Just International

U.S. Is Allied With And Actively Supports Al-Qaeda: James F. Tracy

By Kourosh Ziabari

09 November, 2012

Countercurrents.org

American political commentator believes that the United States has been constantly allied with Al-Qaeda and supported it militarily and financially.

“Major media have recently had to acknowledge that US-NATO interests are aligned with Al Qaeda in Syria, of course overlooking the fact that the US and Sunni States also recruited and armed these soldiers of fortune. What the Obama administration has sought to do with the alleged murder of Bin Laden in May 2011 is to close the chapter on the old, villainous Al Qaeda and open a chapter on the new and friendly Al Qaeda. This narrative is slowly unfolding, while Americans are instructed on a different bogey to fear, which now appears to be homegrown terrorism,” he said in an exclusive interview with Iran Review.

Prof. James F. Tracy is the Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton , where he teaches courses on media history and the role of journalism in the public sphere. Tracy ‘s scholarly work and commentary on media and politics have appeared in numerous academic journals, edited volumes, and alternative media news and opinion outlets. He is editor of Democratic Communiqué, journal of the Union for Democratic Communications, an affiliate of Project Censored, and a regular contributor to GlobalResearch.ca. Tracy ‘s latest work assessing Western press coverage of US-NATO military ventures and the human costs of war appears in Censored 2013: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2011-2013 (Seven Stories Press, 2012).

 

Prof. Tracy took part in an interview with Iran Review to answer some questions regarding the influence of advocacy organizations on the U.S. government and the mutual relationship between these entities, the further limitation of civil liberties and individual freedoms in the United States, the challenges ahead of progressive, alternative journalism in the United States, Western mainstream media’s coverage of Iran and Syria affairs and the prospect of U.S. military expeditions in the Middle East.

Q: What do you think about the role of influential American think tanks and public diplomacy and advocacy organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations or the National Endowment for Democracy in creating unrest and instability in the countries which are opposed to the United States policies? Do you find traces of their footsteps in the ongoing violence in Syria ? Do they have plans to destabilize Iran so as to realize their mischievous objective of regime change in Tehran ?

A: One can contend that the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Endowment for Democracy are much more than advocacy organizations. The question suggests the popular view that Western states and especially the United States are above such organizations in terms of decision making power and responsiveness to the populations they purportedly serve.

This is the idealization of a transcendent governing apparatus upheld in public opinion and touted in Western mainstream media. This is the myth the CFR specifically perpetuates about itself and the liberal state. In fact, the CFR is a branch of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and it has more or less dictated US foreign policy from within entities such as the US State Department since before World War Two.

This is not to say that every member of the CFR is involved in such maneuvers. Some are in the organization because they’re flattered to be asked and they see it as prestigious and fashionable, or they wish to network with other influential figures. Yet it is no mistake that membership is exclusive and participants all occupy strategic positions of power in major global corporations, in academe and the media, and in government, and thus can be mobilized to exert their influence as the CFR inner circle desires. They also openly share in the ideology of weakening the nation state and privileging global-regional and international bodies, such as the European Union and the United Nations.

It is through such organizations that they can get their policies enacted with little if any interference from the common people or their representatives at the national level. The CFR’s interests and activities, alongside the interests supported by the major philanthropic foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundations, and the Gates Foundation, are demonstrable manifestations of the deep state that truly runs the world, has priorities that differ greatly from the bulk of humanity, and has sought to exert itself since the 1920s.

The “Arab Spring” appears to be largely a maneuver of organizations such as the CFR and NED. This was evident from the onset with the high degree of Western media exposure afforded the fairly modest demonstrations 2011 in Tahrir Square that preceded Mubarak’s ouster by the Central Intelligence Agency. The same media outlets unquestioningly covered the Western and Sunni-backed deployment of Al Qaeda mercenary forces and NATO airpower against the most modern and socially progressive state on the African continent under the Obama administration’s “Responsibility to Protect” cover. A central bank was reportedly created in the back of a mercenary pickup truck. This was a colossal war crime that Western public opinion is left largely in the dark about. It also underscored liberal-progressive hypocrisy and credulousness in the US , evident in the pronouncements of public figures such as Juan Cole and Amy Goodman, who led the cheering section for Libya ‘s destruction. If the Bush administration successfully vanquished the probable leader of the African Union those on the Left would have been in a huff. When one of their purported own oversees such a campaign it’s not only condoned but applauded, much like the “humanitarian” bombing of Yugoslavia by Clinton .

As many of your readers are likely aware, Libya is significant because some of the same mercenary forces recruited by US intelligence and Sunni states that were employed there are now deployed in Syria . Like Libya , Syria is also a fairly modern state that is not hostile to the West but is regarded as being autonomous, particularly in its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah. It is also seen as a strategic threat to Israel in terms of Iran , and so must be dismantled before a more concerted campaign against Iran is to take place. I’m inclined to think that those determining policy for the Obama administration want compliant fundamentalist regimes installed throughout the Middle East . This will be disastrous to overall security in the region but I don’t believe that’s their goal. War is much more profitable and has much greater potential than peace for those who wish to exert control over resources.

Q: In one of your articles, you argue that the United States has become a police state, with such restrictive legislations and programs which the government has put into effect to limit the citizens’ personal freedoms and different types of civil liberties, such as the Sedition Act of 1798 which criminalizes the publication of “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government and governmental officials. Would you please elaborate more on your notion of the United States becoming a police state?

A: I believe this was “The Paranoid Style of American Governance,” where I pointed out that the laws, policies, and organizational structure of the US government, how its exaggerated concern over surveillance and security is arrayed against the American people. The situation is comparable to how an increasingly delusional paranoid might approach human relationships s/he is involved in.  As a result of the 1996 Effective Death Penalty and Anti-Terrorism Act following the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing and the 2001 PATRIOT Act enacted after September 11, 2001 many of the civil liberties Americans have been guaranteed under the Constitution have been stolen, never to return.

Citizens cannot expect to be secure in their persons and papers. We are subjected to humiliating warrantless searches at transportation facilities. As a result of a string of legislation capped off by President Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act of December 2011 the government now reserves the right to jail or murder citizens on political grounds. There is little if any recourse because our political representation has to a large degree been bought off by private interests. The US increasingly looks like a totalitarian state and is one major event away from fully resembling the Soviet Union or an Eastern Bloc state circa 1970. The extent of the rollback in civil liberties is very overdone because a majority of Americans are ill-informed, politically unsophisticated, and in many instances even functionally illiterate. Thus they are unaware of the police state’s accelerated formation since the mid-1990s and unprepared to contest it. A combined regime of poor public education and the stultifying effects of mass media and culture have dumbed the American public down to the extent that its republic has been taken right out from underneath its nose.

Q: It’s widely believed that the United States, as its leaders claim, is a “beacon of freedom” since the mass media are allowed to publish every critical material at will, even if they threaten the national security, in such cases of war with another nation. Is this widely-accepted belief true? Don’t the mass media face any restriction or impediment by the government to censor certain stories or withhold from the public sensitive information?

A: The major, agenda-setting US news media—USA Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and their broadcast and cablecast amplifiers—that the small strata of semi-politically adept and literate citizens rely on for information are all controlled by interests that are overall supportive of the US police state and US-NATO foreign policy. To return to your initial question, many of the owners or top editors and journalists are also CFR members. Together they perform a central propagandistic function of the state through selective reportage of issues and events, omission of key information, and heavy reliance on “official” government or corporate sources.

Such a set of procedures is worse than outright falsehoods because a falsehood can be disproved and a journalist or news organization called out on the carpet. However, by owning most of the newsgathering and distribution outlets, by using official sources and employing careful editing procedures such media retain credibility in the public mind. In the Soviet Union much of the citizenry knew that by reading Pravda they were being fed outright lies so they learned to “read between the lines” to interpret what was really going on. That requires a degree of political sophistication that is beyond most Americans.

The government and major news media are also being challenged by alternative news media and thus resort to a more blatant form of disinformation that jeopardizes their perceived trustworthiness, which is now at an all-time low. This is the case with their coverage of the US-NATO actions and Libya and Syria —specifically the fact that the US is allied with and actively supporting its alleged arch enemy Al Qaeda.

For over a year corporate media tried to cover this up when it was there in plain view. Alternative outlets reported otherwise and in the face of this mainstream media had to eventually relent and admit that the US is indeed supporting Al Qaeda.

As an example, one case involved a US-based alternative media outlet reporting on the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies collectively purchasing over one billion rounds of lethal, “hollow point” ammunition. Major media sought to assuage growing public concern on this by focusing on a single government agency’s (the Social Security Administration) purchase of 180,000 rounds of such ammunition, asserting that it was for target practice. This was absolute propaganda likely pitched to these outlets by covert government sources. It’s fairly common knowledge among American gun enthusiasts that “full metal jacket” ammo is used on the range because it’s far less expensive than hollow point and performs the same function. Nevertheless, the 180,000 SSA story was widely circulated, performing the intended propaganda function, mainly through conscious omission of the most important information that alternative media honestly chose to highlight.

Another argument that I need to make in light of the world wide expanse of news and information now available on the Internet is that the US citizenry doesn’t need to rely primarily on USA Today or New York Times editors for what it is exposed to. This remains the case so long as the Internet remains free from government or corporate encroachment and regulation. In this regard there is a wealth of information for those who have the time, discernment, and initiative to seek it out and become informed. Investigative journalists and commentators have much to draw on in terms of analyzing and explaining the meaning and significance of issues and events. This is essentially what newspapers and journals did before the application of scientific objectivity to journalism and the pretentious separation of news from analysis and opinion.

Q: What challenges do the independent, progressive journalists of the United States face today? In one of your articles, you had criticized some of the progressive media for failing to give coverage to important topics such as the truth about the 9/11 attacks. Would you please elaborate on that? In my view, the progressive media outlets such as CounterPunch or The Nation have to some extent broken apart the monopoly of the mainstream media and allowed the free flow of information while the mainstream media steadfastly try to suffocate the truth. Don’t you agree?

A: Independent progressive journalists often produce important investigative work on issues and events ignored by mainstream outlets. One example is the attention they’ve brought to bear on hydraulic “fracking” and its immense environmental destruction. They have also been helpful in raising awareness of the Bush-Cheney administration’s many crimes.

My main criticism with so-called progressive alternative news media is how they are usually tethered to philanthropic foundations and thus restricted in what their writers can comment and report on. They’re also strongly influenced by partisan politics. Democracy Now and The Nation, for example, regularly fell over themselves to interrogate and expose the Bush-Cheney administration’s abundant malfeasance. However, when the Obama regime continues and intensifies such policies, or unconstitutionally commits US troops to fight in Libya , such outlets are either close to silent or condone such measures. This is a double standard. Imagine if the Bush-Cheney cabal deposed the likely heir of the African Union. Left-liberals would have a variety of raucous criticisms. Obama does it and no eyebrows are raised. The case is even more evident with regard to the US-NATO support of mercenary armies terrorizing the Syrian population. In their partiality the progressive media are hypocritical in the extreme, and it’s difficult to have much faith or respect for them.

Another example of this is the collaboration between John Nichols, political correspondent at The Nation and libertarian Constitutional attorney Bruce Fein, who were both outspoken during the Bush administration on the case for impeachment. Nichols also wrote a very critical biography of Cheney. Fein is still calling for impeachment—this time of Obama. Nichols is nowhere to be found, even though Obama’s crimes are comparable to Bush-Cheney’s.

There are also several issues that require investigation and discussion that the left-progressive media won’t even acknowledge. 9/11 is certainly one. Others include the related phenomenon of false flag terror, and the United Nations’ Agenda 21. There’s abundant information on all of these phenomena, and independent activists and genuinely alternative news media have covered them—some in great depth. Progressive media won’t, and I believe this in part is due to their fear of being labeled “conspiracy theorists” by the thought police at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League, Media Matters for America , Think Progress—all of which are, perhaps not coincidentally, as dependent on foundation money as the very progressive journalists they patrol.

Such media’s failure to pursue 9/11 beyond government pronouncements resulted in the crucial delinking of 9/11 Truth from the antiwar movement, and in my view the antiwar movement’s consequent lack of real purpose and direction. It’s fairly safe to say that a majority of Americans, including those on the left, are generally trusting of government institutions and authority in general to the extent that they could scarcely imagine such institutions might be capable of an event like September 11. There is a naïve trust in entities they barely recognize or understand outside of fictionalized accounts, which speaks to the tremendous success of an educational and propaganda apparatus that conditions individuals to accept at face value the claims of authority figures.

As I’ve stated above, the progressive alternative media are capable of extreme hypocrisy. “Global warming,” or “climate change” is another case in point. Such outlets unquestioningly promote what amounts to a new religion and global taxation regime that the Left has bought into entirely. Raising legitimate questions is extreme heresy, equated with threatening the polar bears and coral reefs. The typical mantra is that human beings are the main culprits through their everyday activities. This is not to say that there is no problem of pollution linked to human consumption, and there could be reasonable modifications and programs for addressing such concerns. Yet the science purporting the existence of a “greenhouse effect” on environmental temperatures from carbon dioxide, alongside the dubious scientific endeavors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, cannot stand up to serious scientific scrutiny yet is uncritically upheld by the left intelligentsia especially.

The progressive media promote this notion while ignoring deliberate efforts to alter the environment through weather modification and geoengineering that have been going on for several years now. That’s profoundly dishonest. Nor do such media interrogate the billions of dollars being pumped into the environmental movement each year through the philanthropic foundations. Nor is there any coverage of Agenda 21, which according to its own doctrine is a plan to radically alter social and economic relations in the name of “sustainability.” The more Americans find out about this, the more outraged they will be, but they won’t become aware of it through the progressive alternative media, who are enthusiastically on board with such plans whether they realize it or not.

Q: What role are the mainstream media in the West playing with regards to the crisis in Syria ? With the experience of NYT’s Judith Miller and her rabble-rousing prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, are the mass media repeating the same scenario to lay the groundwork for a military strike against Syria to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad?

A: The major news media have been attempting to make the Syria’s al-Assad government look as if it is oppressing its own population—for which it has no realistic motive—so that the Anglo-American alliance can mercilessly bomb the country and install a puppet regime like it has done in Libya. This is a frame-up that Western media are complicit in carrying out. As with 9/11, much of the American public will have difficulty fathoming the idea that its government is supporting and allied with Al Qaeda mercenaries to terrorize and kill Syrian citizens, yet that’s what is happening. Syria is strategic in a geopolitical sense because of its proximity to Israel , and the West realizes that any potential attack on Iran must be preceded by a malleable regime in Syria . For over one year none of this was reported in US news media. When Hillary Clinton admitted as much in February 2012 on BBC and CBS, as reported in such alternative outlets as Global Research and Infowars, the corporate media backtracked and obscured her remarks, and the information was subsequently suppressed.

Yet major media have recently had to acknowledge that US-NATO interests are aligned with Al Qaeda in Syria , of course overlooking the fact that the US and Sunni States also recruited and armed these soldiers of fortune. What the Obama administration has sought to do with the alleged murder of Bin Laden in May 2011 is to close the chapter on the old, villainous Al Qaeda and open a chapter on the new and friendly Al Qaeda. This narrative is slowly unfolding, while Americans are instructed on a different bogey to fear, which now appears to be “homegrown terrorism.”

The dynamic between the public, media and US government is also different than it was in 2003. Before the US could attack Afghanistan and Iraq the Bush administration realized it needed a public rationale for such. A key rule in management is to give your subordinates a reason for why you’re enacting a new rule or policy. September 11 and the constructed threat of Iraq ‘s “weapons of mass destruction” provided this rationale to placate the public. Despite its high-handed duplicity, the Bush-Cheney regime actually went through the proper avenues and received Congressional approval to go to war.

The Obama administration has done nothing of the sort with regard to the use of US forces in Libya last year. Instead of being more forthright in terms of legislative protocols and aggression, Obama and his handlers chose to wage war and subvert societies and governments in more covert ways, such as what has and continues to occur in Libya , Syria , and Iran . In my view, one of the few things that is worse than Bush’s flagrant and arrogant use of military power is Obama’s hypocrisy—claiming the “responsibility to protect” through allegedly humanitarian military intervention while illegally committing US troops abroad and presiding over tremendous violence.

The US public and Congress—and especially the progressive-left—are happy with their rock star-in-chief. Some also fear being labeled racists if they really criticize Obama’s policies. There’s virtually no opposition I can detect by the allegedly principled and peace-loving left in the US . It’s perhaps ironic that one of the legacies of the US ‘s tragic history of race relations is that, much like waving the flag of anti-Semitism, the actually existing memory of racial oppression can be opportunistically mobilized to actually stifle honest political debate.

As I mentioned in a recent piece for Global Research, if Obama carried out the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq with the appropriate R2P platitudes to his base the liberal establishment would have rolled over. Obama is very useful to larger, global power interests because what he symbolizes—liberal ideals and the civil rights struggle—allows him to play on and manipulate the public’s good will and enact or continue policies at home and abroad that white politicians would be highly scrutinized for. A Romney-Ryan administration would actually energize the progressive-left in the US and potentially provide for a more vibrant political discourse. Four years of the Obama administration proves that the left is far more devoted to circling the wagons and the spirit of partisanship than to the values it claims to uphold. If the left media were honest to its principles it would have provided extensive coverage of the Non-Aligned Movement August conference in Tehran to further highlight the Obama administration’s hypocrisy. The coverage was close-to non-existent.

Q: What do you think about the Western media’s coverage of the Iran affairs? In my own interpretation, they have practically taken up arms against Iranian people, because they are intentionally portraying Iran in such a way that every external observer thinks that Iran is a crisis-hit, dilapidated, uncivilized and uncultured country. The Western audience is totally unaware of Iran ‘s culture, history and civilization, and this is a direct result of mainstream media’s lopsided coverage of Iran . What’s your take on that?

A: That’s an accurate assessment. This is because the Western media’s coverage of Iran is guided to a large degree by their heavy reliance on official sources, such as those at the US State Department, NATO, or within the Obama administration itself. The coverage is perpetuated by the ethnocentrism and narrow views of those within the US and European media as well. Iranian officials’ statements and views are generally absent in such news media. This is of course intentional on the behalf of such outlets and their owners.

The American public has been incrementally conditioned for an attack on Iran since 2002 when the country was identified as part of the “axis of evil” by George W. Bush. The US youth are increasingly weaned on a psychic diet of video games where there are clear distinctions of good and evil.  If a country and its people can be objectified and thereby dehumanized—as is done in the conditioning of our youth in general society and the military—their destruction can be more efficiently carried out and witnessed with little if any objection. The “clash of civilizations” is a coordinated process for public consumption.

A related factor in this regard is of course Israel . It’s very difficult to overestimate the country’s power over the US government, and major US media are no doubt sensitive to Israel ‘s propaganda line that Iran poses an existential threat to the Zionist state. Israel ‘s public relations arm, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is extremely powerful in shaping Western media’s representation and thereby public opinion of Middle East affairs and Iran specifically.

One could make the argument that were it not for such influence Iran would be regarded as merely a country pursuing its right to produce nuclear power as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; that it does not aspire to the status of a regional or global nuclear power that Israel has in fact been for many years through its relationship as a client state of the US. It may at this point be reasonable to question who the client actually is.

Q: We’re just passed the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and several questions regarding this horrendous incident remain unanswered; questions such as whether or not it was a false flag operation, whether or not Israel’s Mossad was involved in it, whether or not the U.S. government had foreknowledge of it, etc. What do you think about the official account given of the 9/11 attacks? Do you believe in the skeptical assumptions which authors such as Christopher Bollyn or David Ray Griffin have put forward?

A: In an email exchange I had with the late financial commentator Bob Chapman a few years ago I brought up the close-to-non-existent discussion about 9/11 there was in the academy among colleagues. He responded, “In exposing the truth those who make their livings by going along with the accepted view of history will always dismiss you as a radical. That is because of their own intellectual dishonesty.” It’s important that those of us who have the privilege of being salaried intellectuals with certain protections like tenure point to how the US government’s official account of the September 11 events cannot withstand even modest scrutiny, and are only accepted by an unthinking and fearful American public served by a willfully unthinking and often manipulative mass media and political leadership.

For the public to accept the ostensible causes of 9/11 they must partake in something akin to what George Orwell conceived of in his classic 1984 as doublethink. This more or less involves negotiating two observations or ideas at the same time while putting one’s reason and morality in abeyance. In Freudian terms the reality is too horrible to be dealt with and is therefore repressed.

An alternate reality—that which is provided by US government public relations personnel, a majority of the intelligentsia on the left and right, and amplified by major media, is offered as an alternate reality. I can’t imagine how this was not given careful consideration prior to 9/11’s execution, despite the patent sloppiness of the operation itself.

Adolf Hitler and his henchmen recognized how a population was susceptible to “the big lie” because most people could never personally imagine committing a crime of such proportions. This is because apart from the imaginary set of social relations provided by television the social circle of most individuals does not extend beyond family, close friends, the supermarket checkout clerk and the mailman. They never come into contact with the people who run the world, so an event of this magnitude is beyond them, and the strategic planning that defies national boundaries or routine time horizons is quite literally otherworldly to them. If the news media and academy are incapable of serious inquiry, which after eleven years is obviously the case, this greatly contributes to public confusion and disbelief.

September 11 is a frightening example of how a specific rendering of an event becomes a part the public consciousness and memory. This was not so much done through persuasion or the manufacture of consent but rather through a form of shock therapy and mass trauma. It was certainly on a scale far surpassing the American political assassinations of the 1960s or the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing because of its scale and the fact that it was witnessed by much of the country and world in real time. The images of the towers and bin Laden were then repeated ad nauseam to burn the imagery and terror in to the public mind. This was an extremely impressive propaganda campaign accentuated by the fact that Americans have never been victimized in that way before and are used to being on the side of conquest.

I don’t believe there are any serious intellectuals who can defend the state-sanctioned version of what transpired on September 11, although this is what our school children are being taught, so it’s another chapter of a fatally compromised history. Even members of the 9/11 Commission, a body that never would have existed were it not for the victims’ families, have questioned their own conclusions. Osama bin Laden was in seriously poor health at the time of the events. A large and courageous body of professionals, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, have provided compelling evidence that the World Trade Center towers could not have collapsed because of burning jet fuel. Moreover, World Trade Center Building 7 wasn’t even hit by a plane and similarly collapsed eight hours later.

I incorporate materials and discussions on 9/11 in classes I teach addressing journalism and public opinion because it’s the most important event of the past fifty years, and probably US corporate journalism’s greatest failure. Regardless of how one interprets the causes and assesses the evidence, in addition to the initial loss of 3,000 innocents, it was something from which the American public lost important civil liberties and several million people have been killed, injured and traumatized unnecessarily.

Q: The United States and its European allies have imposed backbreaking economic sanctions against Iran which are affecting the daily life of ordinary citizens. Their sanctions and war threats come while there’s no compelling evidence showing that Iran is working toward developing nuclear weapons. What’s your idea about the hostility of the Western states against Iran in general, and the economic sanctions in particular?

Q: Iran is a strong, independent, and largely self-sufficient state, a signatory to the NPT, and is pursuing the safe and peaceful development of nuclear power provided for under that treaty. It has not attacked another country in 300 years; the war it fought against Iraq in the 1980s was from a defensive posture. Thus Iran ‘s role in the region contrasts sharply with Israel , and this is especially the case if one is to take into consideration Israel ‘s probable possession of a nuclear arsenal.

Yet Israel is also something of a pawn in a broader geopolitical power play. Israel ‘s people themselves don’t want a war with Iran , only its leadership does. Even the US military don’t want such a war. And if the American people were similarly provided with ample contemporary and historical information—which they are cheated out of by media and frequently poor educational institutions and curricula—a majority would not want to go to war with Iran .

In my view what is playing out is at least partially attributable to NATO’s plan to encircle and challenge Russia and China . On the “grand chessboard” of the Anglo-American elite Iran is a strategic and resource-rich prize. In their view it’s too independent for its own good. This is the case right down to its largely autonomous banking system, and this makes it especially impervious to Western economic and political control. A country or alliance that is independent is dangerous. It could set an example of self-determination for other countries that cannot be permitted.

Q: And finally, do you believe that the United States is capable of continuing its military expeditions around the world and keeping up with its policy of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries? It’s said that throughout the past 3 centuries, the United States has been involved in more than 50 wars, either directly or indirectly. Will this militaristic and expansionistic approach toward the other countries survive in long run?

A: Since World War II especially the US military has been used by larger forces to harness and divvy up the world’s resources. If the US and NATO were no longer there another military or military alliance would likely take their place and enforce the policies of the major transnational cartels—finance, agriculture, chemicals/pharmaceuticals, armaments, energy, and media/telecommunications.

The US won’t be able to sustain its military even in the near term because of the mountain of debt it presently has, and the even greater debt the country is being saddled with by the major investment banks, such as those with their debts insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, who will receive their pound of flesh long before the American people.

Given this, we have the fact that the Federal Reserve can’t buy America ‘s debt forever which will eventually result in debtor nations throwing in the towel and US dollar losing its reserve currency status. Thereafter it will be a challenge to fund much of anything. Most Americans have little understanding of what’s coming in this regard and they are going to be very upset and bewildered when such events come to pass.

Things could look like Greece or Spain in very short order. In such an event the US imperial project might be absorbed into an international “peacekeeping” or “humanitarian” military force, which already exists under UN auspices. What is also already in the works is the increased automation of warfare, of which armed drones are presently the most obvious example. Such devices are already in use to police the American “homeland” and terrorize the inhabitants of other lands.

Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning Iranian journalist and media correspondent. In 2010, he received the national medal of Superior Iranian Youth from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his media activities. He writes for Global Research, Tehran Times, Iran Review and other publications across the world. His articles and interviews have been translated in 10 languages.

 

 

 

Turkey Seeks Patriot Missiles For Syria Border

By Jason Ditz

08 November, 2012

@ Antiwar.com

Turkish foreign ministry officials say they are planning to request a NATO Patriot missile deployment along their southern border, but while they are couching it as a defense move, others are indicating it is anything but.

Rather other officials say they are considering not just defending Turkish territory from any theoretical spillover, but are looking to install them at the border to create a de facto no-fly zone in northern Syria to help the rebels.

Turkish officials say that this is just one of many scenarios being discussed, but with many in NATO chomping at the bit to insinuate itself directly into the Syrian Civil War, the prospect of deploying multi-million dollar missiles to “protect” Turkey from cheap artillery rounds straying across the border is too good to pass up.

The problem, then, is how NATO goes from deployment to imposing a no-fly zone, since the UN Security Council has not, and presumably will not, authorize one after NATO used a similar resolution in Libya to launch a full-scale war of regime change.

To Humiliate And Degrade: Impressions Of Gaza

By Noam Chomsky

08 November, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force. And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world, are constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade, and with the further goal of ensuring that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement that will grant these rights will be nullified.

The intensity of this commitment on the part of the Israeli political leadership has been dramatically illustrated just in the past few days, as they warn that they will “go crazy” if Palestinian rights are given limited recognition at the UN. That is not a new departure. The threat to “go crazy” (“nishtagea”) is deeply rooted, back to the Labor governments of the 1950s, along with the related “Samson Complex”: we will bring down the Temple walls if crossed. It was an idle threat then; not today.

The purposeful humiliation is also not new, though it constantly takes new forms. Thirty years ago political leaders, including some of the most noted hawks, submitted to Prime Minister Begin a shocking and detailed account of how settlers regularly abuse Palestinians in the most depraved manner and with total impunity. The prominent military-political analyst Yoram Peri wrote with disgust that the army’s task is not to defend the state, but “to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim (“niggers,” “kikes”) living in territories that God promised to us.”

Gazans have been selected for particularly cruel punishment. It is almost miraculous that people can sustain such an existence. How they do so was described thirty years ago in an eloquent memoir by Raja Shehadeh (The Third Way), based on his work as a lawyer engaged in the hopeless task of trying to protect elementary rights within a legal system designed to ensure failure, and his personal experience as a Samid, “a steadfast one,” who watches his home turned into a prison by brutal occupiers and can do nothing but somehow “endure.”

Since Shehadeh wrote, the situation has become much worse. The Oslo agreements, celebrated with much pomp in 1993, determined that Gaza and the West Bank are a single territorial entity. By then the US and Israel had already initiated their program of separating them fully from one another, so as to block a diplomatic settlement and punish the Araboushim in both territories.

Punishment of Gazans became still more severe in January 2006, when they committed a major crime: they voted the “wrong way” in the first free election in the Arab world, electing Hamas. Demonstrating their passionate “yearning for democracy,” the US and Israel, backed by the timid European Union, at once imposed a brutal siege, along with intensive military attacks. The US also turned at once to standard operating procedure when some disobedient population elects the wrong government: prepare a military coup to restore order.

Gazans committed a still greater crime a year later by blocking the coup attempt, leading to a sharp escalation of the siege and military attacks. These culminated in winter 2008-9, with Operation Cast Lead, one of the most cowardly and vicious exercises of military force in recent memory, as a defenseless civilian population, trapped with no way to escape, was subjected to relentless attack by one of the world’s most advanced military systems relying on US arms and protected by US diplomacy. An unforgettable eyewitness account of the slaughter — “infanticide” in their words — is given by the two courageous Norwegian doctors who worked at Gaza’s main hospital during the merciless assault, Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, in their remarkable book Eyes in Gaza.

President-elect Obama was unable to say a word, apart from reiterating his heartfelt sympathy for children under attack — in the Israeli town Sderot. The carefully planned assault was brought to an end right before his inauguration, so that he could then say that now is the time to look forward, not backward, the standard refuge of criminals.

Of course, there were pretexts — there always are. The usual one, trotted out when needed, is “security”: in this case, home-made rockets from Gaza. As is commonly the case, the pretext lacked any credibility. In 2008 a truce was established between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli government formally recognizes that Hamas observed it fully. Not a single Hamas rocket was fired until Israel broke the truce under cover of the US election on November 4 2008, invading Gaza on ludicrous grounds and killing half a dozen Hamas members. The Israeli government was advised by its highest intelligence officials that the truce could be renewed by easing the criminal blockade and ending military attacks. But the government of Ehud Olmert, reputedly a dove, chose to reject these options, preferring to resort to its huge comparative advantage in violence: Operation Cast Lead. The basic facts are reviewed once again by foreign policy analyst Jerome Slater in the current issue of the Harvard-MIT journal International Security.

The pattern of bombing under Cast Lead was carefully analyzed by the highly informed and internationally respected Gazan human rights advocate Raji Sourani. He points out that the bombing was concentrated in the north, targeting defenseless civilians in the most densely populated areas, with no possible military pretext. The goal, he suggests, may have been to drive the intimidated population to the south, near the Egyptian border. But the Samidin stayed put, despite the avalanche of US-Israeli terror.

A further goal might have been to drive them beyond. Back to the earliest days of the Zionist colonization it was argued across much of the spectrum that Arabs have no real reason to be in Palestine; they can be just as happy somewhere else, and should leave — politely “transferred,” the doves suggested. This is surely no small concern in Egypt, and perhaps a reason why Egypt does not open the border freely to civilians or even to desperately needed materials

 

Sourani and other knowledgeable sources observe that the discipline of the Samidin conceals a powder keg, which might explode any time, unexpectedly, as the first Intifada did in Gaza in 1989 after years of miserable repression that elicited no notice or concern,

Merely to mention one of innumerable cases, shortly before the outbreak of the Intifada a Palestinian girl, Intissar al-Atar, was shot and killed in a schoolyard by a resident of a nearby Jewish settlement. He was one of the several thousand Israelis settlers brought to Gaza in violation of international law and protected by a huge army presence, taking over much of the land and scarce water of the Strip and living “lavishly in twenty-two settlements in the midst of 1.4 million destitute Palestinians,” as the crime is described by Israeli scholar Avi Raz. The murderer of the schoolgirl, Shimon Yifrah, was arrested, but quickly released on bail when the Court determined that “the offense is not severe enough” to warrant detention. The judge commented that Yifrah only intended to shock the girl by firing his gun at her in a schoolyard, not to kill her, so “this is not a case of a criminal person who has to be punished, deterred, and taught a lesson by imprisoning him.” Yifrah was given a 7-month suspended sentence, while settlers in the courtroom broke out in song and dance. And the usual silence reigned. After all, it is routine.

And so it is. As Yifrah was freed, the Israeli press reported that an army patrol fired into the yard of a school for boys aged 6 to 12 in a West Bank refugee camp, wounding five children, allegedly intending only “to shock them.” There were no charges, and the event again attracted no attention. It was just another episode in the program of “illiteracy as punishment,” the Israeli press reported, including the closing of schools, use of gas bombs, beating of students with rifle butts, barring of medical aid for victims; and beyond the schools a reign of more severe brutality, becoming even more savage during the Intifada, under the orders of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, another admired dove.

My initial impression, after a visit of several days, was amazement, not only at the ability to go on with life, but also at the vibrancy and vitality among young people, particularly at the university, where I spent much of my time at an international conference. But there too one can detect signs that the pressure may become too hard to bear. Reports indicate that among young men there is simmering frustration, recognition that under the US-Israeli occupation the future holds nothing for them. There is only so much that caged animals can endure, and there may be an eruption, perhaps taking ugly forms — offering an opportunity for Israeli and western apologists to self-righteously condemn the people who are culturally backward, as Mitt Romney insightfully explained.

Gaza has the look of a typical third world society, with pockets of wealth surrounded by hideous poverty. It is not, however, “undeveloped.” Rather it is “de-developed,” and very systematically so, to borrow the terms of Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza. The Gaza Strip could have become a prosperous Mediterranean region, with rich agriculture and a flourishing fishing industry, marvelous beaches and, as discovered a decade ago, good prospects for extensive natural gas supplies within its territorial waters.

By coincidence or not, that is when Israel intensified its naval blockade, driving fishing boats toward shore, by now to 3 miles or less.

The favorable prospects were aborted in 1948, when the Strip had to absorb a flood of Palestinian refugees who fled in terror or were forcefully expelled from what became Israel, in some cases expelled months after the formal cease-fire.

In fact, they were being expelled even four years later, as reported in Ha’aretz (25.12.2008), in a thoughtful study by Beni Tziper on the history of Israeli Ashkelon back to the Canaanites. In 1953, he reports, there was a “cool calculation that it was necessary to cleanse the region of Arabs.” The original name, Majdal, had already been “Judaized” to today’s Ashkelon, regular practice.

That was in 1953, when there was no hint of military necessity. Tziper himself was born in 1953, and while walking in the remnants of the old Arab sector, he reflects that “it is really difficult for me, really difficult, to realize that while my parents were celebrating my birth, other people were being loaded on trucks and expelled from their homes.”

Israel’s 1967 conquests and their aftermath administered further blows. Then came the terrible crimes already mentioned, continuing to the present day.

The signs are easy to see, even on a brief visit. Sitting in a hotel near the shore, one can hear the machine gun fire of Israeli gunboats driving fishermen out of Gaza’s territorial waters and towards shore, so they are compelled to fish in waters that are heavily polluted because of US-Israeli refusal to allow reconstruction of the sewage and power systems that they destroyed.

The Oslo Accords laid plans for two desalination plants, a necessity in this arid region. One, an advanced facility, was built: in Israel. The second one is in Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza. The engineer in charge of trying to obtain potable water for the population explained that this plant was designed so that it cannot use sea water, but must rely on underground water, a cheaper process, which further degrades the meager aquifer, guaranteeing severe problems in the future. Even with that, water is severely limited. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for refugees (but not other Gazans), recently released a report warning that damage to the aquifer may soon become “irreversible,” and that without remedial action quickly, by 2020 Gaza may not be a “liveable place.”

Israel permits concrete to enter for UNRWA projects, but not for Gazans engaged in the huge reconstruction needs. The limited heavy equipment mostly lies idle, since Israel does not permit materials for repair. All of this is part of the general program described by Israeli official Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after Palestinians failed to follow orders in the 2006 elections: “The idea,” he said, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” That would not look good.

And the plan is being scrupulously followed. Sara Roy has provided extensive evidence in her scholarly studies. Recently, after several years of effort, the Israeli human rights organization Gisha succeeded to obtain a court order for the government to release its records detailing plans for the diet, and how they are executed. Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook summarizes them: “Health officials provided calculations of the minimum number of calories needed by Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition. Those figures were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in each day … an average of only 67 trucks — much less than half of the minimum requirement — entered Gaza daily. This compared to more than 400 trucks before the blockade began.” And even this estimate is overly generous, UN relief officials report.

The result of imposing the diet, Mideast scholar Juan Cole observes, is that “[a]bout ten percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under 5 have had their growth stunted by malnutrition … in addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a third of pregnant mothers.” The US and Israel want to ensure that nothing more than bare survival is possible.

“What has to be kept in mind,” observes Raji Sourani, “is that the occupation and the absolute closure is an ongoing attack on the human dignity of the people in Gaza in particular and all Palestinians generally. It is systematic degradation, humiliation, isolation and fragmentation of the Palestinian people.” The conclusion is confirmed by many other sources. In one of the world’s leading medical journals, The Lancet, a visiting Stanford physician, appalled by what he witnessed, describes Gaza as “something of a laboratory for observing an absence of dignity,” a condition that has “devastating” effects on physical, mental, and social wellbeing. “The constant surveillance from the sky, collective punishment through blockade and isolation, the intrusion into homes and communications, and restrictions on those trying to travel, or marry, or work make it difficult to live a dignified life in Gaza.” The Araboushim must be taught not to raise their heads.

There were hopes that the new Morsi government in Egypt, less in thrall to Israel than the western-backed Mubarak dictatorship, might open the Rafah crossing, the sole access to the outside for trapped Gazans that is not subject to direct Israeli control. There has been slight opening, but not much. Journalist Laila el-Haddad writes that the re-opening under Morsi, “is simply a return to status quo of years past: only Palestinians carrying an Israeli-approved Gaza ID card can use Rafah Crossing,” excluding a great many Palestinians, including el-Haddad’s family, where only one spouse has a card.

Furthermore, she continues, “the crossing does not lead to the West Bank, nor does it allow for the passage of goods, which are restricted to the Israeli-controlled crossings and subject to prohibitions on construction materials and export.” The restricted Rafah crossing does not change the fact that “Gaza remains under tight maritime and aerial siege, and continues to be closed off to the Palestinians’ cultural, economic, and academic capitals in the rest of the [occupied territories], in violation of US-Israeli obligations under the Oslo Accords.”

The effects are painfully evident. In the Khan Yunis hospital, the director, who is also chief of surgery, describes with anger and passion how even medicines are lacking for relief of suffering patients, as well as simple surgical equipment, leaving doctors helpless and patients in agony. Personal stories add vivid texture to the general disgust one feels at the obscenity of the harsh occupation. One example is the testimony of a young woman who despaired that her father, who would have been proud that she was the first woman in the refugee camp to gain an advanced degree, had “passed away after 6 months of fighting cancer aged 60 years. Israeli occupation denied him a permit to go to Israeli hospitals for treatment. I had to suspend my study, work and life and go to set next to his bed. We all sat including my brother the physician and my sister the pharmacist, all powerless and hopeless watching his suffering. He died during the inhumane blockade of Gaza in summer 2006 with very little access to health service. I think feeling powerless and hopeless is the most killing feeling that human can ever have. It kills the spirit and breaks the heart. You can fight occupation but you cannot fight your feeling of being powerless. You can’t even dissolve that feeling.”

Disgust at the obscenity, compounded with guilt: it is within our power to bring the suffering to an end and allow the Samidin to enjoy the lives of peace and dignity that they deserve.

Prof. Noam Chomsky – Professor Emeritus in Linguistics at MIT; world renowned author and leading intellectual visited the Gaza Strip recently

Space Warfare And The Future Of U.S. Global Power

By Alfred W. McCoy

08 November, 2012

@ TomDispatch.com

It’s 2025 and an American “triple canopy” of advanced surveillance and armed drones fills the heavens from the lower- to the exo-atmosphere. A wonder of the modern age, it can deliver its weaponry anywhere on the planet with staggering speed, knock out an enemy’s satellite communications system, or follow individuals biometrically for great distances. Along with the country’s advanced cyberwar capacity, it’s also the most sophisticated militarized information system ever created and an insurance policy for U.S. global dominion deep into the twenty-first century. It’s the future as the Pentagon imagines it; it’s under development; and Americans know nothing about it.

They are still operating in another age. “Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917,” complained Republican candidate Mitt Romney during the last presidential debate.

With words of withering mockery, President Obama shot back: “Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed… the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities.”

Obama later offered just a hint of what those capabilities might be: “What I did was work with our joint chiefs of staff to think about, what are we going to need in the future to make sure that we are safe?… We need to be thinking about cyber security. We need to be talking about space.”

Amid all the post-debate media chatter, however, not a single commentator seemed to have a clue when it came to the profound strategic changes encoded in the president’s sparse words. Yet for the past four years, working in silence and secrecy, the Obama administration has presided over a technological revolution in defense planning, moving the nation far beyond bayonets and battleships to cyberwarfare and the full-scale weaponization of space. In the face of waning economic influence, this bold new breakthrough in what’s called “information warfare” may prove significantly responsible should U.S. global dominion somehow continue far into the twenty-first century.

While the technological changes involved are nothing less than revolutionary, they have deep historical roots in a distinctive style of American global power. It’s been evident from the moment this nation first stepped onto the world stage with its conquest of the Philippines in 1898. Over the span of a century, plunged into three Asian crucibles of counterinsurgency — in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Afghanistan — the U.S. military has repeatedly been pushed to the breaking point. It has repeatedly responded by fusing the nation’s most advanced technologies into new information infrastructures of unprecedented power.

That military first created a manual information regime for Philippine pacification, then a computerized apparatus to fight communist guerrillas in Vietnam. Finally, during its decade-plus in Afghanistan (and its years in Iraq), the Pentagon has begun to fuse biometrics, cyberwarfare, and a potential future triple canopy aerospace shield into a robotic information regime that could produce a platform of unprecedented power for the exercise of global dominion — or for future military disaster.

America’s First Information Revolution

This distinctive U.S. system of imperial information gathering (and the surveillance and war-making practices that go with it) traces its origins to some brilliant American innovations in the management of textual, statistical, and visual data. Their sum was nothing less than a new information infrastructure with an unprecedented capacity for mass surveillance.

During two extraordinary decades, American inventions like Thomas Alva Edison’s quadruplex telegraph (1874), Philo Remington’s commercial typewriter (1874), Melvil Dewey’s library decimal system (1876), and Herman Hollerith’s patented punch card (1889) created synergies that led to the militarized application of America’s first information revolution. To pacify a determined guerrilla resistance that persisted in the Philippines for a decade after 1898, the U.S. colonial regime — unlike European empires with their cultural studies of “Oriental civilizations” — used these advanced information technologies to amass detailed empirical data on Philippine society. In this way, they forged an Argus-eyed security apparatus that played a major role in crushing the Filipino nationalist movement. The resulting colonial policing and surveillance system would also leave a lasting institutional imprint on the emerging American state.

When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, the “father of U.S. military intelligence” Colonel Ralph Van Deman drew upon security methods he had developed years before in the Philippines to found the Army’s Military Intelligence Division. He recruited a staff that quickly grew from one (himself) to 1,700, deployed some 300,000 citizen-operatives to compile more than a million pages of surveillance reports on American citizens, and laid the foundations for a permanent domestic surveillance apparatus.

A version of this system rose to unparalleled success during World War II when Washington established the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as the nation’s first worldwide espionage agency. Among its nine branches, Research & Analysis recruited a staff of nearly 2,000 academics who amassed 300,000 photographs, a million maps, and three million file cards, which they deployed in an information system via “indexing, cross-indexing, and counter-indexing” to answer countless tactical questions.

Yet by early 1944, the OSS found itself, in the words of historian Robin Winks, “drowning under the flow of information.” Many of the materials it had so carefully collected were left to molder in storage, unread and unprocessed. Despite its ambitious global reach, this first U.S. information regime, absent technological change, might well have collapsed under its own weight, slowing the flow of foreign intelligence that would prove so crucial for America’s exercise of global dominion after World War II.

Computerizing Vietnam

Under the pressures of a never-ending war in Vietnam, those running the U.S. information infrastructure turned to computerized data management, launching a second American information regime. Powered by the most advanced IBM mainframe computers, the U.S. military compiled monthly tabulations of security in all of South Vietnam’s 12,000 villages and filed the three million enemy documents its soldiers captured annually on giant reels of bar-coded film. At the same time, the CIA collated and computerized diverse data on the communist civilian infrastructure as part of its infamous Phoenix Program. This, in turn, became the basis for its systematic tortures and 41,000 “extra-judicial executions” (which, based on disinformation from petty local grudges and communist counterintelligence, killed many but failed to capture more than a handfull of top communist cadres).

Most ambitiously, the U.S. Air Force spent $800 million a year to lace southern Laos with a network of 20,000 acoustic, seismic, thermal, and ammonia-sensitive sensors to pinpoint Hanoi’s truck convoys coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail under a heavy jungle canopy. The information these provided was then gathered on computerized systems for the targeting of incessant bombing runs. After 100,000 North Vietnamese troops passed right through this electronic grid undetected with trucks, tanks, and heavy artillery to launch the Nguyen Hue Offensive in 1972, the U.S. Pacific Air Force pronounced this bold attempt to build an “electronic battlefield” an unqualified failure.

In this pressure cooker of what became history’s largest air war, the Air Force also accelerated the transformation of a new information system that would rise to significance three decades later: the Firebee target drone. By war’s end, it had morphed into an increasingly agile unmanned aircraft that would make 3,500 top-secret surveillance sorties over China, North Vietnam, and Laos. By 1972, the SC/TV drone, with a camera in its nose, was capable of flying 2,400 miles while navigating via a low-resolution television image.

On balance, all this computerized data helped foster the illusion that American “pacification” programs in the countryside were winning over the inhabitants of Vietnam’s villages, and the delusion that the air war was successfully destroying North Vietnam’s supply effort. Despite a dismal succession of short-term failures that helped deliver a soul-searing blow to American power, all this computerized data-gathering proved a seminal experiment, even if its advances would not become evident for another 30 years until the U.S. began creating a third — robotic — information regime.

The Global War on Terror

As it found itself at the edge of defeat in the attempted pacification of two complex societies, Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington responded in part by adapting new technologies of electronic surveillance, biometric identification, and drone warfare — all of which are now melding into what may become an information regime far more powerful and destructive than anything that has come before.

After six years of a failing counterinsurgency effort in Iraq, the Pentagon discovered the power of biometric identification and electronic surveillance to pacify the country’s sprawling cities. It then built a biometric database with more than a million Iraqi fingerprints and iris scans that U.S. patrols on the streets of Baghdad could access instantaneously by satellite link to a computer center in West Virginia.

When President Obama took office and launched his “surge,” escalating the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, that country became a new frontier for testing and perfecting such biometric databases, as well as for full-scale drone war in both that country and the Pakistani tribal borderlands, the latest wrinkle in a technowar already loosed by the Bush administration. This meant accelerating technological developments in drone warfare that had largely been suspended for two decades after the Vietnam War.

Launched as an experimental, unarmed surveillance aircraft in 1994, the Predator drone was first deployed in 2000 for combat surveillance under the CIA’s “Operation Afghan Eyes.” By 2011, the advanced MQ-9 Reaper drone, with “persistent hunter killer” capabilities, was heavily armed with missiles and bombs as well as sensors that could read disturbed dirt at 5,000 feet and track footprints back to enemy installations. Indicating the torrid pace of drone development, between 2004 and 2010 total flying time for all unmanned vehicles rose from just 71 hours to 250,000 hours.

By 2009, the Air Force and the CIA were already deploying a drone armada of at least 195 Predators and 28 Reapers inside Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan — and it’s only grown since. These collected and transmitted 16,000 hours of video daily, and from 2006-2012 fired hundreds of Hellfire missiles that killed an estimated 2,600 supposed insurgents inside Pakistan’s tribal areas. Though the second-generation Reaper drones might seem stunningly sophisticated, one defense analyst has called them “very much Model T Fords.” Beyond the battlefield, there are now some 7,000 drones in the U.S. armada of unmanned aircraft, including 800 larger missile-firing drones. By funding its own fleet of 35 drones and borrowing others from the Air Force, the CIA has moved beyond passive intelligence collection to build a permanent robotic paramilitary capacity.

In the same years, another form of information warfare came, quite literally, online. Over two administrations, there has been continuity in the development of a cyberwarfare capability at home and abroad. Starting in 2002, President George W. Bush illegally authorized the National Security Agency to scan countless millions of electronic messages with its top-secret “Pinwale” database. Similarly, the FBI started an Investigative Data Warehouse that, by 2009, held a billion individual records.

Under Presidents Bush and Obama, defensive digital surveillance has grown into an offensive “cyberwarfare” capacity, which has already been deployed against Iran in history’s first significant cyberwar. In 2009, the Pentagon formed U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM), with headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland, and a cyberwarfare center at Lackland Air Base in Texas, staffed by 7,000 Air Force employees. Two years later, it declared cyberspace an “operational domain” like air, land, or sea, and began putting its energy into developing a cadre of cyber-warriors capable of launching offensive operations, such as a variety of attacks on the computerized centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear facilities and Middle Eastern banks handling Iranian money.

A Robotic Information Regime

As with the Philippine Insurrection and the Vietnam War, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have served as the catalyst for a new information regime, fusing aerospace, cyberspace, biometrics, and robotics into an apparatus of potentially unprecedented power. In 2012, after years of ground warfare in both countries and the continuous expansion of the Pentagon budget, the Obama administration announced a leaner future defense strategy. It included a 14% cut in future infantry strength to be compensated for by an increased emphasis on investments in the dominions of outer space and cyberspace, particularly in what the administration calls “critical space-based capabilities.”

By 2020, this new defense architecture should theoretically be able to integrate space, cyberspace, and terrestrial combat through robotics for — so the claims go — the delivery of seamless information for lethal action. Significantly, both space and cyberspace are new, unregulated domains of military conflict, largely beyond international law. And Washington hopes to use both, without limitation, as Archimedean levers to exercise new forms of global dominion far into the twenty-first century, just as the British Empire once ruled from the seas and the Cold War American imperium exercised its global reach via airpower.

As Washington seeks to surveil the globe from space, the world might well ask: Just how high is national sovereignty? Absent any international agreement about the vertical extent of sovereign airspace (since a conference on international air law, convened in Paris in 1910, failed), some puckish Pentagon lawyer might reply: only as high as you can enforce it. And Washington has filled this legal void with a secret executive matrix — operated by the CIA and the clandestine Special Operations Command — that assigns names arbitrarily, without any judicial oversight, to a classified “kill list” that means silent, sudden death from the sky for terror suspects across the Muslim world.

Although U.S. plans for space warfare remain highly classified, it is possible to assemble the pieces of this aerospace puzzle by trolling the Pentagon’s websites, and finding many of the key components in technical descriptions at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As early as 2020, the Pentagon hopes to patrol the entire globe ceaselessly, relentlessly via a triple canopy space shield reaching from stratosphere to exosphere, driven by drones armed with agile missiles, linked by a resilient modular satellite system, monitored through a telescopic panopticon, and operated by robotic controls.

At the lowest tier of this emerging U.S. aerospace shield, within striking distance of Earth in the lower stratosphere, the Pentagon is building an armada of 99 Global Hawk drones equipped with high-resolution cameras capable of surveilling all terrain within a 100-mile radius, electronic sensors to intercept communications, efficient engines for continuous 24-hour flights, and eventually Triple Terminator missiles to destroy targets below. By late 2011, the Air Force and the CIA had already ringed the Eurasian land mass with a network of 60 bases for drones armed with Hellfire missiles and GBU-30 bombs, allowing air strikes against targets just about anywhere in Europe, Africa, or Asia.

The sophistication of the technology at this level was exposed in December 2011 when one of the CIA’s RQ-170 Sentinels came down in Iran. Revealed was a bat-winged drone equipped with radar-evading stealth capacity, active electronically scanned array radar, and advanced optics “that allow operators to positively identify terror suspects from tens of thousands of feet in the air.”

If things go according to plan, in this same lower tier at altitudes up to 12 miles unmanned aircraft such as the “Vulture,” with solar panels covering its massive 400-foot wingspan, will be patrolling the globe ceaselessly for up to five years at a time with sensors for “unblinking” surveillance, and possibly missiles for lethal strikes. Establishing the viability of this new technology, NASA’s solar-powered aircraft Pathfinder, with a 100-foot wingspan, reached an altitude of 71,500 feet altitude in 1997, and its fourth-generation successor the “Helios” flew at 97,000 feet with a 247-foot wingspan in 2001, two miles higher than any previous aircraft.

For the next tier above the Earth, in the upper stratosphere, DARPA and the Air Force are collaborating in the development of the Falcon Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle. Flying at an altitude of 20 miles, it is expected to “deliver 12,000 pounds of payload at a distance of 9,000 nautical miles from the continental United States in less than two hours.” Although the first test launches in April 2010 and August 2011 crashed midflight, they did reach an amazing 13,000 miles per hour, 22 times the speed of sound, and sent back “unique data” that should help resolve remaining aerodynamic problems.

At the outer level of this triple-tier aerospace canopy, the age of space warfare dawned in April 2010 when the Pentagon quietly launched the X-37B space drone, an unmanned craft just 29 feet long, into an orbit 250 miles above the Earth. By the time its second prototype landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in June 2012 after a 15-month flight, this classified mission represented a successful test of “robotically controlled reusable spacecraft” and established the viability of unmanned space drones in the exosphere.

At this apex of the triple canopy, 200 miles above Earth where the space drones will soon roam, orbital satellites are the prime targets, a vulnerability that became obvious in 2007 when China used a ground-to-air missile to shoot down one of its own satellites. In response, the Pentagon is now developing the F-6 satellite system that will “decompose a large monolithic spacecraft into a group of wirelessly linked elements, or nodes [that increases] resistance to… a bad part breaking or an adversary attacking.” And keep in mind that the X-37B has a capacious cargo bay to carry missiles or future laser weaponry to knock out enemy satellites — in other words, the potential capability to cripple the communications of a future military rival like China, which will have its own global satellite system operational by 2020.

Ultimately, the impact of this third information regime will be shaped by the ability of the U.S. military to integrate its array of global aerospace weaponry into a robotic command structure that would be capable of coordinating operations across all combat domains: space, cyberspace, sky, sea, and land. To manage the surging torrent of information within this delicately balanced triple canopy, the system would, in the end, have to become self-maintaining through “robotic manipulator technologies,” such as the Pentagon’s FREND system that someday could potentially deliver fuel, provide repairs, or reposition satellites.

For a new global optic, DARPA is building the wide-angle Space Surveillance Telescope (SST), which could be sited at bases ringing the globe for a quantum leap in “space surveillance.” The system would allow future space warriors to see the whole sky wrapped around the entire planet while seated before a single screen, making it possible to track every object in Earth orbit.

Operation of this complex worldwide apparatus will require, as one DARPA official explained in 2007, “an integrated collection of space surveillance systems — an architecture — that is leak-proof.” Thus, by 2010, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency had 16,000 employees, a $5 billion budget, and a massive $2 billion headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, with 8,500 staffers wrapped in electronic security — all aimed at coordinating the flood of surveillance data pouring in from Predators, Reapers, U-2 spy planes, Global Hawks, X-37B space drones, Google Earth, Space Surveillance Telescopes, and orbiting satellites. By 2020 or thereafter — such a complex techno-system is unlikely to respect schedules — this triple canopy should be able to atomize a single “terrorist” with a missile strike after tracking his eyeball, facial image, or heat signature for hundreds of miles through field and favela, or blind an entire army by knocking out all ground communications, avionics, and naval navigation.

Technological Dominion or Techno-Disaster?

Peering into the future, a still uncertain balance of forces offers two competing scenarios for the continuation of U.S. global power. If all or much goes according to plan, sometime in the third decade of this century the Pentagon will complete a comprehensive global surveillance system for Earth, sky, and space using robotics to coordinate a veritable flood of data from biometric street-level monitoring, cyber-data mining, a worldwide network of Space Surveillance Telescopes, and triple canopy aeronautic patrols. Through agile data management of exceptional power, this system might allow the United States a veto of global lethality, an equalizer for any further loss of economic strength.

However, as in Vietnam, history offers some pessimistic parallels when it comes to the U.S. preserving its global hegemony by militarized technology alone. Even if this robotic information regime could somehow check China’s growing military power, the U.S. might still have the same chance of controlling wider geopolitical forces with aerospace technology as the Third Reich had of winning World War II with its “super weapons” — V-2 rockets that rained death on London and Messerschmitt Me-262 jets that blasted allied bombers from Europe’s skies. Complicating the future further, the illusion of information omniscience might incline Washington to more military misadventures akin to Vietnam or Iraq, creating the possibility of yet more expensive, draining conflicts, from Iran to the South China Sea.

If the future of America’s world power is shaped by actual events rather than long-term economic trends, then its fate might well be determined by which comes first in this century-long cycle: military debacle from the illusion of technological mastery, or a new technological regime powerful enough to perpetuate U.S. global dominion.

Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A TomDispatch regular, he is the lead author of Endless Empire: Spain’s Retreat, Europe’s Eclipse, America’s Decline (University of Wisconsin, 2012), which is the source for much of the material in this essay.

Copyright 2012 Alfred W. McCoy

Obama’s Next Economy

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog

08 October 12

@ readersupportednews.org

When the applause among Democrats and recriminations among Republicans begin to quiet down – probably within the next few days – the President will have to make some big decisions. The biggest is on the economy.

His victory and the pending “fiscal cliff” give him an opportunity to recast the economic debate. Our central challenge, he should say, is not to reduce the budget deficit. It’s to create more good jobs, grow the economy, and widen the circle of prosperity.

The deficit is a problem only in proportion to the overall size of the economy. If the economy grows faster than its current 2 percent annualized rate, the deficit shrinks in proportion. Tax receipts grow, and the deficit becomes more manageable.

But if economic growth slows – as it will, if taxes are raised on the middle class and if government spending is reduced when unemployment is still high – the deficit becomes larger in proportion. That’s the austerity trap Europe finds itself in. We don’t want to go there.

This is why January’s so-called “fiscal cliff” – $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases – is so dangerous. It’s too much deficit reduction, too soon. Tax increases on the middle class would reduce their spending just when the economy needs that spending in order to keep growing, and cuts in government’s own spending would make the problem worse.

If we go over the fiscal cliff, we’re in another recession. Don’t just take my word for it. That’s also the view of the Congressional Budget Office and most private economic forecasters.

The way to ensure continued growth is to continue the President’s payroll tax cut and extend the Bush tax cuts for income under $250,000, and continue government spending.

The way to increase growth is to permanently exempt the first $20,000 of income from the payroll tax and make up for lost revenues by raising the ceiling on income subject to it (that ceiling is now $110,100). And increase government spending – especially on critical public investments like education, job training, and infrastructure.

Any “grand bargain” on deficit reduction should contain a starting trigger – and that trigger should be when the economy can safely be assumed to be back on track. I’d make that trigger 6 percent unemployment and 3 percent economic growth for two consecutive quarters, and make sure that trigger was in the legislation.

The President needs to make it clear to the public that the only way we can achieve a better economy is through a larger and more buoyant middle class. If we continue lurching toward widening inequality and ever more concentrated income and wealth at the top, the vast middle class – as well as all those who aspire to join it – won’t have the purchasing power to grow the economy and create more jobs.

That’s why taxes must be increased on the wealthy, and the proceeds used to reduce the deficit over the long term, extend and enlarge the Earned Income Tax Credit (a wage subsidy for lower-income workers), and invest in education.

The President’s victory doesn’t give him a clear mandate to achieve any of this – the margin of victory was too small, and he didn’t tell the American electorate explicitly that his priority would be creating jobs and growing the middle class instead of reducing the deficit.

But his victory gives him the attention of the nation and the authority that comes with having won reelection. It therefore gives him the opportunity to recast the economic debate. The upcoming fiscal cliff makes it particularly urgent he do so quickly.

Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest is an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Syria News On 7th November, 2012

Eleven Citizens Martyred, Tens Injured as Terrorists Blow up Booby-Trapped Car and two Explosives at al-Worod Neighborhood in Damascus

Nov 06, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-Terrorists blew up a booby-trapped car and two explosives at al-Worod neighborhood in Damascus, claiming the lives of 11 martyrs and injuring  tens of the innocents in  the area, some of them in critical condition.

A source in  al-Muasaa Hospital told SANA that the hospital received 6 bodies of the martyrs and 29 others injured due to the terrorist explosions, most of them children and women.

The source added that some of the injured were in critical condition and they were given the first aid.

A source in Yousef al-Azma Hospital stated it received 5 martyrs  in addition to 28 persons injured, their conditions range between middle and critical.

SANA reporter at the site of the explosions declared that the terrorist act led to grave damages in the houses of citizens, destruction of a number of cars, shops’ facades in addition to huge damages in the infrastructure, service, telephone and electric networks.

Foreign Ministry: Terrorist Acts Supported by Some UNSC Members Uncover Truth of What is Happening in Syria and Those Responsible for Terrorism

Nov 06, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – In identical letters directed to the Chairman of the UN Security Council, Chairman of the UN General Assembly and the UN Secretary General, the Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on Tuesday said that since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, a number of permanent and non-permanent members of the UN Security Council have been giving misleading images of the forces that helped put Syria on the path of violence, killing and destruction with the goal of promoting their own policies and destroy Syria as a country and as a people.

In the letters which focused on the recent terrorist bombings in Syria and the support of some western and regional countries to terrorists, the Ministry said that within the past few days, blind terrorism, Al Qaeda and other criminal militants struck in many areas in Syria, martyring and wounding hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children.

The Ministry said that the terrorist acts committed by armed terrorist groups which are supported by some permanent and non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, in addition to their open collusion, blatant funding and public arming of terrorists including providing them with Stinger missiles uncover the truth of what is happening in Syria and the sides responsible for terrorism.

“Countries like France, Turkey and specifically Qatar, in addition to Libya which has become an incubator hatching terrorists, issued stances that adopt the acts of terrorist organization and express commitment to facilitate their movement, which contradicts relevant Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism,” the letters said, adding that this is accompanied by mobilizing a misleading media machine to rally the global public opinion against Syria.

The Ministry pointed out that one in a series of terrorist bombings which took place in Syria recently was the terrorist bombing which took place in al-Mazzeh 86 area in Damascus on November 5th, 2012, which claimed the lives of tens and injured tens, in addition to blowing up a civilian bus in al-Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, which martyred five citizens including women and children and an attack on the same camp with Mortar rounds which also claimed lives.

The letters noted that some media outlets uncovered one of the many war crimes committed by the so-called opposition in the town of Selkin, as a video was published showing terrorists murdering a number of unarmed Syrian Arab Army soldiers and civilians, torturing them then shooting them without mercy.

The Ministry said that other Syrian cities witnessed dozens of incidents which were reported to the Security Council officially, but it didn’t receive an objective response from the Council, adding that terrorist gangs are now besieging citizens and starving them, driving them to the edge of disaster and depriving them from the humanitarian aid which the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have been attempting to deliver to the towns of Harem and Selkin for over two months, adding that this didn’t cause any reaction from those who call themselves custodians of human rights and defenders of international law and humanitarian law.

The letters said that according to international law, countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Turkey, Britain, France and the United States who provide terrorist groups with funds and weapons are accessories in the crimes committed in Syria, and that countries that claim falsely to combat terrorism continue to protect these crimes and cancel the Security Council’s role in taking the simplest procedures to condemn them, noting that this was done by the United States, Germany and Britain recently.

The Ministry reiterated Syria’s demands that the Security Council play its role in condemning international terrorism and forcing certain countries to cease their arming, funding and harboring of terrorist groups, warning against the repercussions of continuing along this path  as it violates Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism, international humanitarian laws, human rights laws, and threatens security and peace in the region and the world.

The letters concluded by saying that instead of supporting and protecting terrorism, these countries should encourage Syrian opposition sides to engage in national dialogue to resolve the crisis through negotiations among Syrians and led by Syria.

Brother of the People’s Assembly Speaker Assassinated, Terrorists Targeted in Several Provinces

Nov 06, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA) – Terrorists on Tuesday morning assassinated Dr. Mohammad Osama al-Laham, brother of the People’s Assembly’s Speaker, in al-Thuraya area in al-Midan neighborhood in Damascus.

A source in the province told SANA that terrorists opened fire at al-Laham in his car while he was on his way to work, causing his immediate martyrdom.

The assassination of al-Laham, who holds a PhD in Agriculture, came in the framework of the terrorist groups’ targeting of the national skills and qualified cadres.

Terrorists Open fires at a bus, claiming the lives of Two martyrs in al-Hasaka

Terrorists today opened fire on a passenger-bus coming from Aleppo at Mabroka area, near Ras al-Ein city in al-Hassaka, leading to the martyrdom and injuries of a number of citizens.

A source in al-Hasaka told SANA reporter that the terrorist act claimed that lives of two innocents while three others were injured.

Terrorists Blow up Explosive Stuck to Car, Injuring Two citizens

Terrorists blew up an explosive stuck to a private car in Barza in Damascus, leading to the injuring of the driver and his wife.

A source in Damascus Police told SANA that the explosion took place near Qaseoun club, adding that the driver in a critical condition.

The Army Inflicts Heavy losses Among Terrorists in Aleppo and its Countryside

The Army today carried out a number of qualitative operations in Aleppo and its countryside, eliminating terrorists and destroying their cars used for transporting weapons and persons.

SANA reporter quoted a source as saying that a unit of the Army destroyed 12 cars filled with munitions and weapons on Akhtarin- Kfar Hamra , al-Lermon-Kfar Hamra roads in Aleppo countryside.

The source added that a unit of the army killed a number of terrorists during an operation against their gatherings near al-Bawari factory in Kfar Naha in Aleppo countryside.

It said that another army unit inflicted heavy losses upon the terrorists after destroying a den where they were hiding to the west of cemetery at Dir Hafer in Aleppo countryside.

Meanwhile, the Army destroyed a car equipped with DSHK machinegun at Dir Hafer.

In the city of Aleppo, a unit of the army carried out 5 qualitative operations against the terrorists at al-Lermon, al-Kalasa, Sheikh Said and the old city, inflicting heavy losses among the terrorists, killing the most dangerous terrorists among them Beibo Ahmad Skeif.

Armed Forces Foil Terrorist Car Bomb Attack in al- Tadamon, Damascus

The Armed Forces foiled a terrorist car bomb attack at Nisreen Street in al-Tadamon neighborhood in Damascus.

An official source told SANA reporter that members of the engineering units dismantled the explosives planted in a Dacia car parked near Iskandaron School in al-Tadamon neighborhood.

Terrorists Killed in Harasta, Damascus Countryside

A unit of the Armed Forces killed all members of an armed terrorist group who attacked citizens and vandalized public and private properties in al-Seil neighborhood in Harasta in Damascus Countryside.

An official source told SANA reporter that terrorists Mohammad Adnan al-Kurdi and another terrorist called Mehi Eddin from the so called “Saif al-Islam ” battalion were identified among the dead.

It added that terrorist called Abdullah al-Dub, a leader of the so-called “Shabab al-Huda in Liwaa al-Islam ” group was also killed.

Armed Forces Eliminate a Number of Terrorists in Deir Ezzor

A unit of the Armed Forces clashed with an armed terrorist group in al-Mouazafin neighborhood in Deir Ezzor and killed four of its members.

Earlier, a unit of the Armed Forces clashed with terrorists in the neighborhood and killed a large number of them, an official source told SANA reporter.

Another unit of the Armed Forces clashed with an armed terrorist group in al-Bousaraya St. in Deir Ezzor city and inflicted heavy losses on the terrorists.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that among the terrorists killed was Abdullah Yasin al-Nayef, one of the most wanted terrorists in the city.

Armed Forces Target Dens of Armed Terrorist Groups in Homs

Units of the Armed Forces carried out qualitative operations against a number of terrorists’ hideouts in Taldaw town in al-Houleh area in the countryside of Homs, inflicting heavy losses upon them.

A source in the province said that the operations resulted in destroying two workshops for making explosive devices and missiles and ten cars equipped with DShK machineguns.

A number of terrorist were killed in the operations, among them terrorists Haitham Hallaq, Shadi al-Qasem, Taher Bakkour, Mohammad Mishaal, and Awad Tayyara.

The source added that an army unit killed a large number of terrorists in Bab Hood neighborhood in Homs city.

It pointed out that the military engineering units dismantled two explosive devices planted by terrorists near al-Zara bridge on Homs – Tartous highway.

On the other hand, a dispute between two terrorist groups over dividing the loots caused the injury of a number of terrorists in al-Mubarakiyeh area in the countryside of al-Qseir.

Explosive Devices Dismantled in Hama

The engineering units dismantled two explosive devices planted by an armed terrorist group in Tariq Halab neighborhood in Hama city and al-Treimseh town in Mhardeh area in the countryside of the province.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that each explosive device weighed 50 kg.

Weapons Warehouse Seized, A Number of Terrorists Killed, Their Vehicles Destroyed in Lattakia

The authorities in Lattakia seized a weapons warehouse at Antakya Street in Lattakia city and arrested a number of terrorists.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that the seized weapons included machineguns, sniper rifles, ammunition, explosive devices, white arms and satellite communication devices.

In a qualitative operation, the Armed Forces eliminated a number of terrorists, wounded others and destroyed their vehicles which they used to carry out their attacks and seized their weapons in Kensaba area in Lattakia countryside.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that the weapons which were seized during the operation included machineguns, RPG launchers and a variety of munitions.

The source added that the Armed Forces continued pursuing terrorists in the woods surrounding Kensaba area to clear the area and restore security.

Cabinet Discusses Proposals to Get Out of Current Crisis

Nov 06, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Dr. Wael al-Halqi , on Tuesday reviewed current situation in the country and the political movement in some countries in the region which coincided with escalating violence and terrorist crimes against citizens and the public and private facilities in several cities and areas in Syria.

Premier al-Halqi hailed the sacrifices of the Armed Forces and the law-enforcement forces to defend Syria’s sovereignty against terrorism backed by Arab, regional and foreign countries.

He stressed the need for consolidating the collaboration of citizens, the civil community and the popular and vocational organizations with the Syrian army to eliminate terrorism and foil the conspiracy against Syria.

Al-Halqi asked God to have mercy on the military and civilian martyrs of Syria who were killed in the terrorist bombings and acts, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.

The cabinet reviewed the current circumstances and proposals to get out of the crisis, stressing the need for enhancing national dialogue among all parties and the national opposition forces.

The cabinet asked Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs to communicate with these powers to crystallize joint national visions that contribute to holding a national dialogue conference, ending violence and achieving national reconciliation.

The cabinet discussed means of protecting vital facilities and the economic and industrial areas, calling upon Defense, Local Administration and Interior Ministries to follow up on procedures to enhance protection mechanisms.

The cabinet called upon the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform to take all necessary measures to provide farmers with their needs of agricultural production requirements for the coming winter season.

Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs breifed the cabinet on the Ministry’s efforts and popular meetings which aim at achieving national reconciliation.

The cabinet listened to a review presented by Governor of the Central Bank of Syria on the banking situation in the country as the governor stressed that the situation is reassuring and the Bank has good reserves of foreign currency to provide the country’s needs of imports.

The cabinet approved a draft law on regulating the work of medical and health facilities in the country.

Prime Minister Forms Higher Committee for Workers Housing

Premier al-Halqi issued a decision on forming a higher committee for workers housing, tasked with studying suggestions for launching housing projects for state workers and distributing them.

The committee, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister for Services Affairs, the Minister of Local Administration Omar Ghalawanji, will study the possibility of starting housing projects based on actual need for low-price houses and on the size of the workforce in each area, in addition to managing the distribution of houses.

Russia Condemns Terrorist Bombings in Syria.. Churkin: Suggestion to Hold Meeting of Work Group on Syria Still on the Table

Nov 06, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – Russia on Tuesday condemned the terrorist bombings in Syria which hit a neighborhood in Damascus and another one in Hama on Monday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich, expressed Russia’s high concerns over the rising terrorist activities in Syria, stressing his country’s firm condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

He added that Russia expects others to decisively condemn this global evil.

Lukashevich said that double-standards in classifying terrorists into good and bad ones are just attempts to justify these barbarous acts which cannot be interpreted as directed against military targets.

He added that the growing terrorism threat in Syria became a serious challenge not for the Syrians only, calling upon the international players, especially the participants in the international work group on Syria, to shoulder their responsibilities in terms of the content of Geneva statement which stipulates for working to halt violence in Syria with the aim of reaching a solution by the Syrians themselves through dialogue and negotiations.

On Monday, terrorists exploded an explosive device planted under a car in Mezzah Jabal 86 area in Damascus, killing 11 citizens and injuring many others, including women and children.

In Hama province, a suicide terrorist blew up his booby-trapped car near the Rural Development Center in al-Ziyara area in al-Ghab in the countryside of the province which resulted in the killing and injury of many people and caused material damage at the site of the blast.

Churkin: Russia’s Suggestion to Hold Meeting of Work Group on Syria Still on the Table

Russia’s Permanent Representative at the UN Security Council Vitaly Churkin said that Russia’s suggestion to hold a meeting of the work group in Syria in New York is still on the table.

In a statement following a closed session of the Security Council on Tuesday, Churkin said that he reminded others that the suggestion to hold a meeting in New York for the work group on Syria to assess how much of the Geneva declaration signed in June 30th has been implanted or not implemented.

He wondered if the something productive can be done to change the negative course of developments in Syria, noting that during the session which aw the participation of UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffery Feltman, Russia affirmed its support for the mission of UN Envoy to Syria.

Churkin said that the Russian delegation called on the Security Council to influence all sides in Syria in the spirit of the Geneva declaration in order to hold dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition.

Earlier, Russia suggested holding a meeting of the work group on Syria on the level of representatives at the UN in the same framework of the Geneva meeting held in June, but this initiative was opposed by western countries in the Security Council.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister: Moscow Continues talks with Ankara on the Syrian Plane cargo

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that Moscow continues discussions with Ankara to restore the cargo of the Syrian plane which was forced to land in Ankara Airport by the Turkish authorities who examined it and confiscated the cargo on October 10th.  Rogozin comments came in a statement to journalists quoted by Russia Today site.

Lahoud: What is Taking Place in Syria Is A Desperate Attempt to Fragment the Country

Nov 06, 2012

BEIRUT, (SANA) – Former Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said what is taking place in Syria is a desperate attempt to fragment this strong state whose people and army are united around their leadership to face the proxy war waged by the Arabs and Turks.

In a statement issued by his press office, Lahoud pointed out to the international community’s keenness on stability in Lebanon, adding that the international community has overlooked the fact that the best way to ward off sedition and achieve stability in Lebanon is to stop the global war against Syria.

He said that it is time for the international community and some Lebanese officials to realize that the destiny of Syria and Lebanon is one.

Head of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon, Ali Qanso, said that his meeting with Lahoud focused on the latest developments in the region, with the two sides stressing that what Syria faces is a destructive war against the Syrian state and society with the aim of undermining its resistance role.

The two sides expressed optimism that the Syrian leadership, army and the majority of the Syrian people will foil the conspiracy and come out from the crisis.

Al-Hasaka Governor and UNHCR Regional Director inspect situation of the coming families in the city

Nov 06, 2012

Al-Hasaka, (SANA)-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR) offered 10 tractors and 10 water cisterns for al-Hasaka city in order to provide drinking water to the centers of the families coming from other cities.

Regional Director of UNHCR in the Middle East Yacoub al-Hilo said on Tuesday that the donation comes in the framework of cooperation between the international organization and the Syrian government to meet demands of the coming families and ease their suffering as they left their homes at their cities and regions.

For his part, al-Hasaka governor Khudr al-Hussein affirmed that the governorate put all available capabilities to ensure the basic needs of the coming families including schools, public departments as well as providing the food baskets to all the needed.

 

Later, the Governor and Mr. al-Hilo visited the temporary residence of the coming people at al-Baath Vanguards Camp to inspect their situation and the services offered to them.

Meanwhile, Director of al-Hasaka Education Department Mohammad al-Hussein said that until today the Ministry of Education donated 23000 school bags and the needed stationary materials to the students, offered by the Syrian Arab red crescent.

Lavrov: The Opposition’s Current Approach Means It Works on Bloodbath in Syria to Continue

Nov 06, 2012

AMMAN, (SANA)- Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Tuesday stressed the necessity to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria through dialogue among all the parties away from any external interference.

In a joint press conference with his Jordanian counterpart, Nasser Judeh, held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Lavrov asserted that the declaration of the action work on Syria approved in Geneva is the main reference for the political solution in Syria, along with the stress on supporting the mission of the UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi.

The Russian Foreign Minister said that the opposition’s continuation of its current approach means that it is working on the bloodbath in Syria to go on, affirming that the armed opposition is carrying out terrorist operations in Syria. “We have information that it [the armed opposition] has received 50 Stinger missiles from foreign parties,” Lavrov added.

He highlighted the fact that Russia is dealing with all the parties in Syria equally.

“Those who call for the Syrian President to step down are not interested in the Syrians’ life, and we don’t support this stance at all,” said Lavrov, reiterating that any change in Syria should stem from the Syrian people themselves without any foreign interference.

Asked a question on the possibility of Russia changing its stance towards the situation in Syria, Lavrov said “We don’t want to change our stance…we are convinced that the opposition can’t do anything now…we are working to persuade the government and the opposition to work according to the Geneva document to halt the fighting and violence and start dialogue immediately.”

He stressed the need that all parties who were at the Geneva meeting and wield influence on the two sides in the crisis in Syria to work to bring them to the dialogue table, “but unfortunately most of those who participated in the meeting have not worked so far to push the opposition towards dialogue.”

On the issue of Russia’s continued supply of weapons to Syria, Lavrov stressed that this issue is being carried out legally in the framework of previously signed contracts that have nothing to do with what is happening in Syria as the weapons are only meant to support the Syrian air defense.

For his part, the Jordanian Foreign Minister Judeh said Jordan agrees with Russia on the necessity to bring the violence in Syria to a halt and relieve the Syrian people of what they have been going through, highlighting the need to continue consultation with Russia to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

Iranian Supreme Leader’s Advisor: The West Is Supporting Takfiri Terrorists in Syria

Nov 06, 2012

TEHRAN , (SANA) – Advisor to the Iranian Revolution’s Supreme Leader for International Affairs, Yahya Rahim Safavi, said that the USA and the Western countries now seek to consolidate division in the Islamic world through supporting takfiri terrorists in the region, particularly in Syria.

Rahim Safavi condemned in a statement the crimes perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups in Syria, pointing out to the huge sums sent by the USA, Israel and some regional countries to these groups for killing innocent people in Syria.

Larijani: Achieving Stability and Security in Syria Will Be in the Interest of All Countries in the Region

Speaker of the Iranian Shura Council Ali Larijani stressed that achieving peace, stability and security in Syria would be in the interest of all countries in the region.

Meeting Syria’s Ambassador to Iran, Hamed Hassan, on the occasion of ending his mission, Larijani underlined the need for providing the appropriate conditions so that the Syrian people and officials will be able to solve internal issues without the intervention of foreign powers.

He stressed the Council’s support for boosting the Syrian-Iranian relations in all fields.

Larijani hailed the diplomatic efforts exerted by Ambassador Hassan which helped open new prospects for developing bilateral relations.

In turn, Ambassador Hassan stressed that some international and regional sides seek to create chaos and destabilize security in Syria. He lauded Iran’s support to the Syrian people over the past few years.

Lecture on Situation of Antiquities and Museums under Current Circumstances in Syria

Nov 06, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Director General of Antiquities and Museums, Mamoun Abdul-Kareem reviewed the situation of antiquities and museums in Syria under the current circumstances.

Lecturing at Abu Rommaneh Cultural Center, he said that Aleppo National Museum was exposed to material damage due to the terrorist bombings which hit Saadallah al-Jaberi Square as well as the National Museum of Deir Ezzor.

Abdul-Kareem said that some museums were exposed to looting acts, particularly Hama and Afamia museum where golden statue from the Aramaic period and a marble stone have been stolen.

He added that the director of Maaret al-Nu’man Museum affirmed that the archeological pieces in the Museum are intact, indicating that 17 archeological pieces were stolen from Jaabar Castle in addition to stealing some pieces from Dora Aurbos Museum but they are not original.

Abdul-Kareem stressed that additional measures have been taken to enhance the security of the archeological pieces of museums throughout the Syrian provinces, adding that some precious pieces were transferred to safe places.

He indicated that the attacks of the terrorist groups caused limited material damage to al-Madiq castle, Krac des Chevaliers Castle, the entrance of Aleppo Caste and Shizer Castle, in addition to burning archeological shops in the old market of Aleppo, not to mention the damage caused to the Great Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo.

He pointed out to the official and popular efforts exerted to protect archeological sites in all Syrian provinces.

The Director General Abdul-Kareem said that the authorities confiscated many archeological pieces that were intended to be smuggled in Tartous, Hama, Homs and Deir Ezzor, in addition to seizing 18 mosaic paintings on the Syrian-Lebanese borders.

He called upon the Syrian people to work together and cooperate with authorities in preserving Syria’s history and ruins since they represent the identity and memory of the Syrian population over the decades.

Will Obama Now Honour his 2009 Pledge To Make Peace With Islamic World?

By Imtiaz Muqbil

7 November 2012

On June 4, 2009, the same year he won the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama stood behind a podium at Cairo’s Al Azhar University, one of Islam’s most eminent centres of learning, and delivered his famous speech to the Islamic world. His objective was reset the United States’ relations with Islam and make “a new beginning”. He covered all the usual ground – violence, Iran, Arab-Israeli relations and Palestine. Much has changed since that famous speech. But one thing has not changed: Palestine remains under Israeli occupation, and the following Obama pledge remains unfulfilled:

“Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop. Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.”

On Nov 6, just as the American people went to the polls, the following headline appeared in CNN: Israel plans new homes in East Jerusalem, West Bank. It was not the first such headline. Israel has been building settlements incessantly since the famous Cairo speech. Obama has been unable to do anything about it.

He now has four years to fix that, and the political freedom to act on the basis of principles, not politics. The positives are enormous and the negatives are potentially catastrophic. Time is not on his side. If Asia is rising today, the Islamic world will rise tomorrow, especially as most of the Asian countries are either majority Muslim or with significant minorities. Right at the heart of U.S.-Islamic relations is the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which can be solved if the President re-elect gets his priorities right, separates symptom from cause, abandons double-standards and puts Islamic and Jewish concerns on par.

Let’s be perfectly clear. The Islamic world will not give up, nor can it lose. In fact, the United States, already in a state of decline, has the most to lose. The Islamic world’s geographic and strategic importance is unshakeable and will gain ground in a globalised world. Readers can access the full list of Organisation of Islamic Co-operation countries here, weigh the following 11 points and make up your own minds.

1.   Population: A total of 1.46 billion people scattered as majorities and/or minorities right across the geographical centre of the planet from Morocco to Mindanao. Their natural resources and populations are a global source of minerals and medicines. Their own populations also generate both money and markets. They are all proud of their history and heritage.

 

2.   Oil, gas and energy: The energy and mineral reserves of the Islamic world are well known. All the way from the Gulf to the Central Asian Republics through to Indonesia and Brunei. Cheap access to these reserves contributed to the past economic development of the industrialised countries. Great power rivalries and geopolitical battles have been waged over decades for control of these riches, and will continue to do so in future.

3.   Money: The financial resources of the oil-rich and underpopulated Islamic countries are enormous. Billions of dollars are being poured into huge development and construction projects, as well as on weapons, stocks, bonds, treasury bills and real estate in the West. If Islamic oil and gas are important to the survival of Western economies, the recycling of Islamic mega-millions is equally important.

4.   Crossroads of the World: Islamic countries straddle all the most critical crossroads of trading and transport routes. Vital shipping lanes include the Straits of Malacca (Malaysia), the Straits of Gibraltar (Morocco), the Suez Canal (Egypt), the Straits of Hormuz (Iran/UAE) and the Straits of Bosporus (Turkey). The Trans-Asian Highway and Trans-Asian Railway that will eventually link Asia to Europe runs through Central Asia. All flights between Australasia and Europe have to overfly Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

5.   Rainforests: Most of the world’s remaining rainforests are in Indonesia, Malaysia and the many Islamic countries of equatorial Africa. These rainforests contain the secrets of science, health and medical breakthroughs. They are also the lungs and carbon sinks of the world. Both health and climate change are primary challenges of this era, and potential solutions lie in Islamic lands.

6.   Diplomacy and International Relations: Geopolitically, the Islamic countries are a significant voting bloc. Without the support of this 57-member grouping, it is virtually impossible to pass any mandate or resolution in international forums.

7.   Migrant labour: Millions of expatriates working in the Gulf countries remit billions of dollars to their home countries, a major source of poverty alleviation and economic progress.

8.   The Youth Bulge: The young people who comprise the majority of the Islamic world’s population are major markets of the future. As they are also tomorrow’s world leaders, influencing their mindset today is vital. Joblessness and despair amongst this group can be a major source of destabilisation and unrest, forcing migration to the rich countries and feeding frustration and violence.

9.  The Arts: The art, culture, music, dance, cuisine and literature created and/or authored by Muslims is spectacular – from the poetry of Rumi to the architecture of the Alhambra and the artistry of the Taj Mahal to the magnificent monuments of Iran and Uzbekistan, a supremely creative, inspiring and motivating force.

10. Mind-power: No peoples who can come up with the inventions and discoveries shown on the website http://www.1001inventions.com can remain intellectually stagnant forever. Given academic freedom and license, Islamic universities can easily regain the glory of the erstwhile centres of learning of Baghdad, Damascus, Samarkand and Cairo.

11.  Religious Power: Like all great religions, Islam has great spiritual and philosophical relevance, scientific depth and the ability to uplift societies. How the world’s only religion to be born in the desert spread across such a large swathe of territory is a story in itself. As the last of the world’s great religions, it offers practical solutions to many of the world’s social, economic, environmental, financial problems. At its core lies an uncompromising sense of justice.

All of the above is known to top decision-makers in United States and other Western countries. They know that a united Islam can be powerful and positive source of energy and transformation. Hence, to keep it divided and destabilised is a geopolitical imperative.

Doing so has proven easy – so far. The Islamic world has large rich-poor income gaps, internecine ethnic and religious rivalries, poor quality leaders and corrupt dictators. Leading such people astray with a combination of alcohol, illicit sex, bribery and blackmail requires no great effort. Colonial powers have a proven history of expertise in dividing countries, communities and religious groups. Portraying the Islamic world as being full of liars, illiterates, fundamentalists, etc. is part of this game-plan. Keeping it that way is the future challenge.

In the 1970s, three game-changing events rocked the United States and its concept of post-World War II security, underscoring the power of a united Islam and exposing the fragility of U.S.-Islamic relations:

1. Arab-Israeli war, October 1973: The year 2013 will mark 40 years since this conflict in which Arab armies, led by Egypt, came dangerously close to defeating the Israelis and freeing occupied Palestine. It was only a massive, last minute military airlift by the U.S. and its allies that changed the game. But it gave the Arabs a fleeting sense of confidence in what unity could achieve.

2. Arab oil embargo: This use of the “oil weapon” was part of the October 1973 war. It nearly crippled the economies of the West and exposed the threat of dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

3. Iran 1979: The Shah of Iran, one of the US government’s puppets in the Gulf, was overthrown by a revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, a religious leader exiled by the Shah. In what was the world’s first “electronic revolution,” cassette tapes smuggled in were played across mosques in Iran, leading to massive demonstrations which forced out the Shah and led to the return of Khomeini in February 1979.

Since these events, as well as the U.S. defeat in Vietnam in 1975, U.S. security doctrines have been revamped. All economic, defence and foreign policy mechanisms were geared towards ensuring that it never happens again. True, some efforts were made to forge an Arab-Israeli peace, such as under the Carter and Clinton administrations. Then came the 4 November 1995 Jewish terrorist assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It’s been downhill ever since.

Since that black day, U.S. government policy and its formidable Jewish lobby has focussed intently on subjugating and dividing the Arab/Islamic world by backing corrupt dictators, entertaining their royal families, penetrating their businesses, militaries, education systems, media and the political establishment. Today, the U.S. has military bases right across the Gulf. Its companies win huge business and construction contracts. Its brand-name products sell well across the malls and shopping complexes.

But the recent Arab spring revolutions have proved that all the people cannot be fooled all the time, that the best-laid plans can go awry, that underlying problems have not gone away, and the desire for Palestinian freedom still burns bright across the entire region.

The U.S. government is deeply involved in the quagmire and can only cope with the situation by fire-fighting and managing the symptoms rather than treating the cause. It cannot admit mistakes and backtrack without losing face, trust and respect.

The next big test will come when the Palestinians seek elevated statehood status in the UN, possibly within the next few weeks. That will set the stage for a confrontation between the U.S. establishment and Israel and its Zionist backers. If the U.S. blocks that effort, it is only a matter of time before Egypt, now a full-fledged democracy similar to Israel, begins to push for a renegotiation of its peace treaty with Israel. Subsequent events could become even more unpredictable and unmanageable.

If Mr. Obama can honour his still unfulfilled pledge of June 4, 2009 to the Islamic world and give birth to a Palestinian state, he will earn his 2009 Nobel Peace prize and change the rest of the 21st century for the better. The Arab world will boom, trillions of dollars worth of swords could be converted into plowshares and millions of man-hours worth of productivity, time and resources will be freed up to realise the UN Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015.

The most dangerous men on the planet now are not Islamic terrorists but those who tried desperately to unseat Obama and make Iran the next victim of their War on Islam. These people are of the same stock as those who created and bred the Rabin assassin. Over the next four years, they will do everything in their power to get him to attack Iran and stop him from creating a Palestinian state. Their goal is to fuel more instability and conflict with the Islamic world.

The world cannot afford another four such years. Now that the American people have given Barack Hussein Obama a renewed mandate, it is time for him to honour their trust, fulfill his pledge to the Islamic world and create a truly global peace.

His date with destiny awaits.

Turkish Police Fire Tear Gas On Protesters Supporting Hunger Striking Kurdish Political Prisoners

By Countercurrents.org

06 November, 2012

Countercurrents.org

Police in Istanbul have used tear gas and water cannon on protestors supporting a hunger strike by Kurdish political prisoners. The Turkish PM branded the strikers actions a “complete show”, but doctors warn they will start to die in the next 10 days*.

About 400 protestors were gathered outside the headquarters of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) when police fired water cannon and tear gas without warning, according to an AP photographer who was at the scene.

The protestors were chanting “evacuate prisons” and “freedom to inmates” as well as slogans supporting Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The PKK is a militant group, which has been fighting a guerilla war against the Turkish state for the last 28 years to try and create a Kurdish homeland in Turkey’s south east. They are designated a terrorist group by the Turkish government, the US and the EU. The BDP, however, refuses to call the PKK a terrorist organization.

The hunger strikers are calling for improved jail conditions for Abdullah Ocalan, who is prison on an island off Istanbul and for restrictions to be lifted on the use of the Kurdish language.

The hunger strike is comprised of a number of senior Kurdish figures including jailed politicians, mayors and parliamentarians, some of them in the BDP, which holds 29 of the 550 seats in the Turkish parliament.

Some of the 700 strikers are also accused of having links with the PKK.

Many of the strikers are allegedly consuming sugar, water and vitamins to drag out their lives and the protest by weeks.

The Turkish medical Organization (TTB) warned that many of those fasting will have already incurred lasting damage and will start to die in a matter of days.

But the strike has incurred little sympathy from prime minister Tayyip Erdogan. He told reporters in Berlin that the hunger strike was a“complete show” and that only one of the prisoners was on a “death fast”.

He then went on to accuse Kurdish politicians of stuffing themselves with kebabs while ordering militants to starve. Dr. Aytug Atici, an opposition lawmaker and a medical doctor, who toured the prisons earlier this week, said the prime minister’s comments only appeared to have stiffened the striker’s resolve.

Yasar Kemal, one of Turkey’s best known novelists, has joined the chorus of support for the fasters and has urged the government to stop the protestors dying, reminding them of the outcome of previous hunger strikes. Between 2000 and 2007, 122 prisoners died from hunger strikes against isolation cells.

Since the PKK took up arms in 1984, more than 40,000 people have died as a result of the conflict. There are about 15 million Kurds in Turkey, about one fifth of the population. In total there are 30 million Kurds living in Turkey, Iran, northern Syria and northern Iraq in a region known as Kurdistan, but they do not have an autonomous state to call their own.

* RT, “Turkish police fire tear gas at hunger strike supporters”, Nov. 4, 2012, http://rt.com/news/turkey-kurds-hunger-strike-975/

Syria News On 6th November, 2012

Eleven Citizens Martyred, Tens Injured in Terrorist Bombing in Mazzeh Eighty-Six Area in Damascus

Nov 05, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA) _ Terrorist on Monday detonated an explosive device planted under a car in Mazzeh Jabal 86 area in Damascus, killing 11 citizens and injuring tens, including women and children.

A source at al-Muwasat Hospital told SANA that the body received the bodies of 8 martyrs killed in the bombing and 31 injured people who are currently receiving treatment.

A source in Yousef al-Azmeh Hospital said that the hospital received the bodies of 3 martyrs and 24 injured people, most of them critically injured.

SANA’s correspondent who visited the bombing site said the explosion caused significant damage to the area which is heavily populated, and that a large number of cars and shops were destroyed and infrastructure and utilities were also damaged.

Five Martyred, Others Injured in Terrorists’ Mortar Shell Attack Targeting Mini-Bus in al-Yarmouk Camp

Five people were martyred including three children and a woman on Monday when terrorists targeted a mini-bus of public transportation with a mortar shell in Thalathen street (thirty street) in al-Yarmouk Camp, Damascus.

An official source in Damascus Hospital said that bodies of a women and three children were transferred to the hospital in addition to five injured, one of them is in a critical condition, adding that the injured are getting the suitable care.

On the other hand, Palestine Hospital received a martyrs’ body, in addition to five injured people due to the terrorist act.

Two Citizens Martyred, 10 Others Injured in Car Bomb Explosion in al-Ghab Area in Hama

A suicide bomber on Monday detonated a car bomb near the Rural Development Center in al-Ziyara area in al-Ghab, resulting in a number of deaths and injuries and material damages.

An official source said that preliminary information show that two citizens were martyred while 10 others were injured in the terrorist blast.

The source added that the weight of the explosives used in the blast was estimated at around one ton of highly-explosive materials.

Photos of Terrorist Bombing in Mazzeh Jabal 86 in Damascus

 

 

Armed Forces Continue Confronting Terrorists in Several Areas

Nov 05, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA) – Units of the Armed Forces on Monday continued cleaning Deir Ezzor from the armed terrorist groups.

An official source in the province told SANA reporter that a unit of the armed forces clashed with two armed terrorist groups in al-Jibaileh and al-Muwazafin neighborhoods in the city killing and injuring a number of terrorists.

Terrorists Abdul-Karim Mohammad Yassin and Rakan al-Zaghir were identified among the dead in the two neighborhoods, the source added.

In al-Mayadin, a unit of the armed forces carried out a qualitative operation. The operation resulted in inflecting heavy losses upon terrorists.

6 citizens from one family martyred by mortars of terrorists in Aleppo

6 citizens from Quraish family, among them a girl, were martyred today after terrorists launched 11 mortars on marches in Bustan al-Qasr in Aleppo demanding the terrorist groups to leave the neighborhood.

The Army carries out qualitative operations to clear Aleppo and its  countryside from the terrorists

Units of the armed forces today carried out qualitative operations to clear Aleppo countryside from the terrorists, targeting their gatherings in a number of areas.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that a unit from the army targeted terrorists near the Thermal Station, destroying two cars that transported weapons and munitions.

The source added that another army unit hit gatherings of terrorists near Ekarda, Urom al-Kubra, Kfar Naha, Kfar Hamra, Hrietan, inflicting heavy losses among the terrorists.

In the city of Aleppo, the army operations inflicted heavy losses among the terrorists at al-Lermon circle and near Zaki al-Arsouzi school.

Authorities Seize Field Hospital in Lattakia

The competent authorities today seized a field hospital in one of the terrorists’ dens at al-Kalaa neighborhood in Lattakia.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that the hospital included a big quantity of medical equipment and all kinds of medicine.

Authorities Confiscate weapons from A den of terrorists in Hama

The authorities in Hama confiscated weapons and munitions while storming one of the terrorists’ dens at 8 March Souk in Hama.

SANA reporter quoted a source as saying that during the operations, the authorities killed two terrorists, one of them was a woman who tried to escape after throwing two bombs on the members of the authorities.

Armed Forces Inflict Heavy Losses upon Terrorists in Idleb

A unit of our armed forces on Sunday evening clashed with terrorists were perpetrating looting and sabotaging acts in Maaret al-Nu’man, in Idleb and seized a quantity of weapons were in their possession.

An official source in the province told SANA reporter that a unit of the armed forces clashed with two armed terrorist groups in al-Jibaileh and al-Muwazafin neighborhoods in the city killing and injuring a number of terrorists.

Terrorists Abdul-Karim Mohammad Yassin and Rakan al-Zaghir were identified among the dead in the two neighborhoods, the source added.

In al-Mayadin, a unit of the armed forces carried out a qualitative operation. The operation resulted in inflecting heavy losses upon terrorists.

Armed Forces Inflict Heavy Losses upon Terrorists in Idleb

A unit of our armed forces on Sunday evening clashed with terrorists were perpetrating looting and sabotaging acts in Maaret al-Nu’man, in Idleb and seized a quantity of weapons were in their possession.

An official source in the province told SANA reporter that a unit of the armed forces clashed with two armed terrorist groups in al-Jibaileh and al-Muwazafin neighborhoods in the city killing and injuring a number of terrorists.

Terrorists Abdul-Karim Mohammad Yassin and Rakan al-Zaghir were identified among the dead in the two neighborhoods, the source added.

In al-Mayadin, a unit of the armed forces carried out a qualitative operation. The operation resulted in inflecting heavy losses upon terrorists.

Armed Forces Inflict Heavy Losses upon Terrorists in Idleb

A unit of our armed forces on Sunday evening clashed with terrorists were perpetrating looting and sabotaging acts in Maaret al-Nu’man, in Idleb and seized a quantity of weapons were in their possession.

SANA reporter quoted a source at the province as saying that the clash resulted in wounding and killing a number of terrorists including a leader of one of the terrorist groups nicknamed Sheikh Ahmed.

Terrorists Killed in Daraa

Units of the Armed Forces clashed with terrorists in al-Mokhayam neighborhood ad al-Sad road in Daraa, killing and injuring many of them.

An official source told SANA reporter that terrorist Mamdouh al-Shalamouni, leader of the so-called “al-Tawheed brigade” in Daraa was identified among the dead.

Armed Forces Thwart Terrorists’ Attempts to Enter Aleppo

In Aleppo, units of our armed forces thwarted attempts of terrorist groups to enter Aleppo from Kafar Hamra and Al Lirmon. Members of the groups were killed and wounded.

Two military engineering members martyred while dismantling Explosive device planted by terrorists on al-Zahira Highway

Two members from the military engineering units were martyred and one was wounded as they were dismantling an explosive device planted by terrorists on al-Zahira Highway in Damascus.

A source at the Police Command in Damascus told SANA that the explosive device was planted by terrorists near one of the public parks.

Armed Forces Eliminate Terrorists and Destroy a Number of Vehicles in Harasta

A unit of the Armed Forces clashed with an armed terrorist group in Harasta city in Damascus countryside and destroyed a vehicle equipped with an anti-aircraft machinegun.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that clashes resulted in eliminating a number of terrorists and destroyed three cars used to transfer weapons and munitions.

The source added that another unit pursued an armed terrorist group in al-Sail neighborhood in Harasta and eliminated a number of its members.

Armed Forces Eliminate Armed Terrorist Groups’ Leaders, Destroy Machinegun-equipped Vehicles in Idleb Countryside

A unit of the Armed Forces foiled an infiltration attempt by an armed terrorist group to Harem Castle and implemented a qualitative operation and killed a number of terrorists.

A source in the province said that armed terrorist groups’ leaders were killed during the operation.

The source added that a unit of the Armed Forces confronted an armed terrorist group in Taftanaz and destroyed three machinegun-equipped vehicles.

In the city I Saraqeb, the Armed Forces eliminated an armed terrorist group leader and all members of his group and destroyed terrorist sites and a weapons cache.

Mikdad: Those who Besiege Syria Cannot Claim to be Humanitarians… Countries who Cry over Syrian People are Symbols of Hypocrisy

Nov 05, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Upon the invitation of the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry, a meeting for the humanitarian team, which represents UN organizations and government bodies that are part of the response plan regulating UN-Syrian cooperation, was held on Monday at Sheraton Hotel in Damascus.

During the meeting, Deputy Foreign and Expatriates Minister Dr. Fayssal Mikdad affirmed that the meetings of countries who cry over the humanitarian issues in Syria and hold special Security Council sessions, including the latest one attended by the biggest hypocrite the French Foreign Minister, are mere misdirection and blatant international hypocrisy, saying that those who impose sanctions with one hand and claim to provide humanitarian aid with the other is a symbol of hypocrisy, lies and misdirection.

Mikdad said that these countries aren’t content with shedding Syrian blood and arming and funding terrorists; they also directly and intentional avoid helping UN organizations financially, hindering them from carrying out their duties which these countries claim to be keen on implementing.

He pointed out that Arab countries didn’t provide a single dollar to the Syrian people despite all their claims for caring for them, particularly the Arab Gulf countries that contribute directly to the slaughter and murder of Syrians, affirming the need to expose these countries which commit massacres directly or through Al Qaeda which they fund and assist, in addition to their support of the Turkish government which facilitates terrorists’ entry into Syria with direct funding from the Arab Gulf.

Mikdad called upon all those who want to end bloodshed in Syria to address the primary issue which is these countries whose hands are stained with Syrian blood, affirming that those who besiege Syria cannot claim to be humanitarians or even capable of doing humanitarian work, pointing out to the politicization of the process of providing international aid by the countries that claim to care about the Syrian people.

He lauded the efforts of humanitarian organizations which work for pure humanitarian goals and have no personal agendas, affirming the Syrian government’s readiness to cooperate with these organization without restriction to help Syrians affected by terrorism as long as humanitarian aid is provided according to UN principles, particularly those that guarantee the country’s sovereignty and regional integrity and unity.

Mikdad affirmed that the Syrian government provided all possible and necessary facilitations to international efforts to provide humanitarian aid to affected citizens, starting by evaluation them devising a response plan, with the facilitations provided to UN humanitarian organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) being examples of this cooperation.

He pointed out that so far, the Syrian government has played the major role in providing the needs of its citizens, because many pledges of donors in the media and international forums haven’t been fulfilled as shown by the reports of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Midkad stressed that stopping the funding provided by some countries in the region to armed terrorist groups should remove the primary causes of Syrians’ humanitarian suffering, which would save Syria and the internaitonal community the need for humanitarian aid, noting that the terrorist groups are sabotaging Syrian infrastructure, thus depriving millions of Syrians from services such as electricity, water and fuel.

He went on to explain that the unjust unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, the EU and other countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Syria impede development and providing services to citizens, and that they exacerbate the humanitarian conditions and hinder the importation of medical supplies and equipment, which causes suffering for Syrians.

Mikdad said that the government formed a ministerial committee to follow up on humanitarian needs of affected citizens, with SYP 500,000 allocated to it from the general state budget and another 500,000 from the independent budget for aid, adding that a higher relief committee was also formed to follow up on affected families and providing aid to them, with subcommittees being formed in each province to supervise the provision of aid.

He noted that over 547 temporary housing centers have been opened for affected families, all of them provided with all necessary services, pointing out to the support provided by the Social Affairs and Labor Ministry to civil societies that help afflicted families.

Midkad elaborated that the Social Affairs and Labor Ministry provided SYP 10 million to one initiative to help affected families in Homs, another 10 million to pay rents of displaced families, another 10 million to societies that provide financial support to families, and 15 million to the bodies that provide services.

He affirmed that state workers’ salaries are still being paid in affected areas despite the fact that work in many state establishments has stopped in certain areas, in addition to paying pensions.

Midkad then moved on to the health sector, detailing the losses it suffered due to terrorists’ attacks, with 50 people working in the medical field being martyred while carrying out their duties and 68 being injured, while 19 health workers are still being held hostage by armed groups who abducted them.

He also underlined the sabotage and vandalism carried out by terrorist against, hospitals, health centers and ambulance, noting that these terrorist acts are accompanied by media misdirection about health services by foreign media that use the health sector to misguide public opinion and rile citizens against the government.

Mikdad affirmed that the Health Ministry is continuing to work to rehabilitate health establishments and ambulances damaged by terrorism, and so far emergency rooms and departments in 25 out of 44 affected hospitals have been rehabilitated, noting that 19 hospitals have been put out of services due to terrorism.

He added that maternity wards in 35 out of 199 affected health centers have been rehabilitated, with 117 being out of services, and that health services have been expanded via 26 mobile clinics, in addition to repairing 60 ambulances out of 303 ones damaged by terrorism, 149 of which completely out of commission.

Mikdad also said that medical supplies for patients of terminal diseases including cancer are being provided from friendly countries along with 50 ambulances, after importation of medicine and medical supplies from Europe stopped due to sanctions.

He concluded by voicing thanks and appreciation for anyone who provides honest efforts to reduce the suffering of the Syrian people.

For his part, Director of International Organizations Department at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry Hussam-Eddin Ala, said the meeting aims at discussing what has been implemented in terms of the response plan.

He stressed the Syrian government’s commitment to cooperate and provide all facilitations to the UN organizations, hailing the efforts of the SARC and its pioneering role in coordination  with the ICRC despite the attacks of the armed terrorist groups.

In turn, the response plan national coordinator Refaat Hijazi presented a review of the Syrian government’s continuous efforts to help the affected people, adding that any international effort is complementary  to the efforts exerted by the Syrian government.

The Regional Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid Affairs, Radwan Nweiser, stressed that the Syrian government has done its best to provide aid to the affected people and informed the UN employees about its approval on their visits to all Syrian areas without any restraints or conditions.

He appreciated the important role of the SARC and its  sacrifices to continue providing its services, the last of which was the martyrdom of volunteer Fouad Bobes who was targeted in Douma city in Damascus Countryside while carrying out his humanitarian duty.

He added that the capabilities available and the allocated resources  for response processes are much less than what is needed, adding  that the international community gives more attention to the  political and military sides in comparison to what it gives to fund aid operations.

Nweiser said that the international community presented only 45% of the total amount needed, adding that the big challenge for now is to protect the affected families and provide them with their needs before the winter.

In turn, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Syria, Adam Abdul-Mawla, said that the UN which worked in Syria for decades will not abandon the country in its ordeal, reiterating the UN commitment to provide all possible help to the Syrian people.

 

Abdul-Mawla pointed out that a joint meeting will be held on Wednesday between the UN regional offices and the UN team in Syria with the aim of discussing the measures needed to enhance the role of the UN in confronting the repercussions of the crisis in Syria.

He called upon all sides to respect the role of the UN and realize that it works independently and neutrally and it provides aid without religious or political considerations.

Director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Marwan Abdullah, said that the organization has spared no effort in providing services to all affected people since the beginning of the crisis with 10,000 volunteers working across the country.

He pointed out to the attacks against the organization’s staff, adding that 8 volunteers were martyred and several ambulances were destroyed.

For his part, Alexandre Equeyi of the ICRC stressed the need to cooperate and coordinate among all sides and organizations with the aim of providing food and rehabilitating centers in provinces.

Equeyi added that the ICRC  is discussing ways to access all areas and is working on helping the people affected by the current events.

People’s Assembly : Crisis Necessitates Adopting Extraordinary Economic and Social Policies to Face Its Impacts

Nov 05, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The People’s Assembly resumed its session, chaired by Speaker Mohammad Jihad al-Lahham, to discuss the bill of the general state budget for the 2013 fiscal year.

Members of the People’s Assembly called for adopting an extraordinary economic and social policy to cope with what is taking place in the country and setting up development plans to face the impact of the crisis.

They stressed the need for reforming and supporting the public sector and enhancing the national steadfastness, particularly in the comprehensive war which aims at undermining Syria.

They also called for reconsidering the previous governments’ economic policies and deal with their consequences, including laws that harmed national production and security through allowing foreign capitals and privatization.

The members underlined the necessity of taking effective measures to reduce and rationalize expenditure, particularly under current circumstances and the economic pressure and sanctions which caused an imbalance in the revenues.

Other members called for new laws to regulate investment and establish a real and sustainable economic infrastructure.

The members stressed the need for improving the living conditions of law-income citizens amid the price rise of goods and providing the basic needs, in addition to compensate those who were affected under current circumstances.

Some of the People’s Assembly members called for providing job opportunities and reconsidering the age of those included in the Youth Employment program to be 35 years in order to give graduates the opportunity to work.

They hailed the approach and transparency adopting in setting the general budget, adding that the allocation of SYP 512 billion to subsidize oil products and basic materials a positive thing.

In turn, MP Abdul-Wahed Razzouq urged the authorities to eliminate the armed terrorist groups that are attacking Harem area in Idleb and deliver the basic good to the citizens there.

Minister of Finance Dr. Mohammad al-Jleilati, said that the deficit in the budget started in 2003, adding that the issue of deficit can be solved only by increasing the cash supply.

Minister al-Jleilati said that the 2012 budget takes into consideration the social dimension in implementing the financial policy as the citizens’ interests are the main purpose for all the state’s developmental plans.

He called for adopting transparency, reconsidering the society’s moral values and fighting corruption.

Martyr Actor Mohammad Rafe’ Escorted to Final Resting Place

Nov 05, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Martyr Actor Mohammad Rafe’ was escorted From the Military Hospital of Tishreen on Monday with the music of “the Martyr” and “Farewell”.

Actor Rafe has been assassinated by an armed terrorist group which kidnapped him two days earlier in Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus.

Father of the Martyr, Actor Ahmad Rafe’ said in a statement that his son, Mohammad, is the martyr of all and the bridegroom of Syria and the homeland, stressing that his son loved his homeland and his people.

He called on all those who took up weapons to throw them away and come back to the lap of the homeland.

Artists Syndicate Condemns Terrorist Act Against Martyr Mohammad Rafei

The Syrian Artists Syndicate denounced the terrorist act which resulted in the martyrdom of actor Mohammad Rafei.

In a statement released on Monday, the Syndicate said that martyr Rafei had expressed adherence to his homeland, stressing that all patriotic artists are committed to facing the plot targeting the country through supporting the reform program.

An armed terrorist group assassinated the young actor Mohammad Rafei, son of the renowned actor Ahmad Rafei, two days after abducting him in Barzeh area in Damascus.

Rafei is a Syrian-Palestinian, he was born in 1982.

Lavrov: Who Contradicts Geneva Statement Is Shouldered Responsibility  for More Victims in Syria

Nov 05, 2012

CAIRO, (SANA) – Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the need for adopting the Geneva statement as the basic reference to solve the crisis in Syria, holding anyone who violates what has been agreed on in this statement responsible for any further victims.

In a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Mohammad Kamel Amr, Lavrov said that some of Russia’s partners in the work group on Syria try to evade the agreement and shirk their responsibilities of pressuring the opposition to halt violence and commit to dialogue to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

Lavrov said that Russia carries out its obligations according to the Geneva statement in regard to working with all Syrian sides, and according to this basis Russia works with the government and the opposition.

“For well-know reasons, we are not the ones who have great influence on the opposition and I believe that those who do enjoy such influence should exert more efforts to implement the terms of the Geneva statement,” Lavrov added.

The Russian Foreign Minister added “Instead of that, some participants in the Geneva meeting are now trying to unify the opposition not on the basis of sitting down at the dialogue table, but rather on the basis of continuing fighting and violence.”

Answering a question about secret negotiations between Russia and the U.S. on the Syrian leadership, Lavrov firmly denied holding secret negotiations with anyone about the future of the Syrian leadership.

He added that what really matters is the destiny of the Syrian people and means of ending their suffering, noting that it is impossible to achieve that without halting violence from both sides as agreed upon in Geneva and those who deny that are largely responsible for the lives of civilians.

He stressed the need for finding a just solution to Palestinian issue, adding that none of the events in the region should draw attention away from it.

In turn, Minister Amr said that Egypt and Russia want to reach a political solution to the crisis in Syria, put an end to the bloodshed there and fulfill the Syrian people’s legitimate demands.

Lavrov: Russia Defends the Syrian People’s Self-Determination Right without Foreign Intervention

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, stressed that his country defends the Syrian people’s self-determination right without foreign dictations or intervention.

Lavrov added, in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper of ‘al-Ahram’ published on Monday, “this Russian accountable stance meets others’ understanding in the world, in the region and among the Syrians, as the political powers which had always criticized Russia’s political stances previously begin to understand Russia’s stance regarding the crisis in Syria.”

The Russian Foreign Minister renewed assertion on Geneva Statement, signed on 30th June, which constitutes a balanced basis to the political solution of the crisis in Syria, criticizing all those who seek to topple the regime with all means regardless of the risks of this approach.

He stressed that those who call for this demand do not care about saving the biggest number of souls possible through halting violence and starting a dialogue between the government and the opposition, rather they are more interested in carrying out their geopolitical agendas, trying to pass their dependant visions against Syria and distorting Russia’s stances.

Lavrov pointed out that Russia, on contrast to many international and regional players, continues its contacts with the Syrian government and a wide range of opposition powers, sparing no efforts to reach a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

He criticized Russia’s western partners continuation of supporting the armed opposition groups in Syria, pointing out that the presence of al-Qaeda members in Syria pushes the West to think about the possibilities that the weapons they dispatch to Syria may go to unsafe hands.

The Russian official highlighted that if all those who signed Geneva Statement pressure the opposition groups in Syria and the government as well and force them to halt fighting operations and start a dialogue, the chances of UN Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi’s success in his mission will rise.

Lavrov said that Russia follows in its foreign political approach the international law , and the rejection of the double standard policy regarding the international issues and what is going on in the Middle East.

Lavrov stressed that the Russian-Syrian technical cooperation is directed towards supporting Syria’s defensive efforts in confrontation of a possible foreign danger, which is proven through the Russian military exports of a defensive feature to Syria.

Regarding his estimation of the Iranian stance regarding the crisis in Syria, he pointed out that Iran attaches great importance to the exerted efforts for preventing international intervention in the Syrian domestic affairs.

He referred to the efforts exerted by Non-Aligned Movement held in Tehran last August to serve these goals, as Iran has also joined Geneva Statement and supported, along with Russia, Brahimi’s initiative about cease-fire during Eid al-Adha, which unfortunately did not succeed.

The Russian Foreign Minister continued to say that despite what the region is witnessing, the Palestinian Cause is still the cornerstone for politics in the region, as the turbulent conditions should not be a pretext for halting work, but on the contrary, talks should proceed bringing the possibility of improving the atmosphere in the region.

Lavrov expressed his country’s worry over the continuation of the Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories, stressing that this issue does not help provide the suitable environment for resuming the negotiation process on the basis of the international legitimacy.

Commercial Bank of Syria: Cash Flow Good, Deposit and Withdrawal Stable

Nov 05, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Chairman of the Commercial Bank of Syria, Ahmad Diab, said that the cash flow in the bank is good and the movement of deposits and withdrawals has been stable for more than two months.

In a statement to SANA on Monay, Diab pointed out that the amount of deposits in the bank is estimated at SYP 310 billion, adding that all the bank’s branches are working in two shifts.

Diab stressed that about half the ATMs in the provinces are working normally, including Aleppo, Idleb and Homs.

He warned the clients of fraud attempts made through attaching wireless readers to the ATM to copy the information from ATM cards.

Abdullahian: The US – Israeli Foreign Intervention and Support to Armed Groups Behind Events in Syria

Nov 05, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA) – Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs, Hussein Amir Abdullahian said that the current events in Syria can be summed up in foreign intervention, providing support to the armed groups, the US and Israel’s instigation for committing massacres against the Syrian people, and targeting the Syrian government in an attempt to eliminate the resistance.

In a statement on Monday, Abdullahian said that Syria made progress in combating terrorism, preventing foreign intervention and achieving political reforms.

The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister warned of the catastrophic consequences of transferring the crisis in Syria to the neighboring countries on the security of the region.

Abdullahian underlined Iran’s initiatives and the efforts of the UN Envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, adding that Iran has serious intentions to work on launching national dialogue among the representatives of all spectrums of the Syrian people after halting violence completely to help in achieving security and stability in the region.

Borujerdi: Terrorists’ Attack and Crimes Reveal Reality of Armed Syrian Opposition and Its Defenders

Chairman of the Iranian National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Alaa Eddin Borujerdi, said that the terrorist attacks and heinous crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups in Syria revealed the real image of the armed Syrian opposition and their defenders in the region and the world.

In a speech on the occasion of ending the mission of Syria’s Ambassador to Iran, Hamed Hassan, Borujerdi said that the major powers and their allies and the Zionist entity are trying to undermine the resistance of the Syrian people and eliminate the national identity of this independent country.

He stressed that the Syrian people will come out victorious from this difficult test.

Borujerdi said that Syria and Iran have supported the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine against the Israeli aggressions, particularly in July 2006.

He pointed out that the Syrian-Iranian relations have transformed into a key axis for resistance against the Zionist entity and its international defenders and played a strategic role in supporting the rights of the peoples in the region.

Ambassador Hassan said that the Syrian people are facing a campaign launched by the US, France, Britain, the Zionist entity and their allies in the region, including AlQaeda.

He added that this war aims at destroying the determination and the will of the Syrian people to support of the Palestinian people and other peoples in the region against their occupiers, stressing that the steadfastness of the Syrians will foil the conspiracy.

Iranian National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee Calls Upon States to Stop Supporting Armed Terrorist Groups in Syria

The National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee in the Iranian Shura council condemned the brutal crimes perpetrated by the armed terrorist groups against the Syrian people.

The official spokesperson of the Committee, Hossein Naqavi Hosseini said in a statement on Monday that members of the Committee called upon the states interfering in the Syrian domestic affairs to stop supporting the armed terrorist groups and supplying them with weapons.

Naqavi Hosseini added that members of the Committee condemned the war crimes committed by the terrorists in Syria against captives from the Syrian Arab Army, calling upon the international community to prevent the perpetration of such crimes.

He said that the Committee asked the Iranian government and Iranian Foreign Ministry to have a greater role in activating the political solution in Syria.

As A New World Order Emerges, Will the East-West Transition be Peaceful?

By Imtiaz Muqbil

6 November 2012

BANGKOK – A former U.S. market trader who spent five years in jail “for telling the truth” has forecast the continuing economic and financial decline of what he called a “brain-dead” United States, a shift towards Asia which will last for about 200 years, a second-term win for President Barack Obama and a “high probability” of an attack on Iran, partly in order to safeguard Israel but partly to “divert attention of the world from the financial crisis.”

Speaking at a November 2-3 conference in Bangkok, Mr. Martin Armstrong, former chairman of Princeton Economics International, said the world was on a “threshold of a new era” and due for a major “directional change” that would be driven by the nomadic shifts of capital movements and a desire to find safe havens. He also forecast global social unrest in 2014 and a war of some kind, but not necessarily a world war, in 2015.

All these forecasts, he said, were part of a normal cyclical shift in global history which, similar to the laws of physics and even the movement of radio waves, has always been marked by the rise and fall of empires and can now be fairly accurately predicted through computer models. He said the primary trigger of this rise and fall, in financial and economic terms, is an unsustainable build-up of sovereign debt and governments’ inability to repay it. Regardless, he said, those who had money always were looking for a place to park it, and Asia would be the place for the foreseeable future, with China becoming the dominant global economic power by 2020.

Travel Impact Newswire Executive Editor Imtiaz Muqbil was the only travel industry journalist in Asia to cover this conference, which was managed and promoted by Bangkok-based Midas-PR and ASEAN Affairs. Because Mr. Armstrong’s views and predictions tend to go against the grain and challenge conventional wisdoms, they are unlikely to get an audience in travel & tourism. However, that is precisely why they should be heard because he is providing what every potential looming crisis needs – an early warning system to prepare and if possible, prevent and pre-empt. Broadly speaking, he discussed three topics: 1) The rise of Asia as the financial and economic powerhouse of the world, 2) the decline of the West, especially the United States, and 3) the role of money-markets and capital movements.

He presented his views in a totally detached, matter-of-fact unemotional way – futuristic but realistic, not blindly optimistic like many of the “futurists” dominating travel industry events. The fact that he is an American is critically important. If the same comments are made by non-Americans, they would be quickly tagged anti-American. Mr. Armstrong indicated that labels were irrelevant. What is transpiring worldwide all boils down to “human nature.” He repeated the phrase “that’s just the way it is” about a dozen times during the presentation.

Although debatable, his conclusions were based on historical facts, starting with the rise and fall of empires such as the Ottoman, Greek and Roman, the monetary systems they used, and their links to modern day cycles of economic change. He discussed Marx, Adam Smith, Keynes as well as Einstein. He explained in detail but plain language how money markets work, what drives the decision-making process as markets move from bulls to bears, winners and losers, updrafts and downdrafts, booms to busts, confidence and panic.

According to his profile on Wikipedia, what is happening now and what potentially happens next can be pretty well predicted by his Economic Confidence Model, which he is credited with developing based on the business cycles and pi.[3]. The Wikipedia profile says he is known for predicting the crash of 1987 to the very day.[4] “Using his theory that boom-bust cycles occur precisely every 8.6 years, he correctly predicted the Nikkei‘s collapse in 1989 and Russia’s financial collapse in 1998.[3][5]”

The computer models he showed offered a  look at the vast and complex ways to make and move money using nothing more than a keyboard. Traders can buy and sell currencies, commodities, utilities, energy, transport, metals, pharmaceuticals and much more. Under each category there are sub-categories: rice, wheat, soybeans coffee, lumber, land, real estate. These movements can be categorised by countries as well as by timing – daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. Everything is said to move by cycles which also have classifications: beta cycle, alpha cycle, panic cycle, trading cycle.

Mr. Armstrong’s objective was to help many of those who attended the conference to ride the next cycle, spot the opportunities in the market shifts, and understand when and where the pendulums are going to swing. According to him, there is a tremendous order within what may appear to be chaos. Creating databases helps identify patterns and track how empires decline, be it as a soft landing or an abrupt fall. Usually, he said, once the decline begins, it takes about 50 years for the change to be completed. In recent history, he cited the fall of the Berlin Wall as one transition. The need to analyse the past is imperative to predicting the future. Unfortunately, he said, the evidence indicates that most societies learn “absolutely nothing” from these cycles, have “no ability to retain knowledge and come up with the same stupid ideas every time.”

Here is a synopsis of what he said over two days. More details about him and his work are available here.

The decline of the West and the U.S.

He talked about how the U.S. system has amassed an “outrageous debt” and the consequences that await. “Every empire that collapses, it is because of debt. It’s always the same crisis. Governments spend more than what they have. Politicians all do the same thing. Collapse is inevitable.”

He explained why the real story never gets told — investigative journalists are muzzled, mainstream media bows to vested interests, court transcripts can be doctored, politicians often don’t read the bills they pass and rating agencies can be bribed to give Triple-A ratings. Given such a system, it was not surprising that companies like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns “could crash in 24 hours without the politicians having a clue as to what was going on,” followed by bailouts of other companies such as Goldman Sachs.

Today, he said, interest rates are now zero and the savings and incomes of the elderly people are being wiped out. “The U.S. is about as brain dead as it can possibly be,” Mr. Armstrong said. “About 40% of U.S. debt is held outside the country. I don’t see how the currency is going to survive. In times of war, you always try and undermine the value of your enemy’s currency. It’s standard operating procedure. Today that is very easy to do. it easier to do than in any other period of history.”

He noted that that the U.S. also went from being agrarian society to an industrialised society after the Great Depression, “so a wave of creative destruction is necessary. Without the Great Depression, the U.S. would have still been a farm country. Now, it is only 3% agrarian from an employment perspective. All countries go through the same cycle. As they industrialise, manufacturing moves to places where it is cheaper. That is human nature. You can follow it like a ballet. It cannot be prevented.” He said the U.S. “may break up into four regional sections.”

But he also criticised the highly polarised atmosphere and the “creation of an atmosphere of hatred against the rich” which will worsen the polarisation. He noted that the social unrest had already started in southern Europe and would eventually spread to the United States, facilitated and coordinated by the internet, similar to the Arab spring. That is why, he said, efforts are being made to put a “kill switch” into the Internet, even though it will be impossible to actually achieve.

He said that as the economic problems near, governments become much more draconian and start going after the rich and curbing civil liberties. “Each time there is a crisis, capital rushes around the world. It goes nuts, it creates confusion and anomalies. Then governments step in to deal with the situation and give themselves more power on the grounds that they could have prevented it if they had a more power. Then, all civil liberty vanishes.”

According to Mr. Armstrong, “the US government is doing everything it can do to grab more power. Security authorities can operate without search warrants and laws are being amended to allow them to put people away without lawyers or trial. It’s scary.” The more the West gets draconian, whether through taxation, chasing the rich out, or whatever, the worse it will get. He said he often talks to Russians who fled Russia and today see things happening that an American does not. “One guy fled to America and is now seeing things that he says he never saw even when he was in Russia.” Mr. Armstrong said the reality of what is going on cannot be fully appreciated “if you have not seen tanks driving down the street, as Americans have not.”

He said the assault on civil liberties will soon reach a stage where it will be “more than George Orwell by a factor of ten”. He asked: “Do you know how many people there are (being held without charge or trial) in jail whom no-one has ever heard of? The newspapers are not going tell you. It’s just part of the corruption. People in Congress are telling me to move to Ecuador – do you know why? Because its off the map. It’s located on the equator, located on highland plateau, the weather’s great all year around. There’s no surveillance and the phone calls are not swept.”

Mr. Armstrong said he did not favour bailing out Goldman Sachs or any other big company which fails. “If they go bust, many other banks are just waiting to take over. But as long as you continue to coddle them, they will continue to do it over and over again. Why should they do anything differently as long as they know they are covered? The corporations win both ways: the government subsidises their losses and pays them all their winnings.”

The Americans don’t want to admit what everybody knows, which is that they are losing power, he said. “You will see a major capitulation in the world financial system. This is not going to survive.” Asked about the military budget and wars, he said, wars, too, are cyclical and all are basically economically driven. Asked about Julian Assange and Wikileaks, he replied, “It’s all part of the same thing.”

He predicted that by August 2014 things will shift and a lot of civil unrest will emerge. By 2016, we will see political change and the emergence of a third party in the U.S. as people are getting fed up of the two parties. Overall, he forecast another 20 years of volatility. Sometimes when a government is enraged they burn down the barn in order to get the rat, he said, noting that even if the rich paid all the taxes, it would not pay off all the national U.S. debt.

Sovereign debt crisis will force changes in many countries, with the key indicators being capital flows and currency movements. He also warned that governments are trying to eliminate money. “They want everything to go electronic. Now you can pay over Google. That way they have absolute control over everything you do. It will get a lot worse before it gets better.”

The rise of Asia

He said because capital always needs a place to park, it now sees Asia as the next place to be. He noted that Asia by and large had learned the mistakes of the 1997 financial crisis and was now better placed to absorb the capital headed this way.

“Asia is moving at a completely different peak from the rest of the world. The whole region is going to be doing well, especially China and India and other countries that do not have a sovereign debt crisis problem. China will be the world’s financial capital and Number One economy by 2020.” He lauded the Australian move to become part of the Asian century as a recognition of this shift. He forecast that Singapore will be richest country on a per capita income basis in five years because it is doing everything correct. However, he expressed concern about what he called the growing anti-foreigner sentiment there.

To retain this advantage, he added, Asia will need to underpin its stability and rule of law. He again flagged a reminder of the perils of debt. It’s always debt, Mr. Armstrong noted, citing the role of debt in creating the 1997 financial crisis. He urged: “Do not get into debt. If you get into debt, you are in trouble.”

Role of money markets and capital shifts

Many of the same rules and law that apply in physics also apply in economics. In today’s globalised world, everything is interconnected, making it imperative for players to understand what is happening on the other side, Mr. Armstrong said. There is a tremendous reservoir of capital available and traders always have to look at where does it move.

“Why do people sell? Probably because they need money to cover the losses they are taking elsewhere. That’s when you get contagion. Even these panics, once you understand how to deal with them, you can make an absolute fortune.” He quoted Machiavelli as saying that ‘history repeats itself as the passions of man have never changed.’ It’s human nature. Sometimes when you are trading, your worst enemy is yourself. Indeed, one of his slides was headlined: “How to survive your own trading decisions.”

He noted that linear thinking reduces issues to a factor of “this caused that” whereas in fact it’s a combination of several different things. Dynamic thinking is required, Mr. Armstrong suggested. He added, “All your senses have to be involved in the trading process. There is something there that is hard to describe. It is important to get a feel for the market. When to trade, when to get involved, when to step back, where am I right and where am I wrong, where do you get out. Very often, it is boring, tedious work, requiring only two or three good trades a year to make real money. If they get it right, young traders can make a lot of money very quickly.”

Interestingly, Mr. Armstrong admitted, after being asked by this editor, that the money-market traders pay no attention the economic devastation and joblessness they can cause. The morality of their actions does not occur to them.

He claimed there is no truth to claims that those who own the capital are interested in controlling the world. “They are only interested in the next quarter and what they can get out of it….Both talent and money moves and there are core groups of very top brokers which move around the world. They just follow the capital flows.” The model will not change. Money will always swing from one side to the other, like a pendulum. It’s not the high or the low but the turning point that matters, Mr. Armstrong said.

Conclusion

In spite of what may appear to be his unorthodox views, Mr. Armstrong says he remains in demand by central bankers and political leaders around the world, “largely because I will tell them what I really think and will not kiss their ass.” In fact, he says, he often finds that government officials use him to say what they really think because they are constrained by political correctness from doing so.

The upcoming directional change on a global scale could well be accelerated by the unexpected consequences of natural disasters. He warned that the world will “have to make significant changes in how we manage society or we are going to land up in all kinds of wars. Somebody has to start this process.” The U.S. economist Milton Friedman had written a book calling for a check and balance system around the world. Mr. Armstrong said Mr. Friedman had attended one of his previous lectures and liked what he had heard, and encouraged him “to continue doing what I am doing now.”

One of Mr. Armstrong’s solutions is to create an international reserve currency that “won’t be a reserve currency for one particular country,” (as the dollar is to the United States). He also made some other suggestions related to the elimination of taxation and the power to borrow. He called for the piled up sovereign debt to be swapped for investment coupons and for term limits to be installed. As a non-economist, this editor couldn’t understand any of the above. His final suggestion was crystal clear, however: “Mandate democratic reforms where the people vote.”

Between the lines, however, Mr. Armstrong proved right those who see the entire system as being a form of casino capitalism, rife with traders who make devastating mistakes but only a few pay the price of causing immense damage to banks and financial institutions. Calls for systemic reform are echoing in many world forums because it’s become too risky and the price for failure is often paid by those at the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Indeed, there is too much money involved in the hands of too few people with too little accountability and too few checks and balances. It is what is driving the push to dismantle banking secrecy and the pursuit of tax evaders.

For the travel & tourism industry, Mr Armstrong’s message is clear: Be careful with future investments and be prepared for downturns, which are occurring with increasing frequency these days. If this year has proven to be good so far, it is largely because of the absence of any global crisis. But the winds of change are blowing furiously. Travel & tourism may be resilient but it’s not invincible. The full consequences of the “directional change” are yet to be prepared for