Saturday 4 August 2012

Eye on the Enemy: Yadlin Says Real Threat Facing "Israel" Small Rockets

  Local Editor

Yadlin: Real Threat Facing "Israel" Is Not Long-Range Missiles, But Small Rockets

"Israel" Hayom

""Israel" is not threatened by 200,000 missiles. It is under threat of perhaps 1,000 effective missiles and another 9,000 long-range rockets, but the rest of the 190,000 rockets in the region are inaccurate and short-range," said former Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who heads the Institute for National Security Studies, said on Thursday at a conference on ""Israel's" Homefront Preparedness." "Let's put the threat into perspective, and stop talking about missiles and start talking about rockets."

"Worrying over 200,000 missiles is not serious, it is not professional, and we will be putting our resources in the wrong places," he added.


Commenting on possible future confrontations, Yadlin admitted that missiles would strike the Gush Dan. "A few more would strike than the number that hit in 1991, but today we have the Arrow interception system, better intelligence and a better Air Force. A large number of the rockets will be stopped, but some of them will indeed hit Gush Dan and for this we have to be prepared." "When missiles start hitting Tel Aviv - and this will happen - and people will be killed, "Israel's" legitimacy to take action will drastically increase and our ability to do things that we have not done until today will be much greater," said Yadlin who served as the IDF's chief of Military Intelligence.

In terms of solutions, Yadlin highlighted several factors, among them a possible "Israeli" offensive. "The vision for those in charge of the defense systems should be to launch a flyover to take away from the enemy this exact asset against which we are trying to defend ourselves. The combination of precise intelligence and precise weaponry can enable us to eliminate most of our enemy's advantages."
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Egyptian Hypocrisy: Morsi wrote to Peres, and denied

Yori Yalon - "Israel" Hayom

President Shimon Peres received yesterday, an official message from the Egyptian President, Mohammed Morsi stating, "I received your congratulations on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan, with deep thanks. I would like to take this opportunity to re-assure that I hope we can do our best to bring the peace process back on track to achieve security and stability for all peoples of the region, including the people of "Israel". "

The Egyptian Ambassador to "Israel" Yasser Reda conveyed this message to the military secretary of the President, Col. Hassoun Hassoun. Yet after a brief period of publication, it seems that someone in Cairo got confused. Senior officials in Egypt cooled down this enthusiasm over a possible warming of relations with Jerusalem. Yasser Ali, the spokesman of Morsi even vehemently denied that the Egyptian president sent a letter to Peres.

"Reports in the "Israeli" media are false and of no evidence. Egyptian President did not send any message to the "Israeli" president." The President's Residence in Jerusalem was not moved by the Egyptian denial and stated that a letter was indeed sent by Morsi.

Peres's closest advisers said that denials were issued after exposing the message in the media, which is not suitable for Egyptian interests. Peres' office said the letter was a routine communiqué.

It also said that once they realized that the sympathy message may be explained as a sign weakness, Egypt decided to deny the very existence of the message, even though Morsi's office approved it.
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Does Chief Of Staff Really Object Attacking Iran?

Walla!News - Amir Bohbot

"Chief of Staff is given the freedom of speech in any domain, because he is the army commander," explained on Monday a senior defense official following recent reports in the media about alleged strong objections of senior defense officials over an attack on Iran - including Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, commander of Air Force Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel and the head of Mossad Tamir Pardo. "It is required to listen to the political system that determines the goals of the implementation. He is responsible to say whether the army is prepared for various scenarios and whether the troops are carrying out tasks. Even then the ability to make a decision belongs to the political system," said the source.

The official added that "there were previous objections made by senior echelons to military operations as in Entebbe or attacking Iraqi reactor, which finally was carried out successfully. These are no indications in these missions about the current system of relations, but they are kind of a role model."
"There is here an attempt to cover the ideas and opinions for people to create an atmosphere of an opposition to the attack," the source added. "They all have a high capacity for expressing an opinion and they know how to express it. Any attempt to talk about the attack in terms of yes and no is demagoguery, not professional and not serious."
Another senior defense official dismissed the reports in which the Chief of Staff talked about the possibility of attacking Iran with American officials, and clarified that Gantz speaks about this topic only in much closed forums. The defense establishment estimates that the reports about army chief's opposition to attack Iran stems from a media spin. "Chief of staff is to make recommendations and estimations and this is what he 100% does. Our assessment is that those rolling out such spins are those opposing to the attack, and we all know who are they."
Source: "Israeli" Websites, translated and edited by moqawama.org
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Assad Enrages Erdogan: the Paper that Slaughters Turkey!

Somaya Ali

Kurd militantsMore than any other time, the Kurdish obsession takes hold of Turkey. Since its very formation in the seventies, and its transformation into an armed movement led by Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and its goal to establish an independent state of Kurdistan, have represented one of the main problems facing Ankara. Till the moment, the Turkish inside is still living the consequential events of the everlasting Kurdish-Turkish struggle that is once peace-like and other war-like. However, it seems that this sort of monotonous struggle is starting to create a new dimension along with the developing events in Turkey’s Southern neighbor, Syria.

Awakening of the Memory

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis on March 15, 2011, Turkey has never been neutral towards what is going on in Syria. Yet the Turkish positions and statements of its high-level officials led by Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have taken a strict form based on direct intervention in the events. The Turkish position didn’t only demand Syrian President Bashar Assad’s step-down, but also went further militarily supporting the armed groups fighting against the regime, and making Istanbul the breeder of the Syrian opposition conferences. This represented a remarkable change in the Syrian-Turkish relationships that used to be positively based on cooperation on the levels of security, politics, and especially economy since President Assad’s first of its kind visit to Turkey in 2004 following the crisis caused by the PKK.

The year 1998 brought the climax of a crisis between Damascus and Ankara when the Turkish leaders threatened to invade the Syrian lands on the pretext of stopping the PKK’s attacks and because Syria was sheltering at that time the PKK’s leader Abdullah Ocalan. However, Ocalan’s departure from Syria, and the Libyan threat to close all the Turkish companies on its land, contributed to avoid moving toward the worst in this crisis.

Currently, history’s memory remembers this event after a new different crisis between the same sides had emerged starting from Turkey’s direct intervention to breach the Syrian peace out of supporting the armed groups; hence will it end by a direct Turkish intervention after what was reported about the PKK’s control on the Northern Syrian Kurdish region with the regime’s green light to annoy Turkey and embarrass it?

Syria’s Kurds: The Paper that Slaughters Turk, but ...

PKK’s leader Abdullah OcalanErdogan’s current threat to intervene in case of transforming the northeastern Syrian area to a starting point from which the PKK members would act against Turkey raises the following question: Did Turkey start paying the costs of being an essential foreign side in the Syrian crisis? Did the regime start to use its strongest playing cards to address a message to Turkey as a part of the new policy it decided to adopt after the explosion of the National Security building, in which this policy started the military settlement first in Damascus then in Aleppo?

What is noteworthy is that the Kurdish reality is much complicated and full of contradictions concerning the position from the events in Syria especially between the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian ones. In further details, Turkey is trying to cooperate with the Iraqi Kurds, in spite of the struggles between both sides, in order to control Syria’s Kurds behavior and prevent them from signing any implied agreement with the Syrian regime and making the north of Syria a sphere of influence for the PKK. This was clear in Erdogan’s speech when he announced in a TV interview, that he sent his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to north Iraq in order to discuss the latest developments in the Syrian Kurdish region.

This new cooperation is based on the two sides’ mutual position toward the Syrian crisis in which the Iraqi Kurds tend to support the so-called Syrian opposition through training the Syrian Kurds in the Iraqi Kurdistan camps as was announced by Hayman Hawramy, the Head of External Relations Department in the Kurdistan Democratic Party led by the President of Iraqi Kurdistan Masʽoud Barzani.

On the opposite side, the Syrian Kurds are moving in a totally different direction that tends toward neutrality. Head of Kurdish Democratic Union Party (KDUP) in Syria, Saleh Muslim, stated that the training Kurds have received in the Iraqi Kurdistan aims at protection. Yet he had reservations on allowing them to enter Syria again.

Kurds dreaming of IndependenceKurds are Daydreaming of Independence: Signing Accord with the Syrian Regime despite Lack of Mutual Constants

The expert in the Turkish Affairs Mohammad Noureddine states that: “Changing the priorities among the Syrian concerns to be concentrated in certain regions such as Damascus and Aleppo created what can be called some empty areas as in north Syria where Kurdish majorities live there. Noting that the PKK, and its branch the KDUP are strongly backed by the Kurdish community. For this reason, it is normal that they dominate that region.”

In a call with Al-Manar website, Noureddine considered more probable that the regime will use the Kurdish card as a part of his battle against the opposition and its backers. “Amidst the chaos and the unrest witnessed in Syria, as well as the cooperation between regional and international powers led by Turkey to topple the regime in Syria by organizing the political and military Syrian opposition, we can understand that all of these issues and prohibitions became permissible, and every side is seeking gathering as more as possible of cards of power. On this level, it is normal to witness an implicit accord and understanding between Damascus and the PKK even though it is not based on enough mutual constants to do this,” Noureddine added.

Mohammad NoureddineHe also considers that it is possible to Iraqi Kurds to be involved in this agreement in contrary with what appear on the surface till the moment viewing dissimilarity between them and the Syrian Kurds. Noureddine explained that: “In case the Kurds in north Syria were granted their cultural and lingual rights, reaching the right to self-control as their Head of the KDUP was demanding, noting that those demands are not limited by Kurds in Syria only, in other words: If it is possible to have an implicit accord with the regime that would give Kurds such privileges, I think that the Iraqi Kurds led by Masoud Barzani won’t be away from supporting this new Kurdish reality north Syria.”

The expert in Turkish affairs explains the consequences of this accord on Ankara stating that: “Iraqi Kurds supporting Syrian Kurds, as well as Kurdish-Turkish support to them, will be a full hit for the Turkish attempts to get rid of its internal Kurdish problem and of the PKK Kurds in Iraq because the Kurdish circle will spread from north Iraq to north Syria which will, definitely, have great consequences inside Turkey in the following stages. This new Kurdish situation north Syria will represent the worst results of what Syria is witnessing on the level of the Turkish reality as well as Turkey’s role in the region.”

Turkish Prime Minister Receb Tayyib ErdoganThe Struggle’s Cost: a Lake of Blood

In the same context, Mr. Noureddine raised the following questions: “Will Turkey really intervene in case this structure was formed north Syria? If Turkey intervened militarily, what will happen next?”

He replied that: “It is not easy. Turkey can do the same as it is doing north Iraq (air-bombing from time to time and performing certain specific operations occasionally), but this will produce numerous consequences north Syria, some of which are local public opinion opposition in Turkey, in addition to the Kurdish unity since the KDUP’s head is a member of the National Kurdish Council that was founded by Mohyi Al-Din Al-Shaikhaly in Irbil and was sponsored by Masoud Barzani who warned that the region will turn to be a lake of blood if Turkey entered north Syria.”

Mr. Noureddine terminated his talk saying: “Turks have never borne in mind that chaos would erupt in Syria and result either an independent, federal, or self-controlling Kurdish entity north Syria. For this reason, the possibility that this will happen surprised the Turks and shocked them in which their Foreign Minister is working all days and nights trying to reassure the Turkish public opinion and show that his government’s policy towards Syria wasn’t wrong.”
Translated by Zeinab Abdallah

To read the Arabic version of this article, click here

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Obama Trumps AIPAC, Romney, Republicans with Yet more Iranian Sanctions

Franklin Lamb


Beirut
Al-Manar


According to the Obama Presidential campaign issues staff, temporarily operating out of the Democratic National Committee HQ at 430 South Capitol Street, SE in Washington DC, Team Obama scored an electoral coup again rival Mitt Romney this week by moving fast to pull the rug from Romney’s hoped for advantage from his obsequious Israel trip. That visit, which ranks among the all-time most groveling led to even Zionist media outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post dissing Mitt’s trip as “un-presidential.”
Obama operative James Carville boasted this week that “Romney & Co. ain’t ready for no major league Presidential campaigning and we’re gonna keep whupping em real bad til November 6th.”
US presidential candidate Mitt Romney“Slick Jimmy” as Mr. Carville is fondly known back home in Big Easy bars along Bourbon Street as well as some of his associates are explaining why:
The Republican National Committee, now essentially part of the Romney campaign even though it is supposed to stay neutral until the party chooses its nominees at the August 27-30 Tampa, Florida Republican Convention had worked for over a month with AIPAC and Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to help deliver pro-Israel votes and cash to Romney.

The plan was to cap off Romney’s Israel trip with another round of sanctions against Iran which he would promote at a major photo op while bashing Syria in the process. This was to be achieved via yet another law, this time H. R. 1905 named by AIPAC as The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012.

US President Barak Obama during AIPAC conferenceIt was last December the Iran Threat Reduction Act draft law on the House side heaped more sanctions on Iran. The problem was that the White House was then tepid and US Senate Foreign Relation Committee Chair, John Kerry (D-Mass) did not cooperate as he continues to work to launch a diplomatic initiative with Tehran on behalf of Obama.

The current AIPAC version has emerged from Israel lobby dominated House-Senate negotiations and it includes the most flagrant layers of sanctions ever enacted to undermine the economy of any country.

Congressman Ron Paul rose to speak in strong opposition to H.R. 1905 on 8/1/12 labeling it a “declaration of war against Iran even though Iran has no nuclear weapons program”. And so it is.
H.R. 1905 sponsor and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) was almost giddy as she promised to deliver Florida to Romney and gushed:

"This bipartisan, bicameral Iran sanctions legislation strengthens current U.S. law by leaps and bounds and it updates and expands U.S. sanctions, and counters Iran's efforts to evade them. The bill sends a clear message to the Iranian mullahs that the U.S. is committed, through the use of sanctions, to preventing Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold." She reminded the media that Romney told Israeli officials in Jerusalem that the Obama administration was not doing enough to stop Iran's nuclear program and that: “Essentially president Obama is doing nothing!”

H.R. 1905 is a catch all frenzied election year gimmick that lumps together legislative initiatives of all sorts in order to corral votes for Romney immediately after his Israel trip which left little doubt that Israeli leaders believe that Israel will have less leverage to squeeze the US to take on yet another big military action if Obama is re-elected than if Romney wins.

H.R. 1905:
• Puts virtually all of Iran’s energy, financial, and transportation sectors under U.S. sanction. Companies conducting business with Iran in these sectors face losing access to U.S. markets;
• Applies harsh sanctions designed to prevent Iran from repatriating any proceeds from its oil sales, thus depriving Iran of 80 percent of its hard currency earnings and half of the funds to support its national budget for education, health, food subsidies and other needed public purposes;
• Places more tough sanctions on the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC);
• Targets Iran’s use of barter transactions to bypass sanctions, the provision of insurance to Iran’s energy sector, and the provision of specialized financial messaging services to the Central Bank of Iran;
Click here to learn more about the legislation and how it is designed to increase pressure on Iran.

Sanctions on Iran
In its letter to Congressmen, designed to aid Mitt Romney, AIPAC writes: “America and our allies must unite in a tough response to Iran’s belligerent approach. We must continue to send a strong message to Tehran that it will face unremitting pressure until it complies with its international obligations and end its nuclear weapons quest. We strongly support The Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (H.R. 1905) and urge you to vote YES.”

The letter is signed by the following AIPAC supporters of Romney: Howard Kohr, Executive Director, Marvin Feuer, Director, Policy & Government Affairs, and Brad Gordon, Director of Special Campaigns.

Learning what the Israeli lobby was attempting from its contacts at AIPAC, Obama campaign strategists moved fast and decided to have their candidate use his constitutional powers and undercut the Romney strategists toute de suite. Obama did and angered AIPAC and Republican leaders in Congress before the lopsided House vote on 7/12/12 when the White House quickly invited supporters of Israel to a media event at which the President issued an Executive Order which he explained included “ Two major actions to further isolate and penalize Iran for its refusal to live up to its international obligations regarding its nuclear program and to hold accountable financial institutions that knowingly provide financial services to Iranian banks.”

As a result of pre-empting AIPAC’s H.R. 1905, and despite ‘feel good’ further action by Congress on H.R. 1905, the Obama campaign says they gutted the AIPAC/Republican/Romney scheme while once more assuring Israel and its lobby of Obama’s willingness to use all his Constitutional powers on Israel’s behalf and to target its “existential threat” Iran.

According to two congressional insiders, the quick witted maneuver by the Obama campaign is a key reason their candidate currently leads in the swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania while reminding the media that no presidential candidate since 1960 has won the White House without carrying two of these three states.

Meanwhile, Romney operatives are seeking alternative ways to convince Israel to maintain its support and cash for his campaign during the next nine weeks of what “Slick Jimmy” is calling, “American Democracy at work.”

Franklin LambFranklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon. He is reachable c\o fplamb@gmail.com
He is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.


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Morsi set to skip Non-Aligned Movement conference in Iran

Iran’s position on Syria puts pressure on Egyptian president to stay away, says London paper

August 3, 2012, 10:54 am 1

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (photo credit: AP/Maya Alleruzzo)
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (photo credit: AP/Maya Alleruzzo)

London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat reported on Friday that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will not attend this month’s summit of Non-Aligned Movement countries in Iran.

A source close to the president’s office said Morsi will send newly-appointed Prime Minister Hesham Kandil or Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr to represent him at the meeting.

The decision to keep Morsi away from the summit and Iran’s leaders, according to the source, was due to pressure exerted on the president in light of the Islamic Republic’s policy of supporting the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

It was unclear from the report who exactly was exerting pressure on the Egyptian president.
The Tehran Times reported on Thursday that the Iranian vice president for executive affairs would travel as a special envoy to Egypt to personally invite Morsi to attend the summit.

According to documents obtained by Western diplomatic sources, at the summit Iran intends to press for a resolution that would recognize the right of developing countries to pursue nuclear power and to enrich uranium, beyond limits and accountability imposed on signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
If such a resolution were to pass, it is likely that Iran would use it to emphasize its right to enrich uranium in opposition to the West.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry directed Israeli embassies to encourage their host countries not to attend or only send low-level representatives to the meeting.

The Non-Aligned Movement was formed in 1961 as a platform for third-world and developing countries who did not want to be beholden to the major Cold War powers, the US and the USSR. It currently has 120 member states and 21 states with observer status, encompassing nearly all African, South American and Asian countries.

J’lem lobbying countries to boycott NAM conference in Tehran
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The End Game: Destabilizing the Secular State, Installing “Political Islam”

FOR  QUEEN (OF ZION)ELIZABETH,
WE WILL WAGE WAR
The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security (RUSI), a London based think-tank with close links to both Britain’s Ministry of Defense and the Pentagon. has intimated that “some sort of western [military] intervention in Syria is looking increasingly likely.” What RUSI has in mind in its Syria Crisis Briefing entitled A Collision Course for Intervention, is what might be described as “A Soft Invasion” leading either to a “break-up of the country” along sectarian lines and/or the installation of a Sunni Islamist regime. Several “scenarios” involving “clandestine” intelligence operations are put forth. The unspoken objective of these military and intelligence options is to destabilize the secular State and implement through military means the transition towards a post-Assad “Islamist-dominated or influenced regime” modelled on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, e.g. (p 9):
A better insight is needed on the activities and relationships of Al-Qa’ida and other Syrian and international Salafist jihadists that are now entering the country in increasing numbers. The floodgates are likely to open even further as international jihadists are emboldened by signs of significant opposition progress against the regime. Such elements have the support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and would undoubtedly have a role in Syria following the collapse of Assad. The scope of their involvement would need to be factored into intervention planning.

While recognizing that the rebel fighters are outright terrorists involved in the killing of civilians, the RUSI Briefing, invoking tactical and intelligence considerations, suggests that allied forces should nonetheless support the terrorists. The terrorist brigades have been supported by the US-led coalition from the very outset of the insurgency in mid-Mar 2011. Special Forces have integrated the insurgency:
What military, political and security challenges would they then present in the country, to the region and to the West? Issues include the possibility of an Islamist-dominated or influenced regime inheriting sophisticated weaponry, including anti-aircraft and anti-ship missile systems and chemical and biological weapons that could be transferred into the hands of international terrorists. At the tactical level, intelligence would be needed to identify the most effective groups, and how best to support them. It would also be essential to know how they operate, and whether support might assist them to massacre rivals or carry out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, something we have already witnessed among Syrian opposition groups.
The foregoing acknowledgment confirms the US-NATO resolve to use “Political Islam”, including the deployment of CIA-MI6 supported Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups, to pursue their hegemonic ambitions in Syria. Covert operations by Western intelligence in support of “opposition” terrorist entities are launched to weaken the secular state, foment sectarian violence and create social divisions. We will recall that in Libya, the “pro-democracy” rebels were led by Al Qaeda affiliated paramilitary brigades under the supervision of NATO Special Forces. The much-vaunted “Liberation” of Tripoli was carried out by former members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

Military Options and Actions: Towards a “Soft Invasion”?

Several concrete military options, which largely reflect ongoing Pentagon-NATO thinking on the  matter, are contemplated in the RUSI Briefing. All these options are based on a scenario of “regime change” requiring the intervention of allied forces in Syrian territory. What is contemplated is a “Soft Invasion” modelled on Libya under an R2P humanitarian mandate rather than an all out “shock and awe” Blitzkrieg. 
The RUSI Briefing, however, confirms that continued and effective support to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels will eventually require the use of ”air power in the form of fighter jets and sea, land and air launched missile systems” combined with the influx of Special Forces and the landing of “elite airborne and amphibious infantry.” (p 16) This transition towards concrete naval and air power support to the rebels is no doubt also motivated by the setbacks of the insurgency (including substantial rebel losses) following the backlash by government forces in the wake of the Jul 18 terror attack against the National Security headquarters in Damascus, which led to the death of the Minister of Defense General Daoud Rajha and two other senior members of the country’s national defense team. Various overlapping military actions are envisaged, to be carried out sequentially both prior and in the wake of  the proposed “regime change” (pp 9-10):
The top-of-the-range option, destruction of the Syrian armed forces through an Iraq-style ‘shock and awe’ invasion, could undoubtedly be achieved by a US-led coalition. As with all other forms of intervention, however, handling the aftermath would be far less predictable, and could draw coalition forces into a long-running and bloody quagmire. At present that option can be excluded as a realistic possibility. There is no doubt that the substantial neutralisation of Syria’s air defence infrastructure could be achieved by a US-led air operation. But it would require a major, sustained and extremely costly campaign including Special Forces deployed on the ground to assist targeting.
The remaining intervention options fall broadly into three sometimes overlapping categories. The first category is military enforcement action to reduce or end the violence in Syria, to prevent Assad’s forces from attacking the civilian population by direct action. The second is seeking to bring about regime change by a combination of support for opposition forces and direct military action. The second category might apply in the aftermath of regime collapse. The objective would be to support a post-Assad government by helping to stabilise the country and protect the population against inter-factional violence and retribution. A stabilisation force would be deployed at the request of the new government. In any intervention scenario there might be a need to either destroy or secure Syria’s chemical weapons, if they were about to be used, transferred or otherwise made insecure. This would require such specialised and potentially substantial combat forces, it is likely to be a mission that only the US could execute. The third category is humanitarian relief: bringing in supplies and medical aid to besieged populations. This form of intervention, which would most likely be conducted under the auspices of the UN, would require aid agencies such as the International Red Crescent as well as armed military forces including air power, again perhaps based on a NATO coalition. Humanitarian relief might be needed before or after a change of regime.
RUSI ignores the fact that the killings are committed by the FSA rather than by government forces. Reminiscent of Iraq’s WMD, the pretext of Syria’s chemical weapons is being used to justify a more muscled military intervention. “Humanitarian relief” is often used as a pretext to send in combat units. Special forces and intelligence ops are frequently dispatched in under an NGO cover.

Concrete US-NATO Military Actions

Does the RUSI Briefing reflect the current outlook of US-NATO military planning in relation to Syria? What concrete military and intelligence actions have been taken by the Western military alliance in the wake of the Chinese and Russian vetoes in the UNSC? The deployment of a powerful naval armada of French and British warships is already envisaged at an unstipulated date “later in the Summer”. (See here). The British Ministry of Defense, however, has intimated that Royal Navy deployments to the Middle East could only only be activated ‘after” the London Olympic games. Two of Britain’s largest warships, the HMS Bulwark and the HMS Illustrious have been assigned, at tremendous cost to British tax payers, to “ensuring the security” of the London Olympics. HMS Bulwark is stationed in Weymouth Bay for the duration of the games. HMS Illustrious is “currently sitting on the Thames in central London.” These planned naval operations are carefully coordinated with stepped-up allied support to the “Free Syrian Army”, integrated by foreign jihadist mercenaries trained in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Western military alliance. Will the US-NATO alliance launch an all-out air operation? Syria’s air defense capabilities, according to reports, are based on Russia’s advanced S-300 system. Unconfirmed reports point to the cancellation of delivery by Russia, following pressure from Israel, of the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria. (See here). Reports also suggest the installation of an advanced Russian radar system. (See here).

The Role of Special Forces

In the months ahead, allied forces will no doubt focus on disabling the country’s military capabilities including its air defense, communications systems, through a combination of covert operations, cyber-warfare and US-NATO sponsored SFA terror attacks. “The Free Syrian Army” rebels are NATO’s foot soldiers. FSA commanders, many of whom are part of Al Qaeda affiliated entities, are in permanent liaison with British and French Special Forces inside Syria. The RUSI report recommends that the rebels should be supported through the “deployment into the country of Special Forces advisers with air support on call” (p 10):
Advisers working alongside rebel commanders, perhaps accompanied by small units of Special Forces troops, could be tactically and strategically decisive, as it proved in both Afghanistan in 2001 and in Libya in 2011.
Special Forces have been on the ground in Syria since the outset of the insurgency. Reports also confirm the role of  private security companies including former Blackwater mercenaries in the training of the FSA rebels. In what is described as “USAia’s War Under the Table”, Special forces on the ground are in permanent liaison with allied military and intelligence.

The Influx of Mercenary Jihadist Fighters

In the wame of the UNSC deadlock, a speeding-up in the recruitment and training of mercenary jihadist fighters is unfolding. According to a British Army source, British Special Forces (SAS) are now training Syrian “rebels” in Iraq “in military tactics, weapons handling and communications systems”. The report, from January, also confirms that advanced military command training is being conducted in Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Western military alliance:
British and French Special Forces have been actively training members of the FSA, from a base in Turkey. Some reports indicate that training is also taking place in locations in Libya and Northern Lebanon. British MI6 operatives and UKSF (SAS/SBS) personnel have reportedly been training the rebels in urban warfare as well as supplying them with arms and equipment. US CIA operatives and special forces are believed to be providing communications assistance to the rebels.
More than 300 rebels have passed through a base just inside the Iraq border, while a command course is run in Saudi Arabia. Groups of 50 rebels at a time are being trained by two private security firms employing former Special Forces personnel.A former SAS member said: “Our role is purely instructional teaching tactics, techniques and procedures. If we can teach them how to take cover, to shoot and avoid being spotted by snipers it will hopefully help.”

The Role of Turkey and Israel

Turkey’s military high command has been in liaison with NATO HQ since Aug 2011 pertaining to the active recruitment of thousands of Islamist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. According to DEBKAfile in Aug 2011:
Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria.
The recent influx of foreign fighters on a significant scale suggests that this diabolical Mujahideen recruitment program developed more than a year ago, has come to fruition. Turkey is also supporting Muslim Brotherhood fighters in Northern Syria. As part of of its support to SFA rebels, said Reuters on Jul 27:
Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria’s rebels from a city near the border.
Israel’s role in supporting the rebels, largely characterised by covert intel ops,  has been discreet but nonetheless significant. From the very outset, Mossad has supported radical Salafist terrorist groups, which became active in Southern Syria at the outset of the protest movement in Daraa in mid-March. Reports suggest that financing for the Salafi insurgency is coming from Saudi Arabia. (See here). While channelling covert support to the SFA, Israel is also supporting Syrian Kurdish separatists in North Syria. The Kurdish (KNC) opposition group has close links to the Kurdish Regional Government of Massoud Barzani in northern Iraq, which is directly supported by Israel. The Kurdish separatist agenda is slated to be used by Washington and Tel Aviv to seek the break up of Syria along ethnic and religious lines into several separate and “independent” political entities. It is worth noting that Washington has also facilitated the dispatch of Kurdish Syrian “opposition militants” to Kosovo in May to participate in training sessions using the “terrorist expertise” of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). (See here). The not-so-hidden USraeli military agenda is to  “Break Syria into Pieces”, with a view to supporting Israeli expansionism. (See here).

Confrontation with Russia

What can we expect in the months ahead:
  1. A naval deployment in the Eastern Mediterranean, the military objective of which has not been clearly defined by allied forces:
  2. A greater influx of foreign fighters and death squads into Syria and the conduct of of carefully targeted terrorist attacks in coordination with US-NATO;
  3. An escalation in the deployment of allied special forces, including mercenaries from private security companies on contract to Western intelligence.
The objective, under the “Damascus Volcano and Syrian Earthquake” operation, ultimately consisted in extending the SFA terror attacks to Syria’s capital, under the supervision of Western Special Forces and intelligence operatives on the ground. (See here). This option of targeting Damascus has failed. The rebels have also been pushed back in heavy fighting in Syria’s second largest city Aleppo. The weakening of Russia’s role in Syria, including its functions under the bilateral military cooperation agreement with Damascus, is also part of the US-NATO military-intelligence agenda. This could result in terrorist attacks directed against Russian nationals living in Syria. A  terror attack against Russia’s naval base in Tartus was announced less than 2 weeks following the UNSC face-off, no doubt ordered by US-NATO with a view to threatening Russia. Following the arrival of Russia’s naval flotilla of ten warships stationed off the Syrian coast, an FSA spokesman confirmed on Jul 26 their intention to attack Russia’s naval base in Tartus, saying:
We have a warning for the Russian forces: if they will send any more weapons that kill our families and the Syrian people we will hit them hard inside Syria. Informers inside the regime are telling that us that there is a big weapons shipment arriving at Tartous in the next two weeks. We don’t want to attack the port, we are not terrorists, but if they keep acting like this we will have no choice.
The FSA has formed a ‘Naval brigade’ made up of defectors from the Syrian navy, which operates close to Tartous. Captain Walid, a former officer in the Syrian Navy, was reported as saying:
Many of our men used to work in the port of Tartous and they know it well. We are watching very closely the movements of the Russians. We can easily destroy the port. If we hit the weapons stores with anti-tank missiles or another weapon it would trigger a devastating explosion. Or we can attack the ships directly.
Were Russia’s naval base to be attacked, this would, in all likelihood, be undertaken under the supervision of allied special forces and intelligence operatives. While Russia has the required military capabilities to effectively defend its Tartus naval base, an attack on Russia’s naval base would constitute an act of provocation, which could set the stage for a more visible involvement of Russian forces  inside Syria. Such a course could potentially also lead to a direct confrontation between Russian forces and Western special forces and mercenaries operating within rebel ranks. According to the RUSI Briefing (p 5):
Anticipating Russian action and counter action would have to be a major factor in any Western intervention plan. The Russians are certainly capable of bold and unexpected moves.

The World at a Dangerous Crossroads 

An all-out “humanitarian war” against Syria is on the drawing board of the Pentagon, which if carried out could lead the World into a regional war extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the heartland of Central Asia. A sophisticated and all-encompassing propaganda program supports war in the name of World peace and global security. The underlying scenario of Worldwide conflict goes far beyond the diabolical design of Orwell’s 1984. The Ministry of Truth upholds war as a peace-making undertaking by twisting realities upside down. In turn, the lies and fabrications of the mainstream media are presented with various innuendos in a complex web of deceit. In a cynical twist, documented atrocities against Syrian civilians committed by the West’s “opposition” are now being acknowledged (rather than blamed on government forces) as “unavoidable” in the painful transition towards to “democracy”. The broader consequences of ”the Big Lie” are obfuscated. Global humanitarian warfare becomes a consensus which nobody can challenge. The war on Syria is part of an integrated Worldwide military agenda. The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. Iran, Russia, China and North Korea are also being threatened. With the deployment of the Franco-British naval armada later this Summer, Western warships in the Eastern Mediterranean would be contiguous to those deployed by Russia, which is conducting its own war games, leading to a potential “Cold War style confrontation” between Russian and Western naval forces. (See here). A war on Syria, which would inevitably involve Israel and Turkey, could constitute the spark towards a regional war directed against Iran, in which Russia and China could be directly or indirectly involved. It is crucial to spread the word and break the channels of media disinformation.

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Hugo Chavez Blasts West's Backing of Terrorists in Syria

Hugo Chavez once again has the courage to speak the truth.

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Dismembering the Arab World

by Makram Khoury-Machool
Friday, August 3rd, 2012   

Dr Makram Khoury-Machool is a Palestinian scholar, based in Cambridge, UK

The behaviour of the NATO-aligned, anti-Syrian bloc is now blatant enough for us to better understand what is happening in Syria.

On the one hand, we find political operators such the ad-hoc group ‘Friends of Syria’, and on the other, two Arab personalities, both ministers of two Gulf sheikhdoms.
The first group includes NATO-led heads of states, with a barely disguised Israeli master-plan conceived by the likes of Bernard-Henri Lévy. Rather than being the friends of Syria, these personalities are arguably working to secure their own financial interests in, around, and via Syria. The two Arab politicians are the two foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

They have declared that those forces acting violently against the Syrian state should be armed and financially supported.

In short, these conventions of the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ are probably no more than a ‘modern’ version of those meetings conducted by Viceroy Lord Curzon, who, in 1903, addressed the ‘Chiefs of the Arab Coast’ on HMS Argonaut in Sharjah (UAE).

The Qataris and Saudis give financial support to the ‘rebels’ for weapons, payments to fighters and mercenaries, and logistical oversight of attacks on Syria. All of this is in addition to their support with telecommunication services, combat tactics, and strategic military advice. Unsurprisingly, the Western military advisors, who operate for the armed groups behind the scenes, do not feature in any media outlets. Neighbouring states also provide geographical assistance to the armed groups, with Jordan providing a passage for mercenaries from Libya, and Turkey acting as the northern military base for operations.

Turkey is involved because of its wish to align itself with the Saudi-Sunni, NATO-backed line and also its fear that a dismembered Syria would lead to the promotion of Kurdish autonomy.

In their eyes, this could bring about the eventual union of the Kurds with Iraqi and Syrian Kurds and then lead to civil war with Turkey and the eventual separation of Kurdistan from Turkey and the creation of a Kurdish state.
For its part, Israel has for decades planned, as part of its strategy to dominate the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to weaken Syria in order to continue its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights and to dominate water sources.

Essentially, Israel wants to be the main economic and military power in the region and indeed, Israel may well emerge from the weakening of Syria as the main winner, if only in the short-term.
Syria Has No EnemiesThrough its orchestrated media campaigns transmitted over the decades to its own public, Israel has constructed a concept of Syria as the major threat to its existence in the Arab world. Arguably, the governmental vacuum that might be created in Syria could be filled by al-Qaeda-like groups giving sufficient justification for Israel’s actions (against Syria and/or Iran) and would also promote the idea of a conflict between ‘civilized-democratic’ Israel and ‘savage’ Islamists.
Despite huge differences between Syria and Libya, Syria’s fate could be similar to that of Libya in terms of direct foreign intervention, were not Russia and China firmly opposed such actions at the UN, where there has been consistent cooperation between the two.

Although the origins of Sino-Soviet relations go back to the early days of the 1917 Communist Revolution, it seems that, even two decades after the dismantlement of the Eastern Bloc, the Russian Federation and the Republic of China are, more than ever, following what Mao Tse-tung advised in his ‘Be a True Revolutionary’ address on 23 June 1950. Here, Tse-tung said that ‘in the international sphere we must firmly unite with the Soviet Union’ (see Selected Works of Mao Tsetung, vol. V. p. 39). Shared ideology, world vision, economic interests, and objectives in the field of energy have brought Russia and China ever closer together over the Syrian conflict.
World oil production is headed by Saudi Arabia, with Russia second, the USA third, Iran fourth and China fifth. In terms of oil reserves, we find that the top ten states are: 1) Venezuela, 2) Saudi Arabia, 3) Canada, 4) Iran, 5) Iraq, 6) Kuwait, 7) UAE, 8) Russia, 9) Kazakhstan and 10) Libya. Russia is the largest gas producer in the world, with Europe dependent on its gas sourcing. In world gas production, if, because of their geographical distance, we exclude the USA and Canada, Iran comes second and Qatar third. In terms of gas reserves, Russia is number one, with Iran and Qatar in fourth place and Saudi Arabia in sixth. With neighbouring Saudi Arabia as one of the ten leading producers of gas in the world, it is clear why the export interests of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are particularly important and this ranking should give us a clear idea of the alliances that have formed in light of the Syrian conflict.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar (which in different circumstances could have been one state and might yet experience a geographical reshuffle) are both Arab-Muslim-Sunni and both have economic interests. Qatar’s greedy pursuit of marketing contracts for Libyan gas and oil supplies explains its agreement with NATO to attack Libya, its symbolic participation in the air strikes and its support for the rebels to establish a media capability.

Qatar’s aim is to export its gas to Europe, compete with the Russians and gain important political bargaining chips. In order for the export of Qatari gas to Europe to be feasible and competitive, a gas pipe must be laid through Syria. As Russia’s long-standing ally and with the precedents of numerous joint deals dating back to the USSR era, Syria is unlikely to allow anything to threaten the destabilization of Russia’s interests in their last strategic stronghold in the Arab world. This is the main reason why Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting the opposition’s struggle to topple the Syrian government.
Syria is fast becoming a Pandora’s box from which all the historical crises of the last 120 years are re-emerging. These begin with the Russo-Turkish war in 1877-8, the Russo-Japanese war in 1904, WWI and WWII and the Cold War.

Normally, it takes a superpower 2-3 decades to emerge. It took the USA nearly 25 years to emerge as a superpower from 1890 to the end of WWI. After the death of Lenin in 1924, the USSR was the sick man of Europe. In 1945, after WWII and under Stalin, it emerged as a superpower.

After Gorbachev, Russia ceased to be a superpower and seemingly, the Cold War ended. In just over two decades, Putin has ended the unipolar system and a new bipolar world is emerging – as if the Cold War had never ended.
Close examination of the Syrian political system reveals that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is, indeed, a reformist. However, in Syria, as in any other state, factions are intertwined in power-struggles and these and the necessary processes of socialization will take some time to work through. Whilst, as Assad said, it takes just a couple of minutes to sign a new law, it takes much longer to educate people to absorb and participate in the implementation of the new values those laws enshrine. Western ruling elites’ portrayal of these new norms as seemingly growing on trees is an act of disutility and definitely immoral.
Syria was the last secular, socially-cohesive Arab state based on a top-down secular ideology. Despite its volatile, geopolitical surroundings (Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq), Syrian citizens lived securely under this Arab secularism. Syria encompasses a particular type of pluralism and multiculturalism, embedded with religious tolerance and a pluralist existence. This is demonstrated by the toleration of a church, a mosque, a bar and the equal coexistence of both secular and veiled women.

In fact, the reform process begun in Syria is more advanced than any similar process in any other Arab state. It includes the removal of emergency laws, the implementation of party laws, election laws, a key media law, and the approval of a new constitution including the removal of the article on the sole leadership of the al-Ba’ath party. Such reforms are part of a genuine political process that will take time. However, this reform process has been totally and intentionally undermined by forces, including Western governments acting against the Syrian state. In the last decades, and particularly since 9/11, the West has continually propagated the notion that Islamist terrorists have been threatening the secular way of life. However, Sunnis, technically the religious majority in Syria, contain large segments, and are no less secular than any other Western society.

So, despite Syrians’ clear right to defend the secularity of their way of life, the aim of the West is to dismantle the Syrian state, alter the power structure, and create new demo-geographic entities such as a confederation of the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, which at present, is Turkey’s nightmare. Specific areas might also be depopulated, which might then be used, as has been done with the Druze, to repopulate with Syrian Christians and perhaps with Christians from Lebanon. Other Christians would leave the Levant altogether. The Alawites would then have another state, linked perhaps, with Iran.
The plan is to destroy the modern Arab state of Syria that emerged after WWI and in the 1940s, and, where possible, to establish new religious states (similar to the Jewish state of Israel).

In this way, Arab power and along with it, the Pan-Arab ideology of Michel Aflaq and Antun Sa’ade (both Arab Christians) and Nasser of Egypt, would disappear. This process began when, in 1978-9 under Sadat, Egypt signed its peace treaty with Israel, and was followed by the destruction of Lebanon in 1982, the second Intifada in 1987, and the economic takeover of Iraq in 2003. It was then followed in Libya with the seizing of oil and gas in 2011. Therefore, in order to keep the US-Rael (US-Israel) hegemony, the West needs to align states along sectarian lines (Sunni-Shiite) rather than on Pan-Arabism. Indeed, this process was boosted after the occupation of Iraq and the toppling of the Ba’ath party.

In practice, what is now happening in the Arab world is a ‘correction’ of the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, when the main colonial powers, Britain and France, carved out the boundaries of the current Arab states and installed their own Arab agents. These ongoing, neo-colonial plans include provision for any two or more Arab parties to fight the Syrian regime and to keep them fighting until such time as each state is dismembered and fractured into 2-3 states, based on sectarian lines. Then colonial elites can continue to scoop up the wealth because, after all, the imperial mentality has hardly changed.

Since Western powers cannot achieve this on their own, they need agents such as Qatar in Libya and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others in Syria. These agents, preferably self-serving, undemocratic Arab-Muslim-Sunni monarchies, will use Sunni-Islam to promote fanaticism against other Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims (e.g., Arab Christians, Shiites and Druze). Those Arabs with access to the (economic) global elite (for example, the Royal Saudi family and the Qataris with the Americans and other European elites) are, by and large, the ruling elites in the Arab Gulf or their protégés. It is they who are driving a wedge between the various sects and magnifying and exploiting the playing of the Sunni card with non-Arab Muslim Sunni Turkey against Syria. It would hardly be a surprise either if they were in cahoots with Israel-serving Western powers. Otherwise, it would remain fairly difficult to explain why the most authoritarian regime on earth, Saudi Arabia, is acting against Syria and trying to teach it lessons in democracy, something that Saudi Arabia is not very keen to know much about.

The negative, orientalist, propaganda campaigns conducted against Syria in the past year with the financial backing of some Gulf countries have intentionally obscured elements within Syria, such as Syria’s secularism – something with which Western societies would naturally identify. So, the importance of Syria’s largely secular Ba’ath Party ideology, which guaranteed at least private liberties, has been kept hidden. This is for example in addition to the fact that Daoud Rajhah, the assassinated Syrian Minister of Defence, was a Christian, as was Dr Nabil Zughaib, the recently assassinated (along with his family) head of the Syrian missile programme.

The above examples of a deliberate elimination of facts are arguably due to Syria’s alliance with Russia, which is the ‘wrong’ camp. This close relationship between Syria and Russia has lasted for over five decades. Furthermore, Syria is the soft (Alawaite/Shiite-secular) underbelly between NATO refusnik (Shiite) Iran and Shiite HizboAllah in Lebanon. Whilst in Israel’s short-term eyes, the main opposition to its domination is Iran (as well as HizboAllah, Syria, and formerly, Hamas), Syria is now, therefore, the target. As such, Syria is now taking the punishment, so that the whole metaphorical body will eventually be dismembered.

But what is the relevance of Hamas here? Until it democratically won the elections in 2006 (nearly two years after the assassination of Yasser Arafat), and then a year later staged a coup against the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip, Hamas was a resistance movement supported by Iran, Damascus, and HizboAllah. If Iran is the metaphorical ‘head’ and HizboAllah and Hamas the two legs, Syria has been the ‘belly’ or the ‘heart’ and ‘lungs’ of this ‘body’ of resistance. But since Hamas has run the Gaza Strip, it has largely ceased to be a resistance movement and has become institutionalized. Here, Israel (and Sharon in particular) won a tactical victory. At hardly any cost, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, while keeping it under siege, attacking it at will and giving the keys to the prisoners (Hamas) to run for them the largest open-air prison on earth. And all this was done without Hamas even realizing what was going on. Perhaps someone thought that the name could be beautified and, instead of prison, it might turn into an EmiRison (Emirate and prison).

In the first half of 2012, Hamas’ leaders left Damascus, where their headquarters were, and are now keeping publicly quiet and refraining from supporting the Syrian government – a government, which has supported them for more than two decades.

With the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt, and their rise in Libya, Hamas now seems to have new and powerful patrons, and in countries where it can operate from a much more powerful position. Hamas’ leadership (both in the Diaspora and in the Gaza Strip) has been invited by the newly elected Egyptian president, to join, the Muslim Brotherhood (their mother organization) as equals. What seemed until yesterday to be a resistance movement (though some may argue that they were never revolutionary, unlike other leftist Palestinian factions, such as the PFLP, DFLP, etc.), is now woven into the embroidery of a Sunni-Muslim alliance which has started to act under the wing of NATO.

Western orientalists like to imagine what needs to happen for their interests in the Orient to be served. They begin by labeling the Arab world the ‘Middle East’, as if it were just a geographical marker placed only in relation to where they themselves are. In order to secure their planned thievery, they invent terms to obfuscate and justify their covert or overt military actions. However, their security/intelligence services always fail to predict developments in the Arab world such as the Intifada of 1987 and the Hamas coup in 2007. Still, their superficial and ignorant power-elites never cease to manufacture new names and processes, the latest of which is the naming of whatever started in Tunisia as the ‘Arab Spring’.

What is happening in some Arab states and in the Arab world is no ‘Spring’: it is a reactionary process which will bounce back, as the USA experienced in Afghanistan, where the US both created and supported the same jihadists they later fought against. So, the US-Israel has been trying to cut deals with the Islamists in power so that they may control the masses.

Indeed, this is not the first time that political strategists have tried to use religion to avoid chaos and defend their economic interests. This is similar to what Machiavelli described (based on the account of the Roman historian Titus Livius (Livy) Patavinus (59 BC-17 AD), who wrote Books from the Foundation of the City) and referred to in Discourses on Livy, when he sub-headed a chapter as: ‘How the Romans made religion serve to reorder the city and carry out their enterprise to stop tumults’.

So, Western propaganda campaigns against Syria seek to convince the public (the ‘plebs’) to fear religion rather than obey their current Arab leaders. This is why, despite the censored protests in the three Arab kingdoms (KSA, Morocco and Jordan), the world has hardly (because of censorship, gate-keeping and lack of Western media attention) seen any substantial protests compared to those in other Arab republics. One of the reasons was that there was hardly anyone to promote any special well-funded media campaigns and to pay the huge sums required. (This is perhaps with the exception of Bahrain, and the possible influence of Iran). However, there is no guarantee that a counter-hegemonic campaign would still succeed in these Arab monarchies.

After defeating the rival al-Rashid clan in 1921, the al-Saud family currently rules in most of the historical Arabian Peninsula. Its regional prominence is also due to control of the holy sites of Mekka and Medina and its alliance with, and use of, Wahabism as well as its oil and mineral resources. These resources subsidize its related cultural (media) industry. Nevertheless, religious and economic factors are evidently complex, interwoven and involve a large social network. This combination may be expressed in what I call ‘The Saudi ethic, the spiritual buck’ - somewhat similar to Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic thesis’ which stood behind the accumulation of wealth in northernEurope.

Through the accumulation of capital in the Gulf states in the 1970s (controlled by Anglo-American protection through treaties that brought large numbers of Arabs to be either economically dependent (through employment in the Gulf), or spiritually dependent through control of Arab media), the oil boom created a new social stratification in the Arab world. As a result, some Arab societies have been dependent on and accepting of the authority of the ruling Saudi family and its clans. These elites are part of the ruling economic elites who own some of the most valuable energy projects, valuable assets and properties in the West, including Harrods, football teams, property on the Champs Élysées and partnerships with Rupert Murdoch, to mention but a few.

The recent discovery that Arabs want their freedom is chiefly promoted by some Arab and Western media institutions which are themselves an extension of policy makers who have their own economic objectives, strategies and tactics. The media campaigns that are being conducted by neo-conservative capitalist, Zionists such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, who aggressively serves Israel, and who has a strong affinity to fundamentalist Judaism, aim only to separate Arabs from their wealth and resources, whilst, at the same time, deceiving them.

This is done through the dual strategy of manufacturing a separate narrative for two separate segments of the population. To the religious, corruption is associated with faithlessness, while to the entire Arab nation they sell the very appealing dream of freedom, justice, and liberty. Naturally, each individual will interpret this according to his or her own upbringing, socialization, politicization, norms and values. So, whilst all might meet in the ‘square’, the Islamists will believe Islamic scripts to be the solution, liberals will recall Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the ‘separation of powers’ of Montesquieu and the French Revolution, Marxists will think of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and class struggle and the Maoists will think of the Cultural Revolution of Mao Tse-Tung or Nasserism (after all, when a group of Egyptian army officers conducted a coup and a revolution in 1952, Mao Tse-Tung declared that ‘the struggle against corruption and waste is a major issue which concerns the whole party’ (30 November, 1951) and it therefore fits the bill of fighting corrupt Arab regimes). Meanwhile, those who dream of Castro and Che Guevara will run to the ‘barricades’ in the squares in a stand off against the state security forces.

In fact, all of these values are just non-starters in the Arab world and Zio-Liberals know this. The reality is that, because of social control and the way Arab societies have been socialized in the last century (including the impact of colonial heritage) and because of the wealth Wahabi Islam (and modern Salafis) have enjoyed from oil revenues, except for the Islamic faction, the other ideologies will make little progress but rather will simply ensure the victory of the religious movements.

True, the Arab world has been heterogeneous, though only mildly. Religion has prevailed even in states like Jordan where, for decades, Islamists controlled most school curricula. Thus, in every Arab state that has had unrest, and particularly so in Egypt, there is a fierce power struggle over the constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis won the majority of seats in the parliamentary elections, and the first democratically elected president, Muhammad Mursi (elected only by quarter of citizens), is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Major powers are working towards promulgating a constitution based on a relevant interpretation of Sharia laws.

In his ‘Morphology of the State’, Aristotle suggests that there is a need to ‘consider not only which constitution is best, but also which is practicable and most easily within reach’ (p. 103). In the eyes of the religious fundamentalists, this can be the Sharia laws, whilst a solution for the Western ruling elites is in place.

As they have secured their economic interests through religious-elite controlled media institutions, they will in turn benefit from their own social, economic and political centres of power, and a new niche of businessmen will emerge from the circles/classes of the religious elites. Religious groups will also increase their economic participation alongside political participation. Since it will benefit their political jihad, some will see this as halal whether inside or outside the framework of Islamic banking. Social division will, however, remain or widen and the only difference is that the names have changed. Instead of a ‘Mubarak’, it will be someone else (but this time, someone with a beard) and these apparent ‘changes’ will simply maintain political control.

The affected populations are those defined as ‘minorities’ – mainly Arab Christians (around 30 million of them in the Arab world), secular (Sunni and Shiite) Muslims and others. In Egypt, Mohammad Zawahiri (the brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri) has already declared that Egyptian Christians should pay a tax as Dhimmi’s (infidels) or else leave Egypt. And if they refuse, he has suggested they be confronted and coerced.

An example of mobilizing the population through religion in the media has been adopted by the Saudi monarch himself. During Ramadan 2012, Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and his heir launched a fundraising campaign supposedly in aid of the Syrian people – or so the slogan said. This campaign was based on Islamic moral norms and sense of community, especially those emphasized during the holy month of Ramadan. Whilst selling his people messages of community and compassion, these campaigns are used for both local and regional political purposes. A similar campaign launched by Syria for the liberation of Saudi Arabian women, and the need for them to drive, is unimaginable.

Besuited, Goebbels-like liberals who stand alongside those chiefs of sheikhdoms, have so far, attempted to deceive part of Arab public opinion and to manufacture a consensus against the Syrian government, and so diverted from themselves the heat of their own ‘streets’. Whilst they themselves adhere to the most archaic norms and beliefs regarding freedom and democracy, they instigate mass deception against Syria that is, in terms of its social norms, such as women’s freedoms, religious minorities’ rights, equal opportunities and personal liberties, etc., much closer to liberal Western countries. In much the same way as the Arab regimes would like to rally domestic public opinion in support of Palestinians, Gulf regimes are using the false argument that they are against the oppression of Syrians by their own government to rally their ‘streets’ against Syria. And this despite the fact that they themselves are light years behind Syria in terms of freedom and democracy.

Western governments are no friends of liberal democracy in the Third World. They inevitably deal with those governments with the worst records of human rights and then only when it is of financial benefit to them. Just as in July 2008, when Nicolas Sarkozy and current archenemy of Syria, the Emir of Qatar, formed, with the Syrian leadership, the ‘Union of the Mediterranean’, some European governments think they also might benefit financially from the crisis in the Arab world. This is particularly so when they have the support of rich Gulf States and believe they can somehow reduce the economic crises they are facing.

In some parts of Syria personal security has diminished since March 2011 and central government has not been always notable for its moral conduct. However, as part of a strategic political campaign, the media are intentionally lying about the situation in Syria. They instill fear in the Syrian public and affect exaggerated concern for casualties and loss of life. Thus, they construct a narrative, which facilitates and justifies increased assistance to the armed groups, separatists, terrorists, and mercenaries. The same media also portray the Syrian government as solely responsible for the violence, when in fact, those who recruit, pay and supply weapons to easily malleable, unemployed and cash-hungry individuals are themselves really responsible.

There are two main culprits for the increase in casualties: lying and the silencing of any opposing voice. With their Arab allies, NATO switched off the signal for the satellite connection of the Syrian al-Dunia satellite channel. Other acts of satellite ‘terror’ arguably included the CIA’s hijacking of al-Dunia’s Twitter account, so as to disseminate disinformation about the Syrian army’s false retreat. The same Arab satellite that Syria helped found after the loss of the second part of Palestine in 1967, is now being used against it by those formerArab Gulf sheikhdoms.

This satellite is now being used in the conflict in Syria – but against Syria – and includes disinformation chiefly by Gulf-owned channels that promote fear and panic about economic instability in Syria. The media are being used and manipulated as a cover for the incitement of terrorist action by the Syrian opposition and also to garner economic aid, and this same media then present the sanitized, ‘heroic’ achievements of the ‘rebels’ and, when necessary, depict any losses they encounter as ‘massacres’.
By and large, Western and mainstream Arab media are left with nearly only one option: to swallow disinformation from unreliable ‘spin’ bodies, which they then pump out to the public. Stories of massacres by the Syrian government are, for propaganda purposes, broadcast to justify foreign intervention, and the prevailing image is that of the noble West coming to save an incapable, oppressed Third World nation from the tyranny of a chauvinist male oppressor. This is exactly what happened in Libya. Nonetheless, a minority of Arab media is opposing the master plan and another minority are sitting on the fence. The Arab media are mostly, either directly or indirectly, in the hands of Gulf States, while any other journalists either operate discreetly on the payroll of those forces or are totally deluded and find it impossible to grasp the tragic ramifications of what is taking place in the Arab world. The anti-war values of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage are most probably not high on the agenda in some oil rich states, since they might expose the dichotomy between religion and war economy even further.

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!