisfied with what amounts to an offer to let any past thievery go unpunished. But if this promised amnesty wasn’t enough, Kolomoisky appeared ready to use his private army to discourage any accountability.On Monday, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, chief of the State Security Service, accused Dnipropetrovsk officials of financing armed gangs and threatening investigators, Bloomberg News reported, while noting that Ukraine has sunk to 142nd place out of 175 countries in Transparency International’s Corruptions Perception Index, the worst in Europe.The see-no-evil approach to how the current Ukrainian authorities do business relates as well to Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who appears to have enriched herself at the expense of a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Regarding Kolomoisky’s claim about “Russian saboteurs,” the government said that was not the case, explaining that the clash resulted from the parliament’s vote last week to reduce Kolomoisky’s authority to run the company from his position as a minority owner. As part of the shakeup, Kolomoisky’s protégé Oleksandr Lazorko was fired as chairman, but he refused to leave and barricaded himself in his office, setting the stage for Kolomoisky’s arrival with armed men.On Tuesday, the New York Times reported on the dispute but also flashed back to its earlier propagandistic praise of the 52-year-old oligarch, recalling that “Mr. Kolomoisky was one of several oligarchs, considered too rich to bribe, who were appointed to leadership positions in a bid to stabilize Ukraine.”Kolomoisky also is believed to have purchased influence inside the U.S. government through his behind-the-scenes manipulation of Ukraine’s largest private gas firm, Burisma Holdings. Last year, the shadowy Cyprus-based company appointed Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to its board of directors. Burisma also lined up well-connected lobbyists, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry’s former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures.
  • Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat who received overnight Ukrainian citizenship in December to become Finance Minister, had been in charge of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which became the center of insider-dealing and conflicts of interest, although the U.S. Agency for International Development showed little desire to examine the ethical problems – even after Jaresko’s ex-husband tried to blow the whistle. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Finance Minister’s American ‘Values.’”]Passing Out the BillionsJaresko will be in charge of dispensing the $17.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund is allocating to Ukraine, along with billions of dollars more expected from U.S. and European governments.
  • As Time magazine reported, “Leiter’s involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry’s son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company.”According to investigative journalism in Ukraine, the ownership of Burisma has been traced to Privat Bank, which is controlled by Kolomoisky.So, it appears that Ukraine’s oligarchs who continue to wield enormous power inside the corrupt country are now circling each other over what’s left of the economic spoils and positioning themselves for a share of the international bailouts to come.
  • As for “democratic reform,” only in the upside-down world of the State Department’s Orwellian “information war” against Russia over Ukraine would imposing a corrupt and brutal oligarch like Kolomoisky as the unelected governor of a defenseless population be considered a positive.(Early Wednesday morning, President Poroshenko dismissed Kolomoisky from his post as Dnipropetrovsk regional governor.)
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 15
     
    Another of the greatest U.S. exports: corruption.
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Mar 15
     
    Corporate oligarchs leading private but well armed armies in raids against the Ukrainian government holdings - controlled by other corporate oligarchs? This article dives into the mess that the USA and European NATO allies have stirred in the Ukraine, and through this lens we get to see what the world will look like when corporate oligarchs and their Bankster masters rule the world. The article is revealing, but it fails to connect the corporatist to the Banks that are sending in billions of dollars. The connection instead is made to the democratic governments intent on pushing the world into world war 3. Nor is there much mention of the oil and natural gas pipeline and supply geographics that dominate battlefields from the Ukraine, to Syria, Iraq and Lybia. The New World Order needs a third World War if it's to truly overturn the fragile post World War II economic order loosely based on free market capitalism, individual liberty and democratic governance. The end of national sovereignty, religious and cultural identities has one more hurdle. And there is no doubt in my mind that the elites are ready to jump that hurdle. World War III has spread from the middle east to middle Europe. Best we all hold on. .................. "Exclusive: Ukraine's post-coup regime is facing what looks like a falling-out among thieves as oligarch-warlord Igor Kolomoisky, who was given his own province to rule, brought his armed men to Kiev to fight for control of the state-owned energy company, further complicating the State Department's propaganda efforts, reports Robert Parry. In the never-never land of how the mainstream U.S. press covers the Ukraine crisis, the appointment last year of thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to govern one of the country's eastern provinces was pitched as a democratic "reform" because he was supposedly too rich to bribe, without noting that his wealth had come from plundering the country's economy. In other words, the new U.S.-b
Paul Merrell

Syrian Intelligence Claims To Have Proof Of US Military Coordination With ISIS - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...220787

war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy ISIL-coordination

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • The Syrian intelligence possesses an audio recording of conversation between Daesh terrorists and US military prior to the Washington-led coalition’s airstrikes on the government troops near Deir ez-Zor on September 17, the speaker of the People’s Council of Syria said Monday. “The Syrian Army intercepted a conversation between the Americans and Daesh before the air raid on Deir ez-Zor”, Hadiya Khalaf Abbas said as quoted by the Al Mayadeen broadcaster. US warplanes hit Syrian government troops near the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor on September 17, leaving 62 military personnel killed and a hundred wounded. The Pentagon said initially that the airstrike was a mistake and targeted Daesh militants. The head of the Syrian parliament, added during her visit to Iran that after the coalition’s airstrikes on the government troops, the US military directed terrorists’ attack on the Syrian army.
  • The attack on government positions put to test a US-Russia brokered nationwide ceasefire that came into being in Syria earlier that week. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last Friday it was necessary to separate Daesh terrorists from “moderate” opposition forces in order to salvage the truce. Britain, Australia and Denmark confirmed their air forces’ participation in the deadly airstrikes. The politician noted that the details would be made public later.
Paul Merrell

US-Israeli Plan to Counter Iran's Influence in Syria - ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English - 0 views

english.aawsat.com/...-counter-irans-influence-syria

war & peace Syria Iran Israel

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Mar 17 - No Cached
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday to voice US-Israeli concerns over Iran’s attempts to expand its influence in Syria, Israeli sources reported. Netanyahu’s spokesman said that during the latest phone conversation with US President Donald Trump, the Israeli prime minister coordinated stances towards Iran on the eve of his visit to Russia. A ministerial official with a military background said that Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles was a provocation to both the US and Israel, adding that Tehran’s “vital interests” in Syria could soon be targeted. When asked whether Israel would bomb Iranian forces in Syria, the official said: “Anything Iranian that moves in Syria will be a target”. Threats to target Iranian forces in Syria coincided with heavy raids by the Syrian regime on eastern Ghouta, breaking a fragile truce announced earlier by Russia in the area located near Damascus.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Mar 17
     
    Syria is definitely heating up.
‹ Previous 21 - 32 of 32
Showing 20▼ items per page