Syria and the Middle East: our greatest miscalculation since the rise of fascism

Syria and the Middle East: our greatest miscalculation since the rise of fascism

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013   No comments

There could no more dreadful idea than to pour more armaments into the sectarian war now consuming Syria. Yet that is precisely what Britain's coalition government wants to do. The foreign secretary, William Hague, seemed on Monday to parody his hero Pitt the Younger by demanding "how long must we go on allowing … ?" and "what we want to see is …". Who is this we? But even Pitt would never be so stupid as to declare war on Syria, which is the only morally sound outcome of Hague's rhetorical mission creep.

For two years pundits have proclaimed the imminent fall of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. High on Arab spring, they declared he would fall from the logic of history. Or he would fall because western sanctions would bring him down. Or he would fall because the media, as in the novelScoop, were with the rebels and had decided they would win.

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French diplomat & Syrian opposition members backstage dealing

French diplomat & Syrian opposition members backstage dealing

    Tuesday, May 28, 2013   No comments

Syrian opposition talks aimed at presenting a coherent front at an international peace conference to end the civil war faced the prospect of collapse after President Bashar al-Assad's foes failed to cut an internal deal, opposition sources said on Friday.

The failure of the Syrian National Coalition to alter its Islamist-dominated membership as demanded by its international backers and replace a leadership undermined by power struggles is playing into the hands of Assad, whose forces are attacking a key town as his ally Russia said he would send representatives to the conference, coalition insiders said.

After two days of meetings in Istanbul, senior coalition players were in discussions late into the night after veteran liberal opposition figure Michel Kilo rejected a deal by Syrian businessman Mustafa al-Sabbagh, who is the coalition's secretary-general, to admit some members of Kilo's bloc to the coalition, the sources said.

Kilo has said that his group wants significant representation in the opposition coalition before it will join.

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Russia slams end of EU arms embargo, calls S-300s ‘stabilizing factor’ in Syria

Russia slams end of EU arms embargo, calls S-300s ‘stabilizing factor’ in Syria

    Tuesday, May 28, 2013   No comments

S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. (RIA Novosti / Vladislav Belogrud)

The EU voted Tuesday to end an arms embargo on the Syrian opposition but had no immediate plans to ship weapons amid continuing efforts to negotiate a solution to the crisis. Russia criticised the EU move, saying it undermined diplomatic efforts.

The European Union on Tuesday lifted an arms embargo on the Syrian opposition, in a move that drew rebuke from Moscow even if there were no immediate plans to deliver military equipment to the forces locked in a bloody civil war with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“Tonight EU nations agreed to bring the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition to an end,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement, adding that it was a “difficult decision for some countries” only a few months after the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize.



All other EU sanctions on the Assad regime will remain in place.

“It was important for Europe to send a clear signal to the Assad regime that it has to negotiate seriously, and that all options remain on the table if it refuses to do so. Tonight EU nations have done just that,” Hague said.

Hague and other European leaders repeated that they would not proceed at this stage with the delivery of weapons, as diplomats scrambled to find a peaceful end to the 26-month-old conflict...

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The failure of the European Union to agree on a new arms embargo for Syria is undermining the peace process, Moscow says. But the delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles may help restrain warmongers.

The comments come from Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, referring to the results of Monday’s meeting in Brussels. After a lengthy negotiating session, EU governments failed to resolve their differences and allowed a ban on arming the Syrian opposition to expire, with France and Britain scoring an apparent victory at the expense of EU unity.

The EU's move, which the Russian diplomat branded as an "example of double standards", opens the door for Britain and France to supply weapons to Syrian rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Criticizing Europe’s decision to open the way for potential arms shipments to Syrian rebels, Russia insists that its own sale of arms to the Syrian government helps the international effort to end the two-year-long conflict, the diplomat added. He was referring to the delivery of the advanced S-300 long-range air defense systems, which Russia is carrying out under a contract signed with Syria several years ago.

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How Timbuktu’s manuscripts were saved from jihadists

How Timbuktu’s manuscripts were saved from jihadists

    Tuesday, May 28, 2013   No comments

In TIMBUKTU, MALI — It was 7 o’clock on a hot night in August, and Hassine Traore was nervous. Behind him were 10 donkeys, each strapped with two large rice bags filled with ancient manuscripts. The bags were covered in plastic to shield them from a light rain.

Radical Islamists had entered Timbuktu four months earlier, and they had set about destroying everything they deemed a sin.
They had demolished the tombs of Sufi saints. They had beaten up women for not covering their faces and flogged men for smoking or drinking. They most certainly would have burned the manuscripts — nearly 300,000 pages on a variety of subjects, including the teachings of Islam, law, medicine, mathematics and astronomy — housed in public and private libraries across the city.

The scholarly documents depicted Islam as a historically moderate and intellectual religion and were considered cultural treasures by Western institutions — reasons enough for the ultraconservative jihadists to destroy them.

But a secret operation had been set in motion within weeks of the jihadist takeover. It included donkeys, safe houses and smugglers, all deployed to protect the manuscripts by sneaking them out of town.

This is the story of how nearly all the documents were saved, based on interviews with an unlikely cast of characters who detailed their roles for the first time. They included Traore, a 30-year-old part-time janitor, and his grandfather, a guard.

“We knew that if we attracted any attention, the Islamists would arrest us,” Traore recalled.

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Syria: the imperative of de-escalation

Syria: the imperative of de-escalation

    Sunday, May 26, 2013   No comments

As the death toll has risen and the Assad government has become more entrenched, so too have the calls for a more muscular western policy towards Syria. The debate has revolved around two models for managed military escalation: establishing no-fly zones or arming the rebels. Neither involves “boots on the ground”, which is why they can best be characterised as “intervention-lite.” Supporters of these policies argue that they will make Assad more likely to step down, empower the so-called moderates among the opposition, and bring the war to a speedier conclusion. However, there is considerable evidence for such approaches being more likely to lead to a full-scale military intervention by the west, while making a political solution even more difficult to grasp.

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After Sunni Salafis joined jihad in Syria, now it is Iraqi Shiites turn

After Sunni Salafis joined jihad in Syria, now it is Iraqi Shiites turn

    Sunday, May 26, 2013   No comments

By Abigail Hauslohner
BAGHDAD — The Iraqi fighters in the video shoulder assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades as they walk down a highway lined with cypress trees. Grinning, some hold up cell phones and camcorders to capture the moment — the aftermath of a victorious battle to secure the Aleppo airport from Syrian rebels who had attempted to take it.

“You are the sons of Iraq, and the sons of Islam!” shouts one of their commanders. The men cheer.

Weeks later in Baghdad, Abu Sajad, the nom de guerre of an Iraqi militia commander who appears in the video, whose location and circumstances were impossible to verify, proudly displayed it as proof that Iraqi Shiites are playing a critical role supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in what has become an increasingly sectarian and regional war.

Until recently, the involvement of Iraqi Shiites in Syria’s war was cloaked in secrecy here in Iraq, whose Shiite government has denied any involvement in the conflict. But recent interviews with militants, analysts, Arab government officials and residents of Shiite cities across Iraq illuminate a trend that is growing increasingly open as Iraqi fighters come to view their participation as part of a regional struggle to defeat al-Qaeda and what they say is a broad effort by the region’s dominant Sunnis to wipe out Shiites.

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How Syria's neighbors see the crisis?

How Syria's neighbors see the crisis?

    Saturday, May 25, 2013   No comments

...

In Israel, people may be shocked by the cruelty of the Syrian civil war and be sorry for its many victims, but the political and military echelon know well that as long as the war continues, Syria will continue to crumble, thousands of Hezbollah fighters will spill their blood in defense of the Assad regime and  Iran will also be bothered by the events; thus, the reality plays into Israel's hands and its starategic situation will continue to improve. However, no senior Israeli offcial would dare say this publicly, because remarks such as this will display a utilitarian and not moral approach. To believe this is allowed, to say so is forbidden.

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Syrian Human Rights Group is EU-Funded Fraud

Syrian Human Rights Group is EU-Funded Fraud

    Thursday, May 23, 2013   No comments

Rami Abdelrahman

In reality, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has long ago been exposed as an absurd propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in England's countryside. According to a December 2011 Reuters article titled, "Coventry - an unlikely home to prominent Syria activist," Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called "Syrian opposition" and seeks the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad:
After three short spells in prison in Syria for pro-democracy activism, Abdulrahman came to Britain in 2000 fearing a longer, fourth jail term.

"I came to Britain the day Hafez al-Assad died, and I'll return when Bashar al-Assad goes," Abdulrahman said, referring to Bashar's father and predecessor Hafez, also an autocrat.
One could not fathom a more unreliable, compromised, biased source of information, yet for the past two years, his "Observatory" has served as the sole source of information for the endless torrent of propaganda emanating from the Western media. Perhaps worst of all, is that the United Nations uses this compromised, absurdly overt source of propaganda as the basis for its various reports - at least, that is what the New York Times now claims in their recent article, "A Very Busy Man Behind the Syrian Civil War’s Casualty Count."

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Civil Society Under Attack Around the World

Civil Society Under Attack Around the World

    Thursday, May 23, 2013   No comments

In December 2011, 159 governments and major international organisations recognised the central role of civil society in development and promised to create an “enabling” operating environment for the non-profit sector.
Despite the tall talk at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid and Development Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, today NGOs, trade unions, faith based groups, social movements and community based organisations working to expose rights violations and corruption remain in a state of siege in many parts of the world.

Reports by U.N. officials and respected civil society organisations show that false prosecutions and murderous attacks on activists are rife and threatening to derail international development objectives even as we debate a new framework to replace the Millennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015.

In fact, moves are being championed by some governments to limit civil society participation at high-level meetings of the U.N. General Assembly through a process whereby states can issue politically motivated objections to the inclusion of particular NGOs in key discussions.

Unfortunately, legal restrictions on free speech, formation of civic organisations and the right to protest peacefully appear to be on the rise despite the rhetoric of engaging civil society in global decision making forums.

In many countries civil society groups are being prevented from accessing funding from international sources, as highlighted by the U.N.’s special expert on freedom of assembly and association in his latest report.

In Russia, non-profit advocacy groups receiving international funding are being subjected to intrusive inspections to ensure compliance with a controversial law that requires NGOs to register under the highly offensive nomenclature of “foreign agents”, or face sanctions.

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Syrian army says captured Israeli Jeep is proof of aid to rebels

Syrian army says captured Israeli Jeep is proof of aid to rebels

    Tuesday, May 21, 2013   No comments

Israel has denied supplying military hardware to Syrian rebels after pro-government Syrian forces on Monday displayed an Israeli-made Jeep it says was captured during recent fighting near Syria’s border with Lebanon.

The Syrian army on Monday displayed an Israeli-made Jeep it said was captured from a rebel organization during recent battles for control of Qusayr, a Syrian city near the Lebanese border. Damascus claimed the vehicle was proof of Israeli and U.S. aid to the Syrian opposition.

Israeli officials denied the claims of aiding the rebels. They said the jeep was a model that was retired from Israel Defense Forces service years ago and it is not clear how it reached the rebels.

The Lebanese television station Al Mayadeen, which has ties to Hezbollah, broadcasted video of Syrian army personnel next to the Jeep, which showed bullet damage.

The vehicle is identifiable as a relatively old, armored model of the Sufa Jeep, which is manufactured in Israel under license from Chrysler.

Such vehicles have been used by the IDF for decades in the territories and were used by Israeli forces in the South Lebanon buffer zone until Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

The IDF license number, 669491, is clearly visible in the clip, as are the maximum speed limits and other markings typical of IDF vehicles.

The Syrian officer interviewed in the film said this was proof of Israeli aid to the Free Syrian Army, one of the major opposition groups behind the armed rebellion against Assad.

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