Category Archives: Syria

Iran, Israel, Syria, WTF

Israel-Iran-Syria Psych War: a Strange Announcement of a Strange Plane, about Hess……….

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“The Israeli military says a drone that can fly as far as Iran has crashed in central Israel on a routine experimental flight. The military says there were no injuries in Sunday’s crash, and it was investigating the incident. The Heron TP drone is also known locally as the Eitan. It has a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making it the size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet. It is the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel’s military arsenal. The drone figures to be featured prominently in any potential Israeli operation against Iran and its expanding nuclear program………”

This is a strange ‘incident’, if all these details are true. Why would they need a “drone” the size of a Boeing 737? What does it have to do with Iran? Do they plane to drop the whole Netanyahu cabinet over Tehran? Then will it still be a “drone”? And why announce these details by a military that is usually secretive? And was it really an Israeli drone? Was it the Assad cabinet of Syria seeking a deal a la Rudolph Hess?
And how is all this related to the 1994 attempt by James Woolsey (former CIA director) to land a plane on top of Bill Clinton?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, NATO, Syria

America Getting Ready to Liberate Syria from Itself: about Iraq and Libya and Maysaloon…….

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“As the violence in Syria spirals out of control, top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration are quietly preparing options for how to assist the Syrian opposition, including gaming out the unlikely option of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria and preparing for another major diplomatic initiative. Critics on Capitol Hill accuse the Obama administration of being slow to react to the quickening deterioration of the security situation in Syria, where more than 5,000 people have died, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Many lawmakers say the White House is once again “leading from behind,” while the Turks, the French, and the Arab League — which sent an observer mission to Syria this week — pursue more aggressive strategies for pressuring the Assad regime. But U.S. officials insist that they are moving cautiously to avoid destabilizing Syria further…………..”


What is it about Arab opposition groups that they always beg for the West, their former colonial masters, to come back and rescue them from their own local dictators? This is becoming an unfortunate Arab phenomenon. Don’t they remember what happened with the Ottoman Turks and the British and the French? When the Hashemite rulers of Hijaz (original custodians of Mecca and Madinah and Jeddah) sought British help and got more than they bargained for? Do they remember the French and Faisal and Maysaloon?
First some Iraqi groups encouraged Western intervention against their repressive Ba’athist rulers. Then the Libyans did the same against Qaddafi. Now the Syrian ‘opposition’ groups want foreign intervention to liberate them.
Why do other peoples make their own revolution and these Arab “revolutionaries” insist on the easy way: Western forces and warplanes? Why can’t they do as the Tunisians and Egyptian did? Some of the same people who taunted the Iraqis for being “liberated” by Americans and British forces are now begging for American and British and French forces to kill their compatriots and liberate them. Even the Arab Saudi League is now seeking foreign intervention (in Syria but not in Bahrain).
Do you know why the peoples of Bahrain, Yemen, and Qatif don’t ask for foreign intervention against their repressive rulers? Do you know why the democracy-loving West is not offering or contemplating intervening in these countries (at least not on the side of the people)?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria

Syrians and their Foreign Friends……

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“Syrian media outlets reported Friday that President Bashar Assad’s security forces seized huge quantities of weapons used by rebels across the country, including Israeli-made arms. According to the unconfirmed reports, Assad’s troops seized a machinegun, Israeli-made bombs, automatic rifles, various explosive devices, protective vests, night-vision equipment and military uniforms, among other things. Syrian television showcased the weapons Friday evening and claimed that some of the arms originated in Israel. Some of the weapons featured Hebrew inscriptions, yet it was unclear who was holding the arms and where the images were photographed. The latest Syrian reports are apparently meant to discourage anti-Assad rebels and present them as traitors who enlist the help of the “Zionist enemy”…………” Haaretz

“Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast also immediately condemned the kidnapping of the Iranian pilgrims in Syria, calling the act inhumane and unjustifiable. “These acts, which are against humane principles and moral and international obligations, are by no means justifiable, and it is expected that these people take immediate action to free Iranian pilgrims,” Mehmanparast said Thursday. In December, five Iranian electrical engineers were abducted on the way to a power plant in the troubled Syrian city of Homs by unknown gunmen. Two more Iranian experts, who were trying to clarify the situation of the five abducted engineers, have also been kidnapped………..”

The Syrian regime claims the rebels are using Israeli weapons, hinting they are connected to Israel. Yet the Israelis have no reason to side with the Islamists who are likely to rule Syria if and when the Assad regime falls. Their only beef with the regime has been that it facilitates arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon. They certainly seem to have managed to have an unwritten peace in the Golan for a quarter of a century. Israeli farms and Israeli wines thrive in the Golan: they wouldn’t want to disrupt that.

On the other hand, some Syrian opposition groups, and Saudi media, have claimed in the past that Iranian forces and Hezbollah fighters are helping the Damascus regime. One Saudi source, most likely Alarabiya, even repeated allegations that Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army is helping Assad.
I have my usual doubts about that: the Syrian Ba’ath Party has been training security forces to crush dissent since 1963. They are experts at that sort of thing and don’t need any outside help. It is possible that they get Iranian and Hezbollah help, since both support the Assad regime. Yet it is unlikely they would send men and certainly not to a degree that matters, probably weapons and maybe advice (so are the Russians). If they are intervening, they are clearly not doing so to the vast degree as the Saudi military intervention against the Bahrain uprising. Besides, the West would certainly know if any foreign countries are intervening in Syria: they wouldn’t need the Syrian opposition to tell them.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, WTF

Middle East Worst Four for Freedom and Civil Liberties: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan……….

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“A total of 26 countries registered net declines in 2011, and only 12 showed overall improvement, marking the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements. While the Middle East and North Africa experienced the most significant gains—concentrated largely in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya—it also suffered the most declines, with a list of worsening countries that includes Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Syria and Saudi Arabia, two countries at the forefront of the violent reaction to the Arab Spring, fell from already low positions to the survey’s worst-possible ratings…….Worst of the Worst: Of the 48 countries designated as Not Free, nine have been given the survey’s lowest possible rating of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties: Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan………”

Always the majority of the worst in Freedom House ratings are Arab and/or Muslim countries. The worst declines were in the Middle East. Of the last ones up there, the worst of the worst, seven of the nine are Muslim states, and four of those worst are Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan). We all knew that most these states were not sweethearts, but the worst of the worst? The Worst-est? Way down there with North Korea? And they all start with S? Which deserves a resounding: WTF!
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, France, Iran, NATO, Persian-American Gulf, Syria, US Foreign Policy

BHL d’Arabie: the Liberation of Syria and the Gulf………

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Speaking of the liberation of Syria, whatever happened to Bernard-Henri Lévy? The French pop-philosopher and liberator of Libya has not yet landed in Latakia to rally the opposition against the al-Assad regime. Actually Tartus would be a better spot for him than Latakia. He might be waiting for the opposition to establish their own ‘beachhead’, their own Tripoli (Libyan Tripoli not the Lebanese Salafi-Muslim-Brother Tripoli). Then he can sweep ashore, a la Douglas MacArthur. BHL d’Arabie, Lévy of Arabia!
Or maybe he has a more ambitious target in mind, maybe he is waiting or an opportunity to sweep the shores of the Persian-American (not yet French) Gulf. The liberation of Iran from the mullahs may be his next ambition: to bring down the theocracy and raise the flag or freedom, modernism, Wahhabism, and international oil companies. To drive the last Western nails, figuratively speaking, in the coffins of Mossadegh (nationalizer of oil) and Ayatollah Khomeini. For that goal, he can count on a small army of our Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood cheerleaders (only cheerleading, no fighting, not even puffy pompoms).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, NATO, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Shaikh of Qatar and the Liberation of Syria: about a Piss-Up in a Brewery….………..

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Media report that the Emir of Qatar has called for an Arab force to intervene in Syria. Arab forces do not have a good history of intervention in other Arab states, unless they are led by a Western general (or colonel or major). Remember, Europeans (T.E. Lawrence and others higher above him) actually led the “temporary” liberation of Jerusalem and Damascus in WWI. Commanders of regular Arab armies, like Arab leaders in general, can’t organize the proverbial-American ‘piss-up in a brewery’ as far as war is concerned. What they can organize is repression of their peoples, and occasionally of other Arab peoples (as the Saudi princes are doing in Bahrain). If Desert Storm were Arab-led (as some Saudi regime journalists occasionally try to claim), Iraqi Ba’athist forces would still be sitting in Khafji, and most likely beyond.

No, an Arab force in Syria would have as much success as the Arab League observers have had. Not only will both the Syrian regime and the ‘opposition’ run rings around them: it would also be a bloody fiasco. As one example: the Saudi military, armed with the best American weapons that petro-money can buy, could not subdue a small group of Yemeni clans (the Huthis) armed with primitive guns just a couple of years ago. They had to leave in defeat. Imagine what the well-armed Syrians can do to these same forces, led by the same inept princes.

I suspect that some of the Arab oligarchs of the Gulf look toward an eventual Western intervention and “liberation” of Syria. Just as the West liberated Iraq and Libya. That is probably their goal, something they have in common with many leaders of the fractured Syrian ‘opposition’. The people who excoriated the West for ‘liberating’ Iraq, after helping it ‘liberate’ Iraq, now want more of the same. Assuming they will end up in control, a tough thing.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Iran, Lebanon, NATO, Persian-American Gulf, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Turkey and Iran and the West: Containment from the Gulf to the Mediterranean…………..

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“Iran and Turkey said Thursday they planned to double their trade volume despite having political differences on Syria and a NATO radar shield on Turkish soil. “Our annual trade volume currently stands at 15 billion dollars but we hope to double it in the near future,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said in a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Tehran. Despite the plan to increase trade, the two sides did not seem to have settled political differences, especially on the situation in Syria. ……….”
 
“Middle East powerhouse Turkey on Wednesday warned against a sectarian cold war in the region and said rising Sunni-Shiite tensions would be “suicide” for the whole region. “Let me openly say that there are some willing to start a regional Cold War,” Foreign Minster Ahmet Davutoglu told state-run Anatolian news agency before heading to Shiite Iran. “We are determined to prevent a regional Cold War. Sectarian regional tensions would be suicide for the whole region,” Davutoglu said, adding such effects would last for decades. “Turkey is against all polarisations, in the political sense of Iran-Arab tension or in the sense of forming an apparent axis. This will be one of the crucial messages that I will take to Tehran.”…….. Davutoglu is expected to hold talks in Tehran later on Wednesday on Iran’s nuclear programme and developments in neighbouring Iraq and Syria………..”

Davutoglu, with the talk of “Sunni-Shiite tensions”, seems to be jabbing the Saudis and their allies who have been stoking sectarian hatred for a few years now, especially along the Gulf. For a while there was talk, mostly in some Arab oligarchy media, of an Iranian-Turkish-Qatari-Syrian alliance. The Turkish role was exaggerated: after all Turkey is an old NATO member and a longtime friend of Israel. The Qatari role was also exaggerated: Qatar shares a huge offshore gas field with Iran and is also wary of Saudi attempts at hegemony over the GCC states. A Saudi-sponsored coup attempt against the Emir was thwarted in the late 1990s, with several high Saudi security officials arrested and jailed in Doha (they were released last year). Saudi media and the Wahhabi faux-liberal media on the Gulf were full of condemnation of a mythical Qatari-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hezbollah axis. It was supposed to be an “axis of evil” as opposed to the “axis of goodness and democracy” of Saudi Arabia-Bahrain-UAE-Taliban-Mubarak-Wahhabi shaikhs.
Now the Turks and Iranians are on opposite sides in Syria. Now the Saudis and the Turks and the Qataris are on the same side in Syria (almost on the same side: the Salafis and Wahhabiized Muslim Brothers of Syria are not exactly what the Turks like). The Turks are now seen by some Arabs as a counterweight to Iran, a NATO and a Muslim counterweight in Syria. There may be some complications: the Syrians and the Arabs have always claimed that the Turkish region of Iskandaruna (Alexandretta) is part of Syria and that it is occupied territory, just like the West Bank. That is another issue to ponder as the Turks and some Arabs get close enough to each other to start disliking each other again (all that stuff about familiarity breeding contempt). The West probably sees a two–pronged approach to contain Iran:

(1) The Persian-American Gulf to be “defended” by the Western forces, mainly the US Navy, that are clogging it now. Of course Iran has not attacked anyone in the Gulf yet, nor does it have any intention of attacking anyone “first”, Saudi and Salafi propaganda and fear-mongering by the Bahrain satraps notwithstanding.
(2) The Eastern Mediterranean to be “defended” by NATO, with the Turks as the main player. Lebanon is probably considered, wisely, very iffy: a majority of the people want no Western military forces, certainly no Israeli forces or outside Arab forces either. Lebanon was tackled with Western “intelligence” operations and Saudi money (a lot of Saudi money for such a small country). So far it has failed: Saudi princes are not exactly lovable, charismatic, or principled creatures. They can never buy love with money (not that kind of love), nobody can. This is not to say that the Iranian mullahs, or other Arab leaders, are very lovable either. Many are barely more lovable than Netanyahu or Lieberman (Avigdor not Joe).
 
Breaking Syria away from its Iranian alliance is the main prerequisite for success in the Eastern Mediterranean now. The pro-Saudi Syrian opposition (the Salafis, Muslim Brothers, some former military officers, even others, now seem to want Western (NATO) intervention against the regime. They want to be liberated by the West just as Iraq was liberated in 2003 and Libya was liberated in 2011.
After that, the Saudi camp hopes their Israeli allies will be able to soften Hezbollah and Lebanon.
More on this later……
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, Syria

A People’s Democratic Salafi Kingdom in Northern Lebanon?…………..

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“BEIRUT: Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi raised concerns at a recent security meeting that some refugees fleeing into the country in Arsal may actually be Al-Qaeda members, sources close to Prime Minister Najib Mikati told The Daily Star. The sources said Kahwagi’s comments at the Mikati-chaired Grand Serail meeting mimicked Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn’s recent comments to the media about “operations carried out at some illegal border crossings, especially in Arsal.” “Weapons are being smuggled [there] and members of terrorist groups are entering to establish a base [in Lebanon] under the cover that they belong to the Syrian opposition,” Ghosn said………… At the meeting, the sources said that Kahwagi confirmed that according to army information, some people who claim be members of the Syrian opposition and are smuggling weapons are in fact from Al-Qaeda. Kahwagi also said that when the army attempts to confront these people, groups in Lebanon object in defense of freedom………..”

Al-Qaeda types are nothing new in northern Lebanon, around Tripoli. The terrorist Salafi group is certainly itching to take on Hezbollah, not directly, but at least to weaken it. There have been past reports that the March 14 (Hariri-Saudi bloc) had in the past encouraged and financed Salafi groups in northern Lebanon (around Tripoli). Presumably the idea is to nurture a fundamentalist group that probably hates Hezbollah more than it hates Israel or the West. That would be the Salafis.
Then there is the Saudi angle: the March 14 bloc is largely financed by the Saudis. That is why Western media call March 14 “pro-democracy” and pro-Western, because they are financed by the People’s Democratic Kingdom of (Saudi) Arabia. The Salafis usually are the Saudi surrogates wherever they happen to be, and Mr. Hariri being a Saudi citizen……….
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Cairo, Egypt, Libya, NATO, Salafi, Syria

Western Liberation of Arabs from Iraq to Libya to Syria: Allenby back in Egypt?………….

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The West and Arab liberation:

  • Having “liberated” the Arabs (only briefly) from the Ottoman Turks in 1918 with help from the Hashemites of Hijaz (the al-Saud were an unknown clan in their tribal corner of remote Nejd),
  • Having recently liberated Iraq and Libya from their dictators, with Arab cooperation,
  • Being already poised to liberate Syria from its dictator, with eager encouragement from some Syrian “opposition” leaders who forget their own country’s history with the Western ‘liberators’,
  • (WTF moment): even the fucking Salafis of  the Persian-American Gulf, who hate the West probably more than they hate other creatures like Shi’as and Jews and Christians and secularists, are calling for Western liberation of Syria
  • Will the West (as in NATO) be ready to liberate Egypt and Yemen and Bahrain now?
  • The regime in Egypt has gone back to the mass killing business in earnest. Scores were killed at Maspiro, then tens this past weekend, and many in between, Then there are the arrests and the use of near-lethal crowd control. Egypt is going back to killings on the level of Syria. In Bahrain the rulers and their al-Saud masters have been killing people, arresting and sentencing others, even as they try to fool the international media with talk of reform and reconciliation. The same goes on in Yemen even with the funny GCC deal.
  • Will “Allenby” come back, marching into Cairo and other places like he did before?

Cheers
mhg


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Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Syria

A Syrian Mini-Civil War, or is it a Civil Mini-War……

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“The armed insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has become more organized in recent weeks, with defectors launching attacks that have become bolder and in some cases more sophisticated, according to activists and residents inside the country and in exile. The latest attack took place on Thursday at dawn, when military defectors killed at least 27 soldiers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in one of the largest attacks yet on troops loyal to the government. The observatory, which is based in London and has a network of informants inside Syria, said in a statement that clashes erupted in and around the city of Dara’a, where the antigovernment uprising began in March. It said the attackers, armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, hit two checkpoints in the countryside and a military base inside the city, suggesting a level of coordination that had not been seen there before………”

The number of government soldiers killed each day now is approaching the number of the ‘opposition’ or ‘protesters’ killed each day. That is a sure sign of a transformation of the Syrian uprising into a civil war. It seems to be heading that way.
Surely Mr. Assad should make an iron-clad deal to get the hell out of the place: he and his family and his Ba’ath Party have looted enough of the country. He can settle in some other place: UAE or Iran or Europe, with some guarantees of not being prosecuted. After all, most Arab leaders currently in power should be prosecuted, and nobody is prosecuting them. I don’t particularly like most of the forces that could replace the secular Ba’ath, but history will have to run its course.
Cheers
mhg


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