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By Ramzy Baroud

20 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

France is insisting on ‘rapid’ military intervention in Mali. Its unmanned drones have reportedly been scouring the desert of the troubled West African nation – although it claims that the drones are seeking the whereabouts of six French hostages believed to be held by Al-Qaeda. The French are likely to get their wish, especially following the recent political fiasco engineered by the country’s strong man and coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo. The Americans also covet intervention, but one that would serve their growing interests in the Sahel region. African countries are divided and have no clear alternative on how to restore Mali’s territorial integrity – and equally important political sovereignty – disjointed between Tuareg secessionists and Islamic militants in the north and factionalized army in the south.

The current crisis in Mali is the recent manifestation of a recurring episode of terrible suffering and constant struggles. It goes back much earlier than French officials in particular wish to recall. True, there is much bad blood between the various forces that are now fighting for control, but there is also much acrimony between Mali and France, the latter having conquered Mali (then called French Sudan) in 1898. After decades of a bitter struggle, Mali achieved its independence in 1960 under the auspices of a socialist government led by President Modibo Keita. One of his very early orders of business was breaking away with French influence and the Franc zone.

Former colonial powers rarely abandon their ambitions, even after their former colonies gain hard-earned freedom. They remain deeply entrenched by meddling in various ways that destabilize the former colonies. Then when opportune, they militarily intervene to uphold the status quo. In 1968 Keita was ousted from power, and few years later in 1977, he died in a lonely cell. His death ushered in mass protests, compelling few cosmetic gestures towards a new constitution and half-hearted democracy.

Turmoil defined Mali for many years since then, even after the country achieved a level of political stability in 1992. At the time it was believed that Mali was fast becoming a model for democracy, at least in the West Africa region. Few years later, thousands of refugees from the ever-neglected and under-represented Tuaregs began returning to their towns and villages mostly in the vast desert region in northern Mali. That return was introduced by a peace agreement signed between Tuaregs and the central government. Little on the ground has changed. Various bands of Islamic groups, some homegrown, others fleeing fighting in neighboring countries, especially Algeria, found haven in Mali’s north and west. At times, they fought amongst each other, at times they served some unclear agendas of outside parties, and at times they created temporary alliances amongst themselves.

While France attempted to keep Mali in its sphere of influence – thus its decision in 2002 to cancel over a third of Mali’s debt – the United States was also taking interest in Mali’s crucial position in the Sahel regions and the prospects created by the ungovernability of the northern regions.

Of course, the all-inclusive definition of Al-Qaeda served as the ever-convenient ruse to justify American involvement. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been used by Washington to rationalize the establishment of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM). It was set up in 2008 to manage US military interests in the whole continent with the exception of Egypt. The US State Department claimed that AFRICOM “will play a supportive role as Africans build democratic institutions and establish good governance across the continent.”

The importance of the Al-Qaeda narrative to the American role in the Sahel was highlighted in the last presidential debate between President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. To flex some political muscles, perhaps Romney warned of ‘Al-Qaeda type individuals” threatening to turn Mali into a new Afghanistan. Other western experts on the Sahel dispute the analogy, however claiming that Mali is descending into a Sudan-like model instead. Either way, the people of Mali are currently suffering the consequences of the burgeoning conflict, which reflects a convoluted mix of foreign agendas, extremist ideologies and real grievances of Malian tribes in the north and west.

The south of the country is not exactly an oasis of stability. The ongoing territorial struggle and political volatility are threatening the whole country, which has been battling a cruel famine and pitiless warlords. The most dominant faction in the Malian army is led by US-trained Army Capt. Amadou Sanogo, who on March 22 led a coup against President Amadou Toumani Toure. Sanogo’s reasoning – blaming Toure for failing to stamp out growing militant influence in the north – sounded more like a pretense than a genuine attempt at recovering the disintegrating country.

It remains unclear who Sanogo’s backers are, especially since France and the US are relatively tolerant of his political transgressions and violent conduct. Sanogo’s coup came shortly before elections, scheduled for last April. While the African Union (AU) reacted assertively to the coup by suspending Mali’s membership, western powers remained indecisive. Despite a half-hearted handing over of power from the coup leaders to a civilian government of President Dioncounda Traore, Sanogo remain firmly in charge. In May, the junta struck again, retaking power, as pro-Sanogo mobs almost beat president Traore to death inside his presidential compound.

Sanogo, empowered by the lack of decisiveness to his conduct, continued to play some political game or another. A short lived ‘national unity government’ under Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra was more or less toppled when Diarra was arrested by Sanogo’s men. He was forced to concede power and install a little known government administrator as his predecessor. Sonogo’s political show continues, especially as the West African regional grouping (ECOWAS), along with the AU remains focused on what they perceive as a more urgent priority: ending the territorial disintegration in the north and west.

The conflict in the north is in a constant influx. Alliances change, thus the nature of the conflict is in perpetual alteration. Large consignments of weapons that were made available during NATO’s war in Libya early last year, made their way to various rebel and militant groups throughout the region. The Tuaregs had received support from the ousted Libyan government and were dispersed during and following the war. Many of them returned to Mali, battle-hardened and emboldened by the advanced weapons.

Fighting in the north began in stages, most notably in January 2012. Sanogo’s coup created the needed political vacuum for Tuaregs’ National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) to declare independence in the north a mere two weeks later. The declaration was the result of quick military victories by MNLA and its militant allies, which led to the capture of Gao and other major towns. These successive developments further bolstered Islamic and other militant groups to seize cities across the country and hold them hostage to their ideologies and other agendas. For example, Ansar al-Din had reportedly worked jointly with the MNLA, but declared a war “against independence” and “for Islam” in June, as soon as it secured its control over Timbuktu. Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad, along with AQIM made their moves. The allies soon became bitter enemies.

Last September, rebels from various Islamic groupings in control of the north began advancing onto other strategic areas in the center and south-west parts of the country. Their territorial advances are now made against government-held towns and areas that are still controlled by Azawad Tuareg rebels.

There is now semi-consensus on the need for military intervention in Mali, although some differences persist over the nature and scope of that intervention. Sanogo himself has little interest in seeing other West African powers jockeying for influence in Bamako, which could threaten his thus far unchallenged rule. Moreover, it is unclear how affective military force can be, as the territorial fragmentation, many militant groupings and political discord throughout the country are almost impossible to navigate.

The stability of West Africa is surely at stake. The chances of a political solution are all but completely dissipated. The growing chaos will likely benefit interventionist states – France and the US in particular. A long-drawn new ‘war on terror,’ will justify further intervention in West Africa and more meddling in the affairs of ECOWAS countries.

A few years ago, a new ‘scramble for Africa’ was unleashed due to China’s growing influence in the continent. It was heightened by a more recent North African turmoil caused by the so-called Arab Spring. Opportunities are now abound for those ready to stake more claims over a long exploited region

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press).

By Issa Khalaf

20 December, 2012

@ www.alternet.org

Everything about Syria is steeped in miasma: is this conflict politically and sociologically definable as a civil war? Has it become a sectarian war? How strong and widespread is the Salafist (and global Jihadi) presence? Was militarization wise or did the opposition have no choice in this regard? Are the armed groups able to defeat the regime’s forces or will there be a perpetual, bloody stalemate whose only certainty is Syria’s complete physical destruction and long-term division? Is a negotiated outcome, that is, a political solution the only possibility, or is it uninformed to speak of political solutions at this stage of the conflict?

Despite this fog, there are, in my mind, several certainties. One, Syria is not a clear-cut case of bad regime versus good society, for that society is not at one regarding the violent overthrow of the state. This is not a mass, democratic revolution but a Sunni rebellion. Any spontaneity to its genesis, including the goal of non-violent resistance, came to a speedy end, provided with a significant impetus by the flow of foreign arms, money, and intelligence, including from the US. A substantial ‘silent’ majority desperately wishes to avoid Syria’s disintegration because they simply love their country, not the regime or armed rebels, and prefer reform and a negotiated settlement.

Two, it is false to equate, as the regime portrays it, every Syrian’s opposition to the Ba’athi state with acting on behalf of Zionists and imperialists, and equally false to suggest that advocating a negotiated settlement equates to buying into the regime’s self-narrative of an indispensable anti-imperialist frontline.

Three, foreign powers, especially Washington, several of its NATO allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, the latter essentially monarchic police states, are violating international law in pursuing subversion and violent regime change, and share primary responsibility for the radicalization, destabilization, and horrific violence inflicted on the people of Syria. Washington is interested in regime change, not in ensuring that neither side prevails to force a settlement.

Four, the fundamental truth is the Syrian people’s case for dignity and freedom, rights brutally denied and violated for so long by fearsome regimes such as the Syrian Ba’ath. The revolt against the Ba’athist regime, despite its now tainted nature, is not a conspiracy.

Five, despite Syria’s social diversity and divided loyalties, the fact that the regime has many supporters, and that a majority desires peaceful change, calls for the Syrian socio-political system to become no less than a civil, human rights-respecting, citizenship-based state. Still, Syria’s internal complexity and regional role requires special care and objective realism. Take Aleppo as a microcosm of Syrian complexity, the largest Syrian city containing some 82% Sunnis. Listening to the western, Qatari, or Saudi media, one would think that the city erupted into spontaneous rebellion and from the beginning was fighting a heroic war against the regime’s military and security forces. By objective accounts, however, Aleppo’s denizens supported the Damascus government by a large majority, many of them paying the price of Free Syrian Army reprisals. Now, since the penetration of armed groups and the violent zealotry of Salafists and foreign Jihadis, with their suicide bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings, looting and rape, as well as heavy, indiscriminate government firepower leading to the slow obliteration of this great historic and commercial city – one wonders what has happened to its people and their loyalties.

We only know that government forces and loyalists still hold the city, minus a couple of districts, as they do most of the country. Countless people have fled, many of their empty homes looted and ransacked by their would-be liberators, fearful of returning to rebel reprisals. Aleppo’s Islamist leaning al-Tawhid Division, ostensibly part of the FSA, contains numerous-armed factions, including many Salafi Islamists, who, themselves, are varied, ranging from Brotherhood types to al-Qaida-like extremists. There is also quite noticeable and significant Salafi literalist influence among the armed rebels generally. The disparate factions that make up the FSA are largely Islamist-dominated. Its battalions contain thousands of fighters of the Salafi/Jihadi group, Jabhat al-Nusra, a mainstay of the al-Tawhid in Aleppo.

In a situation of decentralized and disparate commands, such people are there at the front lines. All these groups, including the FSA, have an uneasy, distrustful relationship with the newly minted National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, as they previously did with the now discarded Syrian National Council, and as they have with the western powers. Fortunately, Syria does not have a tradition of extremist political Islam. On the contrary, given its pluralist diversity, its geostrategic location, and secular nationalist history, Jihadi-type extremism does not fit in Syria.

The chaos and physical destruction, the ever-present danger of the regime-Sunni war transmuting into a sectarian civil war are deeply worrying, and the Salafists thrive on such an environment. No question, though, in its militarist, violent manifestations, this is essentially a rebellion of the Sunni Muslims, at core from the regions of Hama and Homs, and battle-tested foreigners, including Salafis, supported by the Sunni autocracies and wealthy donors of the peninsula. It is unlikely that a literalist Salafist regime will come to power, much less global Jihadis, but likely that a Sunni-Brotherhood dominated regime, sidelining the National Coalition, will.

The defunct National Council’s main obsession was arming without a clear political programme. The new National Coalition has got itself political recognition as a sort of provisional government—even as Syria remains a member state of the UN led by the al-Assad government—from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, and Turkey, followed by the US, which, however, consigned one rebel group, the Jabha, to its terrorist blacklist. (This prompted all the rest of the armed rebel groups to declare their support for the Jabha.)

Western support is predicated on the promise that the Coalition will unify the opposition, at least act as an umbrella, and be a better watchdog that presumes to undertake the impossible, even inane, task of vouching for and endorsing those groups deserving of armed support, which Washington reckons amounts to two-thirds of the fighting groups and their commanders. These parties essentially cajoled through the expansion of the new Coalition’s membership to three times the previous Council’s size and which includes most of the old Council’s members. The new body’s composition is a safeguard to dilute Islamist influence.

Washington in particular rejected the Brotherhood-dominated Council because it could not deliver unity, or control or exclude extremist Islamists, even though Council members did what the US wanted most of all: they talked about peace and good relations with Israel.

Whether the US is willing to advocate a negotiated solution is in my view not an open question. Its apparent caution in providing advanced, or heavy, weaponry, unlike the reckless monarchic allies it shakily controls, is due to its fear of uncontrolled, unmanaged violence leading to an incompliant, even hostile, Islamist regime. The Obama administration’s ambivalence stems from the tension between aggressive regional allies and its recognition of several realities: the proliferation of extremist groups, the possibility of a bloody stalemate that will destabilize the region, and the potential that an armed group will get its hands on chemical weapons.

Thus, Washington’s most urgent and immediate goal, when not obstructing UN peace and dialogue missions, is to pressure the Coalition to construct a centralized military command and political unity and ferret out the extremists, supposedly one-third of the armed rebels. Its version of a negotiated solution is not genuine internal talks between Damascus and the rebels, but Assad’s departure, which Washington defines as a ‘transition’, but which is actually a precondition.

This, the US imagines, would avoid the concomitant augmentation of Salafi extremist power caused by protracted violence and keep international law and Russia out of the equation, ensuring an obeisant Coalition’s rule. Washington’s conception of ending Syrian suffering is not via morally, legally, diplomatically urgent negotiations between rebels and government. Instead, it repeatedly stresses Assad’s inevitably violent downfall, as only he is responsible for his people’s calamity, thereby absolving it and its allies of complicity in Syria’s torment and prolongation of this horrific upheaval.

Yet the foreign arming of the rebels – that is, the militarization of this conflict – has been Syria’s worst affliction. For Syria does not need lethal arms and war, but a coherent, truly representative opposition built without interference, and ready to find a negotiated political solution to violent conflict. This requires internal Syrian national agreement on a transitional regime change through supervised elections. This at least is the ideal, though not the reality; for everyone, from assorted rebels, hell bent on acquiring advanced weaponry to Coalition members to Washington to local Gulf regimes, wants Assad’s head. The Alawite core of the regime not surprisingly sees this as an existential threat.

What prevails in Syria today is maddening ambiguity and galling hypocrisy on all sides: of the relationship between the Coalition and armed rebels, the craziness of inter-Arab politics, Gulf and Turkish hatred of the Shi’i Alawite Syrian regime—which I call the Sunni Syndrome—nation-destroying French and British actions characterized as advocacy of democracy, and single-minded US control of Syria couched as constructive, responsible diplomacy.

With multiple external players violently pursuing their own agendas supporting multiple factions with their own visions, such as these are, the chance of Syrians reaching a negotiated political solution, much less a compromise leading to such, is virtually nil. In reality, the Ba’ath, the Syrian regime, al-Assad, the socio-political system that prevailed in Syria for nearly a half century all have ended, or at least will not be restored. This in itself is extraordinary. Ultimately, the horrific violence and terrorism from both the state and its opponents is the responsibility of the regime, for it chose to let the country go to hell, and unwittingly invited outside intervention, rather than peacefully oversee a democratic transition in the early phase of the rebellion.

This is an enduring quality of Arab ruling regimes, mostly because they lack fundamental legitimacy and rule over divided societies. One can no longer say Syria is what it used to be, a moderate, pragmatic, stabilizing and secular regional centre keeping extremism at bay. This political role is a natural function of its geography and relatively diverse ethno-sectarian make-up, as well as the political sophistication of its people. Under radically changing circumstances, most importantly, a weakened and fractured Syria, it may not be able to play that role again for decades to come. The west and their autocratic Middle Eastern allies are destroying one ruling group in exchange for another dominated by Brotherhood Islamists. And those Salafists/Jihadists on the front lines will not only want a share of power, but some of them may continue post-Assad violence and insurgency, to the continuing danger of many Syrians.

Gholamali Khoshroo

19 December, 2012

@ www.iranreview.org

During the past four decades, Palestine has been able to convince the international community to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1974 followed by official recognition of the Palestinian Self-Rule in 1993, and finally upgrading Palestine’s status in the United Nations from “non-member entity” to “non-member observer state,” in 2012.

As a result of tremendous diplomatic efforts and amid high enthusiasm of Palestinians, the status of Palestine in the UN General Assembly has been upgraded to “non-member observer state” through 138 positive votes. By doing so, the international community has practically recognized Palestine as an independent state, though it is still not an official UN member, but an observer state. The important point is that promotion of Palestine to a non-member observer state can pave the way for full membership of Palestinians in the United Nations and this is exactly the same path that Switzerland and Germany treaded many years ago in order to become full members of the UN.

According to the Charter of the United Nations, full membership of countries in the world body hinges on confirming a state’s qualifications by the Security Council in addition to positive votes of, at least, two-thirds of the General Assembly member states. Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently heading the Palestinian Authority, did his best last year to promote the status of Palestine in the UN to full membership by pushing ahead with this goal through the Security Council. The United States, however, as a staunch ally of Israel and permanent supporter of suppression of the Palestinian people prevented this from happening by threatening or suborning various states. At the General Assembly, Palestine has regularly enjoyed the support of member states, but due to discriminatory structure of the Security Council, the Palestinian government has not been practically able to prevent Israel from going on with its policy of occupying Palestinian lands, violating their rights, and suppressing their protests.

The United States and Israel had exerted a lot of pressure to prevent Palestine’s status from being upgraded to “non-observer member state,” but they failed in practice and could not find more than seven votes out of 193 UN member states for their views. One of those seven votes belonged to Canada, a North American state, with the other one being given by the Czech Republic, a European state. The other five states opposing Palestine upgrade were tiny island states. The negative vote of Canada is, meanwhile, noteworthy. Canada has apparently based its foreign policy on promoting the human rights and democracy and bolstering humanitarian institutions across the world, and Ottawa believes that it has a say in this field. However, in this case, which is tied to the rights of millions of human beings who have been living under occupation by occupiers and bullies since 60 years ago, it has voted in favor of Israel.

Such a blatant failure and diplomatic fiasco has been almost unprecedented for the United States and Israel and, as such, is very significant. Israeli officials believe that changing situation of Palestine will lead to a parallel change in the balance of regional power and will, therefore, cause problems for the so-called peace accords between Israel and Palestinians.

The new status of Palestine makes it possible for the Palestinian officials to accede to international organizations, institutions, treaties and conventions and take advantage of international guarantees to restore their rights. For example, Israel is consuming 85 percent of all water resources in the West Bank unilaterally. According to reports published by major international human rights organizations, the people of the besieged Gaza Strip are also deprived of healthy potable water because Israel prevents transfer of water desalination equipment into Gaza, thus, depriving its people from the most basic human need, which is drinking water.

Legal experts believe now that Palestine has been recognized as an observer state by the UN, it can file lawsuits with the International Criminal Court and try to put Israeli criminals to trial for such charges as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Once in 2009, the Palestinian Authority applied for membership at the Court, but the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor turned down Palestine’s request alleging that it had not been recognized as a “state.” However, after the categorical vote of the General Assembly to the upgrade of Palestine’s status, the situation has totally changed in favor of Palestinians. To show his disregard for the will of the international community and cover up his government’s failure, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Israeli regime will build 3,000 new settler units in the Eastern al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the occupied territories of the West Bank. This decision has been taken at a time that the international community considers continuation of the construction of settlements by Israel on the occupied territories as a war crime, and Palestinians can take legal action against it via the International Criminal Court.

The head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has also announced that now the rights of the Palestinian people and state within the borders set in 1967 are under protection of the fourth Geneva Convention and Israel should be held accountable for his inhuman crimes. The Palestinians have even announced that the new status of Palestine at the UN also changes the position of Palestinian prisoners in Israel and enables them to restore the legitimate rights of those prisoners which have been so far violated by the Israeli regime. Israel has also declared when faced with the will of the international community that it will seize taxable assets of the Palestinian Authority and will not give them back to Palestinians.

Of course, the noteworthy point here is that due to Washington’s unbridled support for Israel, Tel Aviv regime has never cared for the UN decisions and even the UN Resolution 242 which insisted on Israel’s withdrawal to behind 1967 borders was never implemented by Tel Aviv. The Palestinian resistance forces are of the opinion that emphasis on 1967 borders is necessary, but not adequate. They believe that this plan is only part of the strategy which should be pursued for the liberation of the entire Palestinian territories and restoration of absolute rights of Palestinians, especially the return of all refugees to their homeland. As a result, they oppose any plan which may lead to giving up part of the Palestinian territory to Israelis. Therefore, they do not recognize territories which were occupied by Israel in 1944 to belong to Israel and insist on the right of about six million Palestinian refugees to go back to their motherland.

Although resistance and jihadist forces such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad had not formulated this plan, they did not oppose it either. They considered this a step toward further isolation of Israel and mounting international pressure on Tel Aviv regime, and maintain that taking any concession from Israel is a step toward establishment of a free and independent Palestinian state. The secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad has clearly announced that they will not oppose the initiative provided that it seeks a Palestinian state whose borders are the Mediterranean, on the one side, and Jordan River, on the other side. If, they say, it means to put a ceiling on the Palestinians’ demands, the Islamic Jihad would oppose the initiative.

The issue of Palestine has been the most important problem between the Muslim world and the West led by the United States over the past six decades. Many cases of insecurity, instability, violence, military deployment, and occupation in the Middle East have their roots in the injustice which has been, and is still being, done to the people of Palestine. Now that the people of the Middle East and the Islamic world are standing up to dependent leaders who are in line with the US policies in the region, nobody can continue to violate the rights of millions of people in Palestine and shatter their resistance against Israel. Continued support of the United States for Israel will further upset and irate Muslims and will only obliterate any change of understanding and cooperation for peace and justice. The unequivocal vote of the General Assembly for the upgrade of Palestine’s status and the resistance of people in the Gaza Strip against Israeli aggression have clearly proven that it is time for the United States to review its Middle East policies.

By Bill Van Auken

19 December, 2012

@ WSWS.org

Having first issued threats against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad over unspecified intelligence regarding its chemical weapons, the Obama administration is now warning that these arms may fall into the hands of the “rebels” which Washington itself has backed.

This is the significance of a front-page article published this week by the Washington Post, which reported that, “US officials are increasingly worried that Syria’s weapons of mass destruction could fall into the hands of Islamist extremists, rogue generals or other uncontrollable factions.”

According to the Post, citing unnamed US officials, members of the Islamist militia, al-Nusra, which Washington has formally designated as a “foreign terrorist organization” and charged is an offshoot of Al Qaeda, overran “the Sheik Suleiman military base near Aleppo, where research on chemical weapons had been conducted” and were “closing in on another base near Aleppo, known as Safirah, which has served as a major production center for such munitions.”

While a decade ago, Washington prepared its invasion of Iraq by propagating lies about the regime of Saddam Hussein collaborating with Al Qaeda and a supposed threat he would supply the terrorist organization with “weapons of mass destruction,” today the Obama administration is floating a new and perverse pretext for war. It is raising the specter that its war for regime change in Syria might place such weapons into the hands of the Al Qaeda-linked forces that the US itself has both armed and strengthened in the bid to oust Assad.

While Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other administration officials have spoken publicly about the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against the insurgency in Syria being a “red line” that would trigger US “consequences,” the administration has not made such pronouncements about its response to these weapons being appropriated by Al Qaeda-linked “rebels.”

Speaking to US military personnel at the giant American base at Incirlik in southern Turkey, about 60 miles from the Syrian border, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke of the Pentagon’s preparations for intervention in Syria over the chemical weapons issue. “We have a number of options that we can deploy if we have to, when the president makes that decision, to be able to act,” said Panetta.

The Pentagon chief added: “I’m not going to go into specifics. But I can tell you that—you know, that the United States, when we decide we’re going to do something, we damned well are going to do it.”

According to the Post report, unnamed Pentagon officials said that US military officers have been “updating their contingency plans in recent weeks as chaos has overtaken Syria.” They said that Washington was “working closely with Israel, Jordan and NATO allies, including Turkey, to monitor dozens of sites where Syria is suspected of keeping chemical arms and to coordinate options to intervene if necessary.”

Leonard Spector, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute for International Studies told the Post that it would take 1,000 inspectors and specialists on the ground in Syria to “monitor the condition of each [chemical weapons] site and take inventory.”

The Post article adds, however: “That’s assuming there would be no need to provide security at the installations, much less engage hostile forces. In a worst case scenario, under which the Syrian military would gas its own people, the Pentagon has projected that it could take up to 75,000 troops to intervene.”

Meanwhile, the Assad regime has issued its own warnings. Insisting that it would never use chemical weapons against the Syrian population, it charges that the real threat comes from the “rebels” and their imperialist patron in Washington.

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations in a letter to the Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concerns in Damascus that the US and its allies could supply the Islamist militias with chemical weapons and then accuse the Syrian government of using them to provide a pretext for direct intervention.

“We have repeatedly stated publicly and through diplomatic channels that Syria will not under any circumstances use any chemical weapons that it may have, because it is defending its people from terrorists backed by well-known states, at the forefront of which is the United States of America,” wrote Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari. The letter was dated December 8 but first made public on Monday.

“We are genuinely worried that certain states that support terrorism and terrorists could provide the armed terrorist groups with chemical weapons, and then claim they had been used by the Syrian Government,” Ja’afari continued.

In response to Washington’s threats of intervention over a supposed danger that the Syrian regime will employ the weapons against the country’s population, the ambassador wrote, “States such as the United States of America that have used chemical and similar weapons are in no position to launch such a campaign, particularly because, in 2003, they used the pretext of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in order to justify their invasion and occupation.”

Last week, in conjunction with a “Friends of Syria” conference in Morocco, the Obama administration took the combined actions of recognizing the Syrian National Coalition—whose leadership had been cobbled together the previous month under the direction of the US State Department at a luxury hotel in Doha—and of placing the al Nusra front on its list of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The incongruity of these two measures, one of which signals a policy of war for regime change until victory, while the other seeks to distance Washington from what is widely acknowledged as the leading fighting force in this war, has led to protests from among the supposed “moderates” that the US publicly backs.

Among the latest to criticize Washington’s actions is Riad Seif, the wealthy exiled Syrian businessman who collaborated with the State Department in launching the initiative for the new Syrian opposition front. He disputed the terrorist designation, telling the French daily Le Figaro: “They do not hurt anyone. Generally, the Syrian Islamists are known for their moderation.”

Seif made this statement after a video placed on YouTube and reposted by the Syrian state news agency Sana had been widely viewed in Syria—though not even mentioned by the US corporate media. It depicts Sunni Islamist “rebels” physically abusing two captured Syrian Alawite officers (from the same sect as Assad) and then beheading them, with a boy appearing to be about 10 years old given a sword to take the first hack at one of their necks.

The video is emblematic of the bitter sectarian character of the civil war into which Syria has been plunged by US and Western intervention.

Washington’s feigned concern for the Syrian people in the face of an alleged threat from chemical weapons is a lie and a pretext. US imperialism is working in a de facto alliance with the most reactionary Islamist forces, including Al Qaeda, in a concerted attempt to lay waste to Syrian society, as part of a broader campaign to reorder the Middle East in its own interests.

By Veterans for Peace

19December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Veterans For Peace urgently calls on the United States and NATO to cease all military activity in Syria, halt all US and NATO shipments of weapons, and abandon all threats to further escalate the violence under which the people of Syria are suffering.

NATO troops and missiles should be withdrawn from Turkey and other surrounding nations. US ships should exit the Mediterranean.

Veterans For Peace is an organization of veterans who draw upon their military experiences in working for the abolition of war. We have not entered into this work without consideration of many situations similar to the current one in Syria.

Peace negotiations, while very difficult, will be easier now, and will do more good now, than after greater violence. Those negotiations must come, and delaying them will cost many men, women, and children their lives.

No good can come from US military intervention in Syria. The people of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and dozens of other nations in Latin America and around the world have not been made better off by US military intervention.

While experts have great doubt that the Syrian government will use chemical weapons, while accounts of past use are dishonest, and while claims that such use is imminent are unsubstantiated and highly suspicious, the most likely way to provoke such use is the threat of an escalated foreign intervention. Required now by practicality, morality, and the law is de-escalation.

The possession or use of one kind of weapon cannot justify the use of another. Were the Syrian government to use chemical weapons against Syrians, the United States would not be justified in using other kinds of weapons against Syrians. The United States possesses chemical and biological weapons, as well as nuclear weapons, and possesses and uses cluster bombs, white phosphorus, depleted uranium weapons, mines, and weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles — none of which justifies military attacks on the US government.

The United States’ own military actions kill far more civilians than combatants. The United States facilitates and tolerates governments’ abuses of their own people in nations around the world and around Western Asia, notably in Bahrain — not to mention in Syria, to which the United States has in recent years sent victims to have them tortured. The world does not believe US motivations for intervention in Syria are humanitarian. The motivation has been too openly advertised as the overthrow of a government too friendly with the government of Iran and insufficiently subservient to NATO. Syria has been on a Pentagon list for regime change since at least 2001.

The threat of war, like the use of war, is a violation of the UN Charter, to which both the United States and Syria are parties. War without Congressional declaration is a violation of the US Constitution.

Another US war will not only breed hostility. It will directly arm and supply those already hostile to the US government.

How many times must we watch the same mistakes repeated?

The options are not limited to doing nothing or escalating warfare. Nonviolent resistance to tyranny has proven far more likely to succeed, and the successes far longer lasting. Nations and individuals outside of Syria should do what they can to facilitate the nonviolent pursuit of justice.

But Syria’s struggles should be controlled by the Syrian people without military intervention. The first step is a cease-fire and de-escalation. The US military and NATO can assist only by departing. (http://www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2012/12/13/veterans-peace-opposes-military-intervention-syria)

Veterans For Peace is a national organization, founded in 1985 with approximately 5,000 members in 150 chapters located in every US state and several countries. It is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) by the United Nations, and is the only national veterans’ organization

calling for the abolishment of war. Contact:

Leah Bolger leah@veteransforpeace.org 541-207-7761

Mike Reid mikereid@veteransforpeace.org 314-766-4657

David Swanson david@davidswanson.com 202-329-7847

By Countercurrents.org

19 December, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Two years after the uprising against the autocrat Ben Ali, the present day Tunisia is increasingly gripped with socio-political tension. The Islamist president and speaker in the country were stoned. The president was heckled by the people in another incident. At the same time, assaults on non-Moslems are on the rise.

Protesters on December 17, 2012 hurled rocks at Tunisia’s president Moncef Marzouki and parliamentary speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar in Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the revolution that erupted exactly two years ago [1].

The incident began after a speech by Marzouki in the central Tunisian town, where celebrations were taking place to mark the anniversary of the revolution, and as Ben Jaafar was about to speak.

The security forces swiftly evacuated the two men to the regional government headquarters, an AFP journalist reported.

The protesters invaded the square where the head of state had been addressing the crowd. The people started shouting: “the people want the fall of the government.”

The police held back, after violent clashes over the past few months, which have often followed attempts to disperse protesters angry over the Islamist-led government’s failure to improve living conditions in the poor region.

Clashes and strikes as well as attacks by hardline Islamists have multiplied across Tunisia in the run-up to the second anniversary of the start of Tunisia’s revolution.

As the president took to the podium many in the crowd started shouting “Get out Get out!”, one of the rallying cries of the revolution that toppled the regime of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Marzouki promised economic progress within six months to the people of Sidi Bouzid, where poverty and unemployment were key factors behind the uprising that began there on December 17, 2010, after Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor set, himself on fire in protest at police harassment.

“I understand this legitimate anger. But the government has diagnosed the problem. In six months, a stable government will be in place and will provide the remedy to heal the country’s problems,” said the president, who was jeered by the crowd.

Marzouki had been heckled earlier in the morning, when he visited the grave of Bouazizi.

Threat of general strike

 

The government says it has reached tentative agreement with country’s trade union confederation to call off nationwide strike planned for revolution’s second anniversary [2].

President Marzouki, meanwhile, postponed trips to Poland and Bulgaria scheduled for this week as tensions mounted ahead of the strike.

The General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) called the strike amid tensions with the ruling Islamist Ennahda party following what the union said was an attack by the party’s supporters on a union demonstration in Tunis and an attack on its headquarters by Islamist militants close to the Ennahda.

A union leader told AFP the UGTT demands the dissolution of the pro-Ennahda League for the Protection of the Revolution, which it accuses of carrying out last week’s attack.

Many Tunisians feel bitterly disappointed by the failure of the promises to improve their lives, especially in the marginalized interior which suffers from a chronic lack of development and high unemployment.

Clashes, strikes and attacks by hardline Islamists have multiplied across Tunisia.

The nationwide strike call is only the third to be made by the half-million strong UGTT since its foundation in the 1940s.

Disappointed by the failure to improve their lives, four volatile regions in Tunisia – including the part where the Arab Spring began – went on strike amid rising tensions with the ruling Islamic party [3].

The closure of the main private and public companies in those areas was called by regional branches of the main labor group, the UGTT.

Assault

Meat cleaver-wielding Salafists attack hotel bar in Tunisian city of Subaytilah in growing struggle between ultra-conservative Muslims and their more secular-minded compatriots [4].

An estimated 15 Salafists destroyed the hotel’s furniture and bar and burned a vehicle parked in front of the building. Bearded men threatened hotel guests with meat cleavers and called them “infidels,” eyewitnesses said.

The country has witnessed numerous violent incidents linked to hardliners, prompting opposition activists to accuse the Islamist-led coalition government of not doing enough to rein them in. There has been a complex domestic struggle over the role of religion in government and society during the post-revolutionary period.

The bar-related incident in Subaytilah comes after a similar attack on a bar in Sidi Bouzid. Bottles were smashed and customers were chased away with cries of “God is Great” and “drinking is forbidden.”

Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the uprising that toppled former president Ben Ali last year, is a stronghold of the Salafist movement, which has grown increasingly assertive in recent months.

Violence later spread to the capital where there were clashes between alcohol sellers and Salafists, wounding a police commander.

Ennahda, a moderate Islamist group lead by Rachid Ghannouchi, formed a coalition with two non-religious parties and has promised not to ban alcohol, impose the veil or use sharia [Islamic law] as the basis of Tunisian law.

It is under pressure from both Salafists calling for the introduction of Islamic law and secular opposition parties determined to prevent this.

Ennahda’s stance carries weight. Its secretary-general, Hamadi Jebali, is prime minister, and the party controls more than 40 percent of the seats in the constituent assembly. Salafists are not fully represented by any bloc in the assembly, but have stepped up street protests to press for their demands.

Secularists apprehend that Ennahda has been too soft on the Salafists who since the revolution have attacked or threatened theatres, cinemas and journalists, and most recently Tunisia’s tiny Jewish community.

Source:

[1] “Stones thrown at Tunisian leaders in Sidi Bouzid”, Dec. 17, 2012, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/60713/World/Region/Stones-thrown-at-Tunisian-leaders-in-Sidi-Bouzid-A.aspx

[2] “Tunisia government says draft deal to avoid general strike”, Dec. 11, 2012,

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/0/60315/World/0/Tunisia-government-says-draft-deal-to-avoid-genera.aspx

[3] “Workers strike in volatile Tunisia regions”,

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/0/59923/World/0/Workers-strike-in-volatile-Tunisia-regions.aspx

[4] Ahram Online , “Tunisian Salafists attack bar, call drinkers ‘infidels’”,Friday 14 Dec 2012

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/0/60487/World/0/Tunisian-Salafists-attack-bar,-call-drinkers-infid.aspx

 

Terrorists Killed in Damascus Countryside, Deir Ezzor and Idleb, Weapons Confiscated in Daraa

Dec 19, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA)_A unit of the armed forces carried out a qualitative operation on Tuesday, killing a number of terrorists in al-Dhiyabieh in Damascus countryside.

An official source told SANA that the group of the terrorist nicknamed Abu Ayman was eliminated. The terrorists Abdul-Ghani Bkheit, Mohammad Hamada and Fares al-Rahwas were identified among the dead.

Meanwhile, another army unit destroyed a hideout for terrorists from the so-called “Islam Brigade” in Zamalka in the eastern Ghouta.

SANA reporter qouted an official source as saying that the army killed and injured many terrorists, adding that terrorist Wassim Marwan al-Olabi was identified among the dead.

In the same context, a unit of the Armed Forces killed a number of terrorists and destroyed their weapons and ammunition in al-Husseiniyeh.

An official source told SANA reporter that another army unit destroyed a mortar in al-Bahdaliyeh and killed three terrorists.

Meanwhile, a unit of the armed forces eliminated terrorists groups who were perpetrating acts of killing and looting the private and public properties in al-Hajar al-Aswad in Damascus countryside.

A source stated that among the terrorists killed were Yaser Yahya Eid, leader of a so-called group  “Ansar Allah” in al-Hajar al-Aswad along with Mohammad Sultan Hussein, Rizk Abu Aisha, Walid al-Akrami, Mohammad ahmad al-Jolani and Mohammad al-Louis.

The Army continues its National Duty in Aleppo and its countryside

Units of the armed forces today continued their national duty in clearing Aleppo and its countryside from the mercenary terrorists.

In Aleppo countryside, units of the army targeted gatherings of terrorists near al-Nour Association in Andan, around the playground in al-Mansoura, inflicting heavy losses upon them.

A source in the province told SANA that the army units also targeted dens of terrorists at al-Hadi Association in Kfar Dae’l and al-Jisr in Khan Toman, killing a number of terrorists and injuring many others.

Meanwhile, another army unit targeted gatherings of terrorists in the old city and al-Lermon, inflicting heavy losses upon them.

At al-Nakreen, a unit of the army was able to destroy a warehouse of weapons and munitions while another army unit targeted a gathering for terrorists behind Golden city Compound.

The Army Kills Scores of Terrorists in Deir Ezzor

Meanwhile, units of the Armed Forces killed scores of terrorists in al-Mreiy’ieh, al-Rushdiyeh and al-Jbeileh in Deir Ezzor province.

An official source told SANA reporter that an army unit clashed with an armed terrorist group in al-Mreiy’ieh, killing many of its members and injuring others.

The source added that terrorists Mohammad Yasin al-Mheisen and Loai al-Salem were identified among the dead.

In al-Rushdiyeh, a unit of the Armed Forces confronted terrorists who were committing acts of killing and looting in the area.

The clashes resulted in killing and injuring many of them, including terrorist Omar Suleiman al-Hamadi.

In a relevant context, an army unit targeted a gathering for terrorists in al-Hweiqa, killing and injuring many terrorists.

Terrorist Mohammad Ahmad al-Fad’am was identified among the dead.

Armed Forces Inflict Heavy Losses upon Terrorists In Idleb Countryside

Armed Forces unit carried out a series of operations in Idleb countryside, resulting in the destruction of terrorist bases and gatherings in the town of Bansh where a number of terrorists were killed and others were injured.

A number of terrorists were also eliminated in the town of Zardana, in addition to destroying a workshop for manufacturing homemade weapons in the town of Saraqeb and killing several terrorists who were in it.

Engineering units dismantled an explosive device weighing 100kg which terrorists had planted on the highway between Saraqeb and Ariha and rigged it for remote detonation.

Weapons Confiscated in Daraa Countryside

The authorities confiscated weapons from terrorists in the village of al-Masmiye in Daraa countryside, including assault rifles, PKC machineguns, 9 US-made shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, one LAW rocket, RPG launchers, and handguns.

The weapons were confiscated following a clash between the authorities and terrorists in the village which resulted in the killing of a number of terrorists including Jihad al-Ghazali, Jamal Ahmad Sayel al-Hasan, Anas Mohammad al-Jarad, and Mohammad Marouf Matar.

Meanwhile, the competent authorities today arrested a number of terrorists while storming one of their dens at al-Nazeheen camp in Daraa, seizing different kinds of weapons inside the den.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that the seized weapons included 11 rifles and a machinegun.

Christmas Evening for the Syriac Mar Afram Choir Invoking Peace would prevail in Syria

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-A Christmas evening for the Syriac Mar Afram Choir was held on Tuesday at Mar Gregory Cathedral for the Syriac Orthodox in Bab Touma, Damascus, including prayers invoking peace to prevail in Syria.

The choir presented Christmas music pieces, songs and anthems inspired by Damascus, the city of joy, as what has been said in the Holy Book.

The Choir of First Mar Afram Iwas the Syriac was established by Mar Ignatius Zakka Iwas, the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East.

Syria Qualifies for West Asian Football Federation Championship Finals

Dec 18, 2012

KUWAIT, (SANA) – The Syrian National Football team qualified for the finals of the 2012 West Asian Football Federation Championship after beating Bahrain 3-2 in the match held on Tuesday evening in Kuwait.

After a goalless first half, the first goal was scored by Bahrain at the 67 minutes mark, only for Syria to score the equalizer at the 71 minutes mark, ending the second half in a draw.

During the additional times, the two teams didn’t score, going to the penalty kicks when the Syrian team has been able to win the match 3-2 and go to the final match.

General State Budget for 2013 Approved with SYP 1383 Billion

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- The People’s Assembly on Tuesday approved the general state budget for 2013 with a total of SYP 1383 billion, recording a 4 % increase over the budget of 2012.

Minister of Finance, Mohammad al-Jleilati, said the budget of 2013 takes into consideration the social dimension as a firm strategy to carrying out the financial policy and boosting trust between the government and citizens through transparency and openness regarding all financial, economic and social issues.

He stressed that the global political, economic and security war waged against Syria and the sanctions imposed on it are aimed at undermining the national economy and causing a structural flaw in the total balance of this economy, in addition to increasing the budget deficit.

Minister al-Jleilati however clarified that the general state budget has started to suffer deficits since 2003 because of relying mainly on the oil resources, and that was when production would reach up to 700 thousand barrels, which has dropped in the current year down to 225 thousand barrels, leading to an increase in the percentage of oil derivatives import. He explained how the current crisis which the country is going through has caused a decrease in the purchasing power of the Syrian Pound and affected that of commodity and consumable material distribution, leading accordingly to a big rise in the price of all materials due to inflation.

The Minister stressed that work is underway to reactivate the work of the halls of consumable materials establishments and consumable distribution cars to reduce the burdens on the citizens, in addition to focusing on commodity pricing according to the official foreign currency prices.

Al-Jleilati added that the government has given businessmen the required foreign currency to enable them pay for their imports with the aim to overcome the economic sanctions, noting that this cooperation has resulted in ensuing sufficient amounts of rice and sugar for a whole year.

He said the priority now is to follow up on carrying out the projects that focus on supporting the national economy and contribute to securing production requirements and the basic materials for the citizens.

Political Solution Only Way out of Syrian Crisis, China Says

Dec 18, 2012

Beijing, (SANA)_The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the only solution to the crisis in Syria is the political solution, calling upon all parties involved to abide by Geneva statement.

Xinhua News Agency quoted the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying as saying at a regular press conference that ”China is open to any political settlement that is acceptable by a broad section of the Syrian people, and respects the choice of the people and adopts a positive and open position regarding any political solution.”

Hua called upon all parties concerned to work together according to Geneva statement and launch talks as soon as possible for negotiations on devising a plan for a political transition process in Syria.

The spokesperson also urged the parties in Syria to halt violence, indicating that China sees that the use of force won’t solve issues.

Mehmanparast: West Who Supports Terrorism in Syria Wants to Decide Its Destiny on behalf of Syrians

Dec 18, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA)- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast reiterated on Tuesday his country’s stance which calls for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria through dialogue among the Syrians themselves, pointing out that the West and the US want to decide the destiny and future of Syria on behalf of the Syrian people.

At a press conference, Mehmanparast called on the western countries which assume democracy and protecting human rights to leave the Syrian people decide their future far from any interferences.

He warned of the continuation of supporting terrorists in Syria by the western countries and some regional and Arab countries through sending weapons and money.

Mehmanparast called on all sides which have influence on the armed groups to put pressure on them to realize security and peace in Syria and pave the ground for national dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the crisis.

On deploying patriot missiles along the Turkish-Syrian borders, Mehmanparast said that all countries have to seek realizing security and peace in the region, calling on the Turkish officials to cooperate with the neighboring countries to maintain security and peace in the region.

Iranian Defense Minister: Presence of Foreign Forces in the Region Is  Not in Its Interest

Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Wahidi, reiterated his country’s rejection of the deployment of Patriot missile system in Turkey, considering that the presence of foreign forces in the region is not in the interest of its peoples.

Maj. Gen, Wahidi said in a statement that the West has proved that it does not care about the peoples’ interests and cares only about those of its own.

On the developments in Syria, the Iranian Defense Minister said the Zionist entity is the one to benefit most from the violence in Syria which stands at the first line of confrontation against it.

Wahidi added that the biggest loser as a result of this violence is the Syrian people who have fallen victim to the terrorists targeting them.

Russia, Iran: Syria’s Fate Should be Determined by Syrian People

Dec 18, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Council, Ilyas Umakhanov, said that Russia is committed to its stance that Syria’s fate should be determined by the Syrians.

RT website quoted Umakhanov as saying, during his meeting with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, that ”The Russian parliament, foreign ministry, government and President are committed to a unified stance and approach on the situation in Syria.”

”The fate of Syria is to be determined by the Syrian people, and any foreign attempt at imposing solutions will regrettably aggravate the situation.”

He added that there are a lot of Russian nationals in Syria, ”so for us, the situation has a humanitarian dimension too.”

For his part, Abdollahian said that Iran sees Russia a strategic partner and backs close bilateral cooperation in several fields.

”I’d like to point out that we have a strategic approach for cooperation with Russia…We cooperate in myriad fields and maintain good relations. Based on the high expectations in the two countries, this level of cooperation is not satisfactory for the leadership in Iran and Russia.”

Abdollahian: Halting Support for Armed Terrorist Groups Guarantees Restoring Calm to Syria

In an exclusive interview with Russia Today, Abdollahian stressed that stopping the support offered by some foreign parties to the armed terrorist groups in Syria will guarantee restoring calm to the country.

He said that if some foreign parties halted supporting the terrorists and the irresponsible armed militias in Syria, we will immediately sense the return of calm to it, indicating that “only then an appropriate foundation will be laid to go ahead with reforms, form a government of national accord and enhance dialogue.”

He reiterated his country’s support to the plan of the UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi.

Abdollahian also told SANA’s correspondent in Moscow that Russia and Iran have mutual viewpoints regarding supporting Syria, pointing out that Iran is communicating with the Syrian opposition which held meetings in Tehran recently.

On the deployment of international peacekeeping forces in Syria, Abdollahian said that this issue concerns the Syrian side, calling for monitoring Syrian borders and international cooperation to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Syria.

In a press conference, Abdollahian addressed the deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey, saying that this won’t bolster its security nor regional security.

He also criticized US State Secretary Hillary Clinton for her support of sending weapons to terrorists in Syria.

As for the cancellation of the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Turkey, Abdollahian said that there are disagreements between the two countries regarding Syria.

Patrushev: Russia Interested in Halting Violence in Syria, Holding Dialogue between Government and Opposition Necessary

Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev  said on Tuesday that his country is interested in halting violence in Syria and restoring issues back to normal, stressing the necessity of holding dialogue between the Syrian Government and the opposition.

In an interview with Komsemolskaya Pravda Newspaper, Patrushev said that the so-called “Syrian Opposition” is scattered, adding that the US declared that it would support the Doha Coalition which is working abroad.

He stressed that there will never be peace in Syria without the participation of the current leadership.

Russia’s Ambassador to Lebanon: Solution to Crisis in Syria Should Be Based on Geneva Statement

For his part, Russia’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, reiterated his country’s firm stance towards the crisis in Syria, stressing that the solution to the crisis should be based on Geneva statement.

In a statement following his meeting with the Lebanese Defense Minister, Fayez Ghosn, Zasypkin said that dialogue among the Syrians should be the basis to reach a solution.

Indian Ambassador in Damascus: Syria is Facing Extremist Movements That Hold no Value to Human Life

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – India’s Ambassador in Damascus V. P. Haran on Tuesday affirmed that Syria is facing extremist, violent movements that hold no value to human life, voicing confidence that Syrians are capable of moving towards peace and achieving development and national reconciliation.

In a speech delivered at the reception organized by the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry on occasion of the end of his mission as ambassador to Syria, Haran said that India is very interested in what is happening in Syria and that he relayed the truth about what is happening, as his country’s foreign ministry has been getting its information from the Indian Embassy in Damascus directly, not from mass media.

Haran reviewed the joint projects and the advanced relations between Syria and India, noting that his country continued to develop cooperation relations even during the current events, particularly in the fields of education and scholarships.

For his part, Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minister Ahmad Arnous underlined the strong and historic relations between the two countries and the need to continue developing them.

Arnous said that the two countries share the belief that Syria will be safe and strong as it was before, thanking India for all its efforts in the UN, Security Council and international and regional circles and its support for international principles of non-interference in countries’ internal affairs.

Arnous presented a commemorative gift to Haran as a gesture of appreciation of his efforts to strengthen cooperation between India and Syria.

Minister of Health: Urgent Medical Shipment Arrives at Aleppo International Airport

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Minister of Health, Sa’ad al-Nayef, said that an urgent shipment of medicine worth over SYP 90 million arrived at Aleppo International Airport, including chronic disease medications.

In a statement to SANA, Minister al-Nayef noted that the shipment came within the framework of the efforts exerted to meet the health and medical needs of various patients in Aleppo.

He indicated that the Ministry is working on preparing additional medial shipments to be sent to Aleppo within the next week, including artificial respirators, medical and surgical equipment and other medicines for healthcare and emergency services.

Al-Nayef stressed that other medical shipments are under preparation to be sent to the provinces of Hasaka, Hama, Idleb, Sweida, Quneitra and Raqqa, referring to the Ministry’s coordination with the authorities concerned to deliver the shipments to the health directorates in these provinces.

He stressed the Ministry’s efforts to meet the patients’ needs and preserve the strategic reserve of medicine and medical supplies in the health institutions in these provinces.

Grand Mufti: Syria Will Remain Strong and Impregnable Thanks to Its People

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Grand Mufti of the Republic Dr. Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun affirmed that Syria will remain strong and impregnable in the face of its enemies thanks to the solidarity of its people and will continue to defend the Arab and Islamic nations.

In a lecture delivered on Tuesday at Al-Assad National Library, Hassoun said that the campaign against Syria employs all forms of methods and weapons and seeks to destroy and divide Syria, pointing out to the large number of martyrs who fell victim to the aggression against Syria, the destruction that affected cities, and the displacement of families.

He noted that throughout history, Syria faced many campaigns of aggression and destruction, yet it remained giving and hospitable.

Hassoun said that called on those who consider themselves to be opposition to engage in dialogue and return to Syria, making the people their compass instead of asking help from countries that are well-known for their hostility towards the region, affirming that these countries aren’t actually supporting the opposition; rather their actions seek to guarantee Israel’s security.

Aleppo a Top Priority for Government with Large Financial Allocations

Dec 18, 2012

ALEPPO, (SANA)- In the framework of the government’s efforts to secure the delivery of the basic needs as soon as possible to the terrorism-stricken city of Aleppo, Prime Minister, Wael al-Halqi, announced that convoys with badly needed gas, gas oil and gasoline are ready to set off towards Aleppo once the problem of blocked roads leading to the city due to the terrorists’ attacks is resolved.

 

With the armed terrorist and mercenary groups having targeted all economic, development and living components and service institutions in Aleppo province as well as in other areas in a number of provinces, including water, electricity, communications and development institutions, Premier al-Halqi declared that the government has allocated SYP 200 million to buy aid and relief materials for Aleppo.

In the same context, al-Halqi added that SYP 100 million were allocated to buy basic needs and services and SYP 140 million to contribute to the independent budget of Aleppo province within 15 days, in addition to SYP 400 million to buy relief and aid materials in the first half of the coming year and SYP 6 billion to provide aid supplies already available inside the storehouses of the Ministry of Industry in the form of canned food stuff and basis materials.

Al-Halqi, leading a large delegation to Aleppo city, affirmed that the government is working to secure as much as possible of the relief assistance via planes at an average of a shipment in a week.

As far as food provision materials, particularly rice and wheat, are concerned, the Premier asserted that the government has a surplus of these materials and that it constantly imports to cover its further needs, noting that the main problem in Aleppo has to do with having these materials grinded as the armed terrorist groups have sabotaged a number of mills in Aleppo countryside.

Speaking in the presence of a large number of Aleppo social and economic figures, al-Halqi said the problem has got complicated as it is also related to securing oil derivatives to feed the electricity stations as well as to the railways that transport these derivatives and the provision stuff, which have been vandalized as a result of the terrorists’ sabotage acts.

He explained how this all resulted in shortage of flour in Aleppo, stressing however that the government is exerting serious efforts to deliver large amounts of bread via airplanes.

On the issue of the electrical power outages in Aleppo city, the Prime Minister stressed that electricity will be back in the coming 48 hours as the maintenance workshops are making great efforts to repair the damages caused to the electricity generating stations by the terrorist groups.

Commenting on the situation of the SYP exchange rate, al-Halqi affirmed that the stability of the exchange rate despite the current circumstances facing the country, indicating the existence of a considerable reserve of foreign currency.

In the framework of discussing the efforts to rehabilitate the damaged infrastructure and facilities, Deputy Prime Minister for Services Affairs and Minister of Local Administration, Omar Ghalawanji, said sub-committees were formed in all of the provinces to receive the citizens’ damage claims.

He noted that so far 50 percent of the value of compensations have already been given to the affected people, adding that other SYP 300 billion are agreed to be spent in this regard.

Ghalawanji pointed out that a sum of SYP 30 billion has been allocated in the budget for 2013 in the same regard.

The government has also given a great attention to the industrialist and businessmen in Aleppo through facilitating their work in terms of being able to get import licenses from all the other provinces.

This goes along with the emergency measures taken by the Ministry of Industry in terms of agreeing on transferring industrial establishments inside and outside the province of Aleppo without any fees, in addition to forming a committee to assess the damage caused to some of the industrial establishments.

In the framework of the meeting, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Saeed Mu’zi Hneidi, stressed that the government is to secure 75 percent of Syria’s needs of oil derivatives soon, noting that the priority will be for Aleppo province.

For his part, Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Jassem Mohammad Zakaray, reviewed the Ministry’s efforts exerted in cooperation with the Higher Commission for Relief and Aleppo Governorate to ensure the delivery of the main requirements and humanitarian aid for the citizens in Aleppo.

He said that financial support has been provided to 40 charity associations, including 9 in Aleppo, noting that SYP 250 million were allocated by the government for charity associations working in the relief field.

The measures taken by the government in Aleppo also included providing all logistic and daily life requirements to the shelter centers in cooperation with the Ministry of State for Red Crescent Affairs and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent organization.

The health situation in the province received a great attention with the Health Minister, Saad al-Nayef saying that large amounts of medications were transported to Aleppo, including those for various chronic diseases, in addition to the efforts exerted to supporting the rescue system and providing hospital equipment.

Syrian Film “Nukhaa” Participates in CAM International Film Festival in Egypt

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian short film “Nukhaa” (Marrow), participates in the CAM International Film Festival of Documentary and Short Films due to be held in Egypt between December 22nd – 27th.

The film is written by Ali Wajeeh and directed by Waseem al-Sayed.

In an exclusive interview with SANA, al-Sayed underlined the importance of Syria’s participation in the International CAM Festival in Egypt and the International Short Film Festival in Tiznit (Morocco) in March, 2013, under the current circumstances.

Scenarist Ali Wajeeh said that the participation is “an attempt to present something despite all sorrows.”

The Syrian film “Nukhaa” won the Award of Excellence in the Best Shorts Competition held in the USA in 2012.

The actors are Mazen Abbas and Nisreen Fandi. The film is produced by the General Establishment for Television and Radio Production.

Terrorists Attack Tens of Archaeological Sites in Daraa

Dec 18, 2012

DARAA, (SANA) – Tens of archaeological sites in Daraa province have been attacked by armed terrorist groups, according to Daraa Archaeological Directorate.

Director of Daraa Archaeological Directorate, Dr. Mohammad Nasrallah, told SANA that the archaeological sites have been exposed to secret excavations and attacks, causing sabotage to large parts of them, pointing out that the Directorate in cooperation with the authorities documented the damage and sabotage acts.

Nasrallah added that some archaeological sites in al-Mzirib, Inkhel, Maraba, al-Hirak, Sheikh Miskin, Sahm al-Golan, Heet, al-Shajara, Tafas and Dael towns were exposed to sabotage and destruction.

He stressed that the directorate has registered over 100 violations and it has informed the  authorities concerned in these towns.

Restaurants in Old City of Damascus Still Home for Damascus Lovers

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – As Damascus has always been the land of civilizations and history, its veins are still beating with life in spite of pain thanks to the determination of  its people who adored its streets and alleys and the smell of jasmine and the Damascene rose.

In spite of the current circumstances going on in Syria and the cold weather, the old city of Damascus is living normal life as its restaurants are witnessing turnout from people who come to enjoy the charming atmosphere of the city accompanied by their families and friends.

In the neighborhood of Bab Touma in the old city of Damascus, restaurants receive large groups of youths who come for entertainment and to exchange viewpoints. Darin, a girl in her thirties, says that she comes every Friday to meet her friends in one of Bab Touma restaurants.

“In spite of the current painful events in Syria, the love for life and determination to go on push me to come here”, she added.

With his laptop on the table surfing the internet to follow up the latest news, Samir said that he always come to Antique Restaurant in spite of the current situation, adding that he believes that Syria will remain strong thanks to its people’s determination to continue their work and practice their daily habits.

Michael, young man from Damascus, said these restaurants preserve the ancient oriental aspects which give a feeling of comfort and amity.

Yehya, a worker at Antique Restaurant, said that people are still coming to the restaurant as normal in spite of the current circumstances, adding that he has good relations with the customers.

International Arabic Language Day Marked

Dec 18, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – World celebrates the International Arabic Language Day every year on December 18th as Arabic is one of the 6 languages adopted by the United Nations.

The purpose of celebrating the UN-adopted languages is encouraging dialogue and communications and increasing awareness among the member states on the role of these languages in history as a method to communicate among peoples.

Dr. Mahmoud al-Sayyed, Head of the Committee for Empowering Arabic, told SANA that the celebration highlights the great position of Arabic among the world’s languages.

Al-Sayyed added that the committee was established by a Presidential decree in 2007 and is tasked with setting a national work plan to empower Arabic in all levels and follow up the implementation of this plan through Arabic committees in several ministries.

He said that these committees work on empowering Arabic through training courses and printing books.

He noted that Arabic language is celebrated three times per year, on February 21st, as designated by UNESCO, International Mother Language Day, and on March 1st as a day to celebrate Arabic adopted by the Arab Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO).

In turn, Dr. Ghassan Ghunaim of the Arab Writers Union, said that “Recent expeditions in Mary Tal al-Hareer city said that the 300-year-old written symbols were very similar to Arabic, which indicates that Arabic is one of the most ancient living languages.”

He stressed that Arabic is capable of keeping up with all scientific, knowledge-related and cultural trends because of its flexibility and richness.

By Tom Mcnamara

19 December 2012

@ Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz/mt/?p=16130

Once more tragedy befalls America. But this time the tragedy is even more bitter due to the fact that such a large number of young children were involved. A gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, shot and killed 26 people, 20 of them children – all between the ages of 5 and 10 – at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on the 14th of December. The attack ended with the gunman committing suicide. It was the Nation’s second deadliest school shooting.

Most people can’t imagine the evil and insanity needed to drive a person to commit such a heinous act. The murder of innocent people is reprehensible, but it is even more so when carried out on the most vulnerable elements of our society, children. Most disturbing of all is the well planned, deliberate and determined manner in which the murders appear to have been carried out. Early reports state that the gunman was highly accurate, leaving only one wounded survivor alive at the school.

President Obama, reading a prepared statement, was overcome with emotion. “Our hearts are broken,” he said. The victims were “beautiful little kids. They had their entire lives ahead of them: birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.” It was at this moment that the President reached up to the corner of one eye, touching an apparent tear.

On April 3rd, 1991, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 687, imposing sanctions on Iraq as a result of its invasion of Kuwait. This resulted in Iraq being economically isolated from the rest of the world community. But by the end of 1995 there were reports that the sanctions were having a devastating effect on the populace. A study in The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Association, reported that up to 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the first Gulf War as a result of the sanctions imposed by the Security Council. UNICEF, in 1999, estimated that at least 500,000 children died who would have otherwise normally lived had it not been for the sanctions in place. The Security Council, led by the United States, rejected numerous appeals by Iraq to lift the sanctions.

Bottom of Form 1

In 2003 the US invaded Iraq for a second time. The second Gulf War was a bloody and brutal affair, costing the lives of over 4,400 US soldiers, with almost 32,000 wounded. But these figures pale in comparison to the suffering experienced (once more) by the Iraqi people. A study released in 2006 found that there were 655,000 more deaths in Iraq than normally would have been expected had coalition forces not invaded in March 2003. This figure was more than 20 times higher than a figure that then President George Bush was using. The study found that most victims were between the ages of 15 and 44.

Nowhere was the fighting more intense in Iraq than at the battle of Fallujah (I & II). The American attack was in response to the murder of 4 Blackwater contractors, who also happened to be ex-special forces. The first battle lasted from April 5 to April 30, 2004, and was primarily a Marine operation. It was some of the most intense fighting that US soldiers had seen since the battle of Hue City in Vietnam. A local Iraqi official reported that at least 600 civilians were killed, with 1,250 more wounded.

The second attack on Fallujah involved seven Marine battalions, plus two Army battalions, and was a multi-phased affair. Combat operations started on November 7, 2004, with fighting lasting until the end of December that same year. An estimated 3,000 insurgents were killed or captured, with 70 US soldiers killed in action (a total of 151 US soldiers died in both battles).

But disturbing revelations came out after the fact. There were reports that the US had used chemical weapons, a war crime. A documentary by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, entitled “Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre” provided troubling evidence to support these claims. Photographs, videos and interviews with US soldiers who were part of the attack on Fallujah purported to show that phosphorus bombs were used on the city. There were also accusations that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a type of napalm, were also used. One US soldier is quoted as saying, “I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone … I saw the burned bodies of women and children.”

More damning was an article in the March – April 2005 edition of Field Artillery Magazine. In it, officers of the 2nd Infantry’s fire support team reported that “White phosphorous [WP] proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE [high explosive]. We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.” A reporter with California’s North County Times, who was embedded with the Marines during the Battle of Fallujah in April 2004, reported seeing the same thing.

There were also reports that Coalition forces relied heavily on rounds comprised of depleted uranium (DU). DU is a by-product of the process used to manufacture enriched uranium for nuclear reactors and weapons. DU has 40 percent less radioactivity than natural uranium, but it has the same chemical toxicity and contains ionising radiation.

A medical study conducted on Fallujah after the battles (Busby et al 2010) confirmed anecdotal reports of an increase in infant mortality, birth defects and childhood cancer rates. It found that Fallujah had almost 11 times as many major birth defects in newborns than world averages. A prime suspect in all of this is what the report calls “the use of novel weapons,” possibly those containing “depleted uranium.” The increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in Fallujah are greater than those reported in the survivors of the US atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The US has now been fighting in Afghanistan for over 11 years (longer than the Soviet Union). A key component of US strategy in the Afghanistan / Pakistan theatre, or “AfPak” as the region is commonly known, is targeted drone strikes. America’s drone policy has reportedly killed between 474 and 881 civilians in the region, including 176 children. But apparently the targeted killing of children is now accepted military practice.

 

Army Lt. Col. Marion Carrington of 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and who is assisting the Afghan police, is quoted as saying, “It kind of opens our aperture. In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”

We watch the horrible images of pain and suffering coming out of a small town in Connecticut where 20 children were murdered less than 2 weeks before Christmas. We have no choice but to collectively mourn and take part in the families’ grief. That someone would engage in the systematic and premeditated murder of children is unfathomable and an abomination against everything it means to be human.

But the misery and torment that befell Newton can be multiplied a thousand fold across the Arab world. American policy and actions have resulted in the deaths (i.e. murder) of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent children. The deaths of these children can be considered as war crimes and a crime against humanity of the highest order. They should shock and outrage us, compelling us to demand an immediate change in American foreign policy.

But in order for that to happen one must first believe that Arabs cry for their children too.

Tom McNamara is an Assistant Professor at the ESC Rennes School of Business, France, and a Visiting Lecturer at the French National Military Academy at Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan, France.

By Richard Falk

19 December 2012

 

Once again, perhaps in the most anguishing manner ever, the deadly shooting of 20 children (and 8 adults) between the ages of 5 and 10 at the Newton, Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School, has left America in a stunned posture of tragic bemusement. Why should such incidents be happening here, especially in such a peaceful and affluent town? The shock is accompanied by spontaneous outpourings of grief, bewilderment, empathy, communal espirit, and a sense of national tragedy. Such an unavoidably dark mood is officially confirmed by the well-crafted emotional message of the president, Barack Obama.

 

The template of response has become a national liturgy in light of the dismal pattern of public response: media sensationalism of a totalizing kind, at once enveloping, sentimental, and tasteless (endless interviewing of surviving children and teachers, and even family members of victims), but dutifully avoiding deeper questions relating to guns, violence, and cultural stimulants and conditioning. What are called ‘difficult issues’ in the media reduce to what some refer to as ‘reasonable gun control’ (that is, a ban on assault weapons, large magazine clips, and somewhat stiffer gun registration rules) and to improved procedures for identifying those suffering the kind of mental disorders that could erupt in violent sociopathic behavior. These are sensible steps to take, but so far below the level of credible diagnosis as to promote collective denial rather than constituting a responsible effort to restore a semblance of security to our most cherished institutions (schools, churches, family dwellings). It is ironically relevant that almost simultaneous with the massacre at Newtown there occurred an attack on children in an elementary school in the Chinese city of Xinyang in the province of Henan, approximately 300 miles south of Beijing. The attacker slashed 22 children with a knife, and significantly there were no fatalities, suggesting the important differences in outcome that reflect the weapons deployed by an assailant. Although this is an anecdotal bit of evidence, it is suggestive that strict gun control is the least

that should be done in light of recent experience, with seven instances of mass violence reported in the United States during 2012. It should be noted that Connecticut was one of the few states in the country that had enacted ‘reasonable’ gun control laws, but clearly without a sufficient impact.

 

If what is being proposed by politicians and pundits is so far below what seems prudent there is fostered a societal illusion of problem-solving while sidestepping the deeper causes, and the truly ‘difficult issues.’ It would be a mistake to attribute the overall concerns entirely to the violent texture of the American public imagination, but surely inquiry must address this atrocity-inducing cultural environment. America leads the world in per capita gun possession, violent crime, and prison population, and is among the few developed countries that continues to impose capital punishment. Beyond this, America vindicates torture and glamorizes violence in films, video games, and popular culture. Political leaders support ‘enhanced interrogation’ of terror suspects, and claim an authority to order the execution of alleged terrorist advocates in foreign countries by drone strikes oblivious to the sovereign rights of foreign states, a practice that if attempted against American targets would produce a massive retaliatory response preceded by an outburst of self-righteous outrage. At work, here, is American exceptionalism when it comes to lethal violence, with a claimed right to do unto others what others are forbidden to do unto us, a defiance of that most fundamental norm of civilized peoples an inversion of ‘the golden rule’ and basic biblical commandments.

 

There are other features of American political culture that are disturbing, including the uncritical celebration of American soldiers as ‘the finest young Americans,’ ‘true heroes,’ and the like. Or of America as the greatest country that ever existed, such a claim especially in light of recent history, is a rather pure form of hubris long understood as the fallibility that comes with excessive individual or collective inability to recognize and correct one’s own faults. It is certainly true that the government is asking American servicemen to risk their lives and mental health in ambiguous circumstances that produce aberrant behavior. To undertake counterinsurgency missions in distant countries at a lesser stage of development and much different cultural standards invites deep confusion, incites national resistance and hatred in the combat zones, and prompts responses driven by fear and rage. Recall such incidents in Afghanistan as American servicemen urinating on dead Afghan corpses, burning the Koran, and random shootings of Afghan unarmed villagers. In effect, this ethos of violence against others, constrained by the most minimal standards of accountability has to be part of the violence inducing behavior that is these days haunting civic life here in America.

 

In effect, until we as Americans look in the mirror with a critical eye we will not begin to comprehend the violence of Newtown, Portland, Aurora, Oak Creek, Tucson, Columbine, Virginia Tech. No amount of tears, however genuine, can make our children and citizens safer in the future, and even gestures of gun control seem likely, if treated as solutions rather than palliatives, are likely to be no more than a spit in a national ocean of sanctioned violence. What may be most depressing is that it seems ‘utopian,’ that is, beyond the horizon of possibility, to advocate the repeal of the Second Amendment on the right to bear arms or to renounce the kill doctrines associated with drone warfare or counterinsurgency rules of engagement.  Only moves of such magnitude would exhibit the political will to take measures commensurate with this disruptive and horrifying pattern of violence that has been an increasing source of national torment.

 

President Obama has called, as he has on prior occasions, for “meaningful action,” which is too vague to be of much encouragement. Almost certainly the main effort in American public space will be to explore the individuality of this shocking crime by way of mental disorder or tensions at home rather than to address its systemic character, which remains a taboo inquiry.

 

By Alexander Smoltczyk

18 December 2012

@ Spiegelonline

The guns have been silent in Iraq for years, but in Basra and Fallujah the number of birth defects and cancer cases is on the rise. Locals believe that American uranium-tipped munitions are to blame and some researchers think they might be right.

It sounds at first as if the old man were drunk. Or perhaps as though he had been reading Greek myths. But Askar Bin Said doesn’t read anything, especially not books, and there is no alcohol in Basra. In fact, he says, he saw the creatures he describes with his own eyes: “Some had only one eye in the forehead. Or two heads. One had a tail like a skinned lamb. Another one looked like a perfectly normal child, but with a monkey’s face. Or the girl whose legs had grown together, half fish, half human.”

The babies Askar Bin Said describes were brought to him. He washed them and wrapped them in shrouds, and then he buried them in the dry soil, littered with bits of plastic and can lids, of his own cemetery, which has been in his family for five generations. It’s a cemetery only for children.

Though they are small, the graves are crowded so tightly together that they are almost on top of one another. They look as if someone had overturned toy wheelbarrows full of cement and then scratched the names and dates of death into it before it hardened. In many cases, there isn’t even room for the birth date. But it doesn’t really matter, because in most cases the two dates are the same.

There are several thousand graves in the cemetery, and another five to 10 are added every day. The large number of graves is certainly conspicuous, says Bin Said. But, he adds, there “really isn’t an explanation” for why there are so many dead and deformed newborn babies in Basra.

Others, though, do have an idea why. According to a study published in September in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, a professional journal based in the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, there was a sevenfold increase in the number of birth defects in Basra between 1994 and 2003. Of 1,000 live births, 23 had birth defects.

Double and Triple Cancers

Similarly high values are reported from Fallujah, a city that was fiercely contested in the 2003 war. According to the Heidelberg study, the concentration of lead in the milk teeth of sick children from Basra was almost three times as high as comparable values in areas where there was no fighting.

Never before has such a high rate of neural tube defects (“open back”) been recorded in babies as in Basra, and the rate continues to rise. The number of hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”) cases among newborns is six times as high in Basra as it is in the United States, the study concludes.

Jawad al-Ali has worked as a cancer specialist at the Sadr Teaching Hospital (formerly the Saddam Hospital), housed in a sinister-looking building in Basra, since 1991. He remembers the period after the first Gulf war over Kuwait. “It isn’t just that the number of cancer cases suddenly increased. We also had double and triple cancers, that is, patients with tumors on both kidneys and in the stomach. And there were also familial clusters, that is, entire families that were affected.” He is convinced that this relates to the use of uranium ammunition. “There is a connection between cancer and radiation. Sometimes it takes 10 or 20 years before the consequences manifest themselves.”

The term uranium ammunition refers to projectiles whose alloys or cores are made with “depleted,” or weakly radioactive uranium, also known as DU. When German soldiers are deployed overseas, they are given the following information: “Uranium munitions are armor-piercing projectiles with a core of depleted uranium. Because of its high density, this core provides the projectile with very high momentum and enables it to pierce the armor of combat tanks.”

When DU explodes, it produces a very fine uranium dust. When children play near wrecked tanks, they can absorb this dust through their skin, their mouths and their airways. A 2002 study at the University of Bremen in northern Germany found that chromosomal changes had occurred in Gulf war veterans who had come into contact with uranium ammunition.

The German Defense Ministry counters that it isn’t the radiation that constitutes a health threat, but the “chemical toxicity of uranium.”

Living in a Garbage Dump

London’s Royal Society presented one of the most comprehensive studies on the issue in 2002, but it only addressed the potential threat to soldiers. It concluded that the risk of radiation damage is “very low,” as is the risk of chronic kidney toxicity from uranium dust.

This may reassure soldiers, but not Mohammed Haidar. He lives in Kibla, a district in Basra which, like others in the city, resembles nothing so much as a garbage dump. Kibla is a neighborhood of squalid, make-shift shops and shacks — with shimmering, greenish liquid flowing through open sewers and plastic containers filled with rotting material.

Haidar, who teaches mathematics at a high school, could afford to live in a better neighborhood. But he spends every spare dinar on treatment for his daughter Rukya. The three-year-old is sitting on his lap, resembling a ventriloquist’s doll. She is an adorable little girl with pigtails and ribbons in her hair. But she can’t walk or speak properly.

When Haidar turns his daughter around, two openings in her back become visible. She has a cleft spine, the externally visible sign of hydrocephalus, as well as an implanted drainage tube to remove excess cerebrospinal fluid. In Germany, children with cases like hers are often treated with prenatal surgery, but not in Basra. In fact, Haidar and his wife are glad that Rukya is even alive. She is their first and only child. “We both grew up in Basra. I hold the United States responsible. They used DU. My child isn’t an isolated case,” Haidar says.

The term “DU” seems to be just as widespread in Basra as birth defects are.

DU ammunition was used twice in the Basra district: outside the city in the 1991 war, and in the city proper in 2003, when British troops were advancing toward the airport. West Basra is the urban district with the highest incidence of leukemia among infants.

“Those who were children in the first war are adults today,” says Khairiya Abu Yassin of the city’s environmental agency. She estimates that 200 tons of DU ammunition were used in Basra. The Defense Ministry in London claims that British troops used only about two tons of DU ammunition during the war. Either way, the remains of tanks destroyed in the war with the help of DU ammunition littered the streets until 2008.

Propaganda Fodder

It was impossible to keep children and salvagers away from the wrecks, says Abu Yassin. “We installed signs that read: Caution — Radiation. But people don’t take a threat seriously when it doesn’t act like the bullet from a gun.”

DU is a sensitive issue, and not every doctor in Basra is willing to go on record commenting on it. The reasons for the reticence have to do with the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein: The alleged radiation threat coming from remnants of armor-piercing ammunition provided popular propaganda fodder.

In the United States, no major newspaper has yet published a story on the genetic disorders in Fallujah. Britain’s Guardian, on the other hand, criticized the silence of “the West,” calling it a moral failure, and cited chemist Chris Busby, who said that the Fallujah health crisis represented “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied.” Busby is the co-author of two studies on the subject.

Still, it is difficult to precisely pinpoint the cause of the defects. Spinal chord abnormality can also be triggered by a folic acid deficiency at the beginning of pregnancy, for example. Furthermore, very few Iraqis can afford regular pregnancy exams. As a result, many defective embryos are carried to full term, in contrast to what normally happens in Europe or the US.

Wolfgang Hoffmann, an epidemiologist at the University of Greifswald in northeastern Germany, has been collaborating with fellow scientists in Basra for years. “Birth defects often look very disturbing in photos,” he says. “But they are always isolated cases and are not necessarily useful for identifying trends.”

Hoffmann cites the lack of comprehensive data and questions the epidemiological reliability of reports. He does believe, however, that indications of increasing rates of cancer in Basra should be taken very seriously, partly because the data for Basra is more reliable.

Searching for the Truth

The “plausible risk factors” for childhood leukemia, says Hoffmann, “undoubtedly include the contaminated environment, but also the lack of prevention, the trauma suffered by parents and the devastated medical infrastructure.” The statistical increase in the number of children with leukemia since 1993 is also a function of cases not having been fully documented before 2003.

Janan Hassan, an oncologist with the Basra Children’s Hospital, participated in a study that was just published in the Medical Journal of the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. It states that although the rate of childhood leukemia in Basra remained stable between 2004 and 2009, compared with other countries in the region, there is a trend toward very young children contracting the disease.

As such, she believes that objections are only partially applicable. There is a “strong increase” of genetic defects as a cause of leukemia, she notes. “And the cases are coming from precisely the areas where there was heavy fighting. How do you explain that? By saying that reporting requirements have changed?”

Sabria Salman named her son Muslim, but it didn’t protect him. Muslim, now 10, recently underwent surgery to remove a 500-gram tumor on his upper arm. He doesn’t scream in pain anymore. Instead, the boy has a permanent grin on his face, as if he no longer had the strength to change his expression. He perspires heavily and has trouble breathing. There is a drain tube protruding from his left arm, and the right arm is wrapped in a dressing that’s stained red along the edges.

Salman calls it “cancer in the muscles.” The boy broke his shoulder two years ago, and since then his body has made little progress towards healing.

‘Bombs in Our Neighborhood’

The hospital pays for the chemotherapy, although radiation therapy would be more effective for his tumor. But radiation is only available abroad or in Baghdad, where there is a five-month waiting list — and the family doesn’t have that much time anymore. The mother prays to Allah, and when the interpreter asks her who is to blame for her son’s affliction, she says: “The war is to blame. The pollution. There were many bombs in our neighborhood.”

Uranium may be a factor, but other substances used in the production of ammunition and bombs are also implicated, toxic heavy metals like lead and mercury. “The bombardment of Basra and Fallujah may have increased the population’s exposure to metals, possibly resulting in the current increase in birth defects,” states the Heidelberg study.

Furthermore, when the Rumaila oil field near Basra was set on fire in 2003, a cloud of soot full of carcinogenic particles drifted across the city. And another factor could also be at play. Since Saddam was overthrown, Iraq’s neighbors, Iran, Syria and Turkey, have diverted substantially more water from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. The current in the Shatt-al-Arab, formed by the confluence of the two rivers, is now so weak that salt water penetrates inland from the Persian Gulf all the way to Basra.

This means that wastewater from industrial facilities downstream from Basra, like the Iranian oil refinery in Abadan, are no longer being adequately diluted, increasing the concentration of heavy metals in groundwater.

Abu Ammar lives with his family on the grounds of Saddam’s former navy command center. The quarters are cramped, with 10 people in a room, and the situation of several other families on the grounds is no better. It is yet another impoverished Basra neighborhood — the riches of the Basra oil wells, omnipresent in the neighborhood in the shape of stinking fumes, have yet to trickle down to the people.

Three Eyes for Three Children

Ammar has spread out a plastic rug on the floor and placed a can of 7-Up and a pastry for each of his visitors on the rug. The family — or what is left of it — squats around the rug. Saddam’s thugs executed two of Ammar’s brothers. The cousin sitting next to him still has a piece of shrapnel from an attack wedged behind his eye, the mother died of grief, his wife no longer goes outside — “and these are our children…,” he says.

He points to a 21-year-old woman, a seven-year-old girl and a little boy, sitting next to each other. They don’t have the same parents, but all three have the same narrow faces, and together they have only three eyes.

The sockets of their missing eyes look like the inside of an oyster, milky and shapeless. The young woman, Madia, attends the local college. She doesn’t like going there, she says, even though she covers half of her face with her veil. “What caused this? I think my mother inhaled something chemical when I was inside of her,” says Madia.

It’s easy to assign the blame for these eerie birth defects to something called “DU ammunition,” made in the USA. It’s easier than thinking about the deleterious effects of lead and mercury in the soil and the tomatoes, or of the soot in the air and the toxic materials in the water. But that doesn’t relieve those involved in the war from responsibility. It isn’t enough to declare a war to be over. Even though Iraq now has elections and the tyrant has been hanged, the war is still in the soil, in the air and in the children.

Omran Habib heads the Basra Cancer Research Group. He earned his Ph.D. in London and now works as an epidemiologist at the University of Basra Hospital. “The war did an enormous amount of damage here,” he says. “DU is certainly not good for our health. Nevertheless, even the presence of uranium in the urine of patients doesn’t imply causation.”

A Bundle in White

The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently assembling a report on DU ammunition. It will reflect the current state of research on the issue, but it will hardly provide any new insights. With the help of the University of Greifswald, a cancer registry has been developed for the Basra region and will serve as the basis for all future study. Still, even as further research is needed, if only for the children’s sake, it will come too late for many.

It’s certainly too late for the body lying inside a little white bundle of material, tied together at both ends like a piece of candy, lying on a pile of dirt along the edge of the children’s cemetery in Basra. It was supposed to be his first son, says the father, standing next to the body. Yesterday the child was still moving inside the mother’s stomach. Today the father was simply handed a bundle.

The body-washer on duty sighs loudly while digging the grave, hoping to increase his baksheesh. Then he places the bundle into the hole, says a few words of prayer, makes some adjustments to the bundle and covers it with earth. Off to the side, a chicken is pecking at a piece of a “Capri Sun” container sticking out of the soil.

Afterwards the men smoke. The father is given a piece of cardboard and writes down the name of his son, copying it from the combined birth and death certificate they gave him at the hospital. The gravedigger will scratch the name into the cement. The boy was going to be named Hussein Ali. The father writes the name of his dead child for the first and last time.

The man remains motionless. Who wonders about blame at such a moment? He seems empty, completely at a loss and robbed of a tiny life.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/researchers-studying-high-rates-of-cancer-and-birth-defects-in-iraq-a-873225.html