Penguin: Is World Waking Up to Saudi-Israeli Threat?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

Conclusion up front.  When will the Arabs AND the Americans wake up?

And the Israeli-Saudi axis will keep blossoming. Few in the Middle East know that an Israeli company – with experience in repressing Palestinians – is in charge of the security in Mecca. (See here and here (in French)). If they knew – with the House of Saud's hypocrisy once more revealed – the Arab street in many a latitude would riot en masse.

One thing is certain; Bandar Bush, as well as the Saudi-Israeli axis, will pull no punches to derail any rapprochement between Washington and Tehran. As for the Bigger Picture, the real “international community” may always dream that one day Washington elites will finally see the light and figure out that the US-Saudi strategic alliance sealed in 1945 between Franklin D Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud makes absolutely no sense.

THE ROVING EYE
Fear and loathing in House of Saud
By Pepe Escobar

Every sentient being with a functional brain perceives the possibility of ending the 34-year Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran as a win-win situation.

Here are some of the benefits:

The price of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf would go down;

Washington and Tehran could enter a partnership to fight Salafi-jihadis (they already did, by the way, immediately after 9/11) as well as coordinate their policies in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban in check post-2014;

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Karl W. Eikenberry: The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan — The Other Side of COIN

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 11 Society, Government, Ineptitude, Military, Officers Call
Karl W. Eikenberry
Karl W. Eikenberry

 The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan

The Other Side of the COIN

Foreign Affairs, September-October 2013

(General and Ambassador) Karl W. Eikenberry

Since 9/11, two consecutive U.S. administrations have labored mightily to help Afghanistan create a state inhospitable to terrorist organizations with transnational aspirations and capabilities. The goal has been clear enough, but its attainment has proved vexing. Officials have struggled to define the necessary attributes of a stable post-Taliban Afghan state and to agree on the best means for achieving them. This is not surprising. The U.S. intervention required improvisation in a distant, mountainous land with de jure, but not de facto, sovereignty; a traumatized and divided population; and staggering political, economic, and social problems. Achieving even minimal strategic objectives in such a context was never going to be quick, easy, or cheap.

Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)
Eikenberry, Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, March 2010. (Pete Souza / White House)

Of the various strategies that the United States has employed in Afghanistan over the past dozen years, the 2009 troop surge was by far the most ambitious and expensive. Counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine was at the heart of the Afghan surge. Rediscovered by the U.S. military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterinsurgency was updated and codified in 2006 in Field Manual 3-24, jointly published by the U.S. Army and the Marines. The revised doctrine placed high confidence in the infallibility of military leadership at all levels of engagement (from privates to generals) with the indigenous population throughout the conflict zone. Military doctrine provides guidelines that inform how armed forces contribute to campaigns, operations, and battles. Contingent on context, military doctrine is meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive.

Broadly stated, modern COIN doctrine stresses the need to protect civilian populations, eliminate insurgent leaders and infrastructure, and help establish a legitimate and accountable host-nation government able to deliver essential human services. Field Manual 3-24 also makes clear the extensive length and expense of COIN campaigns: “Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.”

The apparent validation of this doctrine during the 2007 troop surge in Iraq increased its standing. When the Obama administration conducted a comprehensive Afghanistan strategy review in 2009, some military leaders, reinforced by some civilian analysts in influential think tanks, confidently pointed to Field Manual 3-24 as the authoritative playbook for success. When the president ordered the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan at the end of that year, the military was successful in ensuring that the major tenets of COIN doctrine were also incorporated into the revised operational plan. The stated aim was to secure the Afghan people by employing the method of “clear, hold, and build” — in other words, push the insurgents out, keep them out, and use the resulting space and time to establish a legitimate government, build capable security forces, and improve the Afghan economy. With persistent outside efforts, advocates of the COIN doctrine asserted, the capacity of the Afghan government would steadily grow, the levels of U.S. and international assistance would decline, and the insurgency would eventually be defeated.

Blindly following COIN doctrine led the U.S. military to fixate on defeating the insurgency while giving short shrift to Afghan politics.

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Chuck Spinney: American Exceptionalism as Cover Theme for Elite Looting…

01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney

American Exceptionalism is exceptionally lucrative for some morally unexceptional people and organizations.

If you doubt this, read the attached report, which can be thought of as a contemporary commentary on America's political-economic culture.

To bad for them Putin intervened to place a (temporary?) roadblock across their march to war.

(The report and a summary can be found at this link.)

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Penguin: Saudi Arabia Definitively Behind Syrian Gas Attacks – Cancel Speech to UN General Assembly

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

Connecting the dots….

Saudi black op team behind Damascus chem weapons attack – diplomatic sources

The August chemical weapons attack in the Syrian capital’s suburbs was done by a Saudi Arabian black operations team, Russian diplomatic sources have told a Russian news agency.

 

“Based on data from a number of sources a picture can be pieced together. The criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was done by a black op team that the Saudi’s sent through Jordan and which acted with support of the Liwa Al-Islam group,” a source in the diplomatic circles told Interfax.

The attack and its consequences had a huge impact on the Syrian situation, another source said.

“Syrians of various political views, including some opposition fighters, are seeking to inform diplomats and members of international organizations working in Syria what they know about the crime and the forces which inspired it,” he told the agency.

Liwa Al-Islam is an Islamist armed group operating near Damascus headed by the son of a Saudi-based Salafi cleric. The group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a secret governmental meeting in Damascus in July 2012 that killed a number of top Syrian officials, including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, his deputy Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani.

The allegations mirror a number of earlier reports, which pointed to Saudi Arabia as the mastermind behind the sarin gas attack, which almost led to US military action against Syrian government. Proponents of this scenario say intelligence services in Riyadh needed a false flag operation to provoke an American attack in Syria, which would tip the balance in favor of the armed opposition supported by Saudi Arabia.

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Penguin: VA Pushing Pills and Getting Vets Hooked on Opiates

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military, Officers Call
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

VA Pushing Pills and Getting Vets Hooked on Opiates

The VA is prescribing 270 percent more opiates to veterans than it was 12 years ago, sometimes pushing the drugs to known addicts who later overdose, writes Aaron Glantz.

This story aired on Reveal, a new public radio show from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX.

Before dawn, a government van picked up paratrooper Jeffrey Waggoner for the five-hour drive to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in southern Oregon. His orders: detox from a brutal addiction to painkillers.

He had only the clothes on his back, his watch, an MP3 player, and a two-page pain contract the army made him sign, a promise to get clean.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

But instead of keeping Waggoner away from his vice, medical records show the VA hospital in Roseburg kept him so doped up that he could barely stay awake. Then, inexplicably, the VA released him for the weekend with a cocktail of 19 prescription medications, including 12 tablets of highly addictive oxycodone.

Three hours later, Waggoner, 32, was dead of a drug overdose, slumped in a heap in front of his room at the Sleep Inn motel.

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Kevin Barrett: Saudis Threaten Russian Olympics, Israeli False Flag in Syria, US Spins Round and Round

03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Terrorism, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War
Kevin Barrett
Kevin Barrett

Phi Beta Iota: We have no direct knowledge. The growth of credible voices denouncing the “official” story on Syria as a web of lies is noteworthy.  As best we can tell, the 900 lb gorilla is now captive to financial and religious forces few comprehend, while the BRICS are emergent as the alternative world order, with a third amorphous autonomous Internet and non-state network of networks in gestation.  Earth will survive humanity — whether humanity will survive its own arrogance and ignorance remains an open question.

US/Al-Qaeda threatened Olympics through Saudi proxy

Voice of Russia (listen to the interview)

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, stepped forward regarding the Syrian chemical weapons attack and said: “This was an Israeli false flag.”

He cited his intelligence sources as saying that it was actually the Israelis that killed all those people with gas.

He was just one of many people going “way off script” in the US regarding the heinous attack.

Dr. Kevin Barrett in an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia was very candid when he said it was stunning that someone like Saudi Prince Bandar would come to Putin and threaten to bomb the Winter Olympics and claim that he was acting with the full support of the US Government.

According to Dr. Barrett the US government, threatening to bomb the Olympic Games with Al-Qaeda, through its Saudi proxy, turns the whole “War on Terror Paradigm” on its head.

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