The Spreaders of Jihad
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Hanlon’s razor – “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” While the rationale behind Obama’s decision to send light arms and ammunition to the rebels is that it will level the playing field it makes the United States is now a direct participant in the war to bring down the Damascus regime, thus shedding any possibility that, along with Russia, a supplier of ams to the government, it could act as a neutral force to bring the parties together. The French and the British are hardly neutral bystanders, with long and sordid track records in the region. It was Paris and London that secretly divvied up the Middle East in the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, and who used divisions between Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians to keep their subject populations at one another’s throats. Both countries just successfully lobbied the European Union to end its arms embargo on the Syrian combatants and are considering supplying weapons to the insurgents. When Obama gives lip service to a “diplomatic solution,” albeit one whose outcome was preordained: “Assad must go,” Obama said in August 2011, a precondition that as Ramzy Mardini, a former U.S. State Department official for Near Eastern affairs, recently wrote in the New York Times, “What’s the point of negotiating a political settlement if the outcome is already predetermined?” When Obama made his famous “red line” speech warning the Assad regime that the use of chemical weapons would trigger U.S. military intervention. Didn’t he realize that his comment show that chemical weapons were being used and in come the US Marines would result in the insurgents claiming poison gas was used on them, a charge the Damascus regime has denied. “If you are the opposition and you hear” that the White House has drawn a red line on the use of nerve agents, then “you have an interest in giving the impression that some chemical weapons have been used,” says Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish scientist who headed up the UN weapons inspections in Iraq. United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon said the U.S. move to arm the rebels was “not helpful,” and reiterated, “There can be no military solution to this conflict, even if the government and the opposition, and their supporters, think there can be.” The Obama administration could use that admonition to call for a ceasefire, hold off sending arms, and instead concentrate—along with Russia—on building a peace conference. The conference would have to involve all the parties, including the countries currently being destabilized by the ongoing fighting. The United States will have to step back from its “Assad must go” position and instead seek a way to integrate Syria’s 2014 presidential elections into a formula for peace. From herehttp://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/26-4
The gun-runners for Jihad Central Intelligence Agency has begun moving weapons to Jordan from a network of secret warehouses and plans to start arming small groups of vetted Syrian rebels within a month… Saudi Arabia is expected to provide shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, known as Manpads Talks are under way with other countries, including France, about pre-positioning European-procured weapons in Jordan, a country that seems immune from criticism of being a safe haven for terrorist groups. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323419604578569830070537040.html
The real reason Iran's Press TV was banned in the UK. …that it airs unpleasant to watch home-truths. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/28/311232/usbacked-takfiris-behead-priest-in-homs/ Strange the American right-wing evangelical Christian movement is prepared to turn a blind eye to anti-christian atrocities committed by America's allies.
I had to look up what a "Takfiri" is. Now I know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TakfiriIt seems to be the word used by the present rulers of Iran to refer to extremist Sunni Muslims. After all, they could hardly call them "Islamists" or "JIhadists".
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/foreign-media-portrayals-of-the-conflict-in-syria-are-dangerously-inaccurate-8679937.html “…how different the situation is on the ground from the way it is pictured in the outside world. The foreign media reporting of the Syrian conflict is surely as inaccurate and misleading as anything we have seen since the start of the First World War… A result of these distortions is that politicians and casual newspaper or television viewers alike have never had a clear idea over the last two years of what is happening inside Syria. Worse, long-term plans are based on these misconceptions…Slogans replace policies: the rebels are pictured as white hats and the government supporters as black hats…It is difficult to prove the truth or falsehood of any generalisation about Syria…it is possible to show how far media reports differ markedly what is really happening…all sides in a war pretend that no position is lost without a heroic defence against overwhelming numbers of the enemy. But obscured in the media’s accounts of what happened in Tal Kalakh was an important point: the opposition in Syria is fluid in its allegiances…The fundamentalists pay more and, given the total impoverishment of so many Syrian families, the rebels will always be able to win more recruits. “Money counts for more than ideology,”…But the government’s obsessive secrecy means that the opposition will always run rings around it when it comes to making a convincing case… …The plan of the CIA and the Friends of Syria to somehow seek an end to the war by increasing the flow of weapons is equally absurd. War will only produce more war. John Milton’s sonnet, written during the English civil war in 1648 in praise of the Parliamentary General Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had just stormed Colchester, shows a much deeper understanding of what civil wars are really like than anything said by David Cameron or William Hague. He wrote: For what can war but endless war still breed?Till truth and right from violence be freed,And public faith clear’d from the shameful brandOf public fraud. In vain doth valour bleedWhile avarice and rapine share the land. One perhaps nit-picking thing i have with the article is the assumption that the politicians are determining policy solely on media reports and in doing so are acting from ignorance…it is a slight variation of the Iraq WMD and faulty intelligence alibi. I am sure Hague and Cameron are getting accurate intel from their spies in all camps and simply write out the unpalatable truths to further political objectives.
As hundreds of thousands of people in Egypt demonstrate against the rule of President Morsi and his islamising Muslim Brotherhood, let's recall that this time last year the SWP called on workers in Egypt to "Vote Muslim Brotherhood" (without illusions of course)http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28611
Here's the end of an open letter from the Egyptian activist collective. Hints that some do have ideas beyond simply the fall of one regime:
Quote:None of us are fighting in isolation. We face common enemies from Bahrain, Brazil and Bosnia, Chile, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Tunisia, Sudan, the Western Sahara and Egypt. And the list goes on. Everywhere they call us thugs, vandals, looters and terrorists. We are fighting more than economic exploitation, naked police violence or an illegitimate legal system. It is not rights or reformed citizenship that we fight for.We oppose the nation-state as a centralized tool of repression, that enables a local elite to suck the life out of us and global powers to retain their dominion over our everyday lives. The two work in unison with bullets and broadcasts and everything in between. We are not advocating to unify or equate our various battles, but it is the same structure of authority and power that we have to fight, dismantle, and bring down. Together, our struggle is stronger.We want the downfall of the System.Comrades from Cairo Whole article: http://roarmag.org/2013/06/from-tahrir-and-rio-to-taksim-the-smell-of-teargas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28ROAR+Magazine%29
Quote:Morsi, the Brotherhood and its affiliated Freedom and Justice Party have repeatedly claimed that he hasn’t been given a fair chance to rule and that one year is simply too short for this kind of backlash. But the sheer size, scope and diversity of Sunday’s anti-Morsi protests reveal, at the very least, a widespread dissatisfaction with his rule that the President will have to address in the coming days.Morsi won’t have long to decide. Late Sunday night, organizers of the Tamarod (Rebel) campaign — the grassroots anti-Morsi signature drive that helped kick-start this latest wave of protests — announced it was giving Morsi a deadline of 5 p.m. Tuesday to announce his resignation and an early presidential election or it would launch a nationwide civil-disobedience campaign. Egypt remains on edge.Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/06/30/cairo-protestors-demand-new-egyptian-revolution/#ixzz2XpOaTT8q
SWP do a 180 degree turn…or is it spinning in circles.http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/33754/Egypts+Revolutionary+Socialists+call+for+general+strike+until+the+fall+of+the+regime Having initially supported Mursi to avoid a possible military coup as they said in the earlier article…now when faced with that possible coup, they no longer support Mursi. Follow the party line?
"We have no freedom left. We had it when the rebels first took over in Aleppo but now we have nothing. What we have instead are countless [Sharia] committees, each following its own interprettion of religion" "We did not hope for what we have come to today. The names of [rebel] brigades tell you how people think now – names like 'Lovers of the Prophet Brigade' and so on. It is not necessary to throw religion into every corner of your life. This is killing our revolution." the influence of relatively secular activists like Lyas Kadouni, always marginal, is waning still further. Almost two years after peaceful protest became a civil war, they are still painting murals and handing out leaflets. Others, meanwhile, are taking power at the point of a gun. Even as government forces sweep into previously opposition-held towns, the rebels are fighting amongst themselves, hardline jihadis against the relatively secular FSA, a civil war within the civil war. The battle, though sporadic, seems just as bitter as that against the regime. Its outcome will determine what kind of state Syria will become if the rebels win. In the meantime, though, Sharia justice is the only kind available in many parts of Syria.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23139784
An interesting insight into the world of the jihadists.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/10/syria-al-nusra-front-jihadi "The commander talked about the services al-Nusra is providing to Shadadi's residents. First, there is food: 225 sacks of wheat, baked into bread and delivered to the people every day through special teams in each neighbourhood. Then there is free electricity and water, which run all day throughout the town. There is also al-Nusra healthcare, provided from a small clinic that treats all comers, regardless of whether they have sworn allegiance to the emirate or not. Finally, there is order and the promise of swift justice, delivered according to sharia law by a handful of newly appointed judges." "When we bring in cars or weapons, we don't keep them," said the emir: "the money is sent to the treasury, which distributes these resources." Back at the oil company headquarters in Shadadi, the workers were discussing their new leaders in the shade of a corrugated metal sheet."We got rid of one despot [Bashar] and replaced him with another," one man told a young technician who had given his oath to al-Nusra, and thereby been allowed to keep his job."As in every place, there are good people and bad people," responded the technician."Why is it all right for you to take all the wheat silos and leave none for others?" the first man asked, bitterly."Because al-Nusra are the best to rule, and we can take care of the wheat," said the technician."Wallah [truly]," responded the man, "al-Nusra takes a cut of everything here – even the air that we breathe." And the future of Syria? "We can't topple Bashar and hand it to the FSA to establish the same apostate secularist state. We are not fighting against Bashar only; we are fighting the system." "After Bashar falls, I see the FSA battalions dividing into three parts. Some will go home to their previous lives, some will join us in establishing the rule of sharia, and a third part will become a sahwa and turn and fight us." More feared even than the threat of an "awakening", is the risk of splits among the jihadi fighters themselves."I expected clashes with everyone: with the tribes, with the FSA, with anyone," he said. "But with other jihadis? I never thought that day would come."
Strange how American and Hague's allegations of Assad regime's use of chemical weapons get BBC headlines but i fail to see any mention of the Russian Foreign Secretary's on their website. "Our experts took samples on the spot and studied them in the very lab which is certified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and came to the conclusion that both the shell and the sarin it contained were home-made,” the Russian foreign minister said. “According to our additional information, these shells and the substance were made last February in the Syrian territory which at that time was under the control of the Free Syrian Army and made by one of the affiliated armed groups,” Lavrov added. On Tuesday, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said firsthand evidence showed that militants, and not the Syrian army, manufactured sarin nerve gas and used it during an attack near the city of Aleppo in March. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said that Russian experts collected samples at the site of the attack in the region of Khan al-Assal, where over two dozen people, including 16 Syrian troops, died on March 19. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/10/313239/syria-militants-used-chemical-weapons/
Syrian rebels said the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war. with funding from Gulf-based individuals, Islamist brigades have taken a leading role in rebel-held regions of Syria, filling the vacuum of power by setting up religious courts and governance bodies.The FSA — a mixture of loosely-affiliated brigades — is accused by locals of looting and has not been able to present a unified front to sideline hardline units who favor an Islamic caliphate over pluralist democracy.Some frustrated FSA fighters say they have joined Islamist groups and moderate and hardline fighters sometimes buy and sell weapons from each other.http://news.yahoo.com/front-opens-syria-rebels-al-qaeda-attack-means-082038413.html
The Noam Chomsky interview on Syria that has upset a lot of Chomskyites since it is being viewed as an endorsement of the rebels and a heresy!! http://www.zcommunications.org/interview-on-the-syrian-revolution-by-noam-chomsky For an expert in linguistics i find this phrase of his rather confusing. [Assad’s use of chemical weapons] “it’s a possibility that will inevitably come true in the future.” How can a possibility be inevitable?? I disagree with his view on the early stages of the non-violent resistance to Assad that it failed and that militarisation of it was the logical next step . It was never going to be a quick victory and set-backs were going to happen. Acknowleding a defeat and licking ones wounds is not surrender as Chomsky appears to say, but the choice of continuing peaceful tactics were taken out of the hands of the majority of the participants. I cannot recognise his analogy with Vietnam as very valid. There are many more appropriate ones if that is the argument he wants to use. He says what happens in Syria is up to the Syrians but the FSA was created by political exiles and foreign powers. Armed resistance was sporadic until then.
Radical Islamist rebels will gain sway over the many disparate factions opposing Syrian Assad unless they are checked, and the country's civil war could last years, a top Pentagon intelligence official said. "They will not go home when it's over," Shedd said, envisioning one scenario where Assad retreats to an enclave and other parts of the country are up for grabs. "They will fight for that space, and they're there for the long haul." The al-Nusra Front was gaining in strength and was "a case of serious concern." Shedd said he counted at least 1,200 groups in the opposition. He said many of the groups were preoccupied with strictly local grievances, like a lack of potable water in their villages. Shedd acknowledged identifying "good" versus "bad" rebels was very difficult. http://news.yahoo.com/islamist-rebels-gain-sway-long-syrian-war-u-033932292.html
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