Chemical Weapons in Syria
Archive for the ‘United Nations’ Category
Assange Addresses the UN
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has called on the United States to move from words to actions, and put an end to its persecution of WikiLeaks, its people and its sources (27 Sept 2012).
The 67th United Nations General Assembly
This year’s 67th United Nations General Assembly contained a number of “interesting” performances. On Tuesday, 25 September 2012 U.S. President Barrack Obama gave his speech.
And then it was Iran’s Ahmadinejad’s turn.
But this year’s biscuit was clearly taken by the world’s favourite crackpot, Bibi or the ever-warlike Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, 27 September.
Bibi’s warped view of the world is really turning into a liability for global peace and stability. In the previous century he was unable to convince Bill Clinton that Iran posed a nuclear threat,[1] but now in the 21st century, he seems more desperate and crazy than ever.
[1] “Netanyahu’s Obsession: Iran” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (25 January 2011). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/netanyahu%e2%80%99s-obsession-with-iran/.
Mali Intervention???
Over the past months I have occasionally spoken about the situation in Mali, and now it seems something is happening: ‘Six months after Tuareg and Islamist rebels seized control in northern Mali, the United Nations is still divided on its response to the crisis in the West African state. At a meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, the US and France called for a regional military intervention. Mali’s Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra said the West African troops agreed by regional bloc ECOWAS would assist its own army: “The government of Mali would like to see the immediate presence of this force to support the defence and security forces of Mali in carrying out their noble mission of recovering and maintaining territorial integrity and protecting people and property.” But the plan is unlikely to be adopted just yet, say commentators. Diplomats want a more detailed strategy. In July, the Security Council threw its support behind regional political efforts to solve the crisis. In March, a month-long military coup created a power vacuum that allowed rebels to capture large areas in the north of Mali. That rebellion has since been hijacked by Islamist militants. The military stepped down allowing the formation of an interim government (26 September 2012)’.
Armed groups in control of northern Mali are terrorising people and destroying their culture. Human rights advocates have called for the killings, torture and the destruction of religious sites to stop. So what is the government in Mali doing? Will there be an international military intervention? Guests: Sunny Ugoh, Jean-Marie Fardeau, Renaud Girard (27 Sept 2012).
Drone Wars
Drone warfare has increased dramatically since 2008 and there are over 60 bases across the globe engaging in a US drone missions. US drones are currently deployed in the skies of over 14 different countries, some for surveillance and others for attacking ground targets. The area of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, known as Waziristan is the locus of much of the drone operations. But are these weapons keeping us safe, or do they just incite further terrorist attacks? And is their use a violation of the Geneva Conventions?
THE DRONE LANDSCAPE
THE DRONE ECONOMY
THE DRONE MORALITY
As a bonus, here is Al Jazeera’s People & Power talking about the Attack of the Drones: The US government’s growing reliance on aerial drones to pursue its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere is proving controversial. As governments are increasingly relying on drones, what are the consequences for civil liberties and the future of war? (18 July 2012).
Syrious Developments, 18 July 2012
The propaganda broadcaster Radio Free Europe reports: ‘Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives on a working visit to Moscow on July 18 to discuss bilateral economic relations and the situation in Syria. Erdogan is due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian officials. Russia, the main backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has repeatedly rejected international efforts to impose sanctions on Damascus. Turkey, which shares a border with Syria, has been a vocal critic of Assad’s repression of the uprising which killed some 17,000. Erdogan and Putin are also expected to discuss economic and energy ties. Russia is Turkey’s second largest trade partner after Germany, with bilateral trade at $31.8 billion annually. Russia is also Turkey’s key partner in the natural gas industry, with exports to Turkey totaling some 26 billion cubic meters in 2011’.[1] 
Meanwhile, a ‘suicide bomber has struck a meeting of top Syrian officials in Damascus, killing Syria’s defense minister and the brother-in-law of President Bashar-al-Assad and dealing a major blow to the Assad regime. The defense minister, General Daoud Rajha, is the most senior government official to be killed since the Syrian uprising began 17 months ago. The bombing comes as the United Nations Security Council is set to vote today on a new measure responding to the crisis inSyria. We’re joined by Patrick Seale, a leading British writer on theMiddle East (18 July 2012)’.
The streets ofDamascushave seen the heaviest fighting since the begining of the Syrian uprising 17 months ago. Since Friday, the capital has seen gunfights and shelling. And according to reports, mortars and helicopter gunships have been used. The fiercest fighting yet has been reported in various parts of the capital between rebel forces and government troops. These are significant developments – but does it mean the conflict is reaching its final decisive phase? (18 June 2012).
[1] “Erdogan To Moscow To Discuss Ties, Syria” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (17 July 2012). http://www.rferl.org/content/erdogan-putin-russia-turkey/24648381.html.
What is happening in Mali and where is Timbuktu???
‘UNESCO places Malian ancient city of Timbuktu and the tomb of Askia in Gao on an endangered list. The African Union and the international community have been called on to help protect the sites. Al Jazeera‘s Barbara Angopa has more (29 June 2012)’.
The situation in Mali has been in the news for some time now, and particularly as the name Al Qaeda pops up again now some people are finally beginning to take notice. The journalist Serge Daniel explains: “Separatist Tuareg rebels led the takeover of northern Malibut Islamists who fought alongside them have now dislodged the desert nomads from all key positions, scuppering their dream of independence. It was the Tuareg’s rebellion, one which they have waged several times in past decades in their bid to split northern Mali, which they call Azawad, from the south where the government in Bamako has long marginalised their community. But this vast northern desert had also become the base of Al-Qaeda allies and Islamists, whose fighters appeared alongside the Tuareg as they seized the main cities and then planted their own black flag, laying down their strict Islamic laws”. [1]
The Malian journalist Tiegoum Boubeye Maiga opines that “Today, you need a magnifying glass to find a trace of the MNLA fighters”.[2] The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. was formed in 2011 from remnants of rebel factions that had been fighting the central government since the 1990s.
Daniel explains: “Boosted by the return of heavily armed Tuareg who had gone to fight for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, the rebels launched their rebellion in January [2012] and quickly overwhelmed a demoralised and poorly equipped Malian army. Angry and frustrated, a group of low-ranking soldiers carried out a coup on March 22 against a government they said was incompetent in dealing with the rebellion. But the coup only worsened the situation as the unmanned north became easy prey and fell to the rebel groups in a matter of days”.[3]
Adding urgency to the above Al Jazeera report, the Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Boumama declared: “God is unique. All of this is haram [forbidden in Islam]. We are all Muslims. Unesco is what?”, adding that about the shrines present in Timbuktu, that “all of them, without exception”, would be destroyed.[4] In order to comprehend fully the disaster about to take place in the legendary city, here is a BBC documentary on the lost libraries of Timbuktu, originally broadcast in April 2010.
[1] Serge Daniel, “Islamists rout Tuareg from their own rebellion in north Mali” AFP (28 June 2012). http://news.yahoo.com/islamists-rout-tuareg-own-rebellion-north-mali-213609295.html.
[2] Serge Daniel, “Islamists rout Tuareg from their own rebellion in northMali”.
[3] Serge Daniel, “Islamists rout Tuareg from their own rebellion in northMali”.
[4] “Timbuktu shrines damaged by Mali Ansar Dine Islamists” BBC News (30 June 2012). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18657463.
Geneva: A Syrious Solution???
Nine countries are meeting in Geneva to discuss U.N. envoy Kofi Annan’s new proposal for a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis (29 June 2012).
The New Cold War: The CIA Prepares Battleground Syria???
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.
U.S. Elections: Third Party Candidates
Yesterday RT broadcast live the third party presidential debate from Chicago, IL. Candidates from the Constitution party, the Green Party, the Justice Party and the Libertarian Party are faced off with one another since they were excluded from the major debates reserved for the Democrat and Republican nominees. Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party joins RT’s Kristine Frazao to share his thoughts on last night’s debate (24 Oct 2012).
With regard to third party candidates, one of the most active voices on the interwebz belongs to the Punk Patriot (aka Asher Platts) and his outspoken stance is an inspiration. Here he is talking about the 2012 election cycle and the supposed choice of not voting . . .
(23 August 2012)
And here is a take on how the big debate between Mittens and Obamer could have sounded . . .
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Americana, Current Affairs, Democracy, Interwebz, Obama, Political Commentary, Propaganda, United Nations