Tuesday, November 17, 2015

West Tries to Shift Terror Blame on Russia

Finian CUNNINGHAM | 18.11.2015 | 00:00

Never wasting an opportunity for base point-scoring, some Western leaders appear to be capitalising on the horror of the Paris terror attacks to cajole Russia into accepting their regime-change agenda in Syria. From the G20 summit in Turkey last weekend, the West is fashioning a new twist in the narrative which seeks insidiously to lay the blame, at least in part, on Russia for the horrific carnage in the French capital – that happened just two days before the G20 met in Turkey’s Antalya. 
Even more distastefully, some Western voices are also crafting the implication that Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Syria was responsible for the downing of the Russian passenger plane over Sinai in which 224 people were killed. The Islamic State terror group (also known as ISIS or ISIL) has claimed involvement in the two incidents, with the latest gun and bomb attack in Paris killing over 130 people. 
On Monday, Britain’s Guardian headlined«Western leaders urge Putin at G20 to change course in Syria». Adding to the blame-game narrative, was the accompanying sub-headline: «Diplomats hope that possible bombing of Russian plane and Paris attacks will convince Putin to change strategy».
Russian crash investigators have concluded that a terrorist bomb caused the Metrojet A321 to break up at an altitude of 31,000 feet over the Sinai desert with over 200 Russian tourists on board. American and British intelligence had asserted from an early stage that a terrorist bomb in the luggage hold brought the plane down, which tends to confirm a claim of responsibility made by an IS-affiliate. 
From the Western perspective, as reported by the Guardian, the military intervention in Syria by Putin that began on September 30 is to blame for the Paris and Sinai death toll. Russia’s campaign of air strikes against various terrorist groups in Syria, including the Islamic State network, has enraged the terrorists to take revenge on  targets outside Syria. 
That is the implication from the Guardian’s choice of words that «diplomats hope possible bombing of Russian plane and Paris attacks will convince Putin to change strategy». Note the insidious onus is placed on Putin to «change strategy» which clearly infers that «it’s all Putin’s fault» for the recent carnage.
This shifting the blame on to Moscow was echoed at the G20 summit by American President Barack Obama and the European Council President Donald Tusk, among others. Tusk said that Russia’s air strikes must henceforth focus on ISIS and not «moderate rebels», according to the BBC. 
Reuters reported: «Obama urges Russia to join renewed effort to eliminate Islamic State». The news agency inserted this editorial comment into its reportage: «US-led efforts to combat Islamic State were complicated when Russia joined the conflict a month and a half ago, targeting what the West says are mainly areas where foreign-backed fighters are battling Assad, Moscow's ally, rather than Islamic State».
So, according to Reuters, US-led efforts to combat ISIS in Syria have been undermined by Russia’s entry to the conflict, even though Moscow’s intervention has been legal under international law, at the invitation of the Syrian government, and over the past six weeks Russian air strikes have dealt serious blows to the IS and other jihadist networks, as can be judged by rapid on-the-ground advances made by the Syrian army. 
In Antalya, Obama held a cordial, business-like meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit. The White House characterised their discussion as «constructive» and Voice of America noted that the tone of two leaders’ confab was markedly absent of any antagonism. 
Nevertheless, the Western narrative following the G20 conference conveys the unmistakable – albeit snide – implication that Russia’s actions in Syria are wrongheaded and have exacerbated the problem of international terrorism. That implication of blame is obviously aimed at pressuring Moscow into adopting Western plans for a «political transition» in Syria. 
It takes a breathtaking wilful denial of reality by Western media to produce that contorted depiction of the conflict in Syria. 
In addition to Obama, among the G20 leaders were those of Britain, France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. That US-led group has been responsible for instigating the nearly five-year mayhem in Syria going back to March 2011 when the foreign-backed covert war for regime change was initiated under the cover of the «Arab Spring» regional pro-democracy protests. 
Washington and its allies have funded, armed and trained a whole army of foreign mercenaries mobilised with a sociopathic sectarian ideology. The so-called Islamic State is just one of hundreds of jihadist brigades that include the Free Syrian Army, whom the West lionise, against all reason and evidence, as «moderate rebels». 
Western leaders refer to the IS as a «death cult». US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at last weekend’s political talks in Vienna over the Syrian crisis, described the terror organisation as a form of «medieval fascism». French President Francois Hollande, in the wake of the Paris attacks, vowed to wage a «war without mercy» against the IS. 
Astoundingly, missing from this Western condemnation of IS is the fact that this network and its associated terror brigades have been created out of Western machinations for regime change, not just in Syria, but right across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, dating back to the US-British invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan 14 years ago. We can go further back to the late 1970s and 1980s in Afghanistan, when the US launched the mujahideen and Al Qaeda – the precursors of IS – along with British, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence. A veritable Frankenstein creation whose American authorship was confirmed again only two weeks ago by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter in a speech given to the Reagan Library in California. 
Russia’s military intervention in Syria is rightly focused on destroying all the terror networks and on preventing Syria turning into another failed state that would export even more terrorism to the region, just as Western machinations have succeeded in doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Somalia, and, we should add, in Russia’s southern Caucasus region. 
It is the height of ludicrousness for Western leaders and their Arab and Turk allies to lecture Russia about the priority of focusing on IS, and «not moderate rebels». This is simply a false dichotomy fictionalised in order to give the West a cover for its sponsorship of terrorism in Syria under the guise of supporting «secular moderates». The latter is non-existent. The FSA’s crimes of beheading and generally terrorising the civilian population in Syria are just as every bit as vile as those of the IS, Al Nusra, Jaish al Islam, Ahrar al Sham, Farouq, Islamic Front (sic), and all the other jihadist brigades. 
The Guardian reported British leader David Cameron as saying at the G20 summit: «The conversation I want to have with Putin is to say, look, there is one thing we agree about which is we would be safer in Russia, we would be safer in Britain, if we destroy ISIS. That is what we should be focusing on».
Cameron added: «Britain had its differences with the Russians, not least because they have done so much to degrade the non-ISIL opposition to Assad – people who could be part of the future of Syria».
This is just British balderdash spinning a lie that somehow the only terror problem in Syria is due to ISIS alone, and that all other groups are «moderate» and are «people who could be part of the future of Syria». Britain, as with the other US-led allies, wants Russia to ease off on its campaign to wipe out the regime-change mercenaries. ISIS is perhaps being thrown under the warplanes, as a token sacrifice, but the objective is to keep the other mercenary brigades intact to continue the regime-change program. 
As well as using base calumny to implicate Russia in escalating terrorism out of Syria, the British prime minister also dangled a sordid bribe to Moscow. According the Guardian, Cameron sought «to reassure Putin that however the political transition ends in Syria, Russian commercial political and military interests could be protected». Note the seductive words «could be».
The Guardian report cited above also revealed this gambit by Downing Street: «The British government may be willing to put to one side long-standing differences over the Russian incursion into Ukraine to try to reach a breakthrough over Syria».
How’s that for British expedience? For more than a year, London has dragooned the rest of Europe into following Washington’s policy of demonising and sanctioning Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine – another mess engineered by the West. Yet now, the Cameron government is prepared to put aside Ukraine – if Putin will play ball over Syria by going along with the West’s regime-change agenda to oust the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. 
With boundless cynicism, the Western authors of Syria’s catastrophic war and terrorism, including horrific blowback violence and a refugee crisis in Europe, are now seeking to pressure Russia into acceding to their criminal enterprise of regime change, by trying to shift the blame on to Russia, while offering inducements of sanctions relief and normalisation over Ukraine.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/11/18/west-tries-shift-terror-blame-on-russia.html

France calls for aid from the EU to fight Daesh as John Kerry flies into Paris

News | 18.11.2015 | 02:14
 
euronews - US Secretary of State John Kerry has flown into Paris to meet with President François Hollande for the first time since the deadly Paris attacks of last Friday. Also on Tuesday, France became the first-ever EU member to invoke the Lisbon Treaty’s Article 42.7, calling on “mutual aid and assistance” from the 27 other member states in taking military action against Daesh.
 
Hollande is currently leading a charge to forge an inclusive single coalition to fight Daesh in Syrian and Iraq that includes the Russians. Kerry insisted the fight is being won.
 
“I’m convinced that over the course of the next weeks Daesh will feel even greater pressure. They’re feeling it today, they felt it yesterday, they’ve felt it in the past weeks, we’ve gained more territory, Daesh has less territory. We’ve taken out leaders, we’ve liberated significant communities,” he said.
 
Tags: France ISIS Middle East Kerry
 

It's official: terror behind sinai-plane-crash (Crosstalks RT)

Paris Attacks Prompt West to Rethink Anti-ISIL Cooperation With Russia


Flag of the Islamic State in the conflict zone

Paris Attacks Prompt West to Rethink Anti-ISIL Cooperation With Russia

© Sputnik/ Andrey Stenin
OPINION
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Friday's deadly attacks in Paris are forcing Europe and the US to 'rethink their options' on the West's battle against ISIL, even prompting them to consider a closer partnership with Moscow in the aim of crushing the terror threat, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The business newspaper explains that "thirty minutes of terror on the streets of Paris looks to become the catalyst for a broad shift in international politics with implications that could last for years."
Recalling that "much of the focus of the West over the past year has been on a perceived growing threat from Russia," with "terrorism…a real, but containable problem," now, following "a series of well-coordinated strikes, Islamic State put the threat of terrorism back at the center of the international agenda."
As a result, WSJ notes, "Russia, far from a nuclear-armed enemy, instantly presented itself as a partner –one with a plan for immediately tamping down on the threat." 
Russia's proposal – to back the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, "at least temporarily, as the best way of tackling Islamic State –has been unpalatable to the US and, up to now, France, which has been one of Mr. Assad's fiercest international critics. That position," the paper says, "could well be changing."
Noting that Friday's attacks have "sharply increased the geopolitical stakes over Syria," and that they are likely "to intensify Western military and diplomatic efforts there," WSJ explains that they nevertheless will not lead to "large numbers of boots on the ground," with Western countries' "appetite…colored by the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan." 
Thus, with the US promising only to intensify its existing campaign of airstrikes, and to share more intelligence with France "to help that country better strike Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria," the West could, according the paper, now also be forced to make "an uncomfortable compromise…with Russia," whom Western leaders had earlier accused of interfering or even intervening militarily in Ukraine.
With President Vladimir Putin repeatedly bringing up the need for closer cooperation between Russia and the West in the fight against terrorism since September's UN General Assembly meeting in New York, "Moscow is apparently hoping," WSJ suggests, "that there will be a deal a deal in which cooperation over Syria leads to an easing of Western sanctions over Ukraine. Up until now, European officials have resisted any such linkage."
And while the WSJ absurdly concludes its analysis with the suggestion that "any de facto coalition with Moscow," which "would likely reinforce the Assad regime…could backfire by pushing Sunni Muslims who oppose him into a corner," its core message, that Western countries could now change their tone toward Russia, at least in the fight against jihadist terror, is something which can only be welcomed.


Read more: http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20151116/1030219723/paris-attacks-anti-isil-cooperation.html#ixzz3rmUDof7Y

Lesung: 'Während die Welt schlief' Lesung von Susan Abulhawas Roman

Für Nicht-Bonner: s. Vorankündigung: Saeed Amireh aus Nilin wird unser Gast
am Sonntag, 29.11.2015 sein.

Institut für Palästinakunde 
e.V. 
Institut für Palästinakunde
  
Militarismus, Ultra-Nationalismus und
                            Homophobie in Israel  Einladung des 'Instituts für Palästinakunde e.V.'  Lesung: 'Während die Welt schlief'
   Lesung von Susan Abulhawas Roman
   'Während die Welt schlief' mit Soraya Sala
   auf der Bonner 'Buchmesse Migration'


     Bonn, 22. November 2015
Institut für Palästinakunde e.V.
Weissenburgstrasse 11
DE 53175 Bonn
Tel.: 0049 228 18038637
ipk@ipk-bonn.de



Liebe Freundinnen und Freunde,
sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
am kommenden Sonntag, dem 22. November 2015, liest Soraya Sala im Konferenzraum des Bonner 'Hauses der Geschichte' aus dem Roman „Während die Welt schlief“ (engl. Titel: "Mornings in Jenin") der palästinensisch-amerikanischen Schriftstellerin Susan Abulhawa. Soraya Sala
»Dieser Roman schafft einen Ort, wo sich Menschen treffen und die Menschlichkeit des anderen entdecken können.«
  Susan Abulhawa
Susan Abulhawa erzählt in ihrem Roman die Geschichte der palästinensischen Familie Abulheja über vier Generationen hinweg, von 1948 bis 2002: von ihrer Vertreibung aus dem Dorf ‘Ein Hod’, über Jenin bis hin zur Emigration nach Beirut und Philadelphia.
Obgleich die Historie in dem Roman eine wichtige Rolle spielt, stehen die menschlichen Schicksale hinter den Ereignissen im Mittelpunkt, die an die Universalität der menschlichen Bedürfnisse nach Heimat, Gemeinschaft, Identität und Sicherheit erinnern.
»Es gibt Geschichten, die die Kraft haben, Menschen in ihren Herzen zu erreichen, unser Bewusstsein zu erweitern und uns an unsere gemeinsame Menschlichkeit zu erinnern. Susan Abulhawa schreibt Geschichten als Weg, die Mauern zwischen den Menschen niederzureissen. Und es sind diese Geschichten, die ich erzählen möchte.«
  Soraya Sala, Schauspielerin/Sprecherin
Die Lesung gehört zum Programm der Bonner Bonner Buchmesse Migration (19.-22. Nov), auf welcher das IPK mit einem eigenen Stand vertreten ist.

Vorankündigung
  Am 29. November (So.) wird Saeed Amireh aus Nilin Gast des 'Cafe Palestine' im Bonner 'Migrapolis Haus der Vielfalt' sein.
Der Titel seines Vortrags lautet 'Palästinensische Autonomiebehörde' - Freund oder Feind?.




Details zur Lesung 
  
Ort: Haus der Geschichte
Konferenzraum
Willy-Brandt-Allee 14
53113 Bonn
Zeit: 22. November (Sonntag), 15:00 Uhr 
Eintritt: Frei, Spenden erbeten. 
Kontakt: ipk@ipk-bonn.de
Tel.: 0228/18038637 (AB) 
            



Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Angelika Vetter
(für den IPK-Vorstand)

Syria: Dangerous Theatre of Absurd

Michael Jabara CARLEY | 17.11.2015 | 00:00

When the Syrian war first escalated, I remember seeing the photograph of a grizzled, greying man shot dead inside an old pickup truck. The window is rolled down and he is slumped back; blood had dripped from his wounds down the outside of the door, dried out and turned brown in the hot sun. Apparently on his way to work this innocent victim of the early Syrian warwas caught in a sudden Jihadi attack on his town. 
For what reason did this man, like so many others, have to die? His death was absurd, pointless, tragic. For me, the image of the murdered man symbolises the dangerous theatre of the absurd that Syria has become, where its people are menaced by forces beyond their ability to control… except by armed resistance.
It was during the summer of 2012 when a major attack was launched on Damascus to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. His defence minister, Dawoud Abdallah Rajiha, along with other senior officials, were assassinated in a bomb attack in a supposedly secure government building. The situation looked bad. Assad’s government seemed on the brink of collapse. 
We learned what kind of a leader and a man President Assad was in that grim summer of 2012. He could easily have accepted western summons to leave Damascus. He is a physician, with a speciality in ophthalmology. He could have gone back to practicing medicine and left Syria to the tender mercies of Jihadists running amuck with foreign support. 
Assad did not take that easy way out. He stayed in Damascus, shared the dangers of his people and led the resistance against the foreign backed Takfiri foreign militias. Had Damascus fallen, he would surely have forfeited his life. He is now the main leader of the Syrian resistance against the Jihadists, which is why the United States and its satellites are so determined to drive him from power.
The conflict in Syria, which is often called a civil war, is not a civil war at all. It is a proxy war of aggression, brokered, bankrolled, and led by the United States, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, amongst others, with the intention of destroying the Assad government and breaking up Syria. It is not the first time that the United States has attempted to overthrow a Middle Eastern government which did not suit its interests. Sometimes this work has been undertaken clandestinely, and sometimes openly in wars of aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Syria was supposed to be the target of a clandestine operation, not open military aggression, but the US government has been unable to overthrow President Assad. This was a surprise to Washington. «His days are numbered», US officials boasted at the beginning of the Jihadi war, «he should go while the getting is good.» Three years later, Assad and his people still fight on. 
The US government took advantage of economic difficulties and bad harvests in Syria to stir up an «Arab Spring». «We’re backing democracy», says Barack Obama. «Airstrike democracy», Vladimir Putin, derisively replied. There are many US airstrikes in the Middle East, but no democracy. Whatever genuine protest movement existed in Syria in the early days, it has long since disappeared, hijacked by foreign interventionists. After the US and NATO destruction of once prosperous, independent Libya, the Jihadists moved on with NATO clandestine assistance, like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to Syria and Iraq where they have strongly implanted themselves as the Islamic state (IS). They could not have done so in Syria without strong backing from the United States, France, Britain, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel. 
You can’t conduct major military operations, as IS and its affiliates are doing in Syria and Iraq, without massive logistic, material, and financial support. The Turkish border has been a major crossing point and Turkey, a sanctuary for the Jihadi movement. There are no definite open source figures on who exactly is fighting against the Syrian government, but it is not a Syrian movement. Large numbers of foreign Jihadists are involved, with estimates of up to 70,000coming from all points of the unhappy Muslim world. These are not simply dissatisfied young men looking for kicks, money, and a chance at martyrdom; by all accounts many are experienced soldiers capable of seizing and holding territory. It takes time, training, guns, tanks, trucks, supply lines, hospitals, and a lot of money, to create such military formations. All this comes from the United States and its vassals. These actions constitute aggression against a legitimate state fighting for survival. 
In order to hide the US involvement in brokering and backing the Jihadi movement in Syria, a massive Mainstream Media campaign has been undertaken to present Assad as a bloodthirsty, vicious, «barrel-bombing» dictator, responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of his compatriots. It is the usual Orwellian inversion of reality. It is Assad, the Syrian Arab Army, and various Syrian (and Kurdish) militias which are holding the line against a Jihadi barbarian invasion. 
The American people are generally not known for high levels of political acumen, but I wonder what they would think, if they finally realised that their government is backing and bankrolling Jihadi terrorists. Even one of their own, a retired Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, has told Al Jazeerah that the US government made a «wilful decision» to create and back IS. To divert attention from US collusion, Pot calls Kettle black: the evil doer brazenly accuses his targeted victim of evil. It’s an old US stratagem.
Hezbollah has intervened to support the Syrian government, for it knows, obviously, that Lebanon cannot survive if the IS takes Damascus. This point was underlined by the recent suicide bombing attack in Beirut. What do they think they are doing in Washington? Have they not learned any lessons from the «blowback» of an earlier generation of their Frankenstein monsters? No, they have not. After Beirut, Jihadi terrorists have struck again in Paris. 
Iran is reported to be offering military assistance to the Syrian government to fight IS on what scale is not clear. And Russia has sent fighter jets to support the Syrian Arab Army and its allied forces. This action has exposed US support of so-called Jihadi «moderates»; Washington has accused Russia of bombing them. Saudi, US, French, British diplomats, the usual gang, are circulating a UN committee motion of condemnation of Russia and Iran for attacking the «moderate opposition» in Syria. Is there any limit to the absurd and the preposterous? There is no «moderate» opposition fighting against the Syrian government. They are Salafist Jihadists, affiliates whatever they call themselves and they have many names, of the same lot of IS serial killers and cannibals. They are cut from the same cloth, weaved by the United States and its vassals. The «moderate» opposition is another Orwellian invention to hide Washington’s support for the murder and mayhem in Syria. When they [the west] are hit by the Jihadis, it’s terrorism, observes President Assad, when they hit us, it’s «revolution, freedom, democracy and human rights.» Let’s call a spade a spade.
* * *
Russian intervention in Syria caught Washington off guard, showing up President Obama and exposing his support of Jihadi terrorists he claims to be fighting. The ineffectual US bombing campaign against IS during the last year is a charade, blowing up a few bulldozers here and there and lots of sand to make it look like the United States is fighting the IS when really it turns a blind eye to their attacks on the Syrian government. The US ally, Turkey, has an open border to supply IS, and it has threatened Kurdish forces in northern Syria, if they attempt to close off the Turkish supply corridor. Indeed, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, reinforced by the results of allegedly rigged recent elections, has menaced Russia with dire consequences for its Syrian intervention. Obama has sent special forces to Kurdish Syria purportedly to help the Kurds fight IS. Is this a pretext and a first step to US military escalation? There are people in Washington demanding «boots on the ground» in Syria. At the same time the US has sent air to air combat aircraft to Turkey to protect it against «Russian aggression», whilst the Turks threaten the Syrian Kurds (supported by US special forces) and back IS in northern Syria. Russia is reported to have set up anti-aircraft missile batteries in northern Syria to protect its dispositions there, against who is left unsaid, but almost certainly against a possible US (or Turkish) surprise attack.
Can the Syrian theatre of the absurd become any more absurd or any more dangerous? Yes, it can. The United States accused Russia of bombing non-existent hospitals in Syria, shortly after US warplanes destroyed a real hospital in Afghanistan. Pipsqueak Qatar, an IS financier, recently threatened military intervention against Syria, and Saudi Arabia continues to supply and bankroll IS, not to mention its pursuit of a war of aggression against Yemen. Neither Qatar nor Saudi Arabia are «democracies», by the way, far from it, though they are US «allies». The Saudi absolute monarchy recently insisted on democratic elections in Syria, though Assad might well win such elections and so the unelected, privileged Saudi princes insist he cannot stand as a candidate. All these absurdities might have been largely concealed if only the IS had not implanted itself in Iraq and declared the founding of a new Islamic caliphate. IS could have had a free hand in Syria, and US clandestine support of the Jihadi movement would have remained largely unnoticed.
Do not expect the United States to atone for its escalating international violence. The US Deep State will not forgive President Putin for exposing their bloody hands in the Syrian war. The other day the Secretary of Defence, Ashton Carter, said that he expects that Russia will soon sustain casualties fighting the Jihadi barbarians. It is almost as though he was gloating in anticipation of spilled Russian blood. The Russian government and no doubt most Russians were incensed. Is the United States or its Saudi vassals sending MANPADS, antiaircraft weapons, to the Jihadists, to shoot down Russian aircraft? Would that surprise anyone? Mr Carter, do you think that Russia does not have contingency plans for such an eventuality?
Everyone says the United States and Russia have a common interest in fighting Salafist Jihadism. But this is untrue. The Jihadists are US hired guns, mercenaries, goons, and have been ever since the US intervention in Afghanistan against the USSR. The United States will certainly direct their Jihadi mercenaries toward Russia’s southern frontiers if they are not destroyed in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. 
Can they be destroyed? Not unless the United States changes course, and there is little indication that it will. Moreover, who will discourage the Saudi quartermasters of the Jihadi movement? Every time there is a report of some modest US-Russia cooperation against IS, US government anti-Russian hostility erupts again. Either such reports are wishful thinking, Americans trying to excuse the inexcusable conduct of their government, or President Obama has not got firm control of his subordinates, or he does and is throwing dust in everyone’s eyes.
Reports to the contrary notwithstanding, the United States appears to be «doubling down» to obstruct Russian efforts against the Salafi Jihadists in Syria. Secretary Carter said recently that Russia and China are challenging «the principled international order.» Carter really meant US world hegemony because Washington speaks only for itself and its vassals, and that’s not the world. Secretary of State John Kerry claims that the rise of the IS in Syria is Assad’s fault and that Assad has to go. That’s a matter for Syrians to decide, Mr Kerry, and you are not Syrian. It’s more theatre of the absurd and buffoon Pot calling Kettle black. The stream of Orwellian newspeak flows like sewer effluent in ever greater volume out of Washington. If US policy is being formulated based on an upside down reality, then worse is yet to come in the Middle East and indeed in the wider world.
As if to underline this point, Jihadi terrorists went on a killing spree in Paris on Friday (13 November). This is the same violence, perpetrated by the same groups, which occurs in Syria every day. Who were the Paris assassins? Were they «moderates» previously bankrolled, trained, and armed by the United States or indeed by France? The Jihadi terrorists are like scorpions, President Assad observed back in 2013. You can’t keep them in your pocket and pull them out whenever you want to attack a government you don’t like. The scorpion, he said, «can unexpectedly sting you at any time.» It has too in Beirut and Paris. Assad did not say it in so many words, but the United States has long pursued a policy of using scorpions against its enemies. Innocents will get stung, they say in Washington, shedding crocodile tears: it’s unavoidable «collateral damage».
What madness has overcome the US Deep State? The so-called Defence Department, acting like a bully whose dominion over the school yard has been challenged, actually seems to want a confrontation with Russia in Syria to re-establish its reputation and save its Jihadi allies. As if their recent provocations against China are not enough, US officials should be careful, very careful what they wish for.

Michael Jabara CARLEY
Michael Jabara Carley is professor of history at the Université de Montréal.  He has published widely on Soviet relations with the West.  Amongst these publications are 1939: The Alliance that Never Was and the Coming of World War II (Chicago, 1999) and Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations (Lanham, MD, 2014).  Professor Carley is working on a new book dealing with Soviet relations with the West and formation of the Grand Alliance against Nazi Germany. 

http://www.strategic-culture.org/pview/2015/11/17/syria-dangerous-theatre-of-absurd.html

France: A la Guerre Comme a la Guerre!

Dmitriy SEDOV | 15.11.2015 | 21:30

A human tragedy has taken place. On November 14, terrorists killed over 100 people in Paris. More than 200 were injured. Even now, after the tragedy has happened, the leadership of France has no courage to face the reality. French politicians, including President François Hollande, keep on harping on the same string expressing their readiness to fight for European values and ideals like if they were attacked for some unknown reason by aliens. A healer in the Middle Ages knew only one way to fight smallpox – to plunge a patient into boiling water. French politicians behave the same way. They call for tougher police measures, closed borders and prolongation of the state of emergency.
The introduction of these measures may be expedient, but it’s not clear how it’s going to work if barbarians did not come from across the borders. The attack was carried out by the criminals mixed with local Muslim diaspora.
Is François Hollande aware of the fact that the “death industry” is an established business that the Islamic State leaders and some circles in Saudi Arabia and Qatar have interest in? Does he not know that there are financial flows coming to provide funds for ideological brainwashing, recruitment and operations of suicide bombers? Does he not know this evil could be eradicated only by cutting off financial flows coming to the Islamic State?
Does the French President know that only the United States can put an end to this deadly cycle as the actor capable of influencing Turkey used by the Islamic State as a transition country for oil exports? Does he not know that the United States is the only country that could bring to reason the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
Doesn’t François Hollande know that terrorists cross Turkey on their way to Europe? Does he not know that Washington has all the aces to enable it to call Turkey to order, if need be? Does the French President understand that the France’s vibrant activities aimed at routing Libya and the popular support for profaningthe Quran by Charlie Hebdo have turned the French into prime targets for terrorists?
He, probably, understands all these things being unable to refuse the policy of solidarity with the United States and interpreting freedom as permissiveness. Otherwise, he would not be a Frenchman. 
Today, terrorists and those who represent them say they will not limit their activities with the territory of France. They will move on to Rome, London and Washington. It brings up the question posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to the United Nations General Assembly. Heasked, “Doyourealizewhatyouhavedone?”
The results of the recent meeting on Syria held by almost 20 countries in Vienna show that the West reluctantly cedes some ground to Russia making very small concessions. It hopes to protract the process. The parties to the talks have only agreed on some general outlines of Syria’s crisis management during the next 18 months. Actually, therearenopracticalresults. A year and a half is too long. Too many things may occur during this period of time to bring any accords to naught. The war can go on forever until all the parties join together in the effort to defeat the Islamic State. It’sacrucialissue. Noprogress,whatsoever, has been reached so far. It’s hard for the United States to refuse manipulating countries and peoples through controlled chaos. The Moscow’s calls for uniting efforts in the fight against the Islamic State fall on deaf ears in Washington. Sometimes it offers fatuous excuses.
Moreover, Western politicians try to make Russia a rogue state. They continue to grab sanctions stick. They have raised ballyhoo about Russian athletes allegedly using doping. They use all the means at their disposal in their anti-Russian drive. In his UN address Vladimir Putin said they are confident of their impunity. That’s what made Washington put forward the marasmatic demand for Moscow to forgive the Ukraine’s sovereign debt. Probably, it wants it to make life easier for Kiev regime being an instrument used for anti-Russia activities.
US President Barack Obama expressed condolences to France in the aftermath of the Paris tragedy. The world did not hear anything from him, except empty words about being adamant in his desire to punish the enemy. Are the Americans serious about sitting it out being separated by the ocean? Do they really believe, that such terrorist acts, as the one just occurred in France, cannot take place in the US?
Why do US politicians not realize that the times when the United States could thrive at the expense of others are over? Do they need the cancer of terrorism to spread around the United States to understand this simple truth? The continuation of this game will give rise to a wave of terrorism to hit the country.
President Hollande says the terrorists have declared war on France. But it’s important that his belated admission does not become another empty figure of speech. To really fight terrorism one must join together with those who pursue the same goal instead of trying to use it for one’s own selfish interests.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/11/15/france-guerre-comme-guerre.html