How will foreign powers determine Syria's future.
They will enable the democratic uprising to be crushed, and ordinary people will continue to live in a dictatorship. This will happen in these stages 1. The Shia and Sunni dictatorships with the aid of their superpower supporters will decide on a new dictatorship for Syria with a better sectarian balance (ie more wealthy Sunni business clans). 2. Military support for the rebels by the Sunni dictatorships will stop. 3. The new government will continue to receive outside help to murder and torture the uprising into submission. 4. Key figures in Assad's murder machine will retire in comfort and safety.
If you doubt this then consider that 1. The Middle East is really one interconnected dictatorship, the rivalries provide excuses to discredit or oppress internal opposition, the last thing they want is to defeat their enemies (ie Israeli elite need the Iranian elite, Iranian elite needs the Israeli elite, Saudi elite needs the Iranian elite.... ). 2. The real conflict in the Middle East as elsewhere is between powerful minorities and powerless majorities. 3. Ordinary people in Western countries sympathize with calls for democracy, but do not really understand how lack of democracy and economic distribution abroad is eating away their own political systems from the inside at home (in the last four decades power has been transferred from ordinary people and their democratic governments, to international financial organizations and economically powerful authoritarian governments).
Should also mention that Western governments (and Syrian apologists for oppression) will sell this betrayal as an humanitarian act to end suffering by civilians. I will ask them: Before the uprising did ordinary Syrians suffer? What has the sacrifice by tens of thousands of people achieved in the last forty years of Assad rule? Will the Syrian people ever get another chance to take back their rights? (answers Yes, Nothing, No)
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Egomaniacal Robert Fisk Talks Down Syria Democratic Struggle
Found this comment about Robert Fisk by Jazmin Medina on Al-Jazeera ( http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/empire/2012/03/201232212838378880.html ). I expanded links so you can see the disappointing truth about Robert Fisk.
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Well said !!!!!!
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Do not know if anyone will read this now. I was deeply disappointed and honestly disgusted by = Robert Fisk =. As a postscript to the comment above I should say why. He appeared to treat the immensely painful and often heroic struggle against the criminal armed gang lead by Bashar al-Assad that is running Syria , as if it was some kind of cafe discussion session, in which he was delighted to show, in his own egomaniacal estimation, how knowledgeable he was about the strange ways of the Middle East and it's people.
His status as a western reporter unafraid to report Israel-Palestine without the usual Zionist distortions, has given him cover, for his corrupt journalistic practices ( see www.hughpope.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/i-dont-read-hugh-pope-robert-fisk ). Most of his critics have been right wing fanatics with a moral blindness about apartheid in Israel. A catalog of Fisk's crimes against journalistic standards are in the March issue of well known the British investigative magazine "Private Eye" ( see www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=street_of_shame ).
Looking back at Fisk articles on Syria he was a believer back in 2000 that Bashar was a reformer. Then when the Damascus Spring ended after a year, he claimed that Bashar was still a reformer but he a powerless figure head who was being forced away from reform. The recent leaked emails and documents reveal this view to be false. Bashar and his clan have learnt well from [neighbor] Israel about the power of propaganda. Bashar's public face is just that.
Robert Fisk now expects us to believe him, when he says the Syrian Democratic Uprising is going to be crushed like the Islamist uprising in Hama in 1982 was (by Hafez Assad), and Syria is not going to end up as a war of mass murder "against the people" as waged by the Algerian government in the 1990s. Fisk has suggested in other articles that revolutions do not work, and the "Arab Spring" will be a very slow process of incremental change. If the people are patient enough not to ask for too much change too quickly, then decent rulers like Bashar will trickle out their rights over time.
This is utter unhistorical nonsense. Europe won it's democracy when autocratic regimes felt threatened by the people and needed their support to survive. The threat of the French Revolution being repeated lead to reform throughout Europe. The division of power between land owners and new industrialists, lead to restrictive parliamentary democracies extending the electoral franchise to recruit more supporters. The threat of the European revolutions of 1848 lead to further reforms. The struggle between European nations for military supremacy eventually (after WW1 and WW2) lead to governments implementing fully the rights of the people, in an effort to mobilize the masses behind government war efforts. Since the C18 and C19 there has been a revolution in armed conflict in which technology has overtaken numbers. This means dictatorships can subdue their populations will smaller armies. Consequently the threat of the "people" has diminished.
There is no way Middle Eastern dictatorships are going to evolve into democracies without the active support of outside democracies. People in Syria know that if they give up the struggle there is not going to be a better opportunity to oust the internal colonization of the Assads.
Robert Fisk needs a long holiday. Nickolas Van Dam like his inspiration Patrick Searle is an academic and lobbyist in too closely a dependent relationship with his subject. Apologist in other words.
His status as a western reporter unafraid to report Israel-Palestine without the usual Zionist distortions, has given him cover, for his corrupt journalistic practices ( see www.hughpope.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/i-dont-read-hugh-pope-robert-fisk ). Most of his critics have been right wing fanatics with a moral blindness about apartheid in Israel. A catalog of Fisk's crimes against journalistic standards are in the March issue of well known the British investigative magazine "Private Eye" ( see www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=street_of_shame ).
Looking back at Fisk articles on Syria he was a believer back in 2000 that Bashar was a reformer. Then when the Damascus Spring ended after a year, he claimed that Bashar was still a reformer but he a powerless figure head who was being forced away from reform. The recent leaked emails and documents reveal this view to be false. Bashar and his clan have learnt well from [neighbor] Israel about the power of propaganda. Bashar's public face is just that.
Robert Fisk now expects us to believe him, when he says the Syrian Democratic Uprising is going to be crushed like the Islamist uprising in Hama in 1982 was (by Hafez Assad), and Syria is not going to end up as a war of mass murder "against the people" as waged by the Algerian government in the 1990s. Fisk has suggested in other articles that revolutions do not work, and the "Arab Spring" will be a very slow process of incremental change. If the people are patient enough not to ask for too much change too quickly, then decent rulers like Bashar will trickle out their rights over time.
This is utter unhistorical nonsense. Europe won it's democracy when autocratic regimes felt threatened by the people and needed their support to survive. The threat of the French Revolution being repeated lead to reform throughout Europe. The division of power between land owners and new industrialists, lead to restrictive parliamentary democracies extending the electoral franchise to recruit more supporters. The threat of the European revolutions of 1848 lead to further reforms. The struggle between European nations for military supremacy eventually (after WW1 and WW2) lead to governments implementing fully the rights of the people, in an effort to mobilize the masses behind government war efforts. Since the C18 and C19 there has been a revolution in armed conflict in which technology has overtaken numbers. This means dictatorships can subdue their populations will smaller armies. Consequently the threat of the "people" has diminished.
There is no way Middle Eastern dictatorships are going to evolve into democracies without the active support of outside democracies. People in Syria know that if they give up the struggle there is not going to be a better opportunity to oust the internal colonization of the Assads.
Robert Fisk needs a long holiday. Nickolas Van Dam like his inspiration Patrick Searle is an academic and lobbyist in too closely a dependent relationship with his subject. Apologist in other words.
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Well said !!!!!!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Newt Gingrich , lets the Zionist Cat Out Of The Bag , spills the Jewish Settler's Beans and tells the truth about a very big lie ....
US Republican candidate and ex speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, when asked if he was a Zionist recently said :
"I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state .... Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century .... I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic."
(see http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2011/12/201112108493783540.html)
He also said his world view was "pretty close" to that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and promised to take a tougher pro-Israeli position if elected.
His fellow Republican candidate Mitt Romney then said that put him to the right of the Israeli Prime minister. This is not true. The idea that the Palestinians do not have rights in Israel-Palestine, and they are only Arabs who should go somewhere else, is and has always been a mainstream Zionist position. It is not now mentioned in public by Israeli politicians, because this would undermine the belief in the fictional "peace process" in the minds of the public in Western countries. This peace process is a way for the Israeli government to buy time at a lower diplomatic cost to colonize the occupied territories, principally the West Bank.
I know this is a mainstream Zionist position from the literature, but also from direct experience. When I get the chance to travel I make a point of attending pro Zionist events. At least a dozen times I have seen in Europe, US and Canada the same style of map with a relatively tiny blob of "Jewish" Israel (always including the occupied territories) contrasted with the wide expanse of the "Arab" Middle East. Also there is always the statement that Israel has been fighting wars against Arab countries due solely to the very existence of the Israeli state since 1948.
Gingrich in this statement is very much a mainstream Zionist. It is argued that the threats to Israel's existence will necessitate a meaningful peace, even if Zionists feel this is unfair. The problem with this argument is that Israel's existence has not been in contention since 1948. The West has supported Israel in wars of dominance (mostly against the former Soviet Union) in the Middle East since 1948. This is why Israel went to war with Egypt over Suez in 1956, over defeating Pan Arab Nasser-ism in the Six Day War of 1967 (no modern historians as opposed to chroniclers dismiss the claims that Egypt invaded Israel as propaganda) and the return match that the Egyptians were forced to actually start the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
So Palestinians have no chance and never did have a chance of getting a state. They will remain an underclass in the Middle East. The Jewish people who have been expelled from Arab countries as retaliation since 1948 are going to an Israeli state that actively wants to gather in the Jewish people. The Palestinians that have been expelled and will be expelled from Israel-Palestine are going into a region of general poverty still dominated by foreign backed dictatorships (mostly backed by Western countries thanks in part to Israeli help). Their cause is celebrated by local politicians wanting to stir pan Arab sentiment, while they as individuals are an economic nuisance who are outside local clans who control access to economic and educational opportunities.
This is the real ongoing tragedy, someone should really tell Newt. The worst thing is when people claim that God is in favour of this. Take this comment as typical of Christian Zionist nonsense .......
How we treat Israel will be as it has been since Abraham, "God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel". Please pray for the peace of Israel and that the Lord will change the heart of our President so he will support God's chosen land and people. Pray for the Jewish people to open their hearts to Jesus. Thank you, many blessings!
And this brilliant response .....
The prayer as we Palestinian Christians know should be for all nations .... Jesus came for everybody,and when we followed him we became chosen.The Palestinian history is very clear and rich more than you can understand. And because the God we trust and worship is a Just and Loving and Caring God he cannot choose one nation or religion. Please read some history so you can land down from space.
(See http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Gingrich/Israel.php )
No person who believes in God can support the real Zionist policy of the Israeli Government towards the Palestinians, which is one of time wasting, lying, discrimination and ethnic cleansing. At the same time No person of God can support the discrimination and violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt, or support the Islamophobic discrimination against Muslims in Europe and the US.
We cannot say one religion is as bad as another, this is not a tribal game, because we all owe our allegiance to God. If I am a Jew I am also a Muslim and a Christian. If I am a Muslim I am also a Jew and a Christian. If I am a Christian I am also a Jew and a Muslim.
"I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state .... Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until the early 20th century .... I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic."
(see http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2011/12/201112108493783540.html)
He also said his world view was "pretty close" to that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and promised to take a tougher pro-Israeli position if elected.
His fellow Republican candidate Mitt Romney then said that put him to the right of the Israeli Prime minister. This is not true. The idea that the Palestinians do not have rights in Israel-Palestine, and they are only Arabs who should go somewhere else, is and has always been a mainstream Zionist position. It is not now mentioned in public by Israeli politicians, because this would undermine the belief in the fictional "peace process" in the minds of the public in Western countries. This peace process is a way for the Israeli government to buy time at a lower diplomatic cost to colonize the occupied territories, principally the West Bank.
I know this is a mainstream Zionist position from the literature, but also from direct experience. When I get the chance to travel I make a point of attending pro Zionist events. At least a dozen times I have seen in Europe, US and Canada the same style of map with a relatively tiny blob of "Jewish" Israel (always including the occupied territories) contrasted with the wide expanse of the "Arab" Middle East. Also there is always the statement that Israel has been fighting wars against Arab countries due solely to the very existence of the Israeli state since 1948.
Gingrich in this statement is very much a mainstream Zionist. It is argued that the threats to Israel's existence will necessitate a meaningful peace, even if Zionists feel this is unfair. The problem with this argument is that Israel's existence has not been in contention since 1948. The West has supported Israel in wars of dominance (mostly against the former Soviet Union) in the Middle East since 1948. This is why Israel went to war with Egypt over Suez in 1956, over defeating Pan Arab Nasser-ism in the Six Day War of 1967 (no modern historians as opposed to chroniclers dismiss the claims that Egypt invaded Israel as propaganda) and the return match that the Egyptians were forced to actually start the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
So Palestinians have no chance and never did have a chance of getting a state. They will remain an underclass in the Middle East. The Jewish people who have been expelled from Arab countries as retaliation since 1948 are going to an Israeli state that actively wants to gather in the Jewish people. The Palestinians that have been expelled and will be expelled from Israel-Palestine are going into a region of general poverty still dominated by foreign backed dictatorships (mostly backed by Western countries thanks in part to Israeli help). Their cause is celebrated by local politicians wanting to stir pan Arab sentiment, while they as individuals are an economic nuisance who are outside local clans who control access to economic and educational opportunities.
This is the real ongoing tragedy, someone should really tell Newt. The worst thing is when people claim that God is in favour of this. Take this comment as typical of Christian Zionist nonsense .......
How we treat Israel will be as it has been since Abraham, "God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel". Please pray for the peace of Israel and that the Lord will change the heart of our President so he will support God's chosen land and people. Pray for the Jewish people to open their hearts to Jesus. Thank you, many blessings!
And this brilliant response .....
The prayer as we Palestinian Christians know should be for all nations .... Jesus came for everybody,and when we followed him we became chosen.The Palestinian history is very clear and rich more than you can understand. And because the God we trust and worship is a Just and Loving and Caring God he cannot choose one nation or religion. Please read some history so you can land down from space.
(See http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Gingrich/Israel.php )
No person who believes in God can support the real Zionist policy of the Israeli Government towards the Palestinians, which is one of time wasting, lying, discrimination and ethnic cleansing. At the same time No person of God can support the discrimination and violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt, or support the Islamophobic discrimination against Muslims in Europe and the US.
We cannot say one religion is as bad as another, this is not a tribal game, because we all owe our allegiance to God. If I am a Jew I am also a Muslim and a Christian. If I am a Muslim I am also a Jew and a Christian. If I am a Christian I am also a Jew and a Muslim.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Alastair Crooke's Pro Syrian Government Propaganda Echoes The Tactics Of The Corrupt Algerian FLN.
"goldenruleapplies" on the Guardian "Comment Is Free" website..................
Alastair Crooke's thesis is that the Arab Democratic Uprising is a game instigated by foreign powers and local elites to control the Middle East. All this sounds like the racist notion that people in the Middle East are fundamentally different to us. The truth is that the Middle East has been extensively internally colonized by regimes which do not represent their people or Islam. The people especially the youth are sick of it, and shout loudly a plague on all your houses.
The real parallel here is not Afghanistan as Crooke claims but the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. In 1988 the ruling FLN (that ousted the French in the 1960s) allowed multi party elections. When the fairly moderate Islamic Salvation Front (in French "Front Islamique du Salut" or FIS) were about to win elections in 1992, the ruling FLN cancelled elections. The result was a radicalization of the regime's opposition with the creation of armed guerrilla groups. The resulting "dirty" civil war, lead to 200,000 deaths, 15,000 disappeared and the extensive use of extreme torture as an instrument of intimidation. The conflict only wound down after eight years.
The FLN created a propaganda campaign to try to persuade Western governments that the opposition to their rule came from foreigners, rather than a popular rejection of their corrupt rule.
"Within months of the latest insurgency, the Algerian government, in effect run by a coterie of privileged and immensely powerful army officers, cast around the Middle East for inspiration in their struggle against 'fundamentalist terrorism'. They produced books and pamphlets on the roots of Islamic revivalism in an effort to persuade diplomats and foreign journalists that the roots of Algerian 'terrorism' lay in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia ..... The Algerians searched everywhere - anywhere - for some way of proving that the Algerian insurgency was not Algerian."
[pp649 Robert Frisk " The Great War For Civilization." 2005]
This is exactly what Bashar al-Assad is dong. He is paying foreign public relations companies to do the work. What is Beirut based "Conflicts Forum" and what previous statements have they made? They claimed for example that the Iranian government did not steal the 2009 election.
I assume Bashar is hoping to be like the FLN who clung to power, and continue to have Syria run by the same corrupt elite. The difference is that in Syria, it has been and will be, mostly Shia Alawites killing and torturing mostly Sunnis. If there is no intervention then Assad will create the regional conflict that he is warning will be created if there is intervention. Iran will be drawn in further as the self declared defender of Shia Islam, while Saudi Arabia will be arming Sunnis some of whom will be foreign radical salifists.
We must trust in the ordinary people in Syria who are putting everything on the line for their human rights. We must support them now. They are calling to us directly.
Alastair Crooke's thesis is that the Arab Democratic Uprising is a game instigated by foreign powers and local elites to control the Middle East. All this sounds like the racist notion that people in the Middle East are fundamentally different to us. The truth is that the Middle East has been extensively internally colonized by regimes which do not represent their people or Islam. The people especially the youth are sick of it, and shout loudly a plague on all your houses.
The real parallel here is not Afghanistan as Crooke claims but the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. In 1988 the ruling FLN (that ousted the French in the 1960s) allowed multi party elections. When the fairly moderate Islamic Salvation Front (in French "Front Islamique du Salut" or FIS) were about to win elections in 1992, the ruling FLN cancelled elections. The result was a radicalization of the regime's opposition with the creation of armed guerrilla groups. The resulting "dirty" civil war, lead to 200,000 deaths, 15,000 disappeared and the extensive use of extreme torture as an instrument of intimidation. The conflict only wound down after eight years.
The FLN created a propaganda campaign to try to persuade Western governments that the opposition to their rule came from foreigners, rather than a popular rejection of their corrupt rule.
"Within months of the latest insurgency, the Algerian government, in effect run by a coterie of privileged and immensely powerful army officers, cast around the Middle East for inspiration in their struggle against 'fundamentalist terrorism'. They produced books and pamphlets on the roots of Islamic revivalism in an effort to persuade diplomats and foreign journalists that the roots of Algerian 'terrorism' lay in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia ..... The Algerians searched everywhere - anywhere - for some way of proving that the Algerian insurgency was not Algerian."
[pp649 Robert Frisk " The Great War For Civilization." 2005]
This is exactly what Bashar al-Assad is dong. He is paying foreign public relations companies to do the work. What is Beirut based "Conflicts Forum" and what previous statements have they made? They claimed for example that the Iranian government did not steal the 2009 election.
I assume Bashar is hoping to be like the FLN who clung to power, and continue to have Syria run by the same corrupt elite. The difference is that in Syria, it has been and will be, mostly Shia Alawites killing and torturing mostly Sunnis. If there is no intervention then Assad will create the regional conflict that he is warning will be created if there is intervention. Iran will be drawn in further as the self declared defender of Shia Islam, while Saudi Arabia will be arming Sunnis some of whom will be foreign radical salifists.
We must trust in the ordinary people in Syria who are putting everything on the line for their human rights. We must support them now. They are calling to us directly.
Pro Syrian Government Propoganda In Guardian From Lobbyist Alastair Crooke Of "Conflicts Forum".
Transcript of Article In British Newspaper: "Guardian" Saturday 5th November 2011 by Alastair Crooke.
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/04/syria-iran-great-game )
Syria and Iran: the great game.
Regime change in Syria is a strategic prize that outstrips Libya – which is why Saudi Arabia and the west are playing their part.
This summer a senior Saudi official told John Hannah, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, that from the outset of the upheaval in Syria, the king has believed that regime change would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests: "The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria."
This is today's "great game" – losing Syria. And this is how it is played: set up a hurried transitional council as sole representative of the Syrian people, irrespective of whether it has any real legs inside Syria; feed in armed insurgents from neighbouring states; impose sanctions that will hurt the middle classes; mount a media campaign to denigrate any Syrian efforts at reform; try to instigate divisions within the army and the elite; and ultimately President Assad will fall – so its initiators insist.
Europeans, Americans and certain Gulf states may see the Syria "game" as the logical successor to the supposedly successful Libya game in moulding the Arab awakening towards a western cultural paradigm. In terms of regional politics however, Syria is strategically more valuable, and Iran knows this. Iran has said that it will respond to any external intervention in Syria.
It is already no "game", as the many killed by both sides attests to. The radical armed elements being used in Syria as auxiliaries to depose Assad run counter to the prospect of any outcome emerging within the western paradigm. These groups may well have a bloody and very undemocratic agenda of their own. I warned of this danger in connection to Afghanistan in the 80s: some of the Afghan mujahideen had real roots in the community, I suggested, but others posed a severe danger to people. A kindly American politician at the time placed his arm around my shoulder and told me not to worry: these were the people "kicking Soviet ass". We chose to look the other way because kicking the Soviets played well to US domestic needs. Today Europe looks the other way, refusing to consider who Syria's combat-experienced insurgents taking such a toll of Syrian security forces truly are, because losing Assad and confronting Iran plays so well, particularly at a time of domestic difficulty.
Fortunately, the tactics in Syria, in spite of heavy investment, seem to be failing. Most people in the region believe that if Syria is pushed further into civil conflict the result will be sectarian violence in Lebanon, Iraq and more widely too. The notion that such conflict will throw up a stable, let alone western-style, democracy, is fanciful at best, an act of supreme callousness at worst.
The origins of the "lose Assad" operation preceded the Arab awakening: they reach back to Israel's failure in its 2006 war to seriously damage Hezbollah, and the post-conflict US assessment that it was Syria that represented Hezbollah's achilles heel – as the vulnerable conduit linking Hezbollah to Iran. US officials speculated as to what might be done to block this vital corridor, but it was Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who surprised them by saying that the solution was to harness Islamic forces. The Americans were intrigued, but could not deal with such people. Leave that to me, Bandar retorted. Hannah noted that "Bandar working without reference to US interests is clearly cause for concern. But Bandar working as a partner … against a common Iranian enemy is a major strategic asset." Bandar got the job.
Hypothetical planning, however, only became concrete action this year, with the overthrow of Egypt's President Mubarak. Suddenly Israel seemed vulnerable, and a weakened Syria, mired in troubles, had heightened strategic allure. In parallel, Qatar had stepped to the fore. Azmi Bishara, a pan-Arabist who resigned from the Israeli Knesset and self-exiled to Doha, was according to some local reports involved in a scheme in which al-Jazeera would not just report revolution, but instantiate it for the region – or at least this is what was believed in Doha in the wake of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. Qatar, however, was not merely trying to leverage human suffering into an international intervention, but was also – as in Libya – directly involved as a key operational patron of the opposition.
The next stages were to draw France's President Sarkozy – the arch-promoter of the Benghazi transitional council model that had turned Nato into an instrument of regime change – into the team. Barack Obama followed by helping to persuade Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – already piqued at Assad – to play the transitional council part on Syria's border, and lend his legitimacy to the "resistance". Both of the latter components, however, are not without challenges from their own security arms, who are sceptical of the efficacy of the transitional council model, and opposed to military intervention. Even Bandar is not without challenges: he has no political umbrella from the king, and others in the family are playing other Islamist cards to different ends. Iran, Iraq and Algeria – and occasionally Egypt – co-operate to frustrate Gulf manoeuvres against Syria at the Arab League. The transitional council model, which in Libya has displayed the weakness of leveraging just one faction as the government-in-waiting, is more starkly defective in Syria. Syria's opposition council, put together by Turkey, France and Qatar, is caught out by the fact that the Syrian security structures have remained near rock solid through seven months – defections have been negligible – and Assad's popular support base are intact. Only external intervention could change that equation, but for the opposition to call for it would be political suicide, and they know it.
The internal opposition gathering in Istanbul demanded a statement refusing external intervention and armed action, but the Syrian national council was announced even before the intra-opposition talks had reached any agreement – such was the hurry on the part of external parties.
The external opposition continues to fudge its stance on external intervention, and with good reason: the internal opposition rejects it. This is the flaw to the model – for the majority in Syria deeply oppose external intervention, fearing civil conflict. Hence Syrians face a long period of externally mounted insurgency, siege and international attrition. Both sides will pay in blood.
But the real danger, as Hannah himself noted, is that the Saudis might "once again fire up the old Sunni jihadist network and point it in the general direction of Shiite Iran", which puts Syria first in line. In fact, that is exactly what is happening, but the west, as before in Afghanistan, prefers not to notice – so long as the drama plays well to western audiences.
As Foreign Affairs reported last month, Saudi and its Gulf allies are firing up the radical Salafists (fundamentalist Sunnis), not only to weaken Iran, but to do what they see is necessary to survive – to disrupt and emasculate the awakenings that threaten absolute monarchism. This is happening in Syria, Libya, Egypt Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
This Islamically assertive, literalist orientation of Islam may be generally viewed as nonpolitical and pliable, but history is far from comforting. If you tell people often enough that they can be king-makers and throw buckets of money at them, do not be surprised if they metamorphose – yet again – into something very political. It may take some months, but the fruits of this new attempt to use radical forces for western ends will yet again backfire. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, recently warned that the Hillary Clinton-devised response to the Arab awakening, of implanting western paradigms, by force if necessary, into the void of fallen regimes, will be seen as a "cultural war on Islam", and will sow the seeds of a further round of radicalisation.
One of the sad paradoxes is the undercutting of moderate Sunnis, who now find themselves caught between the rock of being seen as a western tool, and the hard place of radical Sunni Salafists waiting for the opportunity to displace them and to dismantle the state. What a strange world: Europe and the US think it is OK to "use" precisely those Islamists (including al-Qaida) who absolutely do not believe in western-style democracy in order to bring it about. But then, why not just look the other way and gain the benefit of the public enjoying Assad's kicking?
Comment On Article By "goldenruleapplies" ..............................
This article by Crooke is rubbish on so many levels, it hardly seems worth mentioning. This ex MI6 30 yr career spy has form see the extract below.
"Remaking the Middle East in Syria's Image." Huffingtonpost, 9th September 2010.
Syria's vision of a New Middle East made its way to Foreign Policy magazine, months after being printed in the Washington Post by the same authors.
The vision echoes what was put out by a Hezbollah friend, former MI6 agent Alistair Crooke. In a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) publication, Crooke argued that Washington should replace its current alliance with the Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian coalition with another consisting of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Iran-dominated Iraq and Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.
The Middle East might not be changing as fast as Malley, Harling or Crooke suggest. It is Washington, however -- where "unfriendly" countries have finally learned how to lobby the administration to their own advantages -- that has changed.
( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussain-abdulhussain/remaking-the-middle-east-_b_709060.html )
His Conflicts Forum lobby organization is based in Beirut. Most western ex-government people end up working as paid lobbyists for the Saudi "proud desert kingdom" brigade. Mr Crooke is a lobbyist for the Iran-Syria-Iraq lobby.
I say it is these conflicts of Sunni v Shia, Islam v Secular, Left v Right that has traditionally allowed external forces to encourage elites to internally colonize the Middle East. This time the ordinary people of the region are standing up for their rights. The self serving conflicts have been seen through, by the people who are not stupid.
For more information on Mr Crooke see ....
http://www.ibishblog.com/article/2011/08/01/alastair_crooke_ex_spy_who_stepped_cold_authored_michael_weiss
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Essay-response-How-not-to/
In the spirit of the Gaza youth statement, f**k off Israel, US, Hamas, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran .... It is about REAL PEOPLE, please support the Syrian Democratic Uprising.
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/04/syria-iran-great-game )
Syria and Iran: the great game.
Regime change in Syria is a strategic prize that outstrips Libya – which is why Saudi Arabia and the west are playing their part.
This summer a senior Saudi official told John Hannah, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, that from the outset of the upheaval in Syria, the king has believed that regime change would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests: "The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria."
This is today's "great game" – losing Syria. And this is how it is played: set up a hurried transitional council as sole representative of the Syrian people, irrespective of whether it has any real legs inside Syria; feed in armed insurgents from neighbouring states; impose sanctions that will hurt the middle classes; mount a media campaign to denigrate any Syrian efforts at reform; try to instigate divisions within the army and the elite; and ultimately President Assad will fall – so its initiators insist.
Europeans, Americans and certain Gulf states may see the Syria "game" as the logical successor to the supposedly successful Libya game in moulding the Arab awakening towards a western cultural paradigm. In terms of regional politics however, Syria is strategically more valuable, and Iran knows this. Iran has said that it will respond to any external intervention in Syria.
It is already no "game", as the many killed by both sides attests to. The radical armed elements being used in Syria as auxiliaries to depose Assad run counter to the prospect of any outcome emerging within the western paradigm. These groups may well have a bloody and very undemocratic agenda of their own. I warned of this danger in connection to Afghanistan in the 80s: some of the Afghan mujahideen had real roots in the community, I suggested, but others posed a severe danger to people. A kindly American politician at the time placed his arm around my shoulder and told me not to worry: these were the people "kicking Soviet ass". We chose to look the other way because kicking the Soviets played well to US domestic needs. Today Europe looks the other way, refusing to consider who Syria's combat-experienced insurgents taking such a toll of Syrian security forces truly are, because losing Assad and confronting Iran plays so well, particularly at a time of domestic difficulty.
Fortunately, the tactics in Syria, in spite of heavy investment, seem to be failing. Most people in the region believe that if Syria is pushed further into civil conflict the result will be sectarian violence in Lebanon, Iraq and more widely too. The notion that such conflict will throw up a stable, let alone western-style, democracy, is fanciful at best, an act of supreme callousness at worst.
The origins of the "lose Assad" operation preceded the Arab awakening: they reach back to Israel's failure in its 2006 war to seriously damage Hezbollah, and the post-conflict US assessment that it was Syria that represented Hezbollah's achilles heel – as the vulnerable conduit linking Hezbollah to Iran. US officials speculated as to what might be done to block this vital corridor, but it was Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who surprised them by saying that the solution was to harness Islamic forces. The Americans were intrigued, but could not deal with such people. Leave that to me, Bandar retorted. Hannah noted that "Bandar working without reference to US interests is clearly cause for concern. But Bandar working as a partner … against a common Iranian enemy is a major strategic asset." Bandar got the job.
Hypothetical planning, however, only became concrete action this year, with the overthrow of Egypt's President Mubarak. Suddenly Israel seemed vulnerable, and a weakened Syria, mired in troubles, had heightened strategic allure. In parallel, Qatar had stepped to the fore. Azmi Bishara, a pan-Arabist who resigned from the Israeli Knesset and self-exiled to Doha, was according to some local reports involved in a scheme in which al-Jazeera would not just report revolution, but instantiate it for the region – or at least this is what was believed in Doha in the wake of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. Qatar, however, was not merely trying to leverage human suffering into an international intervention, but was also – as in Libya – directly involved as a key operational patron of the opposition.
The next stages were to draw France's President Sarkozy – the arch-promoter of the Benghazi transitional council model that had turned Nato into an instrument of regime change – into the team. Barack Obama followed by helping to persuade Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan – already piqued at Assad – to play the transitional council part on Syria's border, and lend his legitimacy to the "resistance". Both of the latter components, however, are not without challenges from their own security arms, who are sceptical of the efficacy of the transitional council model, and opposed to military intervention. Even Bandar is not without challenges: he has no political umbrella from the king, and others in the family are playing other Islamist cards to different ends. Iran, Iraq and Algeria – and occasionally Egypt – co-operate to frustrate Gulf manoeuvres against Syria at the Arab League. The transitional council model, which in Libya has displayed the weakness of leveraging just one faction as the government-in-waiting, is more starkly defective in Syria. Syria's opposition council, put together by Turkey, France and Qatar, is caught out by the fact that the Syrian security structures have remained near rock solid through seven months – defections have been negligible – and Assad's popular support base are intact. Only external intervention could change that equation, but for the opposition to call for it would be political suicide, and they know it.
The internal opposition gathering in Istanbul demanded a statement refusing external intervention and armed action, but the Syrian national council was announced even before the intra-opposition talks had reached any agreement – such was the hurry on the part of external parties.
The external opposition continues to fudge its stance on external intervention, and with good reason: the internal opposition rejects it. This is the flaw to the model – for the majority in Syria deeply oppose external intervention, fearing civil conflict. Hence Syrians face a long period of externally mounted insurgency, siege and international attrition. Both sides will pay in blood.
But the real danger, as Hannah himself noted, is that the Saudis might "once again fire up the old Sunni jihadist network and point it in the general direction of Shiite Iran", which puts Syria first in line. In fact, that is exactly what is happening, but the west, as before in Afghanistan, prefers not to notice – so long as the drama plays well to western audiences.
As Foreign Affairs reported last month, Saudi and its Gulf allies are firing up the radical Salafists (fundamentalist Sunnis), not only to weaken Iran, but to do what they see is necessary to survive – to disrupt and emasculate the awakenings that threaten absolute monarchism. This is happening in Syria, Libya, Egypt Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
This Islamically assertive, literalist orientation of Islam may be generally viewed as nonpolitical and pliable, but history is far from comforting. If you tell people often enough that they can be king-makers and throw buckets of money at them, do not be surprised if they metamorphose – yet again – into something very political. It may take some months, but the fruits of this new attempt to use radical forces for western ends will yet again backfire. Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, recently warned that the Hillary Clinton-devised response to the Arab awakening, of implanting western paradigms, by force if necessary, into the void of fallen regimes, will be seen as a "cultural war on Islam", and will sow the seeds of a further round of radicalisation.
One of the sad paradoxes is the undercutting of moderate Sunnis, who now find themselves caught between the rock of being seen as a western tool, and the hard place of radical Sunni Salafists waiting for the opportunity to displace them and to dismantle the state. What a strange world: Europe and the US think it is OK to "use" precisely those Islamists (including al-Qaida) who absolutely do not believe in western-style democracy in order to bring it about. But then, why not just look the other way and gain the benefit of the public enjoying Assad's kicking?
Comment On Article By "goldenruleapplies" ..............................
This article by Crooke is rubbish on so many levels, it hardly seems worth mentioning. This ex MI6 30 yr career spy has form see the extract below.
"Remaking the Middle East in Syria's Image." Huffingtonpost, 9th September 2010.
Syria's vision of a New Middle East made its way to Foreign Policy magazine, months after being printed in the Washington Post by the same authors.
The vision echoes what was put out by a Hezbollah friend, former MI6 agent Alistair Crooke. In a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) publication, Crooke argued that Washington should replace its current alliance with the Saudi-Egyptian-Jordanian coalition with another consisting of Iran, Turkey, Syria, Iran-dominated Iraq and Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.
The Middle East might not be changing as fast as Malley, Harling or Crooke suggest. It is Washington, however -- where "unfriendly" countries have finally learned how to lobby the administration to their own advantages -- that has changed.
( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussain-abdulhussain/remaking-the-middle-east-_b_709060.html )
His Conflicts Forum lobby organization is based in Beirut. Most western ex-government people end up working as paid lobbyists for the Saudi "proud desert kingdom" brigade. Mr Crooke is a lobbyist for the Iran-Syria-Iraq lobby.
I say it is these conflicts of Sunni v Shia, Islam v Secular, Left v Right that has traditionally allowed external forces to encourage elites to internally colonize the Middle East. This time the ordinary people of the region are standing up for their rights. The self serving conflicts have been seen through, by the people who are not stupid.
For more information on Mr Crooke see ....
http://www.ibishblog.com/article/2011/08/01/alastair_crooke_ex_spy_who_stepped_cold_authored_michael_weiss
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Essay-response-How-not-to/
In the spirit of the Gaza youth statement, f**k off Israel, US, Hamas, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran .... It is about REAL PEOPLE, please support the Syrian Democratic Uprising.
Friday, October 14, 2011
The Egyptian Revolution Is Being Stolen : What is going on ?
In an article in the British Guardian newspaper on Tuesday and BBC Newsnight on Monday, the Novelist Ahdaf Soueif , described the murder of 25 people (310 injured) in Cairo by the army last Sunday. This followed a 1000 strong protest against the attack on a church in southern Egypt. The march included Christians and Muslims. When they reached the State TV building, unidentified armed gangs suddenly appeared and attacked the army, who then had the excuse of a riot to attack the demonstrators.
Ahdaf Soueif stated that although Mubarak (the head of the old regime) has been forced out, the rest of the regime is still in power. Under Mubarak there was proof that the interior ministry was organizing attacks against Christians, in league with minority Muslim fundamentalist Salafist groups.
The storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo on 10th September (following the killing of five Egyptian soldiers by Israel in Sinai) involved an unidentified but disciplined gang of around one hundred, many carrying sledge hammers. This incident gave the interim military government (SCAF) the excuse to reinstate emergency law. Since the revolution in February SACF have been prosecuting civilians in military courts for criticizing their actions.
In August the influential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei, criticized SCAF for passing an electoral law in consultation with the Muslim Brotherhood, which will ban foreign monitoring of forthcoming elections. He said:
“Refusal of international election monitoring, one of the main seven demands voiced before the revolution for democratic transition (is based) on the erroneous understanding of interference in (the country’s) sovereignty….”
Compared this will Libya, where the NTC explicitly guarantee international monitoring in their Roadmap for democratic transition.
What is going on?
In April the journalist Robert Frisk wrote in an article…. “Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of the Egyptian army, for example, is now running Egypt. Yet he is not only a close friend of America, but a childhood and lifelong friend of Mubarak, who was allowed to whinge the usual ex-dictator’s self-congratulatory excuses on al-Arabia television (‘my reputation, my integrity and my military and political record’) prior to his own questioning – and inevitable emergency entry into hospital. When the latest Tahrir Square crowds also called for Tantawi’s resignation, the field marshal’s mask slipped. He sent his troops to ‘cleanse’ the square.”[ British Newspaper: The Independent “A long Time Coming” 15/4/2011 Robert Fisk]
The Egyptian regime was and is very corrupt, with a wealthy elite controlling extensive business interests, this includes senior army generals. The army is the most powerful and best funded institution in Egypt. Mubarak lost the support of the generals by favoring a rival power base of business cronies. The generals saw an opportunity to get rid of him when ordinary Egyptians rose up in protest against the regime.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is the most successful and well established political party in Egypt, who could command around a third of the popular vote. It is a broad movement, with a generally older conservative wing, and a younger progressive wing closer to the demonstrators of Tahrir square.
The army generals have done a deal with the conservative wing of the Muslim Brotherhood to steal the Egyptian revolution. There will be no foreigners to observe the forthcoming rigged elections. Instead the Egyptian Justice Department stuffed with people from the old regime will do the monitoring.
The fundamentalist Salafists with the encouragement of the generals will stir up sectarian trouble with the ten percent of Egyptians who are Coptic Christians. This gives an impression of chaos, to justify martial law at home and especially abroad in Western countries sympathetic to attacks on Christian minorities.
Paramilitary gangs linked to the old regime, will provoke violence at otherwise peaceful demonstrations (ie by attacking the army and storming embassies).
Behind all this is Saudi Arabia. This repressive country, founded in 1936, that has stolen considerable wealth from the Arab people, is desperate to end the Arab Democratic Uprising. They are willing to fund in the short term, the buying of the votes of poor Egyptians (those that are not stolen) with promises of aid if they support the MB. About 30% of Egyptians thanks to Mubarak and others, live below the poverty line.
The Saudis have close links to the MB, when many of their members fled persecution under Nasser. They also directly fund Salafist groups throughout the Middle East, including Egypt.
The ordinary people of the Middle East are being denied the chance to get back on the path of progress, which has been blocked to them by internal colonization backed by foreign interests for over a century. The ordinary people in Western countries are being denied the chance to spread democracy to a key part of the world, when democracy needs to expand or face decline in Western countries. The ending of the Egyptian revolution is a crime against all our humanity.
Ahdaf Soueif stated that although Mubarak (the head of the old regime) has been forced out, the rest of the regime is still in power. Under Mubarak there was proof that the interior ministry was organizing attacks against Christians, in league with minority Muslim fundamentalist Salafist groups.
The storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo on 10th September (following the killing of five Egyptian soldiers by Israel in Sinai) involved an unidentified but disciplined gang of around one hundred, many carrying sledge hammers. This incident gave the interim military government (SCAF) the excuse to reinstate emergency law. Since the revolution in February SACF have been prosecuting civilians in military courts for criticizing their actions.
In August the influential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei, criticized SCAF for passing an electoral law in consultation with the Muslim Brotherhood, which will ban foreign monitoring of forthcoming elections. He said:
“Refusal of international election monitoring, one of the main seven demands voiced before the revolution for democratic transition (is based) on the erroneous understanding of interference in (the country’s) sovereignty….”
Compared this will Libya, where the NTC explicitly guarantee international monitoring in their Roadmap for democratic transition.
What is going on?
In April the journalist Robert Frisk wrote in an article…. “Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of the Egyptian army, for example, is now running Egypt. Yet he is not only a close friend of America, but a childhood and lifelong friend of Mubarak, who was allowed to whinge the usual ex-dictator’s self-congratulatory excuses on al-Arabia television (‘my reputation, my integrity and my military and political record’) prior to his own questioning – and inevitable emergency entry into hospital. When the latest Tahrir Square crowds also called for Tantawi’s resignation, the field marshal’s mask slipped. He sent his troops to ‘cleanse’ the square.”[ British Newspaper: The Independent “A long Time Coming” 15/4/2011 Robert Fisk]
The Egyptian regime was and is very corrupt, with a wealthy elite controlling extensive business interests, this includes senior army generals. The army is the most powerful and best funded institution in Egypt. Mubarak lost the support of the generals by favoring a rival power base of business cronies. The generals saw an opportunity to get rid of him when ordinary Egyptians rose up in protest against the regime.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is the most successful and well established political party in Egypt, who could command around a third of the popular vote. It is a broad movement, with a generally older conservative wing, and a younger progressive wing closer to the demonstrators of Tahrir square.
The army generals have done a deal with the conservative wing of the Muslim Brotherhood to steal the Egyptian revolution. There will be no foreigners to observe the forthcoming rigged elections. Instead the Egyptian Justice Department stuffed with people from the old regime will do the monitoring.
The fundamentalist Salafists with the encouragement of the generals will stir up sectarian trouble with the ten percent of Egyptians who are Coptic Christians. This gives an impression of chaos, to justify martial law at home and especially abroad in Western countries sympathetic to attacks on Christian minorities.
Paramilitary gangs linked to the old regime, will provoke violence at otherwise peaceful demonstrations (ie by attacking the army and storming embassies).
Behind all this is Saudi Arabia. This repressive country, founded in 1936, that has stolen considerable wealth from the Arab people, is desperate to end the Arab Democratic Uprising. They are willing to fund in the short term, the buying of the votes of poor Egyptians (those that are not stolen) with promises of aid if they support the MB. About 30% of Egyptians thanks to Mubarak and others, live below the poverty line.
The Saudis have close links to the MB, when many of their members fled persecution under Nasser. They also directly fund Salafist groups throughout the Middle East, including Egypt.
The ordinary people of the Middle East are being denied the chance to get back on the path of progress, which has been blocked to them by internal colonization backed by foreign interests for over a century. The ordinary people in Western countries are being denied the chance to spread democracy to a key part of the world, when democracy needs to expand or face decline in Western countries. The ending of the Egyptian revolution is a crime against all our humanity.
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