The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Syria: Syrian TV reported that on 9 December the Syrian army captured the town of al-Nabk in west-central Syria after days of fighting. This town was the last rebel strong point on the road that links Damascus to Homs and the coast.
Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Syria Government-Kurds Steady”
A Reckless Disregard for Truth and Sanity
The Syrian Guns of August
Remember the thumping of Obama’s war drums for a US attack on Syria last August and September, including his spokesmen’s absurd invocations of Kosovo as a precedent for a limited cruise missile strike on Syria? The trigger for hyping that war fever was a sarin gas attack in Eastern Ghouta, a Damascus suburb, on August 21. Obama was quick to blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for crossing Obama’s bizarre Netanyahu-esque “red line.”
Mass murder in the Middle East is funded by our friends the Saudis
World View: Everyone knows where al-Qa'ida gets its money, but while the violence is sectarian, the West does nothing
The Independent, Sunday 8 December 2013
Donors in Saudi Arabia have notoriously played a pivotal role in creating and maintaining Sunni jihadist groups over the past 30 years. But, for all the supposed determination of the United States and its allies since 9/11 to fight “the war on terror”, they have showed astonishing restraint when it comes to pressuring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies to turn off the financial tap that keeps the jihadists in business.
Afghanistan: Coalition Casualties, Opium Poppies & Drone Strikes
Here’s a map of Afghanistan’s opium poppy production by province:
Afghanistan Opium Prodution
Here’s a map of coalition casualties in Afghanistan, with a highlight of Waziristan, where drone strikes are most prevalent.
Afghanistan Casualties
Kandahar and Helmand are the gold mine, they are where coalition troops were most at risk. The area being droned is Waziristan, home to the political leadership of the bi-national Haqqani network. Afghan Logistics Just Got Much Harder describes the added distance and costs we face in our withdrawal due to the slaughter of 24 Pakistani troops in 2011. We are simply not wanted in Afghanistan, and the residents have the temperament to make that decision, and then make it stick.
This will never work politically, but if we intended to reduce the hazard Afghanistan poses the right thing to do would have been a short, sharp action against radicalized Arabs in the country, then spending our dollars facilitating legal use of the country’s opium crop. Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative is just one many efforts that could use opium derivatives, relieving the suffering of both Afghans and cancer victims worldwide.
Obama surrenders to Bibi & Bachmann, will bomb Iran
President Obama has announced that due to the interminable whining, nagging, and complaining from Israeli PM Netanyahu and US Congress clown Michele Bachmann, he has decided to go ahead and bomb Iran with them – despite the P5+1 nuclear agreement.
“Michele Bachmann – I hesitate to use the word ‘Congresswoman’ out of respect for that once-great legislative body – insists that Iran absolutely must be bombed, agreement or no agreement,” Obama said Friday. “Her commander-in-chief, the Israeli Prime Minister, agrees. So just to shut them up, I have decided to launch a really ugly-looking bat-winged Northrop-Grumman B-2 to drop a truly vicious load on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Arak. And I have decided to honor dear Michele and my good friend Bibi by making them an integral part of the mission.”
Obama has ordered the Strategic Air Command to prepare a place for Netanyahu and Bachmann in the B-2′s bomb bay atop a moth-eaten mattress beside an ice bucket of cheap champagne. The pair will ride in comfort from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri until the aircraft is approaching the Iranian nuclear facility at Arak. As “preparation to launch” orders are issued, the bomb bay doors will open and Netanyahu and Bachmann will be dangled by their heels, stark naked, outside the aircraft. At “launch,” the pair will be released to plummet head first toward strategic targets at the Iranian nuclear site.
“Nobody since Slim Whitman – I mean, Slim Pickens – has had the privilege of serving as a human bomb on such an important mission,” Obama said. “Bibi and Michele will go down in history beside Bonnie and Clyde, Caril Ann Fugate and Charles Starkweather, and other heroic, romantic couples who have sacrificed themselves for their homicidal beliefs. I wish them the best of luck in the afterlife – they’re going to need it.”
After Obama’s surprise announcement, the P5+1 negotiators met in an emergency session to approve Obama’s plan and nominate other Zionists to be dropped out of planes above Iranian nuclear sites.
The United States bears a moral responsibility for the murderous state of affairs in Iraq, but contemporary American grand strategy has become a self-referencing mix of arrogance, narcissism, and exceptionalism; so it is not surprising that most Americans have dismissed Iraq their minds (as they are now dismissing Afghanistan). Below is an excellent reminder of the situation in Iraq.
Patrick Cockburn, one of the very best journalists now covering conflicts in the Arab World and Central Asia interviews Muqtada al-Sadr, one of the most influential Shia clerics in Iraq and leader of the Mehdi Army, a powerful Shia faction. Sadr is now a member of the Shia dominated Iraqi government, but he is becoming increasingly alienated from its leader, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Sadr argues that a toxic mix of (1) sectarianism, (2) governmental incompetence and corruption, and (3) external interference by the U.S. and U.K. and Iran is plunging Iraq into an ever-deepening state of chaos, with no light at the end of the tunnel. (Note: I inserted a few clarifying comments in red.)
In a rare interview at his headquarters in Najaf, he tells Patrick Cockburn of his fears for a nation growing ever more divided on sectarian lines.
The future of Iraq as a united and independent country is endangered by sectarian Shia-Sunni hostility says Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia religious leader whose Mehdi Army militia fought the US and British armies and who remains a powerful figure in Iraqi politics. He warns of the danger that[1] “the Iraqi people will disintegrate, [2] its government will disintegrate, and [3] it will be easy for external powers to control the country”.
In an interview with The Independent in the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south-west of Baghdad – the first interview Mr Sadr has given face-to-face with a Western journalist for almost 10 years – he expressed pessimism about the immediate prospects for Iraq, saying: “The near future is dark.”
Huh?
Pakistan closes Afghan border ahead of drones protest
Islamabad, Nov 23: Pakistan on Saturday closed its border with Afghanistan ahead of protests against US drone attacks, official sources said. Thousands of people will begin a protest sit-in on the main NATO supply route in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, later on Saturday. Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) or Justice Movement, which rules the province, has announced it will close the supply line for NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan as part of its anti-drones protest strategy. Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who leads PTI, said the protest will continue unless the US stops drone strikes.
Protest rallies outside the US embassy and UN mission in Islamabad have also been planned in the coming days, said Shah Farman, spokesman for the provincial government. The authorities closed the main border point of Torkham with Afghanistan ahead of the protest over security concerns, officials said. It is one of the two main border points used for NATO supplies. Officials say nearly 70 percent of supplies for thousands of foreign troops are transported through Pakistan. The police in Peshawar Saturday blocked “Ring Road”, the route NATO containers use to head to Afghanistan. Officials said hundreds of police personnel were deployed in the city to tighten security in Peshawar and surrounding areas. Experts from the Bomb Disposal Squad also visited the venue of the sit-in and searched the area. PTI chief Imran Khan would speak at the rally and announce the future protests strategy, organisers said. The protest was planned after the Nov 1 drone strike in North Waziristan which killed the Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud just a day ahead of a meeting between a government-led team and the Taliban. Pakistan accused the US of sabotaging the peace process with the Taliban. The US expanded its drone campaign and rained missiles on a religious school in a non-tribal district of Hangu Nov 21 and killed six students and teachers. IANS
New story with photos and maps, and PBI comment, below the line.
Funding The Syrian Insurgency was written almost five months ago and it references a 2006 paper by economist Paul Coller, Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy. Summarizing to a single sentence, insurgencies market themselves to claim moral high ground, but they always have an illicit network exploiting local opportunity, and they often devolve into regional mafias (think: Colombia’s FARC) once their political objectives are met.
National Defense University’s Convergence is a collected series of papers on the nature of illicit networks that support insurgencies. Afghanistan has a variety of such entities, from the Haqqani Network, which may or may not be cozy with Pakistan’s ISI, to Iranians on the opposite side of the country, more focused on revenue than any political objective.