Key Players – Page 105 – Public Intelligence Blog

Russian Advanced Weapons for Syria: Unrevealed Secrets of Vladimir Putin’s Recent Visit to London

[Editors Note: We had reported earlier that when the Israelis used an American made mini-nuke bunker buster in the Damascus attack that they had crossed Russia ‘quiet red line' of using a tactical nuke against an non attacking opponent.

This not only forced them to move Syrian air space defenses to block additional Israeli attacks, but also get fully deployed when the calls from the Israeli Lobby shills like John ‘McQaeda' McCain and Lindsy Graham for a no fly zone which none of our military thinks is a smart idea, the wrong fight, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

With the Russian navy back in the Mediterranean and the Israelis threatening to attack their air defense weapons in transit, this gave the Russians no choice but to deploy all of their top line weapons systems to protect their defensive deployment. Unsaid has been that any pre-emptive attack on the Russians would be dealt with in a full response so that the attacking party could then explain to it's citizen once again why Syria was worth the devastation.

NATO is a hollow shell that could not fight its way out of a paper bag. America is expected to do most everything and of course pay for it. And if someone on our side makes an aggressive move I expect to see a quick response. We would do the same. But no one is threatening us.

We and our proxies are the threatening parties here, taking us to war inch by inch thinking they will be able to pull some incident out of the hat to make it all look like we were attacked and then responded. No one will believe that…because it will not be true. And if the Saudis and Gulf States think they are going to move armor into Syria and not pay a price for it I suspect they will be getting an education the hard way…Jim W. Dean]

… by Gordon Duff, VT Senior Editor

The following report comes to us from intelligence sources that have been able to confirm some of the “legend” behind the story. If this is true, and we have confirmed that the S 300 missile defense system has been, for some weeks now, in the hands of the Syrian military despite denials by the “pop culture press,” Putin has made an interesting and very necessary move.

Continue reading “Gordon Duff: Update on Advanced Weapons Into Syria”

2013/06/192013/06/19

Chuck Spinney: Imperial Idiocy Wrecks Middle East (Fruits of Treason) — End of Sykes-Picot Betrayal, Five Inter-Mixed Conflicts, Return of the Tribes

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

Patrick Cockburn has written a very important essay on Syria in the London Review of Books (attached below). The essay is aptly titled but has only a few oblique, albeit important, references to Sykes – Picot Agreement, a document some readers may not familiar with. Let's begin with a little background.

The Sykes-Picot agreement (it was a secret agreement concocted by two bureaucrats) is one of the most cynical documents in the creation of the modern Middle East.

The Encylopaedia Britannica describes it accurately as follows:

It was a … “secret convention made during World War I (1916) between Great Britain and France, with the assent of imperial Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into various French- and British-administered areas. The agreement took its name from its negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: Imperial Idiocy Wrecks Middle East (Fruits of Treason) — End of Sykes-Picot Betrayal, Five Inter-Mixed Conflicts, Return of the Tribes”

2013/06/192013/06/19

Neal Rauhauser: Syrian Refugees in All Directions, Destabilizing Region

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards

Post-Assad Syria: Turkey’s Perspective

I just finished reading the Bipartisan Policy Center‘s paper U.S. – Turkish Cooperation Towards A Post Assad Syria. I knew I had been missing nuance but I did not realize how much complexity there was in the relationship between the two countries.

First, Syria has been spilling refugees all over the region. Jordan is poor, Iraq is fragile and even their smaller contingent is causing trouble. Lebanon experiences a fragile balance of ethnic and sectarian tensions. The 420,000 new residents upset that balance and threaten to tip the country into chaos like it had in the 1980s.

Second, the Kurds were mostly at peace with Turkey until Syria fell into disorder. The Syrian government withdrew from Kurdish turf to reduce their interest in the fighting, then it is possible both Syria and Iran had a hand in setting the Kurdish PKK‘s insurgency back in motion against Turkey. Neither Iran nor Syria wants any trouble with the Kurds in their territory, both want to preserve the Shia arc from Iran to Syria, Sunni majority Turkey has been trending more Islamist in its thinking, and has chosen to back the Sunni majority rebellion in Syria.

The Turkish choice to focus on the Sunni aspect of the rebellion rather than an inclusive government that would respect the Alawite, Druze, and Christian minorities is a sticking point for the U.S. If things go badly Syria may become a bigger, badder, bloodier version of what Lebanon was like thirty years ago.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: Syrian Refugees in All Directions, Destabilizing Region”

2013/06/182013/06/18

NIGHTWATCH: Brazil Unravels — Is this an Opportunity for NATO?

01 Brazil, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

Brazil: The largest anti-government demonstrations in 20 years, according to news analysts, have continued for five days in Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and eight other cities. News reports said 65,000 people demonstrated in Sao Paulo and over 100,000 marched in Rio. Social networking enabled coordinated marches in Sao Paulo, Rio and Belo Horizonte. Most of the demonstrations have been peaceful.

President Dilma Rousseff said in a brief statement, “Peaceful demonstrations are legitimate and part of democracy. It is natural for young people to demonstrate.”

No deaths have been reported. About 200 people have been injured around the country.

Comment: An increase in the cost of public transportation in Sao Paulo sparked the first demonstrations, which flash mob tactics swelled. As the demonstrations spread, demonstrators said they were protesting government corruption, poor economic conditions, criminal violence and lack of public safety, official spending for the Olympics in 2016 and the World Cup in 2014 and rising prices.

The government response has been much more restrained than that of the Turkish government and the violence has been much less. Nevertheless, the phenomenology looks very similar.

The police said they would not intervene to stop the demonstrations provided they did not result in property destructions. A small group of protestors in Rio set a car on fire. The car fire prompted the clash with police, which dominated international media coverage and misrepresented the peaceful nature of the demonstrations.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Brazil Unravels — Is this an Opportunity for NATO?”

2013/06/17

NIGHTWATCH: Syria Escalates — WWIII Kick-Off?

08 Wild Cards, IO Deeds of War

Syria: Reports from Aleppo indicate fighting continues and the opposition has lost ground in outlying areas. The reports also indicate the main government offensive push has not yet begun.

North Korea-Syria: According to South Korean press, on 14 June, a “well-informed diplomatic source” said that “North Korea has dispatched chemical weapon technicians to Syria since the mid 1990s and transferred chemical agent synthesis methods and technology to manufacture warheads for chemical weapon delivery.”

Comment: Last week an unidentified source in a Saudi news outlet said that North Korean chemical warfare officers are assisting the government. There is no confirmation that North Korean advisors are assisting Syrian forces in the current fighting, but North Korea has sold arms, missiles, chemical weapons and nuclear technology to Syria since at least the mid-1980s.

In light of the US decision to arm rebels because it says Syria used chemical weapons, Syria would seem to have little reason to not use chemical weapons more freely, as tactical situations require. The North Koreans could help with that. Plus, North Korea has sent pilots and air defense units in past Middle East conflicts, invariably aiding the side that was fighting against the US and its proxies.

Iran-Syria: The British newspaper The Independent reported on Sunday that its sources said that Iran made a military decision to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support Syrian government forces. The unidentified sources stated the decision was made before the outcome of the presidential election.

Comment: The Independent's report has not been corroborated, but it has gone viral on the Web. If confirmed, it would represent an Iranian escalation move in retaliation for the US decision to arm the Sunni rebels.

Egypt: For the record. President Mursi announced on the 15th, “We decided today to entirely break off relations with Syria and with the current Syrian regime.” He also said he had decided to close down the Syrian Embassy in Cairo. He also called for an end to Hezbollah's presence in Syria.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Syria Escalates — WWIII Kick-Off?”

2013/06/162013/06/16

Neal Rauhauser: Israel Has No Claim on Litani Waters [But Stealing Water — Lots Of It — from Aquifers]

08 Wild Cards, 12 Water, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War

Israel: No Claim On Litani Waters

Quality information on the Rivers Of The Fertile Cresent tends to be dense and technical, but there are occasional bits of political dynamite, such as this quote. The Fig. 1 mentioned is the above map of the Jordan & Litani river basins.

On the other hand, it is worthy to note that while analyzing the Lebanese part of the Jordan River Basin, no connection between the Litani River Basin and the Jordan River Basin was found in terms of surface flow, even though both basins lie close to each other (Fig. 1). The Litani basin was found to lie entirely in Lebanon. This result removes any ambiguity pertaining to the inclusion of the waters of the Litani River in any future water allocation scheme for the Jordan River Basin. As it was mentioned in the Johnston Plan and the Israeli “Cotton Plan”, some Israeli negotiators wished to include the Litani River in the Jordan River Basin plan (Amery 1998). Today, the inclusion of the Litani River is still present in the opinion of some politicians but these arguments are not credible since hydrological connections between the Litani and Jordan River Basin have not been proven (Medzini and Wolf 2004; Zeitoun et al. 2012).

Water has been a pressing concern for the region, driving the dispute between Arabs and Jews since Israel’s inception. This quote from a 1982 Christian Science monitor article reveals the entanglement of aquifers and state boundaries.

Two aquifers provide almost all of the groundwater for Northern and Central Israel, both arising in the West Bank. The shallower sandstone aquifer is recharged partly from runoff and percolation of rainwater falling on the former Jordanian lands. The deeper and more copious limestone aquifer is recharged largely or, possibly, entirely by rainwater from the West Bank.

The Litani River of Lebanon from 1993 is the best overview I have found regarding this situation and it notes interest in transferring a portion of the flow of the Litani to the south has existed for over a century. The web page looks to be the sort of thing that might vanish, so I preserved a copy of the content in Scribd.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: Israel Has No Claim on Litani Waters [But Stealing Water — Lots Of It — from Aquifers]”

2013/06/162013/06/16

Berto Jongman: Explicit Photos of US Uniform Rapes of Iraqi Girls — and US Cover-Up Re-Surfacing in Asia and Europe

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, Idiocy, Military, Officers Call

Rape of Iraqi Women by US Forces as Weapon of War: Photos and Data Emerge

Phi Beta Iota: The rest of the world is sick of US misbehavior, upset at the continued posture of the US Government in covering up rather than remediating such persistent abuses, and saddened by the idiocy and passivity of the US public in the face of such atrocities. The national shame is enduring — and an obstacle to any possible progress on any front as long as the current Administration remains in lock-step with the mis-steps of its predecessor's crimes against humanity.

Three Explicit Photos and Full Article Below the Line

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Explicit Photos of US Uniform Rapes of Iraqi Girls — and US Cover-Up Re-Surfacing in Asia and Europe”