Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Turkey’s may regret border violation claims in Hatay

Wayne MADSEN | 22.10.2015 | 00:01

Turkey has repeatedly charged that Russian military aircraft flying sorties over Syrian airspace against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have violated Turkish airspace over the province of Hatay. 
Hatay is the curious geographical outcropping of Turkish territory that juts from Anatolia into the eastern shoreline of the Mediterranean to the west of Syria. If it appears that Hatay should actually be part of Syria, it once was, that is, before the Turkish government annexed the territory in 1939 in a raw deal worked out with France. Hatay was long forgotten, that is, until 1989 when the film «Indian Jones and the Last Crusade» featured, in part, the State of Hatay as it existed in the late 1930s. However, Hollywood mistakenly referred to Hatay as a sultanate and created for it a fake flag.
NATO, without submitting anything in the way of proof, charged that Russian Sukhoi Su-30s and Su-24s violated Hatay’s «sovereign» airspace on at least three occasions from the first week of October to the middle of the month. 
However, many Syrians believe that Turkey has been violating Syrian sovereignty over what the Syrians refer to as Alexandretta since 1939. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, Alexandretta, which was part of the Aleppo Province of the empire, became a separate entity but ruled by Paris as part of the League of Nations’ French mandate of Syria as a result of the Franco-Turkish Treaty of 1921. Known as the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta, the area was administratively governed as part of the French-ruled State of Aleppo and in 1925 it became part of the new French state of Syria but, in recognition of its large Alawite, Turkish, and Armenian communities, retained its autonomous status. Alexandretta also had communities of Assyrians, Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Maronites, Greeks, Greek Catholics, Kurds, and Jews. There were four other states under the French mandate of Syria: Arab Syria, largely occupied by Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and Turkoman; Latakia, the coastal region dominated by Alawites and Christians; Lebanon, which was then largely Christian; and the southern region largely inhabited by the nomadic Jebel Druze.
The Syrian civil war, instigated by the West, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, Turkey, and Israel, has played upon the old religious and ethnic fracture lines of the old League of Nations mandate to further their own agendas. However, by opening the Syrian can of worms, Turkey has also turned attention toward dormant claims by Alexandretta, now the Hatay province of Turkey, for retrocession to Syria.
Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk never recognized French-Syrian control of what the Turks insisted on calling Hatay. Ataturk made an astounding claim that Alexandretta was a Turkish homeland for 40 centuries even though it was also longtime homeland for a number Syrian Alawites, Arabs, Melkite Christians, Armenians, Kurds, Circassians, and Jews. Moreover, the Seljuk Turks had only occupied Alexandretta in 1096. The Seljuk Turkish occupation of the region ended three years later when Christian crusaders led by European princes conquered Alexandretta. 
Much like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s covert support for ISIL, Ataturj began providing clandestine support for Turkish irredentists in Alexandretta. The Turkish residents of Alexandretta formed pro-Kemalist organizations dedicated to forming a union with Turkey.
The Syrian Arabs of Alexandretta wanted nothing to do with becoming part of Turkey. Syrian nationalist leader Zaki al-Arsuzi, one of the inspirational leaders of the Arab Ba’ath Party, which would later come to rule both Syria under Hafez al-Assad and his son, current president Bashar al-Assad, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, began to call for Alexandretta’s independence from France and union with Syria. In 1936, the French and Turks concluded an agreement whereby Turkey would recognize the eventual independence of Syria, which would include the Sanjak of Alexandretta. However, Ataturk raised the status of Alexandretta before the League of Nations and claimed that because the majority of its population was Turkish – which, at 39 percent of the population, was another falsehood from Ataturk – the Sanjak should be separate from an independent Syria.
The Armenian community surrounding Alexandretta, fearing the Turks who had already engaged in a wholesale genocide of the Armenian people from 1915 to 1922, declared the Republic of Amanus and asked France for recognition. France ignored the Armenians. The French, Americans, British, and other World War I allies also ignored the plight of the Armenian, Greek, Maronite, and other minority communities of Cilicia, along the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia, who found themselves besieged by the extreme nationalism of Ataturk’s Young Turk movement.
France agreed that Alexandretta would maintain its autonomous status as part of Syria after Syrian independence but rejected Turkish demands that the region be granted separate independence, obviously with the goal of then incorporating the mini-state into Turkey. The League of Nations appointed a special committee, with French and Turkish members, to hammer out an agreement on Alexandretta. 
The committee agreed that Sanjak would retain autonomy over its internal affairs, Syria would have responsibility for the Sanjak’s foreign affairs; the Sanjak and Syria would have the same monetary system; Syria and Alexandretta would appoint commissioners to represent each entity in their respective capitals – Damascus and Antioch; Alexandretta would be completely demilitarized and only a police force would be maintained; the rights of all minorities with respect to race, religion, language, and nationality would be guaranteed; Turkey would have special rights in the port of Alexandretta and a separate customs zone; Arabic and Turkish were recognized as official languages; a unicameral legislature would be established with 40 members who would elect a president and an executive council; and freedom of the press and elementary education were guaranteed.
After the agreement, Christian and Muslim Arabs, as well as Armenians, immediately took to the streets in rioting to protest Turkish being adopted as an official language. In a fashion popular at the time with Nazi Germany with regard to its neighbors with German minorities, Turkish troops were deployed to the northern border of Alexandretta and Turkey began to officially complain about the treatment of Turks in the Sanjak. In 1937, as French authorities were registering voters in Alexandretta for forthcoming elections, Turkey abrogated its 1926 no-aggression treaty with the Syrian mandate. Al-Arsuzi and his Syrian nationalists claimed there was no Turkish majority in Alexandretta, that its numbers were only 85,000 compared to 100,000 Arabs and Armenians. After a French census, it was agreed that Turks would have 22 of the 40 seats in the legislature. 
In what can only be described as a double-cross of the Syrians, the French agreed to permit Turkey to station troops in Alexandretta to maintain «order» and an agreement was signed between Paris and Ankara that recognized Turkey’s special status in Alexandretta. 
After elections were held in 1938, a former member of the Turkish National Assembly was elected President of the Sanjak of Alexandretta, which he immediately changed to the Republic of Hatay in recognition of the Hittite, and thus, Turkish, claim over the territory. The Turkish president declared the capital to be in Antakya (not Antioch as it was known to the majority of the population). The flag of Hatay was proclaimed to be a white crescent and star on a red field, the same as that of Turkey. The official policy of the Hatay government was to be «Kemalism».
A 1939 Franco-Turkish mutual assistance treaty sealed Alexandretta’s fate. In order to ensure that Turkey did not join with the Axis Powers, France ceded sovereignty of Alexandretta to the Turks. The rights of the majority non-Turks in Alexandretta, particularly the Armenians and Kurds, were systematically discarded by the French mandate authorities over Greater Syria. Part of the friction today that exists between the Baathists of Syria and the neo-nationalists of Erdogan stems directly from the abandonment of Alexandretta to the Turks by the French in 1939. Even if Russian planes overflew Hatay, it demonstrates that Syria and its allies have not forgotten the perfidy that led to Alexandretta’s illegal seizure by the Turks. 
Essentially, the Alawites and other minorities who now live in Hatay have good cause to demand retrocession back to Syria. The Turks falsely claim that the Alawites, Circassians, and Kurds who live in Hatay are ethnic Turks, a hyper-nationalist claim rejected by all three groups. Some official Syrian government maps still show Alexandretta as part of Syria. The Turkish-supported Syrian opposition have printed maps showing no separate status for Hatay but showing it as part of Turkey. 
If Syria is divided between a Sunni-dominated interior and a Latakia-based Alawite-Christian coastal entity, Hatay, if joined to Latakia, would give the new country a fighting chance for survival in a dangerous environment of Turkish nationalist adventurism. And a final footnote for a Turkey that has covertly pushed for the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate. If ancient history is to be revived, Christian claims to Cilicia and Constantinople can also be revived. If there is a place for an Islamic State in the world of Erdogan and his cronies, so too, can there be a place for a revived Byzantium and the reopening of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul as the holy see for eastern Christianity.
Tags: Middle East Syria Turkey
Source: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/10/22/turkey-may-regret-border-violation-claims-hatay.html

STOP THE KILLING – Beendet die Besatzung – Petition von Mitgliedern der jüdischen Gemeinden auf der ganzen Welt

ScreenHunter_01 Oct. 22 00.47
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http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-the-killing-end-the-occupation
Als Mitglieder der jüdischen Gemeinden auf der ganzen Welt, wir sind entsetzt über die Gewalt, auf den Straßen von Palästina und Israel, die allein in den vergangenen zwei Wochen das Leben von über 30 Menschen gekostet hat, sowohl von Palästinensern als auch von Israelis. Ein zwei Jahre altes  Mädchen in Gaza war das jüngste von vier palästinensischen Kinder, die in den vergangenen zwei Wochen getötet wurden. Ein 13-jähriger israelischer Junge befindet sich in kritischem Zustand, nachdem er durch fast ein Dutzend Messerstiche verletzt wurde.
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Mehr als tausend Menschen wurden in der gleichen Periode verletzt. Es herrscht Angst in den Straßen von Jerusalem, am Zentrum der Gewalt. Israelis schießen auf palästinensische Demonstranten im Gebiet von Ost-Jerusalem. Palästinenser begehen Messerattacken und schiessen auf israelische Zivilisten und Polizisten mitten auf der Straße. Die israelischen Streitkräfte haben verdächtige Palästinenser getötet, selbst wenn diese eindeutig keine Bedrohung darstellten und ohne jegliches Gerichtsverfahren. Palästinenser werfen Steine ​​auf vorbeifahrenden Autos.
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Ein israelischer Mob verprügelt Palästinenser oder schreit nach der Polizei, die Palästinenser zu erschießen. Erniedrigende Leibesvisitationen von Palästinensern auf den Straßen – all das ist an der Tagesordnung in der Stadt, in der wir aufwuchsen, um für den Frieden zu beten, wie auch aus anderen Orten in Israel, dem Gazastreifen und dem Westjordanland.
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Während die Gewalt auf den Straßen evident ist, so gilt dies auch in den Köpfen und Herzen der Menschen. Die Angst bringt das Schlechteste der Menschen zum Tragen, und das Verlangen dass noch mehr Blut vergossen werden soll, als ob dies den angerichteten Schaden wiedergutmachen könnte. Angst und rassistische Rhetorik eskalieren die Situation noch weiter. Die israelische Regierung reagiert erneut in einer militarisierten Art und Weise: es gab Hunderte von Festnahmen; Der Zugriff für Palästinenser zur Al-Aksa-Moschee wurde eingeschränkt; Teile der muslimischen Viertel der Altstadt von Jerusalem wurden für Palästinenser gesperrt; Die Vorschriften für den Schusswaffengebrauch wurden geändert, um den Einsatz von Scharfschützen gegen Kinder zu ermöglichen; eine Mindeststrafe für Steinwerfer wurde eingeführt, mehr als 150 Kinder in Ost-Jerusalem wurden bereits auf dieser Grundlage allein in den vergangenen Wochen festgenommen; und jetzt gibt es Gespräche über die Durchsetzung einer Ausgangssperre, und vielleicht sogar über eine Schließung von Ost-Jerusalem.
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Alle diese Massnahmen bedeuten eine kollektiven Bestrafung der Gesamtbevölkerung von Ost-Jerusalem mit mehr als 300.000 Menschen. In der Vergangenheit haben diese Maßnahmen ihre Unwirksamkeit bei der Beendigung der Gewalt unter Beweis gestellt. Jahrzehnte der Enteignung, der Besetzung und der Diskriminierung sind die Hauptgründe für den palästinensischen Widerstand. Jede weitere israelische Repression durch das Militär und die andauernde Besatzung und Belagerung kann niemals den Wunsch des palästinensischen Volkes nach Freiheit beenden, noch wird es die Ursachen der Gewalt beseitigen. Tatsächlich werden die aktuellen Aktionen der israelischen Regierung und der Armee wahrscheinlich nur weitere Gewalt, Zerstörung schaffen und die Spaltung nur noch weiter vertiefen. Nur Gerechtigkeit und Gleichheit wird Ruhe und Frieden für die Einwohner von Israel und Palästina zu bringen können.
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Als eine Gruppe von Juden aus der ganzen Welt glauben wir, dass sofortige Kursänderung seitens der israelischen Regierung und dem israelischen Volk kommen ausgehen muss. Es ist die Pflicht aller Juden auf der ganzen Welt, die israelische Regierung unter Druck zu setzen – und diejenigen, die ihr in Worten und Taten folgen und sie unterstützen – damit sie einen anderen Kurs einschlagen.
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Das militärische Vorgehen muss sofort eingestellt werden, Palästinensern muss völlige Bewegungsfreiheit erlaubt sein. Es ist auch eine Verantwortung der jüdischen Menschen weltweit, auf die Länder, in denen wir leben, einzuwirken  unverzüglich die wirtschaftliche und militärische Unterstützung einzustellen, für die andauernde israelische Besatzung in Palästina und der Belagerung des Gazastreifens.
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Wir rufen unsere jüdischen Gemeinden und unser gesellschaftlich Umfeld auf, öffentlich darauf zu bestehen, dass  die Gewalt, Besetzung, Belagerung und die militärische Reaktion ein sofortiges Ende findet und verlangen stattdessen  Gleichheit und Freiheit für das palästinensische Volk und Gerechtigkeit für alle.
Shomeret Shalom Rabbinic School & Learning Center
Independent Jewish Voices Canada
Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS)
Women in Black, Melbourne
Jewdas, UK
Tzedek Chicago
South African Jews for a Free Palestine
Jewish Voice for Democracy and Justice in Israel/Palestine (jvjp), Switzerland
Een Andere Joodse Stem, Another Jewish Voice – Belgium
Jewish Socialists’ Group – UK
United Jewish People’s Order – Canada
Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley, California
Jewish Voice for Peace Bay Area Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace Atlanta Chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace, Los Angeles chapter
Jewish Voice for Peace, Tacoma Chapter
Union Juive Française Pour la Paix
Sahar Vardi, Jerusalem
Micha K. Ben David, Jerusalem
Daniel Mackintosh, London
Ilana Sumka, Belgium
Yael Shafritz, London
Rabbi Brant Rosen, Chicago
Rachel Diamond, London
Sivan Barak, Melbourne
Jordy Silverstein, Melbourne
Bianca Neumann, São Paulo
Gabriela Korman, Porto Alegre
Annie Cohen, London
Eran Cohen, London
James Kleinfeld, London
Joseph Finlay, London
Lev Taylor, London
Shajar Goldwaser, São Paulo
Iara Haasz, São Paulo
Lilian Avivia Lubochinski, São Paulo
Elena Judensnaider Knijnik, São Paulo
Yuri Haasz, São Paulo
Juliana Westmann Del Poente, São Paulo
Breno Altman, São Paulo
Igor Fillippe Goldstein, São Paulo
Pedro Haasz Lakatos, São Paulo
Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Jerusalem.
Aryeh Bernstein, Chicago
Micah Hendler, Jerusalem
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Robin Rothfield, Melbourne
Joan Nestle, Melbourne
Jem Light, Melbourne
Sue Leigh, Melbourne
Ben Silverstein, Sydney
Alex Nissen, Melbourne
Margaret Jacobs, Melbourne
Rae Abileah, USA
Shereen Usdin, Johannesburg
Lily Manoim, Cape Town
Merlynn Edelstein, Johannesburg
David Fine, Johannesburg
Dr. Fran Shahar, Atlanta
ilise cohen, Atlanta
Michal Shilor, Jerusalem Raoul Fishman
Judy Favish, Cape Town
Sheila Barsel, Cape Town
David Sanders, Cape Town
Heidi Grunebaum, Cape Town
Anya Topolski, Belgium
Dror Feiler, Sweden, Chair person for EJJP
Free Polazzo, Douglasville, Ga
Tovah Melaver, Decatur
Torii Lang, Decatur, Ga
Dr. Beth-Ann Buitekant, Atlanta, GA
Connie Sosnoff, Atlanta, GA
Tali Feld Gleiser, Dominican Republic
Moira Levy, Cape Town
Esther Mack, Jerusalem
Elizabeth Beck, Atlanta, GA
Shelby Weiner, Tel Aviv
Rabbi Michael Lerner, USA
Rina King, Cape Town
Benjamin Mordecai Ben-Baruch, Ashland
Estee Chandler, Los Angelas
Rachel Ida Buff, Los Angelas
Cat J. Zavis, Executive Director, Network of Spiritual Progressives
Rosa Manoim, Johanesbourg
Kathy Barolsky, South Africa
Free Solomon Polazzo, USA
Randy Aronov, USA
Nina M. Stein, Waterbury Connecticut
Joel Wool, Boston
Sallie Shawl, Lakebay, Washington

First Results of Flawed US Policy in Syria

Nikolai BOBKIN | 21.10.2015 | 00:00

Three weeks have passed since the Russian Aerospace Forces launched an operation in Syria. It’s unclear what the United States will do next. The recent events have made the administration split on the issue. Some want the President to take more resolute actions, while others share his caution about escalating the situation against the background of joint actions undertaken by Russia and Syria. Top US officials – State Secretary John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and CIA Director John Brennan – are among those who criticize the President.
The White House plans to expand NATO and introduce new sanctions against Russia. It’s trying to make the conflict between Moscow and Kiev linger on for many years. But, although the situation in Syria has gone through drastic changes, the United States appears to have no response plan. 
Washington has not even tried to make the United Nations Security Council condemn Russia’s military operation. Russia is the only country taking part in the hostilities against the Islamic State in accordance with the norms of international law. That’s the major difference between Moscow and all other actors involved in the Syria’s conflict. 
The US leading role in the fight against international terrorism in the Middle East has proven to be a myth. US Air Force pilots fly no more than one-two sorties a day. Sometimes they are joined by Canadians. This effort evidently pales in comparison with the flight intensity of Russian Aerospace Forces. The Pentagon distorts the truth when it says that the Russian aviation does not concentrate its effort on striking Islamic State targets. Russian military is ready to include the targets indicated by the US into the hit list, but Washington refuses to share its intelligence data. 
Perhaps, the United States does not have detailed information. Presumably, this is another weak point adding to the list of negative results produced by the US fight against the Islamic State. The US intelligence has ignored the fact that during the war years the country has turned into a testing ground used not only by Syrian militants but also by foreign armed groups. Opposition groups are simultaneously fighting against the regime of Assad and each other as well. The United States has not made a final decision on whom to support in Syria. The special services had a mission to topple the current Syrian government at any price siding with any force pursuing the same goal. That’s what they have been doing…
The United States has supported the Islamic State (or the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant – ISIS) since the very start of civil war in Syria. Now it has to reject the cooperation with the group while all other terrorist groups and multiple al-Qaeda cells remain to be US allies.
Today the US public opinion does not support the «hawks». For instance, the New York Times, offers its own view on the goals the United States should pursue in Syria. First, bring order to those parts of the country that the Islamic State does not control. Second, strive to build a coalition of forces that can contain the Islamic State. It comes to the conclusion that the Russia’s «intrusion» could offer a chance to achieve both. That is if the US mission is to fight terrorism in Syria, something many Americans have started to doubt.
Rasmussen Reports, a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information, conducted a survey of 1000 likely voters on October 4-5. 46% respondents said terrorists are winning over the US and its allies. Only 26% hold the opposite point of view. More voters than ever (during 11 years) think terrorists have the advantage over the United States and its allies.
Ralph Peters, a Fox News’ strategic analyst and an author, writes on the pages of the New York Post, that, «Never before has a US presidential administration combined such naked cowardice, intellectual arrogance and willful blindness. We don’t have a president – we have a scared child covering his eyes at a horror movie.» 
The events in Syria make Americans draw a comparison between the US and Russian leaders. It has become a hot topic in public discourse. Obviously, the comparison does not favor Obama. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump highly appraised personal qualities of President Putin compared to the weakness demonstrated by the US President: «I will tell you that, in terms of leadership, he's getting an "A" and our president is not doing so well», he said. «They did not look good together», Trump added referring to their recent meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Another Republican presidential racerunner Jeb Bush called Vladimir Putin an "agile adversary", who is exploiting a vacuum of US leadership in Syria. But it’s not what makes his statement stand out. The Republican candidate Bush said that if elected in 2016 he would seek to build a coalition of European and Arab partners to work for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The world should wait till Republicans win the presidential election. But the GOP, as well, as the Democratic Party, is deeply split on Syria.
Even the supporters of Senator John McCain, who says«Putin must be stopped» before he «crushes out partners», don’t see eye to eye on the issue. For instance Meghan McCain, who is often called in the United States a rising star of GOP, has her own views on many problems which often do not coincide with the opinion of party leadership. She emphasized the fact that the Russian President acts while the US administration reacts. «When it comes to leadership. If you don't believe that Putin is now the world's leader, the national world reader – excuse me, international leader right now, he is acting, we are reacting», said  he daughter of the leading congressional advocate for confrontational approach toward Russia during the Democratic presidential preview on Fox channel. In a way, McCain shares the views of his daughter. «The administration warned Russia not to send its forces to Syria. Russia did it anyway. The administration then tried to block Russia’s access op airspace en route to Syria. It failed», says the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services to express his indignation.
McCain wants Washington to continue combat actions in Syria while exerting pressure on Russia. «However this conflict ends, it must not involve Putin shoring up his partners, crushing ours, destroying our remaining credibility in the Middle East, and restoring Russia as a major power in this vital region», he says.
The concern expressed by the US Senator is justified. He and the current US administration do not understand that in Syria Russia strives to do away with terrorism, put an end to bloodshed and reach a peaceful political settlement to the conflict preserving the prerogatives of legal government. Can the United States find arguments to substantiate objections?
Source: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/10/21/first-results-flawed-us-policy-syria.html

Sign Support Letter to Putin And Assad for Serious Anti-Terror Struggle

If you support Russian aviation in Syria, please, sign this, please http://dearputin.com/ 

Dear President Putin and Russian People

Dear President Putin,

As members of the global reality-based community, we’d like to extend our appreciation and support for the Russian Federation’s decision to provide humanitarian and military assistance to Syria, its armed forces and its democratically elected leader, President Bashar al-Assad, in their fight against international US-backed terrorists.
The launch of airstrikes directed against ISIL terrorists in Syria comes at a critical time,1 just as did Russia’s pivotal role in preventing a Western military intervention in 2013. As a voice of reason and a force for justice, you have the thanks and support of Syrians, Russians and all people of conscience around the world.
Since 2011, Western leaders have been determined to turn Syria into a failed state. They have gone to the extent of providing funding, training and weaponry to foreign mercenaries who have waged a brutal campaign of terror on the Syrian people and their legitimate government.2 These terrorist forces and religious fanatics do not represent the will of the Syrian people, the majority of whom support President Assad. As you said in your speech at the United Nations General Assembly, it is for the Syrian people and only the Syrian people to decide who should lead them.
In 2013, when the West was primed to launch a military campaign on Syria, Russia stepped in to broker a peaceful, diplomatic solution. In a sane world, this would be the natural response to international problems, and Russia would not stand alone. Unfortunately, the West continues its dead-end policy of supporting violence, coercion and illegal intervention in the affairs of sovereign nations.
While the West pushes for destabilization, war and chaos, Russia stands firm in its commitment to dialogue, cooperation, international law and order. Your reaction to the crisis in Syria demonstrates exactly that.
Like you, President Assad has proven himself to be a man of intelligence, courage and good will. And like most public figures who possess such qualities, he has been relentlessly defamed and slandered by Western governments and media. One example is the Houla massacre in May 2012, in which 108 Syrians were killed, including 49 children. The Syrian military was blamed for this atrocity but it was later revealed that the massacre was perpetrated by forces aligned with the US-backed ‘Free Syrian Army’ (FSA), and that the victims were supporters of the Syrian government.3 Later in 2012, the FSA was observed killing kidnapped civilians and off-duty soldiers.4
This is the ‘moderate opposition’ group that Western government officials support in their illegal aggression against Mr. Assad, and whom they now accuse Russia of targeting with airstrikes. These facts and others show clearly that the US government and its allies merely profess to fight terror when in fact they directly create and support it in a futile attempt to secure US global hegemony. They do this without the support of the United Nations and without the support of the legitimate governments of the countries they attack.
The second Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, whom John F. Kennedy considered the greatest statesman of his time, clearly saw the problems facing not only the UN, but the world at large. In 1958 he wrote:
“The conflict to different approaches to the liberty of man and mind or between different views of human dignity and the right of the individual is continuous. The dividing line goes within ourselves, within our own peoples, and also within other nations. It does not coincide with any political or geographical boundaries. The ultimate fight is one between the human and the subhuman. We are on dangerous ground if we believe that any individual, any nation, or any ideology has a monopoly on rightness, liberty, and human dignity.5
We are on dangerous ground. The United States’ self-professed monopoly on rightness, liberty, and human dignity has led to wrongness, oppression and suffering on a massive scale. The Western mentality on display in Libya and Syria is truly subhuman6 — psychopathic7 — embracing the basest aspects of human nature.8
Naturally, the subhuman is reflected in the results of U.S. policy in Ukraine and Syria. In Ukraine, neo-Nazis are members of Parliament and form battalions which have tortured and murdered men, women and children in the Donbass, with the sanction of the government in Kiev. In Syria, the West’s policy of destruction and the support of terrorism have resulted in ISIL and other terror groups whose methods are publicly condemned but privately supported by Western leaders.9 This is not the vision humanity is desperate to embrace. This is not the vision we seek.
As long as world leaders continue to submit to the will of political psychopaths, humanity will never build a world of peace.10 We pray that more people will follow your example, by speaking truth to power, by acting firmly on their convictions and by refusing to be controlled by fear and ignorance. We hope that by doing so, we may all do our part to create a truly multipolar world free from the destructive influence of psychopaths and fanatics, and the toxic political structures they create that make peace impossible.
Sincerely,
  • Татьяна Мирзаева - Russia
  • Owtschinnikow Katharina - Germany
  • Manfred Meyer - Germany
  • Marco Kulhanek - Germany
  • Eduard Wagner - Germany
  • sotiris koulafa - Cyprus
  • Alexander Scurtu - Israel
  • K. Oliver Sprenger - Germany
  • Виталий Егоров - Russia
  • Eberhard Gollnick - Germany
  • Владислав Антонов - Russia
  • Хыдыр Мирзаев - Russia
  • Татьяна Сексяева - Russia
  • Siegfried Braunstein - Austria
  • Raik Schulz - Germany
  • Михаил Коршунов - Russia
  • Udo Wagner - Germany
  • Галина Шафранова - Russia
  • Hermann Kiesel - Germany
  • Александр Борисов - Lithuania
  • Klaus Marcinkowski - Germany
  • Georg Oehlerking - Germany
  • Lesław Kubisz - Poland
  • Lutz Boettger - Germany
  • Галина Маринова - Russia
If you support Russian aviation in Syria, please, sign this, please

Dear President Putin and Russian People

http://dearputin.com/ 
I fully support the Russian intervention and support to the people of Syria. The arguments expressed below are striking. Fighting  terrorism in Syria full heartedly and with all available means is in our interest, too and will eventually stop and even reverse the influx of refugees. I have signed and encourage everybody to express his or her gratitude towards Russia and Syria. In solidarity Irene Eckerthttp://dearputin.com

Dear President Putin and Russian People

http://dearputin.com/ 

Assad Moscow visit: Syria leader in surprise visit

News | 21.10.2015 | 11:04
BBC - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on an unannounced visit to Moscow.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Assad "came on a working visit to Moscow" on Tuesday evening and held talks with Mr Putin.
Russia began air strikes in Syria at the end of last month.
Moscow says it is targeting Islamic State and other militant groups fighting Mr Assad's government.
Mr Peskov told reporters that the two leaders had discussed the fight against what he called terrorist groups, the continuation of Russian air strikes and Syria's plans for its troops.
It was the first overseas visit made by Mr Assad since the civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Syrian state TV reports.

 

US Caught Faking It in Syria

Posted By Thomas S. Harrington On October 12, 2015 @ 2:00 am In articles 2015,Leading Article 
syrian-civil-war-3-years-146000-dead-and-no-end-in-sight
The great danger of faking your ability to do something in the public square is that someone with an actual desire to the job you are pretending to do might come along and show you up.
This is what has just happened to the US in Syria with the entrance of Russia into the fight against ISIL.
And as is generally the case with posers caught with their pants down, the US policy elites are not happy about it.
You see, the US strategic goal in Syria is not as your faithful mainstream media servants (led by that redoubtable channeler of Neo-Con smokescreens at the NYT Michael Gordon) might have you believe  to  save the Syrian people from the ravages of the long-standing Assad dictatorship, but rather to heighten the level of internecine conflict in that country to the point where it will not be able to serve as a bulwark against Israeli regional hegemony for at least another generation.
How do we know? Because important protagonists in the Israelo-American policy planning elite have advertised the fact with a surprising degree of clarity in documents and public statements issued over the last several decades.
The key here is learning to listen to what our cultural training has not prepared us to hear.
In 1982, as the Likud Party (which is to say, the institutional incarnation of the Revisionist Zionist belief, first articulated by Jabotinsky in the ”Iron Wall”  that the only way to deal with “the Arabs” in and around Israel was through unrelenting force and the inducement of cultural fragmentation) was consolidating its hold on the foreign policy establishment of Israel, a journalist named Oded Yinon, who had formerly worked at the Israeli Foreign Ministry,  published an article in which he outlined the strategic approach his country needed to take in the coming years.
What follows are some excerpts from Israel Shahak’s English translation of that text:
“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon….”
“Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.”
“If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan, or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt.
“There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority.”
Yinon’s vision reappeared in the now infamous “Clean Break” document from 1996, authored by a consortium of US and Israeli “strategic thinkers” that included Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David and Meyrav Wurmser, which was meant to serve as a foreign policy blueprint for the first administration  of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The text is nothing if not obsessive regarding the need to seriously debilitate Syria’s ability to act in any way is a pole of regional influence in the in the area .
“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”
“Most important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite.”
And as Dan Sanchez has recently shown, David Wurmser went into even greater detail about the need to balkanize Israel’s northeastern neighbor in articles published in approximately the same time period, talking quite openly in one essay about “expediting the chaotic collapse“ of Baathist Syria.
Then there is Wesley Clark’s famous interview, given in 2007, in which he revealed the true strategic aims of those running US foreign policy in the wake of the September 11th attacks.  In it, he tells of a conversation he had at that time with a Pentagon official who admitted that the real plan was “to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years”.
Those countries, according to Clark, were: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iraq. In the same speech, he explicitly ties the hatching of the plan to Richard Perle, head of the cadre of people who wrote in the “Clean Break” document of the paramount importance of putting Israel in position to “shape its strategic environment”.
On September 5th, 2013, Alon Pinkas, the former Israeli Consul General in New York and well-connected member of Tel Aviv’s conservative policy elite described the Syrian conflict in the following terms in the New York Times:
“This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win – we’ll settle for a tie,….Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.”
I don’t think it can get much clearer than that. The US-Israeli plan in Syria has never been about helping anyone in that country, but rather insuring its effective dismemberment so as to further the perceived “strategic interests” of the Jewish state.
As Tomás Alcoverro, the longtime Mideast correspondent of Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper wrote on 9 October 2015, in reference to the combined Russian and Syrian government attacks carried out during the previous week: “If this joint offensive is successful, the US plan for continuing the war of attrition until both sides are exhausted will lie in ruins”.
Yes, the US and Israelis, have been “faking it” in Syria for a good long time now.  And Putin has come along and called their bluff.
And they are not happy about it.   Which is why the ongoing campaign of demonization against the Russian leader is being ratcheted up – if that’s possible – to still higher levels of intelligence-insulting hyperbole.