Archive for category War (endless)

Al Akahbar: Syria – Damascus Repels Another Rebel Attack

A Syrian rebel takes position with a heavy machine gun on the Jabal al-Turkman mountain in Syrian's northern Latakia province on 5 February 2013. (Photo: AFP - Aamir Qureshi)

A Syrian rebel takes position with a heavy machine gun on the Jabal al-Turkman mountain in Syrian’s northern Latakia province on 5 February 2013. (Photo: AFP – Aamir Qureshi)

Remember all those articles over the last few months – Syria to fall soon; what will post-Assad Syria look like?  Soon, we were lead to believe, the demands of Former Secretary of State (and neo-colonialism) Hillary Clinton would come true.  When didn’t she say – “Assad must go!”  Ironically, Assad is  still around and Clinton is  gone. That’s one big step for mankind and an even bigger step backwards for the Syrian rebels, particularly the very Al Qaeda fighters operating under the name Al Nusra.  They fight and win but rely on direct or indirect funding, weapons, and technical assistance from NATO and the Gulf plutocrats.  In fact, we now know that Ms. Clinton and the disgraced General Petraeus were pushing for the United States to openly arm the rebels.  Cooler heads prevailed.  Weapons and other items were stalled.  Assad’s military made some changes.  And now, voila!, the Syrian Arab Army is defending the capital.

 

  Was any of this dreadful, deadly conflict worth it?
– Michael Collins

From Al Akahbar-English
Creative Commons

By: Anas Zarzar, Marah Mashi

Published Thursday, February 7, 2013

The armed Syrian opposition declared yet another “zero hour” to take Damascus on Wednesday. By nightfall, however, the army managed to restore order in the capital and widen its offensive against the rebels in the countryside. Read the rest of this entry »

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Belgian MP Laurent Louis Tears Down Empire Project – Amazing!

Speech by Laurent Louis – Posted by Michael Collins

“It is about time to stop lying to us and treating people like imbeciles.”

Tearing Down the Empire Project:  This speech represents a moment of extreme truth for the NATO powers. The United States, Great Britain, France and the lesser powers have been throwing their weight around Asia and Africa without regard to the norms of civilized behavior Their drill includes attacking countries that pose no threat to any NATO member; engaging in ruinious sanctions as a negotiating tool; threatening war; and, engaging in military actions as a matter of routine. Laurent Louis, a Belgian MP and crusader for human rights, spoke to parliament and laid out the truth behind naked aggression and the lies that justify it. Michael Collins
(Originally found at Kenny’s Sideshow)

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LAURENT LOUIS, MP: Thank you, Mr President. Dear Ministers, dear Colleagues.

Belgium is indeed the land of surrealism.

This morning we learned from the media that the Belgian army is incapable of fighting some extremist soldiers having radical Islamist beliefs existing within its own ranks but who cannot be dismissed for lack of legal means.

However, at the same time, we decide to help France in its war against “Terror” by providing logistical support for its operation in Mali. What wouldn’t we do in order to fight against terrorism outside our borders? I just hope we took care not to send for this anti-terrorist operation, in Mali, these much talked about Belgian Islamists soldiers!

I seem to be joking, but what is going on in the world today does not make me laugh at all. It doesn’t make me laugh, because without any doubt, the leaders of our Western countries are taking the people for imbeciles with the help and support of the Media which are nothing more today than an organ of propaganda of the ruling powers.

Around the world, military actions and regime’s destabilization are becoming more and more frequent. Preventive war has become the rule.

And today, in the name of democracy and the fight against terrorism, our states grant themselves the right to violate the sovereignty of independent countries and to overthrow legitimate leaders. Read the rest of this entry »

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On the Ground, a New Military Strategy for the Regime – Alakhbar-English

From – ALAKHBAR-ENGLISH

Hassan Illeik
Published Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Creative Commons

Optimized-syrianrebelintelSyria is in a state of war. Regardless of how the warring parties are labeled – the regime versus rebels, or a state versus terrorists – the fact remains that Syria is at war. It follows that politics in times of war is steered by the combatants, or as one Syrian official said, “outlined by the boots of the fighters.”

In his speech on Sunday, 6 January 2013, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spoke confidently – even over confidently according to some. Yet Assad, according to insiders familiar with the situation on the ground in Syria, derived his confidence – which they called “realism” – from the capabilities of his army and its achievements over the past eight weeks.

In November 2012, Damascus and its surrounding areas repeatedly came under rebel attack. At first, al-Nusra Front – the strongest among the armed opposition factions – sought to advance on Damascus from two main axes: from Douma and the adjacent areas towards the capital’s Abbasiyeen district; and from Daraya towards the Kfar Sousa groves, and from there to the heart of Damascus. Read the rest of this entry »

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Empire Project Failing in Syria Says French Foreign Minister


The survival of the Syrian government represents a major failure of the empire project to recolonize and dominate energy rich Middle Eastern and North African states.

In an abrupt change from months of anticipatory triumphalism, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius admitted that Syrian President Bashar Assad will not be leaving power any time soon.  This is a radical departure from the NATO script and that of their stenographers in the corporate media.   We’ve been fed a mix of articles over the past months predicting Assad’s imminent demise, filled with speculation on how post-Assad Syria will look after he’s gone. (Image)

Reuters reported the Fabius remarks on January 24:

“Things are not moving. The solution that we had hoped for, and by that I mean the fall of Bashar and the arrival of the [opposition] coalition to power, has not happened.” Read the rest of this entry »

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WorldTribune.com – New war cabinet: Hagel and Kerry will give Obama clout with the generals

Excellent read – there are glimmers of sunshine every now and then.  Hagel and Kerry are two.

Link:  http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/01/14/new-war-cabinet-hagel-and-kerry-will-give-obama-clout-with-the-generals/

By Brian M Downing

Chuck Hagel and brother Tom on tour in Vietnam

Chuck Hagel and brother Tom on tour in Vietnam

President Obama has nominated a pair of new cabinet secretaries in his foreign policy team, John Kerry for the State Department and Chuck Hagel for the Defense Department. (Image source)

They are both reasonably well respected in congress, where both served, and they are both decorated veterans of the Vietnam War. They have been chosen for their experience in world affairs and at least as importantly for their usefulness in impending policy debates regarding Iran and Afghanistan.

 

See the full story here

 

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Kill for Peace – US and EU Sanctions Deny Medicine to the Critically Ill

Michael Collins

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United States and European Union sanctions against Iran prevent much needed medical care for the Iranian people.   Those with cancer, for example, have lost the option of treatment through chemotherapy while hemophiliacs are at high risk for any surgery due to a denial of essential pharmaceuticals. There are 85,000 new cases of cancer every year in Iran.  Those with cancer and the newly diagnosed will have to do without effective treatments. A large percentage of them will die sooner than anticipated as a result.  (Image:  Fergal of Calldagh)

The Iranian medical community is unable to get required medicines due to financial restrictions in the sanctions regime.  The restrictions effectively blocks pharmaceutical purchases by Iranian medical facilities.  No ticket, no laundry is the policy of big and little pharma throughout the world.  As a result, right now — as you read this — innocent Iranians are dying, sentenced to death by the U.S.-E.U. sanctions.

Who on earth would initiate and sustain such a policy? Read the rest of this entry »

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Strategic threat of climate change – from Consortiumnews.com

Outstanding read, excellent and timely points.

Consortiumnews.com

As the American Right loses credibility – from the Tea Party to the neocons – there’s a chance for the reassertion of rationality, a new respect for empirical evidence and disdain for propaganda. Perhaps most importantly is the recognition of the grave threat from climate change, says Winslow Myers.

By Winslow Myers

Because the United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet, Americans have the luxury of being proactive in ensuring their future security. But the path to that security looks very different from the way it did even a few years ago.

A primary example of this transformed security context is the realization that there is only one atmosphere surrounding the earth. Unless all nations make a concerted effort to convert to sources of clean energy, global mean temperatures will continue to rise and cause undesirable extremes of weather.

A tornado forming over Oklahoma. (Photo credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Strategic competition between superpowers like Russia, China and the U.S. becomes irrelevant to the larger crisis of fossil fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions from all countries. The violence of storms in one country may be intensified by the environmental policies of another country, and vice-versa.

More at Consortiumnews.com

 

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