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The occupy movement is not just a passing fancy. People are pissed. When interviewed for the mainstream news they give relatively mild answers to why they are there. Out of the camera view, there is real anger toward the 1% that controls everything. George Carlin said it best when he proclaimed that “The country is run by one big club “And you ain’t in it!” he also told us “They own you. The corporations and the rich own this country and they don’t give a shit about you. They don’t care. They don’t give a shit about you!” and everyone laughed. Now they aren’t laughing anymore.

It just isn’t funny anymore. People are hurting. Yesterday I saw a young man with his wife and baby shopping at the local Bi-Lo here. They had a list and went down the list and put what was on the list in their cart. I thought to myself that the couple were good shoppers, buying only what they decided they needed before going shopping. When I went to check out the young couple was before my wife and I. I saw them separate items into two groups. The first small group of goods was then paid by food stamps. The second group of goods was paid with cash. It really bothered me. This was a young strapping man of about 19 with a young wife and a year old baby.

Apparently he wasn’t working, and if he was, his job wasn’t paying him as living wage because the qualified for food stamps. Believe me; I have nothing against people that use food stamps. This economic climate makes food stamps something indispensable for some people. A woman I knew most of my life confided in me when she came down to South Carolina from New York. She said “Timmy, I’m on food stamps. I’m so embarrassed to tell you this. I have to apply for HEAP too (Heating Energy Assistance Program). She is on Social Security and I know she worked all of her life as a practical nurse at a local hospital on Long Island. She has a small pension, but even after moving off Long Island to cheaper digs in the Upstate She still is at the poverty level.

I’m sure that anyone reading this can share stories worse than this. People in the U.S. are losing everything. We used to be the World’s top producer of steel. We don’t make it here anymore. We stopped producing many things in the United States. In fact we’ve shipped out just about every type of industry overseas except for Earth moving vehicles, automobiles (but they are outsourcing much of that too), and the Industrial Military Complex. We make weapons of mass destruction on a massive scale. We are the World’s largest arms merchant and our military budget is six times as large as our nearest competitor.

This list is based on the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Military Expenditure Database for 2010 (in constant 2009 US$). It also includes military expenditure data as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009.[1]

The world’s top 7 largest military budgets in 2010. Figures sourced from SIPRI[1]

Military spending

Military spending as percentage of GDP

Rank ……Country ……..Military expenditure,2010[2]…….. % of GDP, 2009

1 ………United States………. 698,105,000,000………………….. 4.7%

2 ………..China ……………….114,000,000,000…………………….. 2.2%

3…………… France……………… 61,285,000,000    ……….                  2.5%

4………….. United Kingdom  ………….  57,424,000,000………………. 2.7%

5…………… Russia…………………….. 52,586,000,000   …………….           4.3%

6 …………..Japan ……………………51,420,000,000     ………….              1.0%

7…………. Germany………………. 46,848,000,000   ……………..                1.4%

8……………. Saudi Arabia ……………..39,200,000,000     …………..    11.2%

9 …………..Italy ……………………38,303,000,000          ……………..   1.8%

10…………….. India………………36,030,000,000      ……………….1.8%

11…………. Brazil………………. 27,120,000,000                  ………… 1.6%

12……………. Australia…………….. 26,900,000,000       ……………. 1.9%

13 …………………..South Korea……………. 26,550,000,000  ………… 2.9%

14 ………………Spain …………….25,507,470,000                …………. 1.1%

15 …………..Canada ………………21,800,000,000……………………. 1.5%

16……………… Israel ……………16,000,000,000                        ………….  6.3%

17 ……………..United Arab Emirates ………..15,749,000,000 …………….7.3%

18………………..Turkey…………… 15,634,000,000                 ………….   2.7%

19……………… Netherlands ……………11,604,000,000      ………….. 1.5%

20……………. Afghanistan …………………11,600,000,000…………….. 1.8%

The fact is that the United States spends 42.8% of the entire Worlds military spending. Is that figure OK with any of you? Why do we have a military budget that is six times the amount of China’s? Why are we in wars all over the globe? Was Libya a threat to national security?

This government we have today is totally out of control. The President has had four people killed without any judicial presence. It was by executive order. This President has killed two American citizens in Yemen without any legal charges against them. If they had committed crimes that could be proved, they could have been tried in absentia and if convicted, could have gotten the death penalty. Instead, the President declares them a menace to the State and orders their execution. Is this the democracy our founding fathers envisioned? I think not.

The occupy movement in Oakland saw the police in riot gear shooting tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and concussion grenades at the protesters that were exercising their First Amendment rights. They hit a former Marine that had served two combat tours in the Middle East. His brain swelled and they put him in a medical coma. We can only hope that Scott Wilson will recover. This hasn’t stopped the occupy movement in Oakland; they are back larger than before. We should all salute them.

I have over 400 articles on Op-Ed. I’ve been trying to explain what’s happening to as many people as I possibly can. Now I feel a bit useless. So many people now know the truth about this country. The government is a sham. Congress and The President have been bought and paid for by Wall Street and the corporations. When the primaries went on in 2008 I warned everyone about Obama. I did a little research at OpenSecrets.org. I found out that Obama’s largest campaign contributor was Goldman Sachs. Now the cabinet and other parts of the Administration are filled with Goldman Sachs alumni. Is this ridiculous or what?

I don’t write much anymore. It’s because the majority of the people “Get it” and there is really not much more for me to say. Every time I think of an article that should be written, I see an article on the subject, and I have nothing else to add. It really makes me happy though. Everything I’ve written about is now being said and written about by others. By no means do I believe I started this, there were many others writing about the same things as me. Now we are so successful we are really unnecessary at this particular junction. Everyone is on the same sheet of paper.

This is why I hope that this movement succeeds. There is absolutely no chance of changing the status quo by electoral politics. The game is rigged and we can’t win. We need these war criminals and power brokers out of Washington. I believe that the people are speaking. This won’t go away. It will only get larger with each decision by the government to wage more wars and cut down our civil liberties. We don’t want to live under a fascist “security state”. We want to live in a free society where laws are passed for the peoples benefit and not just for the rich and powerful.

Tomorrow I’ll be at Occupy Greenville, yeah it’s here too. If you live around Greenville, SC, maybe you should come too. I’m making preparations to go to Wall Street in the next couple of weeks; maybe I’ll find something I will want to write about. Meanwhile, I hope you all will keep this movement going. It’s the only chance we have.

By Timothy V. Gatto

Timgatto@hotmail.com Read Tim’s Books, “From Complicity to Contempt” and “Kimchee Days” at Oliver Arts and Open Press .

It was a beautiful, sunlit fall morning when the patrol, many in camouflage jackets, no more than 40 of them in all, headed directly into enemy territory.  Their ranks included one sailor in uniform, three women, and a small child named Viva in a stroller.  Except for Viva, all of them were vets, a few from the Vietnam era but most from our more recent wars.

As they headed for Wall Street, several carried signs that said, “I am still serving my country,” and one read, “How is the war economy working for you?”  Many wore Iraq Veterans Against the War t-shirts under their camo jackets, and there was one other thing that made this demonstration unlike any seen in these last Occupy Wall Street weeks: there wasn’t a police officer, police car, or barricade in sight.  As they headed out across a well-trafficked street, not a cop was there to yell at them to get back on the curb.

In the wake of the wounding of Scott Olsen in the police assault on Occupy Oakland last week, that’s what it means to be a veteran marching on Zuccotti Park.  Scott Kimbell(Iraq, 2005-2006), who led the patrol, later told me: “Cops are in a difficult position with vets.  Some of them were in the military and are sympathetic and they know that the community will not support what happened to Scott Olsen.”  Just before Broad Street, a line of waiting police on scooters picked up the marchers, for once feeling more like an escort than a gang of armed avengers, while media types and photographers swarmed in the street without police reprimand.

Suddenly, the patrol swiveled right and marched directly into the financial heart of the planet through a set of barricades. (“Who opened up the barrier there?” shouted a policeman.)  It was aiming directly at a line of mounted police blocking the way.  In front of them, the march halted.  With a smart “Left face!” the platoon turned to the Stock Exchange and began to call out in unison, “We are veterans!  We are the 99%!  We swore to protect the Constitution of the United States of America!  We are here to support the Occupy Movement!”

Then, the horses parted like the Red Sea, like a wave of emotion sweeping ahead of us, and the vets marched on triumphantly toward Zuccotti Park as a military cadence rang out (“…corporate profits on the rise, but soldiers have to bleed and die!  Sound off, one, two…”)

The platoon came to attention in front of Trinity Church for a moment of silence for “our friend Scott Olsen,” after which it circled the encampment at Zuccotti Park to cheers and cries of “Welcome Home!” from the protesters there.  (One of the occupiers shouted to the skies: “Hey, police, the military’s here and they’re on our side!”)  And if you don’t think all of it was stirring, then you have the heart of a banker.

Soon after, veterans began offering testimony, people’s mic-style, at the top of the park.Eli Wright, 30, a former Army medic in Ramadi, Iraq (2003-2004), now on military disability and Viva’s dad, parked her stroller when I asked him why he was here.  “I came out today to march for economic justice,” he responded.  “I want a future for my daughter.  I want her to have an education and a job.  I served seven years for our country to defend our constitution only to see it being dismantled before my eyes.  I think it’s time for vets and others to stand up and fight back.” As for two-year-old Viva, “This,” he said, “is the introduction to democracy that she needs to see.”  As a matter of fact, amid the tumult, Viva was soundly and peaceably asleep.

Joshua Shepherd, in the Navy from 2002 to 2008, told me that, during those years, he came to realize “it wasn’t about protecting anyone, it was about making money.” Now a student, he was holding up a large poster of his friend Scott Olsen.  He had been with Olsen when he was hit, possibly by a beanbag round fired by the police, and had flown in from San Francisco for this march.  “It’s important that the people at Wall Street know that we support them.  For the life of me I’m not sure why the police escalated the way they did [in Oakland], but the powers that be are threatened.  Income disparities have never been higher and they want to keep it that way.  It’s my intention to raise my voice and say that’s not right.”

T.J. Buonomo, 27 and unemployed, a personable former Army military intelligence officer, told me that he had come up from Washington specifically for the march.  “Seeing what happened to Scott Olsen made me feel like we had to stand up for Americans getting their democracy back.  If this country keeps going like this, we’re going to look like Latin America in the 1970s.”

Of course, as with so much else about Zuccotti Park, there’s no way of knowing whether these vets were a recon outfit preparing the way for a far larger “army,” possibly (as in the Vietnam era) including active-duty service people, or whether they were just a lost American patrol.  Still, if you were there, you, too, might have felt that something was changing in this country, that a larger movement of some kind was beginning to form.

And speaking of such movements, if you’ve read the final essays in the remarkable new book Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?, an essential guide to the writings of the activist and professor “Glenn Beck loves to hate,” then you know that no one came closer than her to predicting the rise of OWS.  Having covered the fate of the poor memorably for almost half a century, Piven, whom Cornel West calls “a living legend,” has a bead on the “war” these vets are now facing on the American home front. (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Piven discusses Glenn Beck’s bizarre fascination with her click here, or download it to your iPod here.) Tom

We’ve been at war for decades now — not just in Afghanistan or Iraq, but right here at home.  Domestically, it’s been a war against the poor, but if you hadn’t noticed, that’s not surprising. You wouldn’t often have found the casualty figures from this particular conflict in your local newspaper or on the nightly TV news.  Devastating as it’s been, the war against the poor has gone largely unnoticed — until now.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has already made the concentration of wealth at the top of this society a central issue in American politics.  Now, it promises to do something similar when it comes to the realities of poverty in this country.

By making Wall Street its symbolic target, and branding itself as a movement of the 99%, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem.  Only a short time ago, the “morals” issue in politics meant the propriety of sexual preferences, reproductive behavior, or the personal behavior of presidents.  Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection for insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and financial deregulation, was shrouded in clouds of propaganda or simply considered too complex for ordinary Americans to grasp.

Now, in what seems like no time at all, the fog has lifted and the topic on the table everywhere seems to be the morality of contemporary financial capitalism.  The protestors have accomplished this mainly through the symbolic power of their actions: by naming Wall Street, the heartland of financial capitalism, as the enemy, and by welcoming the homeless and the down-and-out to their occupation sites.  And of course, the slogan “We are the 99%” reiterated the message that almost all of us are suffering from the reckless profiteering of a tiny handful.  (In fact, they aren’t far off: the increase in income of the top 1% over the past three decades about equals the losses of the bottom 80%.)

The movement’s moral call is reminiscent of earlier historical moments when popular uprisings invoked ideas of a “moral economy” to justify demands for bread or grain or wages — for, that is, a measure of economic justice.  Historians usually attribute popular ideas of a moral economy to custom and tradition, as when the British historian E.P. Thompson traced the idea of a “just price” for basic foodstuffs invoked by eighteenth century English food rioters to then already centuries-old Elizabethan statutes. But the rebellious poor have never simply been traditionalists.  In the face of violations of what they considered to be their customary rights, they did not wait for the magistrates to act, but often took it upon themselves to enforce what they considered to be the foundation of a just moral economy.

Being Poor By the Numbers

A moral economy for our own time would certainly take on the unbridled accumulation of wealth at the expense of the majority (and the planet).  It would also single out for special condemnation the creation of an ever-larger stratum of people we call “the poor” who struggle to survive in the shadow of the overconsumption and waste of that top 1%.

Some facts: early in 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 14.3% of the population, or 47 million people — one in six Americans — were living below the official poverty threshold, currently set at $22,400 annually for a family of four. Some 19 million people are living in what is called extreme poverty, which means that their household income falls in the bottom half of those considered to be below the poverty line.  More than a third of those extremely poor people are children.  Indeed, more than halfof all children younger than six living with a single mother are poor.  Extrapolating from this data, Emily Monea and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution estimate that further sharp increases in both poverty and child poverty rates lie in our American future.

Some experts dispute these numbers on the grounds that they neither take account of the assistance that the poor still receive, mainly through the food stamp program, nor of regional variations in the cost of living.  In fact, bad as they are, the official numbers don’t tell the full story.  The situation of the poor is actually considerably worse. The official poverty line is calculated as simply three times the minimal food budget first introduced in 1959, and then adjusted for inflation in food costs.  In other words, the American poverty threshold takes no account of the cost of housing or fuel or transportation or health-care costs, all of which are rising more rapidly than the cost of basic foods. So the poverty measure grossly understates the real cost of subsistence.

Moreover, in 2006, interest payments on consumer debt had already put more than four million people, not officially in poverty, below the line, making them “debt poor.” Similarly, if childcare costs, estimated at $5,750 a year in 2006, were deducted from gross income, many more people would be counted as officially poor.

Nor are these catastrophic levels of poverty merely a temporary response to rising unemployment rates or reductions in take-home pay resulting from the great economic meltdown of 2008.  The numbers tell the story and it’s clear enough: poverty was on the rise before the Great Recession hit.  Between 2001 and 2007, poverty actually increased for the first time on record during an economic recovery.  It rose from 11.7% in 2001 to 12.5% in 2007.  Poverty rates for single mothers in 2007 were 49% higher in the U.S. than in 15 other high-income countries.  Similarly, black employment rates and income were declining before the recession struck.

In part, all of this was the inevitable fallout from a decades-long business mobilization to reduce labor costs by weakening unions and changing public policies that protected workers and those same unions.  As a result, National Labor Board decisions became far less favorable to both workers and unions, workplace regulations were not enforced, and the minimum wage lagged far behind inflation.

Inevitably, the overall impact of the campaign to reduce labor’s share of national earnings meant that a growing number of Americans couldn’t earn even a poverty-level livelihood — and even that’s not the whole of it.  The poor and the programs that assisted them were the objects of a full-bore campaign directed specifically at them.

Campaigning Against the Poor

This attack began even while the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960s was in full throttle.  It was already evident in the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican Barry Goldwater, as well as in the recurrent campaigns of sometime Democrat and segregationist governor of Alabama George Wallace.  Richard Nixon’s presidential bid in 1968 picked up on the theme.

As many commentators have pointed out, his triumphant campaign strategy tapped into the rising racial animosities not only of white southerners, but of a white working class in the north that suddenly found itself locked in competition with newly urbanized African-Americans for jobs, public services, and housing, as well as in campaigns for school desegregation.  The racial theme quickly melded into political propaganda targeting the poor and contemporary poor-relief programs.  Indeed, in American politics “poverty,” along with “welfare,” “unwed mothers,” and “crime,” became code words for blacks.

In the process, resurgent Republicans tried to defeat Democrats at the polls by associating them with blacks and with liberal policies meant to alleviate poverty.  One result was the infamous “war on drugs” that largely ignored major traffickers in favor of the lowest level offenders in inner-city communities.  Along with that came a massive program of prison building and incarceration, as well as the wholesale “reform” of the main means-tested cash assistance program, Aid to Families of Dependent Children.  This politically driven attack on the poor proved just the opening drama in a decades-long campaign launched by business and the organized right against workers.

This was not only war against the poor, but the very “class war” that Republicans now use to brand just about any action they don’t like.  In fact, class war was the overarching goal of the campaign, something that would soon enough become apparent in policies that led to a massive redistribution of the burden of taxation, the cannibalization of government services through privatization, wage cuts and enfeebled unions, and the deregulation of business, banks, and financial institutions.

The poor — and blacks — were an endlessly useful rhetorical foil, a propagandistic distraction used to win elections and make bigger gains. Still, the rhetoric was important.  A host of new think tanks, political organizations, and lobbyists in Washington D.C. promoted the message that the country’s problems were caused by the poor whose shiftlessness, criminal inclinations, and sexual promiscuity were being indulged by a too-generous welfare system.

Genuine suffering followed quickly enough, along with big cuts in the means-tested programs that helped the poor.  The staging of the cuts was itself enwreathed in clouds of propaganda, but cumulatively they frayed the safety net that protected both the poor and workers, especially low-wage ones, which meant women and minorities. When Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office in 1980, the path had been smoothed for huge cuts in programs for poor people, and by the 1990s the Democrats, looking for electoral strategies that would raise campaign dollars from big business and put them back in power, took up the banner. It was Bill Clinton, after all, who campaigned on the slogan “end welfare as we know it.”

A Movement for a Moral Economy

The war against the poor at the federal level was soon matched in state capitols where organizations like the American Federation for Children, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Institute for Liberty, and the State Policy Network went to work.  Their lobbying agenda was ambitious, including the large-scale privatization of public services, business tax cuts, the rollback of environmental regulations and consumer protections, crippling public sector unions, and measures (like requiring photo identification) that would restrict the access students and the poor had to the ballot.  But the poor were their main public target and again, there were real life consequences — welfare cutbacks, particularly in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, and a law-and-order campaign that resulted in the massive incarceration of black men.

The Great Recession sharply worsened these trends.  The Economic Policy Institute reports that the typical working-age household, which had already seen a decline of roughly $2,300 in income between 2000 and 2006, lost another $2,700 between 2007 and 2009.  And when “recovery” arrived, however uncertainly, it was mainly in low-wage industries, which accounted for nearly half of what growth there was.  Manufacturing continued to contract, while the labor market lost 6.1% of payroll employment.  New investment, when it occurred at all, was more likely to be in machinery than in new workers, so unemployment levels remain alarmingly high. In other words, the recession accelerated ongoing market trends toward lower-wage and ever more insecure employment.

The recession also prompted further cutbacks in welfare programs.  Because cash assistance has become so hard to get, thanks to so-called welfare reform, and fallback state-assistance programs have been crippled, the federal food stamp program has come to carry much of the weight in providing assistance to the poor.  Renamed the “Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program,” it was boosted by funds provided in the Recovery Act, and benefits temporarily rose, as did participation.  But Congress has repeatedly attempted to slash the program’s funds, and even to divert some of them into farm subsidies, while efforts, not yet successful, have been made to deny food stamps to any family that includes a worker on strike.

The organized right justifies its draconian policies toward the poor with moral arguments.  Right-wing think tanks and blogs, for instance, ponder the damaging effect on disabled poor children of becoming “dependent” on government assistance, or they scrutinize government nutritional assistance for poor pregnant women and children in an effort to explain away positive outcomes for infants.

The willful ignorance and cruelty of it all can leave you gasping — and gasp was all we did for decades.  This is why we so desperately needed a movement for a new kind of moral economy.  Occupy Wall Street, which has already changed the national conversation, may well be its beginning.

Frances Fox Piven is on the faculty of the Graduate School of the City University of New York.  She is the author, along with Richard Cloward, of Regulating the Poor and Poor People’s Movements.

The Assad regime in Syria is facing increased scrutiny for its handling of demonstrators.  The Syrian opposition has asked for arms and NATO intervention similar to what was witnessed in Libya .  Washington Hawks such as former presidential candidate and U.S. Senator John McCain have called for military intervention in Syria to “protect civilians.”    The call for the use of military force to “protect”.

Given the demonstrated lack of regard for human life and the aversion to justice ( Iraq , Palestine , Lebanon , Afghanistan , Pakistan , etc.), what lies behind the imperative to intervene in Syria ?

The protest movements in Syria started in Daraa — dubbed the epicenter of the anti-Assad protests.  Daraa, traditionally supportive of Syria’s ruling Baath Party, suffered from reduced water supply triggering massive protests against the local administration and the regime for failing to deal with the acute water scarcity in the region.   Water.

Therein lies the crucial motivation behind the support, agitation, and arming of Syrians against their government by those who endorse ‘humanitarian wars’.   It would be naïve to believe that the ‘humanitarian’ interest in Syria comes on the heels of the uprisings in the region given that water has been and continues to be a critical determinant of state security and foreign policy between Israel and Syria (as well as Lebanon) dating back decades.

It was the 1967 war which resulted in the exponential expansion of Israeli water sources including the  control of the Golan Heights (also referred to as the Syrian Golan ).   For decades, Syrian Golan and the return of its control to Syria has posed a major obstacle to the Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations.   Israel ‘s water demands make it virtually impossible to accommodate this process.  In fact, even with full control of the Golan, Israel ‘s water crisis in 2000 were so acute that it prompted Israel to turn to Turkey for water purchase.

In addition,  Syria ‘s  presence in Lebanon since the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war in 1975 played a crucial role in hindering Israel ‘s never-ending water demands.   Although the  1955 Johnston Plan (under the auspices of the Eisenhower administration) proposed diverting water from Lebanon ‘s Litani River into Lake Kinneret , it was not officially formulated, though it remained an attractive prospect.    In  1982, Israeli forces established the frontline of their security zone in Lebanon along the Litani.   Numerous reports alleged that Israel was diverting large quantities of Litani water.

Syria ‘s presence in Lebanon and the 1991 Lebanese-Syrian Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination,  was a challenge to Israel and its diversion of water.  When Syria replaced Israel as the dominant power in southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israeli fears grew that Syrian success in controlling the Golan and by extension, Lake Kinneret , would have a devastating effect on Israel .

Perhaps this helps explain the fact that on  September 13, 2001, while the United States  was recovering from the shock of 9/11,  the influential and powerful JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) had a statement available as to how the U.S. should proceed .    As part of its recommendations, it pointed the finger at not only at Afghanistan and Iraq , but also presented Iran , Pakistan , Syria , Sudan , the Palestinian Authority, Libya , Algeria (and eventually Saudi Arabia and Egypt ) as danger spots.  Shortly thereafter, in May 2002, the “ Axis of Evil ” was expanded to include Syria .

The next logical step was for the United States to pass and implement the Syrian Accountability Act and the Lebanon Sovereignty Restoration Act which in addition to sanctions, called for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon .  The troops remained until April 2005.   They were forced to leave  a few short months after the assassination of Prime Minsiter, Rafik Hariri when Syria was accused of involvement in the murder.   Clearly, Syria was not the beneficiary of the assassination.

Without a Syrian presence, Lebanon was made more vulnerable, facilitating the 2006 Israeli attack and invasion of water-rich Southern Lebanon .

While Israel lost the public opinion war in Lebanon and Syria remained intact amidst the accusations and chaos,  it became necessary to once again put Syria in the spotlight.   In 2007, Syria stood accused of having a nuclear bomb program.  As a member of the NPT, rather than reporting such suspicions (unfounded) to the IAEA,   Israel , with a green light from the United States , bombed a factory which it alleged was involved in nuclear weapons activities.

Israel’s attack on Syria on 6 September 2007, remained secret until it was revealed by the former prime minister (1996-1999) and the then opposition leader, Binyamin Netanyahu —  the current Prime Minister of Israel.

Netanyahu took office in March 2009.  In April 2009, a U.S. funded London-based satellite channel, Barada TV , started broadcasting anti-regime propaganda into Syria .    Barada  TV’s  chief editor, Malik al-Abdeh, is a cofounder of the Syrian exile group Movement for Justice and Development headed by Anas al-Abdah.  It is crucial to note that the pro-Israel Dennis Ross , a former fellow at the AIPAC created Washington Institute for Near East Affairs ,  who is currently a senior advisor to Barack Obama,  was present in a 2008 meeting with Anas al-Abdah ( see here ).  Although the meeting took place in early 2008, the theme of the meeting was: “ Syria in-transition”.

Prophecy or planning, doubtless,  there are many Syrians who do have grievances against their government and demand more rights.  In this sense, their cause is no different than  the many protests we witness on a daily basis around the world – including the United States .   What is tragic about the Syrian situation, is that the imperative for intervention in Syria is not based on a genuine desire to help the people.  The peoples’ grievances is being used as a means to arm them, have them killed, and create the need for an intervention in order to promote Israeli interests.

The Syria imperative is Israel ‘s gain paid for with the blood of the Syrian people.

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has a Master’s degree in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg For Communication and USC School for International Studies, Los Angeles . She is an independent researcher, public speaker, radio commentator, political columnist, and peace activist living in California .

More than six months after the signing of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement in Cairo in May, not much progress has been made in implementing the agreement. The delay and the manner in which the agreement is currently being treated threatens to consign the reconciliation process to irrelevance

The Palestinian reconciliation agreement still lacks the necessary momentum to transform it into a practical programme that has the potential to be implemented on the ground. Sixth months have lapsed since the signing of the reconciliation agreement on 3 May 2011, yet no genuine initiatives have been presented for its implementation. This despite the fact that negotiations between Fatah and Hamas happened throughout most of 2009, and it took nearly eighteen months to respond to Hamas’ objections. Although the 4 100-word draft agreement was thorough and detailed, it appears to lack any sign of life.

Should the current situation persist, it is unlikely that we will witness any breakthroughs in the reconciliation process. Rather, there will be further delays in the formation of a new interim government, the elections, the reformation of the security forces and the reform of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Thus, rather than an end of the state of division among Palestinians, the current situation more closely resembles a ‘truce’ where the West Bank and the Gaza Strip remain under the control of two different sides. The situation could be described as a move from ‘division’ to a ‘sharing’ of power and influence in the two territories, with the conflict being more covert. This is clearly not what the Palestinians have been seeking to achieve. Wishes and good intentions – if any – are not enough.

Political investment, not strategic movement

As with previous agreements in Cairo, Palestine and Makkah, the recent Palestinian reconciliation agreement lacked any genuine mechanism that would be required for its implementation. In fact, the agreement leaves it up to Mahmoud Abbas as head of the PLO and president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to give practical substance to the reconciliation and to implement its terms. A number of central requirements of the agreement have not been met.

• The Joint Committee for implementing National Reconciliation – which was supposed to have been made up of sixteen members from the different Palestinian factions, independent forces as well as eight members to be nominated by Hamas and Fatah – was not formed. Abbas also has not issued any decree regarding its formation despite the fact that it was due to begin its work soon after the signing of the agreement.
• The committee tasked with looking at the reform of the PLO was supposed to have been formed and to hold its first meeting upon the implementation of the agreement. The committee has neither met nor has it even been formed.
• No arrangements have yet been made regarding legislative and presidential elections.
• No steps have been taken for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Palestinian security forces.

It seems that Abbas and the PA leadership tactically employed the reconciliation agreement to create Palestinian consensus behind the PA, thus allowing it to appear as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. It believed that such a status would assist it in seeking United Nations recognition of the Palestinian state, and use this new position as leverage in its discussions with the Israelis and the Americans.

While Abbas accepted the agreement, he has not presented nor devised any practical steps regarding the formation of a new interim government – or, for that matter, any other issue as required by the agreement. His only action in implementing the agreement, it seems, was to nominate Salam Fayyad for the position of prime minister even though he knew full well that Hamas would reject Fayyad’s candidacy. Consequently, much time was fettered away in discussing Fayyad’s appointment, effectively stalling the process.

It is likely that Abbas wanted to exclude Hamas from any role in the formation of the government in order to obviate annoying the Israelis and Americans when the UN membership bid was being processed. He was, thus, unconcerned about the implementation of the agreement before the bid’s outcome was made known.

If the process continues as it currently is, the formation of a national unity government is highly unlikely. Additionally, it would lessen the possibility of a reform of the security forces. Furthermore, it would prevent an atmosphere that would be conducive to fair and transparent elections – especially if there were expectations of a Hamas victory, a situation which the Israelis and Americans want to avoid.

Obstacles to reconciliation

Practically, we are confronted with two contending parties which sought to enter the reconciliation process despite their ideological differences, the lack of a common institutional reference, and a profound crisis of trust. This in addition to contending with external intervention in Palestinian decision-making.

Fatah and Hamas do not share a common ideology which defines the red lines or principled issues that cannot be trespassed by the Palestinian people. Additionally there is no ideological consensus on issues which are subject to strategic assessment in light of the political situation, prevalent subjective and objective conditions, and the balance of power. This existence of different ideologies is reflected in the national programmes of the two parties, their priorities, and their strategic and tactical approaches to the resistance and peace settlement issues.

At first glance, it might seem easy to adapt to this situation. Yet, experience shows that there is a set of obstacles which would require serious consideration. For example, the two sides have different approaches to the recognition of Israel and its claims to seventy-seven percent of the land of Mandate Palestine. The PLO leadership, on the one hand, perceives the recognition of Israel as an obligation under the Oslo Accord – as well as a prerequisite for the establishment of the PA and the dream of establishing a Palestinian state. Hamas, on the other hand, rejects such recognition on an Islamic theological basis, and seeks to serve its people without conceding the right to resistance. Hamas also refuses to be coerced into recognising prior agreements between the PLO and Israel. Thus, Hamas wants to impose new rules on the game, something the Americans and Israelis do not want to allow.

Abbas, together with the PLO and Fatah leadership, calls for the formation of a government and for lifting of the siege on Gaza. Israel and the US, however, have refused to lift the siege before Hamas complies with the Quartet conditions, the first of which is the recognition of Israel – a condition that Hamas has adamantly refused to do. Thus, ‘a government that will lift the siege’ really means a government that will recognise Israel. Accordingly, the main reason for delaying the formation of the government is not related to sharing the pie or to the number of the ministers for this or that side. Rather, it is related to PA policy under Israeli occupation, and to finding a magic formula that Hamas and Fatah will both accept and that the Israelis would, at the very least, not object to.

A similar problem applies to the ‘peace process’ which the PLO leadership considers a strategic path. Dissimilarly, Hamas perceives it as futile compared to their resistance trajectory. These contradictory visions have different practical implications on the ground, particularly as to how Palestinian national priorities are defined, how to approach the enemy, or how to deal with the Arab and international environment.

Another problem is the absence of an institutional reference to which the parties might defer; an institutional reference that determines the priorities of the national project and represents the Palestinian people. Although the PLO is supposed to assume this role, Hamas, together with other forces such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) and others, are not PLO members. Rather, since February 1969, Fatah has monopolised PLO leadership for the past forty-two years.

Although the reconciliation agreement provides for the reform of the PLO and the participation in it of other Palestinian factions, the political practice of its leadership has often tended to disrupt any efforts related to the reform of the organisation and the rebuilding of its institutions. Meanwhile, Hamas, PIJ and other factions are not only looking to participate in the leadership but also to contribute to re-defining the priorities of the national project – based on a rejection of conceding land – and protecting the resistance option. Such an approach would mean reconsidering agreements signed by the PLO and, perhaps, even cancelling or modifying a number of them. Fatah, however, will likely be inclined to oppose such a move and block any changes in this respect.

External factors are a third obstacle in the reconciliation process. This needs to be understood in the context of the PA still being faced with Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the siege of the Gaza Strip. Indeed, the PA is constrained by the Oslo Accord that requires it to assume a role in protecting Israel and preventing resistance activities. Furthermore, Israel controls all the borders as well as the movement of exported and imported goods. It also regularly destroys Palestinian infrastructure, occupies the supposedly autonomous areas, arbitrarily arrests Palestinians, has a strangle-hold on the Palestinian economy, continues with its Judaisation of Palestinian territory and imposes sanctions, and withholds taxes as a means of pressurising the Palestinians on political, economic and security levels. Further, Israeli authorities have the capacity, which they are not reticent to exercise, to undermine legislative elections and arrest ministers and Palestinian Legislative Council deputies who support the resistance or are member of Hamas, – thus thwarting the functioning of the PA.

External interference is clearly visible in American and western influence through the Quartet conditions, the siege of Gaza, attempts to isolate Hamas, the PA’s dependence on foreign funding, and the supervision of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank by US generals Keith Dayton and Michael Muller.

In addition to the above factors, the deep crisis of confidence between Hamas and Fatah has worsened the situation. It is therefore necessary that positive initiatives are presented to overcome the hostility between the two sides and bridge the gap between them.

Towards genuine reconciliation

It is clear that the solution to the problem faced by the reconciliation initiative is far beyond the agreement itself. In addition, although the agreement helped in rounding off the sharp edges and finding a number of mechanisms to resolve differences and rebuild institutions, there is much more that needs to be done. This goes beyond the tactical benefits of the agreement.

If there is a will to achieve genuine national reconciliation, it is important that the following questions are answered:

• What are the priorities of the Palestinian national project and would it be possible to reach a common stance on the resistance and the peace process?
• How could an independent Palestinian national decision be reached that bypasses American or Israeli interference, and is not hampered by the conditions imposed by the Quartet or any other side?
• How could a ‘national contract’ be formulated that defines the political constants or non-negotiables, respects institutional mechanisms, acknowledges political pluralism and the peaceful rotation of power, and ends the mentality of monopoly and domination?
• Is the PA still useful for and able to move towards the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state? Does the peace process still provide a way in which this can be achieved?
• Is it necessary to reconsider the role of the PA and to adapt it in a way that serves the Palestinian people rather than the interests of the occupier? Is there a possibility of dissolving the PA and establishing a unified resistance force?
• What is Hamas’ perception of the combination of power and resistance? How would it implement its programme of reform and change under the occupation, especially in the West Bank?
• How could integration and interaction between the role of Palestinians in territorial Palestine, and refugees abroad be achieved, and how can the Palestinian cause benefit from the tremendous potential of its people? How could this interaction be expanded at Arab, Islamic and international levels in order to consolidate the liberation and independence project?

These are but a few questions which require responses by Palestinian decision-makers. Effectively answering these questions requires – besides good will and earnest commitment – mature visions that might be tailored with the help of research centres, think tanks and specialists in different fields. It also requires the formation of public opinion which presses for the implementation of the reconciliation agreement. Further, it is premised on the rejection of partisanship so that it might be possible for all sides to confront the Zionist project.

If the current situation persists, the chances for the reconciliation agreement to achieve any tangible success will continue to be slim, and referring to it will simply be a tactical manoeuvre. Ultimately, the current situation represents a transfer from a state of ‘division’ to one of ‘sharing influence’, while waiting for real reform or for the current circumstances to explode where the will and vision of one party prevails over others.

By Dr. Mohsen Saleh

16 November 2011

@ Afro- Middle East Centre (AMEC)

* Dr Mohsen Saleh is the Director of the Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations

** This article was first published by the Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, and is published here in terms of an agreement between AMEC and the Al-Zaytouna Centre

On May 15, 2011, young people occupied the squares of the cities in Spain. They called themselves Los Indignados – “the indignant”. I met them in Madrid where I was attending the meeting of the scientific committee that advises the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Their declaration states: “Who are we? We are the people; we have come here freely as volunteers. Why are we here? We are here because we want a new society that gives more priority to life than to economic interest.”

In the US, the ongoing “Occupy movement” commonly cries: “We are the 99 per cent”. This people’s protest, inspired by the Arab Spring, is directed against the unequal distribution of wealth; the “99 per cent” here refers to “the difference in wealth between the top one per cent and all the remaining citizens”.

The fact that they were supported by actions around the world when they were to be evicted from Wall Street on October 14 shows that, everywhere, people are fed up with the current system. They are fed up with the power of corporations. They are fed up with the destruction of democracy and peoples’ rights. They refuse to give their consent to the bailouts of banks by squeezing people of their lives and livelihoods. The contest, as “the 99 per cent” describe it, is between life and economic interests, between people and corporations, between democracy and economic dictatorship.

The organising style of the people’s movements worldwide is based on the deepest and the most direct democracy. This is self-organisation. This is how life and democracy work. This is what Mahatma Gandhi called swaraj.

Those from the dominant system, used to hierarchy and domination do not understand the horizontal organising and call these movements “leaderless”.

Gandhi had said:

“Life will not be a pyramid with the apex sustained by the bottom. But it will be an oceanic circle whose centre will be the individual always ready to perish for the village, the latter ready to perish for the circle of villages till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in their arrogance, but ever humble, sharing the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral units. Therefore, the outermost circumference will not wield power to crush the inner circle, but will give strength to all within and will derive its own strength from it.”

The general assemblies in cities around the world are living examples of these “ever expanding, never ascending” oceanic circles. When everyone has to be included in decision-making, consensus is the only way. This is how indigenous cultures have practiced democracy throughout history. Future generations are reconnecting to this ancient tradition of shaping real freedom because corporate rule has displaced democracy, and people’s representatives have mutated into corporate representatives.

Today, worldwide, representative democracy has reached its democratic limits. From being “by the people, for the people, of the people”, it has become “by the corporations, of the corporations, for the corporations”. Money drives elections, and money runs government.

Gandhi identified “modern civilisation” as the real cause for loss of freedom:

“Let us first consider what state of things is described by the word ‘civilisation’. Its true test lies in the fact that people living in it make bodily welfare the object of life … Civilisation seeks to increase bodily comforts and it fails miserably even in doing so … This civilisation is such that one has only to be patient and it will be self-destroyed.”

This I believe is at the heart of Gandhi’s foresight. The ecological crisis which is a result of the intense resource appetite and pollution caused by industrialisation is the most important aspect of the self-destruction of civilisation. Industrialisation is based on fossil fuels, and fossil fuel civilisation has given us climate chaos and is threatening us with climate catastrophe. It has also given us unemployment.

Gandhi also refers to the fact that the sole objective of “civilisation” is bodily welfare and it fails miserably even in this objective and it fails in its own measure.

The new movements of the future generations are movements of the excluded who have been deprived of every right – political, economic and social. They have nothing to lose but their disposability and dispensability.

In spite of being the victims of brutal injustice and exclusion, non-violence is a deep commitment of these new movements. “Occupy” is in fact a reclaiming of the commons. The park is the physical commons in every town. Today the parks are places for announcing to Wall Street, to banks, to governments, that the 99 per cent is withdrawing its consent from the present disorder which has pushed millions to homelessness, joblessness and hunger.

Freedom in our times has been sold as “free market democracy”. “Free markets” mean freedom for corporations to exploit whom and what they want, where they want, how they want. It means the end of freedom for people and nature everywhere. “Free market democracy” is in fact an oxymoron which has deluded us into believing that deregulation of corporations means freedom for us.

Just as the illusion of growth and the fiction of finance has made the economy volatile and unpredictable, the fiction of the corporation as a legal person has replaced citizens and made society unstable and non-sustainable. Humans as earth citizens, with duties and rights, have been replaced by corporations, with no duties to either the earth or society, only limitless rights to exploit both the earth and people. Corporations have been assigned legal personhood, and corporate rights, premised on maximisation of profits, are now extinguishing the rights of the earth, and the rights of people to the earth’s gifts and resources.

The new movements understand this. And that is why they are indignant and are occupying the political and economic spaces to create a living democracy with people and the earth at the centre instead of corporations and greed.

By Vandana Shiva

15 November 2011

@ Al Jazeera

Dr Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and has campaigned for biodiversity, conservation and farmers’ rights – winning the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1993.

Israeli democracy fades to black (the black of the blank screen at the end of a film). That was the headline over a recent article by Lawrence Davidson, an American professor of Middle East history. He argued that the suppression of the democratic rights of non-Jews in Israel is coming full circle with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likudniks and settlers now targeting the rights of Jews as well. Events in Cairo provoked this question: Are we witnessing the fading to black of the prospects for freedom and democracy in Egypt, or, is resurgent people power going to make it impossible for the military to maintain its controlling grip? (Presumably there would be limits to how many Egyptian civilians Egyptian soldiers were prepared to kill even if the generals, desperate to protect their wealth and privileges, ordered the suppression by all means of protests and demands for real democracy).

Events still to unfold will determine the answer but in advance of them, and before Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi demonstrated a degree of panic by announcing that the election of a civilian president would be brought forward, the assessment of many informed observers was in tune with that of Marina Ottaway, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She wrote: “In the early days of the Egyptian uprising, when violence threatened to engulf the country, the military did an admirable job of maintaining order without violence and easing Hosni Mubarak out of office. Ten months later, it has emerged as the most serious threat in the transition to democracy. Recent announcements leave no doubt that the military indeed rules Egypt and intends to maintain its control indefinitely.”

The best indicator of whether or not Eygpt’s generals will eventually bow to people power and let democracy have its way will be in their final decision about dropping or not their proposal that new constitutional principles should preserve special powers for the military after the handover to civilian rule. These special powers as originally proposed would give the military a veto over a new constitution and prevent scrutiny of its vast budget. In other words, these “supra-constitutional” principles would enshrine the military’s right to intervene in civilian politics at any time of its choosing.

If Egypt’s generals do seek to control the democratic process by (among other things) fixing elections as Mubarak did, they will back their actions with the assertion that they must do whatever is necessary to prevent radical Islam taking over the country. That would put them on the same page as Zionism’s propaganda maestros. In a recent article for Ha’aretz, Moshe Arens, a former Israeli Minister of Defence and Foreign Minister, wrote the following.

“A wave of Islamic rule, with all it entails, is sweeping across the Arab world. It will replace secular dictatorships with Islamic ones. We should have expected nothing else… Observers may fool themselves into believing that the Islamic parties contesting the elections in the Arab countries are ‘mildly’ Islamic, or ‘moderate’ Islamists, but their leaders are neither mild nor moderate.”

The unstated but implicit Zionist message Arens is conveying is that the Arab Spring will create more and more states that will become safe havens for Islamic terrorists, and that Israel and the West, America especially, will have to pursue the “war against terrorism” on many more fronts with even greater vigour and escalating expense.

What the overwhelming majority of all Arabs want is an end to corrupt, repressive, autocratic rule. In reality there is no prospect of Muslims who preach the need for violence and practise it calling the shots if democracy is allowed to take root and grow in the Arab world. In Egypt for example, and whatever it may or may not have been in the past, the Muslim Brotherhood is the process of transforming itself, now in the guise of the Freedom and Justice Party, into a modern and progressive political force which truly wants to see Egypt governed by democratic means for the benefit of all and not just a privileged elite. The only thing that could drive a significant number of Egyptians into supporting violent Islamic fundamentalism is never-ending military suppression of their demands for freedom and democracy. (If this were to happen one could say that like “Dubya” Bush and Tony Blair, Egypt’s generals had become recruiting sergeants for violent Islamic fundamentalism).

In my analysis Arens’ prediction of what will happen in the Arab world is a cover for the real fear of Zionism’s in-Israel and in-America leaders. It is that democracy could or even will take root in the Arab world or at least major chunks of it. Why such a prospect alarms Zionism is not complicated.

Democratically elected Arab governments would have to be reflect the will of their masses, the voters. On the matter of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, what is the will of the Arab masses? In their heads if not always their hearts it is not for military confrontation with Israel. It is that their governments be united enough use the leverage they have on America, to cause it to use the leverage it has on Israel, to cause or try to cause enough Israeli Jews to face reality and insist that their leaders make peace on terms which would satisfy the demands and needs of the Palestinians for justice, while at the same time guaranteeing the security and wellbeing of Jews now resident in Palestine that became Israel.

The leverage the Arab world has is in the form of oil, money and diplomatic relations.

For an example of how this Arab leverage could have been used to good effect in the past I’ll turn the clock back to 1967. Now let us suppose that in the weeks following the Six Days War the Arab leaders put their act together and sent one of their number secretly to Washington to deliver this message to President Johnson: “If you don’t get the Israelis back to the pre-war borders, we’ll turn off the oil taps.” (That is how Zionism’s in-Israel leaders would have played the oil card if the boot had been on the other foot, if they had been in the Arab position).

How would Johnson (or any other occupant of the White House) have responded?

If he believed the Arab leaders were united and serious, not bluffing, he would have said something very like the following: “I can’t promise quick action on East Jerusalem but otherwise give me three weeks and I’ll do it.”

In short, the Arabs would not have had to turn off the oil taps. A credible threat to do so would have been enough to motivate Johnson (or any other American president) to use all necessary leverage to bring Israel’s occupation to a quick end.

That’s how the game of political leverage is played.

A real hello to democracy in the Arab world or at least significant chunks of it, and Egypt especially, would be very bad news for Zionism.

Netanyahu is fully aware of this and is escalating his anti Arab Spring rhetoric. In his latest speech to the Knesset he blasted Israeli and world politicians who support the demands for change in the Arab world and accused it of “moving not forward, but backward.” He asserted that his original forecast that the Arab Spring would turn into an “Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli and anti-democratic wave” had turned out to be true.

In his report for Ha’aretz, Barak Ravid wrote: “The speech showed an expressed lack of trust in Arab nations’ ability to maintain a democratic regime; a yearning to go back to the days of ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; a fear of the collapse of the Hashemite royal house in Jordan, and an utter lack of willingness to make any concessions to the Palestinians.”

Netanyahu also slammed those Western leaders, Obama especially, who had pressed Egypt’s generals to tell Mubarak to go. At the time that was happening, Ravid revealed, Netanyahu said in closed talks that the American administration and many European leaders “don’t understand reality”. In his last speech he called them “naive”.

I used to wonder if Netanyahu really believes the nonsense he talks. I am now convinced that he does.

The latest developments in Cairo – the apology by two of the generals on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) – are making me wonder if the coming days will see the removal of Field Marshall Tantawi, which is what the protestors in Tahrir Square are demanding. The two generals not only apologized for the deaths of protestors, they said, according to the BBC report I heard, “We do not aspire to power and we do not want to continue in power.”

If those words can be taken at face value, they suggest to me that a majority of Tantawi’s SCAF colleagues have realised that continuing in power, even behind the scenes, would require them at a point to give orders to the army to shoot to kill large numbers of Egyptians, orders which would not be obeyed by the lower ranks and foot soldiers.

If that is the case – Tantawi’s departure would indicate that it is – the prospects for a real hello to democracy in Egypt are improving. And if something approaching real democracy can take root and grow in Egypt, the days of Arab autocrats and despots almost everywhere (probably not Saudi Arabia) may well be numbered.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at http://www.alanhart.net and tweets via http://twitter.com/alanauthor

After the Arab League hypocritically suspended the membership of Syria amid the mounting pressures of NATO and the United States, the resurgence of violence in Egypt and the increasing use of excessive force in Bahrain and Yemen and the unrelenting massacre of innocent civilians by the barbaric regime of Al Khalifa and Ali Abdullah Saleh once again attracted the attention of conscientious observers in the international community.

According to official figures released by the “Bahrain Center for Human Rights” website, so far 44 Bahraini citizens were killed at the hands of the mercenaries of Al Khalifa regime. The Bahraini martyrs include the 6-year-old Mohammed Farhan, 14-year-old Ali Jawad Alshaikh and 15-year-old Sayed Ahmad Saeed Shams. The Bahraini organization has reported that many of these martyrs were killed while in custody. The Center has also published documents indicating that more than 1,500 Bahrainis including about 100 women were incarcerated since the eruption of turmoil in the Persian Gulf country on February 14, 2011 and that more that 90 journalists face life threat.

It’s also said that the Bahraini government has blocked the citizens’ access to more than 1000 opposition websites which are mainly used to organize and plan protests and mass demonstrations.

The Bahraini regime commits all of these aggressive and brutal actions with the direct involvement of the Saudi Arabia and the implicit support and backing of NATO and the United States. The author of the “Hidden Harmonies China” blog in a March 14, 2011 post referred to the abuses of human rights in Bahrain with the flagrant, duplicitous support of the White House: “the Entry of Saudi security forces to crack down on the protesters with deadly force is a complication for U.S. policies, to say the least, since U.S. is reluctant to criticize its oil ally dictators in the region.”

He also called Bahrain the “Las Vegas” of the Middle East, host to the U.S. 5th Fleet and a haunt for the rich Saudis who are forbidden by Islamic laws at home from indulging in alcohol and other immoral enjoyments, “but who often vacation in Bahrain for these reasons.”

Bahraini citizens have uploaded several video files on the internet, showing the cruel and ruthless torturing and persecuting of the protesters by the Al Khalifa lackeys. These videos depict the Bahraini forces using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters and killing many of them straight away. Some of these videos also show the Saudi and Bahraini cars nonchalantly running over Bahraini children and women, killing them at once.

The U.S.-Saudi project of crackdown on the Bahraini people was also empowered by many of the European cronies of Washington. In July 2011, Germany sold a set of 200 62-ton Leopard tanks to Saudi Arabia which sparked a huge controversy among the German parliamentarians and anti-war activists. According to the Daily Telegraph, Wolfgang Gerhardt, former leader of the Free Democrats, the junior collation member to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said it was “unacceptable” the deal went through without the knowledge of his party’s MPs. However, the agreement which was worth around USD 1,252 million was concluded and the Saudi government dispatched many of these newly-bought tanks to Bahrain to accelerate and facilitate the bloody clampdown on the protesters.

The situation in Yemen, however, is far more deplorable and appalling. Allvoices.com has reported that as of September 25, 1,870 Yemenis were killed in the revolution and the majority of the martyrs were unarmed civilians taking part in anti-government demonstrations.

The Yemeni dictator who has remained defiant in the face of frequent calls by the tribal leaders, opposition groups and demonstrators to step down and give up power has turned his country into a bloodbath and made the Yemeni uprising the longest, most devastative revolution in the revolutionary wave of protests in the Middle East. The protests in Yemen started on February 3, 2011 and have continued so far. The only reaction of the international community to the brutality in Yemen was an indecisive and faltering resolution by the UNSC which called for “an end to violence” and asked President Ali Abdullah Saleh to accept a peace deal brokered by the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council. However, Abdullah Saleh who is tacitly supported by the U.S., kept up with the brutalities and according to Yemen Times, 94 protesters were killed after the Security Council adopted the resolution 2014.

In a report published on Yemen Times on November 17, it was revealed that “ninety-four Yemenis were killed and over 800 injured since UN Resolution 2014 was issued on October 21.”

“Tentative reports show that over the last three weeks in Yemen, 124 homes, seven mosques, six public institutions including one hospital, two community wells, and 17 vehicles were effectively destroyed,” Yemen Times reported.

In the days leading to the detainment and death of Moammar Gaddafi, the Western mainstream media were only talking about the Libyan civil war, and the reason was clear: NATO had secured a UNSC resolution to enact a no-fly zone over Libya and it was in the interests of the U.S. and its European partners to give coverage to the tumultuous situation in the North African country. However, the reports and news regarding the carnage in Bahrain and Yemen were predominantly shunned and boycotted, simply because these two despotic regimes were close allies of the U.S. in the Middle East.

In a report published on “Independent Australia,” Zaid Jiani alluded to the violent crackdown on the protesters in Bahrain and Yemen and posed the question that “is the media downplaying these events because the two dictatorships are firm allies of the West?”

“A Think Progress analysis of press coverage by the three major U.S. cable news networks -CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News – from March 14 to March 18 finds that Bahrain received only slightly more than ten percent as many mentions as Libya and that Yemen received only six percent as many mentions as Libya.”

Now what concerns the independent thinkers, scholars, university professors, journalists and peace activists is that Syria has become the target of international pressure, simply because it has strong ties with Iran and resistant groups in Lebanon and Palestine, while the reactionary regimes of Bahrain and Yemen are getting away with the felonies which they commit by the virtue of their alliance with the United States.

Arab League has vindictively suspended the participation of Syria while it has taken no practical step to normalize the situation in the turbulent and chaotic Yemen and Bahrain in which innocent people are being killed on a daily basis by their tyrannical rulers and their loyalists

All that can be said is that the performance of the Arab League in neglecting the situation in Yemen and Bahrain and exaggerating the unrest in Syria which is mainly caused by the foreign intervention and the West’s indifference toward the plight of the suppressed nations in Yemen and Bahrain is an all-out hypocrisy and a clear, undeniable exercise of double standards. Who can really devise a clear-cut solution for this unsolvable dilemma?

By Kourosh Ziabari

24 November 2011

@ Countercurrents.org

Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian journalist

Benghazi : The “new Libya” has entered its own “Terror” which is spreading inexorably, aided by NATO member states including American, French and British SAS units known locally as “disappearance squads”. This is one of the rapidly developing consequences of the UN’s rush to “protect Libya’s civilian population” last spring.

And it is why human rights investigators are arriving in Benghazi, Libya this week.

“Approximately 1,085.92082238 kilometers or roughly 600 miles from Cairo to Benghazi” is what the lovely travel agent who works a couple of doors down from the Swedish Café off Tahir Sq reported as she smiled and wanted this observer to take a fancy high rise double decker luxury bus to Benghazi where I was headed from Cairo. In the end I settled for sharing a dump truck at one-third the cost across the Egyptian and Libyan desert to the Courthouse in Benghazi. It didn’t seem such a bad idea following meetings in nearby countries, especially considering alternative routes which would have involved flying to Tunis, then another flight to Jerba and then the six hours jammed service ride to Tripoli. I had been there and done that more than once and needed to leave right away to meet some people who were being held in one of Benghazi’s teeming jails.

Until the NTC announced changes yesterday, anyone bearing an American passport did not need a visa to enter Libya, so grateful has been the NTC for all the financial help that American taxpayers, largely unknowingly, have supplied to NTC officials in addition to presenting them with a country with vast oil reserves and zero national debt.

One of the fortunate language usages in this part of the world is the liberal transliteration tolerances applied to Arabic which helps those challenged by the language. As is widely known there are many ways to write Arabic words in roman characters and most are accepted. But one has to listen carefully in Libya these days to grasp the important distinction between certain English words when referring to the fate of increasing numbers of supporters of the Gadhafi regime. In the current atmosphere one often hears that someone “has disappeared” which, depending on one’s political views is usually good news and it means the person is in hiding or left the area or fled the country to safety. Alternatively, it might be said that a person “is disappeared” meaning that she or he was caught by the new regime and is gone, probably, forever without a trace for loved ones to pursue.

Following meetings with Libyan evacuees (disappeared) from NATO’s nine months of bombing who are now present in nearby countries and from meetings inside Libya with incarcerated former officials and some of their family members as well as fugitive opponents of the new “government” it is clear that the current period is cascading into paroxysmal revenge attacks and political cleansing.

Those increasingly being targeted by “disappearance squads” are family members and associates, even former domestic employees such as gardeners, handymen, and household staff of former regime affiliates. Homes, cars, furniture, of former regime affiliates are being systematically confiscated. Torture has become the normal means to elicit information regarding the whereabouts of individuals thought to still be supporting the former regime. The reason, according to one former Libyan official who barely escaped one of the French squads and who now resides in Egypt, “is the same reason drones are so popular with your US military, torture works. Not 100% but it’s better than the other options.”

There appears to be a Tell Tale Heart paranoia settling in among some NTC elements who believe that if there is one Gadhafi supporter left in Libya it might mean the return of his ideas for Libya’s role via a vis the West and its re-colonization of Africa plans, control of Libya’s natural resources and its relations with the rapidly changing Middle East.

Even Libya’s NATO-managed NTC members are worried that they may be investigated by the International Criminal Court after its prosecutor said allegations of crimes committed by NATO in Libya would be examined “impartially and independently.” Some western lawyers currently in Libya who are here to help victims of NATO crimes are oddly being approached by members of the new regime for discussions relating to the possibility that the ICC may come after them. This is also one of the reasons why rumors that Saif al Islam is about to surrender to the ICC are false. Saif is being advised to wait and rest because the ICC case will collapse as more facts of NATO crimes surface. Former Libyan officials in hiding are also well advised to stay safe if possible as time may be on their side.

Government officials of countries bordering Libya are being advised to allow sanctuary for supporters of the former Libyan government and to refuse extradition requests because activity currently taking place in The Hague may well pre-empt a war crimes investigation.

Tunisia is today under great pressure from NATO not to change its mind and not to decline the NTC extradition request for Libya’s former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. NATO is concerned because American lawyers recommended last month that Baghdadi apply for U.N. political refugee status with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to try to prevent his extradition from Tunisia. On 11/11/11 the UN acknowledged receipt of Dr. Baghdadi’s petition and informed intermediaries that it is being seriously considered. UNHCR has a good record in similar cases but needs to pressure Lebanon with respect its outrageous treatment of a quarter million Palestinian refugees, now suffering debasement for over 63 years.

Other reasons the NTC and NATO are concerned is that there is currently being undertaken in the Hague an encompassing internal legal review of all incidents in which NATO bombing or other NATO or NTC actions caused civilian casualties. An American led team is nearing completion of its six month investigation which is expected to be forwarded to the ICC and made public soon

A main reason former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril resigned recently, and others will, is the pressure he has been under from Islamists and many others who remember his record as the former regime’s Minister of Justice and Jibril’s concern that he may be investigated himself by the ICC for many decisions he has made over the past eight months that are now coming to light. Following his statement about how Muammalr Gadhafi was killed after he was taken into custody alive, which constituted a clear war crime, Jibril is now claiming that it was not him who gave the order to assassinate Gadhafi or even Jibril’s former friend, General Younnis, but rather as he explained at a news conference yesterday, amid snickers from assembled journalists, that “a third party maybe a State, or a President or leader in any way who wanted Gaddafi killed, so as not to reveal the many secrets that only Gaddafi could have known.” Jibril did not have to mention that Gadhafi knew many secrets about himself and other NTC officials and he is not alone among NATO and NTC officials in fearing an ICC investigation.

It is this atmosphere that is significantly fueling the Terror across Libya.

By Franklin Lamb

Franklin Lamb is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

With apologies to T.S. Eliot, let me twist his words around a bit and say, “Between the media and the reality falls the shadow.” Bouthaina Shabaan, the sharp political advisor to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, had her finger on the shadow when she told visiting Indian journalists in October, “Neither we nor the BBC knows what’s happening in Homs.” The candour belied the image of a secretive and blustering regime. After moving around Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia, we suspected that western diplomacy and the western media were tinkering with reality in depicting a complex Syrian situation.

But Homs was an eye-opener. We reached a spot barely 20 minutes after a three-hour (2-5 pm) gunfight. But it wasn’t security forces that opened indiscriminate fire on opposition demonstrators, as day after day, big media outlets had us believe about Homs. The dead, and the injured in a hospital we visited, were largely women and children. But they’d died from bullets fired by the opposition, not the state troops. Homs wasn’t a town completely up in arms against the ruling Ba’athists, as is being projected. It was divided, with several sullen streets, all shut and palled in ghostly silence. But there were also streets that were all lit up even after a gunfight, with passionate government supporters shouting pro-Assad slogans—also pro-India and anti-America slogans when they learnt that we were from India. An objective assessment of the situation in Syria would also include the violence inflicted by certain opposition groups, a stand that India correctly took in the UN Security Council, based on feedback from the ground provided by the Indian embassy in Damascus. This is a stand that has gone down well with large sections of people on the streets of Syrian towns.

The so-called uprising in Syria lies largely along an arc of towns near the borders—with Lebanon, Iraq or Turkey—indicating a degree of backing from across the borders. Non-western diplomats talk of four strands of opposition: a) Peasants uncomfortable with the recent market-driven policies of the Assad government. It’s an ‘economic resentment’, articulated in the terminology of popular non-fundamentalist Islam. b) Progressive sections of the middle classes, who genuinely want democratic reforms. c) Wahabi hardline Islamists backed by fundamentalist Arab elements, largely from Saudi Arabia. d) People who resented the secularist, Arab socialist Ba’ath party takeover and left Syria for western pastures. They have made their money in the West, live there and want to refashion Syria with western support, in the western image, and allied to western interests.

Government leaders like Bouthaina and foreign minister Walid al-Moallem differentiate between what they call the opposition rooted in the country and the violent armed bands, backed by foreign powers, which infiltrate their peaceful demonstrations. Certain Syria-based opposition groups responded to the government’s negotiation initiative, opened through the offices of the Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun. He told us his son was recently assassinated by fundamentalist Islamists. About democratic reforms, Bouthaina sounds quite candid: “We are serious in recognising that reforms are Syria’s need of the hour.” Hence, she says, the government has lifted the emergency enforced for decades in Syria and announced a timeline for multi-party parliamentary elections in February next year, governorate elections, also in November 2012, and presidential elections in 2014. Therefore the government accepted the Arab League’s proposal for widened talks with the opposition, but it is adamant in not compromising with Syria’s secular ethos.

The regime is capitalising on the horrors of extremist Islamist and foreign intervention in Egypt, where Coptic Christians were massacred and the army rules with an iron fist, Libya and Iraq before that. Ba’athist Syria has provided free secular space to women and religious minorities like the Christians and Islamic sects like the Shias, the Alawites, the Ismailis and the Druze. Syria is largely an educated, middle-class society: large sections have a stake in women’s emancipation and plurality. These people are alarmed by the political Islam exported by their neighbours. The Assad regime emphasises that the West’s rhetoric of human rights overthrows only secular nationalist Arab regimes, but stops at the doorsteps of autocratic and fundamentalist sheikhdoms willing to play stooge. It says western interests have not gone beyond oil and securing Israel. For now, Syria is more hit by the western economic sanctions than internal unrest. But sanctions also induce patriotic fervour, as witnessed in huge pro-Assad rallies. The West would do well to heed this and not create another bloody mess. Syria needs to be encouraged to reform and resolve its trust deficit. Unhindered by foreign interference.

By Neelabh Mishra

21 November 2011

@ outlookindia.com

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Damascus Citadel is celebrating Adha Eid through holding the 2nd “Childhood Joy Festivity” which mixes all types of entertainment and cultural activties through various children games such as the electric train and swings, in addition to theatrical shows, films, folkloric dances and entertainment shows.

Director of the Festivity, Malak Yasin said that new activities are being held in the framework of the festivity which is organized for the second year in a row such as the cinematic and theatrical shows, in addition to the sculpture workshops.

She added that all the products of the workshops will be a gift from the Ministry of Culture to Damascus Citadel.

She indicated that the festivity has witnessed a huge turn out during Adha Eid as the number of the children who participated in it has significantly increased in comparison with the last year.

She said that the increase in the number of the participants has been due to the suitable activities provided not only to the children, but also to their parents.

Technical Supervisor of the Festivity, Rami Issa said that the preparations for the event this year took about a month including the rehearsals for the theatrical shows and preparing the suitable atmosphere for the exhibitions and workshops.

The activities held by the Ministry of Culture at Damascus Citadel vary to include an environmental exhibition and interactive environmental activities.

Artistic workshops are also being held at the internal and external hallways of the Citadel, in addition to the puppet theatre and shadow theatre.

The festivity opens everyday during Adha Eid from 11:00 am till 10:00 pm.

Damascus Citadel was chosen for holding the Festivity to allow the children and their parents to get more acquainted with this magnificent great cultural monument.

By R. al-Jazaeri

State employees and families of Homs : life is normal… basic needs are available

HOMS, (SANA)- Families and the State’s employees in Homs on Wednesday underlined that life is normal in Homs, and there is no shortage in the goods and basic needs of people in contrary to what some provocative channels broadcast.

Director of Homs bakeries Khaled Jomaa said this basic material is being distributed in all the city’s suburbs as normal, adding that the private, public and reserve bakeries are working continuously, even during the Eid holiday.

Amer Turkmani, Director of Homs Water , said the drinking water is available in all Homs neighborhoods and his department didn’t receive any complaint about shortage in water.

Director of Homs Communications Kanaan Joudeh underlined that the phone network is working well in most of Homs surroundings, adding that the maintenance workshops are mending the defects resulted by acts of sabotage at the hands of terrorist groups.

Wa’el Obeid, Head of the Cleanness Department in Homs referred to intensified operations to clean the city’s neighborhoods and remove the debris and roadblocks set up by the armed groups in some streets.

Citizens of Baba Amro, Bab al-Sibaa and al-Naziheen suburbs in Homs stressed that life is normal, shops are open, all basic needs are available and the children are enjoying their Eid holiday.

By Mazen

Armed groups kill civilians in Sirmin, Idleb.. Attack citizens in Daraa

Idleb, (SANA)-An armed terrorist group on Wednesday killed teacher Mohammad Kharouf by shooting fire on him while he was going out to visit his family in Sirmin, Idleb.

SANA reporter quoted sources at the city’s Police as saying that the body of Mazen Hassoun, an employee in one of Sirmin schools was found in Talmans town . Hassoun was abducted by an armed terrorist group before Eid al-Adha.

Engineering units dismantle two explosive devices in Homs

An official source informed SANA’s correspondent in Homs that engineering units dismantled two explosive devices planted in the garden of a house in the Khaldiyeh neighborhood in Homs city.

The source said that the two devices which are handmade and filled with processed fertilizer were dismantled without causing any harm.

Citizen in Daraa narrates story of an attack against him by armed group

Citizen Jamal Mahmoud al-Nawfal, from Mothbein town in Daraa, said that while he was having his breakfast with his wife and 5 sons last Saturday,  11 armed men attacked his house, trying to storm it.

“When they failed to storm my house, they went to my brother’s house next door and burned it as my brother Taleb and his family escaped to save their lives,” Jamal said.

He added that when they rushed to rescue his brother and his family, they were beaten by the terrorists, causing severe injuries to Jamal and his brother. Later, they were admitted to a-Sanamin  military Hospital.

Nawfal said that this attack is the third of its kind because he rejected to participate in the gatherings.

By H. Sabbagh/ Mazen

Seven Martyrs Escorted to Final Resting Place

DAMASCUS,HOMS, SANA – Seven army and security forces martyrs on Wednesday were escorted to their final resting place from Homs and Tishreen Military Hospitals.

The martyrs were targeted by armed terrorist groups while they were fulfilling their national duty to keep security and stability of the homeland.

Official ceremonies were held in honor of the martyrs as they were covered with the national flag and laurel wreaths and carried on shoulders while the army band played “the Martyr” and “Farewell” music.

The martyrs are:

•           Lieutenant Colonel, Hussain Ahmed Rsaud, Hama.

•           Second Lieutenant, Mohamed Ali Fandi, Tartous.

•           Sergeant, Ibrahim Mohammed Fallaha, Hama.

•           Corporal, Rami Mahmoud Hussein, Tartous.

•           Private, Ahmed Ibrahim Hallaq, Idleb.

•           Private, Faisal Madloul Fahd, Qamishli.

•           Private, Ali Reshou al-Said, Aleppo.

By Ghossoun /

A group of External opposition attack delegation of Coordinating Board in front of Arab League HQ

CAIRO, (SANA)- In a clear expression of the abolishment, elimination and dismissal of the other, an opposition group of Istanbul Council who was present in Cairo attacked with eggs and tomatoes a delegation representing the Coordinating Board of Democratic Change Powers in Syria.

The attack was carried out in front of the Arab League HQ in Cairo while the delegation was entering the site to meet AL Secretary General, preventing members of the delegation from entering because they rejected the foreign intervention in Syria.

A number of the assaulters, who attacked the delegation said that they assaulted members of the delegation because “they won’t express their demands which call for bringing foreigners into Syria, internationalizing the situation and imposing no-fly zone in the country.”

Hassan Abdul-Azim, Head of the Coordinating Board, in comments to the event said “we reject dismissal or any member of the opposition groups to abolish us or prevent us from expressing our stance because we reject the military intervention.”

Members of the delegation couldn’t enter the AL HQ, except Abdul-Azim who met Mr. Nabil al-Arabi, while the others, Michel Kilo, Haitham Manaa and Saleh Mislim returned to their residence.

By Mazen

Lavrov reiterates his country’s stance in support of the Arab Initiative

MOSCOW, (SANA)-Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined his country’s firm stance in support of the Arab League’s initiative that gives a real base to conduct a dialogue between the Syrian authorities and the opposition as well as paving the way for settling the situation through peaceful political means.

During a phone call with the Arab League’s Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi on Wednesday, Lavrov said the Arab League currently possesses in Syria practical potentials to find suitable solutions, stressing that this opportunity shouldn’t be missed.

A statement for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Lavrov and al-Arabi stressed the importance for the Syrian sides, without any exception, to stop acts of violence, provocations, and go to the dialogue table, referring to the need for encouraging the external players of all sides to undertake constructive steps, not to encourage them boycott dialogue.

By Mazen

Syrian Communist Party (Unified) Denounces US Interference in Syria’s Internal Affairs

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – The Syrian Communist Party (Unified) on Wednesday denounced the United States’ prompting armed groups to continue committing murders and not surrender their weapons after the amnesty announced by the government for those who turn in their weapons to the Syria authorities as long as they haven’t committed murder.

In a statement, the party said that the inflammatory US stance reaffirms the US administration’s involvement in the events taking place in Syria.

The statement also underlined the importance of the agreement between the Syrian government and the Arab initiative, saying that this inspired optimism among Syrians since it allows for adopting dialogue a political solution and restoring stability and calm to areas witnessing violence.

The party affirmed that the biggest hurdle before the implementation of the agreement is the stances of the armed group that reject dialogue entirely and the opposition abroad which promotes foreign interference, while Syrian national opposition welcomed the idea of dialogue.

The statement concluded by affirming that the party and the Syrian people support any Arab effort that stops bloodshed and consecrates the principle of national dialogue, affirming that the Syrian people will confront any attempt at foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs.

By H. Sabbagh

Analysts: Syria Is Strong, Able to Confront Provocations of the West and Any State Trying to Intervene in its Affairs

DAMASCUS, SANA_Chairman of the Russian Association for Friendship and Cooperation with the Arab Countries Vyacheslav Matuzov said Syria is strong and able to fend off all the provocations of the west, the NATO and any other country trying to intervene in its internal affairs.

In a phone call with the Syrian TV on Tuesday Matuzov added that peoples of the Middle East have enough power to withstand and respond to the US and western attempts to interfere in their internal affairs.

“What is happening in the region is a US-Western made with the aim of interfering in its countries’ internal affairs, creating chaos, instability and political and economic collapse to pave the way for the Israeli-US dominance of the region as a whole,” Matuzov said.

“Russia today is with Syria and Iran and all Arab countries which aspire to be independent from the US influence,” he said, clarifying that the confrontation between Russia and the other pole is a political-diplomatic one where Russia adopted a just position towards peoples of the region, although the Jewish lobby in Russia is still working and trying to distort the reality of what is happening in the Middle East.

He affirmed that these attempts are doomed to failure.

For his part, Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab Bar Association Samih Khreis said there are parties seek for international military intervention in Syria and internationalizing the crisis, but the Syrian leadership’s acceptance of the Arab League plan surprises them, because what was raised by the plan regarding the dialogue was proposed by the Syria leadership from the first moment.

In a televised interview with the Syrian TV, Khreis said Syria’s approval of the dialogue is a clear and decisive evidence on the seriousness of the Syrian leadership to conduct reforms, which was represented by enacting several laws and legislations.

Khreis said Syria’s acceptance of the Arab plan has unveiled the real US-Zionist administration’s evil intentions towards the Arab region, so it began to raise doubts about the Syrian decision and incited gunmen not to lay down their weapons.

“This behavior stresses that the US administration supports gunmen and supply them with weapons, ” Khreis said, stressing that the conspiracy is doomed to failure and the truth will be exposed due to the steadfastness of Syria.

Jordanian political analyst Ibrahim Alloush spoke about the document presented by Elliot Abramz, a senior figure at US State Department, to the Council on Foreign Relations about a lengthy plan to overthrow the regime in Syria which included a project to strengthen the armed action in Syria and how the United States to behave in such a situation.

Alloush said this does not come from a normal pressman or a writer, but from a senior decision-maker in America who has the upper hand in what happened in Libya and the ongoing events in Syria.

The Analyst added that the US officially announced position stresses the same strategy of Abramz in enhancing armed acts against Syria and its leadership, and this statement is part of an American strategy has been adopted by the US administration to military inflame the situation in Syria.

By Ghossoun

Interior Minister Calls on Misled Individuals Who Didn’t Commit Murder to Benefit from Deadline to Turn Themselves In and Surrender Weapons

GOVERNORATES, (SANA) – Minister of Interior Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar on Tuesday called on police officers to be at utmost readiness and distribute work according to their expanding duties and responsibilities of protecting security and peace.

During an inspection police commands in Homs, Hama and Lattakia and meetings with heads of police departments, Minister al-Shaaar called for building upon successful experiences and implementing plans and programs to improve police work and prevent any at attempt at tampering with Syria’s security.

He also called for increasing the presence of police patrols, monitoring highways, immediate intervention when calls for help arrive, and perusing criminals and wanted men.

The Minister stressed the need for officers to be an example of integrity and respecting citizens and enforcing the rule of law on everyone without abusing it, urging officers to revaluate their performance and pursue training.

Al-Shaar briefed the officers on the events taking place in Syria and the instigation campaigns against it led by external forces, affirming that Syria will go through with the reform program and restore security and stability, emerging from the crisis stronger than ever thanks to the awareness of the Syrian people and their rallying around President Bashar al-Assad.

He stressed that the crimes committed by armed terrorist groups under claims of achieving just demands are not related to reform in any way and removed from the morals and values of the Syrian people, reiterating the call for misled individuals that were manipulated by external  forces to carry out their plots to benefit from the deadline set by the Interior Ministry and turn themselves in and surrender their weapons.

The Ministry’s earlier announcement in this regard promised general amnesty to those who carried, sold, distributed, transported, purchased or funded the purchase of firearms and didn’t commit murder if they turn themselves in and surrender their weapons to the nearest police station by Saturday 12/10/2011.

By H. Sabbagh

Endowments Minister Meets Families of Martyrs in Tartous

TARTOUS, (SANA) – Minister of Endowments (Awkaf) Mohammad Abdelsattar al-Sayyed on Tuesday affirmed that the blood of the martyrs didn’t go to waste; rather they foiled the plot against Syria formed a strong barrier before those who conspired against the country which is emerging from the crisis stronger than before.

During a meeting with 70 families of martyrs in Tartous, al-Sayyed said that this meeting aims at honoring the martyrs who gave their lives to defend Syria, stressing that meeting the martyrs’ families is a great honor.

He also said that this meeting sends a message that Syria will remain a bastion of resilience.

The Minister said that the fatwas issued by al-Qaradawi and others who claim to be religious figures and authorized the bloodshed of Syrians aim at destroying Syria and placating the United States and Israel, affirming that reform cannot be achieved through murder and undermining social integrity.

For their part, the families of the martyrs expressed their appreciation of the meeting which signifies Syria’s national unity, affirming that their relatives’ martyrdom is a great honor and a consecration of the value of martyrdom.

By H. Sabbagh

Gen. Rajiha Visits Injured Army Members and Soldiers on the Occasion of Eid al-Adha

DAMASCUS, SANA_ Deputy General Commander of the Army and the Armed Forces, Defense Minister Gen. Dawood Abdullah Rajiha on Monday visited military hospitals in Damascus,accompanied by senior army commanders and officers.

Rajiha met the injured army members, offered them congratulations on the occasion of Eid, wishing them speedy recovery.

The Minister met the medical staff at the hospitals, inquired about the reality of services, hailing the staff’s efforts and care for the wounded.

He underlined the necessity of sacrifices and unifying efforts for facing the conspiracy hatched against Syria to undermine its dignity, sovereignty and its independent national decision.

By Ghossoun

Al-Jafari: Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflicts shouldn’t Be Selectively Approached

NEW YORK, (SANA) – Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jafari, on Wednesday said that the UN considers that the subject of protecting civilians in armed conflicts cannot be approached selectively.

In a statement before the UN Security Council, al-Jafari added that this subject is related only to armed conflicts.

“That is why we consider that the protection of the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese civilians from the Israeli occupation is a basic part of this subject, especially that the Council has discussed this important matter for a long time in the light of the grave and continuous Israeli violations against the civilian population in the occupied Arab territories,” al-Jafari added.

He indicated that “A cause for concern is that some member states- which we listen to their statements concerning the protection of civilians in armed conflicts- sometimes set their own selective concept of protecting civilians in armed conflicts, a concept that is contrary to the International Human Law (IHL).”

“Jurisprudence considers that the international efforts aiming at protecting civilians in cases of armed conflicts should be exerted in the framework of respecting the principles of the UN Charter, which stress the importance of respecting the sovereignty and independence of the countries and not interfere in their internal affairs. These efforts should also be in compliance with the rules of Geneva Conventions and the IHL.” Al-Jafari said.

He stressed the need for not confusing the subject of protecting civilians in armed conflicts with the threats to the international security and peace, adding that using expressions from outside the UN ethics –such as the responsibility of interference and humanitarian interference- should be avoided because it will harm the creditability and neutrality of the UN and undermine the efforts exerted to protect civilians in armed conflicts.

“It is an odd paradox that with the development of the international law concepts, the suffering of civilians during conflicts increased as the number of these conflicts themselves increased. The phenomenon of exempting foreign military occupation forces from the repercussions of violating of the international law has aggravated.” Al-Jafari pointed out.

“Is occupying countries which are members in the UN outside the framework of the international legitimacy and killing millions of their civilian population aim at protecting those civilians? Are the calls, which were made in this Council today and in previous occasions, to change regimes in some UN-member countries are within the framework of the noble purpose of protecting civilians in armed conflicts?” He asked.

He went on asking “How can we explain the killing of 130 thousand Libyans under the pretext of protecting Libya’s civilians? How can we explain the statement of the US Department of State’s spokeswoman which stipulated a clear call for the armed groups in Syria to not surrender their weapons in line with the Syrian government general amnesty granted to all persons who surrender their weapons? Doesn’t this statement mean that there is a US involvement in the violence in Syria? Aren’t the US policies, which are support by some European countries, thwarting the work of the Arab League and its initiative?”

“Isn’t avoiding the issue of the Israeli reckless settlement, which threats the peace principle, contradicts the most important right of the Palestinian and Syrian civilians who are under the Israeli occupation?” he asked.

Al-Jafari said, “We don’t know how long the continuous Israeli occupation of the Arab territories- including the occupied Syrian Golan, Jerusalem, Shebaa farms and al- Ghajar village- can be ignored. We don’t know why we don’t see the same enthusiasm in the countries whose representatives went far today in expressing their keenness on protecting civilians in specific parts of the world and used the Security Council, which is specialized in protecting the international peace and security, as a platform to pass curtailed explanation of the subject of protecting civilians in armed conflicts.”

“We didn’t hear any note from the UN figures responsible for this file on the illegitimacy of this interference in the internal affairs of UN-member states according to the second article of the UN Charter,” He added.

Al-Jafari concluded “Representatives of the colonial countries, especially France and Britain, make a mistake when they think that the human memory can’t recall the crimes against humanity they have committed  throughout decades of colonization.”

By M.Nassr/F.Allafi

Al-Moallem: Statement of US Official Source Constitutes Justification for Foreign Interference against Syria

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem expressed the Syrian Arab Republic’s wonder over the statement of a US State Department source that encourages the Arab countries to join the political and economic boycott against Syria which exceeds the limits of the AL Charter and the bases of the joint Arab action.

Al-Moallem clarified in a message to Arab League (AL) Secretary General, Nabil al-Arabi, on Wednesday that the US provocation constitutes a justification for a foreign interference and for economic and political sanctions against Syria with the agreement of some Arab countries, expressing hope that the US call will not be heeded at.

Al-Moallem pointed out to the danger of such statements on the future of the joint Arab action under the patronage of the Arab League.

Foreign and Expatriates Minister added in the message that Syria, which has declared its commitment to the work plan agreed upon with AL, underlines its fulfillment of most of the plan’s items unlike what is being propagated by some misleading TV channels, pointing out that Syria’s permanent representative at the Arab League will brief the AL Ministerial Council on the steps taken in this regard.

Al-Moallem, at the conclusion of the message, expressed hope that the AL Secretary General will respond to the US statements in accordance with the AL Charter and the Arab agreements that maintain the sovereignty as well as relations among Arab countries.

By R. Milhem / al-Ibrahim

Syrian National Opposition Figures Stress Rejection of Foreign Interference, Commitment to AL Work Plan

CAIRO, (SANA) – A number of the Syrian national opposition figures, from the National Coordinating Body and Building the Syrian State Movement, expressed Thursday their rejection of foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs and commitment to the Arab League work plan.

After the opposition’s meeting with the Arab League Secretary-General, Nabil al-Arabi, in Cairo, Member of the Coordinating Body for Democratic Change in Syria, Haitham Manna, said, “some people talk about the AL initiative as if it has been buried. Had that been the case, we would not have come to meet the AL Secretary-General today.”

For his part, the coordinating body’s spokesperson, Abdul-Aziz al-Khair, rejected the methodology of the so-called “the Syrian National Council” as “exclusionary”, adding that the Syrian people still have the opportunity to choose figures to represent them.

Luai Hussain,  Syrian State Building Movement member, said, “we reject a no-fly zone in Syria because it leads to military intervention which would destroy the Syrian state and society.”

By F.Allafi

Two Children, Two Guards Martyred, Explosive Device Blasts When Patrol Passes in Idleb

IDLEB, (SANA) – Two children from al-Moallaqa village in the northern province of Idleb were martyred on Thursday after explosives hidden by a terrorist armed group in an abandoned house blasted in the village.

A source at Idleb Police Command told SANA correspondent that the two brothers Ahmad and Munir Olwan went accidentally to the house to set fire when the explosives blew up, killing them at once.

The source pointed out that the explosives were used by the terrorists to make mines and explosive devices in order to attack state centers and check points and to sabotage public properties.

The village residents rushed to the place only to find the dead bodies of the two brothers in the place, the source added.

“Even innocent children could not escape the heinous crimes of the terrorists,” uncle of the two boys, Mohammad Olwan, told SANA correspondent, pointing out that his nephews are only eight and ten years old.

Meantime, Conscript Makhlad al-Awad and civil guard Mohammad Abdo al-Fattah al-Omar were martyred, as two other army members were injured by a terrorist armed group in al-Kfair village in Jisr al-Shughour.

A police source in the Province clarified that the armed gang attacked the guard members who belong to the popular army while they were guarding the railway in the area. The gunmen stole the members’ weapons, the source added.

In a similar context, an explosive device, planted on Khan Shaikhoun- Maart al-Noman Main Street, blasted, injuring three law enforcement members.

The police source said that the explosive device was planted on the road, as the terrorists blew it when the patrol passed by trying to guarantee the safety of the road and prevent blocking the road.

Three Law-Enforcement Personnel Injured in Terrorist Attack in Douma

Three law enforcement personnel on Thursday were injured after their post was attacked by an armed terrorist group in Douma city in Damascus Countryside.

Three law enforcement personnel on Thursday were injured after their post was attacked by an armed terrorist group in Douma city in Damascus Countryside.

A police source said that the assault caused damages to the building, adding that authorities are in pursuit of the fleeing terrorists.

Policeman Mohammad Ghourra said that “At 1.00 am, more than four cars opened fire on the post, they had RPG launchers and machineguns, I was injured in the attack.”

By M. Nassr/ R. Milhem / al-Ibrahim

Patriarch Laham: Foreign Interference in Syria is Clear

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Patriarch Gregory III Laham of Antioch and all the East stressed on Thursday that foreign interference in Syria is clear, adding, “what we see day after day proves the truth of what President Bashar al-Assad said about foreign interference.”

In an interview with the Syrian TV, His Beatitude said, “This interference became so clear during the current events in Syria as we felt the US and other European countries’ interference”, stressing that the success of Syria and President al-Assad in challenging those who confront him is a success for the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Patriarch Laham pointed out that when Syria accepted the Arab League’s initiative, the US immediately called on gunmen in Syria not to surrender themselves to authorities in spite of the general amnesty issued recently.

By F.Allafi

Terrorist al-Taleb Confesses to Killing Protestors to Accuse Army

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Terrorist Khaled Ibrahim al-Taleb on Thursday confessed to committing several crimes along with an armed terrorist group in Homs including killing protestors in order to accuse the army soldiers of doing so.

In televised confessions broadcast on the Syrian TV, terrorist al-Taleb confessed to attacking military checkpoints and abducting citizens to terrify them.

He said that “we distributed about 300 AK-47 rifles and pump-action shotguns. After a month, we received and distributed 8 RPG launchers.”

“Leaders of the group, Mohannad al-Omar and Ammar al-Bika’ai, told us to kill as many as we can to put pressure on the Arab League to take decisions such as a no-fly zone or freeze Syria’s membership in the League,” he added.

“We were attacking army checkpoints from a distance. When a checkpoint was firmly stationed, we were targeting it with an RPG round before attacking it with rifles.” He confessed.

He indicated that Mohannad al-Omar, Ammar al-Bika’ai, Nadir Abu al-Dahab and Khaled Abu Shahoud possessed rocket launchers, rifles-including m16 rifles-, snipers, pistols and hand grenades, adding that the weapons were coming from outside Syria through Talkalakh and al-Qseer area.

He concluded that “Al-Omar ordered us to attack al-Mazra’a village to ignite a sectarian sedition, later, they went to the village and fired RPG launcher before targeting the town with their rifles.”

By M. Nassr/ F.Allafi

Source: The Embassy of Syrian Arab Republican in Kuala Lumpur.