‘Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. What could the possible outcome regarding the Syrian Civil War be? Does the US really want Russia to be part of a negotiated settlement? Is the Syrian opposition becoming more dangerous to the US and its allies? CrossTalking with Ariel Cohen and Nabil Mikhail (15 May 2013)’.
‘Officer Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads the US Cyber Command and National Security Agency, announced on Tuesday that the US is developing 40 new teams of cyber support teams to be ready by 2015. This move comes after the highly publicized cyber-attacks on American companies and of the 40 teams, 13 of them will be responsible for deploying attacks on other countries. So what does this mean for America’s cybersecurity and the face of future warfare? RT’s Andrew Blake joins us to discuss the latest developments. (13 March 2013)’.
Quite some years ago, John Perkins’ book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man hit the bookstands Here is Abby Martin interviewing the author about how corporations are determining the world order, and how assassins take out those who challenge the system.
Since the publication of his Confessions, Perkins has been actively trying to spread the word by means of lectures, book tours and publishing more books on the topic. Originally published in 2004, I read it in 2007 at about the time when Naomi Klein’s magisterial Shock Doctrine was also causing its own minor shockwaves in book shops across the world.
Perkins defines his topic as follows: “Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly-paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization”.[i] While reading Perkins’ tome I oftentimes wondered about the veracity of his claims – his description of the way in which corporations run the world seems like a straightforward proposition that is all but explained in great detail by Naomi Klein’s take on the Chicago School’s influence on world affairs and by her own coinage of the term Disaster Capitalism – and particularly Perkins’ self-confessed role in certain key episodes. In 2006, the Washington Post’s op-ed columnist Sebastian Mallaby wrote a critical piece on Perkins and EHM. In fact, Mallaby even calls the author a “frothing conspiracy theorist, a vainglorious peddler of nonsense”.[2]
Rather than questioning Perkins’ personal role in the business of EHM and their affairs, Mallaby uses his piece to defend the “corporatocracy”, calling them “neither evil nor omnipotent”.[3] He goes on to say that “the truth is that corporations do not rule the world, and intensifying global competition has rendered them more vulnerable. Since the mid-1970s, when Perkins was touring the world as a hit man, fully half of the top 100 American industrial corporations have disappeared from that list. So what is this corporatocracy that Perkins fears? Is it the failing General Motors? Or vanished international banks such as S.G. Warburg? Or is it perhaps Chas. T. Main, Perkins’s own employer in his hit-man days, which was swallowed up by a rival years ago?”.[4]
Rather than criticise Perkins for his possibly inflated sense of his own importance as an EHM, Mallaby turns out to be merely defending the corporatocracy and its Neo-Colonialist actions around the world, succinctly summarised in the term Globalization. The first decade of this century has shown us how effective Disaster Capitalism can be and that nowadays, the powers-that-be do not even need to use EHM anymore, but that wars are simply declared, leading the way to immense profits and other lucrative deals. In this context, Robert Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale is enlightening as well as frightening to watch.[5]
Returning to Perkins and his coinage EHM, the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State released a statement on 2 February 2006: ‘Perkins claims that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recruited him to be an “economic hit man,” who deliberately entrapped foreign countries in unmanageable amounts of debt so they would be beholden to the United States. This appears to be a total fabrication . . . Perkins is apparently not aware that the National Security Agency is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization. It has two missions:
• Designing cipher systems that protect the integrity of U.S. information systems; and
• Searching for weaknesses in adversaries’ systems and codes.
Neither of these missions involves anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries . . . Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which Perkins says has been translated into some 20 languages, is popular because it is an exciting, first-person, cloak-and-dagger tale that plays to popular images about alleged U.S. economic exploitation of Third World countries. Perkins raises legitimate questions about the impacts of economic growth and modernization on developing countries and indigenous peoples. But his claim that he was acting as an “economic hit man” at the behest of the NSA appears to be a total fantasy’.[6] Is Perkins merely a conman exploiting legitimate criticism of the corporatocracy to further his own interests or was he really active as an EHM at one time???
[1] “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man.
[2] Sebastian Mallaby, “The Facts Behind the ‘Confessions’” The Washington Post (27 February 2006). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601265.html.
[3] Sebastian Mallaby, “The Facts Behind the ‘Confessions’”.
[4] Sebastian Mallaby, “The Facts Behind the ‘Confessions’”.
[5] Cfr. “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (30 April 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/iraq-for-sale-the-war-profiteers/.
[6] “Confessions — or Fantasies — of an Economic Hit Man?” Archive (02 February 2006). http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/February/20060202155604atlahtnevel6.165713e-02.html.
Over the past months, I have oftentimes spoken about the numerous foreign fighters active in Syria. Now, Jason Ditz details on the website AntiWar that a “report by the UN says that rebel fighters have come from 29 countries, and are overwhelmingly Sunnis flocking to the nation to fight against the Alawite President Bashar Assad”.[1] The Turco-U.S. and Saudi-Qatari axis has been providing support for activists bent on turning the conflict into sectarian battle between Sunni Muslim opposed to the Alawite rulers of the Syrian Republic. Ditz, in turn, relies on Reuter’s appropriately titled piece ‘Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria’. The authors, Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay state that the “deepened sectarian divisions in Syria may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled. And the influx of foreign fighters raises the risk of the war spilling into neighbouring countries”.[2] Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon now do really appear to be in the firing line. Turkey’s long-standing conflict with the PKK could get a shot in the arm by the Kurdish fighters in Syria and the stance taken by the neighbouring KRG. Iraq, on the other hand, is experiencing its own tensions between Shi’ite and Sunni elements, Arab and Kurdish leaders against the backdrop of the unevenly divided oil wealth underground. Lebanon has been a powder keg for years and any spark could trigger a new civil war or power struggle. And then there is Israel and the Palestinians who are also being sucked into the fight.
UN human rights investigators led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro have now stated that the “battles between government forces and anti-government armed groups [now] approach the end of their second year, [and currently, ] the conflict has become overtly sectarian in nature”.[3] According to some, such as the outspoken critic Sibel Edmonds and the investigative Voltaire Network‘s Thierry Meyssan, the whole struggle against Assad has been an orchestrated affair from the very beginning with outside players, like the Sunni states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey overtly and/or covertly supporting a U.S.-led agenda to effect regime change in Syria. After two years of a primarily undecided armed confrontation, the true colours of the “foreign” forces at work against secular and Alawite-led Baath regime in Syria are beginning to shine through. Karen Abuzayd, a member of the group of UN human rights investigators, characterises the anti-Assad foreign fighters in the following way: “They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighbouring countries”.[4] Conversely, the Baath regime is also able to count on some supporters: the report notes that ‘the Lebanese Shia group, Hezbollah . . . confirmed that group members were in Syria fighting on behalf of Assad’, while ‘reports of Iraqi Shia coming to fight [in Syria have also been heard, while] . . . Iran, a close ally of Assad, confirmed in September [2012] that its Revolutionary Guards were in Syria providing assistance’.[5]
[1] Jason Ditz, “UN: Syria’s Rebels Come From 29 Countries” AntiWar (20 Dec 2012). http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/20/un-syrias-rebels-come-from-29-countries/.
[2] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria” The Independent (20 September 2012). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/foreign-fighters-fuel-the-sectarian-flames-in-syria-8427986.html.
[3] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria”.
[4] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria”.
[5] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria”.
The new head of the Syrian opposition, Moaz al-Khatib is no stranger to the wicked ways of the West, in spite of his position as the imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The Guardian’s Luke Harding and Martin Chulov declare that “his moderation lends him credibility”.[1] But there is more than meets the eye, Harding and Chulov describe him as “religious moderate, with impeccable revolutionary credentials, and a geologist as well”, but al-Khatib also “studied geophysics [and] spent six years working as an engineer. He is also a member of the Syrian Geological Society and the Syrian Society for Psychological Science, and was president of the Islamic Society of Urbanisation”.[2] And where did he work as an engineer??? The investigative Voltaire Network‘s Thierry Meyssan explains that Moaz al-Khatib “worked for six years for the al-Furat Petroleum Company (1985-91), a joint-venture between the national company and other foreign enterprises, including the Anglo-Dutch Shell, with whom he has maintained contact”.[3]
What a surprise . . . and oil man is to lead the Syrian opposition, hell-bent on ousting Assad and turning over Syria’s oil proceeds to the highest bidder. Meyssan continues his biographic sketch of al-Khatib as follows: in “1992, he inherited the prestigious charge of preacher at the [Umayyad] mosque [in Damascus] from his father, Sheikh Mohammed Abu al-Faraj al-Khatib. He was rapidly relieved of his functions and forbidden to preach anywhere in Syria. However, this episode did not occur in 2012, and has nothing to do with the present contestation – it happened twenty years ago, under Hafez el-Assad. At that time, Syria was supporting the international intervention to liberate Kuwait, in respect of international law, in order to get rid of their Iraqi rival, and also to forge closer ties with the West. As for the Sheikh, he was opposed to “Desert Storm” for the same religious motives which were proclaimed by [Usamah bin] Laden – with whom he aligned himself – notably the refusal of Western presence on Arab lands, which they consider sacrilegious. This position led him to deliver a number of anti-semitic and anti-Western diatribes. Following that, the Sheikh continued his activity as a religious teacher, notably at the Dutch Institute in Damascus. He made numerous trips abroad, mainly to Holland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Finally, he settled in Qatar. In 2003-04, during the attribution of oil and gas concessions, he returned to Syria as a lobbyist for the Shell group”.[4]
Meyssan concludes his picture of the new Syrian opposition leader thus: Moaz al-Khatib “is a member of the Muslim brotherhood, and declared this quite clearly at the end of his speech of investiture at Doha. According to the usual technique of the Brotherhood, he adapts not only the form, but also the content of his speeches to his audience. Sometimes leaning towards a multi-religious society, sometimes towards the restoration of sharia law. In his writings, he qualifies Jewish people as “enemies of God”, and Shiite Muslims as “rejectionist heretics”, epithets which are the equivalent of a death sentence”.[5]
How this bode for the future of Syria??? What do these facts indicate about the direction of a post-Assad Damascus??? Upon the urging of Washington, the Syrian opposition convened in Doha recently, where the umbrella organisation called the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was proclaimed and then, the U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Stephen Ford prevailed upon the assembled “revolutionaries” to appoint the supposedly moderate and quite camera-friendly Moaz al-Khatib to head those who to end Assad’s life and rule, in a fashion similar to Qaddafi in Libya.[6] Robert Ford’s appointment dates back to April 2011,[7] at the very start of the current unrest. The Obama administration judged the appointment prudent at the time, as the position had been left vacant during the Bush years, leaving the U.S. without any way to influence the situation on the ground. And once more, the law of unintended consequences seems to come into play now, in a way somewhat reminiscent of the blowback caused Brzezinski’s actions during the Carter administration.[8]
[1] Luke Harding and Martin Chulov, “Moaz al-Khatib: ex-imam charged with uniting Syria’s opposition” The Guardian (13 November 2012). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/moaz-al-khatib-syria-opposition.
[2] Luke Harding and Martin Chulov, “Moaz al-Khatib: ex-imam charged with uniting Syria’s opposition”.
[3] Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib” VoltaireNet (23 November 2012). http://www.voltairenet.org/article176707.html.
[4] Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib”.
[5] Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib”.
[6] Cfr. Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib”.
[7] Abby Philips, “Ford in spotlight amid Syria revolt” Politico (25 April 2011). http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0411/a_useful_guy_528d2a43-3845-42b3-a9d1-c07b41fbf2fb.html.
[8] Cfr. C. Erimtan, “The War in Afghanistan: The legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Volatile Situation in Pakistan” Today’s Zaman (07 October 2010). http://tiny.cc/7gsi2.
The Associated Press announced this possibly disconcerting piece of news: ‘Iraq asserted Thursday [, 5 July] that al-Qaida insurgents are streaming out of the country to carry out attacks in Syria, an ominous development as the Syrian conflict enflames an already hostile region. Extremists have been making inroads as the 16-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad grinds on, bringing a dangerous new element to the forces fighting to topple the regime. The militants are taking advantage of the chaos and the violence gripping Syria, which the head of the country’s U.N. observer mission said Thursday had reached “unprecedented levels.” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said authorities are worried that extremists could gain another foothold in Syria, posing a new threat to the stability of the entire region’.[1]
Zebari said: “We have solid information and intelligence that members of al-Qaida’s terrorist network have gone to Syria.. . . [adding that] “extremist, terrorist groups [from Iraq are] taking root in neighboring countries”.[2] The AP report mentions that the “al-Qaida-inspired group, the Al-Nusra [F]ront, has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks across Syria”.[3]
It seems like a known known that Al Qaeda as a global terrorist network does not really exist . . . on the other hand, the name is nowadays a kind of badge of honour for Islamic extremists trying to gain global notoriety and requisite media attention. As a result, could one say that Islamic extremists have crossed into Syriafrom Iraq, with the hope of joining a group like the above-quoted Al-Nusra Front??? The organisation was apparently set up by a certain Abu Muhammad al-Julani in the wake of the outburst of unrest in Syrialast year. At the end of February this year, AFP reported that a ‘previously unknown jihadist group has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in the Syrian capital and the second city Aleppo that killed dozens earlier this year, in a video seen by AFP Wednesday [, 29 February 2012]’. The AFP report continues that the ‘group calling itself Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant said it carried out the attacks in Damascus and Aleppo “to avenge the people of Homs,” besieged by regime forces. The 45-minute video posted on jihadist forums showed footage of the destruction caused by the January 6 car attack in Damascus that killed 26 people, and by a twin suicide car bombing in Aleppo on February 10 that killed 28 people’.[4]
Opportunist Muslim extremists who are now using the name of the recently discovered enemy of the West, the shadowy organisation known as Al Qaeda . . . After all, to use the nifty Escobarian phrase once again, the name of the “catch-all ghost entity” al Qaeda, which many now believe is the new bogeyman threatening the U.S. and the West, needs to be mentioned to ensure sufficient public interest. The fact that extremist Islamists are now fighting inSyriaseems incontrovertible, but whether they were imported by Saudi, Qatari, or other power-brokers, remains a mystery for now.
If it is true that the U.S. and Turkey have been orchestrating the armed opposition to the Assad regime since April 2011, then the appearance of the Al-Nusra Front on the Syrian scene has to be regarded as a fortuitous event, ostensibly vindicating Assad that he is waging a war against foreign-sponsored terrorist . . . Who is bankrolling the Victorious Front fighting the Baath regime in Syria??? Where did they come from and what took them so long to take shape??? The AP reports reassuringly that ‘[o]pposition activists and the rebel Free Syrian Army deny having any links to terrorism and say they do not have the desire or the capabilities to carry out massive suicide bombings and other al-Qaida-style attacks. But dozens of rebel groups are operating in Syriawith little or no coordination between them’.[5]
At the same time, the website WikiLeaks posted numerous e-mails relating to Syria on the internet. Mister Assange, still in hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy, said facetiously, “the material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s external opponents”.[vi] The whistleblowing website announces that ‘[t]oday, Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012. This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture. Over the next two months, ground-breaking stories derived from the files will appear in WikiLeaks (global), Al Akhbar (Lebanon), Al Masry Al Youm (Egypt), ARD (Germany), Associated Press (US), L’Espresso (Italy), Owni (France) and Publico.es (Spain). Other publications will announce themselves closer to their publishing date. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said: “The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it.” At this time Syria is undergoing a violent internal conflict that has killed between 6,000 and 15,000 people in the last 18 months. The Syria Files shine a light on the inner workings of the Syrian government and economy, but they also reveal how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another. The range of information extends from the intimate correspondence of the most senior Baath party figures to records of financial transfers sent from Syrian ministries to other nations. The database comprises 2,434,899 emails from the 680 domains. There are 678,752 different email addresses that have sent emails and 1,082,447 different recipients. There are a number of different languages in the set, including around 400,000 emails in Arabic and 68,000 emails in Russian. The data is more than eight times the size of ’Cablegate’ in terms of number of documents, and more than 100 times the size in terms of data. Around 42,000 emails were infected with viruses or trojans. To solve these complexities, WikiLeaks built a general-purpose, multi-language political data-mining system which can handle massive data sets like those represented by the Syria Files. In such a large collection of information, it is not possible to verify every single email at once; however, WikiLeaks and its co-publishers have done so for all initial stories to be published. We are statistically confident that the vast majority of the data are what they purport to be’.[7]
[1] “Iraq warns al-Qaida flowing into Syria” AP (05 July 2012). http://www.jsonline.com/news/usandworld/national/syria-observer-chief-says-violence-unprecedented59eb399843824584b81578d82f7f26d7-161410655.html.
[2] “Iraq warns al-Qaida flowing intoSyria”.
[3] “Iraq warns al-Qaida flowing intoSyria”..
[4] “Unknown Islamist group claims suicide attacks in Syria” AFP (29 February 2012). http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/29/197781.html.
[5] “Iraq warns al-Qaida flowing intoSyria”.
[6] “Iraq warns al-Qaida flowing intoSyria”..
[7] “Syria Files” WikiLeaks. http://wikileaks.org/syria-files/.
Turkey and the U.S. have been supporting the Syrian opposition since April 2011, and the U.S. Air Force Base at İncirlik plays a pivotal role in that scheme. That is the claim made by the notorious whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds. And now, the news agency United Press International cavalierly announces that the ‘CIA officers’ have joined ‘[a]llies in southern Turkey helping Syrian opposition fighters’.[1]
In fact, the report refers to a New York Times article. Eric Schmitt’s piece, appropriately entitled “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”, purports to spill the beans on the U.S. support for Syrian opponents of President Assad. He writes that a “small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers”.[2] Is this another one of those strategically leaked Obama administration secrets supposed to bolster the Democrat’s standing among his gun-toting electorate???
Now that their activities have been touted in the New York Times, the C.I.A. operatives in Turkeyare probably no longer “operating secretly”. Schmitt even adds detail to his scoop: these “C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkeyfor several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said. The Obama administration has said it is not providing arms to the rebels, but it has also acknowledged that Syria’s neighbors would do so”.[3] Even though the article does not set out to prove thatAmerica and Turkey have been secretly fueling the unrest in Syria, the above-quoted admissions nevertheless show that a lot of footwork has been done behind the scenes of Syria’s ‘uprising’. The administration’s disclosure that “neighbors” are arming Syria’s opposition reads like an admission of Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, and Libyan involvement in concocting the violent brew that isSyria’s internal armed struggle. Of course, the concept of neighbourhood has to be taken in a very broad sense.
The UPI report prophetically adds that the “struggle inside Syria has the potential to intensify in coming months as powerful new weapons are flowing to both the Syrian government and opposition fighters”.[4] The news agency takes the long view that could lead one to consider that the whole Arab Awakening has also been long in the making. I pointed out last year that the Egyptian revolution appeared to have been planned in 2008, that the U.S. State Department was scheming to shake up the Middle East in order to replace no longer useful regimes with new and more amenable systems.[5] The failure of the recent nuclear negotiations in Moscow seems to indicate that Iran could still be still a viable target . . .
An anonymous Arab intelligence official who appears to be in the know said that “C.I.A. officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people”.[6] It seems that the Obama administration is taking no chances when it comes to Syria . . . perhaps that lessons were learned in Libya after all. Schmitt does make it clear that “[s]pokesmen for the White House, State Department and C.I.A. would not comment on any intelligence operations supporting the Syrian rebels”.[7]
Prior to the full-scale invasion of Afghanistan, a C.I.A. team in the Hindu Kushprepared the ground as well, making contacts, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters. Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Nour Malas already reported that “U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomats have stepped up their contacts with Syrian rebels in part to help organize their burgeoning military operations against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, according to senior U.S. officials. As part of the efforts, the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department—working with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other allies—are helping the opposition Free Syrian Army develop logistical routes for moving supplies into Syria and providing communications training”.[viii] It seems that President Obama’s best-laid plan for dealing with Syria and possibly Iran too is slowly falling into place . . . As explained by , the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon and Nour Malas the “U.S. in many ways is acting in Syria through proxies, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, say U.S. and Arab officials. Saudi Arabia is particularly fixated on overthrowing Mr. Assad, said Arab officials, viewing it as a way to settle scores with an arch foe and weaken its chief regional rival Iran. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing the funds for arms, Arab officials and Syrian opposition leaders say. The Obama administration hasn’t agreed to arm the FSA [the so-called Free Syrian Army], the U.S. officials stressed. Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday [, 13 June] denied charges by Syria and others that the U.S. has armed the rebels. The U.S.’s stepped-up links with the FSA are also part of an effort to gain a better understanding of the rebels’ capabilities and of the identities and allegiances of fighters spread in disparate groups across the country, the U.S. officials said. The U.S. officials remain wary of some rebels’ suspected ties to hard-line Islamists, including elements of al Qaeda. They acknowledged the FSA doesn’t represent all parts of the insurgency against the Assad regime”.[9]
The armed conflict in Syria is very much a proxy-war, pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia, China, and their junior partner Iran. In this context, Russia’s naval base in Tartus recently gave President Putin the pretext to dispatch some armed comrades into the Mediterraneanand back again. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has now said that “The ship was carrying air defense systems, which can only be used to repel foreign aggression, and not against peaceful demonstrators, and yes — it was carrying three refurbished helicopters”.[10] On the one hand, the Obama administration strategically leaked its not-so covert support for the Syrian opposition, and on the other, the Russians freely admitted their unwavering backing for Bashar al-Assad. Syria is the first battle-ground in the as-yet undeclared New Cold War.[11]
[1] “CIA joins allies helping Syrian opposition” UPI (21 June 2012). http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/06/21/CIA-joins-allies-helping-Syrian-opposition/UPI-61861340260200/?spt=hs&or=tn.
[2] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition” The New York Times (21 June 2012). http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all.
[3] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”.
[4] “CIA joins allies helping Syrian opposition”.
[5] C. Erimtan, “Behind the scenes of Egypt’s revolution” Hürriyet Daily News (27 February 2011). http://tiny.cc/fz7tf.
[6] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”.
[7] Eric Schmitt, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition”.
[8] Jay Solomon and Nour Malas, “U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria” The Wall Street Journal (13 June 2012). http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577464763551149048.html?mod=googlenews_wsj.
[9] Jay Solomon and Nour Malas, “U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters inSyria”.
[10] Kirit Radia, “Russia Admits Attack Choppers Aboard Syria-Bound Ship” ABC News (21 June 2012). http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/russia-admits-attack-choppers-aboard-syria-bound-ship/story?id=16620312.
[11] C. Erimtan, “The Arab Awakening and the never-ending Cold War” Hürriyet Daily News (22 June 2011). http://tiny.cc/p7q3b.
This week: A Listening Post special – Whistleblowing and the US Media. Four years ago, on the campaign trail, candidate Barack Obama shared his views on whistleblowers. He said: “Often the best source of information about waste, fraud and abuse in government is a government employee committed to public integrity, willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism … should be encouraged rather than stifled.” As president, the reality has been very different. On his watch, six whistleblowers have been charged under the Espionage Act for allegedly mishandling classified information. That is twice as many as all past presidents combined. The threat facing whistleblowers has implications in many areas, including defence, intelligence and national security. And then there is the impact it is having on the US media – as the sources dry up, so too do the stories and the American people are left knowing less and less about what their government is doing. In the first half of this full edition special, we blow the whistle on President Obama’sAmerica. In the second half of the show, Jesselyn Radack, a lawyer who worked as an ethics adviser for the US Department of Justice, talks to us about the impact whistleblowing has had on US journalism and what news organisations are doing about it (9 June 2012).
Going to Geneva: A Resolution for the War in Syria???
‘In Beijing the Chinese government gave its support to Iran’s participation in a proposed international conference aimed at ending the Syrian conflict. Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Iranian input was essential for a negotiated end to the conflict (21 May 2013)’.
Category:
Americana, China, CIA, Current Affairs, Iran, Middle East, NATO, New Cold War, Obama, Oil and Gas, Political Commentary, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey