Showing posts with label Al Qaeda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Qaeda. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Syria’s Srebrenica Blamed on Iranian Special Forces

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Iran's Quds Force
The massacre in Srebrenica was the last best piece of propaganda of the 20th century.  Syria’s Houla massacre, if swallowed whole, will produce the same deceit.

In 1995, after the Dayton Peace Accords were signed in Ohio, purportedly 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were massacred during a summer in Srebrenica.  It was referred to as the worst mass murder since World War II and the blame was quickly laid at the feet of the usual suspects – Serbian forces.  The result was NATO’s aerial bombardment and the invasion of 60,000 troops under United Nations command.

The Bosnian invasion was predicated on the idea that Srebrenica was a result of “ethnic cleansing” the endgame of course to stymie if not eradicate the Bosniak bloodline.  The only problem was women and children were evidently put on buses and allowed to flee.  When the graves were exhumed and the bodies examined mostly men of fighting age were found.  It took over a decade for the Hague to exonerate Serbia in the action and place it squarely on a Croat, but by 2007 the damage was irreparable in more ways than one.  So goes the fog of war and propaganda.

Syria over the Memorial Day weekend suffered a microcosm of that massacre when 108 civilians (32 children under 10-years-old) in Hula, outside Homs, were summarily dispatched without mercy.  Initial reports suspected the Syrian army, if not, the Alawite Shabiha militia, loyal to the Assad regime.  A Syrian investigation, however, found the culprits to be an 800-man death squad.


Thus far the trial of the Houla Massacre has taken place in the court of public opinion, which has been severely biased in favor of the opposition since the beginning of the Arab Spring, imbued with democratic legitimacy.   In reality the Free Syrian Army (FSA) based from behind NATO lines in Turkey and under the direction of the Syrian National Council (SNC) is supplemented by a dubious international coalition of Islamic fundamentalists from all over the Middle East.

Rather than merely appealing for democratic reforms this sordid sum has created an environment of rampant sectarian violence not scene since Iraq in 2007.  Unfortunately like in Afghanistan and Iraq the grand irony is that the West’s “crusade” as it is often referred to has actually displaced hundreds of thousands of Christians.  According to French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos:
“…the picture for us is utter desolation: the church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of Peace is still occupied by the rebels. Christian homes are severely damaged due to the fighting and completely emptied of their inhabitants, who fled without taking anything. The area of Hamidieh is still shelter to armed groups independent of each other, heavily armed and bankrolled by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. All Christians (138,000) have fled to Damascus and Lebanon, while others took refuge in the surrounding countryside.”
Continuing…
“the enemies of Syria have enlisted some of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to destroy the brotherly relations that traditionally existed between Muslims and Christians: Yet, to date,they are not able to: they have provoked a contrary reaction and the two communities are more united than before. The Syrian soldiers in fact, continue to face foreign fighters, mercenaries Libyans, Lebanese militants from the Gulf, Afghans, Turks”
This heartfelt testimony reflects what we have known for the better part of a year, that the “protestors” and “activists” in Syria are very much part of a larger proxy war which pulls support from a vast cross section of the NATO-Sunni alliance.  Funding of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood has been in the pipeline since at least 2007 when it was reported in the New Yorker that Israel and the US were funneling support through Saudi Arabia so as not to compromise the “credibility” of the ostensibly “Islamic” movement.  A similar tactic was utilized through Pakistan in creation of Al’ Qaeda in 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (we all know how that worked out).  As members of the Muslim Brotherhood are now honored guests at the White House, one must wonder if “credibility” is any longer an issue.

To continue with the Srebrenica analogy, while there has been no peace accord as there was in Bosnia former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has been attempting to monitor a ceasefire (part of his six point plan) as he did in Rwanda and Bosnia, which has by all accounts demonstrably failed as it did twice before.  To be sure, as the Washington Post’s distorted, but still revealing op-ed detailed, wherever Kofi goes killings follow.

The common narrative parroted throughout the MSM (here and here) is that these UN monitors are naively providing “cover” for the Assad regime’s reprisals and add credibility to the Syrian government under the idea that diplomatic solutions are being ardently pursued.  Given what we know about the composition of the insurgency, however, it is much more likely the opposite is true.  UN monitors legitimize the conflict itself as a wholly indigenous uprising that requires diplomacy and time rather than expose it for what it is – a foreign invasion aimed at dismantling a key ally of Iran and Russia.

Srebrenica “claimed 8,000 lives”, however, it later turned out those numbers were grossly exaggerated (more like 700) and the motive – ethnic cleansing – proved tenuous at best.  In reality it was another horror of war propagandized as the international version of a hate crime – a crime against humanity – ostensibly far worse and deserving of invasion.  In Houla, while the scene has changed the goal is very much the same: demonize a vulnerable target government, intervene with force and with overwhelming humanitarian legitimacy post-haste.

The massacre, however, retains all the hallmarks of a shake and bake propaganda piece: the group was nearly 1/3 children, the fatalities purportedly as a result of “tank shells” and while many victims were in fact “mutilated and killed by knives.”  Indeed, the footage was “released by the rebels” for Western consumption, that much is undeniable.   Thing is, the Syrian army doesn’t enjoy a monopoly on that type of ordinance since the FSA has been reported to have captured Syrian army tanks as well as receiving even more tanks from defectors.

What was true in Srebrenica (see the Srebrenica fact sheet) is most likely true in Houla, both parties are were responsible for the death and destruction rather than one fail swoop of merciless destruction at the hands of an all-powerful Assad hell bent on crushing the moral of his people and their wishes for democracy.

Tempered with the aforementioned facts, the understandable and demonstrable desire of the media to sensationalize the events, geopolitical interests and the thin evidence (lies of satellite photos showing pro Assad forces “at the time of the attack” were in fact a day old, testimony of defected “air force officer” with “super human” hearing and sight, and testimony from a child in shock and impressionable) an objective analysis may come forth.  Until that time beware the sirens call.



What is Qud’s Force Doing in Syria, Re-balancing or Massacring?

It has been reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Ismail Qa’ani, second-in-command of Iranian Special Forces – Quds Force – has been training Assad’s soldiers since before the Syrian uprising.  This from the International Business Times:
“The Quds, named for the Farsi word for Jerusalem, are Iran’s special forces unit — in American equivalents, a mix between black-ops and the CIA. As the Revolutionary Guard’s external force, the Quds support and facilitate Islamic movements in other nations on Teheran’s behalf, movements that allegedly include terrorist organizations.”
OMG, so like terrorist organizations like NATO backed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) or Nevada trained MEK both listed on the US State Department’s “Don’t Feed the Terrorists” list, those types of terrorists?  Looks like two can play at this game.
The state department attempted to connect the dots for us in the wake of the Houla massacre neglecting to brief us on the opposition’s questionable allegiances and design.  Its spokesperson, according to IBT:
"Victoria Nuland said that the Shabiha militia, accused of carrying out the Houla massacre, has been modeled after Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, suggesting that the Iranian military could have trained the Syrian civilian soldiers."
This could be true, but it doesn’t explain the inconsistencies and gaps in the favored fiction of Houla, rather it supplies a red hearing.

In reality the official narrative is fraying.  The IEDs, reports of wahabbists, displaced Christians and clandestine support are piling upon a delicate ruse.  The idea that the opposition’s “demonstrators” and “activists” are a homogenous, indigenous and innocuous bunch of freedom loving non-state actors has been so undermined that Sec. of State Hillary Clinton revealed the true mastermind behind the Houla massacre claiming in Copenhagen that Quds “are coaching the Syrian military … helping them set up these sectarian militias.” She effectively, in one line, used up her lifetime supply of irony.

It is evident, according to defectors, the Quds Force was needed because Syria’s Army wasn’t up to task in crucial engagements with the foreign backed FSA and its fundamentalist friends.  Hm, odd.  In the end, the Syrian government (backed by Iran, Russia and China) faces a foreign backed insurgency (under the aegis of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Turkey, NATO). We are in effect seeing World War III in a fishbowl, perhaps a peak into the future and its only going to get uglier from here.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Al-Qaeda Junta Installed in Libya?

Pepe Escobar 
RT


EDITORS NOTE:  Back in March we mirrored an article posted by Webster Griffen Tarpley on this very issue, that according to the US Army in 2007 Libyan nationals from the east of Tripoli, from cities like Darna and Bengazi, where actually found to be Al-Qaeda operatives and trainees.  This recent report from Libya corroborates Mr. Tarpley's and the US Army's accounts.  The Obama administration and NATO have much explaining to do...

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Debt Wars: Why Defense Cuts Are Essential

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com














Massive defense cuts are necessary to any honest GOP plan to reduce the debt.  The American people clearly bought "fiscal responsibility" from the Tea Party and its candidates, we are waiting for delivery.

"War is just one more big government program."

We have never spent more money on American defense than we do now.  Estimates range anywhere from a conservative $739 billion (calculating Department of Defense spending only) to 1.415 trillion dollars, which calculates much of the country's defense mechanism (FBI counterterrorism, Homeland Security, etc.) including interest on their debt - the cost of freedom.


Source: Winslow T. Wheeler, Director Straus Military Reform Project, Center for Defense Information
What are we defending against?  Is it worth the changes in our culture since 9/11?  Our current World Wide War on Terror is aimed ostensibly against yet another ideology, but instead of Communism we are faced with Islamic fundamentalism.  As evidenced by the Cold War, ideas "good" or "bad" are notoriously difficult to combat with big defense budgets and military stratagem.  In fact, it was one American president, his unparalleled naiveté, gullibility, and his "great blunder", which lead to not only Hitler, the rise of the Soviet Union, and WWII, but also to the fractionalized and tumultuous Middle East we know today. 


President Woodrow Wilson (D) is famous
for his campaign to make the "world safe for democracy."
His theories proved otherwise and lead to the death of millions.
Read "Wilson's War" for the break down.

While it is crucial to have a war of ideas delineating the differences between fact and opinion; concepts, beliefs, and ideologies will ultimately prevail or fail on their own.  While there is little doubt there are combatants willing to sacrifice their lives in order to advance their radical ideas, Islam's jihadists, for the foreseeable future, will be incapable of rhetorical, let alone, physical invasion.  To repel invasion and to ensure self determination or what we call sovereignty is the ultimate motive of our armed forces; today their motive is evidently much different.  Moreover, even if the penultimate threat of a nuclear armed Al' Qaeda materialized, the fear of this potential event isn't sufficient to justify the invasions of pre-nuclear states Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen.

Lets expand a bit, maybe we are being a little myopic when it comes to the War on Terror as there are of course other threats over the horizon.  Humanitarian crises, like the Libyan Civil War or Clinton's interdiction in Kosovo, justify our intervention on this basis of enforcing a UN mandate or international law, not necessarily the judgement of Congress.  It is argued that if we leave them unresolved and if tyranny is left unchecked it will embolden dictators and despots all over the world to oppress their people.  How this effects the United States' national security is anyones guess, but humanitarianism isn't the only call to arms, there is the cosmos to worry about too!


The Pentagon has been prepping for war in space as early as 2004 and ever since space has been a contentious subject between the US, Russia, and especially China.  Considering our mutual ability to shoot down satellites and with potentially massive stores of energy on the moon future resource wars in the mass expanse above our blue planet would be catastrophic.  


If that weren't enough to worry about, state-sponsored and multinational brigades of hackers have raised much alarm causing the Pentagon to declare the internet "operational domain."  With all of these dire possibilities cropping up virtually everywhere (pardon the pun) it seems as though the Pentagon believes the sky is almost certain to fall without constant intervention.  


There is, however, an alternative way of understanding this paranoid view of the world, our unbelievable spending associated with it, and our legitimate national security challenges.  By recognizing the phenomena of mission creep (after reading the definition, think WWII) and considering the warning given to us by our 34th president, Republican General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it becomes clear how much we as a nation have departed from our founding principles. 



President Eisenhower's military industrial complex (MIC) has on one hand become the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophet:

“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.” 

             -  Robert K. Merton, from Social Theory and Social Structure 

And on the other hand (as evidenced in the interest paid on the debt incurred by defense organs) the MIC which includes multinational banks and the Federal Reserve, benefit from the Pentagon's "reign of error":

“…a lot of people are getting rich, building careers, and accreting power out of hyping the money flow. While soldiers at the pointy end of the spear and taxpayers are getting hosed, generals are going through the revolving door to big jobs in industry; congressional staffers on defense committees move into high ranking political jobs in the Pentagon, which then gives them a spring board to big jobs with the defense contractors; industry titans move between jobs in industry, the Pentagon, and back to industry; and contractor PAC money flows to congressmen.  The result is a self-sustaining harmonious circular flow of money through the political economy of the MICC -- what we in the Pentagon call a self-licking ice cream cone.”

            - Excerpt from Madison's Nightmare by Chuck Spinney at The Atlantic 

While it has recently been reported that "liberals see chance for big cuts in defense" I find it easy not to hold my breath.  While it is fun to poke holes in neo-conservative dogma, especially when faced with the obvious incongruent belief that while small government is crucial to freedom so is a large military (constituting 19% of federal spending), it is sobering to realize that Big Peace is a bipartisan sham.  

It is a sordid fact that liberals are often times if not more culpable than "conservatives" when it comes to groveling before the military money pit.  My cynicism is corroborated by three recent phenomena: 1) the total disappearance of the anti-war left after the election of Barack Obama 2) that one of the most liberal senators turned rabidly liberal president actually asks for more money from Congress, amidst a deep recession and perilous debt, for special forces to infiltrate over 70 countries around the world and 3) that apologists of Barack Obama, namely Center for American Progress' Lawrence Korb, lie openly to their base that the president "has dumped George W. Bush's overall strategy for preemptive attacks against terrorist states."  Mr. Kob, those aren't love letters Obama is dropping preemptively on Libya.