Archives: Articles

The U.S. media has made its intentions clear: the ‘rebels’ attacking Syria’s government must have more support to advance Syria’s “revolution.” This was the result of the much-hyped advance of Syria’s rebels into the country’s two largest cities, which the western media portrayed as a defining moment in global democracy. But “journalists” like these have blood on their hands, with much more in the works.

The systematic dismantling of Syria has more to do with western media lies and geo-politics than “revolution;” and the more that the U.S. media cheers on this bloodletting, the more politicians feel enabled to spill it.

The rebel attacks on the cities of Damascus and Aleppo were, in actuality, meant to convince the western media that the rebels are near victory, with the hopes of attracting more direct military support from abroad. In reality, however, the attacks in Damascus were instantly crushed by the Syrian government, but the U.S. media predicted “victory just around the corner” for the rebels.

Suddenly Syria is becoming a U.S. presidential topic of debate. Republicans have accused Obama of “outsourcing” the Syrian conflict, refusing to be involved when the rebels deserve extra support (guns mainly). But Obama is the principal cause of this humanitarian catastrophe. Middle East expert Robert Fisk explains:

“While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria…Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world.”

Fisk fails to mention that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are virtual puppets of U.S. foreign policy; they would never act independently to overthrow a regional neighbor; they do so on command.

Syria is conveniently surrounded by close allies of the U.S., and it is through these allies that guns and foreign fighters have poured into Syria to cause massive destruction. The rebel-held areas of Syria exist only on the rural borders of Turkey, Jordan, and Northern Lebanon, areas in alignment with U.S. foreign policy.

Revolutions are city affairs, but the Syrian revolution has been a rural undertaking ever since foreign powers decided to destroy the country. It is fortunate for the rebels that Syria’s two largest cities are close to these border countries: the rebels made a quick foray into the cities for some high profile attacks, and then drifted back to the border areas to seek protection from their friends.

Although it is true that the so-called Free Syrian Army includes defectors from the Syrian military, it is possible that these defectors are simply betting that, in the long term, the U.S. will spare no expense in overthrowing the Syrian government.

The commonsense question that the U.S. media never explores is whether Syrians want their country destroyed, the inevitable result of this conflict. In fact, there are numerous indications to the contrary. After constant cheerleading of the Syrian rebels, The New York Times has been forced to admit on several occasions that massive pro-government rallies have been held in Syria’s only two large cities:

“The turnout [at least tens of thousands] in Sabaa Bahrat Square in Damascus, the [Syrian] capital, once again underlined the degree of backing that Mr. Assad and his leadership still enjoy among many Syrians… That support is especially pronounced in cities like Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two largest.”

This was further confirmed by a poll funded by the anti-Syrian Qatar Foundation, performed by the Doha Debates:

“According to the latest opinion poll commissioned by The Doha Debates, Syrians are more supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign.” (January 2, 2012).

This should be of zero surprise. Syrians have seen Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya destroyed by U.S.-style “liberation.” Americans should know better too — and many do — regardless of their media’s blatantly criminal behavior.

The United States is using a strategy in Syria that has been perfected over the years, starting with Afghanistan (in the 1980’s) Yugoslavia, and most recently in Libya: arming small paramilitary groups loyal to U.S. interests that attack the targeted government — including terrorist bombings — and when the attacked government defends itself, the U.S. cries “genocide” or “mass murder,” while calling for foreign military intervention.

In each instance the targeted society is dismembered, mass murder and ethnic/religious violence is consciously used to gain military advantage that inevitably spirals out of control; refugee crises are also natural consequences, which inevitably lead to cross border destabilization and wider regional conflicts. Millions of lives are completely ruined in each instance, if not ended.

There is every indication that the Syrian conflict has the potential — as the Iraq war before it — to cause incredible ethnic and religious violence on a multi-nation scale. Neighboring Lebanon has already experienced armed conflict as a direct result of Syria and is a powder keg of ethnic and religious tension that needs only a spark to explode, and Syria promises to spew flames.

The U.S. population has largely been spared images of the incredible suffering and social destruction caused by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Syria’s crisis is thus happening in an already-destabilized region, having the potential to completely tear the social fabric of the larger Middle East.

These war crimes benefit nobody except the very rich who take over the helm of governments and use these positions to privatize the invaded country’s economy, though especially the oil. The people in Syria, however, are being used as cannon fodder for an additional reason: so that the U.S. can have a steppingstone towards destroying Iran (Syria is Iran’s close ally). But Russia and China are acting more boldly against this genocidal behavior, and may act with more vigor in defending their allies, a dynamic that could easily lead to a regional or even world war.

Thus, the hell that has become the Middle East is being poked and prodded by U.S. foreign policy with absolutely no regard for the global implications. Both U.S. major presidential candidates are cheerleading the flood of blood to different degrees, ensuring that the next election will provide fresh “legitimacy” to an equally barbarous U.S. foreign policy.

By Shamus Cooke

30 July, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org) He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

 

Chinese Olympic athletes are people, not comic book villains. Something’s going on when one nation is so singled out

It’s not cricket, you know. There’s something fiendishly cruel about the monstering of 16-year-old Ye Shiwen, who won a swimming gold in Saturday’s 400m individual medley. First she was labelled a cheat in front of a global audience and then refused an apology when repeated drugs tests show up clean as a whistle.

First off the block was the host nation’s BBC commentator Clare Baldwin, who sprinted to the worst conclusion on zero evidence within seconds of Ye’s record-breaking win with her loaded comment: “How many questions will there be, Mark, about somebody who can suddenly swim so much faster than she has ever swum before?”

With the starter pistol thus fired for the media witchhunt to find Ye guilty of winning while Chinese, in they all piled.

If sport is war by other means, then executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association, John Leonard, is chief drone, still going on like a talent-seeking missile about how anomalies like Ye’s record indicate drug use. He weaselled out of an outright accusation on the aforementioned zero evidence by saying, “we want to be very careful about calling it doping”, but the word was out of his trap and primed for detonation.

Leonard brushed off reminders that Michael Phelps’s haul of eight medals at the Beijing Olympics was also unprecedented, and yet no one had been rude enough to cast aspersions despite the US being no slouch themselves in the doping stakes; steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) being the chief culprits since the 50s and banned since 1975.

So while China shares a history of doping that lasted from the cold war until the 90s, it’s wrong to single it out for suspicion whenever a Chinese athlete comes up with a terrific performance.

The fact that Ye’s swim was 23 seconds slower than Ryan Lochte’s 400m, and that she’d only sped up in the final 50m after pacing herself earlier while Lochte slowed down after sensing victory, has been largely ignored. As has the knowledge, supported by international swimmers, that it is common for young athletes to put on a spurt. Ian Thorpe says he took five seconds off his time in the 400m freestyle from aged 15 to 16, and Adrian Moorhouse was four seconds faster at 17 in the 200m breaststroke. The Lithuanian teenager who also knocked time off her swimming best has been allowed to enjoy her victory, so why can’t Ye?

The argument slips around like a noose that keeps on missing. You can’t get her on doping as she’s clear so, in order to save face, it must be genetic engineering, the Chinese being so subhumanly clever and ruthless. (Let’s remember that it’s not Dr Fu Manchu who tried to copyright the human DNA sequence for profit, but Harvard biologist Walter Gilbert with his Genome Corporation.) TV and press have sniffed up this tree into the realms of science fiction, and found it wanting.

Elsewhere, the press has been sly in their dehumanising insinuations about Ye looking like a “killer whale”, and the Chinese being selected to the point of being a “different species”, with shades of Morrissey’s infamous “subspecies” jibe.

Ye is accused of not looking properly feminine, unlike our own Rebecca Adlington. We had the same row over the runner Caster Semenya who made phenomenal improvements on her time at 800m and 1500m and had to undergo a humiliating gender test before being cleared by the IAAF in 2010. Bernard Manning’s tormenting of British javelin champion Fatima Whitbread for being unbabe-like in his eyes seems to have rubbed off.

With accusations of drugs and sci-fi scenarios running out of steam, and the dawning realisation that it’s hard work and training that’s producing such stunning results, let’s get them on child cruelty. While over-training of youngsters is wrong when it does occur, one British coach who’s worked with the Chinese swimming team attests to their high motivation making the difference, and not the Dickensian nightmare as is being presented.

Luckily, this distracts from the real Dickensian nightmare going on right under our noses and barely reported – of the workers who run the day-to-day machinery of the Olympic Park living in flooded mixed dorms and paying £18 per night for the privilege, whether they are put on the work roster or not.

Cheating is cheating. To pick out one team is ludicrous. There’s something else going on here. Is it the howl of big beasts who once defined human excellence and standards of beauty being knocked off their perch by the rising superpower?

The media heaved a sigh of relief when the badminton fiasco gave it something real to complain about, with competitors trying to get around the new round-robin rules by playing to lose. As China’s not the monolithic entity some would have, there’s been a row going on with claim and counter-claim. These are real people, not comic book villains. There’s a real debate and everything! Champion Yu has quit and the media has a head on a stick.

We shouldn’t be demonstrating such bad British sportsmanship to the world. Accusations are flying in both directions with the Brazil women’s football team stranded at a roadside for five hours before their match with GB which they lost 1-0, meaning they now play world champions Japan.

As Bruce Lee said, when you point the finger, three fingers are pointing back at you. Whichever way this one pans out, at least we’ve all forgotten the scandal of the acres of empty seats at the fantabulous London Olympics.

By Anna Chen

2 August, 2012

@ The Guardian

 

The Pentagon document on Strategic Guidance entitled, “Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for Twenty First Century” released in January 2012 has inaugurated a new cold war. If the theatre of the ‘old’ Cold War was Europe, the new theatre is the Asia-Pacific. The document affirms that the US will of necessity rebalance towards Asia-Pacific region. ‘Rebalance’ seems to have replaced the earlier term ‘pivot’. The document maps the region as “the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia”.

The increasing focus on Asia reflects rebalancing in several ways: Change in the balance of US concentration from the Middle East to Asia after the ebbing of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a change in the balance of forces within Asia from a Northeast Asia focus to a broader reach emphasizing more flexible deployments, rotation and operation and a change in the balance of tools of soft power and hard power moving to the latter.

Redefining Asia-Pacific

In his Introduction to the document for the release of which he made a rare visit to the Pentagon, “As Commander-in-Chief,” remarked President Obama, “I am determined that we meet the challenges of the moment responsibly and that we emerge even stronger in a manner that preserves American global leadership, maintains our military superiority…”. George W. Bush can be proud of his successor. About Obama’s appetite for military action, Aaron David Miller, an adviser to six secretaries of state, wrote in Foreign Policy, ”Barack Obama has become George Bush on steroid.”  American ‘global leadership’ is the fancy name for the Empire, admittedly maintained by military superiority.

The Obama administration has written a new chapter in American foreign policy saying that the US will now ‘pivot’ away from two wars in Southwestern Asia to focus on the rising power of China. Supporters claim that the President has established a foreign policy vision for the next century. Sceptics point out that there is more political spin than substance to the Obama Asia ‘pivot’. Both are right. The increased American focus on Asia is bipartisan and sustainable. “The real debate is not about the importance of Asia, but how the US will resource its increasing engagement of the region.” (1)

The Administration’s increased emphasis on A.P. appears to have been prompted by four major developments:

· the growing economic importance of the Asia-Pacific region and particularly China to the US’s economic future.

· China’s growing military capabilities and its increasing assertiveness of claims to disputed maritime territory with implications for freedom of navigation and the US ability to project power in the region.

· the winding down of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

· efforts to cut US government’s defense budget which threaten to create a perception in Asia that the US commitment to the region will wane. (2)

Announcing a new US military expansion in Australia in autumn 2011, Obama declared in the Australian Parliament, “The US is a Pacific power and we are here to stay.” Early 2012 the Obama administration further clarified the shift saying that it would intensify the US role in the Asia-Pacific region. To do this, it intends to raise the region’s priority in US military planning, foreign policy and economic policy. With the US troops gone from Iraq and poised to be drawn down in Afghanistan, administration officials say they plan to ‘rebalance’ US attention towards planning for future challenges and opportunities. As Obama said in his statement to the Australian Parliament, his goal is to ensure that the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping the region (AP) and its future. “As we consider the future of our armed forces, we have begun a review that will identify the most important strategic interests and guide on defense priorities and spending over the coming decade. So here is what this region must know. As we end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission the AP region our top priority. As a result reduction in US defense spending will not – I repeat will not – come at the expense of Asia Pacific.”

Global control – The role of the military

In a November 2011 article in Foreign Policy entitled ‘America’s Pacific Century’, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the “future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq and the US will be right at the centre of the action.” She detailed US plans to bolster its military presence in the region. Claiming that it is the US which “maintains peace and security, defends freedom of navigation and ensures transparency”, Clinton emphasized the importance of Asia-Pacific’s economic development, trade routes, resources and investment opportunities for the US.” The Asia-Pacific’s “remarkable economic growth… and potential for continued growth,” she wrote, “depends on the security and stability that has long been guaranteed by the US military” whose presence has to be further strengthened.

The new policy towards Asia-Pacific has two fundamental elements. First there is a clear admission by the USA that its defense posture must be substantially recalibrated in view of its economic circumstances. Second, the policy document reaffirmed that the US has vital interests in the whole region and is therefore determined to continue to play a more prominent role in shaping the future of the region.

Many aspects of the Asia-Pacific pivot represent an expansion rather than a transformation of policy. A number of Obama’s discrete initiatives build on previous actions so that some observers argue that the administration overstated the depth and scope of its pivot. For instance, in the military sphere the administration is expanding and accelerating policies under Bush. The Obama administration is also expanding Bush-era initiatives such as strengthening relations with existing allies in Asia and forging new partnership with India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

That said, there are at least three broad new features of US policy that are worth emphasizing: new military priorities and deployments; an arguably more integrated and region-wide approach to the Asia-Pacific and a vision of the region’s geography to include the Indian Ocean.

The highest profile new initiatives lie in the security sphere. The planned deployment of troops and equipment to Australia and Singapore represent an expanded US presence. Moreover the pledge that reductions in deficit spending will not come at the expense reflects Asia-oriented priorities. The most obvious implication subsequently reflected in the Department of Defense’s January 2012 ‘Strategic Guidance’ has been to minimize cuts in the size of the navy with reductions focused on the Army’s ground forces. Asia is seen mainly as a naval theatre of operation and the decision not to cut the Navy as sharply as other services reflects a shift in priorities that is unusual in year to year defense planning. It is an ocean-centered strategy in which the USA is far superior to China.

A second new dynamic is the way the various new and old military, diplomatic and economic initiatives have been presented as parts of one package.

Another new element in the Obama administration’s policy is the inclusion of the coastal areas of South Asia in the geographic area of the Pacific pivot. South Asia has often been considered as a distinct strategic sub-region of Asia. Increasing strategic rivalry between China and India also serves to bring that Asia sub-region into a larger Asia-wide strategic dynamic.

In her Foreign Policy article, Secretary of State Clinton defined the Asia-Pacific as “stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans – the Pacific and the Indian – that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy.” Underlying the rebalancing is the Administration’s belief that the centre of gravity for US foreign policy, national security and economic interests is shifting towards Asia and that US strategies and priorities need to be adjusted accordingly.

As Noam Chomsky wrote in Al Jazeera (7 May 2012) the US pivot towards the Asia Pacific region is in response to what he calls the classic security dilemma posed by the rising influence of China and Russia. The pivot is perceived as bullying, threatening and an intrusion of the same – in other words more of the same – by those most impacted by US foreign military presence.  The “classic security dilemma makes sense” Chomsky argues, if one operates under the assumption that the US “has the right to control most of the world and that US security requires absolutely global control.”

The most high profile and concrete elements in the Administration’s announced rebalancing toward Asia Pacific have come in the military realm. Leon Panetta, U.S. Defense Secretary, unveiled at the annual meeting of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies on June 3 in Singapore, the details of the military’s plans for Asia-Pacific. The Navy, Mr. Panetta said, would reconfigure its forces from a 50-50 split between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific to 60 per cent of the Navy’s assets assigned to the Pacific. He said, “Make no mistake in a steady, deliberate and sustainable way the United States military is rebalancing and brings enhanced capabilities to this vital region.” Some nations represented at the meeting questioned the wisdom of stepped up military emphasis, arguing that it appears intended to force a confrontation with China, a situation feared by many countries in the region, all of which enjoy strong trade ties with China.

Aimed at China?

As Obama administration officials have said in the past, Mr. Panetta insisted the renewed US interest in the Asia Pacific region was not aimed at China. But few in the audience which consisted of Asian defense ministers and military officials said they believed that.  The concern of most Asian countries was expressed by Marty Natalegawa, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister who said, “What worries is having to choose; we don’t want to be put into that position. The Pacific is sufficiently accommodating to provide not only for the role of China and the United States but of emerging powers too,” he added.

At the same time, some Asian leaders may feel that the enhanced U.S. presence may serve as a counterweight to China as it asserts territorial rights to the oil-rich South China Sea that are disputed by other Asian countries. The U.S. asserted its position in the region at the ASEAN regional forum where it declared the outcome of the disputes in the South China Sea to be of ‘national interest’. The stance received conspicuous support within and beyond ASEAN and was accompanied by efforts to energize U.S. relations with Vietnam and the Philippines.

We may have to go back a bit in White House history to see the significance of South China Sea in US strategy. There is reason to believe that President Obama is implementing the geopolitical blueprint of former Vice-President Dick Cheney. Among the key features of this blueprint prominent is “to dominate the sea lands of Asia so as to control the flow of oil and other raw materials to America’s political rivals China and Japan.”(3)

Among the strategic initiatives that the Department of Defense has been developing apparently with AP in mind is a new ‘Air Sea Battle (ASB)’ concept that is intended to improve the joint effectiveness of U.S. naval and air force units, particularly in operations for countering anti-access strategies. This strategy is of course the primary reason that the South Korean navy is building at the behest of Pentagon, the naval base on Jeju Island. US Navy needs more ports to dock their warships. The Pentagon has stated that it is modernizing its basing arrangements with traditional allies while enhancing its presence in South East Asia and into the Indian Ocean. It is working on an “operational concept” to translate the growing connection between the Indian and Pacific Ocean which in effect will mean military presence over a broader region.

Military Bases

Concerns over China in the past were founded mostly on its claims to Taiwan which it considers a renegade province. But that has broadened out to Beijing’s increasingly assertive claims to South China Sea where it has territorial disputes with half a dozen countries. Those rival claims came to a head in April, when the Philippines Navy accused Chinese boats of fishing illegally around Scarborough Shoal which Manila claims as part of its exclusive economic zone, but which Beijing insists has been Chinese for centuries. The standoff has yet to be resolved though no shots have been fired.

Beijing’s perceived highhandedness in the South China Sea has strengthened Washington’s hands and promoted the project of the construction of a network of bases and alliances encircling China, the globe’s rising power, in an arc stretching from Japan and South Korea in the north to Australia, Vietnam and the Philippines in the southwest and hence to India in the southwest.

· Singapore has agreed to allow US to deploy four new littoral Combat Ships designed to fight close to shorelines to its main naval port, starting next year.

· Indonesia which had only limited military relations with Washington in the 1990s because of human rights concerns, is now looking to buying a wide range of American military hardware and is conducting joint exercises.

· The Philippines which kicked out US forces based on their soil in 1992 is actively courting increased US military support including allowing more troops on a rotating basis and base facilities.

· South Korean navy is building at the behest of the Pentagon, the naval base on Jeju Island.

· Washington is already testing out that approach in Australia which has agreed to allow up to 2500 marines to deploy to the northern city of Darwin. The marines will use Australian facilities not a new US base and the plan has met with little opposition. The new basing facility in Darwin is close to the South China Sea.

It may be useful to look at the role of military bases or base-like facilities.  Foreign military bases have been established throughout the history of expanding states and warfare. They proliferate where a state has imperial ambitions either through direct control of territory or through indirect control over the political economy, laws and foreign policies of other countries. Whether or not recognizing itself as such, a country can be called an empire when it projects substantial power with the aim of asserting and maintaining dominance over other regions.

Chalmers Johnson has pointed out that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. “Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, since World War II U.S. has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world where it has strategic interests. This vast network of American bases in every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire – an empire of bases with its own geography, not likely to be taught in any high school geography.”

Bases are usually presented above all as having rational strategic purposes. The empire claims that it provides towards defense of the homeland, supplies other nations with security and facilitated control of trade routes and resources. More recently as well, bases have been used to control the political and economic life of the host nation. Military bases in South Korea, for example, have been key parts of the continuing control that the US military exercises over Korean forces and Korean foreign policy. More specifically it has extracted important political and military support for example in its wars in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq. (5)

The Chinese Response

It is only natural that the U.S. Asia ‘pivot’ has prompted Chinese anxiety about U.S. containment. One might inquire on what is exactly about ‘rising China’ that is being counterbalanced with such an increased military presence in the Pacific. The US is not putting a military presence in the region to be an impartial or fair mediator but to pursue its own interest and that of its allies which are competing against China for ownership of resource-rich islands (including oil). (6)

Although Obama administration officials have often stated that these moves are not aimed at any one particular country, the Strategic Guidance document says they are responses at least in part to China’s growing influence. “The maintenance of peace, stability, the free flow of commerce and of US influence in this dynamic region will depend in part on an underlying balance of military capability and presence. Over the long-term China’s emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the US economy and our security in a variety of ways… The growth of China’s military power must be accompanied by greater clarity of its strategic intention in order to avoid causing friction in the region.” This is a rather strange statement and would suggest that there is clarity about USA’s strategic intention.

“The new developments from the US side are about one thing: containing China’s military rise and the tectonic shifts associated with it.”(7) While commentators of all ideologies agree that China by virtue of its advances on the entire standard measures of power from economic to military putting it high up in the list of rising powers it is far from clear it is a menacing power. One may even say that China’s military rise is normal – not illegitimate, if we speak in terms of power politics.

The widespread perception that the ‘rebalancing’ initiative is aimed at China creates a host of risks. The pivot to the Pacific is seen by some in China in starker terms as focused on dividing China from its neighbors and keeping China’s military in check. Such an impression may strengthen the hands of China’s military (PLA) which has long been suspicious of US intensions in the region. The military in turn could become more determined to strengthen China’s anti-access capabilities and more assertive about defending China’s territorial claims. The impression that the rebalancing is aimed at containing China could potentially make it more difficult for the US to gain China’s cooperation in issues such as North Korea. China cannot ignore the new U.S. stance. The question is how they interpret it.

An interpretation was given by China Daily in an article at the end of last year (27-12-2011). It said, “Washington uses the ‘China threat’ as an excuse to maintain excessive military spending so that it can continue its hegemony.” It added that “the confused policy of ‘congagement’ –mixing containment and engagement – has increasingly characterized the US approach to China.” The article accused the US of “attempting to maintain a de facto empire on borrowed money while its creditors are at its doors.” The new strategy is seen as threat in Beijing. “The administration’s plan to augment America’s permanent strength in Asia cannot be seen as anything but threatening,“ spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Geng Youshang said. “We believe it is all a matter of a cold war mentality.”

But there are even more strident voices from Beijing. Writing in the People’s Liberation Daily on 13th January 2012, Major Luo Luan bluntly warned that the US was targeting China. “Casting our eyes around, we can see that the US has been bolstering its five major military alliances in the Asia-Pacific and is adjusting the positing of its four major military base clusters in the AP region while also seeking more entry rights for military bases around China. Who can believe that you are not directing this at China?” he asked.

In theory senior party and government cadres have not abandoned late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s famous foreign policy dictum of the early 1990s: “Take a low profile and never take the lead.” A rising number of influential academic and military advisers in Beijing have argued that due to China’s fast-rising quasi-superpower status and intensification the country’s competition with the US and its Asian allies, the low profile has become all but obsolete. According to widely published defense theorist Yang Yi, “It is no longer possible for China to keep a low profile.” (8)

The differing responses reflect a debate in Beijing that intensified after last year’s NATO intervention in Libya, which caused losses of billions of dollars of Chinese investments in that country. This happened in the wake of the NATO’s ousting of the Libyan regime of Gaddafi. The NATO was able to do this only with the support of the US. The US is now threatening Iran which China relies on as a major supplier of oil.  One camp advocates a continuation of the present cautious policy of avoiding a confrontation with the US. The second calls for a shift to a more aggressive policy to defend China’s growing economic and strategic interests around the world.

In the run up to the leadership transition that will take place at China’s 18th Party Congress this fall, Beijing is inwardly focused and unlikely to act on its fears. However 2013 could see a change in China’s foreign policy based on the new leadership’s judgment that it must respond to a U.S. strategy that seeks to prevent China’s  re-emergence as a great power.

India Aligned or Non-Aligned?

What does the US pivot to Asia mean for India? The Indian Ambassador to Washington recently pointed out that the idea of a ‘pivot’ is hardly new. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister used this time to characterize India even before there was an India, saying of his not-yet independent country. We are of Asia, India is the pivot of Western, Southern and Southeast Asia.

India is highly visible in the new US Asia-Pacific map. The January Strategy Document refers specifically to “the area extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia”. Hillary Clinton was even more specific when she defined Asia-Pacific as reaching from the Indian subcontinent to the Western shores of America. Not to be outdone, Indian diplomats have taken to referring to the Indo-pacific region – a term one can guess that will not gain much traction in China. (9)

Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary came to New Delhi at the end of the first week of May with an agenda to win India to the US side in its new Asia-Pacific strategy. India gets a prominent place in the Strategy Guidance document of the Pentagon. It says that the US intends to invest in a ‘long-term strategic partnership’ with India in order that New Delhi might serve as a regional economic and military anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region. Commenting on New Delhi’s role Panetta said defense cooperation with India is a linchpin in US strategy. “India is one of the largest and most dynamic countries in the region and the world and with one of the most capable militaries.” Defense cooperation with India has deepened from the time of the War on Terror and India is the largest partner in defense exercises with the US. Moreover from that time India had aligned itself with the USA.

But observers have noticed a shift in India’s policy recently. Responding to Panetta’s overtures, the Indian Defense Minister Antony emphasized the need to strengthen multilateral security architecture in the Asia Pacific and to move to a pace comfortable to all countries concerned. India is closely watching the ramifications of US rebalancing as it will considerably increase American military presence in its neighborhood especially in the Indian Ocean. It did not go unnoticed that exactly the same days Panetta was in New Delhi, India’s Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna was in China where in response to questions about the new US strategy he affirmed that the bilateral relationship with China was a priority for India’s foreign policy. More specifically he expressed India’s desire to expand strategic cooperation with China.

There seems to be a debate within the Indian establishment with one section arguing for a new non-alignment in the emerging cold war in Asia and another advocating linking its strategic partnership with the USA’s Asia Pacific rebalancing.

The Arc of Empire

From Central and South Asia to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the Obama administration is working out its formula for a new American way of war. In its pursuit, the Pentagon and its increasingly militarized government partners are drawing on everything from classic precepts of colonial war to the latest technologies. The U.S is an imperial power chastened by more than ten years of failed heavy footprint wars. No wonder the current combination of special ops, drones, spy games, civilian soldiers, cyber warfare and proxy fighters sound like a safer brand of war-fighting. The new light footprint Obama doctrine actually seems to be making war an even more attractive and seemingly easy option. As a result, the new American way of war holds great potential for unforeseen entanglements and serial blowbacks. (10)

Although conventionally treated as separate, America’s four wars in Asia were actually phases in a sustained US bid for regional dominance, according to Michael H. Hunt and Steven Levine. The effort unfolded as an imperial project in which military power and the importance of America’s political will created the Arc of Empire. America’s wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam follow the long arc of conflicts across. “Seventy five years from the Philippines war through Japan and Korea to Vietnam, we trace the way American ambitions, ascendance and ultimate defeat. By the time we got to the Japan war, we were convinced how American leaders had developed a strong sense of a stake in the future of Pacific.” (11)

The consequence of this strategy as well as ideological stake were soon apparent in Korea and then in Vietnam. After seventy five years President Nixon finally abandoned the forward policy in East Asia. Ultimately the political and social changes transforming the region proved beyond the control of Americans despite the military advantage that their vastly superior weaponry and material resources conferred.

Only in the last decade or so have the uninhibited exercise of US global power sought to sweep aside popular hesitations and doubts. These latter day champions had forgotten the lessons learned the hard way over the last half century. They don’t seem to have learnt anything either from the imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new cold war in Asia-Pacific is a continuation of the US-led imperial project for dominance in the region recreating the Arc of the Empire.

Notes:

1.    Michael Green, “The US Turns Its Gaze to the Public,” The World Today, February and March, 2012.

2.    “Pivot to the Pacific? The Obama Administration Rebalancing Towards Asia,” Congressional Research Service, March 28, 2012.

3.    Michael Klare, “Is Barack Obama Morphing Into Dick Cheney?” Asiatimes Online, June 23, 2012.

4.    Chalmers Johnson, “America’s Empire of Bases”, TomDispatch.com, January 15, 2004.

5.    Catherine Lutz, “US Bases and Empre: Global Perspectives on the Asia-Pacific,” Transnational Institute, July 2009.

6.    Michael McGrehee, New York Times Examiner, November 8, 2011.

7.    Willy Lam, “Beijing Laces Up Its Foreign Policy Lace,” Asiatimes Online, June 28, 2012.

8.    Robert Kagan, Atlantic Magazine, April 2012.

9.    Robert M. Hathaway, Yale Global Review, February 24, 2012.

10.    Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.Com, June 13, 2012.

11.    Michael H. Hunt and Steven L. Levine, “Arc of Empire”, University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

By NINAN KOSHY

27 July 2012

@ PfL Forum

It was not an opportune time for Dalai Lama, the most revered spiritual head of Buddhists around the world, to be in Kashmir & enjoy walking over the scattered hair of his female followers lying prostate. Instead he should have been in Myanmar to get a feel of the scores of dead bodies of Muslims killed by his followers in Myanmar and lying scattered all-round. And the advice of remaining peaceful to the oppressed people of Kashmir should have been directed at the killers in Myanmar, otherwise touted as followers of the most peaceful religion.

The genocide of the Muslims in Myanmar is not a new affair but institutionalized in the history of Myanmar. During World War II, these Muslims, also known as Rohingyas, remained loyal to British and paid dearly for this choice. The advancing Japnese & Burmese armies with the help of identification provided by local Buddhists massacred, tortured & raped these defenseless Muslims. On March 28, 1942 alone about 5,000 Muslims were massacred in Minbya and Mrohaung Townships. After conquering the region in 1945,the British compensated them to some extent by setting up an autonomous civilian administration zone for them in Arkan. But the affair proved short lived as this autonomous zone was merged with Burma in 1948 treaty granting Burma independence from Britain. Following the merger, Muslims were barred from Military services and Muslim civil servants & policemen were immediately replaced by Buddhists. Rohingya leaders were arbitrarily placed under arrest and those refugees who had earlier fled to India were not permitted to return. Back home their properties were confiscated & allotted to Burmese Buddhists. In 1958, Buddhism was declared as official religion of Myanmar after which the Buddhists extremists have been encouraged more to carry out massacre of the Muslims at regular intervals. The persecution became more intense after General Ne win engineered the military take-over of the Government in 1962.

Described as the Palestine of Asia by the UN, the Rohingya Muslim community in Myanmar is living under extremely appalling circumstances. The dictatorial government of Myanmar has deliberately neglected their ordeal and the international community is overlooking their suffering. Going through an unutterable ordeal at the hands of the extremist Buddhists who are targeting them at every available opportunity& indulging in worst form of genocide & religious cleansing. In a recent spate of violence triggering fresh migration, some 2000 Rohinga Muslims have come to Delhi and are living in pitiable & sub-human conditions in Vasant Kunj jungles.

Not content with killing & rape, this unfortunate community is even denied their basic rights, i.e. the right to freedom of movement, marriage, faith, identity, ownership, language, heritage and culture and above all citizenship rights.. The government of Myanmar considers them to be “resident foreigners.” This lack of full citizenship rights means that they are subject to other abuses, including restrictions on their freedom of movement, discriminatory limitations on access to education, and arbitrary confiscation of property. Deplorable as it is, the Muslims in Myanmar are among the most persecuted minorities in the world according to UN.

Unfortunately, the Myanmar peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the plight of these Muslims. Maybe she has forgotten her own words on democracy and human rights that, “The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity.”

In view of the ongoing inhumane violations in Myanmar , the US and its western allies, which keep pontificating about human rights in the world, have feigned ignorance about this humanitarian catastrophe. Why? Because they will not be able to reap any benefits of their future efforts in the country as they do in the Middle East and elsewhere. To crown it all, they have kept an agonizingly meaningful silence over the massacre. It is certainly incumbent upon every person who cares about human dignity to fly in the face of this inhumanity and give a helping hand to the downtrodden Myanmar Muslims.

By Abdul Majid Zargar

29 July, 2012

Countercurrents.org

(The author is a practicing chartered Accountant. Feed back at amzargar1@indiatimes.com)

The human race stands on the verge of nuclear self-extinction as a species, and with it will die most, if not all, forms of intelligent life on the planet earth. Any attempt to dispel the ideology of nuclearism and its attendant myth propounding the legality of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence must directly come to grips with the fact that the nuclear age was conceived in the original sins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined by the Nuremberg Charter of August 8, 1945, and violated several basic provisions of the Regulations annexed to Hague Convention No. 4 Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907), the rules of customary international law set forth in the Draft Hague Rules of Air Warfare (1923), and the United States War Department Field Manual 27-10, Rules of Land Warfare (1940). According to this Field Manual and the Nuremberg Principles, all civilian government officials and military officers who ordered or knowingly participated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could have been lawfully punished as war criminals. The start of any progress toward resolving humankind’s nuclear predicament must come from the realization that nuclear weapons have never been legitimate instruments of state policy, but rather have always constituted illegitimate instrumentalities of internationally lawless and criminal behavior.

THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The use of nuclear weapons in combat was, and still is, absolutely prohibited under all circumstances by both conventional and customary international law: e.g., the Nuremberg Principles, the Hague Regulations of 1907, the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocol I of 1977, etc. In addition, the use of nuclear weapons would also specifically violate several fundamental resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly that have repeatedly condemned the use of nuclear weapons as an international crime.

Consequently, according to the Nuremberg Judgment, soldiers would be obliged to disobey egregiously illegal orders with respect to launching and waging a nuclear war. Second, all government officials and military officers who might nevertheless launch or wage a nuclear war would be personally responsible for the commission of Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol 1, and genocide, among other international crimes. Third, such individuals would not be entitled to the defenses of superior orders, act of state, tu quoque, self-defense, presidential authority, etc. Fourth, such individuals could thus be quite legitimately and

most severely punished as war criminals, up to and including the imposition of the death penalty, without limitation of time.

THE THREAT TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter of 1945 prohibits both the threat and the use of force except in cases of legitimate self-defense as recognized by article 51 thereof. But although the requirement of legitimate self-defense is a necessary precondition for the legality of any threat or use of force, it is certainly not sufficient. For the legality of any threat or use of force must also take into account the customary and conventional international laws of humanitarian armed conflict.

Thereunder, the threat to use nuclear weapons (i.e., nuclear deterrence/terrorism) constitutes ongoing international criminal activity: namely, planning, preparation, solicitation and conspiracy to commit Nuremberg crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, Additional Protocol I of 1977, the Hague Regulations of 1907, and the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, inter alia. These are the so-called inchoate crimes that under the Nuremberg Principles constitute international crimes in their own right.

The conclusion is inexorable that the design, research, testing, production, manufacture, fabrication, transportation, deployment, installation, maintenance, storing, stockpiling, sale, and purchase as well as the threat to use nuclear weapons together with all their essential accouterments are criminal under well-recognized principles of international law. Thus, those government decision-makers in all the nuclear weapons states with command responsibility for their nuclear weapons establishments are today subject to personal criminal responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles for this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism that they have daily inflicted upon all states and peoples of the international community. Here I wish to single out four components of the threat to use nuclear weapons that are especially reprehensible from an international law perspective: counter-ethnic targeting; counter-city targeting; first-strike weapons and contingency plans; and the first-use of nuclear weapons even to repel a conventional attack.

THE CRIMINALITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

As can be determined in part from the preceding analysis, today’s nuclear weapons establishments as well as the entire system of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by all the nuclear weapon states are criminal — not simply illegal, not simply immoral, but criminal under well established principles of international law. This simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons can be utilized to pierce through the ideology of nuclearism to which many citizens in the nuclear weapons states have succumbed. It is with this simple idea of the criminality of nuclear weapons that concerned citizens can proceed to comprehend the inherent illegitimacy and fundamental lawlessness of the policies that their governments pursue in their names with respect to the maintenance and further development of nuclear weapons systems.

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE/TERRORISM

Humankind must abolish nuclear weapons before nuclear weapons abolish humankind. Nonetheless, a small number of governments in the world community continue to maintain nuclear weapons systems despite the rules of international criminal law to the contrary. This has led some international lawyers to argue quite tautologically and disingenuously that since there exist a few nuclear weapons states in the world community, therefore nuclear weapons must somehow not be criminal because otherwise these few states would not possess nuclear weapons systems. In other words, to use lawyers’ parlance, this minority state practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism practiced by the great powers somehow negates the existence of a world opinio juris (i.e., sense of legal obligation) as to the criminality of nuclear weapons.

There is a very simple response to that specious argument: Since when has a small gang of criminals — in this case, the nuclear weapons states — been able to determine what is legal or illegal for the rest of the community by means of their own criminal behavior? What right do these nuclear weapons states have to argue that by means of their own criminal behavior they have ipso facto made criminal acts legitimate? No civilized nation state would permit a small gang of criminal conspirators to pervert its domestic legal order in this manner. Moreover, both the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Tokyo Tribunal made it quite clear that a conspiratorial band of criminal states likewise has no right to opt out of the international legal order by means of invoking their own criminal behavior as the least common denominator of international deportment. Ex iniuria ius non oritur is a peremptory norm of customary international law. Right cannot grow out of injustice!

To the contrary, the entire human race has been victimized by an international conspiracy of ongoing criminal activity carried out by the nuclear weapons states under the doctrine known as “nuclear deterrence,” which is really a euphemism for “nuclear terrorism.” This international criminal conspiracy of nuclear deterrence/terrorism currently practiced by the nuclear weapons states is no different from any other conspiracy by a criminal gang or band. They are the outlaws. So it is up to the rest of the international community to repress and dissolve this international criminal conspiracy as soon as possible.

THE HUMAN RIGHT TO ANTI-NUCLEAR CIVIL RESISTANCE

In light of the fact that nuclear weapons systems are prohibited, illegal, and criminal under all circumstances and for any reason, every person around the world possesses a basic human right to be free from this criminal practice of nuclear deterrence/terrorism and its concomitant specter of nuclear extinction. Thus, all human beings possess the basic right under international law to engage in non-violent civil resistance activities for the purpose of preventing, impeding, or terminating the ongoing commission of these international crimes. Every citizen of the world community has both the right and the duty to oppose the existence of nuclear weapons systems by whatever non-violent means are at his or her disposal. Otherwise, the human race will suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs, and the planet earth will become a radioactive wasteland. The time for preventive action is now!

By Francis A. Boyle

05 August, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Professor Francis A. Boyle is an international law expert and served as Legal Advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat on the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, as well as to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993, where he drafted the Palestinian counter-offer to the now defunct Oslo Agreement. His books include “ Palestine, Palestinians and International Law” (2003), and “ The Palestinian Right of Return under International Law” (2010).

Has there ever been a Middle Eastern war of such hypocrisy? A war of such cowardice and such mean morality, of such false rhetoric and such public humiliation? I’m not talking about the physical victims of the Syrian tragedy. I’m referring to the utter lies and mendacity of our masters and our own public opinion – eastern as well as western – in response to the slaughter, a vicious pantomime more worthy of Swiftian satire than Tolstoy or Shakespeare.

While Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm and fund the rebels of Syria to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite/Shia-Baathist dictatorship, Washington mutters not a word of criticism against them. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria. But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world. Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan’s dark ages.

Indeed, 15 of the 19 hijacker-mass murderers of 11 September, 2001, came from Saudi Arabia – after which, of course, we bombed Afghanistan. The Saudis are repressing their own Shia minority just as they now wish to destroy the Alawite-Shia minority of Syria. And we believe Saudi Arabia wants to set up a democracy in Syria?

Then we have the Shia Hezbollah party/militia in Lebanon, right hand of Shia Iran and supporter of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. For 30 years, Hezbollah has defended the oppressed Shias of southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression. They have presented themselves as the defenders of Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza. But faced with the slow collapse of their ruthless ally in Syria, they have lost their tongue. Not a word have they uttered – nor their princely Sayed Hassan Nasrallah – about the rape and mass murder of Syrian civilians by Bashar’s soldiers and “Shabiha” militia.

Then we have the heroes of America – La Clinton, the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Obama himself. Clinton issues a “stern warning” to Assad. Panetta – the same man who repeated to the last US forces in Iraq that old lie about Saddam’s connection to 9/11 – announces that things are “spiralling out of control” in Syria. They have been doing that for at least six months. Has he just realized? And then Obama told us last week that “given the regime’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad … that the world is watching”. Now, was it not a County Cork newspaper called the Skibbereen Eagle, fearful of Russia’s designs on China, which declared that it was “keeping an eye … on the Tsar of Russia”? Now it is Obama’s turn to emphasize how little clout he has in the mighty conflicts of the world. How Bashar must be shaking in his boots.

But what US administration would really want to see Bashar’s atrocious archives of torture opened to our gaze? Why, only a few years ago, the Bush administration was sending Muslims to Damascus for Bashar’s torturers to tear their fingernails out for information, imprisoned at the US government’s request in the very hell-hole which Syrian rebels blew to bits last week. Western embassies dutifully supplied the prisoners’ tormentors with questions for the victims. Bashar, you see, was our baby.

Then there’s that neighboring country which owes us so much gratitude: Iraq. Last week, it suffered in one day 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilian and wounding another 235. The same day, Syria’s bloodbath consumed about the same number of innocents. But Iraq was “down the page” from Syria, buried “below the fold”, as we journalists say; because, of course, we gave freedom to Iraq, Jeffersonian democracy, etc, etc, didn’t we? So this slaughter to the east of Syria didn’t have quite the same impact, did it? Nothing we did in 2003 led to Iraq’s suffering today. Right?

And talking of journalism, who in BBC World News decided that even the preparations for the Olympics should take precedence all last week over Syrian outrages? British newspapers and the BBC in Britain will naturally lead with the Olympics as a local story. But in a lamentable decision, the BBC – broadcasting “world” news to the world – also decided that the passage of the Olympic flame was more important than dying Syrian children, even when it has its own courageous reporter sending his dispatches directly from Aleppo.

Then, of course, there’s us, our dear liberal selves who are so quick to fill the streets of London in protest at the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Rightly so, of course. When our political leaders are happy to condemn Arabs for their savagery but too timid to utter a word of the mildest criticism when the Israeli army commits crimes against humanity – or watches its allies do it in Lebanon – ordinary people have to remind the world that they are not as timid as the politicians. But when the scorecard of death in Syria reaches 15,000 or 19,000 – perhaps 14 times as many fatalities as in Israel’s savage 2008-2009 onslaught on Gaza – scarcely a single protester, save for Syrian expatriates abroad, walks the streets to condemn these crimes against humanity. Israel’s crimes have not been on this scale since 1948. Rightly or wrongly, the message that goes out is simple: we demand justice and the right to life for Arabs if they are butchered by the West and its Israeli allies; but not when they are being butchered by their fellow Arabs.

And all the while, we forget the “big” truth. That this is an attempt to crush the Syrian dictatorship not because of our love for Syrians or our hatred of our former friend Bashar al-Assad, or because of our outrage at Russia, whose place in the pantheon of hypocrites is clear when we watch its reaction to all the little Stalingrads across Syria. No, this is all about Iran and our desire to crush the Islamic Republic and its infernal nuclear plans – if they exist – and has nothing to do with human rights or the right to life or the death of Syrian babies. Quelle horreur!

By Robert Fisk

29 July, 2012

@The Independent

Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.

© 2012 Independent/UK

President al-Assad Issues Law on Establishing Court to Look into Terrorism-linked Crimes

Jul 26, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday issued law No. 22 for 2012 on establishing a court to look into terrorism-linked issues with its headquarters in Damascus.

The law provides for the possibility of establishing more other headquarters when necessary by a decision from the Higher Judicial Council.

The court has jurisdiction over civilian and military personnel.

Minister of Justice Radwan al-Habib said the anti-terrorism law No 19 includes putting appropriate legal rules for the high-risk crimes in a way that achieves a balance between the rights of the citizens to guarantee their freedom and dignity and the right of the state to protect its integrity and preserve its higher interests.

Terrorists Suffer Heavy Losses in Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, Hama and Daraa

Jul 27, 2012

PROVINCES, (SANA) – Units from the armed forces on Thursday clashed with armed terrorist groups in Salah Eddin and al-Sukari neighborhoods in Aleppo.

An official source told SANA reporter that the clash resulted in killing and wounding a large number of terrorists.

The source added that terrorists Mohammad Saleh Afir and Mazen Aqrae were identified among the dead.

Syrian Armed forces carry out qualitative operations in al-Yarmouk and al-Hajar al-Aswad, kill terrorists and wound scores

The Syrian Army units today pursued the defeated terrorists in al-Yarmouk neighborhood in Damascus.

The Army forces carried out a qualitative and courageous operation as the terrorists were spreading inside the populated areas and taking civilians as human shields.

The competent authorities pursued  the terrorists in al-Yarmouk and al-Hajar al-Aswad popular neighborhoods, killing a big number of mercenaries who destroyed private and public properties, terrified citizens and broke off  roads.

In al-Kiswa, Damascus countryside, an army unit stormed a den used by an armed terrorist group in one of the farms.

The Unit clashed with the terrorists who were hiding inside the den,  killing and injuring several terrorists, confiscating their weapons which included a number of rifles and explosive devices.

Three citizens martyred in a train derail by an act of terrorists

In al-Raka, an armed terrorist group removed the beams of a railway that links between al-Raka and Aleppo, leading to the derail of a train with three civilians martyred and  several others wounded

5 Terrorists Killed, 10 Others Wounded in Deir Ezzor

Authorities in Deir Ezzor clashed with terrorists in al-Bukamal city, killed 5 terrorists and wounded 10 others, in addition to destroying a pick-up truck equipped with a machinegun and another car carrying weapons and ammunition.

A source in the province said that two terrorists were killed in an explosive device blast as they were planting it near Omar Bin al-Khattab Mosque in the city.

Authorities Clash with Terrorists in Hama, Storm Terrorist Hideout, Seize Large Amount of Weapons

Authorities clashed with a number of terrorists who were trying to kidnap a family from al-Elaiyat town in Hama countryside.

A source in the province told SANA reporter that the terrorists suffered heavy losses, adding that the body of the terrorist Safwan Abu Eisheh was identified.

On Wednesday, the authorities, in cooperation with the locals, stormed a hideout of an armed terrorist group in the same town, arresting its members and seizing large amounts of weapons.

A source in the province said that the seized weapons included 41 automatic guns, 9 sniper rifles, 17 RPGs and 3 RPG launchers, 6 pump-action rifles, 84 bullet chargers , hand-made rocket, 43 bags, 50 gas masks, large amount of grenades, 12 wireless transmitters and 2 Inmarsat satellite transmitters, in addition to seizing a field hospital with stolen medical equipment.

Authorities kill terrorists in Idleb, Daraa countryside

The competent authorities clashed today with armed terrorist groups in Idleb countryside, inflicting heavy losses among terrorists.

An official source in Idleb told SANA reporter that among the killed known were Tarek Aboud al-Sayyid, Mohammad Fawaz al-Khateeb and Adnan al-Khateeb.

In Daraa countryside, the authorities, in cooperation with the families  pursued an armed terrorist group and clashed with it.

Among the terrorists killed were Abdul-Rahman al-Nadaf and Mohammad Biki.

Authorities Confront Terrorist Attack in Daraa

In Daraa, authorities confronted an attack by an armed terrorist group against law-enforcement forces which resulted in killing terrorist Audi Kaed al-Fawwaz, a leader of one of the armed terrorist groups, and wounding others.

Authorities in Bosra al-Sham clashed with terrorists, killing an Arab terrorist and wounding others.

Foreign Ministry: Ambassador al-Dabbagh Was off Duty in Abu Dhabi since June 4th

Jul 27, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- Foreign and Expatriates Ministry stressed that Syria’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abdullatif al-Dabbagh, has been off duty in Abu Dhabi since June 4th and Lamia al-Hariri has never held the title of Ambassador to Cyprus.

The Ministry referred in a statement on Thursday to media reports over the past two days in relation to employees at the Ministry who chose to leave their posts at diplomatic missions and head to an Arab country which has undertaken funding and encouraging these types of employees to defect from their homeland in return for offers that have become known to all and been rejected before by many inside and outside the Ministry.

The statement clarified that Abdullatif al-Dabbagh is Syria’s Ambassador to the UAE who is currently under review in Damascus upon the Ministry’s request for consultation and has been off duty in Abu Dhabi since June 4th.

The statement added that Lamia al-Hariri has never held the title of Syria’s Ambassador as she is a diplomat working at the Syrian Embassy in Cyprus and assigned with managing the Embassy’s affairs until an ambassador or charge d’affaires is appointed.

The Ministry’s statement also clarified that Mohammad Tahsin al-Faqir does not hold any diplomatic title as he is an administrative employee at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry and works at the Syrian Embassy in Oman.

It added that al-Faqir’s mission at the Embassy was terminated by law no. 129 issued on May 21, 2012 and he is now waiting for retirement within a month, noting that al-Faqir does not hold any security status.

The Foreign Ministry said in its statement that it has taken the legal, behavioral and diplomatic measures towards the mentioned employees, stressing that all the embassies concerned are working uniformly and unremittingly to serve the Syrian nationals in the countries concerned

Ladsous.. Finding political solution to the Crisis in Syria through process led by the Syrians

Jul 26, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA)-United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous announced the UN Observer Mission’s commitment to carrying out the Security Council Resolution No. 2059 which extended the mandate of the International Monitors’ Mission UNSMIS for 30 days.

“The UN, and particularly the UNSMIS under its new leadership, headed by General Babacar Gaye are committed to carrying out the Security Council decision.. as you know, it is a short mandate to re-evaluate the situation at the end of August,” Ladsous said at a press conference in Damascus following two-day meetings with officials from the Syrian government and figures from the opposition.

He clarified that when the situation improves, members of the Mission who left to their countries will return to their tasks.

Ladsous said that the aim of the UN is to contribute to stopping the violence, calling on all sides to exert efforts to put an end to violence and help apply the six-point plan of the UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan.

“One of the tasks of UNSMIS is to contribute to facilitating resumption of dialogue, particularly in specified local circumstances, and to put a vision that could help find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria, led by the Syrians themselves,” Ladsous concluded.

Stability and security Restored to al-Dhiyabia, Families Return Home

Jul 26, 2012

DAMASCUS COUNTRYSIDE, (SANA)- Members of the Syrian Army forces and Law enforcement restored security and stability to al-Dhiyabia neighborhood in al-Sayida Zainab, Damascus countryside after purifying the area from the mercenaries who carried out acts of sabotage, burning private and public cars, breaking off roads and terrifying the innocents.

The authorities killed a big number of terrorists and injured scores of them in addition to confiscating their weapons and ammunitions.

With the coming of the Army members to the area, some families started to return to their houses, feeling safe and secure.

“The terrorists were braking off roads, terrifying people by weapons and hiding their faces.. the people felt danger and were forced to flee their homes.. when we returned, we saw chaos and destruction,” Yousef al-Shumari said.

Batoul al-Shumari who returned two days ago underlined that the terrorists “confiscated the life.. there were no more joy or happiness.. were we seized inside our houses, but now we feel safe with the presence of the army.”

Other citizens underlined that they are cleaning the streets and they feel secure, adding that conditions are improving, stressing that mercenaries were opening fire, storming houses and looting shops and cars.

Tehran Opposes any Foreign intervention in Syria’s domestic affairs

Jul 26, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA)-Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili underlined that Iran strongly opposes any foreign intervention in the Syrian domestic affairs.

Meeting the Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Services Affairs and Local Administration Minister Omar Ghalawanji and the accompanying delegation , Jalili condemned the misleading media campaigns and the pressures to which Syrian is exposed, stressing that Syria will win and come out of the crisis stronger.

“Iran supports Syria, as leadership and government, in the face of foreign pressures,”Jalili said, calling for developing the bilateral relations in all fields.

Ghalawanji said that the aim of the Syrian delegation’s visit to Iran is to get acquainted with the Iranian expertise in all sectors, particularly in economy and services.

“We discussed the technical issues.. and ways to develop bilateral cooperation in all domains, particularly in the fields of electricity, water, health and housing,” Ghalawanji added.

Al-Jaafari: International Abstention from Subjecting Israel to Accountability Encourages Its Hostility

Jul 26, 2012

NEW YORK, (SANA)- Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, said there is a methodical Israeli pattern of violations and practices that contradict the minimum of the human rights principles and the international humanitarian law which some refrain from subjecting Israel to international accountability.

Delivering Syria’s statement during an open Security Council session on Wednesday discussing ‘The Situation in the Middle East’ item, al-Jaafari lashed out against the efforts of providing cover for failure in finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict due to the Israeli obstinacy through interjecting other unrelated issues such as the false claims brought up by some Arab delegations against Syria.

He expressed deep concern over the frenzied effort of some delegations to repeatedly deviate the Council deliberations regarding from the main objective behind which it was founded which is ending Israel’s occupation of the Arab territories and settling the Arab-Israeli conflict according to the known peace references.

The Syrian Ambassador pointed out that he sent to the UN Secretary General and the Security Council complaints of all the Israeli violations in the form of a number of official letters, the latest of which was on July 17th 2012, which “fell on deaf ears”.

Collusive Approach”of  UN General Secretariat Representatives Encourages Israel’s Hostility

He blasted the UN General Secretariat representatives’ overlooking of discussion of the situation in the occupied Syrian Golan and ignoring of the Israeli War Minister’s latest threat of launching an aggression on Syria.

He stressed that the “constant and flagrant collusive approach” of the UN General Secretariat representatives is a clear violation of their duties in periodically updating the Security Council members on the latest developments in Golan, adding that this has encouraged Israel in going on with its hostile policies.

Terrorist Groups Are Sheltered and Funded by Some Parties in Lebanon

Al-Jaafari underscored the firmness of the Syrian-Lebanese relations in the face of the efforts to undermine these relations, considering that the problem lies in the fact that some Lebanese parties are providing funds, arms and shelter to the armed groups to carry out terrorist activities in Syria.

He said that these activities are being carried out under direct military, financial and media support from Qatar and Saudi Arabia and other countries such as the US and France.

Qatar and Saudi Representatives Shed Crocodile’s Tears for the Syrians

“Crocodile’s tears were shed by the representatives of Qatar and Saudi Arabia for the ‘suffering of the Syrian People’, whose blood has been around the clock shed by the Qatari-Saudi conspiracy through their direct military, information, financial, political and diplomatic intervention,” al-Jaafari added.

He pointed out that the Saudi and Qatari diplomacy should have backed the UN envoy to Syria Kofi Annan’s plan and Geneva document instead of pushing for escalation against Syria and its interests in the UN General Assembly following their failure in the UN Security Council, citing the hysterical campaign of the al-Jazeera and al-Arabyia satellite channels, not to mention the statements by Saudi and Qatari officials.

Ambassador al-Jaafari called on the Saudi and Qatari governments to immediately work to respond to the demands of their people and their opposition inside and outside their respective countries, citing, for example, the oppression of the Saudi civilians by the Saudi security and military authorities in Qatif and al-Awamyia regions, and the just demands by more than 250 Qataris from the opposition calling for halting of the spending of the Qatari people money for conspiring against Arab and Islamic people.

He reiterated that neither Qatar nor Saudi Arabia could be talken as an example when it comes to talking about democracy.

Lavrov: Russia Hopes to Extend UN Observer Mission after 30-day Mandate Expires in August

Jul 26, 2012

MOSCOW, (SANA) – Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, expressed hope to prolong the mission of the UN observers in Syria after the 30-day mandate expires in August and that the UN Security Council to increase the number of its members.

In a joint press conference with its Serbian counterpart Vuk Jeremić following their talks in Moscow on Thursday, Lavrov expressed Russia’s readiness to send 30 observers to join the UN observer mission in Syria.

He stressed the need for the observers to work on points of disagreement between the government and the opposition, calling upon all sides to comply with the UN Security Council’s call to ensure the safety of the observers.

The Russian Foreign Minister said that “as long as some countries still support the armed Syrian opposition, establishing humanitarian corridors or what is called security zones in Syria is out of question.” He said that Russia received no information, directly or through the UN Secretariat, on the Arab League’s intention to call for an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to discuss the issue of humanitarian corridors or security zones in Syria.

In turn, Jeremic, who was elected as Chairman of the UN General Assembly, said that he doubted the need to implement such procedures in Syria, adding that Serbia, from its own experience, knows that such steps are not always useful.

Haidar: Ministry Is Ready to Help in Solving Obstacles Hindering the UN Observer Mission’s Work

Jul 26, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Minister of State for National Reconciliation Affairs, Ali Haidar, stressed the Ministry’s readiness to contribute to solving all obstacles hindering the UN supervision mission’s work so that they would have an active role to act upon their sincere intentions to halt violence and hold all the parties involved in the violence on the ground accountable.

Haidar was speaking to the journalists after his meeting with the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, head of the UN supervision mission in Syria, Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye.

The meeting dealt with the prospects of the political process required to achieve real national reconciliation in Syria.

Haidar said that he suggested during the discussion a previously presented proposal which is to include 10000 highly-qualified Syrian volunteers in the UN mission’s field work so as for the mission to affirm its seriousness and good intentions.

He wondered about the reason of sending a monitoring team to Syria without adopting its reports at the UN Security Council, adding that had the reports of the former head of the UN observer mission, General Robert Mood, been adopted, there would have been an entirely different international position.

Minister Haidar said that if the UN Security Council had a real desire to achieve the interests of the Syrian people and if it was professional and neutral, it should give the mission its real role and refrain from adopting reports submitted by unknown people or by media that are part of the war on Syria with the aim of giving the precedence for these countries’ viewpoints and take the UN Security Council away from the interests of the Syrian people.

He stressed that halting the violence and moving towards a political process is a Syrian will in the first place, adding that the Syrians agreed on Annan’s plan as he expressed an international will that came in line with their will to get the homeland out of the crisis.

He indicated the importance of providing all requirements to make a success of the project of shifting to a political process that serves Syria’s interest, stressing that the most important of which is to halt violence.

Syria Participates in London 2012 Olympic Games to Kick Off Tomorrow

Jul 26, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Syria participates in the 30th edition of London 2012 Olympic Games to be held between July 27th to August 12th along with more than 10000 athletes representing 204 National Olympic Committees.

This is Syria’s largest participation since Moscow Olympic Games in 1980.

The Syrian mission consists of 28 individuals including 10 athletes:

Ahmad Hamsho in equestrian

Wessam Salamaneh in boxing

Ahed Joughili ( Men’s -105 kg) and Thuraia Sobh (Women’s -75 kg) in weightlifting

Majed Eddin Ghazal ( high jump) and Ghfran Almouhamad (400 m hurdles) in athletics.

Azad Al-Barazi (100 m breaststroke) and Bayan Joumaa ( 100 m freestyle) in swimming.

Raya Zein Eddin in shooting and Omar Hassanin in cycling.

The opening ceremony will be marked with the the arrival of the Olympic flame for the lighting of the cauldron at 9:00 pm according to the local time in London, signifying the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Fighting intensified in the Syrian city of Aleppo over the weekend, with the government of President Bashar al-Assad deploying troops and aircraft to retake neighborhoods captured by opposition militants in a major offensive last week.

There were reports of heavy fighting in the historic city center and old fort areas of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and its main commercial center. The BBC, which has a correspondent inside the city, reported that the Syrian army was shelling militia positions in the suburb of Salah al-Din, and that thousands of civilians are fleeing Aleppo.

While the rural districts around Aleppo have experienced frequent clashes between government forces and opposition militants during the sixteen-month civil conflict, the city had until recently seen relatively little violence. However, there have been a growing number of deadly attacks on government facilities and personnel in Aleppo this year, with anti-Assad fighters strengthened by increased weapons supplies flowing across the border from neighboring Turkey.

In response to the fighting in Aleppo, Sayda Abdulbaset Sayda, the leader of the US-backed Syrian National Council, urged the West and the Gulf monarchies to increase their support to the opposition militias. “We want weapons that would stop tanks and jet fighters,” Sayda said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Moualem, stated Sunday that government troops would continue to reinforce Aleppo and other areas held by the opposition. Speaking during a visit to Iran, Syria’s principal regional ally, Moualem claimed that while he backed the UN-sponsored ceasefire plan for Syria, the regime would continue to fight what he called a foreign-backed terrorist conspiracy.

The Gulf sheikhdoms, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have supplied millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Syrian opposition and pledged to pay salaries to “rebel” fighters. While Washington has claimed that it is providing “non-lethal” supplies to the opposition, such as night vision glasses and communications equipment, teams of CIA operatives are acknowledged to be working inside Turkey to coordinate the distribution of money and arms to the various militant groups.

Last week, CNN reported an increased presence of foreign opposition fighters, particularly from Libya, in and around Aleppo. The US cable news channel’s correspondent in Syria, Ivan Watson, in a report to the “Amanpour” program on Friday, stated that foreign militants were being drawn to the Syrian conflict, “because they see this as a jihad … as a fight for Sunni Muslims.”

The United States and its allies are escalating their intervention in Syria despite growing concerns over the character of the Islamist forces they are supporting. Having stoked the conflict in Syria to the point of civil war, Washington now faces the prospect of an ethno-sectarian break-up of the country and the spread of fighting throughout the region.

A column in the New York Times Sunday, titled “Syria After the Fall,” warned that while Washington has been happy to destabilize the Assad regime to weaken Iran’s regional influence, the Syrian conflict threatens to set off a “chain of events” that could pose “a greater threat to the Middle East and to America’s long-run interests in the region than does Iran’s nuclear program.”

“If the Syrian conflict explodes outward,” the Times column says, “everyone will lose: it will spill into neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. Lebanon and Iraq in particular are vulnerable; they, too, have sectarian and communal rivalries” connected to the fight between the Assad regime and the Sunni-dominated, US-backed opposition.

The piece, written by Vali Nasr, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, warns that if Assad should fall from power, over 100 different opposition groups inside Syria would continue to fight for power with each other and with members of the Alawite, Shiite, Christian, and Druze religious minorities, threatening to turn Syria into “a larger version of Lebanon in the 1970s … There would be ethnic cleansing, refugee floods, humanitarian disasters and opportunities for Al Qaeda.”

The author advises that to avoid such a collapse, it is necessary for the US to foster a “power-sharing agreement” between elements of the opposition and members of the Assad regime.

The New York Times’ modest proposal, which amounts to a call for a post-Assad regime comprised of Sunni Islamist forces and Syrian military brass, echoes the line now being advanced by the Obama administration. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the US government is “discussing ways to place Syria’s highest-ranking military defector [General Manaf Tlass] at the center of a political transition.”

Gen. Tlass, until recently a senior commander of Assad’s elite Republican Guard, defected to Turkey July 6, before traveling on to Paris with his family. He is currently engaged in a visit to Saudi Arabia, reportedly orchestrated by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

Even if Washington could cobble together such a military-Islamist alliance to replace the current regime in Damascus, it would be no less brutal or reactionary than that of Assad. On the contrary, Washington would demand that its new client ruthlessly put down all opposition and impose US interests in Syria.

Adding further fuel to the explosive situation, an armed secessionist movement is spreading among Syria’s Kurdish minority. The Egypt Independent reported Saturday that Kurdish fighters have overrun several Syrian army installations and raised the slogan, “Free Kurdistan.”

Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters and the Kurdish Workers Party, which has waged a protracted struggle with the Turkish state, are reported to be sponsoring the militants in northeastern Syria.

The presence of a Kurdish rebellion against Assad further expresses the deeply divided character of the Syrian opposition. The Syrian National Council (SNC), though headed by an ethnic Kurd, is opposed to Kurdish secession. The Turkish government, which plays host to the SNC and the Free Syrian Army command, is deeply opposed to any demands for an independent Kurdish state, however.

Despite the danger to the lives of millions in Syria and throughout the Middle East, Washington and its allies are escalating their reckless proxy war. To this end, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta began a five-day tour of the Middle East Sunday, during which he will discuss joint plans for regime-change in Syria with the governments of key US allies Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

By Niall Green

30 July, 2012

@ WSWS.og

 

A fascinating shift has happened in the U.S. mainstream media: After a year of anti-Syria war propaganda and lies, glimmers of truth are making their way into the public’s view. This may be too little too late: the country is being torn at the seams into the nightmare of ethnic-religious cleansing and massacres.

After non-stop war mongering, The New York Times took a second to wipe the blood off its hands to report the true state of things in Syria. Apparently, the previous, ongoing reports about the Syrian army indiscriminately massacring citizens in the city of Homs was simply a lie, repeated over and over.

It now turns out that the exact opposite was true.

In actuality, many of the refugees fleeing Homs were persecuted Christians, attacked by members of the Free Syrian Army, who have been killing religious minorities in an attempt to recruit hard-line Sunnis in Syria as they wage a religious war against the Syrian secular state.

The Background

Because the Free Syrian Army did not emerge from a popular revolution — but instead the pocketbooks and arsenal of Saudi Arabia — the war to destroy the Syrian government had to be waged as an ethnic-religious war. Saudi Arabia has a long history of exporting its rare extremist form of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, as a political tool to help overthrow unfriendly governments.

The U.S. has a long-standing alliance with Saudi Arabia in this effort, a dynamic that, over the years, has given birth to both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The U.S. refuses to stop using this strategy because it’s incredibly effective at overthrowing “unfriendly” governments, while keeping large sections of the Middle East stalled in the formative years of Islam, which keeps a good check on any political activity from working people, since in Saudi Arabia protests, labor unions, and civil rights are illegal.

The persecuted religious minorities in Homs view the Syrian government as their ally against the U.S. media-darling “liberators” of the Free Syrian Army, puppets of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy.

Minority Persecution

The opinion pages of The New York Times laid out the facts better than any previous reporting:

“As Saudi Arabian arms and money bolster the [Free Syria Army] opposition, the 80,000 Christians who’ve been ‘cleansed’ from their homes… in Homs Province in March by the Free Syrian Army have gradually given up the prospect of ever returning home.”

“The [Free Syria Army] rebels’ conduct [ethnic cleansing] has prompted at least some Sunnis who had supported the rebels and once-wavering Syrians to pledge renewed loyalty to Assad. Many who once regarded the regime as a kleptocracy now view it as the best guarantor of Syria’s endangered [ethnic-religious] pluralism.”

U.S. Complicity

This sudden somersault of facts has been long known to both the U.S. government and the media. The New York Times continues:

“Washington is aware of the scale of the problem [religious fanaticism and minority persecution]. As early as June 2011, Robert Stepen Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, briefed his counterparts in Damascus about Al Qaeda’s penetration of the opposition forces. By still ploughing ahead with its support for Saudi Arabia’s effort to destabilize Syria, Washington, far from assisting Israel or weakening Iran, is helping to fuel a humanitarian crisis that will come back to haunt the United States.”

To summarize: U.S. politicians from both parties have lied to the public about the true nature of the conflict in Syria, because it benefited them politically to see a non-U.S. ally destroyed by ethnic-religious barbarism.

Finally from The New York Times:

“The seeming indifference of the international community to the worsening condition of Syria’s religious minorities — and the near total absence of censure of the opposition forces by the Western governments arrayed against Assad — is breeding a bitter anti-Americanism among many secular Syrians who see the United States aligning itself with Saudi Arabia, the fount of Wahhabism [extremist Sunnis], against the Arab world’s most resolutely secular state.”

There you have it. It took over a year but suddenly the Syrian war isn’t so black and white, good guys versus bad guy. The Syrian government is by no means to be glorified, but the utter devastation that is being brought to the country was done so on a false premise, by foreign backers — Saudi Arabia and the U.S. — who wanted nothing except to see the country annihilated so that Iran would be isolated and easier to topple. To sell this bloodbath as an advance of democracy — as U.S. politicians and media have done — is beyond hypocritical; it falls under the category reserved for those who are labeled war criminals.

By Shamus Cooke

05 August, 2012

@Countercurrents.org

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/opinion/syrias-crumbling-pluralism.html?_r=1

 

President Ahmadinejad: Iran Stands by Syria in the face of Conspiracy.. Al-Moallem: Syria Possesses Defense Capabilities Sufficient to Defend Each Grain of Its Soil

Jul 30, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA)- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran underlined that Iran is a brotherly country to Syria and stands by it in the face of conspiracy till right wins over unjust.

Meeting Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem, President Ahmadinejad expressed confidence that Syria will win thanks to the wise leadership of President Bashar al-Assad  and the Syrian people’s support to his leadership.

Al-Moallem, stressed Syria’s determination to foil the conspiracy to which it is exposed, and to fight the armed terrorist groups which perpetrate terror acts, kill civilians, attack private and public properties, supported by Arab and western countries which supply them with weapon and money.

Al-Moallem also met the Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili and the Speaker of the Iranian Shura Council Ali Larijani, briefing them on the current situation in Syria.

Jalili and Larijani, for their part, underlined the importance of continuing coordination and consultation between the two countries, expressing confidence that Syria will win its war against the conspiracy to which it is exposed.

Earlier, al-Moallem discussed during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salihi the bilateral relations and the current situation in the region, particularly in Syria, expressing Syria’s determination to come out of the crisis stronger.

Al-Moallem stressed that Syria has agreed on the six-point plan of the UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, most importantly, halting violence by all sides.

Foreign Minister also hailed the stances of Russia and China which stand by the international law and the UN convention and their assertion on Syria’s territorial integrity and non-intervention in its domestic affairs.

Al-Moallem: Syria Possesses Defense Capabilities Sufficient to Defend Each Grain of Its Soil

Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Walid al-Moallem, stressed that Syria possesses defense capabilities sufficient to defend each grain of its soil, stressing the Syrian people’s steadfastness in the face of the crowd of countries that are ferociously conspiring against them.

“The Syrian people are determined to face the conspiracy hatched against them and achieve victory over it,” al-Moallem said in a joint press conference with Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran on Sunday, stressing that the Syrian army will continue facing the armed terrorist groups on the ground.

He highlighted the Syrians’ steadfastness throughout the crisis despite the inhumane siege imposed by the US, the EU countries and the states of the so-called Arab League which targets the Syrians with their living.

Al-Moallem: The Syrians’ Determination to Face the Conspiracy Is Now Stronger

He said what has increased the Syrians’ steadfastness and rallying around their leadership was that they have exposed the dimensions, parties and tools of the conspiracy and Israel’s involvement in it along with some Arab states.

“Today I say to you that Syria is stronger and our determination to face this scheme is stronger, and we have proved this on the ground since the Wednesday when they planned for what they called “The Great Battle for Damascus”,” said al-Moallem.

He continued that despite the groups of terrorists who were mobilized for the battle, “they were defeated in less than a week and the battle failed, so they moved to Aleppo where they will certainly fail.”

Al-Moallem: Syria Committed to a Middle East Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Minister al-Moallem reiterated Syria’s position proclaimed since 2003 on calling for establishing a Middle East weapons of mass destruction free zone when it submitted a draft resolution regarding this issue to the Security Council which is still there but not put to the vote because of the US obstruction.

He said that Syria has been facing for more than a month now an intensive campaign by the US, western and some Arab countries about possession of chemical weapons.

“Whether or not we possess unconventional weapons, Syria has repeatedly declared its readiness to establish a region free of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction,” al-Moallem stressed.

“The truth is that Syria is a country of confrontation as part of its land is under the occupation of Israel which possesses nuclear capabilities acknowledged by the US,” al-Moallem added, pointing out at the Pentagon Israel is said to have over 200 nuclear bombs.

He noted that in 1968 Syria joined the 1925 Geneva protocol on the prohibition of biological weapons proliferation and is committed to what it signed.

“As with regard to the convention on prohibition of chemical weapons, we are ready to sign it if signed by Israel. This is fair and legitimate and Syria is a responsible country that respects international legitimacy and the rules of international law in this regard,” said Minister al-Moallem, adding that Syria wants welfare to prevail the region.

Asked on the plan of the UN envoy Kofi Annan, al-Moallem reiterated Syria’s full abidance by the plan being “a reasonable plan and an appropriate means to resolve the crisis in Syria.”

He cited two essential points in the plan: the preventing of foreign interference in Syria and the stress on the political solution.

With regard to the implementation of Annan’s plan, the Foreign Minister made clear that the Syrian government has offered all it could and pulled out its forces from the Syrian cities.

He highlighted the fact that the implementation of the plan will guarantee preventing interference in the Syrian internal affair by such countries as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

“This is an important point in Annan’s plan to prevent disrupting security in Syria as the opposition still up to this moment can engage into serious dialogue with the government,” said al-Moallem.

Al-Moallem added that the conspirators are so fierce that even when security and stability  are restored to Syria, the conspiracy will not end, and that Israel is the  mastermind of the conspiracy and regrettably there are some Gulf states supporting Israel in implementing the conspiracy, which is why the international  activity against Syria has not ended.

Answering a question, al-Moallem said, “the terrorist groups which come across the borders from Turkey to Syria are from various nationalities: Egyptians, Libyans, Iraqis and others,” pointing out that a number of the Iraqi terrorists arrested in Syria belong to Al Qaeda.

He added, “There are others who came to Syria as journalists and later the authorities discovered they were not journalists, and many of those who were arrested in Syria took up arms and fought  against the Syrian Arab Army and the government,” pointing out that those who surrenders their weapons and whose hands are clear of blood will be pardoned immediately, and as for those who want dialogue and have demands, their demands will be studied and the legitimate ones will be addressed.

The Foreign and Expatriates Minister said “what we want from Lebanon is to remain safe and united and to help us prevent the infiltration of terrorists through its borders.”

On the statements of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in which he laid the responsibility of bloodshed in Syria on the west and some regional countries, Minister al-Moallem said these statements come from a man with considerable experience who is well-informed of what is going on the Syrian, regional and internal arenas .

Al-Moallem described his talks with his Iranian counterpart as very productive, stressing that the viewpoints of the two countries were identical on the regional issues and the conspiracy hatched against Syria to serve the interests of Israel.

For his part, the Iranian Foreign Minister stressed that the Israel is behind what is going on in Syria and that some states are rushing madly against Syria to weaken its position and hinder its development.

Salehi pointed out that an international conspiracy is targeting Syria, saying that some sides are looking  for pretexts and reasons for the developments and events in Syria, while he believes that the only reasons for these developments is that Israel is inciting against Syria.

Salehi added that the Syrian leadership has met most of the legitimate demands of the Syrian people.

He pointed out to the reformative laws issued by the Syrian government regarding political pluralism, elections and media laws, calling on all sides to give the Syrian leadership enough time to implement these reforms.

Salehi said “we are working to achieve security and stability in this region which is full of problems, and the wrong acts undertaken by some states prove that a conspiracy is targeting Syria … they naively believe that they can replace the government if they created vacuum in Syria, which is a naive misconception and they certainly should reconsider and pay attention to the internal situation in Syria and decide accordingly.”

He voiced certainty and confidence that the Syrian people will be victorious, as victory comes from righteousness.

Authorities Continue ChasingTerrorist Groups in Aleppo, Daraa, Homs and Deir Ezzor, Infiltration Attempts from Lebanon and Turkey Foiled

Jul 29, 2012

PROVINCES,(SANA)-The border guards on Saturday foiled an infiltration attempt by terrorist groups which tried to cross to Talkalakh area in Syria from Lebanon.

A source at the Province said that the terrorist groups tried, several times, to infiltrate to Syria from the areas of al-Matehouma and Shihera.

The source added that the authorities foiled the attempts and forced terrorists to flee back to Lebanon.

Authorities Continue Hunting Terrorist Groups in Aleppo

Authorities continued hunting the armed terrorist groups in Salah-Eddin neighborhood in Aleppo, causing them heavy losses.

An official source told SANA reporter that some gangs’ leaders were killed, pointing out that Ahmad al-Janoudi, Mohammad Abdul-Salam Salloum, Ali al-Hussein abu Hussein and Mohammad al-Saed were identified among the dead.

The armed forces also managed to clear Saladin neighborhood in Aleppo city from armed terrorist group.

An official source telling SANA that the armed forces inflicted very heavy losses on the terrorists, some of them non-Syrians of Arab and foreign nationalities, adding that fleeing terrorists are being pursued and that their hideouts are being raided, with the terrorists being arrested or eliminated.

The source said that the armed forces killed or wounded the terrorists in Bab al-Hadid area and arrested a number of them, adding that a Chevrolet pickup equipeed with a DShK machinegun was seized in Bustan al-Zahra area.

In al-Barkoum area, the authorities inflicted heavy losses upon a terrorist group that had attempted to sabotage factories in the area and terrorize their owners.

Armed Forces Liberate Two Abductees in Damascus Countryside

In al-Shefoniye in Damascus Countryside, the Syrian Arab Army forces managed to liberate two employees who were abducted by terrorists.

Colonel Nabil Kurdaghli said in a speech to the Syrian TV that while he was going from the hospital last Thursday to buy some bread, an armed terrorist group abducted him, taking him to unknown place.

“The terrorists beat and tortured me, but when they knew that I was a doctor.. they stopped beating me in order to make use of my expertise in treating the injured terrorists,” Doctor Kudaghli said.

For his part, Policeman Amer al-Ali said that while going to my work in al-Shefoniya, an armed terrorist group stormed the municipality building, abducted me and took me to unknown place.

“After one hour, we arrived at a farm… the terrorists beat and tortured me, leading to the braking of a number of my ribs and a full paralysis in my right hand

Infiltration Attempt from Turkey Foiled, Suffer Heavy Losses among Terrorists in Idleb

Border guards on Sunday foiled an infiltration attempt of an armed terrorist group from the Turkish territories to Syria near -Ein al-Beida site in Jisr al-Shughor in Idleb Province.

An official source in the province told SANA reporter that members of border guards arrested a number of terrorists, while the others escaped back to the Turkish territories.

Authorities also hunted an armed terrorist group in Bileen, Bailoun and Kfar Rouma villages in the province causing them heavy losses.

The source pointed out that the authorities destroyed the cars of the terrorists which were equipped with machine guns and confiscated their weapons.

The authorities also clashed with terrorists in farms surrounding Idleb city and in Qourin village, inflicting heavy losses on the terrorists, confiscating their weapon and destroying their cars which are armed with machine guns.

Heavy Losses Caused to Terrorists During Clashes in Daraa

Authorities arrested several members of the armed terrorist groups in Mukhayam al-Naziheen neighborhood in Daraa and caused them heavy losses.

An official source in the province told SANA reporter that a field hospital was found during the pursuit process.

In Busra al-Sham, the authorities clashed with an armed terrorist group, killing all its members.

Authorities Raid Terrorist Hideout in Sheikh Miskin, Daraa Countryside

The authorities raided a terrorist hideout in the town of Sheikh Miskin in Daraa countryside, inflicting heavy losses upon the terrorists, many of which threw down their guns and surrendered to the authorities.

Several innocent civilians who had been abducted by the terrorists were liberated during this operation.

In Daraa al-Balad, Mousa Ahmad al-Masalmeh, the leader of a terrorist group, was killed.

Terrorists Suffer Heavy Losses in Talbiseh, Homs Countryside

The authorities set an ambush in Talbiseh area in Homs countryside for an armed terrorist group which had been carrying out acts of murder and vandalism, setting roadblocks, and opening fire on passing cars.

A source at the province told SANA that scores of terrorists were either killed or injured during the clash.

Authorities Chase Terrorists in Deir Ezzor

Authorities on Saturday chased armed terrorist groups in al-Aradi neighborhood in Deir Ezzor City and the countryside of al-Mayadeen inflicting heavy losses upon their members.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that terrorists Mohammad al-Badr, Mohammad Eleiwi and Wahab al-Khaleifeh were identified among the deed in al-Aradi neighborhood.

Syrian Armed forces Purify al-Sbeineh from the armed terrorist groups

Syrian Armed forces purified al-Sbeineh area in Damascus countryside from the defeated armed terrorist groups which terrified the citizens, spread chaos, burned private and public properties and sabotaged the infrastructure.

The families in al-Sbeineh thanked the sacrifices of the Syrian armed forces for their response to their calls to get rid of the armed groups which forced them to flee their homes and looted their properties

Sunday Telegraph: Islamist Fighters Camps in North Syria Include Members of non-Syrian Nationalities

Jul 29, 2012

LONDON, (SANA)- The British Sunday Telegraph newspaper revealed that the camps of Islamist militants fighting against the Syrian state in the northern region included people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Chechnya, with some of them speaking English.

The newspaper reported in an article published on Saturday that the British Foreign Office “is investigating reports that British citizens are among Islamist fighters who kidnapped a British photographer and his Dutch colleague in northern Syria.”

It quoted a source close to the incident as saying that British John Cantlie and Dutchman Jeroen Oerlemans were held by Islamist fighters for a week “after they accidentally came across their camp while crossing the border from south east Turkey” to report on the events taking place in Syria.

While they were held in captivity, the source added,the journalists “were threatened with death unless they converted to Islam,” before another group of the so-called Free Syrian Army militias turned up the camp and demanded that they be released.

The source told the Sunday Telegraph that the camp members “included people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Chechnya, with no Syrians present, adding that “round 40 per cent” of them apparently spoke English but it was not clear what nationalities they were.

The source noted that there were “at least six men with British-sounding voices, including one with a heavy south London accent.

Health Minister: New Agreements with Iran Will Help Break the Economic Siege Imposed on Syria

Jul 29, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Health Minister Dr. Wael al-Halqi said that the new agreements signed with Iran recently will help break the economic siege imposed on Syria by European Countries and the US which targets the Syrian citizens and their health.

In a statement to SANA, al-Halqi said the agreements cover cooperation in the fields of liver transplant, stem-cell transplant and their optometry applications, treatment of incurable diseases, and facilitating the exchange of medicine and medical equipment.

He added that the agreements also cover holding fairs and expos, coordinating in the field of health information, healthcare, laboratories and quality control for pharmaceuticals.

Al-Halqi said the cooperation between the two countries will help provide the medicine, equipment and supplies needed by health establishments in Syria, allowing them to provide medical services to those who need them.

He noted that the Ministry’s requirements of Thalassemia medicine is entirely procured from Iran, voicing hope to continue coordination between the two countries to provide medicine and train medical staff

Yousef Shams Back to Freedom after 5 Years of Israeli Unjust Imprisonment

Jul 29, 2012

QUNEITRA, (SANA) – After five years of unjust imprisonment, the Israeli occupation forces on Sunday released head of Apple Marketing Committee in occupied Golan, Yousef Saleh Shams, from the occupied village of Majdal Shams.

In a statement to SANA, the released prisoner renewed the continuation of struggle against the occupation and adherence to land and the Syrian Arab identity despite all the aggressive practices and unjust rules imposed on the Syrian Arab people in Golan.

Shams considered that his years of detention since the seventies of the last century which have reached twelve altogether are “a badge of honor”, pointing out that he will continue with farming to contribute to alleviating the burden on Golan farmers and foiling the Zionist blockade on their apple crop which is their only source of living.

He saluted the motherland, Syria, stressing that the foreign and interior conspiracy will be foiled, highlighting belief that Syria will overcome the crisis to practice its regional and pan Arab role all over again.

General Gaye: Syria committed to Anna’s Plan

Jul 29, 2012

HOMS, (SANA)-Homs Governor Ahmad Moneir Mohammad on Sunday discussed with General Babacar Gaye, Head of the UN International Observer Mission in Syria and a team of the observers the situation in Homs and means of finding solutions to what the city witnesses due to the acts of armed terrorist groups which harm the life of citizens and their properties.

The Governor briefed General Gaye and the accompanying delegation on the acts of armed groups which carry out infiltration operations from the Lebanese borders into Syria aiming at destabilizing the satiation in the country.

“We are here in Syria.. we have new tasks.. we work to implement the Security council latest resolution on Syria and to carry out the plan of the UN Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan,” General Gays said in a speech to the Syrian TV.

He added “We assert that there is a commitment by the Syrian government in Annan’s plan.. the crisis in Syria couldn’t be resolved except by an agreement between the Syrian people and their leadership.

Algeria Rejects any Foreign Intervention in Syria’s Affairs

Jul 29, 2012

TEHRAN, (SANA)-Algerian Foreign Minister Murad Medelci underlined his country’s rejection of any foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs.

During a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Ali akbar Salihi today, Medelci referred to the need for the peaceful and political solution to the crisis in Syria and carrying out the reforms.

Medelci and Salihi stressed the importance for restoring calm and stability in Syria.

The two sides discussed the latest developments and the important issues in the region, particularly the situation in Syria

Interior Minister: Our Army and Security Forces will Restore Stability and Security

Jul 28, 2012

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – Minister of Interior Lieutenant General Mohammad al-Shaar said that the Syrian army and law-enforcement personnel will eliminate terrorism in all its forms and restore security and stability to the homeland.

In an interview on the Syrian TV on Saturday, al-Shaar sent a message to the persons who were misled and carried weapons asking them to return to their senses and vowing to help them in this regards.

On the allegations made by some media outlets on his death in the explosion which targeted the National Security Office in Damascus, al-Shaar said that “This is not strange as these news pieces are part of the psychological warfare waged against Syria.”

Minister al-Shaar headed a meeting with senior police officers with the aim of discussing the best methods to realize their mission in restoring security to the country.