Friday 29th of March 2024

what to do about islamic state in syria and iraq...?

the war that isn't...

US' Iraq strategy: The operation with no name
Too limited, vague and open to mission creep. Barack Obama's strategy in Iraq has been criticized from all sides. DW tracks the twists and turns of an operation with no name - one that looks to be expanding.

On the evening of August 7, Barack Obama entered the State Dining Room at the White House and told the American people:

"Today I authorized two operations in Iraq - targeted airstrikes to protect our American personnel, and a humanitarian effort to help save thousands of Iraqi civilians who are trapped on a mountain without food and water and facing almost certain death."

Obama gave no evocative name to the operations. He set out a limited mission: "stopping the advance" of the Islamic State (IS) on the Kurdish city of Irbil, site of a US consulate, and preventing a feared genocide against thousands of Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar.

No new war

Absent was any talk of "destroying" IS, and Obama was emphatic that he would not involve US combat forces: "I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq."

 

read more: http://www.dw.de/us-iraq-strategy-the-operation-with-no-name/a-17874145

 

more refugees...

Almost everyone has a tale of family members desperate to escape to Australia.

Admoun Anwiya is hoping to get a visa for his brother, who he says was wounded by IS militants in Mosul.

"My brother, he's a doctor and he's a specialist," he said.

"And [Islamic State] attack him in his surgery and shoot him in his head ... only because he's a Christian."


4,000 visas does not meet demand: Assyrian Resource Centre

Many at the Assyrian Resource Centre say even the well-established Christian community in Baghdad is under siege.

Ilvin Warda says her sister's family are now virtual prisoners in their home.

"Every day I will cry," she said.

"At night they phone me, 'save our Christians'. I don't know how I [can] help them."

The Government says it has freed up 4,000 places for special humanitarian visas - many for applicants from Iraq and Syria - but those are not new.

They come from the already existing quota of 13,750, reduced from 20,000 this year.

Carmen Lazar of the Assyrian Resource Centre says while her community appreciates everything the Australian Government has done in the past, this time it is not enough.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-24/refugees-fleeing-islamic-state-for-australia-may-miss-out/5690788

coordinating operation flip-flop squishy...

 

Syria's foreign minister has offered to help the US fight the Islamic State (IS) militant group, which has seized swathes of land in Iraq and Syria.

Walid Muallem said Syria was "the centre of the international coalition to fight Islamic State".

The US has already bombed IS fighters in Iraq and has hinted it would be willing to take action in Syria.

Western powers generally shun Syria's government, accusing it of carrying out atrocities in its three-year civil war.

But Mr Muallem warned that the US must co-ordinate with the Syrian government before launching any air strikes on its territory.

"Anything outside this is considered aggression," he said.

Mr Muallem's comments are one of the first public statements from the regime on IS.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28927246

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Now, I believe the "Isis" is now called "ISIL", or is my old age showing, as I get confused? Hard to keep up with all the bizos and gismos and thingies...

 

the CIA is unable to read tea leaves...

 

The US was "caught off guard" by air strikes against Islamist militia in Libya, a senior official has told the BBC.

The attacks on militia positions around Tripoli airport were reportedly carried out by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from bases in Egypt.

Egypt has denied any involvement and the UAE has not commented.

A militia alliance recently captured the capital's international airport after a battle lasting nearly a month.

The official told the BBC that the US had not been consulted about the air strikes and that it was concerned that US weapons may have been used, violating agreements under which they were sold.

The unidentified war planes attacked twice in the past week during a battle for Tripoli's airport between Islamist and nationalist militias.

A report in The New York Times on Monday said the UAE had provided the military aircraft, aerial refuelling planes and crews while Egypt gave access to its air bases.

read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28933070

decision, decision...

Barack Obama was due to announce a significant expansion of the military campaign against Islamic State militants on Tuesday, authorising air strikes against targets in Syria for the first time.

 

In a televised address to air at 9pm ET, Obama announced an aggressive offensive to defeat the group, which has been responsible for the beheading of two American citizens in the past month.

He compared the campaign to those waged against al-Qaida in Yemen and Somalia, where US drones, cruise missiles and special-operations raids have battered local affiliates, yet without notably improving the stability of either country nor dealing decisive blows to al-Qaida there.

Obama was also expected to announce the deployment of additional personnel to Iraq who will help Iraqi army forces combat Isis insurgents and also expand existing US air strikes there.

“With a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” Obama willl say, according to excerpts provided by the White House.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/obama-speech-authorise-air-strikes-against-isis-syria

 

See toon at top....

 

and what about us?

A Syrian government minister has warned that any foreign intervention in the country would be an act of aggression unless it is approved by Damascus, after the United States said it was prepared to strike against Islamic State fighters in the country.

Syria has repeatedly warned that any action on its soil needs its approval and has said it is willing to work with any country to tackle IS fighters who have captured large areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

"Any action of any type without the approval of Syrian government is an aggression against Syria," Ali Haidar, minister of national reconciliation affairs, told reporters in Damascus on Thursday.

"There must be cooperation with Syria and coordination with Syria and there must be a Syrian approval of any action whether it is military or not."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/09/syria-islamic-state-201491114243147712.html

stretching the strategy...

 

A week ago, President Obama stood before the American people and promised that the expanding fight against the Islamic State — a vicious Sunni militant group known as ISIS or ISIL that is terrorizing parts of Iraq and Syria — would not mean a commitment of American ground troops. “As I have said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission,” he said.

On Tuesday, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had a very different message when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “If we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I’ll recommend that to the president,” he said, citing a potential attempt to retake the strategic important Iraqi city of Mosul as an example.

There is no way to read this other than as a reversal from the firm commitment Mr. Obama made not to immerse the country in another endless ground war in the Middle East.

Even though General Dempsey’s remarks were conditional, the Obama administration has turned on a dime in record time and opened the door to deeper, more costly American involvement even before the strategy is fully sketched out. And this is happening without Congress ever giving Mr. Obama the authority to wage war.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/opinion/is-us-policy-on-fighting-isis-already-changing.html?_r=0

 

 

The first part of the strategy would be to DEMAND that Saudi Arabia fight the Isis mess, by itself after having asked permission to help Iraq. Then we need to keep an eye on Saudi Arabia not doing the dirty on Iraq. 


Second part of the strategy, should the first part not executed properly: Bomb Saudi Arabia, because there is a good chance (99.889 per cent) that Isis is the product of Saudi's own religious Wahhabi intolerance. The Saudis have beheaded far more people than Isis and we said "houik" which in pigsty language means "zero"

 

panetta's pancake...

Peter Beinart ridicules Panetta’s recent use of the discredited “credibility” argument in an interview:

But like most other Obama critics, Panetta’s argument for why the U.S. should have bombed Assad has little to do with conditions on the ground in Syria. It’s all about American credibility. As Panetta told USA Today, “There’s [now] a little question mark [among America’s allies] as to, is the United States going to stick this out? Is the United States going to be there when we need them?”

The credibility argument was always a stretch.

It would be generous to call it a stretch. The argument that Panetta is making here has no merit, and “credibility” arguments of this kind are worthless. It is an argument that sounds plausible only so long as you don’t give it much thought. “Credibility” in the sense that Panetta means it doesn’t matter, and appearing to “lose” it doesn’t have the effects that he claims.

Other major powers don’t assume that U.S. guarantees to its treaty allies in their region are less valid because the U.S. didn’t bomb a regime in a different part of the world. U.S. allies and clients don’t decide their involvement in later military interventions based on whether the U.S. has followed through on previous threats. They determine whether the specific intervention is one that they think they are in some way obliged to join or support. Likewise, U.S. allies don’t equate security guarantees that Washington makes to them with a president’s off-the-cuff warning to a minor dictator. Opting not to bomb Syria didn’t make U.S. allies any less confident of U.S. backing, nor does it appear to have made them any less inclined to join new U.S.-led military interventions.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/panetta-and-the-zombie-credibility-argument/

the kurdish conundrum...

Just a few years ago, the idea of the West working together with the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan would have been preposterous. Over the past three decades, PKK has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Turkish civilians, providing the US and the European Union ample reason to keep the group on its lists of terrorist organizations. For many in the West, however, these former outlaws have become solitary heroes in the fight to save the Middle East from IS. With an estimated size of 15,000 fighters, PKK is the strongest fighting force in the region and the only one that seems willing and able to put up a fight against Islamic State. They are disciplined and efficient in addition to being pro-Western and secular.

The West would have preferred to rely on the PKK's Kurdish rivals, the 100,000-strong Peshmerga force of the northern Iraq autonomous region. But Peshmerga was overpowered by Islamic State. Furthermore, they have little combat experience, a dearth of modern weaponry, insufficient training and no central command. It isn't really even a true army, merely a hodgepodge of extracurricular clubs, partisan troops and special units. In August, they ceded the Sinjar Mountains to IS virtually without a fight, forcing thousands of Kurdish Yazidis to flee. The Peshmerga retreated elsewhere too in the face of IS advances.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, the president of northern Iraq, is essentially a family-run business with an associated small state, as corrupt as it is conservative. The PKK, and its Syrian counterpart YPG, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. The tightly run cadre isn't democratic, but neither is it corrupt -- and in Kobani, they are giving their all in the fight against Islamic State. Indeed, it was the PKK that succeeded in establishing a protective corridor in Sinjar that enabled tens of thousands of Yazidis to flee. It was also PKK that defended the cities of Makhmour and Kirkuk in Iraq against Islamic State militias.

The US Air Force is now air-dropping weapons for YPG fighters in Kobani, while the German military is delivering bazookas to the Peshmerga -- and not to Kobani where they are far more urgently needed. Everyone is assuring that these weapons won't fall into the hands of the PKK. Meanwhile, Turkey has acquiesced to allowing Peshmerga fighters to join the fray in Kobani and politicians in Europe and the United States are timidly considering removing PKK from their lists of terrorist organizations. To many, it seems like a necessary step when establishing a partnership with the PKK, even if it would mean conflict with Turkey.

 

read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/kurdish-fight-against-islamic-state-could-fundamentally-change-region-a-999538.html

fighting the sexist western MMMM (mediocre mass media)...

 

A young Kurdish woman called "Rehana" has garnered a great deal of media attention over the past few days, after reports emerged claiming that she had killed more than a hundred ISIL fighters - single-handedly. A picture of the smiling beauty, wearing combat gear and toting a rifle, is still making the rounds of social media. Even as Rehana's circumstances remain uncorroborated, the overabundance of attention she has received raises several important questions. It adds to the plethora of reports out there glamorising the all-female Kurdish battalions taking on ISIL fighters, with little attention to the politics of these brave women.

Preoccupied with attempts to sensationalise the ways in which these women defy preconceived notions of eastern women as oppressed victims, these mainstream caricaturisations erroneously present Kurdish women fighters as a novel phenomenon. They cheapen a legitimate struggle by projecting their bizarre orientalist fantasies on it - and oversimplify the reasons motivating Kurdish women to join the fight. Nowadays, it seems to be appealing to portray women as sympathetic enemies of ISIL without raising questions about their ideologies and political aims.

At the same time, critics have accused the Kurdish leadership of exploiting these women for PR purposes - in an attempt to win over western public opinion. While there may be an element of truth to such charges in some cases, those same critics fail to appreciate the different political cultures that exist among the Kurdish people as a whole, scattered across Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. They also ignore the fact that Kurdish women have been engaging in armed resistance for decades without anyone's notice.

'Badass' Amazons

Typical of western media's myopia, instead of considering the implications of women taking up arms in what is essentially a patriarchal society - especially against a group that rapes and sells women as sex-slaves - even fashion magazines appropriate the struggle of Kurdish women for their own sensationalist purposes. Reporters often pick the most "attractive" fighters for interviews and exoticise them as "badass" Amazons.

The truth is, no matter how fascinating it is - from an orientalist perspective - to discover a women's revolution among Kurds, my generation grew up recognising women fighters as a natural element of our identity. Although there is still a long way to go, what some now ignorantly call "tokenism", has in fact shaped the consciousness of millions of Kurds.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/10/western-fascination-with-badas-2014102112410527736.html

 

we are against impertinence, recklessness and endless demands...

 

Erdogan accused the US of being "rude" for pressuring it to help save the ISIL-besieged Syrian town of Kobane, which is within sight of the Turkish border.

"Why is somebody coming to this region from 12,000km away?" Erdogan said during an address to a group of businessmen in Ankara, in a clear reference to the US.

"I want you to know that we are against impertinence, recklessness and endless demands," he said.

Biden offended Erdogan last month by suggesting his policies in Syria had helped encourage the rise of the ISIL, a slight that prompted the Turkish president to warn his relationship with the US vice president could be "history".

Washington is pressing Ankara for the use of the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey so US fighter jets can launch assaults on ISIL.

But Turkey has refused to bow to the pressure, setting several conditions for playing a greater role in the coalition.

"They looked on as the tyrant [President Bashar] al-Assad massacred 300,000 people. They remained silent in the face of Assad's barbarism and now they are now staging a 'conscience show' through Kobane," Erdogan said.

"We will resolve our problems not with the help of a 'superior mind' but with the help of our people."

Biden wrapped up a three-day visit to Turkey on Sunday without a breakthrough on military co-operation over the Syrian crisis.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/11/erdogan-slams-us-impertinence-over-kobane-2014112611202071572.html

 

See toon at top

 

poorly training little ain't going to win the war...

 

The US has only trained about 60 Syrian opposition fighters to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), far below expectations, Defence Secretary Ash Carter has told Congress, citing rigorous vetting of recruits.

The programme, which launched in May in Jordan and Turkey, was designed to train as many as 5,400 fighters a year and seen as a test of President Barack Obama's strategy of engaging local partners to combat ISIL fighters.

Carter's acknowledgement on Tuesday of the low number of recruits will give ammunition to critics who say Obama's strategy is too limited to have any influence on Syria's conflict.

"Given the poor numbers of recruited and trained Syrian fighters thus far, I am doubtful we can achieve our goal of training a few thousand this year," said Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Sowing divisions

Some Syrian rebel leaders say the force the US is training risks sowing divisions and cannot succeed without directly targeting Syrian government forces, who are currently off-limits for US offensive operations.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/admits-programme-trained-60-syrian-rebels-150707191415371.html

 

see toon at top.

 

the us is losing the war on isis, because ...

US Secretary of State John Kerry has told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Moscow's "continued support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad risks exacerbating and extending the conflict" in the country.

Kerry made the comments on Tuesday in his third phone call to Lavrov in the past 10 days, a US state department official said, seeking to clarify the intent of Russia's military build-up in Syria.

The call came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin defended his military assistance to Assad's government and said it was impossible to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) without cooperating with Damascus and urged other countries to join the cause.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/warns-russia-support-syrian-regime-150916012500745.html

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There is not two ways that the US want to defeat Assad before defeating ISIS... They want to satisfy their friends the Saudis, who, to say the least should take at least one million refugees or more from the conflict zone... But most of those fleeing Syria and Iraq don't like the Saudis. They pray to the same god via different channel, hence the war... 

The Russians can win the war on ISIS within three months, but they want Assad to stay in power and so should the West. The West under the dubious leadership of the US is doing the same mistake it did with Saddam Hussein with the wish of throwing Assad out  — all to please the oil masters, the Saudis. 

the ruskies to the rescue...

If Russia is serious about backing the Assad regime to defeat Islamic State, then maybe it's time for the West to reposition itself. Because it appears the Russians are the only ones with a clear-headed strategy, writes John Blaxland.

Russia has long defended the Assad regime in Syria from Western sanctions and intervention, blocking UN consensus by exercising its veto powers in the UN Security Council and maintaining low-key but strong ties to ensure access to military port facilities on Syria's Mediterranean coast.

The West has so far not been prepared to use force to circumvent the UN and overcome Russia's support for the Assad regime, despite the mounting atrocities perpetrated by Assad's forces. Although it is one of Assad's enemies, Assad's toxic actions over the last three years helped foster the emergence of the so-called Islamic State, Daesh, as a proto-state, spanning across the borders of what we once knew as Syria and Iraq.

Daesh is exercising the ugliest of primeval practices with the aid of 21st century weapons and technology in the name of a deranged manifestation of Islam. Assad, understandably, welcomes Russian support to suppress them. With many at fault all around, the result is the absence of any clarity of who is worthy of the West's support.

In response, the West has been lukewarm in its enthusiasm to curb Assad and defeat Daesh. Australia, alongside a range of other Western powers, is making a carefully calibrated force contribution to wind back Daesh, knowing full well that, on its own, its niche force contribution will make at best only a marginal difference to the outcome of events there. Australia's commitment of fighter aircraft to bomb Deash targets in Syria as well as Iraq was intended, it appears, to send a message of support to the United States and to prompt a more forthright American response to the festering security problem.

This unusual approach reflects a gaping absence of a coherent strategy by the West for dealing with the crisis in Syria and Iraq. The replacement of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull could well see this approach to metaphorically "shirt-front" Daesh taper off in the absence of other coalition partners rallying to the cause. Canada's PM, Stephen Harper, for instance, looks set to be defeated in coming elections and the successor government likely will be far less enthusiastic about maintaining combat aircraft over Iraq and Syria.

But a confluence of factors seems to be bringing the simmering crisis to a head and there are pointers of an alternative way forward.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-17/blaxland-the-west-could-learn-from-russias-strategy-in-syria/6782296

saving some of the moral furniture...

A top adviser to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has called on Australia and other Western countries to cooperate with the regime in fighting Islamic State.

Speaking to Lateline, Bouthaina Shaaban, who is part of the Assad family's inner circle, warned Australia and the West against turning Syria into a failed state like Iraq or Libya.

"My message to the Australian Government is that there should be a real intention to fighting terrorism," she said.

"And the real intention should come through a real coalition and cooperation with Russia, Iran, China, the government of Syria, and all countries and governments who truly are interested in fighting terrorism."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-17/bouthaina-shaaban-assad-advisor-calls-on-west-to-help-syria/6785272

neoncon bullshit...

What Vladimir Putin is up to in Syria makes far more sense than what Barack Obama and John Kerry appear to be up to in Syria. The Russians are flying transports bringing tanks and troops to an air base near the coastal city of Latakia to create a supply chain to provide a steady flow of weapons and munitions to the Syrian army.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, an ally of Russia, has lost half his country to ISIS and the Nusra Front, a branch of al-Qaeda. Putin fears that if Assad falls, Russia’s toehold in Syria and the Mediterranean will be lost, ISIS and al-Qaeda will be in Damascus, and Islamic terrorism will have achieved its greatest victory.

Is he wrong?

Winston Churchill famously said in 1939: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” Exactly. Putin is looking out for Russian national interests.

And who do we Americans think will wind up in Damascus if Assad falls? A collapse of that regime, not out of the question, would result in a terrorist takeover, the massacre of thousands of Alawite Shiites and Syrian Christians, and the flight of millions more refugees into Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey—and thence on to Europe.

Putin wants to prevent that. Don’t we? Why then are we spurning his offer to work with us? Are we still so miffed that when we helped to dump over the pro-Russian regime in Kiev, Putin countered by annexing Crimea? Get over it.

Understandably, there is going to be friction between the two greatest military powers. Yet both of us have a vital interest in avoiding war with each other and a critical interest in seeing ISIS degraded and defeated.

And if we consult those interests rather than respond to a reflexive Russophobia that passes for thought in the think tanks, we should be able to see our way clear to collaborate in Syria.

Indeed, the problem in Syria is not so much with the Russians—or Iran, Hezbollah, and Assad, all of whom see the Syrian civil war correctly as a fight to the finish against Sunni jihadis.

Our problem has been that we have let our friends—the Turks, Israelis, Saudis, and Gulf Arabs—convince us that no victory over ISIS can be achieved unless and until we bring down Assad. Once we get rid of Assad, they tell us, a grand U.S.-led coalition of Arabs and Turks can form up and march in to dispatch ISIS.

This is neocon nonsense.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/who-wins-if-damascus-falls/

losing it...

The administration is serving up some pretty pitiful spin to provide political cover for the complete failure of their plan to arm the “moderate” Syrian rebels:

By any measure, President Obama’s effort to train a Syrian opposition army to fight the Islamic State on the ground has been an abysmal failure. The military acknowledged this week that just four or five American-trained fighters are actually fighting.

But the White House says it is not to blame. The finger, it says, should be pointed not at Mr. Obama but at those who pressed him to attempt training Syrian rebels in the first place [bold mine-DL] — a group that, in addition to congressional Republicans, happened to include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I’m all for holding Syria hawks responsible for their advocacy of terrible policies, but the administration can’t simply shift all the blame to its hawkish critics on this one. If members of Congress and some members of Obama’s administration “pressed” him to do something that he knew was pointless, he deserves even moreblame for going along with an option that he knew wouldn’t achieve anything. There is nothing quite as pathetic as a president blaming his opponents for his decision to give in to their stupid recommendations. “It’s not my fault that I caved in to the demands of people who are always wrong about foreign policy” is not the argument one wants to be making.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/obamas-unpersuasive-syria-spin/

the russians have it...

With Western policy on Syria in a state of flux could the timing of Russia's military move into that country be more perfect?

The operation to move dozens of combat aircraft and hundreds of troops to the aid of President Bashar al-Assad must have been given the green light some weeks ago, but think of what's been happening during the past 10 days as reports emerged of the Russians appearing at an air base near the Assad stronghold of Latakia.

With American policy stalled and arguments about the degree to which its bombing campaign has blunted IS, the president's envoy, retired General John Allen, and several other senior officials have decided to step down. Gen Allen was known to believe the US should harden its position on the overthrow of President Assad, and in the need for a safe zone in the north of Syria - instead the prospect seems to be slipping away of either happening.

Last week the US general running Central Command, the Pentagon's Middle East arm, went through humiliating testimony in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee in which he had to admit that the number of Syrian rebels trained under a $500m (£325m) US programme who had actually made it into the field could be counted on the figures of one hand, and that plans for a safe area in northern Syria to protect civilians would be meaningless without ground troops, but he could not recommend the commitment of US soldiers on such a mission.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34330151

saving christianity in the east...

 

For Greek and Latin Christians in the 15th century, cultural attitudes proved more difficult to reconcile than theological differences. To succeed where their spiritual forefathers failed, Middle East Christians living in America today must work to overcome cultural barriers by reaching out to Evangelicals in their own communities, from whom they can learn to be successful advocates for their brother and sister Christians who wish to continue living in the Middle East. Evangelicals, in turn, must come to understand the complexity and richness of Middle East Christianity, whose faith and practices have been handed down largely undiluted over two millennia from the earliest origins of the Christian faith—a vital cultural source for American Christians, akin to the classical learning that the Byzantines brought to the West at Florence.

The cultural gap that exists between Middle East and American Christians today may be wider than the one between Greek and Latin Christians in the 15th century. The means are available to close this gap rapidly, however, through communication, personal encounters, and above all good will. Many individuals and organizations are endeavoring now to bring this about, and there is much work underway to promote grassroots political organization, direct humanitarian assistance, political advocacy, and programs for long-term sustainability. But the most fundamental work consists first in seeking to understand the other.

Andrew Doran is a senior advisor for In Defense of Christians.


http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/when-christianities-collide/


Gus: on a practical level, the defence of Eastern Christianity requires the rejection of present US policies designed to favour the Sunni Wahhabi religious nuts. The only way Christianity can survive in the East is by letting Bashar al-Assad stay in control of Syria. 

Meanwhile:

More than a year passed with no reply from the U.S. military. A few days after The Post asked about Ekabee, she was informed via email that “a thorough investigation” had determined that the U.S. military had blown up her car.

But the U.S. military was not obligated to compensate her for the loss because it was destroyed in “combat activity,” the email stated.

Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in an interview that the military could make condolence payments to relatives of the civilians killed at the checkpoint, but that no one has stepped forward to request compensation.

“We don’t know the identities of the deceased at this point,” he said.

If U.S. military officials had called Ekabee, she could have pointed them to the police lieutenant colonel, who said he never made a formal complaint with American officials. “I only complained to God,” he said.

Ekabee could have helped them reach the driver’s relatives.

If they had called her, U.S. military officials also could have learned that their investigation of the Hatra attack, which concluded that there were four civilian deaths, was incorrect. According to Ekabee, the colonel and government officials in Nineveh province, at least 11 civilians were killed — more than double the number in the U.S. report.

“This email means that the lives of innocents are cheap,” Ekabee said, “and that they don’t want to be responsible for their mistakes.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-desperate-womans-email-from-iraq-reveals-the-high-toll-of-obamas-low-cost-wars/2016/06/09/3e572976-2725-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_useofforce-315pm_1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

The simple stats:

WWII — 10 per cent of casualties (not including Russians) were civilians

Korean war — 40 per cent of casualties were civilians

Vietnam War — 70 per cent of casualties were civilians

Iraq War II — 90 per cent of casualties were civilians despite "precision" bombing.

See toon at top.

 

 

the US has been trying to destroy Syria.

 

Pity the luckless children of Aleppo. If only the bombs raining down on them, killing their parents, maiming their friends, destroying their hospitals – if only those bombs were British or, better still, American.

 

 

Aleppo hospital bombed again as Assad vows to 'clean' city

Then the streets of London would be jammed with protestors demanding an end to their agony. Trafalgar Square would ring loud with speeches from Tariq Ali, Ken Loach and Monsignor Bruce Kent. Whitehall would be a sea of placards, insisting that war crimes were being committed and that these crimes were Not in Our Name. Grosvenor Square would be packed with noisy protestors outside the US embassy, urging that Barack Obama be put on trial in The Hague. The protestors would wear Theresa May masks and paint their hands red. And they would be doing it all because, they’d say, they could not bear to see another child killed in Aleppo.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/14/stop-the-war-syria-target-russia-aleppo

 

What Freedland is writing about is a lot of rubbish. Dangerous rubbish. The Americans have destabilised Syria by supporting rebels who are aligned with Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and to ISIS by default despite appearances.

What Syria and Russia are doing is stopping Syria falling into the hands of hard line Sunni Wahhabi who under the guise of "freedom" would impose a strict religious government expelling all other religious denominations, creating more refugees into Europe...

The US destabilisation of Syria, a modern Arab state, started a few years ago when Assad refused to let a Saudi pipeline traverse Syria to feed Europe with gas — a project which was designed to profit the Saudis and stuff up the Russians presently the sole main supplier of gas in Europe. Syria had moderately long been aligned with Russia, to the displeasure of the US Empire. So the US via its CIA and disinformation channels has been feeding a rebellion. Things got a bit ugly when ISIS grew from this US fomented rebellion. The US want Assad to go, the Russians want Assad to stay. Most of the Syrian population want Assad to stay.

Go fetch, Jonathan... About 4/5th of Aleppo is now free from rebels. What the Syrians and the Russians are doing is trying to free the rest of the city where the US supported rebels have joined with other terrorists. The US should be the one hanging their head in shame for supporting yet another rebellious Arab spring which will actually make things 10 times worse in Syria should the US supported rebels win.

 

double standards of our MMMMM...

In his exclusive think piece for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook, James O'Neill, an Australian-based Barrister at Law, pointed to mainstream media's double standards on covering events related to fighting in Syria's Aleppo and Iraq's Mosul.

 

In particular, this biased approach was seen in mainstream media covering "liberation of Aleppo by Syrian and Russian forces and the ongoing battle for the liberation of Mosul by 'coalition' (i.e. US) forces in northern Iraq," according to O'Neill.

The author emphasizes that it is impossible to liberate a large populated area captured by terrorists without losses from the local population.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201703251051961606-aleppo-mosul-mains...

US trying to kill peace...

 

The United States will seek to keep its troops operating in Syria on alleged counter-terror missions after the Russian military pullout, threatening real hopes at last for peace in the region, analysts told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — During an unannounced visit to the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria to their permanent bases after two years of an anti-terrorist aerial campaign conducted in the country.

The Russian leader also met at the Hmeimim airbase with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

However, Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve's press office told Sputnik also on Monday that more fighting would have to take place to eliminate the remaining pockets of Daesh terrorists in the Middle Euphrates River Valley.

REAL US MILITARY AIM IN SYRIA TO PROMOTE SAUDI, ISRAELI GOALS

Pennsylvania State University faculty associate in Middle East Studies and human rights activist Jennifer Loewenstein warned that the continuing US military presence in Syria was intended to further the ends of US allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, and would pose danger to hopes of any lasting peace in the region.

"Judging from the alliances that are forming — and becoming more solidified — my guess is that with US sponsorship, Israel and Saudi Arabia (suddenly 'good friends') are pursuing their goal to keep Syria destabilized in any way possible," Loewenstein said.

As Putin’s announcement revealed, the presence of the US troops in Syria could no longer be allegedly justified or rationalized on the grounds that they were needed to fight Daesh, Lowenstein pointed out.

"The bigger question is why US troops are there now at all, especially since the Islamic State (Daesh) has been defeated (at least territorially)?" she asked.

The United States, backed by Saudi Arabia and Israel, wanted to maintain and extend its military power in Syria as a base to threaten and counter Iran, Loewenstein observed.

 

"The 'threat' Iran poses with its influence growing across the region is too much for these countries to bear," she said.

US/Saudi/Israeli domination across the Middle East mattered far more in Washington’s distorted warped view of 'national security' than genuine peace and stability," Loewenstein observed.

 

 

As a result, "We have only more war and hostility to look forward to," she said.

Instead of bringing peace, the continued US military deployment in Syria threatened to undermine the best hope for a lasting peace in the region since the end of World War I a century ago, Loewenstein warned.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201712121059917104-us-russian-troops-wi...

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"piece" according to donald

 

selling the other guy's furniture...

The Trump declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocating the U.S. embassy there is as historically significant to Israel’s control of Jerusalem as the Balfour Declaration was to recognizing the rights of the Jewish people in Palestine.

But according to new revelations, the announcement could be part of a grander plan to help Israel wrest control of Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank, from the Palestinians for good, leaving the Arabs with their own state of Gaza only.

Anyone looking to the State Department for guidance about any of this is bound to be disappointed. Foggy Bottom’s first public defense of the president’s blockbuster announcement would have been laughable if it weren’t so depressing. Indeed, Thursday’s State Department briefing, starring good soldier David Satterfield, could have been pilfered from the popular British comedy “Yes, Prime Minister.”

Satterfield, a highly regarded professional who has labored for 40 years in the barren vineyards of Middle East diplomacy, channeled the show’s star dissembler, Sir Humphrey Appleby. The acting assistant secretary did Sir Humphrey proud—he talked and talked and said nothing at all.

Thankfully, far more instructive insights about the linkage between the announcement and Trump’s broader plans for the region were provided to TAC by a senior Palestinian official last week. This official was briefed on the details of the surprise meeting last month between Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO), and Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne.

The 82-year-old Abbas was summoned to Riyadh on November 6 by the 32-year-old MBS as part of the latter’s high-powered effort to engineer a joint Arab-U.S. offensive against Iran and its allies. He was not the first Arab leader to be invited. Days before his arrival, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was strong-armed by MBS into a sudden, though short-lived, resignation as part of the anti-Iran offensive.

MBS was in high dudgeon, according to the source, as he is playing a high-stakes gamble to cement both his leadership and his corollary offensive. On this score, MBS announced that the Arab Peace Initiative (API)—a Saudi-sponsored grand bargain promising Arab recognition of and peace with Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with east Jerusalem as its capital—is effectively dead.

It’s time for Plan B, declared the crown prince: a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, fattened by undetermined Egyptian transfers of land in the Sinai Peninsula. When the startled Palestinian leader asked about the place of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in this scheme, MBS replied, “We can continue to negotiate about this.”

“What about Jerusalem,  the settlements, [West Bank] Areas B and C?” Abbas pressed.

“These will be issues for negotiation, but between two states, and we will help you.”

According to the source, MBS offered the Palestinian leader $10 billion to sweeten the bitter pill he had just prescribed. “Abbas can’t say no [to the Saudis],” the source explained, “but he can’t say yes.”

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/did-saudi-arabia-just-tr...

writing arse up history...

It seems like only yesterday that Bashar al-Assad, the butcher of Damascus, was planning his own eventual exile. Before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent in his military to bail Assad out, the Syrian dictator was living each day in a state of siege. Tens of thousands of Syrian troops were defecting. His core Alawite officers were in over their heads, extinguishing fire after fire in every corner of the country. And Assad himself could hear the explosions from his window. The mood at the time was best summed up by Saudi Arabia’s then-foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir: Assad could leave the easy way or the hard way, but he was going to leave.

The departure, of course, never came. In the three years and six months since Jubeir made those remarks, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Ankara, London, Washington, and every other foreign capital that threw money, weapons, supplies, and political support to the Syrian opposition have had to eat crow. Bashar al-Assad has not only survived but triumphed over his enemies. Sure, Syria is in ruins, with hundreds of thousands killed, entire cities caked in dust, half its population displaced, and nearly $400 billion in the hole. But the dictator is still sitting pretty in his palace. He can thank the Russians and Iranians for his happy position: without help from his two chief foreign backers, his head might very well be on a stick.

For the European and Arab governments that wagered on Assad’s defeat, the regime’s survival brings with it a whole new set of problems. The question is no longer how best to support the dictator’s overthrow. However distasteful it might be, Assad has won the civil war.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-west-must-learn-to-...

 

This article is a bit disingenuous. SYRIA WAS A SUCCESSFUL multicultural country before 2009 considering "fake" countries like Saudi Arabia's ruthless rule. The USA started to interfere with Syria's semi-socialist government back in 1949, and pushed with renewed covert aggression in 2009 by supporting rebels (Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and ISIS as well) to oust Assad and replace his government with a full extremist Wahhabi Sunni mono-rule, aligned with Saudi Arabia. I say "fake" Saudi Arabia because the country does not belong to the people, but it "belongs to the Saud Royal family"... Whatever happened is now history, still to be written as who did what. 

Assad is far less dangerous than a Wahhabi led government in Syria. That's the reality. The USA and their allies lied many times and got the Western media to lie for them as well. This article in The American Government is also full of holes and a few lies....

historical boloney as told by the new york times...


This is what gloating looks like… NY Times distorts war-torn Syria...
by Finian Cunningham
A supposed survey of war-torn Syria by America’s so-called “newspaper of record” was not merely shoddy journalism; it was a cynical attempt to rewrite the history of the eight-year war.

The meandering report of more than 2,700 words was headlined: “What ‘Victory’ Looks Like: A Journey Through Shattered Syria.” It would have been more accurate to have used the title, “What Gloating Looks Like.”

Even the sly way the word ‘victory’ is put in quotation marks indicates, from the outset, the insidious purpose of the article. To pour scorn on how Syria and its people have in actual fact defeated a foreign-sponsored criminal war for regime change. The regime-change plot goes back to at least 2005 as this old CNN interview clumsily admits.

With mawkish words, the New York Times reporters effect to lament the rubble and grief among the Syrian population. But all the while, the implication conveyed is that President Bashar Assad “presided over the destruction.”

It would be easy to dismiss the article for the ropey, agenda-led “journalism” that it is. But since journalism is reputed to be the “first draft” of writing history, it is therefore important that the distortion presented by the NY Times is repudiated for the outright falsification that it is.

We can’t go into every erroneous, obnoxious detail. And readers would be advised to go to alternative reports by independent journalists like Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley for accurate accounts of how Syrians are dealing with the aftermath of war and what the people actually think about who caused their war-torn fate.

But suffice to say that three salient distortions or omissions can be cited to condemn the NY Times as a purveyor of propaganda. First is the staggering assertion that Syria’s lunar landscape of destruction was brought about by warplanes and artillery deployed by the state’s armed forces.

Secondly, there is not a single mention of US and other NATO states carrying out – and continuing to carry out – air strikes on Syrian infrastructure for the past five years, which have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. Probably the most infamous episode was the American obliteration of the city of Raqqa two years ago during which an estimated 1,600 people, including women and children, were buried under rubble from indiscriminate bombing.

The NY Times would have us believe that Assad callously and gratuitously inflicted a pyrrhic victory on his people, instead of telling readers that the country was targeted covertly for regime change by the US, its NATO allies, and regional partners.

A third astounding distortion is the apparent absence of terror groups in Syria’s war. Not once is it mentioned that the militants who served as proxies for their foreign sponsors were mostly composed of Al Qaeda-linked terrorists recruited for their barbaric dirty work from all over the world and infiltrated into Syria by NATO operatives. Former urban areas like eastern Aleppo and Douma held siege under a reign of terror are referred to as “rebel-held” districts. The liberation of those hell-holes by Syrian government forces, supported by Russian airpower, is not reported as “liberation” but as something sinister, in complete disregard for how the Syrian people relate the events to the smarmy NY Times journalists. The latter presume to know better about what really happened, and consequently routinely infer that “regime minders” accompanying them are coercing the civilian interviewees to mouth pro-Assad propaganda.

Imagine the feat of mental gymnastics. In a supposed in-depth survey of war-ravaged Syria, there is not one reference to the army of jihadists belonging to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Nusra Front, Jaish Al Islam, and dozens of other alphabet soup names used to conceal the fact that all were terrorist proxies weaponized by the US and NATO military intelligence.

What we have instead is the NY Times affecting a kind of grief and condescension towards the Syrian people who have been, it is claimed, plunged into misery by their government and its Russian ally. It is inconceivable, according to this narrative, that the Syrian people and their armed forces may have perhaps won the most dramatic, heroic battle in modern times against a behemoth of US-backed enemies whose terror tactics plumbed the depths of depravity.

Rather amusingly, if it weren’t so sickening, was a separate report by the NY Times only the day before which proclaimed that, “ISIS [Islamic State] Is Regaining Strength in Iraq and Syria”.

So, in the previous screed masquerading as a detailed survey of Syria, there is no mention of terror groups. Yet, in the second report the reader is told that the “Islamic State is on the rise again”. How is such a colossal contradiction entertained by the editors?

That other report kicks off with this laughable claim: “Five months after American-backed forces ousted the Islamic State from its last [sic] shard of territory in Syria, the terrorist group is gathering new strength, conducting guerrilla attacks across Iraq and Syria, retooling its financial networks and targeting new recruits at an allied-run tent camp, American and Iraqi military and intelligence officers said.”

Yes, that’s right, we are being told that US forces vanquished Syria’s terrorist tormentors from their “last shard of territory”. But now they are resurgent and “well-equipped” numbering about 18,000 fighters. We might indeed wonder how this change of good fortune happened for the militants. Could it be that powerful foreign sponsors are aiding and abetting once again? The NY Times never hints at such an obvious possibility. 

The point of the article seems to be an attempt to undermine President Trump’s drawdown of US troops from Syria. The NY Times and its military intelligence sources are arguing for more American forces to be deployed in Syria and Iraq. “The resurgence [of terrorists] poses a threat to American interests and allies, as the Trump administration draws down American troops in Syria,” the report editorializes.

While the NY Times is cynically exploiting Syria for its own agenda-driven story-telling, the real task of defeating foreign-backed terror groups was continuing this week in Idlib province, northwestern Syria. The Syrian Arab Army captured the town of Khan Sheikhoun from militants affiliated to Hayat Tahrir al Sham (formerly Nusra Front, formerly Al Qaeda.) That is in spite of credible claims of armed support from NATO member Turkey whose military incursion into Syrian territory was pushed back. The US is also allegedly implicated in covertly arming the last redoubt of terror groups in Idlib.

Eight years of hideous war in Syria are coming to an end as Syrian state forces push on to claim every last inch of the nation’s territory from foreign intruders. The plain truth is that the Syrian people won a formidable victory against implacable malign powers, led by the US.

The systematic distortion and lies told by Western corporate-controlled media about Syria continues, even when victory against Washington’s infernal imperialist crimes is staring them in the face.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/467079-syria-nyt-report-victory/

 

 

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bringing peace to syria...

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran H.E. Hassan Rouhani, President of the Russian Federation H.E. Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Turkey H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gathered in Ankara on 16 September 2019 for a Tripartite Summit.

The Presidents:

1. Discussed the current situation on the ground in Syria, reviewed the developments following their last meeting in Sochi on 14 February 2019 and reiterated their determination to enhance the trilateral coordination in light of their agreements.

2. Emphasized their strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as well as to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. They highlighted that these principles should be universally respected and that no actions, no matter by whom they were undertaken, should undermine them.

3. Reaffirmed in this regard the necessity to respect universally recognized international legal decisions, including those provisions of the relevant UN resolutions rejecting the occupation of Syrian Golan, first and foremost UN Security Council Resolution 497 and thus condemned the decision of the US Administration on the occupied Syrian Golan, which constitutes a grave violation of international law and threatens regional peace and security. They consider Israeli military attacks in Syria as destabilizing and violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country and intensifying the tension in the region.

4. Discussed the situation in the north-east of Syria, emphasized that security and stability in this region can only be achieved on the basis of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and agreed to coordinate their efforts to this end.

5. Rejected in this regard all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives, and expressed their determination to stand against separatist agendas aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as well as threatening the national security of neighboring countries.

6. Reviewed in detail the situation in the Idlib de-escalation area and underscored the necessity to respect calm on the ground by fully implementing all agreements on Idlib, first and foremost the Memorandum of 17 September 2018. They are alarmed about the risk of further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in and around the area as a result of continued escalation and agreed to take concrete steps to reduce violations. They expressed serious concern with the increased presence of the terrorist organization “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” in the area and reaffirmed the determination to continue cooperation in order to ultimately eliminate DAESH/ISIL, Al-Nusra Front and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al-Qaeda or DAESH/ISIL, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the UN Security Council. While deploring civilian casualties and displacement of people, they agreed to undertake concrete measures, based on the previous agreements, to ensure the protection of the civilian population in accordance with the international humanitarian law as well as the safety and security of the military personnel of the guarantors within and outside the Idlib de-escalation area.

7. Reaffirmed their conviction that there could be no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that it could only be resolved through the Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, UN-facilitated political process in line with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254.

8. Expressed their satisfaction with the successful completion of the work on the composition of the Constitutional Committee and reiterated their support to the efforts of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen to achieve agreement between the Syrian parties on the rules of procedure. They reaffirmed their readiness to facilitate the launching of the Constitutional Committee in Geneva in accordance with the decisions of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi.

9. Emphasized the need to increase humanitarian assistance to all Syrians throughout the country without preconditions. In order to alleviate the suffering of the Syrians and support the progress in the process of the political settlement, they called upon members of the international community, the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies to undertake greater responsibility in burden-sharing and to enhance their assistance to Syria, inter alia by developing early recovery projects, including the restoration of basic infrastructure assets – water and power supply facilities, schools and hospitals as well as the humanitarian mine action.

10. Highlighted the need to facilitate safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their original places of residence in Syria, ensuring their right to return and right to be supported. In this regard, they called upon the international community to provide appropriate contributions for their resettlement and normal life, and reaffirmed their readiness to continue interaction with all relevant parties, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other specialized international agencies. They agreed to coordinate their initiatives to organize international conferences on the humanitarian assistance to Syria and the return of Syrian refugees.

11. Welcomed the participation of Iraq and Lebanon as new observers of the Astana format.

12. In addition to the Syrian issue, discussed recent regional and international developments as well as their collaboration in different fields and reiterated their decision to promote joint economic and commercial cooperation.

13. Decided to hold the next Tripartite Summit in the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the invitation of President of the Islamic Republic of Iran H.E. Hassan Rouhani.

14. The Presidents of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation expressed their sincere gratitude to President of the Republic of Turkey H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for hosting the Tripartite Summit in Ankara.

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article207651.html

 

 

 

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is trump slowly bringing in peace to the world?