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Category Archives: Turkey
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China, Cryptocurrency, Ecological Civilization, EU, Germany, India, Libra, NATO, President Xi Jinping, Russia, Sanctions, Turkey, United States, US Dollar, Yuan
July 19, 2019 Peter Koenig
What if tomorrow nobody but the United States would use the US-dollar? Every country, or society would use their own currency for internal and international trade, their own economy-based, non-fiat currency. It could be traditional currencies or new government controlled crypto-currencies, but a country's own sovereign money. No longer the US-dollar. No longer the dollar's foster child, the Euro. No longer international monetary transactions controlled by US banks and – by the US-dollar controlled international transfer system, SWIFT, the system that allows and facilitates US financial and economic sanctions of all kinds – confiscation of foreign funds, stopping trades between countries, blackmailing 'unwilling' nations into submission. What would happen? Well, the short answer is that we would certainly be a step closer to world peace, away from US (financial) hegemony, towards nation states' sovereignty, towards a world geopolitical structure of more equality.
We are not there yet. But graffities are all over the walls signaling that we are moving quite rapidly in that direction. And Trump knows it and his handlers know it which is why the onslaught of financial crime – sanctions, trade wars, foreign assets and reserves confiscations, or outright theft – all in the name of "Make America Great Again", is accelerating exponentially and with impunity. What is surprising is that the Anglo-Saxon hegemons do not seem to understand that all the threats, sanctions, trade barriers, are provoking the contrary to what should contribute to American Greatness. Economic sanctions, in whatever form, are effective only as long as the world uses the US dollar for trading and as reserve currency.
Once the world gets sick and tired of the grotesque dictates of Washington and the sanction schemes for those who do no longer want to go along with the oppressive rules of the US, they will be eager to jump on another boat, or boats, abandoning the dollar and valuing their own currencies. Meaning trading with each other in their own currencies and that outside of the US banking system which so far even controls trading in local currencies, as long as funds have to be transferred from one nation to another via SWIFT.
Many countries have also realized that the dollar is increasingly serving to manipulate the value of their economy. The US-dollar, a fiat currency, by its sheer money mass, may bend national economies up or down, depending in which direction the country is favored by the hegemon. Let's put the absurdity of this phenomenon in perspective.
Today, the dollar is based not even on hot air and is worth less than the paper it is printed on. The US GDP is US$ 21.1 trillion in 2019 (World Bank estimate), with current debt of 22.0 trillion, or about 105% of GDP. The world GDP is projected for 2019 at US$ 88.1 trillion (World Bank). According to Forbes, about US$ 210 trillion are "unfunded liabilities" (net present value of future projected but unfunded obligations (75 years), mainly social security, Medicaid and accumulated interest on debt), a figure about 10 times the US GDP, or two and a half times the world's economic output.
This figure keeps growing, as interest on debt is compounded, forming part of what would be called in business terms 'debt service' (interest and debt amortization), but is never 'paid back'. In addition, there are about one to two quadrillion dollars (nobody knows the exact amount) of so-called derivatives floating around the globe. A derivative is a financial instrument which creates its value from the speculative difference of underlying assets, most commonly derived from such inter-banking and stock exchange oddities, like 'futures', 'options', 'forwards' and 'swaps'.
This monstrous debt is partly owned in the form of treasury bonds as foreign exchange reserves by countries around the world. The bulk of it is owed by the US to itself – with no plans to ever "pay it back" – but rather create more money, more debt, with which to pay for the non-stop wars, weapon manufacturing and lie-propaganda to keep the populace quiet and in lockstep.
This amounts to a humongous worldwide dollar-based pyramid system. Imagine, this debt comes crashing down, for example, because one or several big (Wall Street) banks are on the brink of bankruptcy, so, they claim their outstanding derivatives, paper gold (another banking absurdity) and other debt from smaller banks. It would generate a chain reaction that might bring down the whole dollar-dependent world economy. It would create an exponential "Lehman Brothers 2008" on global scale.
The world is increasingly aware of this real threat, an economy built on a house of cards, and countries want to get out of the trap, out of the fangs of the US-dollar. It's not easy with all the dollar-denominated reserves and assets invested abroad, all over the globe. A solution may be gradually divesting them (US-dollar liquidity and investments) and moving into non-dollar dependent currencies, like the Chinese Yuan and the Russian Ruble, or a basket of eastern currencies that are delinked from the dollar and its international payment scheme, the SWIFT system. Beware of the Euro, it's the foster child of the US-dollar!
There are increasingly blockchain technology alternatives available. China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela are already experimenting with government-controlled cryptocurrencies to build new payment and transfer systems outside the US-dollar domain to circumvent sanctions. India may or may not join this club – whenever the Modi Government decides which way to bend – east or west. The logic would suggest that India orients herself to the east, as India is a significant part of the huge Eurasian economic market and landmass.
India is already an active member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – an association of countries that are developing peaceful strategies for trade, monetary security and defense, comprising China, Russia, India, Pakistan, most Central Asian countries and with Iran waiting in the wings to become a full-fledged member. As such, SCO accounts for about half of the world population and a third of the world's economic output. The east has no need for the west to survive. No wonder that western media hardly mention the SCO which means that the western average public at large has no clue what the SCO stands for, and who are its members.
Government-controlled and regulated blockchain technology may become key to counter US coercive financial power and to resist sanctions. Any country is welcome to join this new alliance of countries and new but fast-growing approach to alternative trading – and to finding back to national political and financial sovereignty.
In the same vein of dedollarization are Indian "barter banks". They are, for example, trading Indian tea for Iranian oil. Such arrangements for goods to be exchanged against Iranian petrol are carried out through Indian "barter banks", where currencies; i.e., Iranian rials and Indian rupees, are handled by the same bank. Exchange of goods is based on a list of highest monetary volume Indian trade items, against Iranian hydrocarbon products, for example, Iran's large import of Indian tea. No monetary transaction takes place outside of India, therefore, US sanctions may be circumvented, since no US bank or US Treasury interference can stop the bilateral trade activities.
At this point, it might be appropriate to mention Facebook's attempt to introduce a globe-spanning cryptocurrency, the Libra. Little is known on how exactly it will (or may) function, except that it would cater to billions of Facebook members around the world. According to Facebook, there are 2.38 billion active members. Imagine, if only two thirds – about 1.6 billion – opened a Libra account with Facebook, the floodgate of Libras around the world would be open. Libra is or would be a privately-owned cryptocurrency – and coming from Facebook – could be destined to replace the dollar by the same people who are now abusing the world with the US-dollar. It may be projected as the antidote to government-controlled cryptocurrencies, thus, circumventing the impact of dedollarization. Beware of the Libra!
Despite US and EU sanctions, German investments in Russia are breaking a 10-year record in 2019, by German business pouring more than €1.7 billion into the Russian economy in the first three months of 2019. According to the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce, the volume of German companies' investments in Russia is up by 33% – by € 400 million – since last year, when total investments reached € 3.2 billion, the largest since 2008. Despite sanctions which amounted to about € 1 billion combined for 140 German companies surveyed and registered with the Chamber of Commerce, and despite western anti-Russia pressure, Russia-German trade has increased by 8.4 percent and reached nearly € 62 billion in 2018.
In addition, notwithstanding US protests and threats with sanctions, Moscow and Berlin continue their Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project which is expected to be finished before the end of 2019. Not only is the proximity of Russian gas a natural and logical supply source for Germany and Europe, it will also bring Europe independence from the bullying sales methods of the United States. And payments will not be made in US dollars. In the long-run, the benefits of German-Russian business and economic relations will far outweigh the illegal US sanctions. Once this awareness has sunk in, there is nothing to stop Russian-German business associations to flourish, and to attract other EU-Russian business relations – all outside of the dollar-dominated banking and transfer system.
President Trump's trade war with China will eventually also have a dedollarization effect, as China will seek – and already has acquired – other trading partners, mostly Asian, Asian-Pacific and European with whom China will deal in other than dollar-denominated contracts and outside the SWIFT transfer system, for example, using the Chinese International Payment System (CIPS) which, by the way, is open for international trade by any country across the globe.
This will not only circumvent punishing tariffs on China's exports (and make US customers of Chinese goods furious, as their Chinese merchandise is no longer available at affordable prices, or no longer available at all), but this strategy will also enhance the Chinese Yuan on international markets and boost the Yuan even further as a reliable reserve currency, even outranking the US-dollar. In fact, in the last 20 years, dollar-denominated assets in international reserve coffers have declined from more than 90% to below 60% and will rapidly decline further as Washington's coercive financial policies prevail. Dollar reserves are rapidly replaced by reserves in Yuan and gold, and that even in such staunch supporters of the west as is Australia.
Washington also has launched a counter-productive financial war against Turkey, because Turkey is associating and creating friendly relations with Russia, Iran and China, and foremost, because Turkey, a NATO stronghold, is purchasing the Russian S-400 cutting-edge air defense system, a new military alliance which the US cannot accept. As a result, the US is sabotaging the Turkish currency, the Lira which has lost 40% since January 2018.
Turkey will certainly do whatever it can to get out from under the boot of the US-dollar stranglehold and currency sanctions and further ally itself with the East. This amounts to a double loss for the US. Turkey will most likely abandon all trading in US dollars and align her currency with, for example, the Chinese Yuan and the Russian ruble, and, to the detriment of the Atlantic alliance, Turkey may very likely exit NATO. Abandoning NATO will be a major disaster for the US, as Turkey is both strategically, as well as in terms of NATO military power one of the strongest – if not the strongest – nation of the 29 NATO members, outside of the US.
If Turkey exits NATO, the entire European NATO alliance will be shaken and questioned. Other countries, long wary of NATO and of storing NATO's nuclear weapons on their soils, especially Italy and Germany, may also consider exiting NATO. In both Germany and Italy, a majority of the people is against NATO and especially against the Pentagon waging wars from their NATO bases in their territories in Germany in Italy.
To stem against this trend, the former German Defense Minister, Ursula von der Leyen, from the conservative German CDU party, is being groomed to become Jean-Claude Juncker's successor as President of the European Commission. Mr. Juncker served since 2014. Ms. Von der Leyen was voted in tonight, 17 July, with a narrow margin of 9 votes. She is a staunch supporter of NATO. Her role is to keep NATO as an integral part of the EU. In fact, as it stands today, NATO is running the EU. This may change, once people stand up against NATO, against the US vassal, the EU Administration in Brussels, and claim their democratic rights as citizens of their nation states.
Europeans sense that these Pentagon initiated and ongoing wars and conflicts, supported by Washington's European puppet allies, may escalate into a nuclear war, their countries' NATO bases will be the first ones to be targeted, sinking Europe for the 3rd time in 100 years into a world war. However, this one may be all-destructive nuclear, and nobody knows or is able to predict the damage and destruction of such a catastrophe, nor the time of recovery of Mother Earth from an atomic calamity.
So, let's hope Turkey exits NATO. It would be a giant step towards peace and a healthy answer to Washington's blackmail and sabotage against Turkey's currency. The US currency sanctions are, in the long run, a blessing. It gives Turkey a good argument to abandon the US dollar and gradually shift towards association with eastern moneys, mainly the Chinese Yuan, thereby putting another nail in the US-dollar's coffin.
However, the hardest blow for Washington will be when Turkey exits NATO. Such a move will come sooner or later, notwithstanding Ms. Von der Leyen's battle cries for NATO. The breaking up of NATO will annihilate the western power structure in Europe and throughout the world, where the US still maintains more than 800 military bases. On the other hand, the disbanding of NATO will increase the world's security, especially in Europe – for all the consequences such an exit will bear. Exiting NATO and economically exiting the US-dollar orbit is a further step towards dedollarization, and a blow to US financial and military hegemony.
Finally, investments of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, will be mostly made in Yuan and local currencies of the countries involved and incorporated in one or more of the several BRI land and maritime routes that eventually will span the globe. Some US-dollar investments may serve the People's Bank of China, China's Central Bank, as a dollar-divesting tool of China's huge dollar reserves which currently stands at close to two trillion dollars.
The BRI promises to become the next economic revolution, a non-dollar economic development scheme, over the coming decades, maybe century, connecting peoples and countries – cultures, research and teaching without, however, forcing uniformity, but promoting cultural diversity and human equality – and all of it outside the dollar dynasty, breaking the nefarious dollar hegemony.
• First published at New Eastern Outlook (NEO)
al Qaeda, Europe, Idlib Syria, ISIS, President Bashar al-Assad, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Terrorists, Turkey, United States
Idlib: Reportage from the Last Front in Syria
March 9, 2019 Andre Vltchek
For a while, all the guns have fallen silent.
I am near Idlib, the last stronghold of the terrorists in Syria. The area where the deadliest anti-government fighters, most of them injected into Syria from Turkey, with Saudi, Qatari and Western 'help', are literally holed up, ready for the final showdown.
Just yesterday, mortars were falling on villages near the invisible frontline, separating government troops and the terrorist forces of Al Nusra Front. The day before yesterday, two explosions rocked the earth, only a couple of meters from where we are now standing.
They call it a ceasefire. But it's not. It is one-sided. To be more precise: the Syrian army is waiting, patiently. Its cannons are pointing towards the positions of the enemy, but the orders from Damascus are clear: do not fire.
The enemy has no scruples. It provokes, endlessly. It fires and bombs, indiscriminately. It kills. Along the frontline, thousands of houses are already ruined. Nothing gets spared: residential districts, sport gymnasiums, even bakeries. There is an established routine: assaults by the terrorists, rescue operations organized by Syrian armed forces (SAA – Syrian Arab Army) and Syrian National Defense Forces, then immediate rebuilding of the damage.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrian people have lost their lives in this war. Millions had to leave their homeland. Millions have been internally displaced. For many, the conflict became a routine. Rescue operations became routine. Rebuilding tasks became routine, too.
Now, it is clear that the final victory is near. Syria survived the worse. It is still bleeding, but most of its territories are beginning to heal. People are slowly returning home, from Lebanon and Turkey, from Germany and elsewhere. They go through rubble – their former homes. They sit down and cry. Then, they get up and start rebuilding. That's in other parts of the country: Duma, Homs, Aleppo, Deir ez-Zur.
But in the villages and towns north of Hama and towards Idlib, the war is far from being over.
In the town of Squalbiah, Commander Nabel Al-Abdallah of the National Defense Forces (NDF) explained to me:
SAA could easily use force and win militarily; it could take Idlib. But the SAA operates under command of President Assad, who believes in negotiations. If we take the city now, there would be huge casualties.
The situation is not as simple, as we would like it to be. Victory may be near, but the West is not giving up, nor is Turkey. There are still pockets that are held by the US and French troops, and around Idlib (including Manbij), a large area is still controlled by the terrorists, who were transported here from all corners of Syria, under the Russian-sponsored agreement.
And there is more to it: My sources in Syria shared the latest:
Some 4 months ago, the 'new ISIS' appeared in the south of Idlib, not far from where we are right now. They were injected into Syria by the Turks. They were wearing brand new uniforms, white long dresses. Before, they were recognizable by black or gray outfits – 'Afghan-style'. They now call themselves 'Hurras Aldeen', or 'The Guardians of Religion'. Why? In order for the United States, and the West in general, to continue to support them. The ISIS are officially on the list of the terrorist organizations', but this new 'brand' is not.
I ask Commander Nabel Al-Abdallah, what the West really wants? He replies, immediately:
The West wants terrorism to spread to Russia and China. Many terrorists work and fight directly for the interests of the United States.
We need to take care of the innocent civilians. But we also have to find the solution, very quickly. If we fail, terrorism will spread all around the world.
We sit in the Commander's provisory headquarters, having a quick cup of tea, before moving to the frontline.
He wants to say something. He thinks, how. It is not easy. Nothing is easy under the circumstances, but he tries, and what he utters makes sense:
If we don't have solution, soon, terrorists will damage the world. Our problems are not just the ISIS, but above all, the ideology that they represent. They use Islam, they say that they fight in the name of Islam, but they are backed by the United States. And here, the SAA, our military and our defense forces, are fighting for the world, not just for Syria.
We embrace and I go. His men drive me in a military vehicle to the outskirts of As Suqaylabiyah (also known as Squalbiah). From there, I photograph a hospital and the positions of Al Nusra Front. They are there, right in front of me, just a couple of hundreds of meters.
Territory held by Al Nusrah Front including their military hospital (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
I am told that I am like a sitting duck, exposed. I work fast. Luckily, today the terrorists are not in the mood for shooting.
Before returning to the vehicle, I try to imagine how life must be there, under Al Nusra Front or the ISIS occupation.
From the hill where I stand, the entire area looks green, fertile and immensely beautiful. But I know, I clearly understand that it is hell on earth for those who live in those houses down below; in the villages and towns controlled by some of the most brutal terrorists on earth.
I also know that these terrorist monsters are here on foreign orders, trying to destroy Syria, simply because its government and people have been refusing to succumb to the Western imperialist dictates.
Here, it is not only about theory. The lives of millions have been already destroyed. Here it is all concrete and practical – it is reality.
We can hear explosions in a distance. The war may be over in Damascus, but not here. Not here, yet.
My friend Yamen is from the city of Salamiyah, some 50 kilometers from Hama. Only recently the area around his home town was liberated from the extremist groups.
Twenty kilometers west from Salamiyah lies the predominantly Ismaili village of Al Kafat, which used to be surrounded by both Al-Nusra Front and the ISIS.
Mr. Abdullah, President of local Ismaili Council, recalls the horrors which his fellow citizens had to endure:
In the past, we had two car bomb explosions here. In January 2014, 19 people were killed, 40 houses totally destroyed and 300 damaged. Fighting was only 200 meters away from here. Both Al-Nusra Front and ISIS surrounded the village, and were cooperating. We are very close to one of the main roads, so for the terrorists, it was an extremely important strategic position. This entire area was finally liberated only in January 2018.
Whom do they blame?
Mr. Abdullah does not hesitate:
Saudis, Turks, the USA, Europe, Qatar…
We walk through the village. Some homes are still lying in ruins, but most of them have at least been partially restored. On the walls and above several shops, I can see the portrait of a beautiful young woman, who was killed during one of the terrorist assaults. 65 villagers were slaughtered, in total. Before the war, the population of the village was 3,500, but traumatized and impoverished by war, many decided to leave and now only 2,500 inhabitants live here, cultivating olive trees, herding sheep and cows.
Before my visit here, I was told that education played an extremely important role in defending this place, and in keeping morale high during the darkest days of combat and crises. Mr. Abdullah readily confirmed it:
The human brain has the capacity to solve problems, and to defuse crises. During a war like this, education is extremely important. Or more precisely, it is mainly about learning, not only about education. Al-Nusra and ISIS – they are synonymous with ignorance. If your brain is strong, it easily defeats ignorance. I think we succeeded here. And look now: this poor village has at this moment 103 students attending universities, all over Syria.
As we drive on, east, large portraits of a brother of my friend Yamen decorate many military posts. He was one of the legendary commanders here, but was killed in 2017.
Then I see a castle: monstrous, more than two millennia old, overlooking the city of Salamiyah. There are green fields all around, so much beauty, in all the corners of Syria.
"Come back and visit all these marvels when the war is over," someone around me jokes.
I don't see it as a joke.
"I will," I think. "I definitely will". But we have to win, and win very soon, as soon as possible! To make sure that nothing else goes up in flames.
I drop my bag in at a local inn in Salamiyah, and ask my comrades to drive me on, further east. I want to see, to feel how life was under ISIS, and how it is now.
There are ruins, all around us. I saw plenty of terrible urban ruins during my previous visit: all around Homs and the outskirts of Damascus.
Here I see rural ruins, in their own way as horrifying as those scarring all the major cities of Syria.
This entire area had recently been a frontline. Or it was screaming in the hands of the terrorist groups, mainly ISIS.
Now it is a minefield. The road is cleared, but not the fields; not the remains of the villages.
I photograph a tank that used to belong to the ISIS; burned and badly damaged. It is an old Soviet tank, which used to belong to the Syrian army. It was captured by the ISIS, and then destroyed by either the SAA or a Russian airplane. Next to the tank – a chicken farm burned to the ground.
The Lieutenant, who is accompanying me, goes on, monotonously, with his grizzly account:
Today, outside Salamiyeh, 8 people were killed by the landmines.
We leave the vehicle, and walk slowly down the road, which is full of craters.
Suddenly, the Lieutenant stops without any warning:
And here, my cousin was killed by another mine.
We reach Hardaneh Village, but almost no one is left here. There are ruins everywhere. Before – 500 people lived here, now only 30. This is where heavy fighting against the ISIS took place. 13 local people were killed, 21 soldiers 'martyred'. Other civilians were forced to leave.
Mr. Mohammad Ahmad Jobur is the local administrator (el muchtar), 80 years old:
First, we fought ISIS, but they overwhelmed us. Most of us had to leave. Now some of us returned, but only few…Yes, now we have electricity; at least 3 hours a day, and our children can go to school. The old school was destroyed by the ISIS, so kids are now collected and taken to a bigger town for education. Every villager wants to come back, but most of the families have no money to rebuild their houses and farms. The government made a list of the people whose dwellings were destroyed. They will get help, but help will be distributed gradually, stage by stage.
Naturally: almost the entire country lies in ruins.
Are villagers optimistic about the future?
"Yes, very optimistic," declares the village chief. "If we get help, if we can rebuild, we will all come back."
But then, they show me the water wells, destroyed by the ISIS.
It is all smiles through tears. So far only 30 have come back. How many will come home this year?
I asked the chief what the main aim of the ISIS was?
No aim, no logic. ISIS was created by the West. They tried to destroy everything, this village, this area, this entire country. They made no sense… they do not think like us… they only brought destruction.
Soha, a village even further east, a place where men, women and children were forced to live under the ISIS.
These women survived life under ISIS (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
I am invited into a traditional house. People sit in a circle. Several younger women are hiding their faces, not wanting to be photographed. I can only guess why. Others don't care. What happened here; what horrors took place? Nobody will pronounce it all.
This is a traditional village inhabited by a local tribe; very conservative.
Testimonies begin to flow:
First, they banned us from smoking, and shaving. Women had to cover their faces and feet; they had to wear black… Strict rules were imposed… education was banned. The ISIS created terrible prisons… They were often beating us with rubber hoses, in public. Some people were beheaded. Severed heads were exhibited above the main square.
When ISIS arrived, they brought with them their slaves – kidnapped people from Raqqah. Some women got stoned in public, alive. Other women were thrown to their death from the roofs and from other high places. They were amputating hands… Various women were forced to marry ISIS fighters…
An uncomfortable silence followed, before the topic got changed.
They killed 2 men from this village…
Some say more, many more.
Several youngsters joined the ISIS. 3 or 4… ISIS would pay $200 to each new combatant who subscribed. And, of course, they were promising heaven…
ISIS cage for infidels and sinners (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
In one of the villages, I am shown a big rusty cage for 'infidels' and "sinners". People were locked in there like wild animals, and kept exposed, in the open.
I see the destroyed 'police' building of the ISIS. At one point I am offered some papers – documents – which are just scattered all over the floor. I don't want to take any with me, not even as a 'souvenir'.
Testimonies continue to flow:
They were beheading people for being in possession of mobile phones… Local villagers were disappearing… they were kidnapped…
At some point, I have to halt this flow of testimonies. I can hardly process all that is being said. People are shouting over each other. One day, someone should take it all down, to record it, to file it. I do what I can, but I realize that it is not enough. It is never enough. The scale of the tragedy is too great.
By now it is getting dark… and then it is dark. I have to return to Salamiyeh, to rest a bit; to sleep for a few hours, and then to return to the frontline, where both the Syrian and Russian soldiers are bravely facing the enemy. Where they are doing all that is humanly possible to prevent those gangsters sponsored by the West and their allies, from returning to the already liberated areas of the country.
She saw decapitations by ISIS (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
But before I fall asleep, I recall; I am haunted by the image of a little girl who survived the occupation of her village by the ISIS. She stood resting her back against the wall. She looked at me for a while, then lifted her hands and moved her fingers quickly across her throat.
The next day, the Commander of the National Defense Forces in Muhradah, Simon Al Wakel, drives me all around the city and the outskirts, Kalashnikov resting next to his seat. It is a quick and matter-of-fact 'tour':
This is where the mortars landed two days ago, there is a power plant which was liberated from the terrorists, and this is a huge gymnasium attacked by the terrorists simply because they hate that our girls excel in volleyball and basketball.
We talk to locals. Commander Simon gets stopped in the middle of the streets, embraced by total strangers, kissed on both cheeks.
Driving to the front with Commander Simon (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
"I have been targeted more than 60 times," he tells me. One of his former cars is rotting at a remote parking lot, after it was hit and burned by the terrorists.
He shrugs his shoulders:
Russians and Turks negotiated the ceasefire, but obviously, terrorists do not respect any agreements.
We return to the frontline. I am shown the Syrian cannons pointing towards the positions of Al Nusra Front. The local headquarters of the terrorists is clearly visible, not too far from the magnificent ruins of the Sheizar Citadel.
First, I see the Syrian soldiers, operating slightly outdated Soviet as well as newer Russian equipment: armed vehicles, tanks, "Katyushas". Then I spot several Russian boys settling down in two houses with a commanding view of the valley and the enemy territory.
Both the Syrian and Russian armies, shoulder to shoulder, are now facing the last enclave of the terrorists.
I wave at the Russians, and they wave back at me.
Everyone seems to be in a good mood. We are winning. We are 'almost there'.
We all also know that it is still too early to celebrate. Terrorists from all over the world are hoarded in the area in and around the city of Idlib. The US, UK and French "Special Forces" are operating in several parts of the country. The Turkish military keeps holding big chunk of the Syrian land.
The weather is clear. The green fields are fertile and beautiful. The nearby citadel is imposing. Just a little bit more of determination and endurance, and this wonderful country will be fully liberated.
Our artillery facing Al Nusdrah Front (Photo: Andre Vltchek)
We all realize it, but no one is celebrating, yet. Nobody is smiling. The facial expressions of the Syrian and Russian comrades are serious. Men are looking down towards the valley, weapons ready. They are fully concentrated. Anything may happen; anytime.
I know why there are no smiles; we all know: Soon, we may defeat the enemy. Soon, the war may end. But hundreds of thousands of Syrian people have already died.
Donald Trump, Fatah, Hamas, Israel/Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Russia, Syria, Turkey, United States, US Hypocrisy
Russian Mediation: The Critical Messages of the Hamas-Fatah Talks in Moscow
February 20, 2019 Ramzy Baroud
The Russian-sponsored Palestinian unity talks in Moscow on February 11 were neither a success nor failure. Uniting Palestinian factions was not the main objective of the Moscow conference in the first place.
Instead, the nature of the event, the host country and the clear messages sent to Washington and Tel Aviv were all meant to communicate something else entirely. And they did.
The head of the Fatah delegation to the conference, Azzam al-Ahmed, apologized to his hosts on behalf of Palestinians for failing to achieve political reconciliation.
But that apology could have been prepared in advance. It would not have been rational to expect that a conference organized in such haste, with few preliminary meetings or intense prior consultations, could have achieved the coveted unity.
If one is to also consider the various unity agreements, signed between Fatah and Hamas in the past – but never honored – and bearing in mind the additional punitive measures slapped by the Palestinian Authority against Gaza recently, a unity deal in Russia would be nothing less than a miracle.
So why did the Russians hold the conference in the first place and why did the Palestinians agree to attend, if its failure was a foretold conclusion?
The answer lies elsewhere, specifically in Warsaw, Poland.
Around the same time that Palestinians met in Moscow under the auspices of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, the US was holding its own conference in Warsaw, Poland.
The Warsaw meet was the US' attempt at drawing a new political paradigm to replace the defunct 'peace process', which, itself, was an American political invention.
While the 'peace process', thanks to US blind support of Israel, has failed terribly, Warsaw, too, is unlikely to deliver any meaningful or long-term political vision in the Middle East. The conference was the equivalent of a public American declaration that only Israel matters and that Washington's commitment to Tel Aviv is paramount to all else.
Even the Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, known for its political subservience to Washington, was repulsed by the US' new, brazen political approach. Time and again, the Donald Trump Administration has made it clear to its former Palestinian ally that Palestinian political aspirations are no longer a subject worthy of even mere consideration by the US. The relocating of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Washington in May last year was one of many such signs.
Abbas, who is now increasing pressure on his Hamas rivals in Gaza, and is plotting against his own Fatah rivals in the West Bank, agreed to allow Fatah participation in the Moscow conference because he, too, has a message for the US, the gist of which is "we too have a new strategy and political alternatives.'
Knowing in advance that Trump's so-called "deal of the century' is likely to be consistent with the new, more aggressive US foreign policy approach to the Middle East, Fatah is keen to preclude the announcement of the 'deal' by seeking different routes that do not necessarily go through Washington.
For Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions, freeing Fatah from Washington's grip is something they can also all agree on.
A Hamas official, Hussam Badran, was very clear regarding the consensus of all Palestinian participants in denouncing the "deal of the century (and) all conspiracies to eliminate the Palestinian cause."
Musa Abu Marzouk, who led the Hamas delegation, declared from Moscow that all Palestinians factions will work together to "confront the deal of the century."
Fatah's position was of one and the same.
For Russia, a unified Palestinian call to defeat the latest US political stratagem in the region is consistent with Moscow's ongoing efforts to undermine Washington's once uncontested role in the Middle East.
True, the Palestinian factions failed to agree on a final statement written on behalf of all parties, but the disagreements were of little relevance to their political outlook concerned with Washington's political ploys. The Islamic Jihad refuses to consider a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, and, along with Hamas, does not see the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the one and only representative of all Palestinians, as the draft of the final statement proposed.
These positions are hardly new, especially since Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are not yet part of the PLO. Palestinian factions would need more than a two-day conference in Moscow to iron out the numerous details of such complex issues.
Russia, too, had its own messages to send. Aside from a message to the US-led Warsaw conference that Russia is ready to fill the gap left open by the US departure from the 'peace process', another Russian-hosted political summit in Sochi carried layers of direct and subtle meanings.
The tripartite Sochi summit brought Russia, Turkey and Iran together to discuss the future of Syria following the US withdrawal.
For Russia to be heavily involved in two major political processes and conflicts concerning the Middle East at the same time is unprecedented since the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Russian-Soviet led socialist bloc.
Those in Washington who see Moscow as an adversary must have been particularly unpleased by the new developments. The US-Russian rivalry is definitely at its highest point in many years.
Hamas and other Palestinian factions, save Fatah, would have welcomed Russia's re-engagement, regardless of any specific political contexts. Hamas has been under massive pressure and near-complete isolation in Gaza for many years, and a political outlet of this nature is, for the Movement, a welcome development.
Hamas is now ready to upgrade its ties with Russia, especially after the Movement's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, received an official invitation to include Russia on his next trip outside of besieged Gaza.
The major change in the political equation, however, is that Fatah has been recently dropped from the US political sponsorship list, and is desperately seeking new political and financial patrons.
Mahmoud Abbas is likely to wait for further indications of the changing American position before completely abandoning his quest of an American sponsored 'peace' with Israel.
All three conferences – Warsaw, Moscow and Sochi – should be enough of an indication that the new political paradigm, which has been in the making for years, is unlikely to be reversed, at least, not any time soon.
gazaIran
Donald Trump, Egypt, Iraq, ISIS, John Bolton, Jordan, Media, Militarism, Politics, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Propaganda, Social media, Syria, Turkey, United States, US Hypocrisy, US Media, War
Trump, Bolton and the Syrian Confusion
January 18, 2019 Binoy Kampmark
It's a messy, though typical picture. US President Donald Trump wants to pull out forces in Syria. When announced in December, jaws drooped and sharp intakes of breath were registered through the Washington establishment. Members of the military industrial complex were none too pleased. The president had seemingly made his case clear: US blood and treasure will not be further drawn upon to right the conflicts of the Middle East.
His national security advisor, John Bolton, prefers a different message: the US will not leave north-eastern Syria till the militants of Islamic State are defeated and the Kurds protected. If this was a message of intended confusion, it has worked. The media vultures are confused as to what carrion to feed upon. The US imperial lobby is finding the whole affair disruptive and disturbing. Washington's allies attempt to read the differences between policy-by-tweet and policy by representation.
Trump's pre-New Year announcement suggested speediness, a rapid removal of US forces supposedly indispensable in Making America Great Again. Once made, US troops were to leave in a matter of weeks – or so went a certain wisdom. "They're all coming back, and they're coming back now," ventured the president. But Bolton suggested otherwise. US personnel, he suggested, would remain in al-Tanf to counter Iranian influence. Timetables could be left to the talking heads.
A change of heart also came from the White House, with Trump asserting that, "We won't be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone." To reporters, he adopted a familiar stance in ever shifting sands: promising to do something meant doing something different. "We re pulling back in Syria. We're going to be removing our troops. I never said we're doing it that quickly."
On Sunday, Trump delivered another streaky note on Twitter, thereby adding another lace of confusion. "Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions." Last Thursday, information on the withdrawal of some US military ground equipment from Syria was noted. On Friday, Col. Sean Ryan, spokesman for the US-led coalition in Syria, issued a statement claiming that the coalition had "begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria" leaving little by way of details. In Trumpland, the scanty detail often prevails over the substantive.
US strategy in the Middle East has tended to revolve around setting up figures for the fall while inflicting the fall of others. The Kurds have tended to find themselves in that role, encouraged and prompted to take up arms against their various oppressors, only to find themselves left to the slaughter in the subsequent geopolitical dramas of the region. The promise by Great Britain and France at the conclusion of World War I that a Kurdish state be chalked out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire never materialised. In the crude machinations of international relations, they have remained, as Joost Hiltermann describes them, the "expendable" ones.
Bolton is keen not to make that same mistake, which is exactly why he risks doing so. The great enemy of the Kurds on this occasion remains a prickly US ally, Turkey. "We don't think the Turks ought to undertake military action that's not fully coordinated with the agreed to by the United States".
Trump, similarly, suggested in a direct call with the Turkish president that the Turkish economy would be devastated "economically if they hit Kurds." In a statement from White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, "The President expressed the desire to work together to address Turkey's security concerns in northeast Syria while stressing the importance to the United States that Turkey does not mistreat the Kurds and other Syrian Democratic Forces with whom we have fought to defeat ISIS."
Bolton's credibility in pursuing that agenda seemed to crumble in Ankara before a notable snubbing by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on January 8. The national security advisor had to make do with a meeting with Erdoğan's senior advisor, Ibrahim Kalin. Bolton was not one the Turkish leader particularly wanted to see in light of his comments that Turkey not harm members of the Kurdish Syrian militias in the aftermath of the US withdrawal. Such views also fly in the face of Turkey's self-appointed role as an agent of influence in the region. An absent Washington is simply too good a chance to press home the advantage, and Ankara is bound to capitalise.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not fare much better in his regional whistle-stops in Egypt Jordan, Iraq and the Gulf states. In Cairo, Pompeo denied that there was any "contradiction whatsoever" about Trump's position on withdrawal. "I think everyone understands what the United States is doing." If not everyone, then at the very least, "the senior leaders in their governments". Very good of them.
The views of American functionaries have not necessarily meant much in the righteous intent of other powers, but Bolton is nonetheless happy to pen his name to this mast. He wishes for the Kurds to hold firm, avoid the temptation of seeking another sponsor who just might do a better job. "I think they know," suggested Bolton, "who their friends are." (Bolt is more than nudging here, making sure the Russians or the Assad regime are avoided in any future security arrangements that might supply a shield for the Kurds.)
Daft, can be Bolton, who sees himself as a true appraiser of the international relations system when he is disabled by presumption. The Turks may, in time, hand Washington another bloody lesson of retribution showing that basic, keen hatreds in historical dramas are far more significant than sophisticated notions of self-interest. The presence of US troops in Syria will no doubt be reclassified, withdrawal by which any other name would be as confusing. The Kurds will have to chew over their options with the sort of caution nursed by a history of promise followed by abandonment. Be wary of the expendable ones.
Bahrain, ISIS, Kurdistan, Middle East, President Bashar al-Assad, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United States
Peace for Syria and a New Kurdistan as Regional Stabilizing Factor?
January 6, 2019 Peter Koenig
The US will withdraw her troops from Syria. Will they really? Let's take Trump at his word, just for argument's sake. Though in the meantime, RT reports that the withdrawal may be slower than anticipated, to allow Erdogan making his own "strategic arrangements", while US troops depart. During his flash visit to the US troops in Iraq on Christmas Day, Mr. Trump already indicated that any US intervention – if necessary – would be launched from Iraq. Of course.
The US will not let go of such a strategic country with access to Four Seas, as promoted by President Bashar al-Assad, linking the Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf into an energy network. Washington had the full dominion of Syria in mind as the pivotal country in the Middle East, already when Washington first attempted to "negotiate" with Bashar's dad, Háfez al-Ásad, in the late 1990s, and then after his death in 2000, the secret gnomes of Washington continued the process of coercion with Háfez's son and heir, Bashar. To no avail, as we know.
Therefore, the question, "Will Syria ever Become a "Normal" Country Again?" sounds almost rhetorical. Syria is one of those predestined countries to "fall", decided by the empire, long before the ascension to the throne by Mr. Trump. Others include and are well outlined in the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century) – Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon and Iran. As we see, the plan is progressing nicely – and letting go of any of the 'milestones' within this plan – is simply not in the cards. Deviations are not tolerated. That's presumably why James "Mad Dog" Mattis resigned as Secretary of Defense upon Trump's announcement to withdraw from Syria. The Pentagon has its mandate, given by the Military Industrial Complex.
So, war or peace (and war it is) has become full spectrum Pentagon territory, not to be meddled with. It has nothing to do with terrorism, or saving the world from terrorism. It is pure and simple ´calcule' for profit from the war machine, from stolen and confiscated oil and gas and, ultimately but not lastly, for full power dominance of the world. The Middle East is one of those focal points of the empire that needs to be plunged into eternal chaos. Peace is never an option. Unless empire falls. But until then, the Middle East is a multi-purpose 'gold mine', in terms of resources, a test ground for the East-West arms race, a terrain for almost endless destruction – and reconstruction – and a bottomless source of a continuous and destabilizing flow of refugees to Europe. It's all planned. No human suffering is able to halt this project, and we can but hope that Russia and China see clear on this, that they won't fall for promises of peace, for make-believe withdrawals, for lies and deceit.
Will Syria ever become a 'normal' country again? I opt for yes. But empire must fall. And fall it will. It's a question of time and maybe strategy? For hundreds of years, the Kurds are an ethnicity of between 25 and 35 million people. They inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and a tiny bit of Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state. Wouldn't this rearrangement of power in Syria due to the apparent US troop withdrawals be an opportunity to find a solution for the century old Kurdish "problem"?
President Assad might seize the opportunity to accept the Kurds 'invitation' to enter the city of Manbij, the current Kurdish stronghold in Syria. And this despite the fact that the Kurds have often fought against the Syrian military, either alongside the US / NATO forces or alongside ISIS. It's time to rethink geopolitics in the Middle East, beginning with Syria. After all, Manbij is Syrian territory, and Turkey has no legitimate claim on any land within Syria. Except in the case of a possible land swap.
On these grounds Syria might want to initiate negotiations with Turkey, Iraq and Iran to finally establish within the borders of Syria and Iraq (and Iran, as it were), some kind of a Kurdish territory which might over time become a fully autonomous Kurdish Homeland, what today is already called, Kurdistan. Much like Israel was carved out of Palestine, except that Israel was an artificial creation, commanded by outside forces, with the specific purpose already 70 years ago to destabilize the region. Whereas Kurdistan would be a stabilizing factor, a natural process facilitated by the countries within the region.
There are, of course, other players with high stakes in this peace process, like Russia, Turkey and Iraq – and the two rogue nations, paradoxically bound together, Israel and Saudia Arabia. Two nations that have no right whatsoever to even come close to Syria. But they continue having US support, even with the apparent US withdrawal from Syria, or because of it, as they will now play the role of US proxies in fighting Mr. Assad's legitimate regime.
Russia would most likely prefer no Turkish interference in Syria, for example, the occupation of Manbij, but would rather see Syrian control of Syrian territory with negotiated land swap deals with neighboring countries, especially Turkey and Iraq, to bring eventually the Kurdish question to a solution. That is, of course, just the beginning. The easy part.
The current semi-offical Kurdistan is one of the oil richest territories of the region. At present these oil resources are divided more or less along the border divisions of Kurdistan; i.e., Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. For these countries hydrocarbon is a key factor in their economy. Therefore, the creation of an autonomous region within Syria, Iraq and Iran, called Kurdistan, might require not only an honest process and equitable division of the Black Gold, but also a withdrawal of Trukey from Kurdistan; i.e., through a land swap. The development towards a sovereign Kurdistan – no time frame might at this point be suggested – would require Kurdish concessions. In other words, peace and homeland have a price. However, this price will never even come close to the benefits of independence and peace.
At present, Kurdistan's oil reserves are estimated at 45 billion gallon, almost a third of Iraq's total untapped 150 billion gallons of petrol. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), with her capital, Erbil in Iraq (pop. about 900,000), would, of course, prefer becoming an independent state. But that is just not going to happen out of the blue. Therefore, peace in the region and a Kurdish Homeland is worth a negotiated land and petrol concession. And when would be a better moment for such thoughts and negotiations than NOW?
There are other signs that Syria is in the process of becoming a "normal" country again. The re-opening of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embassy in Syria may be considered a major public step to welcoming Bashar al-Assad back into the fold of the Arab League, from which Syria was banned at the beginning of the 2011 CIA induced war on Mr. Assad's government. Bahrain has also announced it will shortly reopen diplomatic relations with Damascus. Is this move by the UAE and Bahrain the first step of a new "Arab solidarity"? In any case, it signals a new recognition of Syria under President Assad.
With Syria becoming a fully autonomous and sovereign country again, where diplomatic missions are being re-established and where refugees return to help rebuild their nation, and where a new Kurdistan, may just be the dot bringing peace and stability to the region. Though that may succeed only without any Atlantist interference being handled only as a regional project.
A last thought for those who are shaking their heads in disbelief, because of the political and economic volatility of Kurdistan, due to her exorbitant oil riches which are currently spread among four countries – listen! peak oil is a thing of the past. Hydrocarbons are rather rapidly being replaced as the key energy provider by alternative sources of energy, of which the Middle East also has plenty, but which cannot be stolen – solar energy. The East, foremost China, is rapidly developing new and more efficient ways of transferring sun light into electricity, with the appropriate storage technology that may make it possible to largely phase out hydrocarbons within the next generation.
Hence, the momentum is NOW – US troop withdrawals – to create a stabilizing Kurdistan and make Syria a "normal country again.
IranIsrael
Cyprus, Disinformation, EU, Europe, Greece, Imperialism, Nicosia, Propaganda, Refugees, Russia, Syria, The "West", Turkey, UK Hypocrisy, United Kingdom
Cyprus: Deadly UK Military Bases, Refugee Camps … and Tourists
December 23, 2018 Andre Vltchek
Believe it or not, but not long ago, Cyprus used to be the only country in the European Union that was governed by a Communist Party. And it was not really too long ago – between 2008 and 2013.
Also, relatively recently, unification of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish administered northern part of the island, appeared to be achievable.
And when Cyprus, like Greece, almost collapsed financially, it was Russia which offered to bail it out (before the EU did all it could to prevent this from happening).
Now it all seems like ancient history.
The city of Nicosia is still divided, with the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish immigration check-points located right in the middle of an old town. Graffiti painted in 'no man's land' demand an immediate end to the conflict: 'One country; one nation solution'.
The crossing is busy. And to make it all somehow more colorful, perhaps, there is a huge white Pitbull, phlegmatically hanging around the border area. It does not bark; it is just there. Nobody knows whether he belongs to the Turkish or the Greek side, but it appears that he spends more time with the Turks, as, I suppose, they feed him better.
The Greek-speaking side of Nicosia looks like a slightly run-down EU provincial town. On their flank, Turks are smoking shisha (traditional Middle Eastern waterpipe), and their cafes appear to be more traditional, and the old architecture more elegant. In the southern part, freshly brewed coffee is called 'Greek', while a few meters north, you have to order 'Turkish', or at least 'Arabic coffee'. Needless to say, you get the same stuff on both sides.
Otherwise, it is one island, one history and one sad and unnecessary partition.
The division of the nation is not the only madness here. Before you get used to the idea, you may go mental, finding out that there are two British administered territories still engraved into the island.
If you drive around, you will never notice that you are actually leaving Cyprus, and entering the U.K. Some car license plates are different to those regular Cypriot ones, but that's about it.
You cross an invisible line, and you are in the UK; historically the most aggressive (militarily and ideologically) nation on the face of the earth.
You drive through some agricultural fields, but soon you see something very eerie all around the road: a few kilometers after passing the historic Crusader's Kolossi Castle, there is an ocean of masts of different heights and shapes, as well as concrete, fortified military installations. The masts are 'decorated' with strange looking wires. It all looks like some old Sci-Fi movie.
Entrance to Akrotiri RAF base
Of course, if you come 'prepared', you know what you are facing: tremendous installations of the BBC propaganda apparatus aimed at destabilizing and indoctrinating the Middle East. But that is not all. This entire enclave – 'Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri' (as well as Dhekelia a few dozens of miles to the east) – is here mostly in order to spy on the 'neighborhood' of the Middle East. While London is some 4 hours flight away, Syria is just a short distance across the water, and so is Lebanon.
Vile British military installations in Akrotir
Further south, after you leave the propaganda and spy installations behind, is a small village of Akrotiri; a typical picturesque Cypriot charming settlement, with an old church, narrow streets and humble local cafes. It sits on top of the hill. But you are, actually, inside the U.K. From here, you can see the blue sea, a salt lake and the city of Limassol; but you are on British turf. How come? Simple: after Cyprus achieved independence from the British Empire, in 1960, the Brits 'were concerned' that they could lose control over their military bases in Cyprus, and at least partially, influence over the Middle East. As this being unimaginable to the British imperialist mind, the U.K. arm-twisted the Cypriots into this bizarre arrangement which holds to this day.
One more kilometer further south, and you hit the wall and a gate, decorated with threatening warnings. You are at the perimeter of the RAF Akrotiri base. From here, since December 2015, the RAF is carrying out illegal (according to international law) airstrikes against the sovereign Syrian Arab Republic.
According to Jeffrey Richelson and Desmond Ball, The Ties the Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA Countries, (Unwin Hyman, Boston/London and others, 1990, p.194 note 145):
As of 2010, around 3,000 troops of British Forces Cyprus are based at Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Ayios Nikolaos Station, in the ESBA, is an ELINT (electronic intelligence) listening station of the UKUSA Agreement intelligence network.
That was then, but now things are getting even deadlier. Practically, the U.K. is at war with Syria. Many in Cyprus are deeply concerned that Syria could retaliate, sending missiles against the RAF bases, from which it is being bombed (legally, independent Syria has the full right to defend itself against the attacks from abroad). Such retaliation could endanger the lives of the inhabitants of Cyprus.
There have been protests and demands for the British forces to return to Cyprus both of the 'sovereign bases', but the U.K. shows no interest in ceding what it controls.
As early as in 2008, former left-wing President Demetris Christofias (who was also the General Secretary of AKEL, the Communist Party of Cyprus) tried to remove all British forces from the island, calling them a "colonial bloodstain". However, he did not succeed, and in 2013 he decided to step down and not to seek re-election.
Dhekelia Base is carved into the eastern part of Cyprus, bizarrely encircling both Turkish-controlled and Greek-speaking villages.
In the past, the Cypriots fought against the British presence. Nowadays, in the era of omnipresent surveillance, sabotages and resistance had been replaced by toothless protests. Still, hundreds of local people have been detained, demanding the departure of British troops from the island.
Cyprus is still divided, although reunification talks began, once again, in 2015. Now it is possible to walk between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus (controlled by Turkey).
It was not always this way. As Papadakis Yiannis wrote:
On 15 July 1974, the Greek military junta under Dimitrios Ioannides carried out a coup d'état in Cyprus, to unite the island with Greece.
Thousands of Turkish residents were displaced, many killed. Turkey invaded and the island got divided. But inter-cultural violence dated even further back than 1974. The history can be felt on every corner of Nicosia, and in many villages of the island. Northern Cyprus was never recognized by any other country except Turkey, but the division is still there. There are still entire de-populated towns that used to belong to the displaced Turkish and Greek inhabitants.
One of the eeriest is Kofinou, in the south of the island, which suffered on at least two occasions, unprecedented ethnic violence, which could be defined as 'cleansing'. Once inhabited mainly by the Turkish Cypriots, Kofinou is now a ghost town, dotted with collapsed houses and agricultural structures, with foreign guest workers and farm animals living in appalling conditions.
Cyprus has two faces. It is proud to be one of the famous European tourist destinations. It is an EU member.
Simultaneously, it is a symbol of division.
Border fences between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus are scarring its beautiful countryside. Deadly British military installations, the air force bases, as well as propaganda warfare and disinformation campaigns are brutalizing, physically and morally, almost the entire Middle East.
Here, in Cyprus, European and Russian tourists coexist, uneasily. The ideological war between the West and the rest of the planet is clearly felt in Pathos and other historic areas of the island.
Some British residents (around 50,000 of them), as well as countless British tourists, often behave insultingly towards the generally humble Russian visitors. Here, the British Empire still appears to be 'in charge'.
In the port of Pathos, I passed by an elderly Russian couple, who seemed to be simply admiring an old water castle. A British couple was passing by, then looked back and forged sarcastic, rude grimaces: "Those Russians," uttered the man. This was not the only instance when I witnessed this sort of behavior.
In Cyprus, I drove exactly 750 kilometers, all around the island, trying to understand and define its present position, and its role in the 'area' and in the world.
I hoped to find reminiscences of at least some revolutionary spirit of the Communist (AKEL) government. But I almost exclusively found pragmatism, so typical for basically all European Union countries. Only questions like this were common: 'Would Brexit be good or bad for Cyprus?' Or: 'Would the bombing of Syria be dangerous for the citizens of Cyprus?'
Symbolically, near the village of Kofinou, destroyed by the inter-cultural violence several decades ago, I found a tough-looking refugee camp, built mainly for the immigrants coming from the destabilized Middle East. It looks like a concentration camp. Locals call it, realistically, a 'prison'. Most likely, it is.
As I was driving around the area, I spotted, just a few kilometers from the camp, in front of an eerie and semi-abandoned farm, a huge goat. It was on its side; dying, in agony, in the middle of the road.
Cyprus has become a divided island with some hedonistic resorts, but also with terribly marginalized communities, located all over its territory.
One could easily conclude: this former British colony is still allowing, for a fee, the tremendous presence of the British/NATO military forces, as well as various spy facilities and propaganda outlets. RAF Tornado jetfighters are presently flying their 'missions' against Syria. Missiles are being fired from Akrotiri. People fleeing from the destroyed countries of the Middle East, are then detained in Cyprus, like criminals, behind barbed wire.
In the meantime, the people of Cyprus are calculating, whether all this is truly feasible, or not; whether to be an outpost of the empire is a good business, for as long as it pays, they will do very little to change the situation. Despite of its complex past and present, as well as its proximity to the Middle East, Cyprus is, after all, an integral part of Europe, and therefore of the Western empire.
• Originally published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook
• Photos by Andre Vltchek
Aleppo Syria, chemical weapons, France, ISIS, Media, Media Bias, Media Censorship, Mercenaries, Militarism, President Bashar al-Assad, President Emmanuel Macron, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Syria, Terrorists, Turkey, United States, US lies, US Media, US Terrorism, White Helmets
Why is the West Keeping Silent About the Chemical Attack in Syria?
December 1, 2018 Andrey Fomine
Once again, prohibited chemical weapons have been used in Syria — specifically shells filled with chlorine gas. Despite the significant number of casualties, however, the attack was not met with the usual outcry. World leaders remained tight-lighted with only Macron deciding to break the silence. This is easily explained since the West has good reason to keep schtum.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, residential areas of Aleppo were bombarded with 120 mm mortar shells filled with chlorine gas, resulting in more than 100 people seeking medical treatment. Women and children were among those hospitalised and everyone complained of breathing difficulties.
Aleppo is Syria's largest city and one of the oldest in the world. It was divided in half during the civil conflict and the military operation to liberate the half occupied by militants was one of the most important carried out by government forces and became a major turning point in the war as a whole. At that time, the city was under the international spotlight for several months and the West regularly accused Damascus of allegedly committing numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity in order to gain time for the so-called moderate opposition. The areas under its control were next to those held by outright terrorists.
By December 2016, it was all over. Reports on "Assad's atrocities" turned out to be false, while some of the militants leaving Aleppo were transferred to Idlib province by agreement with the government. A large number of diverse groups have settled there over the many years of conflict, each of which is now getting on with life.
If there had been reports of a chemical attack back then, when militants still held part of Aleppo, there would have been a huge outcry. The Assad regime would have been blamed immediately and it probably would have been a casus belli – yet another reason for the Western military coalition to attack Syrian forces.
The chemical attack happened now, however, when Aleppo has been under government control for two years. The shells came from the direction of the Idlib "sanctuary", where the front line is. Nobody is going to believe that government forces are firing chemical weapons at their own rear units, so the Western community, including many human rights organisations, have met the attack on Aleppo with a deathly silence.
The first Western leader to make a statement on the subject was French President Emmanuel Macron. "France condemns any use of chemical weapons," stated Macron the day after the incident, including in the Syrian city of Aleppo. He added that he would be discussing the situation with his international partners.
Incidentally, Paris was once one of the driving forces behind the West's intervention in the Syrian civil war on the side of the armed opposition. Another of these driving forces during the battle for Aleppo was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who accused Assad of carrying out "a genocide against his own people". Ankara pursued its own interests during the conflict, but after the situation on the front lines was reversed in favour of Damascus, Turkey tempered its appetite and was forced to agree with Russia's plan for a Syrian settlement.
The so-called "de-escalation zone" in Idlib where the chlorine-filled shells came from is one of Turkey's areas of responsibility. The most difficult questions regarding the attack should therefore be addressed to Ankara, in other words.
Those behind the chemical attack have already been established. According to Aleppo police chief Essam al-Shali, the attack was carried out by terrorists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a local branch of al-Qaeda. This refers to the militant group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, one of the many rebrandings of al-Nusra.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry is blaming the attack on the West. "This terrorist act comes as [a] result of facilitations provided by some countries to deliver chemicals to armed terrorist groups to use them against Syrian people and to accuse [the] Syrian Government," stated the foreign ministry's press office.
Previously, the White Helmets were actively involved in events related to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. This organisation, which diligently disguises itself as a human rights organisation but actually acts in the interests of terrorists, has, for many years, been portrayed as one of the biggest heroes of the Syrian war. Its activities have even been the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary film. Interest in the White Helmets began to wane with the advance of Syrian forces, however, especially after they were caught red-handed falsifying a chemical attack.
Whether all this means that the White Helmets, who are now cornered in Idlib, have moved from staging chemical attacks to organising real ones is an open question. It has been known for a while that Jabhat al-Nusra has its own chemical weapons and so does not need this kind of help from the White Helmets.
If their involvement in the attack on Aleppo is proved, however, and especially if the Syrian Foreign Ministry's claim regarding the origin of the militants' chemical arsenal turns out to be true, then the notion of the White Helmets will be completely turned on its head, as will the role of the American-led coalition in the Syrian conflict.
The laws of the information war surrounding Syria are proving to be even more cynical than the laws of the actual war going on in Idlib. In an information war, whoever shouts the loudest wins, but this shout may be far removed from the actual state of affairs on the ground. The successes of the Syrian army have gone some way towards altering the perception of the Syrian conflict, but exposing the "massacre on the streets of Aleppo" as fake and uncovering the sham nature of the White Helmets' activities has changed absolutely nothing. America's refusal to finance the latter was nothing to do with the reputational risk associated with such fake activities, but was one of Donald Trump's direct campaign promises to spend less on supporting the Syrian opposition and prevent members of the Syrian opposition from relocating to the US (immigration to the West was one of the White Helmets' biggest motivations, many of whom are now in Britain).
It would be far too optimistic to expect that the attack on Aleppo will make Washington and Brussels look at the Syrian war differently. The use of chemical weapons and the description of other war crimes by one side or another are nothing more than a backdrop to international negotiations, the focus of which has nothing to do with humanitarian beliefs, but rather each country's own narrow interests that even outright thugs with chlorine-filled bombs may serve to advance.
While some kind of benefit can be squeezed out of them, neither chlorine gas, nor genocide, nor mass executions will discredit them. But they can still be destroyed physically.
Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, Donald Trump, Jamal Khashoggi, Militarism, Murder, Saudi Arabia, Settler Colonization, The "West", Turkey, United States, US Hypocrisy, US lies, War Industry, Weapons Sales, Yemen
Whitewashing Murder is Simply Wrong
November 27, 2018 Gary Leupp
Last Tuesday, within about an hour of his announcement on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, in the heat of the moment, I commented on the president's acceptance of the Riyadh royals' explanation of the Istanbul consulate incident. I called his statement "crude" and "buttheadedly amoral." I should have stated the obvious broader point: It was wrong.
Marxists have historically inveighed (appropriately) against capitalism, imperialism, semi-feudalism etc.—neutral moral categories—using such terms as "reactionary" and "opportunist" when desiring to add a moral edge. And certainly capitalist profit and imperialist hegemony factor into Trump's response to the cold-blooded crime. But sometimes it's best to go back to the basics, and draw upon primordial human vocabulary. The murder of the dissident Saudi journalist was pure evil.
The prohibition on killing occurs in the earliest law codes and taboo lists. It's understood to have limited application; rulers can use military force to maintain power and "preserve order." But generally speaking humans concur that it's wrong to kill someone. It's wrong. This is basic. For those arriving from outer space it is Humanity 101. It is, of course the Sixth Commandment in the Bible. It is fundamental to the contrat social of Rousseau.
Killing means something different to those who believe in an afterlife and those who believe we die and disappear. Those of us who believe the latter perhaps value life more since it's all we expect. The taking of another's life seems especially presumptuous when you cannot, for example, pray for the soul of the person you've slain encouraging its rebirth somewhere, like in the Pure Land of Amida. The warrior Kumagae supposedly prayed for Atsumori after killing him during the Genpei War in Japan in the 1180s, to alleviate his sorrow and guilt.
But I don't believe in afterlives. I don't believe in Amida's Paradise, or the Christian one, or the Paradise (Garden of Eden) described in the Quran as one of "gardens under which rivers flow…and beautiful mansions in gardens of everlasting bliss" (9:72). Here there "will be thrones raised high, and cups set at hand. And cushions set in rows, and rich carpets (all) spread out" (88:10-16). I wonder in Muhammad bin Salman believes this, or whether he thinks it important to observe Muslim burial practices that include washing the body as soon as possible after death, enshrouding it in white linen, praying over it, and burying it without a coffin. (The Turkish police speculate that the Saudis dissolved Khashoggi's body parts, which would be a terrible violation of Muslim law, but they might have been transported to Saudi Arabia.)
What they did in that consulate was final. I think again of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem "People," a wistful appeal for people's right to exist.
In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight.
It goes with him.
There are left books and bridges
and painted canvas and machinery.
Whose fate is to survive.
But what has gone is also not nothing:
by the rule of the game something has gone.
Not people die but worlds die in them.
Such savages, those who kill thus crushing worlds. Worse savages, those who empower them.
Killing in wars has historically been tolerated so long as the war can be justified in order to preserve the above mentioned "order." So, for example, the Saudis and their U.S. backers depict the ongoing war in Yemen as an effort to thwart Iranian proxies, the Houthis, from imposing a Shiite dictatorship over the country. (This depiction of the situation would be laughable were it not so accepted by the gullible talking heads on cable news.) There has been little popular outrage in the U.S. at the war crimes of Saudi Crime Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
No, the focus is on his responsibility for Jamal Khashoggi's death. It feels more wrong than the mega-death theater raging on the Saudi border—because there's a face on it and the relentless reminders from the writer's Washington Post peers that their colleague was brutally murdered by the Saudi state.
The drama of it, if we can believe the Turkish press reports! The Crown Prince and his brother, the ambassador to the U.S., discussed luring Khashoggi to the Istanbul consulate. Indeed, the brother, Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Khalid called Khashoggi telling him to report to the consulate to get his documents to marry his Turkish fiance. Someone in the court in Riyadh ordered the dispatch of a team ("hit-squad," the Turkish police call it) of 15 identified Saudis, including several members of the prince's security detail and the kingdom's top forensic doctor armed with a bone saw, to apprehend his body and smuggle out his parts while a doppelgänger dressed in his stolen clothes walked to a nearby mosque to discard the clothing. All that's just basically wrong.
It's wrong in such detail you'd think anyone would recoil in horror at those responsible. Anyone with a modicum of morality.
And think about this. As in the days after Khashoggi's disappearance October 5, the Saudi ambassador in Washington (again, a brother of the Crown Prince, who had been on the phone to Khashoggi) told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Khashoggi had left the consulate but the surveillance cameras had been turned off. We know the Saudis spent a special team to sanitize the consulate and consul-general's home before Turkish police were allowed to investigate. The Saudi explanation has repeatedly changed and the Europeans have so far rejected it. The Saudis have given no explanation for the missing body.
This is wrong at so many levels, not the least in its very obviousness. The Saudis are lying. And yet Trump said Thanksgiving Day at his golf course in Florida: "I hate the crime, I hate what's done, I hate the cover-up. I will tell you this: the crown prince hates it more than I do."
What? Trump wants the people of the world to think the Crown Prince hates the murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi more than he himself does? What is the point of saying that, while continuing to admit that maybe the prince did it? That's both wrong and stupid. The worst possible combination. "Who should be held accountable?" he was asked at Key Largo. "Well," he replied, as though addressing small children, "maybe the world should be held accountable, because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very, very vicious place." he added, raising his eyebrows and rolling his eyes as if to suggest this viciousness is beyond mortal ken.
Yes, Trump said that Thursday. This too is just wrong. Feigning ignorance is morally wrong. Any small child knows this is wrong. It's wrong to whitewash murder, especially when it's designed to protect billions in arms contracts that spell death to tens of thousands of civilians. If Trump can get away with this, and the Saudis emerge unscathed, then morals mean nothing in this world, anything goes, brute force guided by hate and resentment should prevail. Sheer lies should compete with empirical reality, on an equal basis; reportage of fascism should recognize good on both sides.
More Trump: "…and we have 100s of 1000s of of [sic] jobs [from Saudi Arabia] and frankly if we went by this standard [of punishing calculated state-sponsored murder] we would not have any allies because look at what happens all over the world." In his inarticulate, semi-comprehensible comments he pronounces the truth unknowable, acknowledges that his interest in the case is low, notes matter-of-factly that Saudi Arabia is not unusual as a brutal, murderous U.S. ally and that continued arms sales to the murderous kingdom is this nation's ("nationalist") primary aim.
America first! Standing boldly at the head of the world, or trying to, it embraces Saudi Arabia and Israel, covering up their many crimes, while vilifying Iran and openly planning for its destruction.
One CNN consultant (Joel Rubin) refers to the "anti-intelligence mentality of this administration." Why beat around the bush? It's an anti-truth mentality. It's a cover up truth mentality. The administration is wrong in virtually all it does. It lies as matter of course. It is fundamentally evil. And now it has come as close one can imagine to celebrating a Black Mass on the White House lawn: it is lavishing praise on murderers for cutting the price of oil.
On Wednesday, as if to trumpet his success in placating Saudis upset about the fuss about Khashoggi, Trump tweeted gleefully: "Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let's go lower!" Let's put all that unpleasantness behind us, while America tries to regain its greatness—like the Wizard of Oz team, without a brain, heart or courage—while the whole world recoils at its increasingly naked amorality.
Far from the moral compass it has postered as for two hundred years, the U.S. has become a pariah. In particular, the U.S. rejection of the "Iran Deal" and effort to proactively sabotage it to provoke a war, based on lies (like the Iraq War, the destruction of Libya, the ongoing Syrian intervention) in order to establish hegemony over all of Southwest Asia ) is unqualified evil. The nice thing about Washington's virtual nod to the Crown Prince to continue at his post is that it bares the evil so plainly.
The U.S. is a rogue state supporting a myriad of rogue states "all over the world" as Trump frankly notes. What's right has nothing to do with it. Trump is proudly mired in moral wrong, so as to actually boast about it. He seeks to pull his fan base into that wrong, whipping up the inner fascism there just under the surface. May visceral disgust mount all over the world, among those of differing values and ideologies. Because if this can pass, and the Yemeni carnage can pass, then concentration camps and World War Three. Idiocy and evil are in power, the worst possible combination, but maybe the best possible to prompt the revolution that must come.
Disinformation, Donald Trump, Fake News, Media, Militarism, Murder, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Propaganda, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, The "West", Turkey, United Kingdom, Weaponry, Weapons Sales, Yemen
Saudi Arabia has to be stopped and this time it may get stopped
November 8, 2018 Andre Vltchek
It appears that the KSA has crossed all lines of decency, if there were ever any.
In the eyes of many in the West, it crossed them not because it has been brutally killing tens of thousands of innocent people in Yemen, not even because it keeps sponsoring terrorists in Syria, (and, in fact, all over the world), often on behalf of the West. And not even because it is trying to turn its neighboring country, Qatar, from a peninsula into an island.
The crimes against humanity committed by Saudi Arabia are piling up, but the hermit kingdom (it is so hermit that it does not even issue tourist visas, in order to avoid scrutiny) is not facing any sanctions or embargos, with some exceptions like Germany. These are some of the most barbaric crimes committed in modern history, anywhere and by anyone. Executing and then quartering people, amputating their limbs, torturing, bombing civilians.
But for years and decades, all this mattered nothing. Saudi Arabia served faithfully both big business and the political interests of the United Kingdom first, and of the West in general later. That, of course, includes Israel, with which the House of Saud shares almost a grotesque hatred towards Shi'a Islam.
And so, no atrocities have been publicly discussed, at least not in the Western mass media or by the European and the US governments, while weapons, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, have been arriving into the KSA, and the oil, that dark sticky curse, kept flowing out.
Was Riyadh enjoying total impunity? Definitely!
But all this may soon stop, because of a one single man, Mr. Jamal Khashoggi or more precisely, because of his alleged tragic, terrifying death behind the walls of the Saudi Consulate in the city of Istanbul.
According to the Turkish authorities, quoted by The New York Times on October 11, 2018:
Fifteen Saudi agents arrived on two charter flights on Oct. 2, the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared.
Supposedly, they brutally murdered Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, and then they used sawmills to severe his legs and arms from the body.
All this, while Mr. Khashoggi's Turkish fiancé, Hatice Cengiz, was waiting for him on a bench, in front of the consulate. He went in, in order to take care of the paperwork required to marry her. But he never came back.
Now the Turkish nation is indignant.
Ten years ago, even one year ago, everything would have been, most likely, hushed up. As all mass murders committed by the Saudis all over the world were always hushed up. As was hushed up the information about the Saudi royal family smuggling drugs from Lebanon, using their private jets – narcotics that are clouding senses and are therefore used in combat zones and during terrorist attacks.
But now, this is the end of 2018. And Turkey is not ready to tolerate an atrocity by an increasingly hostile country; an atrocity committed in the middle of its largest city. For quite some time, Turkey and the KSA are not chums anymore. Turkish military forces were already deployed to Qatar several months ago, in order to face the Saudi army and to protect the small (although also not benign) Gulf State from possible attack and imminent destruction. In the meantime, Turkey is getting closer and closer to Iran, an archenemy of Saudi Arabia, Israel and US.
It has to be pointed out that Mr. Khashoggi is not just some common Saudi citizen – he is a prominent critic of the Saudi regime, but most importantly, in the eyes of the empire, a correspondent for The Washington Post. Critic but not an 'outsider'. And some say, he was perhaps too close to some Western intelligence agencies.
Therefore, his death, if it is, after all, death, could not be ignored, no matter how much the West would like the story to disappear from the headlines.
President Trump remained silent for some time, then he became "concerned", and finally Washington began indicating that it could even take some actions against its second closest ally in the Middle East. The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been 'cultivated' both by Washington and other Western powers, but now he may actually fall from grace. Is he going to end up as Shah Pahlavi of Iran? Not now, but soon, or at least 'at some point'? Are the days of the House of Saud numbered? Perhaps not yet. But Washington has a track record of getting rid of its 'uncomfortable allies.
The Washington Post, in its editorial "Trump's embrace emboldened Saudi Crown Prince', snapped at both the 'Saudi regime' (finally that derogatory word, 'regime' has been used against the House of Saud) and the US administration:
Two years ago it would have been inconceivable that the rulers of Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, would be suspected of abducting or killing a critic who lived in Washington and regularly wrote for the Post – or that they would dare to stage such operation in Turkey, another US ally and a NATO member. That the regime now stands accused by Turkish government sources of murdering Jamal Khashoggi, one of the foremost Saudi journalists, in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate could be attributed in part to the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's 33-year-old de facto ruler, who has proved as ruthless as he is ambitious. But it also may reflect the influence President Donald Trump, who has encouraged the Crown Prince to believe – wrongly, we trust – that even his most lawless ventures will have the support of the United States.
"Wrongly, we trust?" But Saudi Arabia and its might are almost exclusively based on its collaboration with the global Western 'regime' imposed on the Middle East and on the entire world, first by Europe and the UK in particular, and lately by the United States.
All terror that the KSA has been spreading all over the region, but also Central Asia, Asia Pacific, and parts of Africa, has been encouraged, sponsored or at least approved in Washington, London, even Tel Aviv.
The Saudis helped to destroy the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and then the socialist and progressive Afghanistan itself. They fought Communism and all left-wing governments in the Muslim world, on behalf of the West. They still do.
Now both the West and the KSA are inter-dependent. The Saudis are selling oil and buying weapons, signing 'monumental' defense contracts with the US companies, such as Lockheed Martin. They are also 'investing' into various political figures in Washington.
The current alleged murder of a journalist triggered an unusual wave of soul-searching in the Western media. It is half-hearted soul searching, but it is there, nevertheless. On October 2018, the Huffington Post wrote:
By directing billions of dollars of Saudi money into the U.S. for decades, Riyadh's ruling family has won the support of small but powerful circles of influential Americans and courted wider public acceptance through corporate ties and philanthropy. It's been a solid investment for a regime that relies heavily on Washington for its security but can't make the same claims to shared values or history as other American allies like Britain. For years, spending in ways beneficial to the U.S. ― both stateside and abroad, such as its funding Islamist fighters in Afghanistan to combat the Soviet Union ― has effectively been an insurance policy for Saudi Arabia.
It means that the White House will most likely do its best not to sever relationships with Riyadh. There may be, and most likely will be, some heated exchange of words, but hardly some robust reaction, unless all this tense situation 'provokes' yet another 'irrational' move on the part of the Saudis.
The report by Huffington Post pointed out that:
One of the few traditions in American diplomacy that Trump has embraced wholeheartedly is describing weapons sales as jobs programs. The president has repeatedly said Khashoggi's fate should not disturb the $110 billion package of arms that Trump says he got the Saudis to buy to support American industry. (Many of the deals were actually struck under Obama, and a large part of the total he's describing is still in the form of vague statements of intent.)
Keen to keep things on track with the Saudis, arms producers often work in concert with Saudi Arabia's army of Washington lobbyists, congressional sources say.
This is where the Western reporting stops short of telling the whole truth, and from putting things into perspective. Nobody from the mainstream media shouts: 'There is basically no independent foreign policy of Riyadh!'
Yes, oil buys weapons that are 'giving jobs to men and women working in the US and UK factories', and then these weapons are used to murder men, women and children in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere; they threaten Iran, Qatar and several other countries. Oil and Western support also help to recruit terrorists for the perpetual wars desired by the West, and they also help to build thousands of lavish mosques and to convert tens of millions of people in Southeast Asia, Africa and elsewhere to Wahhabism, which is an extreme, Saudi-UK religious dogma. (My book Exposing Lies of the Empire. contains important chapter on this topic – "The West Manufacturing Muslim Monsters: Who Should Be Blamed for Muslim Terrorism").
Despite what many in the West think, there is hardly any love for Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. The KSA is sometimes supported, out of ignorance, commercial interests, or religious zeal, by such far-away Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, but as a rule, not by those who live 'in the region'.
Many, if not most, in the Arab countries have already had enough of Saudi arrogance and bullying, by such monstrous acts like the war against Yemen, or implanting/supporting terrorists in Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere, or by recent the de facto kidnapping of the Lebanese Head of State, by moral hypocrisy and by turning holy Muslim sites into business ventures with vulgar commercialism all around them, and the clear segregation of the rich and poor.
Many Arabs hold Saudi Arabia responsible for turning an essentially socialist and egalitarian religion into what it has become now, of course, with the determined support from the West, which desires to have an obedient and rituals-oriented population all over the Muslim world, in order to control it better, while plundering, without any opposition, its natural resources. Saudi Arabia is a country with some of the greatest disparities on earth: with some of the richest elites on one hand, and widespread misery all around the entire territory. It is an 'unloved country', but until now, it has been 'respected'. Mainly out of fear.
Now, the entire world is watching. Those who were indignant in silence are beginning to speak out.
Few days ago, an Indonesian maid was mercilessly executed in the KSA. Years ago, she killed her tormentor, her old 'a patron' who was attempting to rape her, on many occasions. But that was not reported on the front pages. After all, she was 'just a maid'; a poor woman from a poor country.
All of us, writers and journalists all over the world, are hoping that Mr. Khashoggi (no matter what his track record was so far) is alive, somewhere, and that one day soon he will be freed. However, with each new day, the chances that it will happen are slimmer and slimmer. Now even Saudi officials admit that he was murdered.
If he was killed by Saudi agents, Mr. Khashoggi's death may soon fully change both his country and the rest of the Middle East. He always hoped for at least some changes in his country. But most likely, he never imagined that he would have to pay the ultimate price for them.
This time, the Saudi rulers hoped for a breeze, which would disperse the smell of blood. They may now inherit the tempest.
Canada, Chancellor Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Espionage/"Intelligence", France, Germany, Human Rights, Hypocrisy, Jamal Khashoggi, Justin Trudeau, Media, Militarism, President Emmanuel Macron, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism (state and retail), Theresa May, Torture, Turkey, UK Hypocrisy, United Kingdom, United States, Weapons Sales
The Saudi Arabian Model: Blueprints for Murder and Purchasing Arms
October 27, 2018 Binoy Kampmark
It reads like a swaying narrative of retreat. A man's body is subjected to a gruesome anatomical fate, his parts separated by a specially appointed saw doctor – an expert in the rapid autopsy – overseen by a distinctly large number of individuals. Surveillance cameras had improbably failed that day. We are not sure where, along the line, the torturers began their devilish task: the diligent beating punctuated by questions, followed by the severing of fingers, or perhaps a skipping of any formalities. One Turkish investigator sniffing around the Saudi consulate in Istanbul saw such handiwork "like a Tarantino film."
The result was clear enough: the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi went into the Saudi embassy on October 2 and never came out alive. (Even an attempt of the gathered crew of death to procure a Khashoggi double was noted.)
For aspiring authoritarians, the Saudi state is a model instructor. First came blanket denial to the disappearance: the Saudi authorities had no idea where the journalist had gone after October 2. On October 18, Riyadh officially acknowledged Khashoggi's death. By October 21, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had come to the conclusion that this had, in fact, been murder, and a mistake. "This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had".
Then, an improbable story of a fist fight developed through the media channels. (When one has to kill, it is best to regard the enemy as inappropriately behaved when they dare fight back.) In the presence of 15 Saudi operatives, this was all richly incredulous – but the Kingdom does specialise in baffling and improbable cruelties.
It was clear that distancing was fundamental, hence the cultivation of the "rogue" theory, with Saudi operatives taking a merry trip off the beaten path. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was happy to pour water on the suggestion. "We have strong evidence in our hands that shows the murder wasn't accidental but was instead the outcome of a planned operation." It had been executed "in a ferocious manner".
The Turkish president has, however, danced around the issue of ultimate state sanctioned responsibility. Neither King Salman, nor Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have been publicly outed in any statements as either showing awareness of the killing or ordering it. Prince MBS and his father are happy to keep it that way, severing their links with the killing as assuredly as the killers had severed the journalist's fingers. This is evidenced by the Crown Prince's own labelling of the act as a "heinous crime that cannot be justified".
The Saudi Public Prosecutor has also decided to move the case from one of accidental killing (fist fights will do that sort of thing) to one of planned murder. A bit of cosmetic housecleaning has been taking place (another authoritarian lesson: look busy, seem engaged with heavy concern): 18 people have been arrested and two advisers sacked by the Saudi state. The Crown Prince, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, has chaired the first meeting of a committee established to reform the country's intelligence services.
This authoritarian blueprint also implies a staying power in the face of other states who see Saudi Arabia as cash cow and security partner. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich appetite for foreign arms, a point not missed on the weapons makers of the globe. Some attrition is bound to take place: certain countries, keen to keep their human rights credentials bright and in place, will temporarily suspend arms sales. Others will simply claim disapproval but continue leaving signatures on the relevant contracts of sale.
Some ceremonial condemnations have been registered. Members of the European Parliament voted upon a non-binding resolution on Thursday to "impose an EU-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia." Germany, temporarily concerned, has suspended arms sales to the House of Saud, with Chancellor Angela Merkel deeming the Khashoggi killing "monstrous". Canada's Justin Trudeau briefly pondered what to do with a lucrative defence contract with Riyadh worth $12 billion, only to then step back.
The Canadian prime minister did acknowledge that the killing of Khashoggi "is something that is extremely preoccupying to Canadians, to Canada and to many of our allies around the world" but has not made good any threats. His predecessor has become the ideal alibi. "The contract signed by the previous government, by Stephen Harper, makes it very difficult to suspend or leave that contract." Cancellation would lead to penalties which, in turn, would affect the Canadian tax payer. How fortunate for Trudeau.
France, the United Kingdom and the United States remain the three biggest suppliers of military hardware to the kingdom, a triumvirate of competitors that complicates any effective embargo. Which state, after all, wants to surrender market share? It's a matter of prestige, if nothing else. President Donald Trump's reaction is already clear: a suitably adjusted lid will be deployed to keep things in check till matters blow over; in the meantime, nothing will jeopardise a $110 billion arms deal. Business with a theocracy can be patriotic.
The French angle has been reserved and coldly non-committal. "Weapons exports to Saudi Arabia are examined in this context," claimed foreign ministry deputy spokesman Olivier Gauvin, meaning that his country's arms control policy was made on a case-by-case basis. For France, keeping Riyadh in stiff opposition to Tehran's regional ambitions has been a matter of importance in its Middle Eastern policy for decades, a point reiterated by President Emmanuel Macron in April. And the Kingdom pays French arms exporters well: between 2008 and 2017, Saudi Arabia proved the second biggest purchaser of French arms (some 11 billion euros), with 2017 being a bumper year with licenses coming to 14.7 billion euros. Riyadh can expect little change there.
Britain's Theresa May, in the tradition of elastic British diplomacy (condemnation meets inertia), has insisted that her government already has the appropriately stringent rules on arms exports, another way of shunning any European resolution that might perch on human rights. Such strictness evidently does not preclude the eager oil sheiks of Riyadh, though Britain's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt did suggest the Khashoggi killing, should it "turn out to be true" would be "fundamentally incompatible with our values and we will act accordingly." Such actions are bound to be symbolic – much money has been received by the British arms industry, with earnings of £4.6 billion coming from sales to the Kingdom since the Saudi-led war on Yemen began in 2015. Sowing death, even if through the good agency of a theocratic power, is lucrative.
The fate of Khashoggi, cruel and ghastly, seems a piddle of insignificance in that light. "Brexit," urged Philippe Lamberts, MEP and leader of the Group of the Greens, "must not be an excuse for the UK to abdicate on its moral responsibilities." That abdication, on the part of Britain and its arms competitors, took place sometime ago.
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