I have been thinking for a long time that maybe I should have a Twitter account to accompany this blog. But I always decided against it.
You all know that I write long, detailed posts that try to explain what really is going on behind the scenes. Which is absolutely necessary. You cannot explain complex international events and developments with thousands of years of history behind it in a soundbite of 7-10 seconds.
That’s the MSM/Old media/politician way. And they very carefully “chose” what they want to report or not.
But I now think it is time to try out Twitter as “soundbite” complement to this blog.
The lead words: Truth, Freedom, Justice, Responsibility and Accountability
As the blog, it is going to be a frank, open and interesting forum. Concentrating on the important “Stuff” that the MSM/Old media “chose” to ignore.
It’s not going to be an instant news type, More highlighting important news that MSM media don’t think you should care about,
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska alla mina läsare ett riktigt Gott Nytt År!
Vilket vi VERKLIGEN kommer att behöva efter ”våra” intälägänta politikers eskapader det senaste året.
Vi har tyvärr kommit VÄLDIGT LÅNGT från vad Abraham Lincoln sa i sitt Gettysburg tal den 19 november 1863:
“that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy New Year!
Which we are REALLY going to need after “our” “dear” “intelligent” politicians escapades during the last year.
We have sadly come a VERY LONG WAY from what Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863:
“that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
I could fill books with this very important stuff. I mean, it’s only about if we are going to survive as a civilized society or not. Nobody of our “dear” international politicians and “leaders” seems to care very much. But I am going to try to be “brief”.
So back to the whole “system” of rules and law on which the international “peace and order” has been built on since 1945. In reality it goes back even further to the Peace of Westphalia 1648.
Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation-state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country’s domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law.
And ALL these international organizations and laws (UN, EU etc.,) that were supposed to guarantee peace and stability and economic progress, is in complete shambles. Why? Because all the “big ones” in Europe and the USA have done absolutely nothing to defend it besides some rhetoric and symbolic sanctions. That costs nothing for them and has very little effect.
By doing nothing, they have opened up the Pandora’s Box and a free for all to “intervene” anywhere in the world where there are at least one minority person. And that applies to EVER country and territory in the world. If not you just surreptitiously transport one there, (preferably one from your own intelligence agency or military), let him became “spokesperson” for the group. And voila, you have a just cause to “intervene with brutal force and take whatever you want.
In Russia ALONE there are over 185 officially recognizedethnic groups, nearly 20% of the Russian population.
You Reap What You Sow
Now you take this new world model and apply it to every country in the world. And what do you get? Total chaos and slaughter – “Survival of the fittest” military style.
The village of Nikishyne
On an equally important side not regarding The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed on December 5 1994.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, newly independent Ukraine suddenly found itself in possession of the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. (About 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads designed to strike the U.S. and 2,500 shorter-range nuclear weapons).
Though the new government originally planned to keep the Soviet nuclear weapons it had inherited on its territory, Ukraine eventually agreed to transfer the weapons to Russia for reprocessing. USA played a big part behind the scene to make them relinquish their nuclear weapons.
Under the memorandum, Ukraine promised to remove all Soviet-era nuclear weapons from its territory, send them to disarmament facilities in Russia, and sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Ukraine kept these promises.
In return, Russia and the Western signatory countries ,(Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, along with Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and John Major), essentially consecrated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine as an independent state. They did so by applying the principles of territorial integrity and nonintervention in 1975 Helsinki Final Act — a Cold War-era treaty signed by 35 states including the Soviet Union — to an independent post-Soviet Ukraine.
In the ”Budapest Memorandum,” Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States promised that none of them would ever threaten or use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. They also pledged that none of them would ever use economic coercion to subordinate Ukraine to their own interest.
They specifically pledged they would refrain from making each other’s territory the object of military occupation or engage in other uses of force in violation of international law.
France and China also provided Ukraine with assurances similar to the Budapest Memorandum, but with some significant differences.
After the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in February 2014, these legal “guaranties” proved to be completely worthless. Zip, Nada, Niente.
The message to the world is LOUD and CLEAR: Whatever you do NEVER, EVER give up your nuclear weapons.
By doing nothing the signatory parties in an instant made a MOCKERY of the last 60 years effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. And the treaty of nuclear Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) from 1970.
It also sent out another equally LOUD and CLEAR message to the world: To guarantee your survival GET NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
And this terrifying message gets even clearer when you consider North Korea and Iran. In the latter case these “negotiations” has been going on and off for nearly 20 years
The latest round (the so called Iran and the P5+1) started in February 2014 with a very strange setup pushed by the Obama administration. First you do a lot of unilateral concessions and then you start negotiations. USA gave back frozen money ($4.2 billion + $2.8 billion), eased sanctions ($7 billion + $1.5 billion), ignored the intercontinental Ballistic missile program, that every UN Security Council Resolution has been broken, every broken promise to IAEA, denial of inspections, the vastly expanded enrichment program, the big stockpile of enriched uranium etc. etc.
And to REALY top it off: The Chief US nuclear negotiator with Iran is Wendy Sherman. She is Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth-ranking official in the U.S. Department of State. The SAME WOMEN how was in charge of US negotiations with North Korea to stop them from getting nuclear weapons.
Yeap, we ALL KNOW how that went.
At the present moment the Obama administration have given the Iranians a lite over 80% of what they want without getting anything in return.
When the time comes when Iran “officially” goes nuclear it will have an instant and immediate effect – the rest of the Middle East will ALSO go OFFICIALY nuclear.
Doesn’t that sounds like a really lovely and peaceful world wouldn’t you say?
Little Green Men
Back to Ukraine and just a few tidbits of the last two days:
Yesterday (February 14) the day before the “ceasefire”, there was about 170 attacks on Ukrainian positions.
Just one example (and remember this is ALL happening in the “peaceful” Europe): In the late afternoon yesterday there was a full-scale engagement of tank and mechanized units of Ukrainian troops meeting the Russian armed forces on a stretch of Nyzhnje Lozove – the northern suburbs of Novohryhorivka. The battle did not bring a convincing victory to either side, but the Russians stopped trying to assault Lohvynove, leaving this settlement as “neutral” territory.
Today (February 15), so far, about 10 attacks around Debaltseve and Luhansk. But a lot of active regrouping and reinforcements is going on the Russian side.
A few examples: Russian troops transferred a fresh tactical group (up to 20 tanks, 10 ACVs, and 200 personnel) to the vicinity of Lohvynove.
The Russians continued transferring reinforcements to the Shyrokyne village area, trying to “isolate” the offensive by Ukrainian units along the stretch of Shyrokyne – Sakhanka. The transfer of an infantry formation from the vicinity of Bezimenne has been observed – over 100 people, 5 armored vehicles and up to 20 motor vehicles.
Another convoy (about 5 transport units) with wounded soldiers (about 200 people, the majority are Russian mercenaries and soldiers) has arrived to the settlement of Krasnyi Luch. The majority of mercenaries are the recruits of Russian intelligence services –Russian citizens who had no previous experience in the military.
Un update: The Russian’s is most active in shelling in the direction of Debaltseve. In particular, from 12:00 am to 3:00 pm EEST 42 fire strikes have been recorded in this area:
16 – mortar strikes (in the vicinity of Zolote, Chornukhyne, Luhansk, Kamyanka, Debaltseve, Olkhovatka, Hirske);
4 – assaults from small arms and grenade launchers (in the areas of Sanzharivka, Chornukhyne);
11 – strikes from cannon artillery (Popasna, Zolote, Chornukhyne, Sanzharivka, Nyzhnje Lozove, Debaltseve, Mius – artillery shelling lasted for 3 hours and 35 minutes – Luhanske);
5 – tank fire strikes (Chornukhyne, Debaltseve);
6 – MLRS fire strikes (Debaltseve, Chornukhyne, Sanzharivka).
In addition, the Russian’s has carried out four attempts at an offensive during that time in the direction of Debaltseve, attacking the positions of Ukrainian troops near the settlement of Chornukhyne.
In addition, 2 fire strikes at civilian objects by ‘DNR’ insurgents and Russian mercenaries were recorded in Donetsk (8:25 am and 3:10 pm EEST – mortar attacks on city blocks). Also, ‘DNR’ mercenaries attacked civilian targets in Popasna at 12:15 am EEST from MLRS. In all three instances, the fire strikes took place in the areas where there are no [firing] positions of Ukrainian troops.
Yeap, the same old same old “ceasefire”. First the one on September 5 2014 and now the Minsk 2 from February 11.
Little Green Men
42 attacks in three hours just in the Debaltseve area. That’s international diplomacy and peacekeeping for you. Angela Merkel and François Hollande can be REALLY PROUD of their “ACIVMENT”.
This is just a very small sample of what has been going on day in and day out for the last 9 months. Here in Europe. The continent of “peace”.
And most of the western so called “leaders” again and again throughout history with disturbing and catastrophic regularity pretend that nothing is going on. Nothing to see, nothing to do, move on.
Because if you pretend hard enough that the really bad things that are happening here and now, is not happening; then you can pretend that everything is “OK”. And then you don’t need to do anything that “disturbs the peace” and the mind of your population with unpopular and hard decisions. At least long enough so someone else has to take care of the mess.
The problem with that of course, as history has proven so many times, is that the longer you wait to deal with a serious problem, the harder and costlier it is going to be to “solve it”. And if you wait long enough it becomes “unsolvable”.
Syria is an excellent case in point.
That is a formula that here in Europe has led to two world wars, the cold war, internal civil wars, total political oppression, censorship, massive and total surveillance of the population, concentration and GULAG camps, slave labor, organized and state supported mass killings, ethnic cleansing on massive scale, massive deportations, euthanasia programs, the master race, blood purity, the New Soviet man, enemies of the people etc.
And we “exported” these ideologies to the rest of the world.
All this in just the last hundred years.
Yeap, we have a lot of things in Europe to be “proud of”.
To make some more points about recent events I leave it to the “locals” east Europeans to explain. They have survived occupation and deportations by Nazi Germany and they have survived occupation and deportations by Soviet Union. So I think they learned a few things:
“In the 1930s, Hitler pursued a simple policy: he simply said one thing and did another. Putin has innovated: he not only lies but uses forces to do his bidding for which no one holds him responsible and thus has the chance to be accepted by some in the West as a “responsible” statesman while continuing his aggression in Ukraine.
Thus, the most important news from Minsk is not that there has been an agreement between the Kremlin leader, the German chancellor, the French president and the Ukrainian president on most of the aspects of a ceasefire but rather that the leaders of the undeclared “peoples republics” are refusing to go along.
Citing “an informed source,” TASS is reporting today that the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics have refused to sign the document “agreed upon by ‘the Normandy quartet,’” thus in one sentence presenting Putin in a way the West will like and showing that what he has signed will have no impact on what he continues to do.
That is just one of the important conclusions about the Minsk meeting suggested by Andrey Piontkovsky who points out in a commentary today that “the very fact of its having taken place is much more important than the little pieces of paper which [these leaders] will sign or not sign”.
The Minsk meeting which follows on the Moscow meeting between Putin, on the one hand, and Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande, on the other, reflects a significant change in the way the West is dealing with Putin over all issues and is showing up the Kremlin leader’s position at home, the thing he cares most about.
At the time of the Brisbane summit, Western leaders were demonstratively isolating someone who was invading Ukraine and otherwise violating the international rules of the game. According to Piontkovsky, that threatened Putin’s standing with precisely those on whom his survival depends.
“The power of the dictator depends on the unqualified subordination to him of two or three dozen people: senior civilian, police, media and military officials,” he writes. And these people are completely behind Putin as long as he could guarantee them wealth based on stealing from Russians at home, the ability to keep the results of their theft in the West, and “a sweet life there for several generations of their descendants.”
Russians firing at Debaltseve.
After Brisbane, it began to look as if he no longer could provide such guarantees, and they began to question their support. But Putin responded with a clever campaign in which he caused the leaders of Europe to change their approach and thus restore his unchallenged authority at home with precisely those on whom his dictatorship depends.
Putin’s response took the form of suggesting that Moscow was prepared to use nuclear weapons if the West armed Ukraine, a campaign that has its roots in the words of Dmitry Trenin, the former GRU officer who heads the Moscow Carnegie Center, first in 2009 and most recently in an interview to a British newspaper.
That sparked fear in Europe that Putin might in fact use nuclear weapons, split Europe from the United States with regard to Ukraine, and led both Merkel and Hollande to “walkd to Canossa” first in Moscow and now in Minsk, a dramatic shift that convinced those around Putin that the Europeans are so afraid of Russia that they won’t do anything to oppose its actions.
This nuclear “blackmail” has been “at many levels, taken many forms and been creative,” Piontkovsky says. It has made use of the North Koreans, Rogozin, Ivanov, Shoygu and others. And most recently, it has taken the form of a Russian TV spot showing Russian tanks “visiting” the capitals of Europe on Victory Day.
And Putin’s propaganda ploy has worked. The day after US President Barack Obama’s nominee to be defense secretary said the US would increase military assistance Ukraine, including possibly lethal arms, Chancellor Merkel announced that “Germany does not intend to sell arms to Ukraine since it considers that the conflict does not have a military solution and that diplomatic efforts must continue.”
She certainly had read Dmitry Trenin in the Financial Times and heard the warnings of German analyst Alexander Rahr, and she drew exactly the conclusion that Putin hoped for: The Americans are engaged in a reckless policy and Russia might respond with “tactical nuclear weapons,” something that would affect Europe but not the Americans “beyond the ocean.”
Consequently, she and Hollande rushed to Moscow and then to Minsk, allowing Putin to put on the show of being interested in peace even though his agents show that he is not and thus taking exactly the steps that shore up his dictatorship rather than weakening it and leading Moscow to change its dangerous course of aggression.”
“Vytautas Landsbergis, Lithuania’s first post-Soviet leader and honorary chairman of the conservative Homeland Union, says that the Minks agreement for ceasefire between Kiev’s forces and Moscow-supported separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine, which was signed on Thursday, is worse than the Munich agreement of 1938.
The conference in 1938 has come to symbolize Western impotence after Great Britain and France tried to appease Adolf Hitler by giving him Sudetenland, which led to occupation of Czechoslovakia and, eventually, World War Two.
”In that Munich conference, there probably weren’t any Sudeten SS men speaking in the name of the nation and demanding to carve up Czecholsovakia. At least they were not sitting at the table. And these [Ukraine’s separatist fighters] did,” Landsbergis said on Thursday, after presenting his new book in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania.
The politician noted that the Minsk talks on the future of Ukraine gave word not just to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but also to self-appointed leaders of the separatist-held regions, Igor Plotnitsky and Alexander Zakharchenko.
Words of defeat
The Minsk agreement demands the withdrawal of heavy military equipment behind a 50-kilometre demilitarized zone. Kiev has pledged to implement a constitutional reform, delegate self-government powers to the separatist regions and resume payments.
”As you read through it [the agreement], you are aghast – why do they have to give up everything? Everything. Give territory, recognize these bandits as leaders who get invited to the table and allowed to sign documents. Why give this legitimization to Putin’s mercenaries?” Landsbergis wonders, adding that the same line was agreed on in ceasefire talks on 19 September 2014.
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, asked to comment on the constitutional reform outlined in the agreement, noted that it would involve decentralization, not federalization. Landsbergis thinks, however, that these are words of the defeated party.
The situation on February 15
”These are talks of the defeated. First, the mercenaries should not have been allowed to sit in the talks. If countries negotiate and Russia is dictating the kind of constitutional reform they should have, then one can ask – where is your own constitutional reform, when are you starting to respect your constitution, Mr. Putin? Otherwise, shut up and don’t tell us about the constitution. We are a democratic country with a popularly elected parliament. I am an elected president, Poroshenko could say. Whereas you appointed yourself,” Landsbergis says.
He adds he is disappointed with German Chancellor Merkel, who, he says, believed Putin’s ”puppet theatre”. This is how he sees Merkel’s statements that Putin had exerted pressure on the separatists to sign the agreement.
”She accepted the puppet theatre. What they did in the end was a puppet show. Perhaps everything followed stage instructions. Putin allegedly demands something of his groupies and they do not listen. He must put his fist down and they insist they will still be able to refuse. All sane people should realize this was but a silly show, but they take it seriously. Why sink to such a low level?” Landsbergis is indignant.
The Kremlin says boko haram
During Thursday’s event at the Foreign Ministry, where Landsbergis presented his new book on 13 January 1991 events to foreign ambassadors, he insisted that Western powers should arm Ukraine.
”I still believe that the Ukrainians could be armed against Russian tanks. Otherwise it means that Ukraine has been sold out. It’s worse than Munich. We should discuss Munich today,” Landsbergis told the audience.
The Lithuanian politician, who led Lithuania’s own liberation from the USSR efforts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has said that Russia is telling blatant lies, which are nonetheless accepted as something worth discussing. ”This way, everything becomes partly true, partly false, but in fact it is utterly false, because it is a purposefully designed lie aimed at influencing our judgement. It is war on thinking,” he said.
Landsbergis believes that there have been only a few moments when Russian leaders were told the truth. Once, US Secretary of State John Kerry told Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that he couldn’t listen any more of what the latter was saying.
”Only one person, as far as I know from the media, Secretary of State John Kerry told Lavrov: It’s impossible to listen to you, Mr. Lavrov. It was reported, though I wasn’t there and no one recorded it. But it was reported that Kerry couldn’t listen to what the Russians were saying. In normal parlance that means: Go to hell, liar,” according to Landsbergis.
”President Barack Obama, too, once said he had nothing to talk about with Putin. However, they [Russians] manage to force Western leaders into talking not just with them, but also with the bandits from Donetsk,” he added.
According to Landsbergis, Russia has declared war on the Western civilization.
”West is the enemy. The Kremlin said so. In Arabic, that translates to boko haram. That’s the Kremlin’s slogan, boko haram.”
Boko Haram is the name of a terrorist Islamist movement based in northeast Nigeria. The name in Arabic means ”Western education is forbidden”.
”However, Western leaders have their excuse: we do not want war. But war is on, lady. Yet she sees nothing wrong in Ukrainians being killed,” Landsbergis said. He insisted that Western Europeans were not unaffected by the conflict, reminding that the Russian-supported separatists downed a passenger plain over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people, mostly from the Netherlands.
”It did not crash, it was shot down, with all the people inside, it fell down 10 kilometres while people were still alive,” Landsbergis said.”
Russian tanks destroyed near Debaltseve
Putin’s Incredibly Shrinking Russian World – Why He Insisted on Minsk for Talks
Staunton, February 14 – Despite his success in intimidating some European governments into inaction or even willingness to come to terms with the results of his aggression, Vladimir Putin in fact is having to cope with an ever-shrinking Russia world as his insistence on Minsk as a venue for talks about Ukraine shows.
Indeed, had European leaders understood that the Kremlin leader could hardly tolerate talks anywhere else, they would have been in a far better position to make more demands not only of Putin concerning Ukraine but also of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, their official “host” in the Minsk talks.
In a comment for the Charter 97 web site, Iryna Khalip, a Belarusian journalist who writes regularly for Moscow’s Novaya Gazeta, says that Putin needed his meeting with the German chancellor and the French president to be in Minsk “and not in any other place in the world” for three reasons.
First of all, she says, Putin chose Belarus because it is one of the few places outside of Russia where he feels himself to be “the master.” That is not the case in Kazakhstan, and the Kremlin leader isn’t inclined to travel beyond the borders of his Eurasian Economic Community whose rulers defer to him most of the time.
Second, Belarus was about the only place where the Donbass separatists “could feel themselves safe” and where they would “not only not be arrested but would be able to sit at one table with the adults.” That gave them the status Putin wanted them to have, and just their being at the same talks was “sufficient” for his purposes.
And third, “by insisting on Minsk as the site of the meeting, Vladimir Putin reduced to nil all the declarations of the leaders of the EU countries made after the mass arrests” in Belarus in December 2010. At that time, they said that any high level contacts between the EU and Belarus were impossible.
Despite those declarations, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande came to Minsk, where they were hosted by the author of those arrests, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and said nothing about the freezing of former presidential candidate Mikola Statkevich or anyone else. He remains in prison. Had the Europeans insisted, Putin would have convinced Lukashenka to release him.
Russian tanks destroyed near Debaltseve
Khalip then addresses the larger problems of this venue as a summit. Summit meetings, she points out, are not occasions for negotiations but rather “the last stage” in such a process. But Merkel and Hollande acted otherwise and that gave Putin the opportunity to “wrap them around his little finger” and get what he wanted out of the session without yielding anything in return.
“The difference between Merkel and Hollande, on the one hand, and Putin and Lukashenka on the other is that the latter two not once for many years has kept his word,” Khalip writes. The Europeans are accustomed to the idea that promises will be kept, while Putin and Lukashenka assume that promises are made for anything but that.
And the Europeans, or at least Merkel and Hollande, suffer from another problem as well: they can’t afford to take part in a meeting after which they would have to say to their electors at home: “forgive us, we weren’t able” to reach an agreement. That means they need to know going into a meeting what will be agreed to or they will be manipulated.
This need also means that the Europeans do not always understand what the meeting is about or what the other side wants. Putin knew what he wanted at Minsk and it was not about the Donbass. He had much bigger goals in mind, including the end of sanctions, an end to his isolation, and a reaffirmation of his role in Belarus.
“Europe in these negotiations thus demonstrated all its weaknesses,” Khalip says, including its “complete inability to defend itself, its lack of a strategy toward the Russia of today, its indifference to the territories of others,” and its willingness to pay off bandits like Putin and Lukashenka in order to continue to live quietly until they make new threats and new demands.”
The village of Nikishyne
Germany and France ‘Sacrificed Ukraine’ for National Economic Interests, European Parliament Vice President Says
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, “without the participation of the EU and promoting the economic interests of their own countries, have sacrificed Ukraine,” Czarnecki says, legitimating Russia’s “achievements” and creating a world more beneficial to Moscow than to Kyiv.
In other comments, the Polish and European politician says that it is unfortunately the case that some European countries “would like to have peace at any price,” something they may have achieved in the short run by their concessions at Minsk but not something that is likely to last for long.
On the one hand, Czarnecki says, the pro-Moscow militants in southeastern Ukraine with continuing Russian backing are likely to try to seize even more territory and undermine Ukrainian statehood. And on the other, Kyiv will have no choice but to try to block them whatever the Minsk accords say.
By insisting on the negotiating arrangements in Minsk, Putin not only excluded the US, legitimated his agents in Ukraine, but has divided Europe still further, an amazing Russian achievement but one that the leaders of Germany and France in large measure facilitated, something that Ukrainians and all people of good will should never forget.”
Donetsk airport from drone
‘What Can Ukraine Expect from the West Now?’ Former GULAG Inmate Asks Bitterly
This is a statement from Myroslav Marynovich, founder of Amnesty International Ukraine, a founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and President of the Ukrainian PEN Club. He was arrested on April 23 1977 and he was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour and five years in exile. The same year Amnesty International adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. He spent a decade in the Soviet GULAG camps in Kazakhstan, and he has issued the statement below about how Ukrainians feel about what is happening to them now.
I write to you as a former prisoner of conscience of the Brezhnev era. All other titles are rapidly losing sense in the light of the bleeding Ukrainian Maidan.
All my life I admired Western civilization as the realm of values. Now I am close to rephrasing Byron’s words: “Frailty, thy name is Europe!” The strength of bitterness here is matched by the strength of our love for Europe.
If it still concerns anybody in decision-making circles, I may answer the question in the title.
First and foremost, stop “expressing deep concern”. All protestors on the Maidan have an allergy to this by now in these circumstances senseless phrase, while all gangsters in the Ukrainian governmental gang enjoy mocking the helplessness of the EU.
Take sanctions. Don’t waste time in searching for their Achilles’ heel: it is the money deposited in your banks. Execute your own laws and stop money laundering. The Europe we want to be part of can never degrade the absolute value of human lives in favor of an absolute importance of money.
Also cancel Western visas for all governmental gangsters and their families. It is a scandal that ordinary Ukrainians living their simple lives have to provide their ancestors’ family trees to obtain a visa while ruling criminals guilty of murder, “disappearances”, and fraud in the eyes of the whole world enjoy virtually free-entry status in Europe.
(Captured Ukrainian soldiers bounded and executed at Donetsk Airport
Do not listen to Yanukovych’s and Putin’s propagandistic sirens. Just put cotton in your ears. Be able to decode their lie; otherwise they will decode your ability to defend yourself.
Instead, listen to Ukrainian media sacrificing their journalists’ lives to get truthful information.
Do not rely so much upon the information provided by your special correspondents in other countries who come to Ukraine for a day or two. Hire Ukrainians who live in this country to translate the Ukrainian cry of pain. Secure money for that right now instead of waiting for funds from next year’s budget.
Come to Ukrainian hospitals and talk to so-called “extremists” who want to “subvert the legitimately elected government,” those who have “cruelly beaten” policemen and “deliberately” blasted explosives to wound themselves.
Yes, the face of war is cruel. But, arriving at the Maidan, these people repeated almost literally what King George VI said to his people on the 3 September 1939: “We have been forced into a conflict, for we are called… to meet the challenge of a principle which, if it were to prevail, would be fatal to any civilized order in the world.”
Go out of your zone of comfort! Just recall the coddled ancient Romans who refused to do that in time. Cajoling Putin won’t bring you security. Letting him take control over Ukraine could make the world peace even more vulnerable. A Ukraine divided by force won’t bring the world peace, just as a Poland and Germany divided by force didn’t bring peace to the world.
Let us conclude in solidarity with the King and the Ukrainian people: “The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead, and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield, but we can only do the right as we see the right, and reverently commit our cause to God. If one and all we keep resolutely faithful to it, ready for whatever service or sacrifice it may demand, then with God’s help, we shall prevail.”
Russians firing at Debaltseve.
And to sum up the Russian mood: Russian TV says how Russia will capture Europe by May 9
Russian propagandists dream about holding the May 9 parade in Europe.
A story of a Russian TV channel on February 10 was posted on the Internet. It tells that Russian troops can reach Warsaw within 24 hours and then “visit” Berlin, Prague, Vilnius, Tallinn, Riga and, finally, London.
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska alla mina läsare ett riktigt Gott Nytt År!
Vi kommer VERKLIGEN att behöva det såsom våra intälägänta politiker beter sig.
Vi har tyvärr kommit VÄLDIGT LÅNGT från vad Abraham Lincoln sa i sitt Gettysburg tal den 19 november 1863:
“that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy New Year!
We are all REALLY going to need it the way “our” “dear” “intelligent” politicians behave.
We have sadly come a VERY LONG WAY from what Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863:
“that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
So to sum it all up, here is the recent 12 months (year to date, January- December) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 12 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.12 F / Decade
(OBS! Notice how distorted the trend line of this official graph is. It looks gigantic because they on purpose chose different scale for the different axis. But in reality it is only 0,12 F/Decade)
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.48 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.42 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.33 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.08F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for January – December is exactly – 0.08F degrees a decade. That is – 0.8 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 12 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.48 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.42 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly0.33 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 0.08F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska all mina läsare en riktigt God Jul!
Så här skrev jag för exakt fem år sedan:
”Jag ser med förtröstan fram mot 2009. Det år då den största politiska och vetenskapliga skandalen i modern tid kommer att spricka – Global Warming Hysterin.”
Så år 2014 ser jag med förtröstan fram emot att den största politiska och vetenskapliga skandalen i modern tid– Global Warming Hysterin – kommer att fortsätta att falla ihop som det korthus det är.
Tyvärr så är de sista att överge detta gigantiska svindleri våra intälägänta politiker. Understödda av alla dessa grupper av särintressen som lever gott på, och gör sin karriär på att understödja detta svindleri. Så vi vanliga människor kommer att få fortsätta att betala mycket dyrt för denna hysteri.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas!
In my post exactly five years ago I wrote:
“I am looking forward to 2009, the year when the biggest political and scientific scandal in modern time is going to implode – The Global Warming Hysteria.”
So for 2014 I am looking forward to that the biggest political and scientific scandal in modern time – The Global Warming Hysteria – is not only going to implode, which it already has, it is going to vanish into the thin air.
But our “dear” intelligent politicians are the last ones to abandon this scam and heist. With great help from all the vested interest groups that earn a good living and career of keeping this scam going. So we, the common people, are still going to pay dearly for this hysteria.
I have written a lot about the present economic and political disorder (including foreign policy), where the common people are the ones paying the price for the gigantic folly by the political class, old media, central and investment banks, hedge funds etc.; who are pushing risk, leverage and debt to ridiculous and dangerous extremes.
This absurd Alice in Wonderland economic and political farce has been going on now for some time. And the Rabbit Hole is getting deeper and deeper because of the actions, and inactions, of the people mentioned above.
When you start analyzing these figures you get utterly horrified of the totals of the open derivatives positions in the US and European markets.
Just as an example: the four big investment banks in USA (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Bank Of America) ONLY “covers” 2,27 % of the Total Exposure with ALL their Assets!
To sum up – TOTAL EXPOSURE TO DERIVATES for ONLY these four banks:
TOTAL ASSETS for these four banks: 4,720,464,000,000 TRILLION DOLLARS
And remember: these figures are now over one year old. Today’s figures are worse.
If you do the math for example for Goldman Sachs, it has a total exposure to derivatives contracts that is more than 364 times greater than their total assets!
To put these GIGANTIC sums into perspective let’s compare with the GDP from USA and all of EU from 2011.
There a lot of different way to calculate GDP and the figures for each year. Add to that exchange fluctuations, conversion rates etc. So the figures below come from the same source (IMF) to make the comparison easier. And it is their conversion.
GDP USA 2011 – 15,094,025 billion US dollars
GDP EU 2011 – 17,610,826 billion US dollars
Total GDP for EU and USA 2011: 32,704,851 billion US dollars.
Let’s compare these 32,704,851 billion US dollars with TOTAL EXPOSURE TO DERIVATES for these four above mentioned banks:
Below are some observations from people with very long experience in the investment and economical field. So rather than me writing again I give you these people’s views.
First from John Mauldin in his newsletter from November 30th (you have to be a subscriber). John Mauldin is a renowned long time financial expert who has written extensively and in depth about the world markets and economic situation. He has his own investment companies; he is an advisor to hedge funds, he an author of several books etc.
(Note: Most of the bold are mine and all underlining is mine. And the charts are mine)
”Arsonists Running the Fire Brigade
”I led off by forming an analogy to my Thanksgiving Day experience:
I rather think the stock market is acting like we did at dinner. When the alarms go off, we note that we have heard them several times over the past few months, and there has never been a real fire. Sure, we had a credit crisis in August, but the Fed came to the rescue. Yes, the subprime market is nonexistent. And the housing market is in free-fall. But the economy is weathering the various crises quite well. Wasn’t GDP at an almost inexplicably high 4.9% last quarter, when we were in the middle of the credit crisis? And Abu Dhabi injects $7.5 billion in capital into Citigroup, setting the market’s mind at ease. All is well. So party on like it’s 1999.
However, I think when we look out the window from the lofty market heights, we see a few fire trucks starting to gather, and those sirens are telling us that more are on the way. There is smoke coming from the building. Attention must be paid.
I was wrong when I took the (decidedly contrarian) position that we were in for a mild recession. It turned out to be much worse than even I thought it would be, though I had the direction right. Sadly, it usually turns out that I have been overly optimistic.
This year we again brought my now-96-year-old mother to my new, not-quite-finished high-rise apartment to share Thanksgiving with 60 people; only this time we had to contract with a private ambulance, as she is, sadly, bedridden, although mentally still with us. And I couldn’t help pondering, do we now have an economy and a market that must be totally taken care of by an ever-watchful central bank, which can no longer move on its own?
I am becoming increasingly exercised that the new direction of the US Federal Reserve, which is shaping up as ”extended forward rate guidance” of a zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP) through 2017, is going to have significant unintended consequences. My London partner, Niels Jensen, reminded me in his November client letter that,
In his masterpiece The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes referred to what he called the ”euthanasia of the rentier”. Keynes argued that interest rates should be lowered to the point where it secures full employment (through an increase in investments). At the same time he recognized that such a policy would probably destroy the livelihoods of those who lived off of their investment income, hence the expression. Published in 1936, little did he know that his book referred to the implications of a policy which, three quarters of a century later, would be on everybody’s lips. Welcome to QE.
It is this neo-Keynesian fetish that low interest rates can somehow spur consumer spending and increase employment and should thus be promoted even at the expense of savers and retirees that is at the heart of today’s central banking policies. The counterproductive fact that savers and retirees have less to spend and therefore less propensity to consume seems to be lost in the equation. It is financial repression of the most serious variety, done in the name of the greater good; and it is hurting those who played by the rules, working and saving all their lives, only to see the goal posts moved as the game nears its end.
Central banks around the world have engineered multiple bubbles over the last few decades, only to protest innocence and ask for further regulatory authority and more freedom to perform untested operations on our economic body without benefit of anesthesia. Their justifications are theoretical in nature, derived from limited-variable models that are supposed to somehow predict the behavior of a massively variable economy. The fact that their models have been stunningly wrong for decades seems to not diminish the vigor with which central bankers attempt to micromanage the economy.
The destruction of future returns of pension funds is evident and will require massive restructuring by both beneficiaries and taxpayers. People who have made retirement plans based on past return assumptions will not be happy. Does anyone truly understand the implications of making the world’s reserve currency a carry-trade currency for an extended period of time?I can see how this is good for bankers and the financial industry, and any intelligent investor will try to take advantage of it; but dear gods, the distortions in the economic landscape are mind-boggling. We can only hope there will be a net benefit, but we have no true way of knowing, and the track records of those in the driver’s seats are decidedly discouraging.”
”but now let’s jump into Code Red. In this section, we deal with the topic of central banking and its failures and ponder the implications of continuing to give the same people ever more authority and responsibility. This is from Chapter 5, called:
Arsonists Running the Fire Brigade
In the old days, central banks raised or lowered interest rates if they wanted to tighten or loosen monetary policy. In a Code Red world everything is more difficult. Policies like ZIRP, QE, LSAPs, and currency wars are immensely more complicated. Knowing how much money to print and when to undo Code Red policies will require wisdom and foresight. Putting such policies into practice is easy, almost like squeezing toothpaste. But unwinding them will be like putting the toothpaste back in the tube.
Promoting Failure
We’ll admit that we’re having too much fun criticizing central bankers, the Colonel Jessups of the Code Red world. But please don’t just take our word for it when we tell you that they’re clueless. Let’s look at what others have written.
In 2009 Congress created the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to uncover the causes and consequences of the financial catastrophe that almost brought down the world financial system. They roundly condemned the Federal Reserve:
We conclude this crisis was avoidable. The crisis was the result of human action and inaction…. The prime example is the Federal Reserve’s pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages, which it could have done by setting prudent mortgage lending standards. The Federal Reserve was the one entity empowered to do so and it did not…. We conclude widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets.
Not surprisingly, public confidence in the Fed has plummeted.
The Federal Reserve performed disastrously before the Great Financial Crisis, but almost all central banks were asleep at the wheel. The record of central banks around the world leading up to the Great Financial Crisis was an unmitigated disaster. All countries that had housing bubbles and large bank failures failed to spot them beforehand. In the case of England, where almost all major banks went bust (some rather spectacularly!) and required either nationalization or fire sales to foreign banks, the Bank of England never saw the crisis coming. Let’s look at what The Economist has to say about central bank failures:
In 1996 the Bank of England pioneered financial-stability reports (FSRs); over the next decade around 50 central banks and the IMF followed suit. But according to research cited by Howard Davies and David Green in ”Banking on the Future: The Fall and Rise of Central Banking,” published last year, in 2006 virtually all the reports, including Britain’s, assessed financial systems as healthy. In the basic function of identifying emerging threats, ”many central banks have been performing poorly,” they wrote.
According to published reports, the Bank of England only learned about the bankruptcy of one huge bank after another a few days before the actual public announcement. So much for staying on top of the situation. The regulators were captured by the very institutions they were supposed to regulate, with neither the banks of the regulators understanding the serious nature of the problems they were creating with their actions.
Housing bubbles swelled and burst everywhere: Spain, Ireland, Latvia, Cyprus, and the United Kingdom. Countries that had to recapitalize or nationalize their banks were broadsided by a disaster they did not anticipate, prepare for, or take action to prevent. In the case of Spain, even after the crisis unfolded, the Bank of Spain acted like a pimp for its own banks. It insisted nothing was wrong and proceeded to help its banks sell loads of crap to unsuspecting Spaniards in order to recapitalize the banks. (We apologize for our language, but there is no other word besides crap that properly characterizes selling worthless securities to poor pensioners – well, there are, but they are even less suitable for public consumption).
In fairness, central bankers did save the world after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The money printing that the Federal Reserve oversaw after the failure of Lehman Brothers was entirely appropriate to avoid another Great Depression. But giving them credit for that is like praising an arsonist for putting out the fire he started.
The failure of central banks makes it all the more remarkable that they were given even more responsibility in the wake of crisis. Since 2007 central banks have expanded their remits, either at their own initiative or at governments’ behest. They have exceeded the limits of conventional monetary policy by buying massive amounts of long-dated government bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and other assets. They have also taken on more responsibility for the supervision of banks and the stability of financial systems.
The Banking Act of 1933, more popularly known as the Glass-Steagall Act, forced a separation of commercial and investment banks by preventing commercial banks from underwriting securities. Investment banks were prohibited from taking deposits. Until it was repealed in 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act worked brilliantly, helping to prevent a major financial crisis. It was replaced by the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, which ended regulations that prevented the merger of banks, stock brokerage companies, and insurance companies.The American public’s interests were thrown to the wolves of Wall Street, and the Fed and the Clinton administration gave the middle finger to financial stability.
After the Great Financial Crisis, Congress could have simply reinstated Glass-Steagall. The act was only 37 pages long, but it had worked incredibly well. Instead, after an orgy of bank lobbying and Congressional kowtowing to the bankers who had brought the world to the brink of a global depression, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act. It is over 2,300 pages long; no one is sure what is in it or what it means; and it has added a dizzyingly complex tangle of regulations and bureaucracy to what should have been a simple, straightforward reform of the financial sector. (The act is so long and complicated that it was nicknamed the ”Lawyers’ and Consultants’ Full Employment Act of 2010.”) You will hardly be reassured to learn that the Federal Reserve’s powers were expanded through Dodd-Frank.
Please note that it was the same banks and investment firms that lobbied to repeal Glass-Steagall in 1999 that so aggressively and successfully lobbied for the Dodd-Frank Act. While there are some features contained in the plan that are good, the basic problems still remain. Industry insiders were able to assure that business as usual could continue. And to judge from their profits, it has done so remarkably well.
Figure 5.4 Major financial legislation: number of pages
The Fed didn’t need more powers. In the years leading up to the Great Financial Crisis, the Fed already had almost all the tools it needed to prevent the subprime debacle.It simply failed to use them. You could call that lapse nonfeasance, dereliction of duty, going AWOL, or anything other than doing their duty. If you don’t believe you are capable of recognizing a bubble in advance, then all the additional regulations in the world won’t make any difference in preventing a bubble. Dodd-Frank merely gave them more regulations not to enforce. It is the mindset that needs changing, not simply the regulations.
According to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the Federal Reserve failed to use the tools at its disposal to regulate mortgages or bank holding companies or to prevent the abusive lending practices that contributed to the crisis.The central bank didn’t ”recognize the cataclysmic danger posed by the housing bubble to the financial system and refused to take timely action to constrain its growth,” the report said. It also ”failed to meet its statutory obligation to establish and maintain prudent mortgage lending standards and to protect against predatory lending.”
The most sordid part of the Great Financial Crisis was not the extreme failure by central banks to regulate. The most egregious violation of the public interest came in the form of the massive subsidies and aid the central banks gave to the banking system when the crisis was underway. The great journalist and essayist Walter Bagehot argued in the mid-19th century that during a financial crisis central banks should lend freely but at interest rates high enough to deter borrowers not genuinely in need, and only against good collateral. During the crisis, the Fed and other central banks lent trillions of dollars at zero cost against the shoddiest of collateral. And the Fed went out of its way to provide gifts to Wall Street banks via the back door. For example, when AIG went bust, Timothy Geithner decided that the US taxpayer should pay out credit default swaps to AIG’s counterparties at full price. Goldman Sachs was given a parting gift to $10 billion. Geithner did not even negotiate a haircut. The money went to dozens of banks, many which were not even American. It is no wonder Geithner became well-known as ”Wall Street’s lapdog.”
Our good friend Dylan Grice wrote a fascinating piece on what happens when you have too many rules and too little common sense. In a Dutch town called Drachten, local government decided to take out all traffic lights and signs. They hoped people would pay more attention to the road rather than fixate on rules and regulations. They were right. In Drachten there used to be a road death every three years,but there have been none since traffic light removal started in 1999. There have been a few small collisions, but these are almost to be encouraged. A traffic planner explained, ”We want small accidents in order to prevent serious ones in which people get hurt.” Let’s see what Dylan has to say about the lessons for capital markets:
You might be thinking that traffic lights don’t have anything to do with the markets we all work in. But I think they do. Instead of traffic lights and road signs think rating agencies; think Basel risk weights for Core 1 and Core 2 bank capital; think Solvency 2; or think of the ultimate market regulators of our currencies – the central banks – and the Greenspan/Bernanke ”put” which was once imagined to exist. Haven’t these regulators provided the same illusion of safety to financial market participants as traffic safety tools do for drivers? And hasn’t this illusion of safety been even more lethal?
Wouldn’t it be nice if central bankers thought more like Drachten town planners? But central bankers and parliaments prefer extensive rules to a common-sense approach.
Unlike the planners of Drachten, the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world issue extensive sets of regulation, fail to enforce them, encourage everyone to speed, and then when crashes happen they protect as many banks as possible from the consequences of their own actions.
The Federal Reserve is in desperate need of reform. This doesn’t mean that politicians should be deciding interest rates or that banking supervision should be taken away from central banks. But central bankers should be answerable to the public for how they do their jobs. Accountability has been completely missing throughout the entire crisis. Almost all central banks failed to do even the basics of their job. The regulations they created, especially in Europe, made it possible for banks to take massive risk and make huge profits that ultimately had to be bailed out by taxpayers.
They believe the banks and other institutions they were regulating when they showed the models which they created which demonstrated conclusively there was no risk. Everyone, bankers and regulators, believed we were in a new era, for the old rules of common sense didn’t apply. Central bankers didn’t need more rules or regulations.They failed miserably at even carrying out the simple job they had. The regulatory functions of central banks should be treated like those of any other regulatory agency. It is critical that we hold central bankers accountable for their management of the banking system.
No Apologies, Only Promotions
One of the most disastrous battles of World War I was the British Gallipoli campaign in Turkey in 1915. It was utterly devastating, leaving more than 50,000 British wounded and almost 100,000 dead. Winston Churchill, first lord of the Admiralty, was one of the architects of the campaign. In the wake of the outcome, he resigned his post to become a soldier in the war. Churchill was a humble man who felt he was at fault. He was honorable. But if Churchill had been a central banker, he would never have had to accept responsibility or resign. He would have kept his job and been given even more far-reaching powers and a big pay raise to boot.
For the past few years, central bankers have been living large. The same people who brought us the Great Financial Crisis are now bringing us a world of Code Red policies and financial repression. The arsonists are running the fire brigade.
Where is the central banker who has apologized for contributing to the crisis or for being asleep at the wheel?Given how disastrous their performance has been, it is extraordinary that the same cast of characters is still running the show. Central bankers are lucky that they still have jobs. As far as we are aware, no central banker was fired for incompetence or mismanagement.Many have retired and are now enjoying generous pensions and highly paid consulting careers advising investment funds as to what their former colleagues might do next.
Central bankers have had plenty of time to discuss the financial crisis since 2008, but they have provided only scholarly disquisitions as to what went wrong in the banking crisis, without accepting any responsibility at all. At no time have any central bankers admitted that they might have ignored the warning signs of excessive debt, kept interest rates too low for too long, ignored bubbles in housing markets, failed to regulate banks correctly, or proved themselves even mildly incompetent.
Not only were central bankers not fired, many were promoted instead and given pay raises. Timothy Geithner, who headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, not only failed to regulate a host of banks that needed massive government bailouts but was an active apologist for Wall Street banks. For his efforts he was promoted to Secretary of the Treasury under President Obama. In Europe, Spanish central bankers stand out as perhaps the most incompetent ever, having overseen dozens of banks that created the biggest housing bubble in European history and having failed to recognize problems not only before but after they happened. Bankers like Jose Viñals, Jose Caruana, and others were given plum jobs at the IMF and the ECB after being asleep at the wheel in Spain.
Granting extra powers to central banks without a change in the philosophy behind their management is like encouraging an irresponsible teenager. Imagine your teenage son borrowed the family car and crashed it, and instead of punishing him you bought him a new Ferrari to test drive. Conventional monetary policies are like a sturdy old family station wagon, but Code Red policies are like a modified Ferrari 288 GTO capable of hitting 275 miles per hour. Given how spectacularly central banks failed during the Great Financial Crisis, it blows the mind that they’ve been handed the keys to a faster set of wheels.
One last thought. You might get from reading this that we are against rules and regulations. Far from it. We just like very simple, workable rules. Reinstate Glass-Steagall. Limit the ability of banks to create leverage, and require even more capital as they get larger. Banks that are systemically too big to fail are too big, period.Take away the incentive to grow beyond what is prudent for the deposit insurance scheme of a nation to maintain. Allowing bankers to take the profits and then hand taxpayers the losses in a crisis is not good policy, even if it is bolstered by 1,000 pages of regulations written by lawyers and bank lobbyists who then proceed to ”massage” them in order to do what they want to anyway.
But, alas, such hopes may remain dreams deferred until there is yet another crisis and taxpayers are asked to absorb even greater losses (but we can always hope!). So, in the meantime, as prudent investors and managers, we must be aware of the realities we face. The saying in Africa is that it is not the lion you can see that is the danger, instead it is the one hidden in the grass that leaps out at you as you try to escape the one you see. Later we will talk about a few strategies that can help you handle the risks that crouch hidden in the grass.”
Secondthis presentation from Grant Williams, investment and financial expert from Singapore, with 28 years of experience of world markets, to get another angle of the same problem. He is now a portfolio and strategy advisor for a hedge fund in Singapore.
“Grant Williams ”pulls no punches” in this all-encompassing presentation as the ”Things That Make You Go Hmmm” author reflects on what is behind us and looks ahead at the ugly reality that we will face when ”the impurities of QE are finally flushed from the system.” Central bankers of today have ”changed everything” he chides, ”in ways that will ultimately end in disaster.” Following extraordinarily easy monetary policies across all of the world’s central banks, Williams explains why ”we are now near the popping point of the 3rd major bubble of the last 15 years,” each bigger than the last. The only way Janet Yellen avoids being at the helm when this ship goes down is to blow an even bigger bubble than Bernanke’s government bond experiment, ”which is highly unlikely.” From how QE works, why many don’t ”feel” wealthy anymore, to the fact that ”the geniuses that gave this thing life, don’t have the guts to kill it,” Williams warns, ominously, ”the bills have come due on the blissful latest 30 years.”
”Returning to a world with which we are familiar is going to require either some real magic on the parts of Draghi, Kuroda, Carney, and soon to be Yellen; or some kind of tornado that sweeps away everything in its path and allows the world to build again from more solid foundations.”
Wizened In Oz: ASFA 2013 Presentation. Perth, November 2013
Third, just to remind us that it is the normal, hardworking people that are following the rules that are getting screwed, just take a look at this graph from USA below:
This is why all these welfare systems are going to crash taking the societies with them.
And ALL these SYSTEMS were put in place by politicians KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT THEY VERE DOING and THAT THESE SYSTEM COULDN’T LAST IN THE LONG RUN.
“While what little remains of America’s middle class is happy and eager to put in its 9-to-5 each-and-every day, an increasing number of Americans – those record 91.5 million who are no longer part of the labor force – are perfectly happy to benefit from the ever more generous hand outs of the welfare state.Prepare yourself before listening to this…calling on her self-admitted Obamaphone, Texas welfare recipient Lucy, 32, explains why ”taxpayers are the fools”…
”…To all you workers out there preaching morality about those of us who live on welfare… can you really blame us? I get to sit around all day, visit my friends, smoke weed.. and we are still gonna get paid, on time every month…”
As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, ”the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.”
“We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and… have the same disposable income at the end of the day.”
WELFARE ABUSE: 32 years old Austin, TX welfare recipient says (October 30)
As I said, all inspired by the shenanigans going on in Warsaw. Dedicated with “special love” to the traveling UN Circus now performing in Warsaw (COP 19 and CMP 9).
“The most costly, disastrous and hypocritical Political Show on EarthPaid by us the common people”
So here are the recent 10 months (year to date, January- October) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 10 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 10 months (Jan- Oct) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.13 F / Decade
US temperature recent 10 months (Jan- Oct) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.49 F / Decade
US temperature recent 10 months (Jan- Oct) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.42 F / Decade
US temperature recent 10 months (Jan- Oct) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.31 F / Decade
US temperature recent 10 months (Jan- Oct) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.11F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for January – October is exactly – 0.11F degrees a decade. That is – 1.1 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And to REALLY show you this “accelerated warming” trend lets recapitulate my previous post for nine months and their trend /decade:
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.52 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.43 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.34 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.07F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend one month later can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 10 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.49 F degrees a decade.
The recent 10 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.42 F degrees a decade.
The recent 10 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly0.31 F degrees a decade.
The recent 10 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 0.11F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
——————————————————————————
So to sum up these two last posts I am going to do an executive summary dedicated to our “intelligent” politicians, especially those now performing in Warsaw. And I am going to make a bold presumption here, namely that they know how to count, and even know the difference between + and – . You never know, there may be someone out there.
Executive Summary:
If we compare this year’s 9 month trend with last year’s 9 month trend it is COOLER this year.
And if we compare this year’s 9 month trend with this year’s 10 month trend it is COOLER.
OK?
Can you now do the math and maybe draw at least some conclusions? Or is this too hard?
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is really an imminent threat to humankind. Especially in Warsaw.
I was not planning to do another update of the US temperature from a “historic” perspective. But I was so inspired by the shenanigans going on in Warsaw that I felt I had to.
So here it comes, first the 9 month trend and in a later post the 10 month trend. Dedicated with “special love” to the traveling UN Circus now performing in Warsaw (COP 19 and CMP 9).
An old advertisement for the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1900 said: “The greatest Show on Earth”. I think a more apt one for the present one going on would be “The most costly, disastrous and hypocritical Political Show on EarthPaid by us the common people”
They were supposed to finish today but, as usual they have prolonged the proceedings. They have in negotiation speak “stopped the clock”.
I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent 9 months (year to date, January- September) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 9 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.13 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.52 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.43 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.34 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.07F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for Jan- September is exactly – 0.07F degrees a decade. That is – 0.7 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.54 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.46 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.42 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is 0.15 F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend one year later can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 9 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.52 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.43 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly0.34 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 0.07F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Or the building of the new total mass surveillance states in the “democratic” west.
The summer is finally here after, again, being a cold winter and “spring”. Isn’t it “lovely” with this “accelerated warming” that sorry to say is not going on?
I want to wish every one of you a warm, in the name of Global Warming Hysteria, and nice summer. It will also mean that I will write less and more sporadic posts.
But you have 1193 posts and 2661 comments to go through at your leisure.
One theme of this blog has been to expose governments and the political elites attack on freedom and their aspiration and strive for total control of their citizen. The Global Warming Hysteria fits like a hand in a glove this agenda under the pretext of “saving mankind” from a non-existent “threat”,
The increasing and relentless drive of western governments for control of every aspect of their citizen’s life and against freedom of all kinds. And the mainstream medias/old media part in these efforts.
Which make a TOTAL MOCKERY of all the beautiful words in their constitutions and the official declarations by all politicians.
Not to mentions these governments signing of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the EU: s Charter of Fundamental Rights.
All these governments are in TOTAL BREACH of these signed treaties and their constitutions every second of the day.
And it is getting worse under one pretext after another. The most ingenious and hypocritical is that “they”, the ALL knowing and wise political elite, want “to protect us” from one thing after another.
Well, by this definition a slave is very “protected” and “safe”.
Oxford Dictionaries:
•Slave – a person who is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something
And remember these wise words that not many pay attention to anymore:
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson
So instead of me writing about the same thing again here are some excerpts and additions on these themes.
And I recommend that you read the rest of this post, ponder about it, and then come back and answer this question:
Are YOU going to behave like a sheep and voluntarily accept and give away your freedom and privacy for nothing? Or are you going to do something about it?
It’s your choice.
Bud don’t come back later and complain if you did nothing.
“I just went through the stats for my blog and as usual, I am blown away by the true international phenomenon this is. In the last month, I had visitors from 148 countries. (Last month it passed 155)
WOW!
And I don’t say this to be bragging. As I said before I am just blown away by what a true and awesome international phenomena blogging is. Especially when considering that I don’t have the time to actively promote this blog.
And as I said before, that’s why the powers that be fear the “free” internet so much. They have so far no gained the control they want. That’s why they do everything possible to regulate and stop it through various direct and indirect means.
Sadly, a lot of politicians and governments in the “free” world are willingly taking part in that onslaught. In fact, in some cases they are leading it.
What is also very interesting to watch is how the Mainstream Media/Old Media has reacted to the fact that today the blogosphere is doing most of the investigative journalism. Doing the “digging” and exposing uncomfortable facts for politicians, business and “scientists” that the Mainstream Media stopped doing a long time ago.
First, the reaction was to totally ignore the blogosphere. Pretend that it didn’t exist. When that was no longer possible. The reaction was one of attack. “Don’t think you can come here and teach us anything because we know best and always will”. They tried to put themselves on a pedestal “Because we are the REAL journalists”. We know what’s best for the people etc.
And most of the Mainstream Media/Old Media is still sadly there. Their arrogance is so ludicrous and stupefying that it is numbing.
Watching journalist describe ”things” is like watching a man being on a ”High Horse”, in his own “very important bubble” with NO contact with the real world whatsoever. It’s a fascinating spectacle.
I have been saying for a very, very long time that if you want to understand what is going on in the world and in your own country, DON’T watch the news on TV or read the newspapers. It is a total waste of time.
If you do, you understand less after watching/reading than before.
For the last say 40 years, there has been a steady decline in what used to be called “journalism”. Especially investigative journalism. Instead, it has been replaced by journalist and media that are driven by a political agenda. On purpose.
It is about controlling and setting the agenda. Not about reporting the facts. Or presenting the facts so that people understands what is REALLY going on and how that affect them. And hopefully make better choices.
They will ONLY print “news” that fits their agenda. If it does not, it doesn’t exist and never ever happened.
The Mainstream Medias/Old Medias deafening silence on many subjects, and their PC worldview is as far away from journalism that you can come.
Most of the Mainstream Media/Old Media has willingly and gladly become “His Masters Voice”. Even worse, the Mainstream Media/Old Media has willingly taken part in actively censoring and suppressing facts. A very sad fact for the democracy and an utter betrayal of what journalism is supposed to be.
You will find many examples of this betrayal in this blog. So, instead on being the defender and bearer of freedom of speech, the Mainstream Media/Old Media has become the slayer of it. “
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.“
“It is a very sad day indeed to see a people voluntarily decide to throw themselves and their country over the cliff.
The result, the US government is legally bound to spend more money on mandatory entitlements and interest than it can raise in tax revenue. It will not make any difference how high the federal, state or local government raise taxes, or even if they cut everything.
Another effect of Obama economics is that the poor are getting poorer, especially the black. Under Obama the poorest Americans has suffered the single largest drop in income ever.
And the Black Americans in the same lowest income quintile have suffered almost double as the average American in the same quintile under Obama:
The drop is– 11.58% in one year(2010) and is at the lowest level ever.
That’s what I call “change”!But I would not call it “hope”.
And the number of people classified as poor are getting larger and larger.
Then on top of that, we have the equally disastrous foreign policy. Where the Obama administration systematically have thrown their former allies (Eastern Europe, Britain, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc) under the bus, and helped parties like the Muslim Brotherhood that hate everything that USA and the western world stands for, to power.
See my 19 posts on Syria etc as some examples of that disastrous foreign policy:
I could go on with many more examples but I think I will stop here.
But as the old saying goes (Joseph de Maistre in a letter from St Petersburg August 1811): a country has the politicians/government that they deserve. So enjoy!
In addition, this quote from a reader’s commentary in The Prager Zeitung in March 2010 (translated from Czech) sums it up quite well really:
“Multitude of Fools
The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool.
It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.“
The even worse sorry state of USA – The mass surveillance of the American people:
And its get worse, on top of the above the “recent” discoveries of the TOTAL MASS SURVELIANCE IN REAL TIMR OF ALL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (and their electronic communication).
And of course ALL TRAFFIC passing through American servers. This is 60-80% of ALL the internet traffic (depending of which type of traffic).
And that the big internet companies/software companies besides collecting and selling ALL the user information to other companies is ALSO in REAL TIME colleting and “sharing” ALL this data with US government agencies.
And these agencies store this information, your whole electronic and internet life,FOREVER. To be used at their whim in 10 or 20 or 40 years from now, if the powers that be thinks that you are a “threat” or in some way “interfering” with their agenda.
And this TOTAL MASS SURVELIANCE isn’t of course limited to the US. A lot of that is going on in EU countries too. And others.
For example, there is a very, very tight cooperation and sharing that goes way back (1946) between USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zeeland. And the Swedish FRA takes part in this cooperation. The “famous” ECHELON was an offspring of this cooperation.
This is way I started to put this sign after each blog post when the Swedish FRA started collecting data from ALL internet traffic passing Swedish borders on January 1st 2009.
And the absurd thing is that this TOTAL MASS SURVELIANCE WILL NOT ACCOMPLISH what is said to be the pretext for it – catching terrorists.
But of course it is excellent for controlling your own people and intimidating them.
Especially now when these agencies store this information, your whole electronic and internet life,FOREVER. To be used at their whim in 10 or 20 or 40 years from now, if the powers that be thinks that you are a “threat” or in some way “interfering” with their agenda.
And that’s why they are putting so much money and personal into these efforts, and trying so desperately to conceal this TOTAL MASS SURVELIANCE state from their own citizens.
Some revealing pieces from Washington Post’s report “A hidden world, growing beyond control”
“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the UnitedStates, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
The investigation’s other findings include:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.
* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
These are not academic issues; lack of focus, not lack of resources, was at the heart of the Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, as well as the Christmas Day bomb attempt thwarted not by the thousands of analysts employed to find lone terrorists but by an alert airline passenger who saw smoke coming from his seatmate.”
They are also issues that greatly concern some of the people in charge of the nation’s security.
”There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that – not just for the CIA, for the secretary of defense – is a challenge,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview with The Post last week.
In the Department of Defense, where more than two-thirds of the intelligence programs reside, only a handful of senior officials – called Super Users – have the ability to even know about all the department’s activities. But as two of the Super Users indicated in interviews, there is simply no way they can keep up with the nation’s most sensitive work.
”I’m not going to live long enough to be briefed on everything” was how one Super User put it. The other recounted that for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny, dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn’t take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, he said, until he yelled ”Stop!” in frustration.
”I wasn’t remembering any of it,” he said.
Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department’s most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.
”I’m not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities,” he said in an interview. ”The complexity of this system defies description.”
The result, he added, is that it’s impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. ”Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste,” Vines said. ”We consequently can’t effectively assess whether it is making us more safe.”
“But in the end, analysis requires human judgment, and half the analysts are relatively inexperienced, having been hired in the past several years, said a senior ODNI official. Contract analysts are often straight out of college and trained at corporate headquarters.
When hired, a typical analyst knows very little about the priority countries – Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – and is not fluent in their languages. Still, the number of intelligence reports they produce on these key countries is overwhelming, say current and former intelligence officials who try to cull them every day. The ODNI doesn’t know exactly how many reports are issued each year, but in the process of trying to find out, the chief of analysis discovered 60 classified analytic Web sites still in operation that were supposed to have been closed down for lack of usefulness. ”Like a zombie, it keeps on living” is how one official describes the sites.
The problem with many intelligence reports, say officers who read them, is that they simply re-slice the same facts already in circulation. ”It’s the soccer ball syndrome. Something happens, and they want to rush to cover it,” said Richard H. Immerman, who was the ODNI’s assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analytic integrity and standards until early 2009. ”I saw tremendous overlap.”
Even the analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is supposed to be where the most sensitive, most difficult-to-obtain nuggets of information are fused together, get low marks from intelligence officials for not producing reports that are original, or at least better than the reports already written by the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency or Defense Intelligence Agency.
When Maj. Gen. John M. Custer was the director of intelligence at U.S. Central Command, he grew angry at how little helpful information came out of the NCTC. In 2007, he visited its director at the time, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, to tell him so. ”I told him that after 41/2 years, this organization had never produced one shred of information that helped me prosecute three wars!” he said loudly, leaning over the table during an interview.
Two years later, Custer, now head of the Army’s intelligence school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., still gets red-faced recalling that day, which reminds him of his frustration with Washington’s bureaucracy. ”Who has the mission of reducing redundancy and ensuring everybody doesn’t gravitate to the lowest-hanging fruit?” he said. ”Who orchestrates what is produced so that everybody doesn’t produce the same thing?
He’s hardly the only one irritated. In a secure office in Washington, a senior intelligence officer was dealing with his own frustration. Seated at his computer, he began scrolling through some of the classified information he is expected to read every day: CIA World Intelligence Review, WIRe-CIA, Spot Intelligence Report, Daily Intelligence Summary, Weekly Intelligence Forecast, Weekly Warning Forecast, IC Terrorist Threat Assessments, NCTC Terrorism Dispatch, NCTC Spotlight . . .
It’s too much, he complained. The inbox on his desk was full, too. He threw up his arms, picked up a thick, glossy intelligence report and waved it around, yelling.
”Jesus! Why does it take so long to produce?”
”Why does it have to be so bulky?”
”Why isn’t it online?”
The overload of hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and annual reports is actually counterproductive, say people who receive them. Some policymakers and senior officials don’t dare delve into the backup clogging their computers. They rely instead on personal briefers, and those briefers usually rely on their own agency’s analysis, re-creating the very problem identified as a main cause of the failure to thwart the attacks: a lack of information-sharing.”
“Because so much is classified, illustrations of what goes on every day in Top Secret America can be hard to ferret out. But every so often, examples emerge. A recent one shows the post-9/11 system at its best and its worst.
Last fall, after eight years of growth and hirings, the enterprise was at full throttle when word emerged that something was seriously amiss inside Yemen. In response, President Obama signed an order sending dozens of secret commandos to that country to target and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda affiliate.
In Yemen, the commandos set up a joint operations center packed with hard drives, forensic kits and communications gear. They exchanged thousands of intercepts, agent reports, photographic evidence and real-time video surveillance with dozens of top-secret organizations in the United States.
That was the system as it was intended. But when the information reached the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington for analysis, it arrived buried within the 5,000 pieces of general terrorist-related data that are reviewed each day. Analysts had to switch from database to database, from hard drive to hard drive, from screen to screen, just to locate what might be interesting to study further.
As military operations in Yemen intensified and the chatter about a possible terrorist strike increased, the intelligence agencies ramped up their effort. The flood of information into the NCTC became a torrent.
Somewhere in that deluge was even more vital data. Partial names of someone in Yemen. A reference to a Nigerian radical who had gone to Yemen. A report of a father in Nigeria worried about a son who had become interested in radical teachings and had disappeared inside Yemen.
These were all clues to what would happen when a Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab left Yemen and eventually boarded a plane in Amsterdam bound for Detroit. But nobody put them together because, as officials would testify later, the system had gotten so big that the lines of responsibility had become hopelessly blurred.
”There are so many people involved here,” NCTC Director Leiter told Congress.
”Everyone had the dots to connect,” DNI Blair explained to the lawmakers. ”But I hadn’t made it clear exactly who had primary responsibility.”
And so Abdulmutallab was able to step aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. As it descended toward Detroit, he allegedly tried to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear. It wasn’t the very expensive, very large 9/11 enterprise that prevented disaster. It was a passenger who saw what he was doing and tackled him. ”We didn’t follow up and prioritize the stream of intelligence,” White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan explained afterward. ”Because no one intelligence entity, or team or task force was assigned responsibility for doing that follow-up investigation.”
Blair acknowledged the problem. His solution: Create yet another team to run down every important lead. But he also told Congress he needed more money and more analysts to prevent another mistake.
More is often the solution proposed by the leaders of the 9/11 enterprise. After the Christmas Day bombing attempt, Leiter also pleaded for more – more analysts to join the 300 or so he already had.”
So you have nearly 900.000 people(nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C.),who hold top-secret security clearances. And they have access to ALL this data from the mass surveillance.
And at least half of the analyst analyzing this data is fresh out of school, no experience with the countries and the cultures they are analyzing.And of course they don’t speak the language.
And they ALL WANT MORE MONEY AND PERSONAL AND RESOURCES!
Reassuring isn’t it?
If you just read the text above (and below) and didn’t know where this was happening, you would automatically assume this was happening in some brutal totalitarian police state say like North Korea or China.
But it is not, it is happening here in the “democratic” west EVRY SECOND OF YOUR LIFE! FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!
And it is stored FOREVER!
You can read about just ONE of these data centers here:
“Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.”
“Inside, the facility will consist of four 25,000-square-foot halls filled with servers, complete with raised floor space for cables and storage. In addition, there will be more than 900,000 square feet for technical support and administration. The entire site will be self-sustaining, with fuel tanks large enough to power the backup generators for three days in an emergency, water storage with the capability of pumping 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day, as well as a sewage system and massive air-conditioning system to keep all those servers cool. Electricity will come from the center’s own substation built by Rocky Mountain Power to satisfy the 65-megawatt power demand. Such a mammoth amount of energy comes with a mammoth price tag—about $40 million a year, according to one estimate.”
“In 2011 more than 2 billion of the world’s 6.9 billion people were connected to the Internet. By 2015, market research firm IDC estimates, there will be 2.7 billion users. Thus, the NSA’s need for a 1-million-square-foot data storehouse. Should the agency ever fill the Utah center with a yottabyte of information, it would be equal to about 500 quintillion (500,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text.”
“The eavesdropping on Americans doesn’t stop at the telecom switches. To capture satellite communications in and out of the US, the agency also monitors AT&T’s powerful earth stations, satellite receivers in locations that include Roaring Creek and Salt Creek. Tucked away on a back road in rural Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Roaring Creek’s three 105-foot dishes handle much of the country’s communications to and from Europe and the Middle East. And on an isolated stretch of land in remote Arbuckle, California, three similar dishes at the company’s Salt Creek station service the Pacific Rim and Asia.
Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency launched its warrantless-wiretapping program. “They violated the Constitution setting it up,” he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care. They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they started violating the Constitution, I couldn’t stay.” Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email. At the outset the program recorded 320 million calls a day, he says, which represented about 73 to 80 percent of the total volume of the agency’s worldwide intercepts. The haul only grew from there. According to Binney—who has maintained close contact with agency employees until a few years ago—the taps in the secret rooms dotting the country are actually powered by highly sophisticated software programs that conduct “deep packet inspection,” examining Internet traffic as it passes through the 10-gigabit-per-second cables at the speed of light.”
The other side of this surveillance state, the ability to use all this equipment, data and personal for cyber-attacks and cyber war efforts.
“In 2003, Alexander, a favorite of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was named the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, the service’s most senior intelligence position. Among the units under his command were the military intelligence teams involved in the human rights abuses at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. Two years later, Rumsfeld appointed Alexander—now a three-star general—director of the NSA, where he oversaw the illegal, warrantless wiretapping program while deceiving members of the House Intelligence Committee. In a publicly released letter to Alexander shortly after The New York Times exposed the program, US representative Rush Holt, a member of the committee, angrily took him to task for not being forthcoming about the wiretapping: “Your responses make a mockery of congressional oversight.”
Alexander also proved to be militant about secrecy. In 2005 a senior agency employee named Thomas Drake allegedly gave information to The Baltimore Sun showing that a publicly discussed program known as Trailblazer was millions of dollars over budget, behind schedule, possibly illegal, and a serious threat to privacy. In response, federal prosecutors charged Drake with 10 felony counts, including retaining classified documents and making false statements. He faced up to 35 years in prison—despite the fact that all of the information Drake was alleged to have leaked was not only unclassified and already in the public domain but in fact had been placed there by NSA and Pentagon officials themselves. (As a longtime chronicler of the NSA, I served as a consultant for Drake’s defense team. The investigation went on for four years, after which Drake received no jail time or fine. The judge, Richard D. Bennett, excoriated the prosecutor and NSA officials for dragging their feet. “I find that unconscionable. Unconscionable,” he said during a hearing in 2011. “That’s four years of hell that a citizen goes through. It was not proper. It doesn’t pass the smell test.”)”
“In May, work began on a $3.2 billion facility housed at Fort Meade in Maryland. Known as Site M, the 227-acre complex includes its own 150-megawatt power substation, 14 administrative buildings, 10 parking garages, and chiller and boiler plants. The server building will have 90,000 square feet of raised floor—handy for supercomputers—yet hold only 50 people. Meanwhile, the 531,000-square-foot operations center will house more than 1,300 people. In all, the buildings will have a footprint of 1.8 million square feet. Even more ambitious plans, known as Phase II and III, are on the drawing board. Stretching over the next 16 years, they would quadruple the footprint to 5.8 million square feet, enough for nearly 60 buildings and 40 parking garages, costing $5.2 billion and accommodating 11,000 more cyberwarriors.”
“What’s good for Alexander is good for the fortunes of the cyber-industrial complex, a burgeoning sector made up of many of the same defense contractors who grew rich supplying the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With those conflicts now mostly in the rearview mirror, they are looking to Alexander as a kind of savior. After all, the US spends about $30 billion annually on cybersecurity goods and services.
In the past few years, the contractors have embarked on their own cyber building binge parallel to the construction boom at Fort Meade: General Dynamics opened a 28,000-square-foot facility near the NSA; SAIC cut the ribbon on its new seven-story Cyber Innovation Center; the giant CSC unveiled its Virtual Cyber Security Center. And at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, whereformer NSA director Mike McConnell was hired to lead the cyber effort, the company announced a “cyber-solutions network” that linked together nine cyber-focused facilities. Not to be outdone, Boeing built a new Cyber Engagement Center. Leaving nothing to chance, it also hired retired Army major general Barbara Fast, an old friend of Alexander’s, to run the operation. (She has since moved on.)”
“One of the most secretive of these contractors is Endgame Systems, a startup backed by VCs including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Paladin Capital Group. Established in Atlanta in 2008, Endgame is transparently antitransparent. “We’ve been very careful not to have a public face on our company,” former vice president John M. Farrell wrote to a business associate in an email that appeared in a WikiLeaks dump. “We don’t ever want to see our name in a press release,” added founder Christopher Rouland. True to form, the company declined Wired’s interview requests.
Perhaps for good reason: According to news reports, Endgame is developing ways to break into Internet-connected devices through chinks in their antivirus armor. Like safecrackers listening to the click of tumblers through a stethoscope, the “vulnerability researchers” use an extensive array of digital tools to search for hidden weaknesses in commonly used programs and systems, such as Windows and Internet Explorer. And since no one else has ever discovered these unseen cracks, the manufacturers have never developed patches for them.
Thus, in the parlance of the trade, these vulnerabilities are known as “zero-day exploits,” because it has been zero days since they have been uncovered and fixed. They are the Achilles’ heel of the security business, says a former senior intelligence official involved with cyberwarfare. Those seeking to break into networks and computers are willing to pay millions of dollars to obtain them.
According to Defense News’ C4ISR Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek, Endgame also offers its intelligence clients—agencies like Cyber Command, the NSA, the CIA, and British intelligence—a unique map showing them exactly where their targets are located. Dubbed Bonesaw, the map displays the geolocation and digital address of basically every device connected to the Internet around the world, providing what’s called network situational awareness.
The client locates a region on the password-protected web-based map, then picks a country and city— say, Beijing, China. Next the client types in the name of the target organization, such as the Ministry of Public Security’s No. 3 Research Institute, which is responsible for computer security—or simply enters its address, 6 Zhengyi Road. The map will then display what software is running on the computers inside the facility, what types of malware some may contain, and a menu of custom-designed exploits that can be used to secretly gain entry. It can also pinpoint those devices infected with malware, such as the Conficker worm, as well as networks turned into botnets and zombies— the equivalent of a back door left open.
Bonesaw also contains targeting data on US allies, and it is soon to be upgraded with a new version codenamed Velocity, according to C4ISR Journal. It will allow Endgame’s clients to observe in real time as hardware and software connected to the Internet around the world is added, removed, or changed. But such access doesn’t come cheap. One leaked report indicated that annual subscriptions could run as high as $2.5 million for 25 zero-day exploits.
The buying and using of such a subscription by nation-states could be seen as an act of war. “If you are engaged in reconnaissance on an adversary’s systems, you are laying the electronic battlefield and preparing to use it,” wrote Mike Jacobs, a former NSA director for information assurance, in a McAfee report on cyberwarfare. “In my opinion, these activities constitute acts of war, or at least a prelude to future acts of war.” The question is, who else is on the secretive company’s client list? Because there is as of yet no oversight or regulation of the cyberweapons trade, companies in the cyber-industrial complex are free to sell to whomever they wish. “It should be illegal,” says the former senior intelligence official involved in cyberwarfare. “I knew about Endgame when I was in intelligence. The intelligence community didn’t like it, but they’re the largest consumer of that business.”
Thus, in their willingness to pay top dollar for more and better zero-day exploits, the spy agencies are helping drive a lucrative, dangerous, and unregulated cyber arms race, one that has developed its own gray and black markets.The companies trading in this arena can sell their wares to the highest bidder—be they frontmen for criminal hacking groups or terrorist organizations or countries that bankroll terrorists, such as Iran.Ironically, having helped create the market in zero-day exploits and then having launched the world into the era of cyberwar, Alexander now says the possibility of zero-day exploits falling into the wrong hands is his “greatest worry.”
Doesn’t that make you feel very safe?
And this is ONLY the US side of things. You have the same picture with more or less the same problems in Europe and the rest of these western countries.
“Britain’s spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).
The sheer scale of the agency’s ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible. This is all being carried out without any form of public acknowledgement or debate.
One key innovation has been GCHQ’s ability to tap into and store huge volumes of data drawn from fibre-optic cables for up to 30 days so that it can be sifted and analysed. That operation, codenamed Tempora, has been running for some 18 months.”
“Each of the cables carries data at a rate of 10 gigabits per second, so the tapped cables had the capacity, in theory, to deliver more than 21 petabytes a day – equivalent to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours.
And the scale of the programme is constantly increasing as more cables are tapped and GCHQ data storage facilities in the UK and abroad are expanded with the aim of processing terabits (thousands of gigabits) of data at a time.
For the 2 billion users of the world wide web, Tempora represents a window on to their everyday lives, sucking up every form of communication from the fibre-optic cables that ring the world.”
The NSA has meanwhile opened a second window, in the form of the Prism operation, revealed earlier this month by the Guardian, from which it secured access to the internal systems of global companies that service the internet.
The GCHQ mass tapping operation has been built up over five years by attaching intercept probes to transatlantic fibre-optic cables where they land on British shores carrying data to western Europe from telephone exchanges and internet servers in north America.
This was done under secret agreements with commercial companies, described in one document as ”intercept partners”.
Sum total: you have an enormous amount of people involved in this TOTAL MASS SURVELIANCE. ALL with access to OUR whole electronic and internet life.
George Orwell’s famous book 1984 is like a mild kindergarten heaven compared to what IS REALLY GOING ON in western “democracies”.
And last, never forget that nearly ALL the equipment and software used by brutal dictators all over the world to bring death and misery to their people, was sold by US and European companies. Why? Because they are “the best” at it.
Sounds very “reassuring” don’t it?
These companies installed, trained their personal and maintained this equipment helping these brutal dictators accomplish their goals.
“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
”We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.”
“And this is nothing new. We have seen so many different examples of this betrayal of journalist in their role as journalist. In this blog, I have given many examples when it comes to the Global Warming Hysteria.
Where the “journalists” and the mainstream media ACTIVELY choose to become propagandists and his master’s voice. Even worse, they ACTIVELY became attack dogs and tried to suppress and oppress EVERY dissenting voice and protest.
This is the ultimate betrayal of ALL what journalism is supposed to be. And the role they are supposed to play in a “free society”. Goebbels, and Ilya Ehrenburg (his soviet counterpart), would be REALLY PROUD of these men and women!”
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
The sorry state of the Euro, EU and our “dear” politicians:
“Or this is why the Euro is doomed. And after that EU – Yes we have NO Money.
On Saturday November 17, police officers from all over Spain marched through Madrid, protesting austerity measures and cuts. They even apologized to the public for arresting the wrong people. One of the slogans was:
”Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians.”
The whole economic and political crisis in EU and USA summarized in one simple sentence.
“This is one of the best and succinct descriptions of EU I have seen:
“The European Union is like a hospital where all the doctors are mad. It doesn’t matter what is wrong, the treatment is always the same – more integration – and it is always wrong. The best thing to do is never to enter it.
Once you are in, the best thing to do is to leave. If you can’t get out, you will probably die.”
I disagree with one thing this author says: “EU is the Stupid Empire”. EU is a POLITICAL project. The Euro is part of that political project.
A lot of EU’s decisions make no economic sense whatsoever. In that regard, Peter Hitchens observation that “EU is the Stupid Empire” is completely right. Not to mention the enormous cost to the common people of all these political motivated but economically disastrous decisions.
The economic side was always a way to “sell it to the people”. Step by step. So that the political agenda could be slowly, but steadily implemented. Until it was too late. The political elites new ALL along that had the EU project been presented to the people for what it really is, people in ALL countries would have rejected it.
BUT EU was on purpose designed this way. So that the people could not stop this political project.
Never forget that ALL the political elites, irrespective of party or ideology, in the EU countries were behind this. With very few exceptions.”
The EU bureaucrats and the political elites always fall back, when they have nothing else to say in defence of the EU, that this is a “peace project”. Well this “peace project” has now created social havoc, riots, and put country against country, and groups of countries against group of countries.
Tearing apart the EU at it’s seems. And ALL of this because they, the political elites, literally AT ALL COST want to preserve the POLITICAL project euro. Which is the cornerstone of the federal super state of Europe.
As I have said before, this has nothing to do with economics; it’s ALL about politics,
And that is why so many people still don’t understand what is going on. Because from an economical point these policies are total madness. Ruining and lowering the living standard of most people. And the political elites know this. But the political project is MORE important.
Then there is Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, France….
Just start adding up the GIGANTIC NUMBERS and be utterly horrified!
This is the situation that politicians and the banks have put the common people of Europe in.
They are literally ruining us all. And WE have to pay the price of their folly and speculations.
One more slogan from the protests – They are the same.”
”Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
Albert Einstein
More on the sorry state of the Euro, EU and our “dear” politicians:
“EU, the politicians and the bankers have shown by their action, and inaction, that they effectively have canceled the social contract with their own citizen.
That unspoken implicit contract between citizens and their rulers that is the backbone of a democratic society.
If you try very, very hard, it is still very difficult to underestimate the seriousness of what happened. This is a game changer. Most people, politicians and “journalist” has still not understood the seriousness and graveness of what happened on a local, national and international level There is so much that was broken ON PURPOSE, including the rule of Law.And the very foundation of the modern financial and banking system.
Which these measures where supposed to protect.
Now anything and everything can and might be done. Whatever boundaries that existed have been breached. There is no Law, no fences and no limits. Pandora’s Box has been opened.
To put it in perspective, this quote from January 18 2008 from Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank (2003 to 2011):
“For a small, open economy like Cyprus, Euro adoption provides protection from international financial turmoil.”
No comment whatsoever is need. Read it again and ponder the arrogance and irony of it.
And this quote from Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker. He was alsothe president of the Eurogroup council of euro-zone finance ministers from 2005 to 2013. In that position, he bears primary responsibility for communicating the euro-zone’s financial and economic posture:
“So why the lie?
I was told to say there was no meeting,” said Mr. Schuller (the spokesman for Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker), reached by telephone Monday. “We had certain necessities to consider.”
Such as?
Evening in Europe is midday in the United States. “We had Wall Street open at that point in time,” Mr. Schuller said. The euro was falling on the Spiegel report, which had overhyped the meeting. “There was a very good reason to deny that the meeting was taking place.” It was, he said, “self-preservation.”
Asked whether such deliberate misinformation would undermine the market’s confidence in future euro-zone pronouncements, Mr. Schuller, lamenting that the market had practically no confidence in pronouncements already, said “not at all.”
“The Web site EUobserver has video of Mr. Juncker, at a conference on economic governance in April, expounding on the practice and reasons for lying in financial and economic communications.
On the tape, Mr. Juncker says he has “had to lie” and, speaking about touchy economic topics, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
And Jérôme Cahuzac, the Socialist budget minister in France, who had been tasked with battling tax fraud. Who just had to resign because he had an ”undisclosed” Swiss bank account. Minister in charge of battling tax fraud… resigns for having a secret Swiss account. Let that sink in for a bit.
French minister tasked with battling tax fraud accused of having Swiss bank account
And IMF chiefChristine Lagarde (part of the Troika) she have held various ministerial posts in the French government, she was among things Minister of Economic Affairs, Finances and Industry
“French police raid IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s flat in Bernard Tapie probe
French authorities have searched the Paris flat of IMF chief Christine Lagarde as part of an investigation into her handling of a 2008 compensation payment to a businessman supporter of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, her lawyer said.
Police are investigating claims that Lagarde, when French Finance Minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, acted illegally in approving the €285m arbitration payout to Bernard Tapie.”
French police raid IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s flat in Bernard Tapie probe
Both prime examples of the political class wouldn’t you say?
Also, remember that the Cyprus banks went trough the ECB new and “stringent” “stress test” 18 months ago with flying colors.
NO PROBLEM THERE!
These people REALLY know what they are doing don’t you agree?
There you have the setting. Remember, these people decide your fate and can take your money if they want as has been shown in Cyprus.
So let’s start with some of the points and facts:
1. Let’s start by saying that this “crisis” was known at least two years before it “happened”. And EVERYONE that should, know about it. And they DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it.
On the contrary – they even managed to worsen it. Not small feet for our dear politicians and bankers.
The “troika” didn’t want to do anything until after the Italian election. Which didn’t go the way the EU bureaucrats wanted. In addition, since the Cyprus communist president from AKEL didn’t want to do anything to be the one that started “tightening of the belt”, the Troika decided to wait after the Cyprus election on February 17 and 24 this year.
Now the Troikas “man” Nicos Anastasiades was in power. And now the negotiations started.
In the meantime, what was originally a €6 billion bailout in the summer of 2012 was 8 months later a €18 billion bailout. Thanks to EU and IMF doing nothing.
Doing nothing, a favorite political “pastime”,has serious consequences, cost REAL money and effects REAL people in the REAL world.”
”It is incredible how as soon as a people becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say … that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
Etienne de la Boetie’s The Politics of Obedience:The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is really an imminent threat to humankind.
Very late again, the official May temperature figures are out.
As a complement to my previous post Recent 4 Months U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 5.4 F COOLER in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 5 months (year to date, January- May) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 5 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.16 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.57 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.36 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.00 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.57 F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for Jan- May is exactly – 0.57F degrees a decade. That is – 5.7 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And to REALLY show you this “accelerated warming” trend lets recapitulate the last three, four and five months and their trend /decade (see my previous posts):
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.41F / Decade
US temperature recent 4 months (Jan- Apr) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.54F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.57F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 5 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.57 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.36 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly0.00 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 0.57F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Here we are in the end of spring and beginning of summer and it is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is really an imminent threat to humankind.
Very late, the official May temperature figures are out.so I thought I dive into it.
As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent May US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature May 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.13 F / Decade
US temperature May 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.35 F / Decade
US temperature May 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.29 F / Decade
US temperature May 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.26F / Decade
US temperature May 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.68F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for May is exactly –0.68 F degrees a decade. That is a – 6.8F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of May ”accelerated warming” trend:
The May trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.35 F degrees a decade.
The May trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.29 F degrees a decade.
The May trend 1990-2013 is exactly 0.26F degrees a decade.
The May trend 2000-2013 is exactly –0.68 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
Very late again, the official April temperature figures are out. Last year the temperature anomaly was 3.66 F and this year it is – 1.35F.
As a complement to my previous post Recent 3 Months U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 4.1 F COOLER in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 4 months (year to date, January- April) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 4 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 4 months (Jan- Apr) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.17 F / Decade
US temperature recent 4 months (Jan- Apr) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.63 F / Decade
US temperature recent 4 months (Jan- Apr) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.38 F / Decade
US temperature recent 4 months (Jan- Apr) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is – 0.07F / Decade
US temperature recent 4 months (Jan- Apr) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.54F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for Jan- Apr is exactly – 0.54F degrees a decade. That is – 5.4 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And to REALLY show you this “accelerated warming” trend lets recapitulate the 3 month January-March trend /decade (see my previous post):
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.41F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 4 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.63 F degrees a decade.
The recent 4 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.38 F degrees a decade.
The recent 4 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly– 0.07F degrees a decade.
The recent 4 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 0.54F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent threat to humankind.
Very late, the official April temperature figures are out.so I thought I dive into it.
As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent April US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature April 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.12 F / Decade
US temperature April 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.43 F / Decade
US temperature April 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.22 F / Decade
US temperature April 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.39F / Decade
US temperature April 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.92F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for April is exactly –0.92 F degrees a decade. That is a – 9.2F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And remember that this year the January trend /decade were – 0.94 F / Decade for 2000 to 2013 (see my previous post). And that’s in the middle of the winter.
And here we are in the middle of “spring” and the trend is – 0.92.
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of April ”accelerated warming” trend:
The April trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.43 F degrees a decade.
The April trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.22 F degrees a decade.
The April trend 1990-2013 is exactly 0.39F degrees a decade.
The April trend 2000-2013 is exactly –0.92 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
Very late, the official March temperature figures are out. Last year the temperature was 8.55 F and this year it is – 1.09F.
As a complement to my previous post Recent 2 Months U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 11.3 F COOLER in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 3 months (year to date, January- March) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 3 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.19 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.70 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.43 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is – 0.22F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Jan- Mar) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.41F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for Jan-Mar is exactly – 0.41F degrees a decade. That is – 4.1 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 3 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.70 F degrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.43 F degrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly– 0.22F degrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 0.41F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
EU, the politicians and the bankers have shown by their action, and inaction, that they effectively have canceled the social contract with their own citizen.
That unspoken implicit contract between citizens and their rulers that is the backbone of a democratic society.
I had planed to write about the recent developments in Cyprus, but now I have so much material that it is ridicules. Every day there are new revelations about what went on behind the scene. And are STILL going on!
So I decided to just do a very short version (well, sort of) – Cyprus for dummies so to speak. With some of the more important facts and points among many, many.
If you try very, very hard, it is still very difficult to underestimate the seriousness of what happened. This is a game changer. Most people, politicians and “journalist” has still not understood the seriousness and graveness of what happened on a local, national and international level There is so much that was broken ON PURPOSE, including the rule of Law.And the very foundation of the modern financial and banking system.
Which these measures where supposed to protect.
Now anything and everything can and might be done. Whatever boundaries that existed have been breached. There is no Law, no fences and no limits. Pandora’s Box has been opened.
To put it in perspective, this quote from January 18 2008 from Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank (2003 to 2011):
“For a small, open economy like Cyprus, Euro adoption provides protection from international financial turmoil.”
No comment whatsoever is need. Read it again and ponder the arrogance and irony of it.
And this quote from Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker. He was alsothe president of the Eurogroup council of euro-zone finance ministers from 2005 to 2013. In that position, he bears primary responsibility for communicating the euro-zone’s financial and economic posture:
“So why the lie?
I was told to say there was no meeting,” said Mr. Schuller (the spokesman for Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker), reached by telephone Monday. “We had certain necessities to consider.”
Such as?
Evening in Europe is midday in the United States. “We had Wall Street open at that point in time,” Mr. Schuller said. The euro was falling on the Spiegel report, which had overhyped the meeting. “There was a very good reason to deny that the meeting was taking place.” It was, he said, “self-preservation.”
Asked whether such deliberate misinformation would undermine the market’s confidence in future euro-zone pronouncements, Mr. Schuller, lamenting that the market had practically no confidence in pronouncements already, said “not at all.”
“The Web site EUobserver has video of Mr. Juncker, at a conference on economic governance in April, expounding on the practice and reasons for lying in financial and economic communications.
On the tape, Mr. Juncker says he has “had to lie” and, speaking about touchy economic topics, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
And of course, you have his successor Dutch Finance MinisterJeroen Dijsselbloem, the new president of the Eurogroup council of euro-zone finance ministers. He was talking about the “new template” for further bailouts after Cyprus. Only to retract most of these new rules a couple of hours later – so he didn’t say what he actually said on a recorded interview.
There you have a politician in all his beauty
After Cyprus, eurozone faces tough bank regime – Eurogroup head
And Jérôme Cahuzac, the Socialist budget minister in France, who had been tasked with battling tax fraud. Who just had to resign because he had an ”undisclosed” Swiss bank account. Minister in charge of battling tax fraud… resigns for having a secret Swiss account. Let that sink in for a bit.
French minister tasked with battling tax fraud accused of having Swiss bank account
And IMF chiefChristine Lagarde (part of the Troika) she have held various ministerial posts in the French government, she was among things Minister of Economic Affairs, Finances and Industry
“French police raid IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s flat in Bernard Tapie probe
French authorities have searched the Paris flat of IMF chief Christine Lagarde as part of an investigation into her handling of a 2008 compensation payment to a businessman supporter of ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, her lawyer said.
Police are investigating claims that Lagarde, when French Finance Minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, acted illegally in approving the €285m arbitration payout to Bernard Tapie.”
French police raid IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s flat in Bernard Tapie probe
Both prime examples of the political class wouldn’t you say?
Also, remember that the Cyprus banks went trough the ECB new and “stringent” “stress test” 18 months ago with flying colors.
NO PROBLEM THERE!
These people REALLY know what they are doing don’t you agree?
There you have the setting. Remember, these people decide your fate and can take your money if they want as has been shown in Cyprus.
So let’s start with some of the points and facts:
1. Let’s start by saying that this “crisis” was known at least two years before it “happened”. And EVERYONE that should, know about it. And they DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about it.
On the contrary – they even managed to worsen it. Not small feet for our dear politicians and bankers.
The “troika” didn’t want to do anything until after the Italian election. Which didn’t go the way the EU bureaucrats wanted. In addition, since the Cyprus communist president from AKEL didn’t want to do anything to be the one that started “tightening of the belt”, the Troika decided to wait after the Cyprus election on February 17 and 24 this year.
Now the Troikas “man” Nicos Anastasiades was in power. And now the negotiations started.
In the meantime, what was originally a €6 billion bailout in the summer of 2012 was 8 months later a €18 billion bailout. Thanks to EU and IMF doing nothing.
Doing nothing, a favorite political “pastime”,has serious consequences, cost REAL money and effects REAL people in the REAL world.
Cyprus faces imminent bailout threat, biggest bank says
2. An interesting fact, which have not been very much noted, is that the Troika from the beginning DID NOT demand a “tax” (confiscation) on deposits from €100 000 and under. It was only on deposits over €100 000 “The Russian money” that was uninsured.
But ”their man” Anastasiades refused. He didn’t want to anger Russia to much. It was only after this that EVERY deposit was “taxed” (confiscated). It is interesting isn’t it that the president of Cyprus rather that anger Russia, willingly confiscated the money from the poor, the common people and small businesses in his own country.
Remember also that of all the 371,000 deposits in the Cyprus banks 361,000 of them was below €100 000. And supposed to be “insured”.
Yeah, we know what that means now!
Just one example of many from retired 65-year-old John Demitriou:
“So much has been written of the Cypriot bail-ins and massive haircuts for the uninsured depositors – assumed to be nasty oligarchic Russian money-launderers – that, it appears, the reality for people living in Cyprus has been forgotten. We noted earlier the small business issues, but as the Sydney Morning Herald reports, real lives have been destroyed. 65-year-old John Demitriou retired (back) to the picturesque fishing village of Liopetri, Cyprus, with his life-savings of around $1 million living off the interest it paid from Laiki ‘Popular’ Bank
He planned to spend it on his grandchildren – some of whom live in Cyprus – putting them through university and setting them up. There would be medical bills; he has a heart condition. The interest was paying for a comfortable retirement, and trips back to Australia. He also toyed with the idea of buying a boat.
He wanted to leave any big purchases a few years, to be sure this was where he would spend his retirement. There was no hurry. But now it is all gone.
”If I made the decision to stay, I was going to build a house,” John says. ”Unfortunately I didn’t make the decision yet.
”I went to sleep Friday as a rich man. I woke up a poor man.”
His money was all in the Laiki ”Popular” Bank which was the main casualty of Cyprus’ bailout package set by the European Union. Laiki is to be dismantled. Savings of less than €100,000 are to move to the Bank of Cyprus. Anything more than that will almost certainly be wiped out as the bank is wound down, its remaining assets taken by the bank’s creditors.
Last week he heard a rumour that the bank was in trouble and went into Aiya Napa to ask his bank manager – a friend – if he should move his life savings.
”There’s no problem, nothing to worry about,” he was told.
Not so. ”I go to bed and I can’t sleep. I walk around, I have a coffee. I am thinking about my family.”
John’s tears flow. As he chokes up, his son George, who moved to Cyprus in 1990, explains.
”The whole family, we used to work at the markets. I would work at the markets on the weekend to help my parents while my mates were off having fun. Honest work in honest jobs. Now all that hard work is paying the debts of other people and the government. It’s disgusting, to be honest.
”For the moment I am ‘sitting on charcoal’, as they say,” waiting to see if he gets burnt.
‘It’s not Russian money, it’s not black money. It’s my money.”
‘I went to sleep Friday as a rich man. I woke up a poor man’
Memo from the Central Bank of Cyprus sent to bank CEOs on February 11, to put them at ease.
3. And the Troika in their eagerness agreed to this. Thereby destroyingthe very foundation of the modern financial and banking system. Including the “protection” for deposits under € 100 000 in EU. Which was the backbone to restore “confidence” in the banks after ALL their mismanagement, speculations and crisis.
No Deposits – No Banks. It’s very simple really.
You see nearly ALL the money they use to “invest” or speculate is yours, the depositors. And because the high leverage they have used on this money, they are in trouble. And they know it.
So if you start taking out your money the whole deck of card will collapse.
Why should you keep YOUR money in the banks after this? When you know that at a moments notice (on a weekend so you can do nothing), the politicians can decide that you should “help” finance this or that for “the common good”. Which of course they decide.
No to mention that you don’t get any rent to speak off on you money in the banks. And on that miniscule rent, you have to pay taxes. And you lose eve more when you consider the REAL inflation in each country.
Our “dear” politicians have now for a long time in their actions, taxes, laws etc; favored loans and debt, and punished saving. Sounds like a ”healthy” strategy for the long time doesn’t it?
Some countries, like USA, use this strategy to drive down the value of the currency and thereby their cost of the national debt.
4. During the time when the banks where closed (11 days), and the accounts “frozen” and the common people could only take out a daily limited amount trough the ATM machines.
At the same time, you get so impressed by this people and their total lack of knowledge and understanding of what they decide, the Cyprus banks filial in London and Moscow (Uniastrum Bank) where open with NO RESTRICTIONS AT ALL.
And every one from five years and upwards can guess what happened next except the Troika and the EU politicians.
Most of the money from the big accounts where transferred or withdrawn. Including from a lot of Cyprus politicians, including the presidents family.
So the very money that was the target and the bulk of the €5.8 billion that Cyprus was to “put up”, the Russian money, was allowed to “escape”.
As a consequence the Cyprus Centeral Bank would need a big increase in emergency funding from the ECB in the form of ELA to make up for the deposit outflows. Which is precisely what happened.
INSIGHT-Money fled Cyprus as president fumbled bailout
These are the politicians that “tax” (confiscate) YOUR money in the banks.
The people in the know already started the outflow from Cyprus in January.
As a result, they have to take a MUCH BIGGER percentage of these big accounts left, mostly local businesses.
You can see one example here, This IT company had €849.682 on it’s company account. They confiscated €720.898.
That’s 85% of the company’s account!
This company has consequently gone bankrupt and has fired all the Cypriots that worked there.
That’s REALLY going to be helpful for the local economy don’t you think?
Another effect that has started to emerge this week is that international companies, customers, clients etc, have told local Cyprus companies that they will no longer sign contracts with a Cypriot company. Overnight, the jurisdiction is a pariah.
This will of course do even “more wonders” for the local economy and “help” them recover.
Then there is the spreading of the economic downturn effect because of these measures, which are now hitting Greece. Greece has already had three bailouts and still the economic situation is getting worse. And now this.
“At least 1,600 Greek businesses – from shipping, retail to tourism – will suffer from the Cyprus bailout deal announced on Sunday after a showdown between Brussels and Nicosia, according to Vasilis Korkidis, head of the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE).
“The tragic situation in Cyprus will certainly have immediate effects on the Greek market, since a large part of the domestic businesses maintain close ties with Cypriot companies,” Korkidis said in a statement on Tuesday. He was particularly critical of the capital controls and the impending haircut on large deposits (over 100,000 euros) expected to be more than 40%.
Greece’s exports to Cyprus exceed 1bn euros annually and the country is Cyprus’ biggest trade partner, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. “
Greek businesses to suffer from ‘crippling’ Cyprus bailout
And of course there is the Capital Controls that are now imposed since the banks opened.
With “a little help” from EU and IMF you can really be ruined wouldn’t you say?
You can take this example of this company and the example of pensioner John Demitriou above whose life savings were confiscated. And remember, he went to the bank just two days before they closed and confiscated his money, and asked his bank manager – a friend – if he should move his life savings.
”There’s no problem, nothing to worry about,” he was told.
Contrast that with the people in the know, such as the newly elected President Nicos Anastasiades’, and their actions:
“A company owned by in-laws of Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades withdrew dozens of millions from Laiki Bank on March 12 and 13, according to an article published in Cypriot newspaper Haravgi.
The newspaper, which is affiliated to the communist-rooted AKEL party, reports that three days before the Eurogroup meeting the company took five promissory notes worth €21m from Laiki Bank and transferred the money to London. “
And there is now a list of 132 companies and individuals has emerged who withdrew their €-denominated deposits in the two weeks from March 1 to March 15, (see below)
“These 132 companies and individuals have withdrawn all deposits in euros, dollars and rubles, which were transferred to other banks outside Cyprus.”
It is a VERY; VERY; VERY; VERY long time since politicians took the motto “to serve and protect” it’s people seriously.
On a side note, to show the difference between people and the“political elites”:
Here in Sweden because of money laundering laws, you have to register and give full personal details when you buy a buss or subway ticket by your mobile phone. We are talking about $3-4 /ticket.
And in the examples above, we are talkingabout billions of euros. WHEN THE BANKS WERE CLOSED AND SUPPOSEDLY MONITORED.
It cannot be more pedagogic and clearer that this. One rule and monitoring/surveillance for the common people and their $3-4 tickets. Another for the political class/elites were billions of euros are allowed to escape from closed and supervised banks.
And remember, we are paying them! And they are the ones that put the money laundering laws in place and enforce them on us.
5. A key goal throughout these negotiations has been to make Cypriot debt “sustainable”. The effect of the Troikas measures is more than likely to collapse the GDP in Cyprus. The €10bn bailout was supposed to push Cypriot debt down to 140% of GDP. If Cypriot GDP falls by just a couple of percentage this year (which is now guarantied), that percentage rises drastically. So we are back where we started.
With Cyprus needing even more and bigger “bailouts”.
Or how EU shot itself in the head, arms, stomach and both legs at the same time. Congratulating itself ate the same time for this “great achievement”.
6.And then there is all that cronyism, corruption and political favors that was going on in Cyprus banks. Just a few examples were money was given, loans “written off” etc:
“A list of Cypriot companies and politicians that allegedly had millions of euros in loans written off by the three Cypriot lenders at a center of an unprecedented banking crisis on the Mediterranean island has been forward to Cyprus’s parliamentary ethics committee after its publication in Greece’s daily Ethnos newspaper.
According to the revelations, Bank of Cyprus, Hellenic Bank(Laiki) and Hellenic Bank — which were earlier this week acquired by Greece’s Piraeus Bank — has forgiven companies, MPs and local authority officials millions of euros in loans over the past five years.
The list reportedly features the names of politicians from all Cypriot parties except Social Democracy (EDEK) and the Social Ecology Movement (KKO).”
“According to Ethnos, Bank of Cyprus wrote off the 2.8-million-euro loan of a hotel with ties to the communist-rooted Progressive Party (AKEL)and forgave significant portions of many other loans. For instance a national labor union is said to have been forgiven 193,000 euros of a 554,000-euro loan. An unnamed company was forgiven 110,000 euros from a 1.83-million-euro loan, a prominent deputy of the centrist Democratic Rally (DISY) party saw 101,000 euros of a 168,000-euro loan written off and a company owned by the brother of a former minister of the conservative Democratic Party (DIKO)had 1.28 million euros of a 1.59-million-euro loan written off.
The list refers to several other MPs and the mayor of large city who allegedly had significant portions of their loans forgiven by Bank of Cyprus. Companies linked to a member of the bank’s board, to the daughter-in-law of a DIKO deputy and several others also appear to have been offered significant loan relief by the Bank of Cyprus.
As for Laiki Bank, it is said to have written off several loans taken out by MPs of AKEL and DISY. The bank also appears to have written off 5.8 million US dollars in debt from a company whose majority shareholder is said to be a well-known Cypriot politician. The ex wife of a senior ministry official and a company owned by a local ambassador also appear to have been facilitated.”
“THE government yesterday reaffirmed its intention to fully investigate the banking sector, as a list surfaced with names of current and former state officials who allegedly had their loans written off by banks.
The list, published in Greece, contains the names of former and current MPs as well as other prominent individuals, including former president George Vassiliou.
According to the report, Vassiliou held a 51 per cent stake in a company that agreed to have $5.8 million written off.
The government said the matter would be investigated as part of a wider probe into what caused the collapse of the island’s economy and banking system.”
Yeah sure!
“ What the common theme here is that the very same Members of Parliament who were so vocal in rejecting the insured depositors’ impairment just to save their skins from a public mutiny (but so quick to sacrifice the wealthier citizens and small and medium corporations to a haircut that may be as deposit large as 100%), did everything in their power to avoid a vote on the final bank ”resolution” which effectively handed over the country’s sovereignty into the hands of the Troika and its liquidators, but not before they themselves were among the key beneficiaries of the impairments on the banking system’s asset side.
It is these bad assets and impaired losses, as well as investing money in Greek bonds, and other worthless ”assets”, that ultimately ended up forcing the restructuring of the bank and the cram up of the liability side up to and including the unsecured loans known as deposits.
Perhaps if the Cypriot public wants to find a scapegoat to its troubles, it should focus its anger not only at the Russian Oligarchs and the Troika, but to those who were most complicit in betraying the public’s trust: the same politicians who were elected to protect their citizens and the country’s constitution (flagrantly abused as per yesterday’s revelations), including the very president of the nation. That is, of course, if the local apathetic population has not been zombified too much to even care about why billions in wealth was just confiscated from it. Because if that is indeed the case, they, and everyone else who just sits idly by and does nothing as the global banking syndicate appropriates ever more middle-class wealth, deserves everything coming their way.”
Yiannakis Omirou, Cypriot House of Representatives President, who just last week, was calling for the nation to accept it is ”time for responsibility” as they progressed towards a final solution.
Now he is singing another tune :
“There is no other alternative but to free Cyprus from the bonds of the troika and the memorandum, House of Representatives President Yiannakis Omirou has said.
Omirou also expressed his conviction that no Attorney General would dream of not following through with the results of an investigation led by an independent committee to apportion blame on those responsible for bringing the country’s economy and banking sector near collapse.
Omirou talked about the troika demands, which according to him will multiply and will turn Cyprus to a colony of the worst possible type and warned “I would like to send a message to the Cyprus people that there is no other way, there is no alternative apart from freeing (the country) from the troika’s and the memorandum’s bonds”.
He noted that certainly, “this road will demand sacrifices”, adding that “by leaving the troika and the EMS behind us, we will ensure our national independence, our national sovereignty, our moral integrity and our economic independence”.
“If we remain bound by the Troika and the memorandum Cyprus’ destiny is already foretold and there will be no future”, he pointed out.”
Cyprus – Omirou: “If we remain bound by the Troika there will be no future”
7. When Greek bonds were the most toxic investment avalibale, the Cyprus bank was bying them like mad. One of them was Laiki Bank’s chief risk officer Dimitris Spanodimos. Thanks to huge deposits from Russia this left them with, in Spanodimos’ words, ”comfortable liquidity and capital position to deepen selectively some highly profitable and highly promising client relationships.” In short, they had so much cash that they had to invest it somewhere.
And they were encoruged to this by the ECB too.
And we know the result
And remember – this was their CHIEF RISK OFFICER.
Don’t you feel assured by these banks and their “risk officers”?
“In August 2010, Greece’s economy was tumbling into depression amid angry street protests and a €110 billion bailout. Dimitris Spanodimos, the chief risk officer of Cyprus’s second-largest bank, remained bullish.
Mr. Spanodimos boasted on an Aug. 31, 2010, conference call with analysts that the bank was expanding faster than rivals in Greece and bulking up on residential mortgages. ”We have used our group’s comfortable liquidity and capital position to deepen selectively some highly profitable and highly promising client relationships,” he said.
His bank, Cyprus Popular Bank PCL, is now ruined. Its destruction—and the near-failure of its larger peer, Bank of Cyprus PCL—was the result of poor choices by bank managers and of a European regulatory system that gave both banks a clean bill of health as their infections festered.“
“An examination of regulatory documents, conference-call transcripts and financial filings shows that both banks gorged on Greece while nearly everyone else was purging.
In late 2010, even after German and French leaders had openly agreed that creditors of fiscally weak governments should take losses on future bailouts, the two Cypriot banks appeared nonchalant about their exposure to Greek government bonds.
By the end of the year, according to European regulators, the two banks had a combined €5.8 billion ($7.5 billion) of Greek government bonds—€1 billion more than they had held just nine months earlier, and a sum equivalent to about one-third of Cyprus’s annual economic output. By comparison, over the same period, Barclays cut its Greek government exposure by more than half.
Both Cypriot banks passed Europe-wide stress tests in 2010, relieving them of pressure to change course. They passed again in 2011.
”Their regulator was clearly signaling it was OK to go on” expanding in Greece, said Christine Johnson, a bond-fund manager at Old Mutual Global Investors in London, referring to Cyprus’s central bank and European banking regulators.
Cyprus Popular and Bank of Cyprus have booked combined losses of €4.3 billion on their Greek government-bond holdings.”
In July 2010, a pan-EU regulator conducted ”stress tests” of banks to gauge how they would fare if economic conditions worsened. Crucially, the tests modeled the impact of the economy on loan portfolios but didn’t contemplate the possibility that government bonds could produce losses.
Cyprus’s two main banks passed easily, with a total of €572 million of surplus capital.The Central Bank of Cyprus declared ”deep satisfaction” with the results, which it said ”demonstrate the ability of the domestic banking sector to withstand shocks under adverse scenarios.”
“In 2011, the European Banking Authority ordered more stress tests. Like the ones the previous year, they didn’t contemplate losses on government bonds. The two Cypriot banks were again found to have plenty of capital to withstand a deteriorating economic environment.
Less than a week after the results came out, European leaders reached a deal for a new Greek bailout that included losses on Greek bonds. That plan was never executed—another plan,which saw steeper losses, eventually was—but now the specter of such losses was out in the open.”
On Dec. 8, 2011, the EBA tried for the third time to come to grips with the capital deficits at major European banks. This time, the authority factored in possible government-bond losses and concluded that Bank of Cyprus and Cyprus Popular were among 31 banks that needed to come up with new capital.
Bank of Cyprus‘s estimated deficit was €1.56 billion and Cyprus Popular’s was €1.97 billion. The banks had until June 2012 to come up with the new capital.
They couldn’t raise enough, and Cyprus needed a bailout.”
8. The lies and delusions – when Cyprus’ Massive Deposits Were A Great Thing. As recently as 10 months ago, as this May 2012 presentation from the Bank of Cyprus titled ”International Banking Services: Strategic Business Crossroad – A Reliable Financial Center”.
Some quotes ”Size and structure of the Cyprus financial system reflects Cyprus’ role as an international business centre” and that ”This is reflected in the growing number of companies registered in Cyprus and the increasing size of the banking system” as measured by the record amount of banking deposits.
No comment needed.
Page 11 highlighting the strength of the banking sector in Cyprus here:
9. With the bailout also comes a “straightjacket” of orders, rules and regulations from the Troika for the Cyprus government to implement.
This is what happens when you have irresponsible politicians, irresponsible bankers that speculate and when you are a member of the Eurozone. It is not just all the taxes (confiscation) of deposits, it is also the Memorandum of Understanding from the Troika which dictates terms for the Cyprus government revenue increases and spending cuts as a prerecusite for the “loan”.
Below is a leaked draft of the revised Cypriot MOU being prepared by the head of the IMF mission to the island nation, Delia Velculescu.
This is very detailed. And I put it here so people can begin to understand the depth and width of these regulations. It goes to the heart of most peoples lifes.
This is what heppens when you are indebted over your ears and can not pay. Andremember, these same politicans behind this MOU are the same politicans that are putting us all into more debt every year. Which our grandchildren still have to be paying.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) can be read here:
Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality
•Increase the statutory retirement age by 2 years for the various categories of employees
•Reduce preferential treatment of specific groups of employees, like members of the army and police force, in the occupational pension plans, in particular concerning the contribution to the lump-sum benefits;
•Reduce certain benefits and privileges for state officials and senior government officials, in particular by suspending the right to travel first/business class by state officials, senior government officials and employees with the exception of transatlantic travel.
•Increase excise duties on energy, i.e., on oil products, by increasing tax rate on motor fuels (petrol and gasoil) by EUR 0.07
•Increase the standard VAT rate from 17% to 18%.
•Introduce a tax of 20% on gains distributed to winners of betting by the National Lottery for winnings of EUR 5,000 or more
•Increase fees for public services by at least 17% of the current values
•Increase excise duties on tobacco products, in particular on fine-cut smoking tobacco, from EUR 60/kg to EUR 150/kg. Increase excise duties on cigarettes by EUR 0.20/per packet of 20 cigarettes.
•Introduce a permanent contribution of 3% on pensionable earnings to Widows and Orphans Fund by state officials who are entitled to a pension and gratuity. Introduce a contribution of 6.8% on pensionable earnings by officials, who are entitled to a pension and gratuity but are not covered by the government’s pension scheme or any other similar plan;
•Actuarially reducing pension entitlements from the General Social Insurance Scheme by 0.5% per month for retirements earlier than the statutory retirement age at the latest from January 2013, in line with the planned increase in the minimum age for entitlement to an unreduced pension to reach 65 (by 6 months per year), between 2013 and 2016;
•Ensure a reduction of seasonal hourly paid employees by 992 from 1806 in 2012 to 814.
•Implement a four-year plan as prepared by the Public Administration and Personnel Department aimed at the abolition of at least 1880 permanent posts over the period 2013-2016.
•Ensure additional revenues from property taxation of at least 70 million by updating the 1980 prices through application of the CPI index for the period 1980 to 2012
•Increase the statutory corporate income tax rate to 12.5%; Increase the tax rate on interest and dividend income to 30%.
•Increase the bank levy on deposits raised by banks and credit institutions in Cyprus from 0.11% to 0.15% with 25/60 of the revenue earmarked for a special account for a Financial Stability Fund
•Undertake a reform of the tax system for motor vehicles, based on environmentally-friendly principles, with a view to raising additional revenues, through the annual road tax, the registration fee and excise duties, including motor fuel duties.
•Ensure a reduction in total outlays for social transfers by at least EUR 113 million through: (a) the abolition of a number of redundant and overlapping schemes such as the mothers allowance, other family allowances and educational allowances; and (b) the abolition of supplementary allowances under public assistance, the abolition of the special grant and the streamlining of the Easter allowance for pensioners.
•Ensure a reduction of at least EUR 29 million in the total outlays of allowances for employees in the public and broader public sector by i) taxing pensionable allowances provided to senior government officials and employees (secretarial services, representation, and hospitality allowances) in the public and broader public sector ii) reducing the allowances provided to broader public sector employees and reducing all other allowances of broader public sector employees, government officials and hourly paid employees by 15%; and iii) reducing the daily overseas subsistence allowance for business trips by 15%. Ensure a further reduction the subsistence allowance of the current allowance when lunch/dinner is offered by 50% (20% – 45% of overseas subsistence allowance instead of 40% – 90% currently paid).
•Increase excise duties on beer by 25% from EUR 4.78 per hl to EUR 6.00 per hl per degree of pure alcohol of final product. Increase excise duties on ethyl alcohol from EUR 598.01 to EUR 956.82 per hl of pure alcohol.
OK, I stop here. It’s already way to long. But it is important that you get a true picture of what is happening and why.
As I said in the beginning, there a lots of other points to be made but then this post would have been 90+ pages more. And that is for another day.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous post February U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 12.7 F COOLER in 100 years (which I by the way was suspended by WordPress for), I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 2 months (year to date, January- February) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 2 month, a year by year consecutive trend 113 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 2 months (Jan- Feb) 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.20 F / Decade
US temperature recent 2 months (Jan- Feb) 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.75 F / Decade
US temperature recent 2 months (Jan- Feb) 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.35 F / Decade
US temperature recent 2 months (Jan- Feb) 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is – 0.56F / Decade
US temperature recent 2 months (Jan- Feb) 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 1.13F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2013 to 2000-2013??
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for Jan-Feb is exactly – 1.13F degrees a decade. That is a whopping – 11.3 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 2 months trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.75 F degrees a decade.
The recent 2 months trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.35 F degrees a decade.
The recent 2 months trend 1990-2013 is exactly– 0.56 F degrees a decade.
The recent 2 months trend 2000-2013 is exactly – 1.13F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
I just want to inform you that WordPress in ALL their wisdom suspended my blog for little over three hours immediately after I published my post : February U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 12.7 F COOLER in 100 years (see below)
And there was NO warning, NO nothing. WordPress just suspended my blog a couple of milliseconds after I had pushed publish for my post.
This IS NOT a PROPER modus operandi for a company such as WordPress. Especially since they claim, they are ALL about free speech.
If you took this seriously, you would first warn and correspond with the person/blog in question. We all know that “certain groups” make a systematic tactic to silence people they don’t like by “reporting them as “spammers”, “abusers” etc.
This modus operandi by WordPress plays into their hands. And thereby helping to quell free speech.
Of course, I made a hell of a lot of noise to put it middle. And the reason?
This was the answer I got:
“Your site was flagged by our automated anti-spam controls. We have reviewed your site and have removed the suspension notice.”
And this is part of my answer to them:
“This is not acceptable, especially since it seems that these “automated anti-spam controls” are worthless. This is a danger to ANYONE publishing on your platform!
You have a great problem. AND you make a great and unnecessary problem for us serious and professional journalists.
You need to fix this “automated anti-spam controls” PRONTO. Or you will go out of business because NO ONE will trust you as a serious publishing platform.
I want an answer and a THOROUGH explanation why this could happen from the person in charge of your customer service/team leader etc.
Because this is, as I said, NOT ACCEPTABLE in any shape or form.
As a journalist, if you were a newspaper, TV or radio, I would be screaming bloody murder if this happened. It’s called political censorship.
So I hope you understand why I take this “technical issue” as serious as I do. And why you need to fix it immediately. Or you are going to be in serious problem.”
So to all bloggers out there on WordPress – watch out and react immediately if the same thing happens to you.
Yes, I can understand the need to shut down some sites that are heavy spammers, or are breaking every press rule there is etc.
But my GOD, the persons who wrote these algorithms is a threat to free speech!
And WordPress say they are about free speech. To quote from their website:
“We strongly believe in freedom of speech. WordPress.com enables anyone to freely express their ideas and opinions, without censoring or endorsing them.”
Yeah, as long as their “automated anti-spam controls” don’t kick in and stop you dead in your tracks.
So “dear” WordPress, you better fix this problem ”PRONTO” if you want to be considered a serious publishing platform. And show that you really mean your words about free speech.
—————————————————–
UPDATE March 17:
It has now gone 5 days and WordPress in ALL their “servicemindness” didn’t “bother to reply. Well guys, that’s how you effectively destroy a brand and a reputation as a “serious” and “professional” publishing platform.
And it renders ALL your talk and statements about your protection of free speech meaningless. It’s just empty “nice” words without meaning. Since you show in practice that you don’t mean it.
If you don’t see the seriousness of this problem, well, then your problem is worse than I thought.
Maybe WordPress think that they are “too big to fail”. Well, I just want to remind you that Google, in all its might, effectively has destroyed Blogger as a serious platform. As a result, many have left that platform.
As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent February US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature February 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.28 F / Decade
US temperature February 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 0.37 F / Decade
US temperature February 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.02 F / Decade
US temperature February 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is – 1.17F / Decade
US temperature February 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 1.27F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for February is exactly –1.27 F degrees a decade. That is a – 12.7F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
And to REALLY show you this “accelerated warming” trend lets recapitulate the January trend /decade (se my previous post):
US temperature January 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.69 F / Decade
US temperature January 2000-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.05 F / Decade
US temperature January 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.94 F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F ?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of February ”accelerated warming” trend:
The February trend 1970-2013 is exactly 0.37 F degrees a decade.
The February trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.02 F degrees a decade.
The February trend 1990-2013 is exactly– 1.17 F degrees a decade.
The February trend 2000-2013 is exactly –1.27 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
So the German people/taxpayers who so far have paid most of the bailouts of the bankrupt euro states (Greece, Spain. Portugal, Ireland etc), and were the bankrupt states insists on Germany paying EVEN more to “save the euro” (together with Sweden, Finland etc), don’t even have HALF THE NET WEALTH of the peoples they are bailing out!
No wonder that the German Bundesbank is keeping this report secret. Because I don’t think the people in Germany is going to be “very happy” when they discover the truth.
They have keep their economy in reasonably good shape and paid their taxes. Now they have to pay for the ones who didn’t.
And there is a newGermany Anti-Euro Party with some very prominent figures behind it. Its founders are a collection of some of the country’s top economists and academics, business people, journalist etc.
And by then way, this would never ever happen in Sweden. Because here, these same people, are the ones that have relentlessly driven (together with our “dear” politicians), the integration with EU and moving most of the power to Brussels. What a contrast.
Here are some of these articles about the growing poverty in Germany and the cover up of these facts. You have to brush up on your German to read most of these.
In December 2006, the ECB established the HFSC network of survey specialists, statisticians, and economists from its own ranks, national central banks of the Eurozone, and statistical institutes. The acronym stood for Household Finance and Consumption Survey. It would collect “micro-level structural information” on household wealth. A massive bureaucratic undertaking. Surveys went out in 2010. Results are now ready. No one in Europe had ever done a survey on that scale before. And no one might ever do it again. Because, in the era of bailouts and wealth-transfers, the results are so explosive that the Bundesbank is keeping its report secret—and word has leaked out why.
The surveys were conducted on a national basis, with each central bank publishing its own report. They would then be combined and summarized by the ECB into a cohesive picture of how wealthy—or how poor—people in various parts of the Eurozone were. A number of countries already published their reports, including Italy and Austria.
What the Austrian National Bank found was not pretty (20-page PDF). The considerable wealth in Austria was very unevenly distributed. The wealthiest 5% owned nearly half of the country’s wealth. Their median wealth was €1.7 million in diversified assets. The lower 50% owned only 4% of the country’s wealth. Of them, 83% rented their homes. Their median wealth was a measly €11,000 consisting usually of a car and a savings account. That’s half of the people!And 10% had a net wealth of less than €1,000.
This unequal distribution of wealth created a huge gap between median income (half the people earned more, the other half less) of €76,000 and average income of €265,000 (pushed up by a small number of extremely wealthy households). And that’s why some countries don’t even publish average income values. Too much truth would hurt.
Germany’s data is likely to be similar—but the Bundesbank is treating its report like a secret. Because the results are, let’s say, awkward for two reasons.The highly unequal distribution of wealth is one of them. The German government already went through wild gyrations late last year, and now again, over its Poverty Report that exposed some inconvenient facts that were then edited out—something that was leaked immediately, and it caused a ruckus [read…. Censored: Poverty Report in Germany].
Italy is the other issue. But it may be too hot for the Bundesbank to touch. Italy’s report (142-page PDF) finds that median household net wealth has increased 56% since 1991. And from 2008 to 2010, it increased by about 5% annually, despite the crisis!
But the wealth of German households stagnated during much of that time while they paid taxes out of their noses. And now they might learn that Italy’s median household wealth is €163,875—while Germany’s is closer to Austria’s, around €76,000. Less than half!
“Politically explosive,” sources at the Bundesbank whispered to the FAZ.
These reports show that in some countries, like Italy, where government finances have been in crisis, median household wealth is actually greater than in some financially healthy countries where governments have kept deficits and debts down.
Germany’s federal government only had a minuscule deficit in 2012. But high taxes and the citizens’ greater willingness to pay them—though cheating is a national sport—have over the years extracted a lot of wealth from the people and transferred it to the government. In Italy, people have been more adept at hanging on to their wealth. To the detriment of government finances. Other studies have shown similar trends, but never on such a scale with such detail, and in this “harmonized” and easily comparable manner.
It could stir up a firestorm in Germany. It’s not just jealousy. Strung-out German taxpayers would have to be bamboozled into bailing out the mountain of Italian government debt that the Italians, whose median wealth is twice that of Germans, refused to pay for. It won’t sit well. Not at all. It could become a political nightmare for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces an election in a few months and must keep any kind of tumult out of the scenery.
If the report ever sees the light of the day in unvarnished form—not a certainty given the debacle of the Poverty Report—Bundesbank statisticians will be trying to explain away the difference between countries like Italy and Germany. Household wealth is particularly high in countries with high homeownership rates, they will argue. In countries where renting is popular, like Germany, a considerable part of the housing stock is owned by the government and rented out in a subsidized manner. Thus the wealth is public, etc. etc. Because the bailout saga must go on. The messy reality that Germans can’t afford to bail out their richer neighbors must not be allowed to interfere with the grand and glorious saga of the euro.
Every country in the Eurozone has its own collection of big fat lies that politicians and eurocrats have served up in order to make the euro and the subsequent bailouts or austerity measures less unappetizing. Here are some from the German point of view….. Ten Big Fat Lies To Keep The Euro Dream Alive.”
The Italian report here (I BILANCI DELLE FAMIGLIE ITALIANE NELL’ANNO 2010):
“On September 17, the German Labor Ministry sent a draft report “on Poverty and Wealth” to the other ministries to be rubber-stamped. Only the final report, once sanctified by Chancellor Angela Merkel, would be made public. The draft was supposed to remain hidden. But it seeped to the surface almost immediately. And it was hot. Too hot.
The massive data (PDF, 535 pages) described the tough reality that many people faced in Germany—a reality that got tougher every year. For example, in 1998, the lower 50% of the population owned 4% of all private wealth, while the upper 10% owned 45%. By 2008, the lower 50% owned only 1%, but the upper 10% had increased its share to 53% (at the expense also of the in-between 40%). Other reports have painted similar pictures.
The poverty report by Germany’s statistical agency showed that the “poverty rate” in Germany has been creeping up: in 2008, it was 15.5%; in 2009 it was 15.6%, and in 2010 it was 15.8%. Particularly hard-hit were people under 65 who lived alone. Their poverty rate was 36.1%. For single-parent households, it was 37.1%. The city of Munich issued its own poverty report. By taking into account Munich’s high cost of living, it found that nearly a fifth of its residents lived in poverty.”
“A new party is forming this spring, intent on abandoning European efforts to prop up the common currency. And its founders are a collection of some of the country’s top economists and academics.”
Named Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), the group has a clear goal: ”the dissolution of the euro in favor of national currencies or smaller currency unions.” The party also demands an end to aid payments and the dismantling of the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund.
”Democracy is eroding,” reads a statement on its website (German only). ”The will of the people regarding (decisions relating to the euro) is never queried and is not represented in parliament. The government is depriving voters of a voice through disinformation, is pressuring constitutional organs, like parliament and the Constitutional Court, and is making far-reaching decisions in committees that have no democratic legitimacy.”
Prominent Supporters
Alternative for Germany appears to be different, though it has yet to produce a party manifesto. Its impressive list of prominent supporters includes a large number of conservative and economically liberal university professors. The most notable name on the list is Hans-Olaf Henkel, the former president of the Federation of German Industries, but it also includes such economists as Joachim Starbatty and Wilhelm Hankel, who were part of the group that challenged Greek bailout aid at Germany’s Constitutional Court.
Main initiator Bernd Lucke, a professor of macro-economics from Hamburg, was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats for 33 years before leaving the party in 2011 as a result of euro bailout efforts. ”The current, so-called rescue policies are exclusively focused on short-term interests, primarily those of the banks,” Lucke told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week.”
Prof. Dr. Hans–Günter Appel, Beiratsvorsitzender Nationale Anti–EEG–Bewegung.
Prof. Dr. Ronald Asch, Geschichtswissenschaften, Freiburg.
Dr. Bruno Bandulet, Journalist und Verleger, Bad Kissingen.
Prof. Dr. Charles Blankart, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Berlin.
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Blum, Präsident des Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle a. D.
Prof. Dr. Ursula Braun–Moser, Mitglied des Europäischen Parlaments (CDU) 1984–1994.
Peter Christ, vormals Leiter der Wirtschaftsredaktion ”Die Zeit” und Chefredakteur von Stuttgarter Zeitung, Manager Magazin, Sächsische Zeitung u. a., Luzern.
Prof. Dr. Ludwig Cromme, Mathematik, Cottbus.
Wolfgang von Eichborn, Richter, vormals Referent der SPD–Bundestagsfraktion, Ebersberg.
Dieter Farwick, Brigadegeneral a. D. und Publizist, Sigmaringen–Laiz.
Prof. Dr.–Ing. Thomas Albert Fechter, Maschinenbau, Wiesbaden.
Prof. Dr. Herbert Frohnhofen, Systematische Theologie, Mainz.
Dr. Alexander Gauland, Staatssekretär a. D., Potsdam.
Ass. Jur. Albrecht Glaser, Stadtkämmerer der Stadt Frankfurt/Main a. D., Bürgermeister a. D., Niedenstein.
Prof. Dr. Andrea Gubitz, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Frankfurt.
Prof. Dr. Gernot Gutmann, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Rektor Universität zu Köln a. D.
Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Hankel, Präsident der Hessischen Landesbank a. D., Königswinter.
Michael Heendorf, Kriminalbeamter a. D., Magdeburg.
Prof. Dr. Ing. E.h. Hans–Olaf Henkel, Praesident der IBM Europa, des Bundesverbandes der Deutschen Industrie (BDI) und der Leibniz–Gemeinschaft a.D.
Prof. Dr. Carsten Herrmann–Pillath, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Frankfurt.
Prof. Dr. Stefan Homburg, Volkswirtschaftslehre, Hannover.
Dr. Wolfgang Hönig, Generalbevollmächtigter a. D. der Commerzbank AG, Frankfurt.
Dr. Johannes Hüdepohl, Sprecher Bündnis Bürgerwille, Ahrweiler.
Markus Keller, Aktiva Consult GmbH, Frankfurt.
Gerhard Koning, Bankvorstand a. D., Kelkheim.
Wolfgang Kräher, Dipl.–Ing. Werkstofftechnik, Bad Dürkheim.
In ernster Sorge vor politischen und wirtschaftlichen Fehlentwicklungen in Deutschland und in der Europäischen Union haben wir die Partei ”Alternative für Deutschland” gegründet. Die europäische Schulden- und Währungskrise hat viele Menschen davon überzeugt, dass die Altparteien zu einer nachhaltigen, transparenten, bürgernahen, rechtsstaatlichen und demokratischen Politik nicht imstande oder nicht willens sind. Wir formulieren Alternativen zu einer angeblich alternativlosen Politik. Dabei bejahen wir uneingeschränkt die freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und die im Grundgesetz und in den Römischen Verträgen angelegte friedliche Einigung Europas.“
“Währungspolitik
•Wir fordern eine geordnete Auflösung des Euro-Währungsgebietes. Deutschland braucht den Euro nicht. Anderen Ländern schadet der Euro.
•Wir fordern die Wiedereinführung nationaler Währungen oder die Schaffung kleinerer und stabilerer Währungsverbünde. Die Wiedereinführung der DM darf kein Tabu sein.
•Wir fordern eine Änderung der Europäischen Verträge, um jedem Staat ein Ausscheiden aus dem Euro zu ermöglichen. Jedes Volk muss demokratisch über seine Währung entscheiden dürfen.
•Wir fordern, dass Deutschland dieses Austrittsrecht aus dem Euro erzwingt, indem es weitere Hilfskredite des ESM mit seinem Veto blockiert.
•Wir fordern, dass die Kosten der sogenannten Rettungspolitik nicht vom Steuerzahler getragen werden. Banken, Hedge-Fonds und private Großanleger sind die Nutznießer dieser Politik. Sie müssen zuerst dafür geradestehen.
•Wir fordern, dass hoffnungslos überschuldete Staaten wie Griechenland durch einen Schuldenschnitt entschuldet werden. Banken müssen ihre Verluste selbst tragen oder zu Lasten ihrer privaten Großgläubiger stabilisiert werden.
•Wir fordern ein sofortiges Verbot des Ankaufs von Schrottpapieren durch die Europäische Zentralbank. Inflation darf nicht die Ersparnisse der Bürger aufzehren
Europapolitik
•Wir fordern ein Europa souveräner Staaten mit einem gemeinsamen Binnenmarkt. Wir wollen in Freundschaft und guter Nachbarschaft zusammenleben.
•Wir fordern, das Budgetrecht den nationalen Parlamenten zu belassen. Eine Transferunion oder gar einen zentralisierten Europastaat lehnen wir entschieden ab.
•Wir fordern, Gesetzgebungskompetenzen zurück zu den nationalen Parlamenten zu verlagern. Über Glühbirnen und Gurkenkrümmungen kann der Bundestag alleine entscheiden.
•Wir fordern eine Reform der EU, um die Brüsseler Bürokratie abzubauen und Transparenz und Bürgernähe zu fördern.
•Wir fordern, die Bezüge der Brüsseler Beamten auf Normalmaß zurückzuführen. Es ist schändlich, dass Tausende Brüsseler Beamte mehr verdienen als die Bundeskanzlerin.
•Das europäische Parlament hat bei der Kontrolle Brüssels versagt. Wir unterstützen nachdrücklich die Positionen David Camerons, die EU durch mehr Wettbewerb und Eigenverantwortung zu verschlanken.
Staatsfinanzen und Steuern
•Wir fordern, die Schuldenbremse zu achten und die Schuldenberge abzubauen. Auch Deutschland hat viel mehr Schulden als zulässig.
•Wir fordern, dass die Haftungsrisiken aus der Euro-Rettungspolitik endlich in der Finanzplanung berücksichtigt werden. Derzeit wird den Bürgern bewusst Sand in die Augen gestreut.
•Wir fordern eine drastische Vereinfachung des Steuerrechts. Der Bürger muss verstehen können, warum er in welcher Höhe besteuert wird. Die Cleveren sollen nicht besser behandelt werden als die Ehrlichen.
•Wir fordern ein Steuersystem, in dem Reiche absolut und prozentual stärker belastet werden als Arme. (Progressive Einkommensbesteuerung).
•Wir fordern, dass die Politik sich dem Einfluss von Lobby-Gruppen entzieht und einen bürgernahen Vorschlag – bspw. den Kirchhof’schen Steuerreformvorschlag – umsetzt
I just went through the stats for my blog and as usual, I am blown away by the true international phenomenon this is. In the last month, I had visitors from 148 countries.
WOW!
And I don’t say this to be bragging. As I said before I am just blown away by what a true and awesome international phenomena blogging is. Especially when considering that I don’t have the time to actively promote this blog.
And as I said before, that’s why the powers that be fear the “free” internet so much. They have so far no gained the control they want. That’s why they do everything possible to regulate and stop it through various direct and indirect means.
Sadly, a lot of politicians and governments in the “free” world are willingly taking part in that onslaught. In fact, in some cases they are leading it.
What is also very interesting to watch is how the Mainstream Media/Old Media has reacted to the fact that today the blogosphere is doing most of the investigative journalism. Doing the “digging” and exposing uncomfortable facts for politicians, business and “scientists” that the Mainstream Media stopped doing a long time ago.
First, the reaction was to totally ignore the blogosphere. Pretend that it didn’t exist. When that was no longer possible. The reaction was one of attack. “Don’t think you can come here and teach us anything because we know best and always will”. They tried to put themselves on a pedestal “Because we are the REAL journalists”. We know what’s best for the people etc.
And most of the Mainstream Media/Old Media is still sadly there. Their arrogance is so ludicrous and stupefying that it is numbing.
Watching journalist describe”things” is like watching a man being on a ”High Horse”, in his own “very important bubble” with NO contact with the real world whatsoever. It’s a fascinating spectacle.
I have been saying for a very, very long time that if you want to understand what is going on in the world and in your own country, DON’T watch the news on TV or read the newspapers. It is a total waste of time.
If you do, you understand less after watching/reading than before.
For the last say 40 years, there has been a steady decline in what used to be called “journalism”. Especially investigative journalism. Instead, it has been replaced by journalist and media that are driven by a political agenda. On purpose.
It is about controlling and setting the agenda. Not about reporting the facts. Or presenting the facts so that people understands what is REALLY going on and how that affect them. And hopefully make better choices.
They will ONLY print “news” that fits their agenda. If it do not, it doesn’t exist and never ever happened.
The Mainstream Medias/Old Medias deafening silence on many subjects, and their PC worldview is as far away from journalism that you can come.
Most of the Mainstream Media/Old Media has willingly and gladly become “His Masters Voice”. Even worse, the Mainstream Media/Old Media has willingly taken part in actively censoring and suppressing facts. A very sad fact for the democracy and an utter betrayal of what journalism is supposed to be.
You will find many examples of this betrayal in this blog. So, instead on being the defender and bearer of freedom of speech, the Mainstream Media/Old Media has become the slayer of it.
There are still a few rare exceptions from this, both journalists and newspapers. But they are getting fewer and fewer.
In you live in Sweden, you can now read one example of that. Maciej Zaremba excellent series on how the “New public management” philosophy, (which is loved by ALL political parties), has wrecked havoc in the Swedish Health system during the last 20 years.
And since I was checking the stats, I thought it would be interesting to see where most of my visitors came from during one year.
So here are my Top 30 Countries during one year:
United States
Sweden
United Kingdom
Canada
Germany
Australia
India
France
Netherlands
Belgium
Switzerland
Finland
Turkey
Brazil
Spain
Italy
Russian Federation
Ireland
Philippines
Norway
Denmark
Poland
Israel
Thailand
Lebanon
Malaysia
Indonesia
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
SyrianArabRepublic
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.“
Benjamin Franklin
“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
It is four months since I last checked the OFFICIAL USA temperature figures and now the official January temperature figures are out.
So I thought I dive into it. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent January US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 113 years
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 43 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature January 1900-2013
The trend for 1900 to 2013 is 0.11 F / Decade
US temperature January 1970-2013
The trend for 1970 to 2013 is 1.13 F / Decade
US temperature January 1980-2013
The trend for 1980 to 2013 is 0.69 F / Decade
US temperature January 1990-2013
The trend for 1990 to 2013 is 0.05 F / Decade
US temperature January 2000-2013
The trend for 2000 to 2013 is – 0.94 F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2013 for January is exactly –0.94 F degrees a decade. That is a – 9.4F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of January ”accelerated warming” trend:
The January trend 1970-2013 is exactly 1.13 F degrees a decade.
The January trend 1980-2013 is exactly 0.69 F degrees a decade.
The January trend 1990-2013 is exactly 0.05 F degrees a decade.
The January trend 2000-2013 is exactly –0.94 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 43 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
This is the second part about USA. Again, It ain’t pretty to say the least!
Where the same absurd Alice in Wonderland economic and political farce is playing out in the USA. And as in Europe it is, as usual, the common people who are paying the price.
And as in Europe, the US crisis is anything but over regardless of what the political elites are trying to tell the people in USA. In USA the role of ECB is played by the FED (the Federal Reserve), which creates money out of “thin air” to support the gigantic and increasing debt. And to keep the stock market going and lower the price of the dollar.
So that the federal US government can spend your tax money like a drunken sailor.
In USA, Goldman Sachs and the other investment banks, plus the big Hedge Funds, are pushing leverage to ridiculous and dangerous extremes.
If you read the Comptroller of the Currency, Administrator of National Banks, report for the second quarter 2012 “Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities”, you get utterly horrified of the totals of the open derivatives positions in the US market.
Four of the largest U.S. banks are walking an extreme tightrope of risk, leverage and debt when it comes to derivatives. Below you are going to find just how utterly exposed they are.
But first what is leverage?
Most people do not understand “leverage” and what it actually means. If they did, they would not sleep at night knowing what’s going on right now.
To put it simple: leverage means that these banks etc use a leverage of say 1:50 or 1:100 in their speculations. Which means that they only put up 1 of their own dollars for an investment worth 50 or 100 dollar. Their dollars are “worth” 50 or 100 times more than they actually are.
It ALSO means that IF “things” goes wrong way they LOSE 50 or 100 dollars for every dollar they invested in that trade or position. Or much, much more.
And usually when things goes wrong, it goes very fast when it comes to trading with these kind of leverages. So very quickly, these sums get astronomical. In a couple of days they can literally lose ALL their capital and more.
This has happened time and time again. Just to mention a few:
– Lehman Brothers (was the 4th largest inv. bank in the US).
– Bear Stearns
– American International Group
– Northern Rock (a medium-sized British bank)
– Washington Mutual
– American Savings and Loan
– Landsbanki and Glitnir
– Barings Bank
– Société Générale
– JP Morgan Chase & Co
– Morgan Stanley
– Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM)
As I said before, this is JUST A VERY SHORT LIST
This would not per se be a problem if this were a truly free and capitalist market. Because then these banks would go bankrupt and the owners and investors would lose their money. As they are supposed to do if the do bad business or trades.
But as we all know,this is NOT a free and capitalist market. Our “dear” politicians have “decided” that these banks with all their wild speculations are too important or to big, to be allowed to fail.
So instead, they have used taxpayer’s money and put whole countries at risk and in extreme debt just to bail out these banks.
And the banks knows that whatever speculations they do, REGARDLESS of how much or bad they speculate, and as you can see below their speculations are horrific, the politicians are going to bail them out with our tax money.
JP Morgan Chase
Total Assets: $1,812,837,000,000 (just over 1.8 trillion dollars)
Total Exposure To Derivatives: $69,238,349,000,000 (more than 69 trillion dollars)
Citibank
Total Assets: $1,347,841,000,000 (a bit more than 1.3 trillion dollars)
Total Exposure To Derivatives: $52,150,970,000,000 (more than 52 trillion dollars)
Bank Of America
Total Assets: $1,445,093,000,000 (a bit more than 1.4 trillion dollars)
Total Exposure To Derivatives: $44,405,372,000,000 (more than 44 trillion dollars)
Goldman Sachs
Total Assets: $114,693,000,000 (a bit more than 114 billion dollars)
Total Exposure To Derivatives: $41,580,395,000,000 (more than 41 trillion dollars)
To sum up – TOTAL EXPOSURE TO DERIVATES for ONLY these four banks:
TOTAL ASSETS for these four banks: 4,720,464,000,000TRILLION DOLLARS
So they can “cover” 2,27 % of the Total Exposure with ALL their Assets!
So who is going to pay for the “rest”: 202, 654, 622, 000, 000 TRILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!! if anything goes wrong?
Well, we know the answer to that doesn’t we. So far, it’s the common people, i.e. the taxpayers, who had to cover for all the banks bad speculations thanks to our dear politicians.
Take another look at those figures for Goldman Sachs. If you do the math, Goldman Sachs has total exposure to derivatives contracts that is more than 364 times greaterthan their total assets!
That is utter insanity, but everyone just keeps pretending that the emperor actually has clothes on.
And why are “our” politicians SO EAGER to protect these speculators?
To put these GIGANTIC sums into perspective lets compare with the GDP from USA and all of EU from 2011
There a lot of different way to calculate GDP and the figures for each year. Add to that exchange fluctuations, conversion rates etc. So the figures below comes from the same source (IMF) to make the comparison easier. And it is their conversion.
GDP USA 2011 – 15,094,025 billion US dollars
GDP EU 2011 – 17,610,826 billion US dollars
Total GDP for EU and USA 2011: 32,704,851 billion US dollars.
Lets compare these 32,704,851 billion US dollars with TOTAL EXPOSURE TO DERIVATES for these four above mentioned banks:
32,704,851 billion US dollars in COMBINED GDP of EU and USA
Anyone see any problem???
Problem solved all right. So just move on, nothing to notice here or worry about.
Because according to out “dear” politicians, bankers and political elites from EU and USA there is NO SERIOUS PROBLEM HERE. The problems in USA and EU are more or less solved etc.
So the ones that put as in the mess in the first place, very “reassuringly” tells us: “We take care of it”.
Yeah sure!
Let’s move on to another “bright spot” –the federal budget and debt. The figures are based on the 2012/2013 data:
2012 US Tax Revenue: $2,469,000,000,000
2012 Federal budget: $3,796,000,000,000
2012 Budget deficit: $1,327,000,000,000
US Federal Debt as of January 22, 2013: $16,471,084,067,491
Total interest paid on the debt in 2012: $359,796,008,919
Budget INCREASE between 2012 and 2013: $38,500,000,000
To make these gigantic sums understandable here is how these figures would look like for a “normal” family:
Annual family income: $24,690
Annual family expenses: $37,960. 154%of the annual family income.
Annual family shortfall borrowed from friends/neighbors etc: $13,270. 54%of the annual family income.
Total interest the family paid last year: $3,598 (at near 0% interest). Nearly 15% of the annual family income
Total family debt (mortgage, auto, credit card): $164,471.This is 666% of the annual family income.
Change in family spending this year: an increase of $385
This looks like a very responsible family wouldn’t you say?
And do you think this family would get any loans from the banks?
When you look at it this way, it really seems absurd. Yet it’s true… a slow motion train wreck. That any person with more than one functioning brain cell can see coming miles away. Except our “dear” politicians. They are in ACTUAL FACT increasing the spending AND the debt.
Here’s another way to look at the debt ceiling I found in a paper. It’s very symptomatic:
Let’s say you come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood… and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do?
Raise the ceilings, or remove the crap?
Well, or “dear” politicians are franticly at an increasing speed trying to raise the ceiling at the same time as the “sewage” is increasing EVEN MORE.
Yeap, there you have politicians in a nutshell.
Why fix the problem that they themselves caused, when the politicians can pretend that they are the giver of all gods and bearer of all gifts to all the people all the time.
And it doesn’t cost anything for anybody. It’s ALL free forever. And they all lived happily ever after.
EU, and the political elites behind it, is no longer a caricature or a joke. They have managed to become a joke of a caricature. An absurd Alice in Wonderland economic and political farce is playing out and the common people of Europe is, as usual, paying the price.
Here is just some updated data to some of my previous posts. It ain’t pretty to say the least!
The EU Crisis is anything but over regardless of what the political elites are trying to tell people in Europe. The ECB may have pushed the banking crisis temporarily back by promising unlimited bond buying. Yes, dear people, read that again – UNLIMITED!
That’s your tax money spent like a drunken sailor.
But soon there is NO MONEY LEFT.
So here we go again for the 7th, 8th or is it the 9th time so far – Europe’s banking system is breaking down again. No surprise to anybody expect or politicians and bankers.
Just start adding up the GIGANTIC NUMBERS and be utterly horrified!
This is the situation that politicians and the banks have put the common people of Europe in.
They are literally ruining us all. And WE, the common people, have to pay the price of their folly and speculations.
As a longtime observer of EU noticed:
“Then again,on the insolvent continent, nothing really surprises us any more.”
And:
“How can broke economies lend money to other broke economies who haven’t got any moneybecause they can’t pay back the money the broke economy lent to the other broke economy and shouldn’t have lent them in the first place because the broke economy cant pay it back”.
Even a 5 year old can understand this. But not “our” politicians and bankers.
Remember that the Euro was always a political project. That’s why “they” haven’t done the”proper” economic policies. Because these policies would undermine the political purpose of the Euro. So they, the political elites of EU, are trapped. And that’s why the Euro was domed from the beginning.
And of course, none of this is covered in the mainstream/old media or by our “dear” politicians.
Greece
Greek Bank Capital Needs at EU27.5 Billion, Bank of Greece Says
“Greece’s four largest banks need to boost their capital by 27.5 billion euros ($36.3 billion) after taking losses from the country’s debt swap earlier this year, the largest sovereign restructuring in history.
National Bank of Greece SA, the country’s biggest lender, needs to raise 9.8 billion euros, according to an e-mailed report by the Athens-based Bank of Greece (TELL) today. Eurobank Ergasias SA (EUROB) needs 5.8 billion euros, Alpha Bank (ALPHA) needs 4.6 billion euros and Piraeus Bank SA (TPEIR) needs 7.3 billion euros, according to the report. Total recapitalization needs for the country’s banking sector amount to 40.5 billion euros, the report said.”
To put this in perspective: The entire capital base of the Greek banking system is only €22 billion.
By saying that Greek banks need €27.5 billionGreece is essentially admitting that is needs to recapitalize its entire banking system. Also, you should know that Greek banks are still sitting on €46.8 billion in bad loans.
So the Greek banks have a capital base of €22 billion and bad loans of €46.8 billion.
There is a name for this – Bankrupt!
And remember, this is AFTER ALL the “rescue plans”, bailouts etc. already implemented so far by the “Troika” (IMF, ECB and EC).
Cyprus
Cyprus is the euro area’s third-smallest economy in GDP terms, accounting for less than 0.2% of the region’s output. Yet the country urgently needs external funding and applied for an Troika (EC/IMF/ECB) programme last summer. In the meantime, the amount in question has risen to EUR 17.5bn (100% of GDP).
Read that again – 100% of GDP!
By mid-2012, larger banks like Bank of Cyprus or Cyprus Popular Bank alone reported loans to Greek borrowers that exceeded Cyprus’ GDP.
The Cyprus central bank’s emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to the banking system skyrocketed from EUR150m in March 2012 to EUR 9.9bn (55% of GDP) in September.
So the Cyprus central bank only in September but in 55% of the whole Cyprus GDP into its own banking sector.
“Bankia’s shareholders have received a nasty new year’s surprise. They may lose most of their investments or even all of them says the Spanish bank rescue fund in its latest report.
According to FROB, the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, Bankia has a negative value of 4.2 billion euros, and its parent group BFA is 10.4 bn in the red.
Valuation is key in the recapitalisation of Spain’s banking system, weighed down by massive bad loans accumulated in a property bubble that burst in 2008. Bankia/BFA is set to receive 18 bn euros of European aid, and become the country’s biggest bailout recipient.”
A little known fact about the Spanish crisis is that when the Spanish Government merges troubled banks, it typically swaps out depositors’ savings for shares in the new bank.
So when the newly formed bank goes bust, your savings are GONE. Not gone as in some Spanish version of the FDIC will eventually get you your money, but gone as in gone forever.
This is why Bankia’s collapse is so significant: in one move, former depositors at seven banks just lost virtually everything.
In addition, things are going from worse to worst, as bad loans in Spain continue to accelerate to massive new record highs.
Index of Spanish Industrial Output
Italy
In Jan 2012, Italy’s government believed Italy’s 2012 GDP would come in at – 0.4%. The actual in (Q3) – 2,4% (so far). Only a miss by 600%.
And the forecast for Italy’s GDP in 2013 is being lowered every month. Each one as inaccurate as the previous one.
The all too familiar story how the political elite, in their own words and documents, decided to deceive and actively lie to the British people in an all out effort to join the “common market”.
Here is a piece by Christopher Booker and Richard North (see below) on the deceit and active lying behind Britain’s entry to the EU in their, the politicians, own words.
“The real problem the British people have had with the ‘European project’, as its insiders call it, is that they have never really begun to understand its real nature, and what was always intended to be its ultimate goal.
The chief reason for this is that our politicians have never properly explained it to us.
What makes this so much worse is that those who were most enthused by it, such as Heath, knew full well what ‘the project’ was really about — the plan to weld all Europe together under an unprecedented form of super-government.
They deliberately decided to conceal it from us, for fear that our anxieties about our loss of sovereignty might prevent them from being allowed to join.”
“Thus, stealthily assembled over decades, would this new ‘country called Europe’ finally take its place on the world stage. What we found most shocking in researching this story was that, when Britain’s leaders first considered joining the project, they were made fully aware of this hidden agenda.
As we see from Cabinet papers and other documents of the early Sixties, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his ‘Europe Minister’ Edward Heath were put completely in the picture about the secret ‘grand plan’. But in June 1961 the Cabinet formally agreed that it must not be revealed to the British people.
In Macmillan’s words, to admit ‘the political objectives’ of the Rome Treaty would raise ‘problems of public relations’ so ‘considerable’ that they should be kept under wraps. It was vital to emphasise only the economic advantages of British entry.”
“On the day we entered, he told the British people on television that any fears that ‘we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty’ were ‘completely unjustified’.
This was a deliberate lie, as no one knew better than him and the senior Foreign Office official who two years earlier had written a secret paper on ‘Sovereignty’.
The paper chillingly spelled out how it would be the end of the century before the British people woke up to how much of their power to govern themselves and make their own laws had been given away — by which time it would be too late.”
We seen this sad story repeated in country after country. The same behaviour with few exceptions.
This relentless drive at ALL COSTS from the political elites, on purpose, for a political union and European super state regardless of the will of the people.
And if the people protest and object, as they have EVERY time they where ALLOWED to, it doesn’t matter! Run them over, force it through one way or the other as the examples from the last 40 years clearly shows.
“At first it should be presented as just a trading arrangement, the ‘Common Market’ set up in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. But the essence of that treaty was to create the core institutions of what Monnet always intended should one day be the ‘Government of Europe’.
The idea was to work for ‘ever closer union’.
Treaty by treaty, it would take over more powers from national governments, based on the sacred principle that once power to make laws was handed over to Brussels it could never be given back.”
“This is one of the best and succinct descriptions of EU I have seen:
“The European Union is like a hospital where all the doctors are mad. It doesn’t matter what is wrong, the treatment is always the same – more integration – and it is always wrong. The best thing to do is never to enter it.
Once you are in, the best thing to do is to leave. If you can’t get out, you will probably die.”
I disagree with one thing this author says: “EU is the Stupid Empire”. EU is a POLITICAL project. The Euro is part of that political project.
A lot of EU’s decisions make no economic sense whatsoever. In that regard, Peter Hitchens observation that “EU is the Stupid Empire” is completely right. Not to mention the enormous cost to the common people of all these political motivated but economically disastrous decisions.
The economic side was always a way to “sell it to the people”. Step by step. So that the political agenda could be slowly, but steadily implemented. Until it was too late. The political elites new ALL along that had the EU project been presented to the people for what it really is, people in ALL countries would have rejected it.
BUT EU was on purpose designed this way. So that the people could not stop this political project.
Never forget that ALL the political elites, irrespective of party or ideology, in the EU countries were behind this. With very few exceptions.
One small example, before the referendum on the Euro in September 2003 in Sweden, ALL parties (with the exception of some communists, greens, socialists and some from the agrarian party, ALL big unions, ALL mainstream media, ALL the representatives of the business world etc was for the Euro. And they put massive financial and personal resources behind this.
But the Swedish people, wisely, rejected this with 56% to 42%.
In the latest opinion poll, December 2011, 87,6% of the Swedish people were against the Euro. 9,7 % for. (Update- one year later these figures are even worse).
They planned this, and wanted this. And they kept on purpose this real ideology behind the EU project well hidden from their citizens in their countries.
They kept everything on purpose, including treaties, SO technical and juridical that it was totally unreadable for the common people. Like the EU “constitution”.
Just to give one example of how meaningless the local parliaments have become:
In Sweden 65 to 85%, depending of which area, of “decisions” made by the Swedish parliament HAVE ALREADY BEEN DECIDED IN BRUSSELS.
I.E. The national Swedish parliament is in reality rubber-stamping Brussels decisions and implementing them.
That’s all!
And they cannot change even one syllable in these decisions. So much for “representing” the will of the people.
But of course, they are not telling us that. They pretend that ALL these decisions are made locally by the Swedish parliament as the “sovereign” representatives for the Swedish nation. When in reality they can, to the most part, only decide the colour of their on toilets.”
And sadly, and as usual, the mainstream media/old media has for the most part taken en active role in promoting this political union and the European Super State. Add to that, the press utter failure to inform the people of their respective countries how EU REALLY works. And what it means to people and the sovereignty of their countries.
Most journalists have no clue about the important “inner” bureaucratic gameand ”the machinery” where nearly everything is decided. Instead, we see these useless reports and photo ops when the prime ministers or finance ministers meet. When in reality 99,8 or 9 % is already decided before they meet. Most of it is just a “show”. Often “very dramatic” late in to the night.
And this is nothing new. We have seen so many different examples of this betrayal of journalist in their role as journalist. This is just sadly another.
Forty years ago today, in what was arguably the most fateful political move ever made by a British Prime Minister, Edward Heath took us into what was then called the ‘Common Market’.
Such a step had scarcely been mentioned at the previous General Election, and the British people had very little idea of what they were letting themselves in for, other than a trading arrangement that might make it easier for us to sell our goods to our Continental neighbours.
Four decades later, the picture could scarcely look more different. We have seen that supposedly cosy club we joined transformed, step by step, into a vast, bloated bureaucratic empire, imposing its suffocating rule over 27 nations.
We have also seen it plunged into the most destructive crisis in its history — one it has brought entirely on itself by its reckless dream of locking the countries of Europe together into the straitjacket of the euro.
During those 40 years the British have never been happy members of this club. Too often we have been out of step, and even bitterly at odds, with the rest — as in our refusal to join that single currency.
But today, as the EU’s inner core of countries drive towards ‘full political union’ in a desperate bid to save their doomed euro, the British now look at this swollen political monster with fearful bemusement.
Politicians of every party talk plaintively about the need for us to negotiate a ‘looser relationship’ with the EU, while opinion polls consistently show a growing majority wanting to leave it altogether — an option that even David Cameron no longer rules out.
Even on the Continent, influential voices are now recognising that something very significant is happening in Britain, as they suggest we should perhaps be allowed something never seen before — a mere ‘associate membership’ of the EU, allowing us to continue trading with it but without all its political superstructure.
How did we come to such a pass? Are we today looking at another historic crossroads, in its own way just as fateful as the one we faced back in 1973?
The real problem the British people have had with the ‘European project’, as its insiders call it, is that they have never really begun to understand its real nature, and what was always intended to be its ultimate goal.
The chief reason for this is that our politicians have never properly explained it to us.
What makes this so much worse is that those who were most enthused by it, such as Heath, knew full well what ‘the project’ was really about — the plan to weld all Europe together under an unprecedented form of super-government.
They deliberately decided to conceal it from us, for fear that our anxieties about our loss of sovereignty might prevent them from being allowed to join.
Ten years ago, with my co-author Richard North, I wrote a comprehensively researched history of the ‘European project’.
I had already been reporting for years on the incredible damage membership of the EU was doing to British life, through thousands of crazy directives and regulations, through the destruction of our proud fishing industry and the undermining of our agriculture, which was until 1973 the most efficient in Europe.
The real story, surprisingly, goes back to the 1920s, when a senior League of Nations official, Frenchman Jean Monnet, first began to dream of building a ‘United States of Europe’, very much on the lines that decades later would shape the European Union as it is today.
After World War II, Monnet, by then the second most powerful man in France, finally set the project on its way. He knew there was no chance of bringing such an astonishingly ambitious vision into being all at once. So his plan was that it should gradually be constructed, piece by stealthy piece, without ever declaring too openly what was intended to be its ultimate goal.
At first it should be presented as just a trading arrangement, the ‘Common Market’ set up in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. But the essence of that treaty was to create the core institutions of what Monnet always intended should one day be the ‘Government of Europe’.
The idea was to work for ‘ever closer union’.
Treaty by treaty, it would take over more powers from national governments, based on the sacred principle that once power to make laws was handed over to Brussels it could never be given back.
Ever more countries would be brought into the net, until the project reached its ultimate goal as a super-government, with its own president and parliament, its own currency and armed forces, its own flag and anthem — all the attributes of a fully-fledged nation state.
Thus, stealthily assembled over decades, would this new ‘country called Europe’ finally take its place on the world stage. What we found most shocking in researching this story was that, when Britain’s leaders first considered joining the project, they were made fully aware of this hidden agenda.
As we see from Cabinet papers and other documents of the early Sixties, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his ‘Europe Minister’ Edward Heath were put completely in the picture about the secret ‘grand plan’. But in June 1961 the Cabinet formally agreed that it must not be revealed to the British people.
In Macmillan’s words, to admit ‘the political objectives’ of the Rome Treaty would raise ‘problems of public relations’ so ‘considerable’ that they should be kept under wraps. It was vital to emphasise only the economic advantages of British entry.
Thus did Macmillan and Heath become drawn into complicity with that same web of deceit which was driving the ‘project’ itself (which is why we called our book The Great Deception).
Twice in the Sixties Britain made failed attempts to join the project — but within weeks of Heath entering Downing Street in 1970, he applied to Brussels a third time. Scarcely had negotiations begunthan he learned that his future partners were already discussing the next steps along their path to full integration: a single currency, European defence forces, a common foreign policy.
Heath immediately sent word to Brussels pleading for all this to be kept quiet, because it might blow the gaffe with British voters.
For two years the negotiations continued, with Heath handing over all he was asked for, from giving away Britain’s fishing waters, the richest in the world, to become ‘a common European resource’,to the betrayal of our Commonwealth partners by excluding their goods from what had been for many their main export market.
Finally, Heath got what he was after: entry to the club — although he still pretended that the Common Market was little more than a trading arrangement.
On the day we entered, he told the British people on television that any fears that ‘we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty’ were ‘completely unjustified’.
This was a deliberate lie, as no one knew better than him and the senior Foreign Office official who two years earlier had written a secret paper on ‘Sovereignty’.
The paper chillingly spelled out how it would be the end of the century before the British people woke up to how much of their power to govern themselves and make their own laws had been given away — by which time it would be too late.
So began the dismal story which has been unfolding ever since. Already by the late Seventies, as the Common Market morphed into ‘the European Community’, we were becoming known in Brussels as ‘the awkward partner’.
Then came Mrs Thatcher’s five-year battle to win that rebate on our payments into the EU budget which, thanks to the ludicrously lop-sided conditions accepted by Heath, would have made us the largest single contributor by 1985.
In 1986 came the treaty called the Single European Act, which not only set up the Single Market but handed over to Brussels all sorts of other powers, including environmental laws which were to lead to everything from the shambles of our rubbish collections to building thousands of hated and useless wind turbines.
EBC Balance sheet
In 1990, nothing did more to inspire hostility to Mrs Thatcher among her European colleagues, led by Jacques Delors, than her defiant opposition to the Maastricht Treaty, designed to create the European Union, introduce the ‘social chapter’ and, above all, to launch the single currency.
As soon as he replaced her, John Major proclaimed his wish for Britain to be ‘at the heart of Europe’ and signed the Maastricht Treaty (admittedly with those vital opt-outs for Britain on the single currency and the social chapter).
But seven years later he ended up more at odds with his partners than ever, as they imposed their worldwide ban on the export of all British beef products over ‘mad cow disease’, tried to sneak us into the social chapter under ‘health and safety’ rules and laid their plans for yet another integrationist treaty in Amsterdam.
Tony Blair, too, wanted to be ‘at the heart of Europe’, as the single currency approached (which he would love to have joined), signing us up to the social chapter with its damaging working-time rules, and two more treaties, at Amsterdam and Nice.
But he too found it hard to keep up with that relentless drive for ever closer union, as it led to seven years of tortuous negotiation to create ‘A Constitution for Europe’,eventually sabotaged by the voters of France and Holland, so that it had to be smuggled in by deceit as the Lisbon Treaty (which, among much else, incorporated the Court of Human Rights into the EU). Scarcely was the ink dry on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s signature on that treaty than the EU was plunged into its worst-ever crisis over the euro, which today is spreading misery across southern Europe.
As always, the response of the EU’s leaders has been to call for yet ‘more Europe’, and a new treaty to force the eurozone members into ‘full political union’.
This is now leaving Britain more obviously marginalised than ever, condemned to remain in the outer ring of a club, many members of which would now be only too pleased to see the back of us.
This humiliating prospect has seen our politicians running around like bewildered sheep, bleating about the need for Britain to negotiate a ‘looser relationship’ with the EU, to get back to that trading arrangement we thought we were entering 40 years ago.
Astonishingly, this is now even being echoed as a possibility by those influential voices in Europe itself — even though the most fundamental rule of the club we joined back then was that, once powers are passed to Brussels, they can never be given back.
As David Cameron prepares to give that ‘very important speech on Europe’ he has promised us very soon, he could not do better than to meditate on the shrewdest words ever uttered by a Prime Minister about Britain and Europe. In 1973, as a junior member of Heath’s Cabinet, Margaret Thatcher made all the approved noises about how wonderful it was for Britain to join this club.
Once in office, however, she went on a painful learning curve, as she saw from the inside just what the real game was and how ruthlessly it was played. She was brought down in 1990 by an alliance of Europhiles in her party and their Brussels allies, because she was the last real obstacle to their Maastricht Treaty.
What really riled them was that she had seen through their true agenda and the disastrous course on which they were set.
With even Jacques Delors, the chief architect of Maastricht, suggesting it might be best for Britain to leave the EU, Mr Cameron should dwell on a passage from her last book, Statecraft.
‘That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European super-state was ever embarked on,’ wrote Lady Thatcher, ‘will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era. And that Britain...should ever have become part of it will appear a political error of the first magnitude.’
If Mr Cameron truly wishes to speak for the British people and our country’s future, he should bear those prophetic thoughts in mind.”
And Richard North complementing on the same subject:
“The piece serves to remind us that entry was perpetrated on the basis of structured deceit, with successive prime ministers (Macmillan and Heath) actively lying as to their broad intentions and the proposed relationship with the Six. “
“Those utter fools who assert that the relationship was primarily economic (and has since gone off the rails) need to read the Cabinet Memorandum of 21 June 962, (originally referenced C. (61) 84 and now CAB/129/105), in which Macmillan set out the purpose of seeking full United Kingdom membership of the European Economic Community, as ”… the only effective way of securing our political objectives in the world, and of averting the dangers of continued division in Europe”.
Then, in a note to his Cabinet colleagues on 10 October 1961 (Originally C.(61)162, now: CAB/129/107 – see above), Edward Heath asserted that the UK had been following closely the progress towards unity in fields other than those covered by the three communities.
He conveyed to his colleagues that it was the intention of the UK to work with the Six ”in a positive spirit to reinforce the unity already achieved”. Heath was ”convinced” that the UK and the Six ”share the same essential interests”, and that ”the habit of working together, once formed, will mean, not a slowing down, but a continued advance and the development of closer unity”.
From the very start, therefore, it was evident that Heath intended to take the UK into the EEC with a view to developing further political unity. The economic issues were always camouflage, and the label ”Common Market” was simply a ploy deliberately to obscure the real intent.
Cameron and modern-day politicians are now paying the price for that deceit, having to deal with a relationship founded on a bed of lies and poisoned by the continuing deception.
Such a situation is irrecoverable, which means there can only be one resolution – our withdrawal from the European Union. Simply, a relationship built on lies can never prosper, and can never be repaired. We need to start again to avoid what Thatcher called a ”the greatest folly of the modern era”.
And the first step starts with the admission that the EU and its precursors were never economic alliances. The economic aspects were always a means to an end, designed to secure political unity,something which has been foisted upon us by deceit, and of which we want no part. “
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska alla mina läsare ett riktigt Gott Nytt År! Framförallt i dessa tider med kyla och snö. Förlåt, jag menar förstås detta strålande exempel på Global Warming.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy New Year!Especially in these cold and snowy days. Sorry, I mean of course these glorious Global Warming days.
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska all mina läsare en riktigt God Jul!
Så här skrev jag för exakt fyra år sedan:
”Jag ser med förtröstan fram mot 2009. Det år då den största politiska och vetenskapliga skandalen i modern tid kommer att spricka – Global Warming Hysterin.”
Nå, det blev ju så eller hur. Och man behöver ju bara titta ut genom fönstret för att se den senaste effekten av ”Global Warming” –rekord kyla och massor med snö igen .
Så år 2013 ser jag med förtröstan fram emot att den största politiska och vetenskapliga skandalen i modern tid– Global Warming Hysterin – kommer att fortsätta att falla ihop som det korthus det är.
Tyvärr så är de sista att överge detta gigantiska svindleri våra intälägänta politiker. Så vi vanliga människor kommer att få fortsätta att betala mycket dyrt för denna hysteri.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas!
In my post exactly four years ago I wrote:
“I am looking forward to 2009, the year when the biggest political and scientific scandal in modern time is going to implode – The Global Warming Hysteria.”
Well, it did happen. You just have to look out the window here in Sweden to see the “effect” of ”Global Warming” – record cold and lots of snow.
So for 2013 I am looking forward to that the biggest political and scientific scandal in modern time – The Global Warming Hysteria – is not only going to implode, which it already has, it is going to vanish into the thin air.
But our “dear” intelligent politicians are the last ones to abandon this scam and heist. So we, the common people, are still going to pay dearly for this hysteria.
Or this is why the Euro is doomed. And after that EU – Yes we have NO Money.
On Saturday November 17, police officers from all over Spain marched through Madrid, protesting austerity measures and cuts. They even apologized to the public for arresting the wrong people. One of the slogans was:
”Citizens! Forgive us for not arresting those truly responsible for this crisis: bankers and politicians.”
The whole economic and political crisis in EU and USA summarized in one simple sentence.
“This is one of the best and succinct descriptions of EU I have seen:
“The European Union is like a hospital where all the doctors are mad. It doesn’t matter what is wrong, the treatment is always the same – more integration – and it is always wrong. The best thing to do is never to enter it.
Once you are in, the best thing to do is to leave. If you can’t get out, you will probably die.”
I disagree with one thing this author says: “EU is the Stupid Empire”. EU is a POLITICAL project. The Euro is part of that political project.
A lot of EU’s decisions make no economic sense whatsoever. In that regard, Peter Hitchens observation that “EU is the Stupid Empire” is completely right. Not to mention the enormous cost to the common people of all these political motivated but economically disastrous decisions.
The economic side was always a way to “sell it to the people”. Step by step. So that the political agenda could be slowly, but steadily implemented. Until it was too late. The political elites new ALL along that had the EU project been presented to the people for what it really is, people in ALL countries would have rejected it.
BUT EU was on purpose designed this way. So that the people could not stop this political project.
Never forget that ALL the political elites, irrespective of party or ideology, in the EU countries were behind this. With very few exceptions.”
The EU bureaucrats and the political elites always fall back, when they have nothing else to say in defence of the EU, that this is a “peace project”. Well this “peace project” has now created social havoc, riots, and put country against country, and groups of countries against group of countries.
Tearing apart the EU at it’s seems. And ALL of this because they, the political elites, literally AT ALL COST want to preserve the POLITICAL project euro. Which is the cornerstone of the federal super state of Europe.
As I have said before, this has nothing to do with economics; it’s ALL about politics,
And that is why so many people still don’t understand what is going on. Because from an economical point these policies are total madness. Ruining and lowering the living standard of most people. And the political elites know this. But the political project is MORE important.
Then there is Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, France….
Just start adding up the GIGANTIC NUMBERS and be utterly horrified!
This is the situation that politicians and the banks have put the common people of Europe in.
They are literally ruining us all. And WE have to pay the price of their folly and speculations.
One more slogan from the protests – They are the same
Depicting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (L) and the leader of the opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba
The Big picture
This is from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (WEO) Notice the rising trend of the 27 Developing Asian economies as a share of World GDP. Bloomberg’s Chart of the Day notes that by the end of 2012, Developing Asia will account for 17.9% of World GDP, surpassing for the first time Europe’s 17-nation 16.9% share. The euro-area crisis has merely accelerated a trend that has been ongoing for several years – as former IMF board member Domenico Lombardi notes, makes it clear that euro-area economies need to address their structural reforms rapidly.
America is on the same path, as while China will top Europe by 2017 as a share of global GDP, USA will be passed in five years when Developing Asia will have topped the USA for the first time ever.
All graphs gets bigger if you click on it
Just one small example of all these stupid US policies, on Januari 1, 2013, dividend tax rates are set to rise from 15% to as high as 43.4%. This affects not only US taxpayers, but everyone on the planet who invests in the US stock market.
As a result of this tax policy, many investors who own shares in US companies will now see their after-tax dividends slashed by 33%.
This is putting a lot of downward pressure on stock prices, affecting almost everyone who currently owns US shares– pension funds and retirement accounts, rich and middle class, US and non-US citizens alike. It’s as if the US government is hanging a sign over the country saying ”PLEASE DO NOT INVEST HERE.”
It’s pure genius wouldn’t you say?
(See some of my previous posts on the economic situation in USA:
One more small example, in this case the UK, national government borrowing is already 22% higher than at this same point last year, a record year for borrowing. Meanwhile, the UK‘s budget deficit for August hit a record high.
I hope you get the picture- it isn’t pretty!
And the unemployment picture
And let’s continue with Spain:
Spanish bad loans
The figures are just out for the total Spanish bad loans during September: the loans that fell into arrears, (the part of a debt that is overdue after missing one or more required payments), increased by €3.5 billion from August, reaching €182.2 billion in September.This is 10.71% of the total Spanish bank loans of €1.7 trillion, and an increase from the previous month.
Putting the bad loan number in perspective, it is nearly double the €100 billion that the Spanish banks will receive as part of the bank bailout plan disclosed in July, and well above the ”only” €40 billion that Spain promises it will need to actually fund bank capital shortfalls.
If you compared as a percentage of GDP, it would be the equivalent of $2.8 trillion in US loans going bad.
Let’s look merely on one data series: the brand new Debt/GDP, (ignoring the -4.5% 2013 GDP forecast, already – 0.5% worse than the just released IMF forecast for Greece for the same period, remember also that the May forecast of 2013 predicted ”growth”), and compared it to the Debt/GDP ”forecast” from May 2010, when the first Greek bailout was announced.
It ain’t pretty
The Greece Finance Ministry
This is the same Finance Ministry where the EU inspectors found this in their taxation archive section (see the video 5:20-5-48):
Watch this documentary from ZDF (in german). It shows where 2 ½ years of bailout funds went, or rather didn’t go. And why 2 ½ years to the day after the first bailout, not only is Greece not fixed, but is getting worse ata cost to taxpayers of nearly half a trillion Euro.
The troika (the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank), which are supposed to get Greece’s financial future in order cannot make even the most basic forecasting. And the Troika have made these “forecasts” repeatedly, which are a complete and utter joke. But there is NO surprise here,this is ALL about politics. The same way that EU allowed Greece into the Euro knowing that every figure was false. But for political reasons they were allowed to enter.
And these “guys” are supposed to save Europe? Where all the important decisions are being taken on the ground of these “forecasts”?
The Greeceunemployment
Again, It ain’t pretty.
I could go on, but I think I stop here.
You get the picture.
And of course, none of this is covered in the mainstream media or by our “dear” politicians.
It is a very sad day indeed to see a people voluntarily decide to throw themselves and their country over the cliff.
Let’s look at the economy (the figures are from the Congressional Budget Office):
In the Fiscal Year 2011, the federal government collected $2.303 trillion in tax revenue. Interest on the debt that year totaled$454.4 billion, and mandatory spending totaled $2,025 billion. In sum, mandatory spending plus debt interest totaled $2.479 trillion –. exceeding total revenue by $176.4 billion.
(Mandatory spending includes entitlements like Medicare, Social Security etc. which are REQUIRED by law to be paid. Congress in practical terms do not see this money, it is automatically deducted.)
For the Fiscal Year 2012, which just ended 37 days ago, that deficit increased 43% to$251.8 billion.
In other words, they could cut the entire Federal Government’s discretionary budget – No military, SEC, FBI, EPA, DHS, IRS, etc.- and they would still be in deficit by a quarter of a trillion dollars.
(Discretionary spending includes nearly everything we think of related to government- the US military, the Department of Homeland Security, IRS, EPA etc.)
The only thing showing any growth in the US, besides the debilitating regulatory burdens, is the national debt. It took over 200 years for the US government to accumulate its first trillion dollars in debt. It took just 286 days to accumulate the most recent trillion (to $16 trillion).
Last month alone, the first month of Fiscal Year 2013, the US government accumulated nearly $200 billion in new debtin just 31 days.
And the numbers will only continue to get worse. 10,000 people each day begin receiving mandatory entitlements. Fewer people remain behind to pay into the system. The debt keeps rising, and interest payments will continue to rise even more. In addition, the dollar is going to decline.
The result, the US government is legally bound to spend more money on mandatory entitlements and interest than it can raise in tax revenue. It will not make any difference how high the federal, state or local government raise taxes, or even if they cut everything.
Another effect of Obama economics is that the poor are getting poorer, especially the black. Under Obama the poorest Americans has suffered the single largest drop in income ever.
And the Black Americans in the same lowest income quintile have suffered almost double as the average American in the same quintile under Obama:
The drop is– 11.58% in one year(2010) and is at the lowest level ever.
That’s what I call “change”!But I would not call it “hope”.
And the number of people classified as poor are getting larger and larger.
Then on top of that, we have the equally disastrous foreign policy. Where the Obama administration systematically have thrown their former allies (Eastern Europe, Britain, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc) under the bus, and helped parties like the Muslim Brotherhood that hate everything that USA and the western world stands for, to power.
See my 19 posts on Syria etc as some examples of that disastrous foreign policy:
I could go on with many more examples but I think I will stop here.
But as the old saying goes (Joseph de Maistre in a letter from St Petersburg August 1811): a country has the politicians/government that they deserve. So enjoy!
In addition, this quote from a reader’s commentary in The Prager Zeitung in March 2010 (translated from Czech) sums it up quite well really:
“Multitude of Fools
The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool.
It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.“
P.S. If you are wondering about the title, see this video with music by Spike Jones. There is another long story behind the lyrics but that you have to find out yourself. D.S.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous post September U.S. Temperature trend/decade: 3.2 F Warmer in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 9 months (year to date, January- September) US temperature from a “historic” perspective since we now have a whole year of official data. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 9 month, a year by year consecutive trend 112 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
And some more glaring official change and CONSTANT manipulationof “HISTORICAL” temperature data.
“The graph below shows historical data sets from the NASA-GISS website as published in 2009 and in 2012. The manipulation is obvious. The larger temperature trend is more to the liking of the climate alarmists.”
In the U.S., the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. And this is how that was erased between 1999 and 2011.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.14 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.54 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.46 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.42 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is 0.15 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2012 to 2000-2012??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 is exactly 0.15 F (0.08 C)degrees warmer a decade. That is a whopping 1.5 F (0.8 C) warmer in 100 years.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise but not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 9 months trend 1970-2012 is exactly 0.54 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 1980-2012 is exactly 0.46 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 1990-2012 is exactly0.42 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 2000-2012 is exactly 0.15 F (0.08 C)degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
The official September temperature figures are out. So I thought I dive into it. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent September US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
Just to remind you what is going on, here is just another in a long row of examples:
Many diligent people keep track of the CONSTANT manipulation and change of “HISTORICAL” temperature data. One is Ole Humlum, professor in Geosciences at Oslo University http://climate4you.com/.
(My underline/bold and changes in the graphs and text).
“Maturity diagram showing net change since 17 May 2008 in the global monthly surface air temperature record prepared by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), USA. The net result of the adjustments made are becoming substantial, and adjustments since May 2006 occasionally exceeds 0.1oC. Before 1945 global temperaturesare generally changed toward lower values, and toward higher values after 1945resulting in a more pronounced 20th century warming (about 0.15oC) compared to the NCDC temperature record published in May 2008. Last diagram update: 17 September 2012.”
Click on the graph and it gets larger
“The diagram below exemplify adjustments made by NCDC since May 2008 for two months (see arrows in diagram above); January 1915 and January 2000.”
Click on the graph and it gets larger
So here are the trends:
US temperature September1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.07 F / Decade
US temperature September 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.49 F / Decade
US temperature September 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.59 F / Decade
US temperature September 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.44 F / Decade
US temperature September 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is 0.32 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 for September is exactly 0.32 F (0.17 C) degrees a decade. That is a 3.2 F (1.7 C) warmer in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
And to REALLY show you this “accelerated warming” trend lets recapitulate the official figures from September last year (2011) and the trend /decade:
US temperature September 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.35 F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise but not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of September ”accelerated warming” trend:
The September trend 1970-2012 is exactly 0.49 F degrees a decade.
The September trend 1980-2012 is exactly 0.59 F degrees a decade.
The September trend 1990-2012 is exactly 0.44 F degrees a decade.
The September trend 2000-2012 is exactly 0.32 F (0.17 C) degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
“But all I want to conclude to this is that we face a fundamental danger here. The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people. And it is a threat to the very future of this country if that—we allow this stuff to go on. We have crossed a whole new and frightening slide on the slippery slope this last two weeks, and it needs to be talked about.“
An excellent summary by democrat Pat Caddell on the very sad state of “journalism” in America. And the utter betrayal by the mainstream media (press, TV and radio) of their role as journalists and protector of the first amendment.
Pat Caddell is a lifelong democrat and worked for the McGovern campaign. He also worked on the Jimmy Carter campaign, for Gary Hart, for Joe Biden, and Jerry Brown.
He was their election strategy and pollster man.
Pat Caddell is also the founder of Cambridge Survey Research, a public opinion pollster, and an expert in analyzing public opinion.
He has also worked as a consultant to various movies, TV shows, and documentaries etc.
And this is nothing new. We have seen so many different examples of this betrayal of journalist in their role as journalist. In this blog, I have given many examples when it comes to the Global Warming Hysteria.
Where the “journalists” and the mainstream media ACTIVELY choose to become propagandists and his master’s voice. Even worse, they ACTIVELY became attack dogs and tried to suppress and oppress EVERY dissenting voice and protest.
This is the ultimate betrayal of ALL what journalism is supposed to be. And the role they are supposed to play in a “free society”. Goebbels, and Ilya Ehrenburg (his soviet counterpart), would be REALLY PROUD of these men and women!
As I have told you before, I am a former journalist. But I quite in disgust because of what was going on. And this was way back. And compared to now it was as kindergarten then.
And to confirm the total incompetent Romney campaign, including the republican party establishment handling of it, Romeny said on Wednesday:
As if to prove this point, Mitt Romney has now told Jan Crawford of CBS News that the major media are not in the tank for Obama and that he has no plans to challenge liberal media bias.
“Later, Crawford asked Romney if the mainstream media is ”in the tank for President Obama,” as many conservatives allege.
”Well, I think we have a system of free press, people are able to provide their own perspective based on their own beliefs, I think there’s some people who are more in my camp, there’s a lot of people who are more in his camp, and I don’t worry about that,” Romney responded.”
And the headline for this news story: is ironically – Romney: Obama engaged in ”character assassination”
But Romney is not worried
Well, it is no surprise since one of the chief architects of the strategy behind the campaign is Karl Rove. The strategy is to be “nice”, to be cautious, no attacks and no confronting the biased media.
In the meantime, Romney is being slaughtered in crucial states by the “not so nice” attack ads and a merciless campaign by Obama.
If you look at the key 11 swing states (hold 146 Electoral College votes) won by President Obama in 2008 and thought to be competitive in 2012. In 2008, Obama won these swing states by a combined margin of 53% to 46%, virtually identical to his national margin.
In one month from the beginning of September until today, Obama has gone from 44-45% to 50-51%.
Romney has gone from 46% to 45%.
From roughly even to a 5-6% lead by Obama according to the Rasmussen Daily Swing State Tracking Poll. That’s the biggest lead Obama has had in a long time. We have to go back to the end of February this year to find similar figures when Obama topped at 50%.
I will not bother you with a lengthy analysis of the incompetent Romney campaign, and the republican party establishments hiring of the wrong people.
Just two quick examples:
Ed Gillespie, who Pat Caddell talked about, is a senior advisorto the Romney campaign. He started a lobbying firm with former Clinton White House counsel Jack Quinn, responsible for the pardon of Marc Rich, among other things.
Gillespie will make money no matter what happens on this Election Day. Or the next election. Etc. So do you think he is very much concerned about the media bias problem and who is really winning the race?
Another is his communications director and longtime aide Eric Fehrnstromon. Now famous for his comment to CNN in March, saying that Romney was in realty an “Etch A Sketch” man.
Implying that he has no firm believes, policies and positions. You can take whatever he says and you can shake it up and it will be gone and he is going to draw a completely new picture.
With “senior advisers” like this who needs enemies.
As a side not, the Swedish government has invited this Karl Rove several times for political and election advice.
They really know how to pick them!
In addition, they pay big (taxpayers) bucks for it too.
Pat Caddell September 21– “The Audacity of Corruption”
The text of the speech:
Thank you. Glad to be with you. This could take a long time, but we don’t have that, so let me just get right to this. I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not. You know, when I first started in politics – and for a long time before that – everyone on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody. Which is exactly what they should be. They were unrelenting. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people. That changed in 1980. There’s a lot of reasons for it. It changed—an important point in the Dukakis-Bush election, when the press literally was trying to get Dukakis elected by ignoring what was happening in Massachusetts, with a candidate who was running on the platform of “He will do for America what he did for Massachusetts”—while they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Also the change from evening news emphasis to morning news by the networks is another factor that’s been pointed out to me. Most recently, what I call the nepotism that exists, where people get jobs—they’re married to people who are in the administration, or in politics, whatever. But the overwhelming bias has become very real and very dangerous. We have a First Amendment for one reason. We have a First Amendment not because the Founding Fathers liked the press—they hated the press—but they believed, as [Thomas] Jefferson said, that in order to have a free country, in order to be a free people, we needed a free press. That was the job—so there was an implicit bargain in the First Amendment, the press being the only institution, at that time, which was in our process of which there was no checks and balances. We designed a constitutional system with many checks and balances. The one that had no checks and balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the government and the power by telling—somehow allowing—people to have the truth. That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time. It is now creating the danger that I spoke to.
This morning, just this morning, Gallup released their latest poll on the trust, how much trust—the Congressman [Lamar Smith] made reference to an earlier poll—when it comes to reporting the news accurately, fairly, and fully, and it’s the highest in history. For the first time, 60% of the people said they had “Not very much” or “None at all.” Of course there was a partisan break: There were 40% who believed it did, Democrats, 58% believed that it was fair and accurate, Republicans were 26%, Independents were 31%. So there is this contempt for the media – or this belief—and there are many other polls that show it as well. I want to just use a few examples, because I think we crossed the line the last few weeks that is terrifying.
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece which was called “The Audacity of Cronyism in Breitbart, and my talk today is “The Audacity of Corruption.” What I pointed out was, that it was appalling that Valerie Jarrett had a Secret Service detail. A staff member in the White House who is a senior aide and has a full Secret Service detail, even while on vacation, and nobody in the press had asked why. That has become more poignant, as I said, last week, when we discovered that we had an American ambassador, on the anniversary of 9/11, who was without adequate security—while she still has a Secret Service detail assigned to her full-time, at a massive cost, and no one in the media has gone to ask why.
The same thing: I raised the question of David Plouffe. David Plouffe, who is the White House’s Senior Advisor—and was Obama’s campaign manager last time, he and [David] Axelrod sort of switched out, Axelrod going back to Chicago for the campaign—and just after it was announced that he was coming, an Iranian front group in Nigeria gave him $100,000 to give two speeches in Nigeria. Now, let me tell you: There’s nobody that hands—no stranger gives you $100,000 and doesn’t expect something in return, unless you live in a world that I don’t. And no one has raised this in the mainstream media. He was on with George Stephanopoulos, on ABC, a couple of weeks ago, and they were going through all these questions. No one asked him whatsoever about that. He was not inquired. George Stephanopoulos, a former advisor to Bill Clinton—who every morning, while Rahm Emmanuel was Chief of Staff, had his call with Rahm Emmanuel and James Carville, and the three of them have been doing it for years—and he is held out as a journalist.He has two platforms. I mean, he’s a political hack masquerading as a journalist. But when you don’t ask the questions you need to ask of someone like David Plouffe, who’s going in the White House—when we’re talking about Iran. I just finishedsurveys , some of you may have seen, with John McLaughlin this week, with Secure America Now , and found out just how strongly Americans are concerned with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, what’s happening in the Middle East, and cuts in defense spending. This is not the place for that, but it strikes me as the American people identify, in the polling we’ve done over the last year, Iran as the single greatest danger to the United States. And here’s a man who’s being paid by an already named front group for that—for a terrorist regime, and is not asked about it, or queried about it!
The third thing I would say is that—then there’s of course [National Security Advisor] Tom Donilon, who I know very well from years back, who I caused a little bit of a stir over a few months ago when I said he was the “leaker-in-chief.” I mean this ridiculous running around—“How did these secrets get out?”—when it is clear he has no credentials for foreign policy; who has been in the White House; who was a political operative for Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, and others;who was known to have, in my opinion, to be just the most amoral person I know in politics; and who is using and orchestrating national security. In Mr. [David] Sanger’s book [Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power], as a reviewer at [The New York Times] said, “The hero of this book, and the clear source of it, is Tom Donilon”—but let me just make a point. Neither does—and I would say this to the Congressman—“You know, all the Republicans have to do”—you know, I talk often about the “Corrupt Party” and the “Stupid Party,”but the Stupid Party couldn’t be stupider when it comes to things like this. They could have called Tom Donilon and other people down to the Congress, put them under oath, and asked them if they had leaked. Instead you have Eric Holder, who runs the most political Justice Department since John Mitchell—only in John Mitchell’s administration we had Justice Departments that were so politicized and so corrupted by politics—and he appoints someone who gave two people to do a study on the leaks, sometime in the next century will come out, and one of them is a, was a contributor to Barack Obama when he was a state Senator. That’s a really unbiased source! And the press, of course, won’t look into this. It will not ask the question. But the Republicans could have called them down. Yes, the President could have extended Executive Privilege, but let him say “I will not answer that question, sir” on the question of “Did you leak these secrets that Dianne Feinstein, the Chairman, the Democratic Chairman, of the Senate Intelligence Committee said were endangering national security and American lives?” As she said when she read Sanger’s book, “My God, every page I turn I learn something that I don’t know!” I mean, these are serious matters but in Washington they’re playful, and the press does not pursue any of them.
Peter Schweizer has done a study talking about corruption. 60%, or 80% —it’s closer to 80% I think, now—of the money given under the stimulus to green energy projects—the President and this administration’s great project—has gone to people who are either bundlers or major contributors to Barack Obama. But nobody says a word. Of course Republicans don’t raise it because in Washington, they simply want to do it when they get back in power. And, of course, the press doesn’t because they basically have taken themselves out of doing their job.
When we see what happened this week in Libya—and when I said I was more frightened than I’ve ever been, this is true, because I think it’s one thing that, as they did in 2008, when the mainstream press, the mainstream media and all the press, jumped on the Obama bandwagon and made it a moral commitment on their part to help him get elected in a way that has never happened, whatever the biases in the past. To give you an example of the difference, I’ll just shortly tell you this: In 1980, when [Jimmy] Carter was running for reelection, the press—even though 80% of them, after the election, reporters said they voted for Carter over [Ronald] Reagan, or 70% percent of them, a very high percentage—they believed, so much, that the Carter campaign and the Carter White House had abused the Rose Garden against [Ted] Kennedy that they made a commitment, as they discussed, that they would not serve as the attack dogs on Reagan for the Carter White House because they thought it was unfair and they weren’t to be manipulated. I totally disagree with their analysis, but that was when you actually had a press corps. Whatever their own personal feelings, they made judgments that were, “We’re not going to be manipulated.” This press corps serves at the pleasure of this White House and President, led by people like Ezra Klein and JournoList, where they plot the stories together. The problem here is that no one will name names.
But I want to talk about this Libyan thing, because we crossed some lines here. It’s not about politics. First of all we’ve had nine day of lies over what happened because they can’t dare say it’s a terrorist attack, and the press won’t push this.Yesterday there was not a single piece in The New York Times over the question of Libya. Twenty American embassies, yesterday, were under attack. None of that is on the national news. None of it is being pressed in the papers. If a President of either party—I don’t care whether it was Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or George Bush or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush—had a terrorist incident, and got on an airplane after saying something, and flown off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, they would have been crucified! It would have been—it should have been the equivalent, for Barack Obama, of George Bush’s “flying over Katrina” moment. But nothing was said at all, and nothing will be said.
It is one thing to bias the news, or have a biased view. It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know, and I choose right now, openly, and this is—if I had more time I’d do all the names for it—but The New York Times, The Washington Post, or the most important papers that influence the networks, ABC, NBC, and, to a lesser extent—because CBS has actually been on this story, partly because the President of Libya appeared on [Bob Schieffer’s Face the Nation] and said, on Sunday, while [U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.] Susan Rice was out—the U.N. Ambassador has no portfolio on this matter—lying, said of the Secretary—you know why, notice the Secretary of State wasn’t out there doing this—was on national television, lying and promoting the White House line while the Libyan President, the very same moment, is saying “This is a premeditated attack.”Nobody has asked that question. This morning—take a look at The New York Times this morning, it’s a minor reference. Oh, now we’ve decided that it was a terrorist incident. But this is—that would have changed, that should change the politics.
This is not without accomplices, because the incompetence of the [Mitt] Romney campaign, which I said a week ago is the—my God!—the worst campaign in my lifetime, and the Republican establishment in general’s inability to fight, has allowed these things to happen in part because they don’t do it. But I want to go through two other quick points.
[Mohamed] Morsi and Egypt: The President of Egypt, we find out now, that his whole agenda has been getting the “Blind Sheikh” [Omar Abdel-Rahman], who’s responsible for the bombings of the WorldTradeCenter in 1993, out of jail. Prison. I’ve been told specifically, by a member of the intelligence community that the White House and State Department are negotiating that now. They have now come out and denied it, but [Morsi] comes out, that they ordered—he’s the head of the Muslim Brotherhood! The American people know what they think of the Muslim Brotherhood: They are against them eleven to one, all right? And he’s the president of the Muslim Brotherhood, giving $2 billion to United States. He tells them—we had advance warning because they had said they were gonna do this, attack our embassy. The President—after the incident, after 48 hours, Mr. Morsi does nothing and says nothing—picks up the phone, calls him, and demands that they call it off. On Friday—last Friday, a week ago today—there was supposed to be a big demonstration. We thought that would be the big day—no, it disappeared, because Morsi called it off. But no press person has investigated this, just as no press person will go and ask the most obvious questions, when there are really good stories here, good media stories, and good news stories. They are in the tank and this is a frightening thing.
Another example has been the polling, which everyone wants to talk to me about. Look: There is no doubt that Romney is blowing an election he could not lose, and has done everything he can to lose it. But the bias, the polling, it’s very complicated. Some of it is error, some of it is miscalculation, but some of it is deliberate, in my opinion—to pump up the numbers using 2008 base to give a sense of momentum to the Obama campaign. When I have polls that have the preference of Democrats over Republicans higher than it was in 2008, which was a peak Democratic year, I know I am dealing with a poll that shouldn’t be reported. And yet they are being done, and they are being done with that knowledge and with that basis for some people, and the answer, as I said, some of it is incompetence, some of it is they just don’t know, really know, how to handle it, and some of it is on purpose, and it’s purposeful. But all of it is just to serve a basic point, just as JournoList was—Mr. Klein’s JournoList—but as I said there is no pushback. We have a political campaign where, to put the best metaphor I can on it, where the referees on the field are sacking the quarterback of one team, tripping up their runners, throwing their bodies in front of blockers, and nobody says anything. The Republicans don’t. The reason you will lose this battle is for one reason. Despite organizations like AIM and others who are pointing this out, and the fact that 60% of the American people are in on the secret here—I mean, they’re no idiots—Republicans and those candidates who are not the candidates of the press refuse to call them out. If I were the Romney campaign I would’ve been doing this for months! I’d have been looking at individual reporters! I would be telling the American people, “They’re not trying to stop me; they’re trying to stop you! And they are here to do this!”And I would have made the press themselves an issue because, until you do, what happens is, they are given the basic concession of authenticity and accuracy, or that they are credible, by not doing that.
Now too many reporters, too many political people in the Republican party in this town, want to maintain their relationships with the press. This is how Sarah Palin got handed over to Katie Couric and to ABC before she was ready—because Steve Schmidt and others want to preserve their view, their relationships with the press. You know, people have their own agendas, and often it’s not winning. But this not-pushing-back is a problem, and they don’t do it. And, you know what this is a different era: The old argument of “You don’t attack someone in the press”—or “You don’t get in a pissing match with someone who buys ink by the barrel”—doesn’t apply anymore. There are too many outlets, too many ways to do it, and the country doesn’t have the confidence in the press that they once had.
But all I want to conclude to this is that we face a fundamental danger here. The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people. And it is a threat to the very future of this country if that—we allow this stuff to go on. We have crossed a whole new and frightening slide on the slippery slope this last two weeks, and it needs to be talked about. And so that’s as much as I can do in twenty minutes. So then we—we have a few moments for questions. Yes, sir?
ARONOFF: Let’s get a few questions here.
AUDIENCE MEMBER : Yes, I wanted to offer my interpretation for why this dynamic is happening. I’d like your reaction. I think that the media is working with the government, because the government hands out so many freebies—
CADDELL: Yes.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: —you know, for market share, and, therefore, they have to work in sync with them in order to ensure the good graces. I think, also, the advertisers who generate the revenue for the newspapers are also getting those freebies, and so they can then influence the media—
CADDELL: The corruption in this town is so great. Everybody in Washington seems to almost be on the take—with the exception of everybody in this room, and the assistants here. But, I swear to God, it’s so—the idea that I should get something, you know—the reason, when you have firms that have Ed Gillespie in business with Jack Quinn, who was the counsel for Bill Clinton, and responsible for the pardon of Marc Rich, among other things, is because everybody in this—those people on K Street, in both parties, are about arrangements and money. Everyone in the press is. We have stimulus money being given. We have people who, as I said, the relationships, when people are making contracts, and their husbands and wives are getting—Jay Carney’s wife works in the government! Now he works—he was the head of the Time Magazine! He was a liar then, and a liar now, apparently! You know—and nobody says there’s anything wrong with this. And you’re right: Everybody’s on the take here, and everybody’s cutting up their stock. That’s why, what used to be one of the best and most important things for the press, which was the investigative journalism of corruption and money, the stealing of the taxpayers, the looting of the Treasury, isn’t an issue, and why no one speaks of it in this town. Yes, sir?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: Pat, just a quick question. Is it in violation—can it be seen as a violation of their charter for the major networks to demonstrate such obvious bias? I mean, is that a violate their FCC license agreements?
CADDELL: Well, their license agreements only go to their stations. They don’t really go to the networks themselves. But I—you see, that’s why we’re at this slippery slope. This is what scares me. Because you start saying, “Well, somebody should do something about this.”
My argument, when I speak to the press, is very simple: One day you’re going to get my combination of George Wallace and Huey Long running for public office. He’s going to get up and say how—he’s going to point out “How the press is going to get me, and let me tell you what they’re going to say about me, because they want to stop me,” and he’s going to say, “You know what? We’ve gone too far with this First Amendment stuff. We need to make them serve the people.” We’re sliding toward a system by establishing the fact that the press, in fact, has prostituted themselves in the service of a political party, or a political candidate, and once you go down this road and say, “That’s happening,” then people say, “Why do we need a First Amendment? Why should we protect them? They’re not protecting us.” That’s the threat here. That’s the danger that I worry about, because we desperately need a real free press, whatever its faults, that protects the people. And soon, they will be owned by the people—we’re getting very close to that. Watching the coverage of this stuff, in the last ten days, on Libya, and the press corps and the networks serving as nothing but offshoots of the White House Press Office, is really scary. We’re going to get to this question, because that is down that road. These people are going to destroy freedom in America. I don’t care about their partisan preferences, I care that, in the end of the day, somebody’s going to say, “Enough of this!” And somebody will carry the day, and that’ll be that. Yes, sir?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 4: Thank you. You—thank you! Incredibly good twenty minutes! I agree with everything you said! I am very concerned about Romney’s poor campaign, combined with the media bias the way it is. Is there anything that Romney can do at this point?
CADDELL: Well, he should’ve been out there already! He should’ve been out there pushing back—and so should the Republican establishment. The Republican establishment, as I said, in this town—I mean, all they seem to be in the business, to me, a lot of the establishment, is getting a lot of money to line their pockets, and not fighting or doing things that are effective. Why aren’t they out there challenging this? Why isn’t Romney himself getting up and saying, “I’m running against two organizations: I’m running against the Democrats and the President, and I’m running against the mainstream media, which will not tell you the truth”? Now let me tell you something: You want to liven up some of your rallies? That’ll do it. But they don’t do it because this man dares to be cautious. He’s going to dare-to-be-cautious himself right out of a race that was his to lose, and he’s losing it.
ARONOFF: One last question. Anybody? Go ahead.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: Are there no patriots in the media who—
CADDELL: Oh, yes, there are! There are some.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 5: Do they not see where—
CADDELL: Well, the problem is—let me say this—because nobody raises the question, because no one raises from the viewpoint that I’m raising it from. To raise it from the viewpoint where Republicans or conservatives “We don’t like what you’re doing to us,” only makes them dismiss that. What is not to be dismissed is what this is doing, and what it is in terms of the specifics of challenge. These individual reporters—let me tell you something about the press: Reporters become reporters and don’t enter the political fray because, basically, they can’t stand the heat. That’s my experience. You ever watch reporters under attack in a public venue and so forth? They wilt like—they melt like ice on the equator. The fact is that they need to be called out. Their organizations need to be called out. Ezra Klein still writes for The Washington Post? I mean, this is unbelievable!They had a secret operation group, “Journo” group, online, coordinating how they would promote Obama, and how they would attack Republicans—and he’s still there? But nobody calls out the publisher, or the editor, or whatever—there is no effort here—or calls him.
The fact is, if I were out there, if I were doing one of these campaigns, I wouldn’t let one of these guys by with anything. I would make the fact that the American people, already expressed in the Gallup poll, say—I would give them all the evidence they need to confirm their beliefs. I would change the dialogue here. But until that happens, you’re gonna have two teams—your whole team has an echo chamber of support—attacking you. How do you ever expect to win? Really? I mean, you can when it’s the national tide, 1980. We have a different press now. They have now made the decision they will control the political process. They are serving—with the hundreds of millions of dollars that the networks and these newspapers are, in effect, contributing—in-kind contributions to candidates in the Democratic Party. That’s the legal issue that I would have been exploring. I mean, I would begin to put the heat on.
But the Republicans never said a word. When Comcast, which bought out the administration—they’re my cable company in Charleston, they’re just so bad, I guess every cable company is awful, but they’re the worst—buys a network, is allowed to buy a network—the Justice Department allowed this—no Republican stood up and said, “This should be stopped!” I mean, really! You get what you ask for. So, anyway, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to go do TV.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous August U.S. Temperature trend/decade: 2.2 F Warmer in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 8 months (year to date, January-August) US temperature from a “historic” perspective since we now have a whole year of official data. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 8 month, a year by year consecutive trend 112 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan- Aug) 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.15 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan- Aug) 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.54 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan- Aug) 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.45 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan- Aug) 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.40 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan- Aug) 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is 0.08 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2012 to 2000-2012??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 is exactly 0.08 F degrees warmer a decade. That is a whopping 0.8 F warmer in 100 years.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 8 months trend 1970-2012 is exactly 0.54 F degrees a decade.
The recent 8 months trend 1980-2012 is exactly 0.45 F degrees a decade.
The recent 8 months trend 1990-2012 is exactly0.40 F degrees a decade.
The recent 8 months trend 2000-2012 is exactly 0.08 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
So I thought I dive into it. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent August US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature August 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.12 F / Decade
US temperature August 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.48 F / Decade
US temperature August 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.45 F / Decade
US temperature August 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.78 F / Decade
US temperature August 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is 0.22 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 for August is exactly 0.22 F degrees a decade. That is a 2.2 F warmer in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of August ”accelerated warming” trend:
The August trend 1970-2012 is exactly 0.48 F degrees a decade.
The August trend 1980-2012 is exactly 0.45 F degrees a decade.
The August trend 1990-2012 is exactly 0.78 F degrees a decade.
The August trend 2000-2012 is exactly 0.22 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
”Our mistake was to ever believe there could be peaceful change in this country,” he said. ”We wasted time and sacrificed many lives trying to be peaceful. We should have just gone straight to an armed uprising.”
”By taking such extreme steps against the moderate opposition the regime is pushing all of its opponents to join the armed rebellion; the regime is making it clear there is no place for the peaceful activists,” said a Syrian political analyst.”
”The cases of Mazen Darwish, Kifah Ali Deeb and Rami Hinawi show very plainly the regime is not fighting militant Islamists but is actually at war with any advocates of real reform in this country, even those who insist on peaceful methods.”
”There are no more peaceful demonstrations, there’s no point, we’re not able to move a single metre before the security forces and army start shooting at us,” he says.”
“Liberal, secular, often well educated members of the opposition saytheir influence over the uprising has been undermined, both through widespread use of indiscriminate violence by the authorities and mass arrests of peaceful dissidents, taking them out of circulation and leaving the field open to more radical groups.”
Here in a nutshell is the description how a brutal dictator transformed peaceful protesters, who only wanted some freedom, to fighters.
In ALL of this, the Assad regime was helped by Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah. With training, advisors and guidance, troops, snipers, material, spare parts, maintenance, weapons, ammunition, intelligence, money, political backing on ALL levels etc.
In ALL of this, the Assad regime was ALSO helped by USA, EU, UN, Turkey, and The Arab League who did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during 12 months but talked and had meetings. And then they only sent “observers” who dutifully observed the slaughter and massacres taking place, day in day out .
And ALL the TIME the death toll of civilians keep rising, First it was a 1000, then 5000, then 10 000, then 15 000, then 20 000, and now 23 000.
Massacre after Massacre.
Torture, Slaughter, Summarily Executions and Rape.
A systematic assault on human dignity and civilian lives and freedom on a colossal scale.
Day in Day out.
And the TOTAL destruction of block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood in countless cities and villages. Using, aside from bombs and howitzers, tanks, rockets etc., the Russian 240mm F-864 high explosive mortar bomb to “fight” against these unarmed civilians.
The world’s largest high explosive mortar bomb designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue.It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
This weapon system is notable for its capability to conduct a “plunging attack,” in which the munition is fired at a high angle and comes down nearly perpendicular to penetrate a building or fortification.
This is the same weapon that Russia used to destroy Grozny in 1994-96. And now they have passed on these “skills” to the Syrians.
By the way, the use of such weapons in dense urban environments is a war crime.
Here is just one small example from Friday August 10 of Cities and Towns under shelling and destruction by the Assad regime. And the list is not complete:
An other example from yesterday August 15 when the “brave and courageous” pilots of Assads Air Force bombed a residential area in Azaz and obliterated a whole block:
The report here including video:
Syria: Fighter Jet Bombing Kills Over 40 Civilians
“(Azaz) – A Syrian government fighter jet bombed a residential neighborhood, killing more than 40 civilians and wounding at least 100 others in the town of Azaz, including many women and children, Human Rights Watch said today after visiting the town. In the attack on August 15, 2012, at least two bombs destroyed an entire block of houses in the al-Hara al-Kablie neighborhood of Azaz, in Syria’s northern Aleppo province.
Human Rights Watch investigated the site of the bombing two hours after the attack and interviewed witnesses, victims, medical personnel, and relatives of those killed.
“This horrific attack killed and wounded scores of civilians and destroyed a whole residential block,” said Anna Neistat, acting emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “Yet again, Syrian government forces attacked with callous disregard for civilian life.”
What is left of the al-Hara al-Kablie neighborhood of Azaz after the bombing – NOTHING!
An another brave effort by Assads Air Force – They bombed the hospital in Aleppo
(Aleppo) – Syrian government fighter planes fired rockets that struck the main emergency hospital in an opposition-controlled area of Aleppo on August 14, 2012, wounding two civilians and causing significant damage, Human Rights Watch said today after visiting the damaged hospital.
A rocket attack by government aircraft on the hospital two days earlier, on August 12, apparently killed four civilians and wounded three, Human Rights Watch said.
“Fighter jet attacks on a hospital twice in three days indicate that this was no accident,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By firing rockets at a clearly marked hospital, the government shows blatant disregard for civilian lives.”
Dar al Shifaa Hospital in Aleppo after the attack
And by the way, these airplanes are provide by Russia, the pilots trained by Russia, the ammunition supplied by Russia, spare parts and maintenance done by Russia, air control and directions done by Russia, intelligence supplied by Russia etc.
Russian ammunition boxes used by the Assad army in Aleppo
They are SOOO HELPFUL these Russians wouldn’t you say?
And ALL of these politicians, governments, international organisations did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during these 18 months but observed and talked and had meetings.
I say only one thing: You should be REALLY BE PROUD of yourselves and the children of Syria will remember you. Each one of you.
”DAMASCUS // No great soul-searching accompanied his transformation from peaceful demonstrator to rebel with the Free Syrian Army; it is a path many of his friends had already taken.
Arrested for protesting in the Damascus suburb of Dummar, Mohammed, 23, spent two months in an overcrowded military intelligence detention cell, and was released without charge to find demonstrations had been superseded by armed conflict.
”I wasn’t thinking about taking up a weapon and fighting the regime when I left prison,” he says.
”I went straight out to protest and saw the other opposition people in Dummar were now carrying rifles and I realised I had to do the same.”
Since the start of the Syrian uprising, Mohammed had been part of the Local Coordination Committees, a network of activists organising peaceful demonstrations and tracking civilian deaths.
While the LCCs are still operating and peaceful demonstrations do still take place, Mohammed and other rebels in Damascus say circumstances have rendered the unarmed protests irrelevant.
”There are no more peaceful demonstrations, there’s no point, we’re not able to move a single metre before the security forces and army start shooting at us,” he says.
(The hospital in Qusier, Homs. destroyed by Assad forces. The sign reads – Smoking is Forbidden in The Patients Room)
Not all of those involved in the grassroots opposition movement agree, but a broad range of activists concede that those advocating peaceful revolt have been squeezed out by the demands of war.
Liberal, secular, often well educated members of the opposition saytheir influence over the uprising has been undermined, both through widespread use of indiscriminate violence by the authorities and mass arrests of peaceful dissidents, taking them out of circulation and leaving the field open to more radical groups.
On Sunday two prominent grassroots activists, Kifah Ali Deeb and Rami Hinawi, were detained by a Popular Committee – a pro-government armed militia – in their home neighbourhood of Sahnaya, south of Damascus.
Ms Deeb, an artist and author of children’s books, sits on the governing board of the opposition National Coordination Committees, a political bloc that has called for non-violent democratic change in Syria.
The NCC has been at odds with other opposition factions, including the exiled Syrian National Council, which has called for foreign military intervention to aid rebels.
Ms Deeb, 30, is a member of the Alawite sect, which forms the nucleus of Bashar Al Assad’s regime and dominates ultra-loyalist branches of the security forces and military.
Mr Hinawi, 33, who has long campaigned peacefully for democratic reforms alongside Ms Deeb, is a Druze.
Both are believed to be in the hands of air force intelligence, the most feared branch of the Syrian security forces, although, as with other detentions, no information has been released by the authorities in connection with the detentions.
Sectarian politics are complex in Syria but one of the key arguments made by supporters of Mr Al Assad is that his regime is all that protects Christian, Druze, Alawite and other minority groups from annihilation at the hands of the Sunni majority.
That has brought even sharper focus on members of those minorities who stand with the opposition, rather than the authorities.
(Ramadan in Aleppo)
Another influential advocate of a peaceful uprising in Syria, Mazen Darwish, also an Alawite, has been held by air force security for six months.
Although a civilian, he is facing prosecution in a military court usually reserved for army officers. There is no chance of appeal and no defence lawyer, proceedings are secret and the military judge can choose to issue a death sentence.
The human rights lawyer Anwar Al Bunni, a regular fixture at the Damascus courts of justice, said Mr Darwish and thousands of others facing special military courts had been thrown into a black hole, outside of Syria’s regular – and highly flawed – legal system.
”They have had all of their basic rights taken from them, we know nothing about their situation, all the files are kept secret. We are not even allowed to know the names of all of those facing military trials,” he said.
It emerged that Mr Darwish is facing a military court only when a judge summoned him to appear as a witness in another case, and air force security said they would not permit him to do so because he was being held for military trial.
Syrian officials do not talk about court cases but the authorities have long insisted they act in accordance with national laws and have dismissed evidence of widespread torture of detainees that has been compiled by the United Nations and rights monitors.
The use of draconian measures against advocates of non-violence has only accelerated the slide into an increasingly brutal conflict, one that rights monitors say has already killed upwards of 20,000 people, a majority of them civilians.
”By taking such extreme steps against the moderate opposition the regime is pushing all of its opponents to join the armed rebellion; the regime is making it clear there is no place for the peaceful activists,” said a Syrian political analyst.
”The cases of Mazen Darwish, Kifah Ali Deeb and Rami Hinawi show very plainly the regime is not fighting militant Islamists but is actually at war with any advocates of real reform in this country, even those who insist on peaceful methods.”
In Dummar, Mohammed admits he has little idea of how to wage war as a guerrilla, never having been in the army or taught how to fire a weapon.
A shortage of arms and ammunition among rebels in Damascus means he is used as a runner to convey messages between fighters when they are in action.
Nevertheless, he believes that is a more productive way of trying to overthrow the Syrian regime than stinging street protests.
”Our mistake was to ever believe there could be peaceful change in this country,” he said. ”We wasted time and sacrificed many lives trying to be peaceful. We should have just gone straight to an armed uprising.”
Hezbollah Mercenaries fighting for Assad in front of the Citadel in Aleppo
LEAKED VIDEO – Inside a helicopter gunship over Syria used to bomb and kill civilians in cities
(These videos where taken by Assad troops themselves to show how “good” they are at killing civilians, as trophies, to prove their loyalty etc. etc.)
As a complement to my previous post about my stats and the observation what an international phenomenon Blogging is; I just went through the stats for my blog again.
In the last three weeks, I had visitors from 127 countries.
WOW!
Including for the firs time visitors from Myanmar (Burma), Djibouti, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Mauritius, Cameroon, Netherlands Antilles, Fiji, Cap Verde, Papua New Guinea etc.
I am just so blown away by what a true and awesome international phenomena blogging is. It is so encouraging. Especially that a country like Myanmar (Burma) who have been controlled by a brutal military junta for the last 49 years with total censorship and control, is finally opening up.
And as I said before, that’s why the powers that be fear the “free” internet so much. They have no control. And that’s why they do everything possible to regulate and stop it through various direct and indirect means.
Sadly, a lot of politicians and governments in the “free” world are willingly taking part in that onslaught. In fact, in some cases they are leading it.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.“
Benjamin Franklin
“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Just a quick comment of the accelerated slaughter going on in Syria. And Russia’s continued role as the main weapons, ammunition, economic, personal, training, intelligence, diplomatic etc provider and support for Assad.
Here is what captain Konstantin Sivkov, a former strategist for the Russian General Staff between 1995 and 2007, now the first vice-president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Doctor of Military Sciences, concluded after a “visit” in May and talks with the Assad’s gang:
“Sivkov was surprised, he says, with how “gentle” Assad has been in crushing the revolution. “Believe me, some of our guys have told Bashar to adopt much harsher methods, carpet bombing, total destruction,” Sivkov told TIME after returning to Moscow. “If that approach was chosen in Syria, there would be no rebels left after one week, and everyone would be happy.”
Yeah, that’s the Russian way – Total destruction and Carpet bombings of civilians. After all, they have a long experience in Afghanistan, Chechnya etc. And they taught their Syrian pupils well.
Here are just some pictures of the according to Russia “to gentle” Assad treatment of civilians in cities.
In this case from Homs, a major industrial center, and with a population of at least 652,609 people according to the 2004 census:
This is the guy who also told Izvestiya on March 22 this year regarding project 949A, were Antei nuclear-powered submarines will be completed and modernized and armed with new cruise missiles with range up to 1,500 km.
“In particular, the newspaper cites Capt 1 rank (retired) Konstantin Sivkov, vice president of Geopolitics Academy saying that Antei-class subs would be equipped with Caliber missiles in order to destroy missile defense assets deployed in Europe.”
That is in plain language EU. Who have done everything possible not to “irritate” Russia and have bent over backwards every time Russia raises its eyebrow.
And this is what he said on March 25 2010 “World War III Has Already Begun”
“A resource-poor countries and people, but rich in modern technology and weapons will also want their share. From this perspective, Russia has become the primary objective of aggression.”
“The only limiting factor at this moment is Russia’s nuclear arsenal. According to the experts they predicted that the West will attempt to remove the Russian nuclear shield. “
Yeah, these as always helpful and peaceful Russians.
This is the country, and the persons, that the Obama administration had a “reset” with and has given de facto veto power of the US foreign policy.
It is now nearly one month since I finished my 11 parts series of background on what is going on in Syria (Syria and Vladimir Putin: The Butcher of Homs Part 1-11). So I thought it would be appropriate to give an update of what has happened or not happened since then. And here are some more updates.
I just went through the stats for my blog and as usual, I am blown away by the true international phenomenon this is. In the last 27 days I had visitors from 108 countries.
WOW!
And I don’t say this to be bragging. As I said before I am just blown away by what a true and awesome international phenomenon blogging is.
And that’s why the powers that be fear the “free” internet so much. And do everything possible to regulate and stop it through various direct and indirect means.
Visitors to my blog
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Thomas Jefferson
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.“
Benjamin Franklin
“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The summer is finally here after, again, being a cold winter and “spring”. Isn’t it “lovely” with this “accelerated warming” that sorry to say is not going on?
I want to wish every one of you a warm, in the name of Global Warming Hysteria, and nice summer. It will also mean that I will write less and more sporadic posts.
But you have 1163 posts and 2539 comments to go through at your leisure.
This is what I wrote over four years ago:
”I’m hopeful, the wind has turned and the Global Warming Hysterics are on the defensive. It is particularly noticeable inEuropewhere people have finally realized the insanity of these gigantic sums of money that will be squandered on nonsense action. And that will ruin the common people and national economies.
Please note that they are still talking as if nothing has happened but behind the scenes there has been a 180 degree change of course in many countries. Because no one will officially acknowledge this overall shift, instead they will continue to tell you that they have ”adapted” the policies to the prevailing circumstances, etc. Or other euphemisms.
It is only our “intelligent” Swedish politicians, plus the media, who have not understood it yet. And they are still relentlessly pushing this agenda and harping on us to take the lead and be a world leader in terms of restrictions on CO2.
It’s just that if you take the lead, you must have some following, too. And the last two months the crowd behind them has thinned considerably. And it becomes thinner by the day.
The biggest scientific and political scandal in modern times is on track to be exposed and derailed. And I would like to thank you other bloggers who have participated tirelessly in this fight for science and truth. We actually make a difference, even if it does not seem to go so fast sometimes. ”
And you can only note that this trend has continued and accelerated, and that it is now very obvious to the average person how little of truth and science the Global Warming Hysteria have
It is now only our “intelligent” politicians and mass media that still pretends that nothing has happened, and repeat their learned mantras like a drunken parrot. You know that Monte Phyton sketch. Because they have so much vested interest in this scam.
And by the way, it’s the same “intelligent” political elites that are responsible for the current crisis in the EU and the U.S.
Nice work wouldn’t you say! Especially sine the common people have to pay twice for this folly.
Thank you for that double whammy courtesy of “our” elected “representatives”.
We have come to the end of this follow up after my first series about what is going on in Syria. I could easily write 250 pages of observations but I am going to spare you that. Instead, I am just going to write about three things: the perception of the opposition in Syria, the Shabiha and the armed opposition.
First the perception of the opposition in Syria.
It has always amassed me that the “do nothing crowd”, (i.e. The Obama administration, NATO, EU, Turkey, Arab league etc), are actually the same ones that are ACTIVELYpromoting and supporting the muslim fundamentalist i.e. SNC/The Muslim Brotherhood.
One of the excuses from the west (Obama administration, NATO, EU) has always been that they don’t want to give support to extreme/fundamentalist muslims. Which is quite “funny” if it weren’t so hypocritical because that is what you EXACTLY did in Libya. You armed, trained and fought with al-Qaida and other fundamentalist groups.
So the brutal fact, which so many don’t want to admit, is that most of the opposition are normal people how just want do defend themselves from the attacks of the Assad regime. And they also want a change for the better regarding basic freedoms and liberties.
I would say that these are very reasonable demands wouldn’t you say?
So instead of supporting this secular, civil opposition the Obama administration, NATO and EU is ACTIVELY supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which literally hates these countries and what their societies stands for.
And if the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, with the help of the money and support of the west, their policy would be ANTI USA, ANTI EU, ANTI NATO and of course destroy Israel.
Seems like a VERY smart policy wouldn’t you say?
And our tax money goes to this madness!
And in the meantime the civilian population in Syria, including the secular, civil opposition, is getting slaughtered and massacred.
The big difference as I wrote in my original series is that after over 45 years of brutal dictatorship the FEAR IS GONE. If you don’t understand that you don’t understand very much of what is going on now.
Here is one of the very, very few opinion polls of what the opposition really thinks:
“There are increasing calls for international intervention inSyriaafter this weekend’s massacre in Houla, where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces murdered more than 100 civilians. Obstacles to intervention remain, however, especially concern that the opposition to Assad’s regime is dominated by religious fundamentalists. Until recently, for example, the Syrian National Council, a group of exiled opponents of the regime, was led by Burhan Ghalioun, whose unwillingness to counter the Muslim Brotherhood was widely viewed in the West as a troubling sign of Islamist influence.
But a confidential survey of opposition activists living inSyriareveals that Islamists are only a minority among them. Domestic opponents of Assad, the survey indicates, look toTurkeyas a model for Syrian governance — and even widely admire theUnited States.
Pechter Polls, which conducts opinion surveys in tough spots in theMiddle East,AfricaandAsia, completed the Syria opposition poll in December 2011. Respondents were contacted over a secure Skype connection by someone they could trust — all native Syrians — who asked them to fill out a short questionnaire anonymously in Arabic. Interviewers were selected from different social and political groups to ensure that respondents reflected a rough cross-section of overall opposition attitudes. To ensure confidentiality, the online survey could be accessed only through a series of proxy servers, bypassing the regime-controlled Internet.
Given the survey’s unusual security requirements, respondents were selected by a referral (or ”controlled snowball”) technique, rather than in a purely random fashion. To be as representative as possible, the survey employed five different starting points for independent referral chains, all operating from different locations. The resulting sample consisted of 186 individuals inSyriaidentified as either opposition activists themselves (two-thirds of the total) or in contact with the opposition.
What do these ”inside” opposition supporters believe? Only about one-third expressed a favorable opinion of the Muslim Brotherhood. Almost half voiced a negative view, and the remainder were neutral.On this question, no significant differences emerged across regions.
Most of the survey’s questions asked, ”On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means the most negative and 7 the most positive, how would you rate your opinion of X?” Answers of 1 to 3 were considered negative, 4 as neutral, and 5 to 7 as positive.
While many respondents supported religious values in public life, only a small fraction strongly favored Shariah law, clerical influence in government, or heavy emphasis on Islamic education. A large majority (73%) said it was ”important for the new Syrian government to protect the rights of Christians.” Only 20% said that religious leaders have a great influence on their political views.
This broad rejection of Islamic fundamentalism was also reflected in the respondents’ views on government. The poll asked each respondent what country he or she would ”like to see Syria emulate politically,” and which countries the respondent ”would like to see Syria emulate economically.” The poll listed 12 countries, each with a scale of 1 to 7. Just 5% had even a mildly positive view of Saudi Arabia as a political model. In contrast,82% gave Turkey a favorable rating as both a political and economic model (including over 40% extremely favorable). The U.S. earned 69% favorable ratings as a political model, with France, Germany and Britain close behind. Tunisia rated only 37% and Egypt 22%.
Iran was rated lowest of any country included in the survey, including Russia and China: Not even 2% of respondents had positive views of Iran as a political model. Fully 90% expressed an unfavorable view of Hezbollah, including 78% with the most negative possible attitude.
One of the surprises in the results is the scope of the opposition’s network inside Damascus, despite their difficulties in demonstrating publicly. One-third of the respondents, whether activists or sympathizers, said they live in the Syrian capital. (To protect their privacy, the survey did not ask for more precise identification.)
This ”inside” opposition is well-educated, with just over half identifying as college graduates. The ratio of male to female respondents was approximately 3 to 1, and 86% were Sunni Arab.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were ambivalent about Syrian Kurdish demands for ”political decentralization” (like autonomy). Views of ”Kurdish parties” were evenly divided among negative, neutral and positive. (Such feelings are evidently mutual: In the six months since the survey was completed, Syrian Kurdish organizations have increasingly decided to go their own way, separate from the other opposition groups.)
Based on a statistical analysis of the survey, most secularists among the respondents prefer weak central government, presumably as a way to safeguard their personal freedoms. On the other hand, the one-third of respondents who support the Muslim Brotherhood also tend to have a favorable view of Hamas, despite the latter movement’s previous association with the Assad regime.
The survey demonstrates that the core of the Syrian opposition inside the country is not made up of the Muslim Brotherhood or other fundamentalist forces, and certainly not of al Qaeda or other jihadi organizations. To be sure, a revolution started by secularists could pave the way for Islamists to win elections, as has occurred in Egypt. But the Syrian opposition is solidly favorable to the U.S. and overwhelmingly negative toward both Hezbollah and Iran.”
David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute and a consultant to Pechter Polls.
The Shabiha, the murderous thugs that do most of the massacres
Assad’s Pact With the Devil
Syrian Regime Using Hired Killers to Cling to Power
“The regime of Syrian ruler Bashar Assad has enlisted gangs of murderous thugs known as ‘Shabiha.’ No assignment is too brutal or bloody for these men who are free to kill, plunder and rape. Assad knows that outright victory over the opposition is his only remaining chance to stay in power.”
“Europe, the United States and perhaps even Kofi Annan are slowly realizing that there will be no compromise with Syrian President Bashar Assad, because there can be no compromise with Assad. Now that more than 10,000 people have died and tens of thousands have been tortured, the phase in which protesters were still staging peaceful demonstrations, and in which negotiations, transitional governments and compromises were possible is irrevocably over.
When the regime was still able to negotiate its own exit, it didn’t want to. Now it no longer has that option, because any sign of weakness would lead to its overthrow.
This realization hasn’t been triggered by the fact that the regime is massacring civilians to save itself. Similar bloodbaths have already taken place in the past. In April of last year, more than 60 people disappeared without a trace in Homs, after government troops had mowed down a group of peaceful protesters. In January, several families in a southeastern Homs neighborhood were massacred in a way that resembled the Houla killings. And when the Bab Amr neighborhood was captured by regime troops several weeks later, after having been almost destroyed by artillery fire, witnesses said that there were mass executions of those who hadn’t fled.
What was different this time was that on Saturday morning, only hours after the killing frenzy, a team of UN observers managed to reach Houla, where they saw and counted the bodies, heard what the survivors had to say and saw the tracks the tanks had made. ”The evidence is clear — it is not murky,” said German UN Ambassador Peter Wittig. ”There is a clear government footprint in those killings.” Whereas earlier massacres were only documented in reports by the Syrian opposition and video recordings that could not be corroborated, this was a different situation.
By failing, the UN mission appears finally to be having an impact. The roughly 300 unarmed observers cannot possibly monitor a nonexistent cease-fire, during which more than 2,000 people had been killed by the end of last week. The UN observers cannot prevent what is happening, but they can prevent it from being covered up. This isn’t much, and for angry Syrians who burned images of Annan, it’s far too little. ”We called the observers during the massacre,” a man from Houla who calls himself Abu Emad was quoted as saying, ”but they refused to come and stop the murders. Damn then, and damn the entire mission!”
“The men, some in civilian clothing and others dressed in army uniforms, went from house to house, reported survivors like 11-year-old Ali, who told CBS News: ”They came to our house at night. First they took out my father and then my oldest brother. My mother shouted: Why are you doing this? Then they shot both of them, and after that my mother. Then one of the men came in with a flashlight and saw my sister Rasha. He shot her in the head.” Ali hid with his two little brothers. The man saw them and shot the brothers, but he missed Ali.
Other survivors who hid or played dead consistently gave the same accounts: The men combed through house after house and room after room, killing everyone, some with knives and some with guns. The massacre continued until the morning hours. When the UN observers arrived, they found nothing but corpses in the villages controlled by regime forces. The survivors had fled to neighborhoods held by the FSA, where they placed the bodies they had recovered on mats in the mosques before filming and burying them.
The regime in Damascus could not deny that the massacre had taken place. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi, parroting the government’s standard position, promptly blamed the killings on ”armed terrorists” and ”Islamists.” The Russian government, which had blocked every Security Council resolution condemning Syria, launched into a bizarre attempt to apportion the blame. The regime was apparently responsible for the assault by tanks and mortars, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. But the brutish murders, said Alexey Puchkov, chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, ”were definitely committed by the other side.”
Igor Pankin, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, agreed: ”We cannot imagine that it is in the Syrian regime’s interest to sabotage Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s visit to Damascus.” And he is right in one respect. In PR terms, a massacre of children cannot be helpful to the Assad regime. But he was wrong in another sense, inadvertently putting his finger on Russia’s growing frustration with its ally: Syria‘s leadership is no longer taking decisions that would make sense for a government hoping to reach a political solution to the crisis.
By gradually concentrating power in the hands of the Alawite minority, to which the Assad clan belongs, the regime is fomenting a religious war against the Sunni majority, the very conflict it claims it wants to prevent. Now Assad has backed himself into a corner from which he believes there is only way out: victory. This is why the latest proposal from Berlin and Washington to attempt the ”Yemeni solution,” which would be to depose Assad but keep the regime in power, will not work. The regime is relying solely on violence, accompanied by an outrageous propaganda narrative that blames foreign terrorists and al-Qaida for the uprising.
This conspiratorial obsession is nothing new. Starting in 2003, the intelligence services began secretly organizing the transfer of jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait across the Syrian border into Iraq, to deter the Americans from seeking regime change in Damascus as well. At the same time, the regime painted itself as a bulwark in the fight against al-Qaida.Foreigners who were later arrested reported how they had been kept in Syrian intelligence camps in Homs while waiting to be transferred into Iraq.
The attacks on several Scandinavian embassies in Damascus after the Danish cartoon controversy in early 2006 were blamed on an Islamist mob, but as it turned out, the regime had planted Islamists in the crowd. As a precaution, it also removed the guards from in front of a general’s house next to the Norwegian Embassy. Although there was no evidence that the regime was behind the major bombing attacks in Damascus, Aleppo and Deir al-Zor in recent months, they had several strange elements in common:The bombers had immense quantities of explosives, which they easily managed to get through all government checkpoints, and they detonated most of their bombs in front of empty buildings. When the regime published its death tolls after the first attack on Dec. 23, they included the names of men who had already died elsewhere. During the ostentatious burial service at the Umayyad Mosque, signs attached to many of the coffins read ”anonymous martyr.” On May 9, just before a bomb exploded near the convoy of UN observer mission chief Robert Mood, the vehicles were detained at a military checkpoint just long enough so that they would be nearby at the time of detonation.
“Murderous ‘Ghosts’
What happened in Houla followed the pattern of earlier attacks like the one in Homs. First, the target is bombarded with tanks and artillery from a great distance. Then the regular troops move in and drive out or shoot the last remaining rebels. Finally, the regime sends in its helpers, the Shabiha (”ghosts”), over which it has less and less control.
What were once gangs of thugs and smugglers from the hills around Latakia, the home turf of the Assad clan, have turned into an army of irregular troops numbering in the thousands. The gangs are backed by the beneficiaries of the regime, those who profit the most from Syria‘s façade of a market economy, and who now have the most to lose. It’s a Faustian bargain. As long as they are loyal to Assad, they are permitted to murder, loot and rape, as was the case in Houla, where the Shabiha came from neighboring villages to the south.
The Shabiha were also active in the capital Damascusin August 2011. Every evening during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, dozens of them stood in front of mosques in Sunni neighborhoods, prepared to bludgeon and drag off anyone who said anything derogatory about the regime after emerging from prayers. At about 8 p.m., swarms of Shabiha thugs emerged from the intelligence service quarters, were loaded into requisitioned buses and driven to their deployment locations, where they lay in wait until the faithful dispersed after leaving the mosques.
The Shabiha are criminals and day laborers, mostly Alawites, but also Kurds with the PKK terrorist group, members of Sunni clans from Aleppo loyal to the regime, and some Christians. The Shabiha are the shadow force of a regime that no longer trusts its own army, but instead has created a monster that is taking on a life of its own, undermining the Syrian government long before it suffers a military defeat.
Months ago, the author and dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh, who is in hiding in Damascus, wrote: ”The current heads of the security services may very well reform themselves into a mafia-type organization after the collapse of the regime and continue to practice the violence, theft and discrimination at which they are so adept.”Syria could eventually be controlled by marauding gangs, driven by greed and the fear of reprisal, which becomes more justified with each new wave of killings.”
The Shabiha: Inside Assad’s death squads
The Shabiha started off as racketeers and smugglers. But now, as ultra-loyal enforcers ofSyria’s brutal regime, they have taken on a far more bloodthirsty role, write Harriet Alexander and Ruth Sherlock.
“The door to Dr Mousab Azzawi’s clinic, on the Mediterranean coast ofSyria, was always open to anyone who needed help. But, operating in the heartland of the feared Shabiha militia, there were some patients the doctor would have preferred not to treat.
”They were like monsters,” said Dr Azzawi, who worked in Latakia. ”They had huge muscles, big bellies, big beards. They were all very tall and frightening, and took steroids to pump up their bodies.
”I had to talk to them like children, because the Shabiha likes people with low intelligence. But that is what makes them so terrifying – the combination of brute strength and blind allegiance to the regime.”
As President Bashar al-Assad’s country continues its savage slide towards full-blown civil war, the violent, dark and secretive world of the Shabiha is coming out into the open.
Nine days ago, 108 people were butchered by the Shabiha in the town of Houla.The pro-Assad thugs went through the village, house to house, and slit the throats of anyone they came across – including 49 children. Exactly a week later, the Shabiha pulled 12 factory workers off a bus in the town of Qusayr, 40 miles to the south; tied their hands behind their backs, and shot them in the head. “
“The world is learning just how bloodthirsty the Shabiha can be. But insideSyria, their capacity for hideous brutality has long been known.
”Even before the revolution, any time there was unrest they would go out into the streets and stop it for the government,” said Selma, who comes from a prominent Alawite family – a Shia Muslim sect, into which the Assad family was born, and to which almost all of the Shabiha belong. Her cousins are Shabiha.
”They would just break people’s arms and legs. They would fight for Bashar to the death. It is natural – they have to defend their sect.”
Her cousins wore civilian clothes, she explained – ”then the television can say that these are just civilians who love Bashar.”
“President Assad, and his father Hafez before him, used the Shabiha to terrorise Syrians into obedience, brainwashing the militia into believing the Sunni majority was their enemy. “
“After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria’s French rulers needed soldiers willing to defend the regime from a Sunni uprising, so they incorporated large numbers of Alawites into the army, who were only too happy to fight their Sunni ”oppressors”.
They became the most politically powerful sect in Syria, and the vast majority of the country’s top intelligence and military officers adhere to the faith. It was from the army that Hafez al-Assad emerged to stage his coup.
Initially the Shabiha were a mafia clan, making money through racketeering. Selma, the Alawite with Shabiha family, said her cousins were ”filthy rich” through smuggling in diesel, milk and electronics. ”Anything toLebanon that is cheaper inSyria, and whatever is needed inSyria fromLebanon,” she said.
The ruling Assad family turned a blind eye to their criminal behaviour and violent methods.In return, the Shabiha became the Assads’ fiercely loyal defenders and enforcers.
”They are fuelled by this belief that they are fighting for their survival,” said Dr Azzawi. ”Assad tells them that they must defend the government or else they will be destroyed; it’s kill, or be killed.”
“An enormous man, identified on the video as Areen al-Assad – a member of the president’s family clan – posed with his gun, grinned from the steering wheel of his car, and flexed his muscles. His huge bicep bulged with a tattoo of the president’s face.
At the end of the video, the posturing Shabiha militants proclaim: ”Bashar, do not be sad: you have men who drink blood.”
”It is their motto,” explained Dr Azzawi, who said that many of the men were recruited from bodybuilding clubsand encouraged to take steroids. ”They are treated like animals, and manipulated by their bosses to carry out these murders. They are unstoppable.”
“The militia operated with blind devotion to the leaders, referred to as ”muallim”, meaning boss, or ”khaal”, uncle. And indeed, it was in many ways a family business.
Mr Assad’s cousin Numir has taken over as one of the key rulers of the Shabiha – even though the government is careful to avoid direct association with the militia and their murderous acts.
How the men are paid is unclear, although many claim the Shabiha is funded by businessmen tied into the Alawite clique that dominates the government.
What is known is that the Shabiha have a strong economic motives for backing the regime. Foot soldiers can earn up to £120 for a day’s thuggery – a fortune in Syria.”
“”If they know the whole area is against the regimethey have no problem killing everybody,” she said. ”That is how it works.”
The armed opposition
It has been fascinating to watch the development during the last 15 months of the opposition’s developing from the first few demonstrations. How the demonstrations started spreading and got bigger and bigger.
To the first sporadic attempts from civilians to defend themselves and their families, villages, neighbourhoods etc. against the attacks by the Assad regime. Via the first appearance of the defectors from the Assad army. Until today where you have a lot of groups going from hit-and-run attacks to learning how to coordinate and organize more sophisticated attacks against stronger targets.
They are learning, and they are learning fast because they have to.
In addition, they have increased the pressure on the regime many times over, increasing attrition and increasing defections etc
Still the armed opposition desperately lacks weapons and ammunition, especially to defend against Assad’s tanks and helicopter gunships.
The rebels are also gaining confidence. “Every day we control more territory, every day we have more defections, and we are having better organization in our ranks,” said Maj. Sami al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the Homs Military Council, one of the new military structures that are being established around the country. “The regime now controls only the territory under its tanks, and the evidence is that they don’t dare step out of their tanks.”
And as I said, they are growing in effectiveness and strength.
After driving rebels from strongholds in the Baba Amr district of Homs and several Idlib towns in March, the government has since been unable to press home the advantage. Repeated efforts to dislodge the FSA from the provincial Homs towns of Rastan and Qusair have failed, and a major offensive launched last week against a rebel stronghold in the town of Haffa, northeast of Latakia, faltered despite intense shelling and the deployment of combat helicopters.
The Assad regime can go in and suppress an area with heavy weapons, but as soon as they leave it, it losses the control.
The result is that many parts of northern and central Syria have effectively fallen under the sway of the opposition,
Which also makes it really hard for the regime to move around, and for them to get out of their checkpoints that they are barricaded in. The Assad forces are in many cases pinned down.
Remember that I two months ago talked about how the Syrian army de facto had defected “in place”? Well, now the defections have started to increase and continues at a steady rate. And regular troops are weary after nearly 15 months of continuous deployment since no new conscripts have been called in.
One example – Of 400 soldiers originally stationed in the provincial capital of Idlib, just around 60 remained last week defending their base near the centre of the city, which has seen significant fighting. In the small city of Maraa, near Aleppo, 15 soldiers defected within the space of a week — as many as in the entire previous year.
The rebels also are starting to inflict heavy casualties on government troop’s security forces. It is likely to hit a record level in June for the second month in a row. As of Monday, June 11, the state news agency has announced the funerals of 259 soldiers and police officers who were killed in combat with rebels this month, a record 57 of them Saturday June 10 alone. Well ahead of May’s pace, when 404 such burials took place
Just during the period of June 10 to June 13, here are some of the main events:
– FSA Attacked the Taftanaz military airport.
– In Deir Ezzor several BMP:s and tanks where destroyed there alone. In Baba Amr, where the massacre occurred, well the FSA is back and on June 12 they destroyed two BMP:s.
– And on the same day three tanks where destroyed in Haritan,Aleppo
– The FSA captured the Deir Ezzor checkpoint operated by Army and shabiha. They captured lots of weaponry and ammunition after the attack
– FSA attacked a big regime convoy outside Latakia in operation ‘Cutting the snake’.
– Capture by FSA of shabiha and army in one of their strongpoints in Al Qusayr on June 10.
– Syrian rebels on June 11 briefly seized control of the strategic army base al-Ghanto (surface-to-air missiles are stationed there), close to the central town of Rastan before the army rained down artillery and forced them out of the station. They seized a lot of weapons and ammunition.
– On June 3, rebels attacked a Syrian Air Force As Suwayda air base east of the southern town of Deraa opposite the Israeli Golan border – their first such attack in the 14-month uprising, Several rebel groups firing mortars set fire to fighter aircraft and assault helicopters in their hangars and ripped up runways.
Does this sounds like some “ragtag” wild bands on the lose?
Inside Syria: You will never guess who arms the rebels
In any revolution, getting weapons is a key challenge. Syria’s rebels have found an interesting solution.
“JABAL AL-ZAWIYA, Syria— At the Free Syrian Army base here, a group of men led a nervous prisoner from his cell to a car waiting outside. A few hours later, the rebels returned alone, with a trunkload of weapons.
As they loaded the store room with new bullets and rocket-propelled grenades, Hamza Fatahallah, an army defector who joined the Free Syrian Army nine months ago, described the transaction that had taken place.
“We have caught many army prisoners,” he said. “We send them back home for a small amount of money on the condition they do not return to the regime. We use the money to buy weapons.”
For the release of this prisoner, Ahmed Haseeba, the group received $500. With this money, Fatahallah said they were able to buy ammunition from their main supplier: Syria’s national army, also known as the enemy.
This strange cycle of exchanging prisoners for weapons has been playing out between rebel forces and President Bashar al-Assad’s army since the beginning of the revolution.
Fatahallah estimated that his village purchased 40 percent of their weapons from the regime. Prisoner exchanges have so far contributed almost $80,000 toward weapons purchases, he said. And they obtain an additional 50 percent of their weapons during battle. The remaining 10 percent are donated and smuggled from outside the country, or are purchased from private merchants, mostly from Iraq.
Occasionally, prisoners are also exchanged directly for weapons, Fatahallah said. They have received up to two Kalashnikov rifles in exchange for a prisoner in the past.
For the regime, or at least the duplicitous members of it, supplying the enemy is a big business. Government officers also sell Kalashnikov bullets, which typically sold for less than 40 cents before the uprising, for about $4 each, according to Ahmed Al Sheikh, the leader of the armed opposition in Jabal al-Zawiya. He leads about 6,000 men from eight battalions that are collectively known as the Sham Falcons.
Kalashnikovs are bought for about $1,000, he said. Rocket-propelled grenade launchers, complete with a set of four rockets, cost up to $4,000, as does a BKT machine gun.
“These officers sell to us not because they love the revolution but because they love money,” Al Sheikh said of his chain of suppliers. “Their loyalty is to their pockets only, not the regime.”
While most of the sellers are corrupt officers, they said lower ranking soldiers have occasionally stolen supplies from government weapons storage and sold them to the rebel forces.
The relationship is not always a smooth one.
Back at the base, the men were relaxing after lunch when a loud explosion shocked everyone to their feet. As they feared, the previous night’s purchase of Kalashnikov bullets had been booby-trapped. This time their colleagues were lucky enough to survive the discovery.
The men had learned from prior experience — bullets acquired from the regime are sometimes emptied of their gunpowder and filled with TNT designed to destroy the Kalashnikov and its owner, rather than the enemy.
After several injuries and the loss of two rifles, the men had learned to spot the fakes. To everyone’s relief this had been a controlled explosion, by someone suspicious of the new batch. The damage inflicted was only a blackened hand, some singed hair and a hole in the table.
“These ones here are good bullets,” said battalion leader Asad Ibrahim, showing the red marking on the base of one of the bullets. Holding up another with a slightly darker red off-center mark he said, “These are Bashar’s bullets to explode our guns.”
The men said bullets like these have destroyed many guns and killed or seriously injured several of their fellow fighters. But desperate for ammunition, they take the risk.
Commander Al Sheikh said that half of the Sham Falcon arsenal are seized from the enemy. Most are taken either during battle, or after attacks on government checkpoints.And the rebels carry out organized raids on government weapon stores whenever they can.
During an attack on a checkpoint in Mughara last week, Al Sheikh proudly boasted that his men had managed a rare grab: a T62 tank along with anti-aircraft weapons.
Another source of arms is from the army defectors themselves, who bring their own weapons along when they join the rebel forces.
Sitting at the base, the men laughed as they recalled the story of two friends, both defectors, who told their superior they needed one of the gun-mounted vehicles and some heavy weapons to check on a call regarding rebel activity. Loading the truck with as much ammunition and weapons as they could find, they drove straight toward the rebels, checking in by radio with their boss with stories of hunting down “rebel traitors” hours after they had already betrayed sides.
While the Free Syrian Army has been adept at obtaining weapons, it has also proven skillful in manufacturing their own.
In a secret warehouse across town from the base, fertilizer and sugar were being boiled in a large pot. Everything from teapots to large metal pipes were being filled to make roadside bombs for attacks on tanks and army vehicles. 23mm bullet casings were filled with explosives with a small wick on top, looking more like an ACME special from a Loony Tunes cartoon than a deadly hand grenade.
”We are using very simple weapons against the highly sophisticated weapons of the regime — tanks, rockets, missiles. What a government! What a regime. Doing nothing but killing their people,” Fatahallah said during a tour of the busy workshop.
The men from the battalion spoke constantly of the need, not for military intervention from abroad, but for international help in obtaining more weapons. But with or without this support, they vowed to continue the fight until Assad is removed.
“The Quran says to prepare whatever weapons you can to fight your enemy,” said Al Sheikh, the commander, as his local leaders discussed preparations for their next mission.
“Even if no weapons are available and all we have left to use are stones, we will go on with our revolution until Assad falls.”
Syrian rebels in Turkey doubtful over new Arab arms supplies
“ANTAKYA, Turkey(Reuters) – Syrian rebels resting and recovering from wounds in Turkeysay that far from receiving a host of heavy weapons to take the fight to government forces, they feel forgotten by their Western and Arab backers.
Some rebels and opposition figures inside and outside Syria say there has been an upsurge in recent weeks of heavier weaponry being smuggled into Syria via Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq from suppliers inSaudi Arabia and Qatar.
The weapons, which according to the rebels are being supplied by private sponsors, include thousands of shells, hundreds of sniper rifles, as well as anti-armor missiles.
But in the verdant hills, wooded mountainsides and languid refugee camps of Turkey’s southern Hatay province, Free Syrian Army rebels returning from the fight to rest and tend their wounds, said they had seen no sign of any new weapons.
One rebel said less than half the fighters in his unit even had a gun. What weapons they did have, the rebels said, came from inside Syria.
”This is an absolute lie. We have not seen anything. If they are coming through Lebanon, maybe, but if they were, we would see these weapons. We don’t see them, where are they?” said one rebel who gave his name only as Ahmad.
”Every household has had one person killed or wounded. If we had weapons we could defend ourselves,” said Ahmad, clean-shaven and dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, not fitting the typical image of a rebel fighter.”
“After the tanks push their way through the town and surrounding villages, Ahmad said, Assad’s soldiers, move from house to house rounding up young men and looting their homes. What they leave behind, they destroy, he said.
From a hospital ward in Hatay’s main cityAntakya, Ahmad becomes frustrated when speaking about weapons. He motions his hands emphatically to drive home his point.
”By God, we don’t trust anyone. We don’t believe anyone anymore. The world has forgotten us,” he said.
Like most of the Syrians inTurkey, Ahmad would only give one name for fear of reprisals against his relatives at home.
As Ahmad spoke, the newest wounded arrival, 31-year-old Lutfi, was wheeled into the emergency department below. Lutfi, a Free Army fighter was shot in the leg during a clash with government troops in Jabal al-Krad near the western city of Latakia.
Lutfi said he and some 150 rebel fighters ambushed around 200-250 of Assad’s men who were on their way to occupy one of the surrounding villages. Two rebels were killed in the clash and another four were wounded.
The right leg of his camouflage military trousers has been ripped off, revealing a bandage covering his bullet wound. Lutfi laughed when asked whether new weapons had reached his men.
”There are no new weapons. All we can do is attack and retreat. They are nothing against their weapons,” he said.
ONLY 40 PERCENT HAVE WEAPONS
Some 45 km (30 miles) south of Antakya only minutes from the Syrian border, Nasim, another rebel stands outside the Yayladagi refugee camp – tents erected inside an old, derelict tobacco factory that now serves as his temporary home.
Like at the others camps scattered around Hatay and further to the east, here fighters come to recoup with comrades or family members. Syrians are free to enter and leave the camp but access to the media is restricted.
Nasim says he regularly crosses back into Syriato smuggle food and blankets to fighters stationed inside but said he had not seen any new weapons cross from Turkey into Syria and that all the weapons he had seen had been acquired in the country.
”Three months ago I heard that Arab countries were going to send us money or weapons but I have not seen anything. Not one country has sent us money or weapons,” said Nasim, a short, stocky, scruffily dressed man in his 30s with a full black beard.
”The only weapons we get are by pooling our money together and buying them in Syria, or someone who supports us will come and give us their hunting rifle or something. Sometimes soldiers from the army sell us weapons,” he said.
Only around 40 percent of his unit even had a weapon, Nasim said, ”and these are light weapons. Assad is hitting us with tanks.”
Some 40 rebels and activists who spoke to Reuters this week all said that apart from a small number of light weapons which had been bought on the black market, they had not seen any weapons smuggled to Syria through Turkey.
While Turkey has thrown its support behind Assad’s opposition, has called for the Syrian leader to step down and given sanctuary to senior defected Syrian army officers, it has opposed any outside military intervention in its neighbor.
Turkish officials sayAnkara is not arming the rebels and have denied reports that weapons from other countries are being smuggled over Turkish territory.
Corroborating accounts of what is happening inside Syria is difficult because the government tightly restricts foreign media access. Most rebels also cross into Syria during darkness and Turkish security forces do not allow media near informal border crossings.
But for the rebels it does not matter where the weapons originate or how they get there, as long as they come.
”Wherever they come from it does not matter. We want weapons. We want to be able to defend our women and our families. We don’t want money, just weapons,” said Omar, another rebel smuggler at Yayladagi.”
“Yet the cynical joke about the soldiers at the checkpoint reflects a reality that grows closer with each day, one which is welcomed by many Syrians: The regime is finding its soldiers slipping out of its grasp. One noncommissioned officer from the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib, just hours after defecting to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), relates breathlessly how he made his escape: ”The officer was sitting there, and when he was alone with me and a friend of mine, he demanded, ‘What are you still doing here? Go on and get out of here!’ The officer will issue the order to shoot them, the defector says, and he’ll call their families and threaten them, but all that is nothing but show. It’s over, he says, and it was time for them to disappear.
Shooting from a Distance
Of 400 soldiers originally stationed in the provincial capital of Idlib, just a couple dozen remained last week defending their base near the center of the city, which has seen significant fighting. In the small city of Maraa, near Aleppo, 15 soldiers defected within the space of a week — as many as in the entire previous year.
In Azaz, where Assad’s troops still control a checkpoint at the edge of the city, a heavily fortified city quarter and the minarets of the largest mosque, two soldiers defected a few days ago under the cover of a fake attack. They reported they had received hardly any supplies in weeks, and that they were living on dried out bread and brackish water. One earlier defector had taken with him the numbers of everyone in his unit who owned a cell phone. The FSA then contacted each of them, offering to help them escape. Many of the soldiers found it an attractive offer.
This is just one small insight into the situation in northern Syria, but deserters from other parts of the country who have managed to make their way back to their native villages near Aleppo tell of similar conditions in their own units. Reports of the types of attacks carried out by Assad’s troops also suggest the situation in the south, in the area around Damascus, in Deir al-Zor in the east and in Homs in the west is much the same as it is in the north: In many cases, the army no longer deploys its troops, but instead shoots from great distances using tanks and heavy artillery, or from helicopters, strategies which decrease the risk to the army.
One defector from Homs, a city that has also been the site of heavy fighting, describes a cycle of accelerating collapse. ”If I’d left sooner, state security would have arrested my family and burned down my house,” he says. ”But they’re not going to come now, certainly not just because of me.”
Diminishing Fear
With each bit of the country that slips from the regime’s control, the soldiers’ fear diminishes. That in turn increases the number of defectors, more and more of whom join the FSA. One officer, who defected to the FSA and has a precise mind for figures, estimates the group has around 40,000 former army soldiers in its ranks, although the proportion of soldiers and civilians varies among regions.
Outwardly, power dynamics in Syria have changed little in the past 15 months. The rebellion has gripped the cities, but unlike in Libya, here there is no still no large, contiguous region for the rebels to defend. But the appearance of stability is deceptive. While it’s true that soldiers are no longer allowed to travel by intercity bus without a permit, and that many of those who escape still risk being shot by the omnipresent intelligence service, the fact remains that the regime is no longer able to stay the gradual erosion of its army.
The impression of power and control emanating from the centers of Damascus, Aleppo and other major cities may also be deceptive. The Western half of Syria is a land of villages and small cities, which have joined together with the insurgency in the most densely populated provinces. The area around Aleppo, Idlib, Homs, Hama and Daraa together forms a zone in which the government’s troops may attack anywhere, at any time, yet are no longer able to control the area permanently. And in many places, the people living here have switched sides. Sunni Muslims have certainly done so, but so have most Druzes and Ismailis. And though Kurdish villages in the northwest, such as Basuta and Ain Dara, have started flying the Kurdish flag in recent weeks, rather than the revolutionary flag with its three stars, there’s no one left here who still defends the regime.
Around 50 soldiers are stationed on Sheikh Barakat Mountain near the Churchof St. Simeon, northern Syria’s famous late antiquity ruin, but for the past two months they’ve received supplies only by air, because convoys are no longer able to pass through the surrounding area, which is completely under the FSA’s control
‘We Don’t Get Orders’
The FSA itself is a peculiar entity. It’s clear that it’s effectively organized at the village level and in small cities, each group loosely connected with other districts and provinces, but without a set hierarchy or command structure. ”We have a good relationship with the FSA’s commander in exile in Turkey,” says one local commander, ”but we don’t get orders. We’re in charge of ourselves.”
This set-up isn’t enough to allow coordinated attacks on the regime’s centers of power, but it appears to be good enough to control the rest of the country. What’s sustaining the regime is its monopoly on heavy weaponry, as well as its tough core of 100,000 to 200,000 officers, secret police, elite soldiers and militia members, most of whom are Alawis and fear that the regime’s fall would spell their own end as well. These troops have their stronghold in the Ansariyah Mountains in the west of the country and control parts of the larger cities as well, but they no longer hold all the land between.
Everyone — the rebels, the hundreds of thousands of undecided currently fleeing through the country to wherever they feel they will be somewhat safer, even those who support the regime — are all dreading the ”next step,” in the words of Abu Ali al-Dirri, an officer who changed sides six months ago. The next step is the air force.
‘They’re Going to Bomb the Country’
Syria has made massive improvements to its air force in the past year, but so far, aside from the helicopters, hardly put it into action. ”But before the Assads go down, they’re going to bomb the country,” Dirri believes. For years, he says, the regime has made a point of ensuring the loyalty of the air force, the branch of the military where President Bashar Assad’s father Hafez began his career. ”They’ve increased the proportion of Alawi cadets at the military academy in Aleppo constantly, especially in the air force,” he says. ”They knew things would turn against them at some point.”
At most, Dirri says, the regime would face the problem that many older pilots have been discharged in recent years, while many newer pilots have only barely completed the number of flying hours necessary in order to fly a fighter jet. Dirri himself, as a Sunni, hasn’t even been allowed to carry a gun since the revolution began.
For years, the officer says, ”Russia didn’t want to supply replacement parts any more, because we never paid, but now Russia is providing enormous amounts of assistance, even sending over personnel.”He adds that more than 1,000 Russian engineers were present in the country this January. Many of them were officially there as agricultural consultants, ”but their work doesn’t have much to do with agriculture.” Iran has sent arms and ammunition, he adds, but not much in the way of personnel, while China has a group of air force specialists stationed at Aleppo‘s military airports.
Around half of the air force’s 360 fighter jets are fully operational, Dirri says. It’s roughly the same proportion with its 120 helicopters. Its French ”Gazelle” helicopters, equipped with armor-piercing weapons, are in the best condition, ”but not a single one of them has ever taken off — they’re all stationed at the presidential palace airport.”
Where Will the West Draw a Line?
As long as the West continues to declare every few days that it has no intention of carrying out a military intervention, says Colonel Dirri, the regime in Syria will continue to use everything at its disposal. ”Its strength rests in the fact that the whole world is saying, ‘We’re not going to get involved,'” he says. ”If this Rasmussen” — a reference to NATO’s secretary general — ”would just shut his mouth for once, that alone would do Syria a great service!”
At the very latest, after the massacres in Houla two weeks ago and in Mazraat al-Qubair last Wednesday, none of the rebels in northern Syrian still believe the UN’s peace plan will be successful. Instead, their greatest hope is little more than a rumor: that at some point the US must surely draw a line, and perhaps Russia too. What will it take to reach that line? The deployment of Syria‘s air force to carpet-bomb the country? Or perhaps the regime resorting to its arsenal of chemical weapons?
One thing is clear: With or without a vote from the UN Security Council, the rebels want an intervention.”
The T-HOMS 75
Finally the T-HOMS 75. It is a Toyota pickup fitted with steel plates to protect teams of three rebel fighters each behind the rockets and machine guns. Under the motto, “you take what you have”
This is what NATO and Anders Fogh Rasmussenprobably would call“a serious proliferation of weapons in the region”.
And this piece from Haaretz on the left and very critical of Israeli policies. Regarding the deafening silence from nearly ALL Israeli Arab artists in Israel and Jewish radicals, the peace movement etc.
A deafening silence
Tolerance in the face of Assad’s bloody murderousness is liable to have the same effect on Arab-Jewish radicalism in Israel.
“Remember Deir Yassin? The number of innocent people murdered in Syriaover the past year is 100 times greater than the number of innocent people who were murdered in this Arab village at the edge of Jerusalem in 1948.
Remember the Qibya incident? The number of innocent people killed in Syriaover the past year is 250 times the number of innocent people killed in this pastoral village in Jordan in 1953.
Remember Sabra and Shatila? The number of innocent people butchered during the past year in Syria is 20 times the number of innocent people who were butchered in those Palestinian refugee camps in western Beirut in 1982.
Remember the bloody rioting in October 2000? The number of innocent people who were shot to death in Syria during the past year is 1,000 times the number of innocent people who were shot to death by the Israel Police in the Galilee and the Triangle area in central Israel.
Remember Operation Cast Lead? The number of innocent people who were felled in Syria during this past year is dozens of times the number of innocent people who fell in the Gaza Strip during that widely condemned Israeli military operation in the winter of 2008-09.
The picture is clear: During one year, the secular Arab nationalism of Bashar Assad has spilled more innocent blood than the Zionists have in decades. This Arab tyrant, who in the past was the darling of Arab Knesset members, is massacring his fellow Arabs in a way that Israel never did.
Arab cities are being bombed, Arab women are murdered, Arab children are slaughtered. An Arab society is being shredded, and an Arab state shattered into fragments.
Despite all this, the The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel is not demanding that the United Nations intervene to stop the bloodshed. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, is not petitioning the International Criminal Court in the Hague to put the war criminals on trial. Large Land Day type demonstrations have not been called. Protesters who take part in mass marches every October aren’t marching. Arab students who mark the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 aren’t coming out against the Syrian Nakba of 2012. Israel’s Arab minority and its anti-Zionist left are watching as thousands of Arab are massacred – and are standing idly by.
It’s crystal clear that the Syrian tragedy unfolding before our eyes has serious international ramifications. It is taking all meaning out concepts such as international community, international law and the idea of moral validity in international relations.
It’s crystal clear that the Syrian tragedy has serious pan-Arab ramifications. It is taking all meaning out of concepts such as Arab unity, Arab solidarity and the idea that the contemporary Arab world accords any real meaning to human rights.
But the Syrian tragedy has serious ramifications for Israel’s anti-Zionist community as well. The inability of this community to directly confront Arab evil undermines the moral basis for its battle against Israeli evil.
Its unwillingness to demand that universal values be upheld in Hama and in Homs pulls the rug out from under its demands that universal values be upheld in Ramallah and Nazareth. Its silence when faced with the butcher of Damascus makes its condemnations of the State of Israel sound hollow.
The Syrian challenge is a moral challenge. There are some Israeli Arabs who are passing this test honorably. For example, Azmi Bishara, the former MK who fled Israel after being questioned on suspicion of aiding the enemy, who in the past was close to Assad, is today waging a brave and intensive campaign against him on Al Jazeera tv. Unfortunately, few of Bishara’s colleagues in Israel are following suit.
Israeli Arab artists in Israel and Jewish radicals in Israel are silent about what’s going on just over the border. This troublesome silence makes one wonder if their declared humanitarianism is authentic. When they spoke up – against Israel – about human dignity and freedom, perhaps they were simply fooling us?
Communism in the West was destroyed in the 1950s because it tolerated Stalin’s bloody dictatorship. Tolerance in the face of Assad’s bloody murderousness is liable to have the same effect on Arab-Jewish radicalism in Israel.
See Part 1 – Introduction in my original series for more info
Refusing to arm or help the opposition will not end the conflict or limit it; it will drag on as all the examples of like Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia (Srebrenica anyone?) etc. shows. Leading to more massacres and atrocities.
And by waiting the situation gets worse and much more complex, then “they” used its complexity as an excuse not to intervene while decrying the lost opportunity for intervention. And ALL this time the killing and atrocities committed by Assad’s regime just continues as nothing has happened.
On the contrary, the Assad regime has increased it’s attacks since Bashar al-Assad agreed to implement the “new” peace plan.
The international community’s response has been ludicrous. Syrians on the ground have felt forgotten and betrayed. A system that is supposed to protect civilians from brutal force has failed on a monumental scale.
And to ALL these countries, USA, EU, NATO, Turkey etc. that are supposed to defend and protect freedom, liberty and human rights.
To ALL these global government organisations (UN),and local ones like the Arab League etc.
To ALL the statesmen and politicians that talk so loudly about “responsibility to protect” (Samantha Power anyone?), freedom, liberty and human rights.
I say only one thing: You should be REALLY BE PROUD of yourselves and the children of Syria will remember you. Each one of you.
Third, the countries and organizations that makes this possible (continuation):
USA and the Obama Administration
You can say much about the Obama administrations Middle East policies. But the easiest is to state the obvious – it is an utter and total failure. In fact, it is even worse than that.
Because what Obama has managed to do is to totally destroy US reputation and standing in the region. He has single-handed managed to alienate ALL the traditional allies in the region like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.
The Saudis was so upset after the way Obama throw Mubarak under the buss that they decided that they could NO longer trust this man. After that, they strengthen the Gulf Cooperation Council, intervened in Bahrain etc.
And how Obama have supported the Muslim Brotherhood and the fundamentalist take over after Mubarak and the military regime.
And the Israelis, the way the have been treated regarding the fundamental and existential treat from a nuclear Iran.
Make no mistake; this is a fundamental strategic break. That America will suffer the consequences for many years to come.
Add to that the total failure inIraq where you now have a US installed government that is closely allied to Iran. And is helping Iran support Assad in Syria.
You can add to that the disintegration of Afghanistan. Yemen, where the Obama administration forced out the sitting president Ali Abdullah Saleh and now al-Qaidi controls large parts of that country.
Etc.
Etc.
Remember also that Obama and Hillary Clinton switched the policy 180 degrees compared to the Bush time. Assad was “their” man because he was a ”reformer”. And there was a parade of American politicians going toDamascus to shake the “reformers” hand and praising Assad for his “reforms”.
Even several months into this uprising and the slaughter, Obama and Hillary Clinton still vehemently defend him as a reformer refusing to condemn what was going on.
And Turkey, under his close personal friend Erdogan, witch Obama has hold up as a role model for the rest of the Middle East.
A Turkey under Erdogan which have, on purpose, slowly but very determined Islamized Turkey. With hundreds of political prisoners like journalist, judges, layers, military, kurds etc. Who have spent years and years in prison without a trial.
And the latest example of how far this process have gone:
This Week, Turkey Went a Long Way Toward Becoming an Islamic Republic
“Hardly surprising; deeply upsetting; and geo-strategically catastrophic, it’s official. Turkey has now passed over toward being an Islamist state.That turning point is marked by a tiny event of gigantic importance. Fazil Say is an internationally acclaimed Turkish classical pianist. He has performed with prestigious symphony orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Berlin, Israel Philharmonic, France, and Tokyo as well as being a European Union cultural ambassador. The Turkish state is now going to put him on trial.
An Istanbul court has accepted the prosecutor’s charge, which amounts to heresy. Specifically, he is accused of insulting Islam because of tweets he sent. Say suggested that since the Koran says there are rivers of drinks in heaven that makes it sound like a pub, while the beautiful women available there make it sound like a brothel. A number of his tweets are quoted here. That’s his crime, writing a couple of sentences to describe his thoughts.
We are not talking of someone criticizing Say or disagreeing with him. We are talking about the power of the Turkish state being used to charge a man with a crime and send him to prison for exercising free speech. True, they are only asking for a sentence of eighteen months in prison but once the precedent is set their ambitions will expand.
There are already hundreds of political prisoners in Turkey today who have been in prison for over three years without any trial at all. Now if criticizing Islam in Turkey is a crime, Turkey is not a secular state. And with all of those innocent people already thrown in jail by the regime on trumped-up charges of treason and terrorism, Turkey is no longer a democratic state either. “
Yeap, that really sound like a good role model for the rest of the Middle East!
This is the same Turkey, with active American help, trying to make Syrian National Council(SNC, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood) the sole “representative of the Syrian opposition. Thereby fuelling ALL resources to them and not to the rest of the more secular, democratic opposition inside Syria.
Doesn’t this also seems like another excellent policy by the Obama administration if you REALLY want to be sure of a democratic development in Syria in the future??
And this obsession of Obama and Hillary Clinton that the Russians has to “approve” everything before he actually do anything.
The Obama administration is actually, which is astounding, giving Russia de facto veto power over US foreign policy. A Russia, which literally hates everything USA stands for and it’s position in the world. And witch have done everything it can to interrupt, damage or sabotage US foreign policy.
Russia is the one that is supporting and protecting Assad, Iran etc. Russia is the one selling ALL these weapons to Syria and Iran etc.
And remember that Obama actually told outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on March 26 that he is going to be “more flexible” after the election in November.
MORE FLEXIBLE???
Just to give some recent examples of the “democratic development” in Russia:
This is the Russia that just raised the fines for participating in unsanctioned rallies or demonstration from 300 rubles to300,000 rubles, a year salary for a normal Russian.
Putin signed the bill on June 8.
The Kremlin’s own Human Rights Council said in a statement the bill violates an article in the constitution guaranteeing freedom of assembly.
And oh by the way, the Russian authorities don’t very often give “permission” for demonstrations.
In March, a discriminatory ban on “homosexual propaganda” went into effect in St. Petersburg.
And on the same theme – Moscow Bans Gay Pride Parades For 100 Years
Yeas, you read right. Moscow city courts has banned ALL pride parades for the NEXT 100 years!
“Yikes,Russia! A week after protestors for gay rights were arrested in Moscow, a district court upheld the decision by a Moscow city court to ban gay pride parades for 100 years. Yes, the government can now legally forbid gay pride for a century, from March 2012 to March 2112.”
And this how the Russian government defend it:
“The Russian government has said that rulings such as that of the Moscow City Council are not anti-gay but rather rulings that protect ”the majority’s rights.”
“Russian police have searched the homes of leading opposition figures in an apparent crackdown on the eve of a planned mass protest against President Vladimir Putin’s third term as president.
The opposition figures have been summoned for questioning by investigators on June 12 — the same day as the planned protest.
Police, some armed with assault rifles, carried out searches on the homes of opposition figures including Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Yashin, Ksenia Sobchak, Sergei Udaltsov, Aleksei Navalny, and at least five others.
Udaltsov said police showed up at his door early in the morning.
”Police and Investigative Committee officers started banging on my door early in the morning, at 7 a.m. At the same time, they searched my parents’ home,” Udaltsov said. ”They presented a search warrant as part of the criminal investigation of the events of May 6.”
Udaltsov said police confiscated his computer, a flash stick, his iPad, and mobile telephone.”
By the way “the criminal investigation of the events of May 6.” was a demonstration against Putin.
I could continue another 3-4 pages with some more recent “democratic” developments inRussia. But I think you get the picture.
Doesn’t this also seems like another excellent policy by the Obama administration??
Begging Russia, your enemy, to “help” you and de facto giving them veto power over your policies.
After ALL the “resets”Russia hasn’t moved one millimeter to help USA. On the contrary
Just a few examples:
US condemns Syria massacre and looks for Russian help to oust Assad Hillary Clinton harshly condemns Syrian president as Obama reportedly plans to urge Putin to back a transition of power
“The comments came amid reports that President Barack Obama is preparing to push Russia to back the departure of Assad under a scheme modelled on the transition of power in Yemen.
According to an article in the New York Times, Obama hopes to enlist President Vladimir Putin’s support over a transition of power in Syria during a meeting next month – the first between the pair since Putin’s return to the Kremlin.
Under the reported plan, the international community would broker a settlement in which Assad would leave, but remnants of the political structure would remain intact.
But for the plan to have a chance of succeeding it would need greater backing from Moscow, which to date has been strongly opposed to Assad’s removal.
Russia, as one of Assad’s few remaining allies, has long blocked tough sanctions against the regime proposed by the United Nations, claiming that it could lead to the bloody ouster of Assad.”
And more peddling of the same:
Clinton presses Russia to back political change in Syria
““STOCKHOLM — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Russia Sunday to get behind a political transition in Syria, saying President Bashar al-Assad’s departure was not a precondition but should be ”an outcome”.
Clinton spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by telephone at the weekend to say that Washington and Moscowneeded to work together on a plan that would halt the violence and bring about political change in the country.
”In my conversation with him, I made it very clear there would be no point to any meeting unless it included all elements of Kofi Annan’s (peace) plan, and that certainly means we have to focus on a path forward for a political transition,” Clinton told reporters Sunday during a visit to Stockholm.
”Assad’s departure does not have to be a precondition but it should be an outcome, so the people of Syria have a chance to express themselves,” she said.”
“Russia has resisted UN Security Council efforts to sanction the Assad regime, a longtime ally of Moscow, questioning the effectiveness of sanctions and warning that outside meddling could lead to civil war.
Clinton has sharply criticised Moscow for ”propping up” the Assad regime with continued arms shipments, prompting President Vladimir Putin to defend Russia‘s stance in meetings with the leaders of Germany and France.”
“She said her message to Lavrov was: ”We all have to intensify our efforts to achieve a political transition, and Russia has to be at the table helping that occur. The Syrian people want and deserve change.”
U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out With Russia’s Aid
“WASHINGTON — In a new effort to halt more than a year of bloodshed in Syria, President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a proposal modeled on the transition in another strife-torn Arab country, Yemen.
The plan calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Mr. Assad’s government in place. Its goal is the kind of transition under way in Yemen, where after months of violent unrest, President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down and hand control to his vice president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in a deal arranged byYemen’s Arab neighbors. Mr. Hadi, though later elected in an uncontested vote, is viewed as a transitional leader.
The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.
In the past year, Russia has blocked any tough United Nations Security Council action against Mr. Assad, arguing that it could lead to his forced ouster and the kind of fates suffered by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi ofLibya, who was killed, or Hosni Mubarak ofEgypt, who was imprisoned and put on trial. ButRussia is facing intense international pressure to use its influence to bring about the removal of Mr. Assad as the killings inSyria continue unabated, including the massacre of more than 90 people in a village nearHoms that was reported by United Nations officials on Saturday. “
The Yemen example has been widely discussed in Moscow, so much so that the option has become known by its Russian term, “the Yemenskii Variant,” even in theUnited States. In part, that reflectsRussia’s desperation for a solution to the crisis in Syria, where, the United Nations says, thousands of civilians have been killed since protests began there in March of last year.
Mr. Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Vladimir V. Putin ofRussianext month at their first meeting since Mr. Putin returned to his old post on May 7. Thomas E. Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, raised the plan with Mr. Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.
When Mr. Obama brought it up with Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia at the Group of 8 meeting at Camp Davidlast weekend, Mr. Medvedev appeared receptive, American officials said, signaling that Russia would prefer that option to other transitions in the Arab upheaval. During the meeting, “Medvedev raised the example of Mubarak in a cage,” a senior official said, referring to Mr. Mubarak’s confinement at his trial. The official, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the discussions, said Mr. Obama had then “countered withYemen, and the indication was, yes, this was something we could talk about.”
And
“After the hopeless gridlock at the special UN session on the Syrian crisis Thursday, an American delegation headed by Fred Hoff, the Secretary of State’s special adviser on Syria, drew a blank in the talks it conducted at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow Friday, June 8, with Syrian expert, Mikhail Bogdanov.
Moscow has flatly rejected President Barack Obama’s proposal to post 5,000 armed UN monitors in Syria, most of them Russian troops, as the core of a new plan to resolve the Syrian crisis. The Russians may consider convening an international conference, but only if its remit is limited to offering a basis for negotiations between the Assad regime and the opposition and new political reforms. On no account must it deal with Bashar Assad’s removal.
Moscow’s position has grown tougher in the last few days. After Russian officials stated this week that keeping the Assad regime in power was not a priority, Bogdanev said Friday: Moscow isn’t discussing ways to promote Bashar al-Assad’s ouster with Washington. “We aren’t holding such talks.”
He stressed that the only way forward on the Syrian issue was by expanding Annan’s peace plan.
However, the only thing that all the participants at the UN could agree on was that the Annan peace plan had failed. And now that the US mission to Moscow has run into another dead end, the violence in Syria will continue to run riot with no world power or body prepared to step in and stop it.
Adding to the complications, the Syrian conflict and the Iranian nuclear controversy are becoming inextricably intermeshed. The U Sofficial Hoff knew he was arriving in Moscow at a grave disadvantage after Iran indicated to the six world powers that it was seriously considering not turning up for their third round of nuclear talks in Moscow on June 18-19.
Its pretext: The West had failed to come up with “serious proposals.”
Most of all, Tehran took umbrage over US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that Iran come to the talks prepared with “concrete steps to curb its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity.”
When she spoke, Clinton knew there was not the slightest chance of the Iranians accepting this demand.
Tehran also pulled in its horns at International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters inVienna when confronted Friday, June 8, with demands to open up its suspect nuclear sites to international inspection.
These related developments all point in one direction: US President Barack Obama’s deep reluctance to intervene directly in Syria and preference for Russia and Iran to take over have run up against equally powerful reluctance in Moscow and Tehran to put their hands in the Syrian fire or take part in any international effort to quench its flames.
Indeed, the Russians and Iranians believe that as the flames of the civil war already raging there spread, the US president will be blamed by the American public and the Arab world for the horrendous sectarian bloodbath.
And if Obama and America’s European allies do decide on military intervention, they will be too late and find themselves pulled down into a bottomless quagmire.”
Here is yet another example of the utter folly of the Obama administrations policy:
How Can Obama’s Middle East Policy Possibly Get Worse? Answer: Look at Syria
“Some of my readers are unhappy that I keep criticizing President Barack Obama and his government. The problem is that this administration keeps doing terrible things in the Middle East. And the most damning evidence on these actions comes not from Obama’s enemies but from the administration itself and the supportive mass media.
Here’s the latest such item:
“U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out withRussia’s Aid,” by Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, in the New York Times.
For almost three years, Obama insisted he would win over the Syrian dictatorship and make it America’s friend rather than Iran’s number-one ally. That was ludicrous. Forced by the uprising to back away from Damascus, the Obama administration has spent almost a year bumbling about what to do.
The U.S. government’s main activity was to entrust to the Turkish Islamist regime the job of forming an umbrella Syrian opposition leadership. Not surprisingly, Ankara pursued its own interest by assembling a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated group, the Syrian National Congress. Though several members resigned, complaining of the radical Islamist control, the Obama administration is still trying to force hostile oppositionists to join.
Now the administration has unveiled a new and equally terrible policy. I’ll let the New York Times’ reporters explain it:
President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a plan that calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place. The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal. Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Putin ofRussia at their meeting next month. Obama’s national security adviser raised the plan with Putin inMoscow three weeks ago.
Good grief! There are four different acts of strategic insanity involved in this paragraph. They are…
1. “A negotiated political settlement that…could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place.”
The Syrian dictatorship is led by murderous thugs who know this is a case of kill or be killed. They aren’t going to give up any of their power. And why should they since they think they’re winning and may well be right? They know the outside world won’t do anything, despite the regime killing around 10,000 civilians.
2. “A negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Assad’s government in place.”
The opposition is not so foolish as a Washington pundit, policymaker, or politician. They know that their only hope is to destroy the regime entirely. The democrats want to do so in order to have a modern democracy. The Islamists want Islamism. The Kurds and Druze want autonomy. How could there possibly be a coalition? Both sides know that within days people would be murdering each other. How could anyone expect this kind of deal would work or that the opposition would accept it?
If anyone in Syria might favor such a plan it’s the Muslim Brotherhood. which has toyed with the idea of using such a transition period to strengthen its own hand. So the idea cannot succeed but reveals once again that the Obama administration seems to get many of its strategies from the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s an observation, not a conspiracy theory.
3. “The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.”
Just think about that sentence! The Obama administration wants to depend on a country that’s disdainful of U.S. interests, wants to sabotage them, and is on the opposite side!The president wants to ask a country that is “strongly opposed” to Assad’s removal to remove Assad!
And finally, equally amazingly:
4. “Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Putin of Russia at their meeting next month. Obama’s national security adviser raised the plan with Putin in Moscow three weeks ago.”
It’s Obama, not Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who is pushing this plan to put Russia in control! If your enemy tries to fool or cheat you, that’s a problem. If you beg him to cheat you and hand him the means to do so, that’s a betrayal of U.S. interests.
To summarize, the Obama policy shows three characteristics that have wider implications for the president’s strategies:
•It favors Islamist enemies.
•It “leads from behind” by giving the initiative to those who wish America no good.
•And it shows no interest in helping genuinely pro-American moderates who are fighting for their lives.
And that, friends, is why I spend so much time bashing Obama’s Middle East policy, because it is so very bad and dangerous.
Now a possible explanation for all of this would be that Obama doesn’t really want to do anything about Syria for other reasons. The United States doesn’t want to get dragged into direct intervention; it’s a lower-priority issue; there’s no great policy option; and his only concern is the American election.
But so what? It’s still possible to come up with a better policy than this, a policy that would make Obama look good as well as serve U.S. interests. He could call for Assad’s overthrow; back truly moderate oppositionists; subvert Islamist influence; and send arms and money, but only to the moderates. In order to portray himself as decisive, heroic, and a friend of democracy, Obama could take every possible overt and covert opportunity to weaken Assad, even helping at a low cost to create a no-fly zone and safe havens. None of this is going to happen.
Instead, though, he turns over dealing with the opposition to an Islamist regime in Turkey and subcontracts dealing with the regime to a pro-regime Russian government. I’d say that Obama’s policy in the region could not easily be worse, but who knows what’s next, especially if there’s a second term.”
More on the Kurdish question and Obamas push for them to join SNC:
“Sherkoh Abbas, a veteran Syrian Kurdish dissident, called on Israel this week to support the break-up of Syria into a series of federal structures based on the country’s various ethnicities.
Speaking from Washington, Abbas was also critical of US attempts to induce Syrian Kurds to join and work with the main opposition body, the Syrian National Council. Abbas, who heads the Washington- based Kurdistan National Assembly, said that dismantling Syria into ethnic enclaves with a federal administration would serve to “break the link” between Syria and the Iran-led “Shi’a crescent.”
Syrian Kurdish, Druse, Alawite and Sunni Arab federal areas, he suggested, would have no interest in aligning with Iran.
At the same time, a federalized Syria would avoid the possibility of a resurgent, Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Sunni Islamist Syria emerging as a new challenge to Israel and the West.
“We need to break Syria into pieces,” Abbas said.
The Syrian Kurdish dissident argued that a federal Syria, separated into four or five regions on an ethnic basis, would also serve as a natural “buffer” forIsraelagainst both Sunni and Shi’ite Islamist forces.”
“When a delegation of Syrian Kurdish rebels recently visited Washington, D.C., the State Department met them to ask for a favor. What was it? The Obama administration urged them to join the Syrian National Council (SNC), the organization created by the U.S. government through Turkey to lead the opposition movement and receive Western aid for all Syrian opposition groups.
But the Turkish Islamist regime, which Obama put in charge of forming the SNC, put the Muslim Brotherhood in control, a fact I pointed out within hours of the announcement of the SNC leadership’s names.
Now that several SNC leaders have resigned complaining about Brotherhood domination, followed by some Arab journalists pointing out the obvious Brotherhood domination at the SNC’s last meeting, that reality is clear. But the implications of such an incredibly foolish policy—America putting an anti-American, antisemitic group into the “official” leadership of Syria’s rebels — have never been properly examined as a case study for Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy.
The Kurds had walked out of the talks that formed the SNC last year when they saw how Islamists would be in control. Not only do they oppose Islamism itself but they also see the Brotherhood as an Arabizing and centralizing group that would impose a regime oppressing the non-Arab Kurds.
The new U.S. effort so backfired that, with the Obama administration ignoring their concerns, the enraged Kurds in the delegation spoke for the first time of breaking up Syria altogether!
To sum up, Obama policy has strengthened the Islamist forces in the opposition and fragmented the rebels, thus helping preserve a radical anti-American Syrian regime that is an ally of Iran or helping make any revolution more likely to produce a radical anti-American Syrian Islamist regime that will be an ally of an Islamist Egypt.
Now comes a very peculiar story in the Washington Post with the headline, “Syrian rebels get influx of arms with Gulf Neighbors’ Money, U.S. coordination.” Let’s break this down logically:
–The Saudis and Qataris have been providing arms already.
–They know how to buy weapons, how to get them to the Syrian border, and how to give them to Syrian rebels.
What do they need American “coordination” for? What does the word “coordination” mean? I presume it means that the Obama administration, absolutely clueless about what to do regarding Syria, simply wants to take credit for others’ actions. It is part of the pre-election spin about what a great job Obama is doing.
Yet there is another problem here, a potentially devastating one. Who is getting the weapons? There are different people and groups in the Syrian opposition. Some are Salafists who feel comfortable with al-Qaida; some are Brotherhood men; some are ex-Syrian army officers, professionals and relatively apolitical; and some are liberals who really want democracy.
Whoever gets these weapons will be tremendously empowered. So what’s to say that the arms being “coordinated” by the United States aren’t going to revolutionary Islamists? While this is a complex subject, there is information that these arms supplies up until now have not been sufficiently discriminatory toward moderates and away from Islamist radicals. We will know more in the weeks to come if we can see and identify which opposition groups in what parts of Syria have become better armed.
And if it comes out that the U.S. government is “coordinating” the arming of such people with weapons — as it is already helping their political counterparts in the SNC — wouldn’t that be a tremendous scandal?
Let’s be clear here: A proper U.S.policy would help moderate Syrians overthrow the Assad dictatorship and make sure weapons went to the best elements in the Free Syrian Army’s decentralized forces. Such a policy would make sure to deny money, weapons, and power to the Islamists and Salafists, who are proportionately far weaker in Syria than in Egypt.
Obama policy follows the worst possible course. It minimizes U.S. help to the revolution while at the same time ensuring that a disproportionately large amount goes to Islamists.”
And
Will There Be Room for Kurds and Other Minorities in a Post-Assad Syria?
“New York Times reported that the US hopes that Russia, one of the Assad regime’s allies, along with the Islamic Republic of Iran and China, might offer some assistance to facilitate Assad leaving the embattled regime in Damascus. Prof. Eyal Zisser of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University in a recent Israel Hayom article, “The Road to Damascus Runs Through Moscow,” noted the transition proposal of the Obama Administration:
The Americans pulled a new rabbit out of their hat in the form of Russian President Vladimir Putin. They suggested that Moscow and Washington jointly impose the ”Yemen solution” on Syria, which calls for Assad’s removal while keeping his regime in place to rule Syria until elections can be held; similar to what took place in Egypt and Tunisia. The Americans hope that such a solution will appeal to those inside Assad’s inner circle, who feel his end is near and will agree to abandon him in order to ensure their own futures.
However that may be a vain hope. Given US, Turkey, Saudi, Qatar and Gulf Emirate support for the Syrian National Council what might follow in Syria could be a Sunni Arab nationalist regime. A regime dominated by a fundamentalist Islamist coalition. That would dash hopes of minority ethnic and religious groups for a secular democratic federal republic. A federal republic that might include secular Sunni and Alawi moderates, Christians, Druze, Turkmen and the country’s second largest ethnic group, the Kurds. Arabs constitute nearly three-fifths (57 percent) of the country’s 22 million population. That is the hope of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KURDNAS) leader Sherkoh Abbas. He has joined with US Syrian Sunni reformer Dr. M. Zhudi Jasser to advance this cause via the Syrian Democratic Coalition.”
“For Abbas and other Syrian Kurds, the past four decades witnessed socio-economic deprivations and Arabization of the Kurdistan Region by the Assad regimes – a virtual ethnic cleansing. An estimated 500,000 Kurds were denied Syrian citizenship following a special census in 1963. They lived as aliens in their ancestral lands in the northeastern border areas adjacent to Turkey on the north and Iraq to the east. Arable land and control of valuable oil resources in the Syrian Kurdistan heartland were seized to become the personal wealth of the Assad family. Instruction and schooling in Kurdish language and culture was stopped. This repression of Syria’s Kurds witnessed virtual starvation and usurpation of their national provenance. That led to the uprising in 2004. Dozens of Kurds were killed; more than 4000 were jailed and tortured. “
“Abbas demurs. He maintains that Syria post-Assad may not become another fundamentalist Sunni Arab post-revolutionary government. He noted in a recent Front Page Magazine interview with Joseph Puder, “Syria: An Alternative Choice”:
The Muslim Brotherhood, with the support of President Obama and Turkey, will not succeed in controlling all of Syria. The Alawis and Hezbollah backed by Iran, Russia and China, will not give up power easily.
Asked what the US role might be in the current struggle, Abbas asserted:
The US has a moral responsibility to insure freedom and democracy for all Syrians. .. an Arab nationalist or Islamist regime would lead to more violence and civil war.”
“Gordon: Recently, the US State Department held meetings in Washington with the Syrian National Kurdish Council. What were the purposes of the session, who attended and what did the Obama Administration hope to achieve?
Abbas: The U.S. Administration has asked the Kurdish National Council delegation to join the Syrian National Council, and wanted this meeting to directly hear Kurdish opinion. The interpretation of the U.S. Administration in support for the Kurdish political movement is premature. This was a positive event, but the US government should contact and meet various representatives of the Syrian Kurdish street, especially those that work for a federal Syria and want to bring down the Assad terrorist regime.
Gordon: Do you believe that the Obama Administration has played a productive role in fostering Syrian dissident opposition during this crisis?
Abbas: Unfortunately, the Obama administration played a role in the mismanagement of the Syrian crisis. It did not encourage a clear and supportive policy toward democratic groups. If the Syrian Revolution fails, the current U.S. administration will have had a key role.This policy is producing harmful results for the Syrian peopleand encourages the system to continue to commit crimes against humanity. The question for President Obama is what is his Administration’s goal? Is the goal either keeping the Baathists in power in Damascus or bringing Muslim Brotherhood Islamists who control the SNC to power? Both cases do not serve the interests of either the majority of the Syrian people or the international community.”
And the Obama administration stopped a France and Saudi plan to in one strike take out the top Assad leadership:
“US President Obama recently vetoed a detailed Franco-Saudi plan for ending President Bashar Assad’s rule by means of a massive air strike against his palace that would at one fell swoop wipe him, his family and top leadership circle out,
Their plan was for the presidential palace situated atop Mount Qassioun northeast of Damascus to be devastated by French warplanes taking off from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier off Syria’s Mediterranean coast and Saudi and United Arab Emirates bombers flying in through Jordan.
They would bomb the palace for 12 hours in several sorties while at the same time American fighter jets launched from a US aircraft carrier cruising in the Mediterranean or Red Sea would shut down Syria’s air defenses, which are considered among the most sophisticated and densely-arrayed in the region.
US warplanes would also keep the Syrian Air Force grounded and prevented from repulsing the incoming bombers.
This plan was presented to President Obama separately by Nicolas Sarkozy before he was voted out of office and Saudi Defense Minister Prince Salman, who arrived at the White House on April 12 for a personal presentation. The prince maintained that there is no end in sight for the Syrian conflict; it would only spread and ignite the rest of the Middle East. The peril could only be rooted out at source by a single, sharp military strike that would remove Assad and his close clan for good. This would be the only acceptable kind of Western-Arab armed intervention in Syria and it had the added advantage of being effective without bringing foreign boots to Syrian soil.
In early May, Sarkozy was still trying to talk Obama around to the plan. He spent his last days in the ElyséePalace in long telephone conversations with the White House in which he drove home three points:
1. Because Assad has concentrated his family, top military command and intelligence chiefs at a single nerve center behind the fortified walls of the QassiounPalace, the snake’s head can feasibly be cut off at one stroke.
The case of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi was different because, unlike Assad, he never stayed long in one place and was constantly on the move.
2. Once that nerve center is destroyed, Syrian army and intelligence would be bereft of their sources of command. Their troops may remain in their bases and wait for news, while their officers may use the sudden political vacuum inDamascus to try and seize power. In either case, the Syrian military would be free of its orders to crush the anti-Assad revolt.
3. The French, Saudi and UAE air forces lack a central command center capable of coordinating a major combined air operationand therefore depend on the United States to provide this essential component. American military input is also vital for paralyzingSyria’s air defenses by applying its cyber warfare capabilities to disrupt the radar systems ofSyria’s anti-air missile batteries.
Our Washington sources report that Obama consistently resisted repeated French and Saudi efforts to jump aboard their initiative.
The Saudi defense minister at one point in their conversation told the US president harshly that it was time for the Americans to stop talking and start acting. But Obama remained unmoved.
These events, provide the background for Presidents Barak Obama and Francois Hollande’s divergent responses Tuesday, May 29, to the al-Houla atrocity and its 108 brutally murdered victims.
The White House repeated its objection to military intervention in Syria “at this time,”because it would only “increase the carnage.” A military option was left on the table.
That was standard Obama-speak for the crisis in Syria, behind which he remains determined to stay out of armed action for unseating President Assad and instead seek a deal with the Russians on the Syrian ruler’s fate as part and parcel of a comprehensive accord on Syria and Iran’s nuclear program.
President Hollande was at first quoted as saying he does not rule out armed intervention in Syria. Elysée sources later watered down this statement with the qualifier: …”only with UN Security Council approval.”
On top of the American hurdle, Moscow and Beijing rushed Wednesday, May 30, to reiterate that they would oppose (veto) any Security Council resolution authorizing military intervention in Syria, so effectively nipping the French intention in the bud.
Bashar Assad accordingly had no qualms about sending UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan off empty-handed from a final bid to salvage his peace mission:The world powers have left him sitting pretty in his palace, unconcerned about his future and free to pursue one of the most vicious anti-opposition campaigns of modern times.”
I wrote six weeks ago:
“Samantha Power, a prominent advocate of humanitarian intervention and the principle of ”responsibility to protect”, is considered to be the key figure within the Obama administration in persuading the president to intervene militarily in Libya.
Power, was a senior foreign policy adviser to senator Obama, and now a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council.
But on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
And the same Samantha Power, Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council, mentioned above just got apointed by Obama to head the new White House Atrocities Prevention Board.
But still on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
So apparently she is Very SELECTIVE in which atrocities to “prevent”.”
And now over a month later, the White House Atrocities Prevention Board hasn’t said one letter or peep about Syria.
So apparently the slaughter of over 15 000 civilians, many of them children, in the most barbaric ways imaginable are not apparently considered by Samantha Power, The White house, Hillary Clinton or Obama; to be atrocities.
So the next time these people in their usual pompous ways start talking about human rights, peace, the UN Charter, ”responsibility to protect”, prevention of atrocities etc. ; you know it’s utter crap and a lie.
Their hypocrisy is so staggering that it is sickening. Literally. And they are the enablers of this crime against humanity.
I have to stop here because this is way too long already. I could continue for another, say 30 pages. to describe the folly of the Obama administrations Middle East policy. But that I leave for another day.
See Part 10 – US and the Obama administartion in my original series for more info
And then there is Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus….
Just start adding up the GIGANTIC NUMBERS and be utterly horrified!
This is the situation that politicians and the banks have put the common people of Europe in.
They are literally ruining us all. And WE have to pay the price of their folly and speculations.
And after the Spanish bailout Ireland promptly requested a renegotiation of its own terms to match those of Spain.
And in six days there is the Greece election. Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece’s leftwing Syriza coalition of course used this bailout to strengthening his party’s position.
“What we wonder is why did Europe cave to the Spanish demands before the Greek elections. Because, paradoxically, by yielding to a bailout plan, which at least superficially has been painted as one without conditions, it just cemented Syriza’s entire electoral platform as having absolute validity.
Then again, on the insolvent continent, nothing really surprises us any more.”
And of course, none of this is covered in the mainstream media or by our “dear” politicians.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous post May U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 7.8 F COOLER in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 5 months (year to date, January-May) US temperature from a “historic” perspective since we now have a whole year of official data. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 5 month, a year by year consecutive trend 112 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.17 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.62 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.44 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.12 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan- May) 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is – 0.26 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.).
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2012 to 2000-2012??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 is exactly – 0.26 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a – 2.6 F COOLER in 100 years.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 5 months trend 1970-2012 is exactly 0.62 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 1980-2012 is exactly 0.44 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 1990-2012 is exactly0.12 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 2000-2012 is exactly – 0.26 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
I have been busy with other things but I saw that the official May temperature figures are out. So I thought I dive into it. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent May US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature May 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.14 F / Decade
US temperature May 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.36 F / Decade
US temperature May 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.29 F / Decade
US temperature May 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.30 F / Decade
US temperature May 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is – 0.78 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 for February is exactly – 0.78 F degrees a decade. That is a – 7.8 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of May ”accelerated warming” trend:
The May trend 1970-2012 is exactly 0.36 F degrees a decade.
The May trend 1980-2012 is exactly 0.29 F degrees a decade.
The May trend 1990-2012 is exactly 0.30 F degrees a decade.
The May trend 2000-2012 is exactly –0.78 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
“NATO military action in Syria was not on the table despite the massacre of civilians by the regime, the US envoy to the alliance said Thursday.
NATO allies have neither discussed an intervention in Syria nor made any military planning to stop the relentless crackdown by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against dissidents, said US ambassador Ivo Daalder.
Daalder noted that the alliance launched its air war in Libya last year after three conditions were fulfilled: a ”demonstrable need” to intervene, support from nations in the region, and a UN Security Council mandate.
”With respect to a demonstrable need, clearly when government forces are attacking civilians with artillery and tanks, there is a need to bring that to an end. That was true in Libya and that is true in Syria,” he said.
But there is neither regional support nor a UN mandate to act militarily in Syria.
”So under those circumstances, the NATO countries understand that the issue of military intervention, which is also always complex, is not right now on the table when it comes to Syria,” Daalder said.
All NATO members, notably Syria‘s neighbor Turkey, are watching the situation ”very carefully and that is where things stand right now,” the ambassador added.
”How it will evolve in the future is anyone’s guess,” he said.
”But the point is that for now there is no active planning in NATO for a military intervention and there is no agreement among or even within the NATO members for moving in this direction at this point.”
This is interesting to say the least. Ivo Daalder just TOTALLY rewrote the NATO doctrine and reason d’être.
In Libyat here was only some “support” from nations in the region”. And the mandate from UN was very different for what they actually used it for.
And in Afghanistan the same thing, only some nations in the region supported that.
But in either case, it didn’t stop NATO from intervening.
So now suddenly when it comes to Syria, and NATO don’t want t do anything because there is “no” support from nations in the region. Well, there is ALOT OF SUPPORT IN THE REGION FOR THAT. So that’s not the real reason.
It seems that NATO is changing it’s doctrine to fit the circumstances and as an excuse for not doing things when it so chose.
In NATO: s new doctrine, the “New Strategic Concept” adopted in Lisbon in November 2010, there is no mention that a prerequisite for any NATO action is to have “support from nations in the region”.
If NATO doesn’t want to do anything in Syria, fine. But be straightforward and say so instead of hiding between “grand principles” and inventing excuses that is not in their doctrine.
It is sad to see an organisation that played such a crucial role for the protection of the Western European countries become what it now have become.
And it’s getting even more ridicules as I have written about before. NATO pretends that doing ANYTHING in Syria “would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region”.
So on one side Russia, Iran and China literally pouring in all types of heavy weapons (remember the 240 mm Russian mortar bomb), personal, training etc for the Assad regime.
On the other unarmed civilians and a resistance with some light arms.
And NATO is apparently very worried that if the civilians get anything more than Kalashnikovs and the odd RPG, so they at least can defend themselves and offer some resistance to the Assad forces, that that would constitute “a proliferation of weapons in the region”.
“NATO’s chief on Monday said the alliance was opposed to providing arms to the Syrian opposition seeking to counter a regime crackdown, warning that it would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for a diplomatic solution and reiterated that NATO, which led the Libya air war that contributed to Moammar Qaddafi’s downfall last year, had ”no intention whatsoever to intervene in Syria.”
And to top it off:
”We monitor the situation closely,” Rasmussen said, adding that the situation in Syriacould impact neighboring Turkey, a NATO member.
”It’s absolutely outrageous what we have witnessed in Syria,” he added.”
This must be one of the most hypocritical, cynical and ridiculous statements ever made by NATO.
The people of Syria will “thank you” for your “deep concern” as they are being slaughtered by the Assads forces.
So according to this superb NATO logic, the Russian 240 mm mortar bomb, supplied by the as always helpful Russia, used to destroy block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood in CIVILIAN Syrian cities, is NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.
It isthe largest mortar bomb known to be in production and use. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
But giving this to the resistance so they can defend themselves is a serious “proliferation of weapons in the region”
Really good work there NATO!
By the way, the use of such weapons in dense urban environments is a war crime.
This is the same NATO that without any hesitation went in full scale in Libya. Then it wasn’t any talk about “that it would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region”.
See Part 8 – EU and NATO in my original series for more info
As for the do nothing as usual UN, it “proudly” upholds its tradition of doing ABSOLUTLY NOTHING when it really maters, like Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia (Srebrenica anyone?) etc. And now Syria.
Remember that the UN observers are now there in full “force” and all the slaughtering going on is happening on their watch.
Just to show the total and utter failure of this latest UN and Kofi Annan peace plan:
After the latest massacre, number XX in order, the UN observers where stopped by Assads troops from reaching the place of massacre. And then Assad troops shot at them.
Doesn’t it really seems that Assad is fulfilling EVERY POINT OF THE PEACE PLAN HE FORMERLY AGREED TO?
It’s pathetic and the people of Syria is, as usual, paying the price.
Heavy weapons, drones, gunfire used against UN monitors inSyria, Ban says
”NEW YORK– Heavy weapons, armor-piercing bullets and surveillance drones have been used against UN observers in Syria to hamper their efforts to monitor the worsening conflict, UN leader Ban Ki-moon told a Security Council meeting Thursday.
Diplomats inside a closed council briefing on Syriaquoted Ban as saying the tactics had been used to try to force the unarmed monitors to withdraw from areas where government forces have been accused of staging attacks.
Ban said the heavy shelling had been used to deter a UN Supervision Mission in Syria convoy, drones had monitored the movements of observers and the armor-piercing bullets had been fired at UN vehicles.
According to UN officials, UN vehicles are shot at almost every day in Syria.
Ban told the 15-nation council that UN observers had seen Syrian military convoys approaching villages and tried to stop tank assaults against populated areas but had been ”ignored.”
“Syrian troops and local residents are preventing UN observers from reaching a site where 55 people were reported killed by pro-regime militants, the head of the UN mission in Syria said Thursday.
”The UN Supervision Mission in Syria dispatched UN observers to Al-Kubeir early Thursday morning to verify reports of large-scale killings in the village,” Major General Robert Mood said in a statement.
He said the observers were stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back. He said civilians were also stopping the monitors.
”We are receiving information from residents of the area that the safety of our observers is at risk if we enter [the]village of Al-Kubeir,” Mood said.
”Despite these challenges, the observers are still working to get into the village to try to establish the facts on the ground,” he added.
Mood said he was concerned that the restrictions imposed on the movement of the monitors will impede their ability to carry out their mission.”
UN monitors shot at trying to get to Syria massacre, Ban says
“UN monitors trying to get to the scene of a new massacre in Syria were shot at, UN leader Ban Ki-moon said Thursday, calling the latest atrocity ”shocking and sickening.”
Ban discussed the attack on the UN monitors in a speech to the UN General Assembly hours after the reported slaughter of dozens of people in the village of Al-Kubeir.
”UN monitors were initially denied access,” Ban told the 193-country assembly.
”They are working now to get to the scene and I just learned a few minutes ago that while trying to do so, the UN monitors were shot at with small arms.”
A UN spokesperson, Farhan Haq, later gave more details of the attack.
”The mission reports that, around 3:00 pmlocal time today, a four-vehicle convoy from the mission was hit by small arms fire in Hama, while en route to investigate yesterday’s alleged killings,” Haq said.
”No UN military observers were injured, but one vehicle was slightly damaged. The patrol was forced to withdraw to a nearby government checkpoint.”
Al-Kubeir is close to the protest city of Hama.
”The monitors were not able to enter Al-Kubeir today. They will try again tomorrow,” Haq added.
Ban again strongly condemned President Bashar al-Assad’s government, saying it had ”lost all legitimacy,” with its record further tarnished by the massacres in Houla last month and in Al-Kubeir.
”The trail of blood leads back to those responsible,” he said. ”Any regime or leader that tolerates such killing of innocents has lost its fundamental humanity.”
Ban called the reports coming from Al-Kubeir ”shocking and sickening.”
”We condemnthis unspeakable barbarity and renew our determination to bring those responsible to account,” he said.”
On Friday, the observers finally managed to get to al-Qubair:
UN’s Syria monitors sift through debris of al-Qubair attack Scenes of burned-out houses and charred human remains in village where up to 78 people were reportedly killed in cold blood
“UN monitors on Friday entered for the first time the Syrian village where up to 78 people were reportedly killed in cold blood on Wednesday, the latest in a series of atrocities that have underlined the gravity of the escalating crisis.
The observers were met with scenes of burned-out houses, charred human remains and the clear impression that a ”terrible crime” had occurred in Mazraat al-Qubair near Hama, according to a BBC correspondent following the UN team. On Thursday the monitors were fired at and their access blocked by Syrian forces.
”It is not hard to verify. As soon as you walk into the first house, you are hit by the stench of burnt flesh,” reported Paul Danahar. ”You can see that a terrible crime has taken place. Everything has been burnt, houses have been gutted. The most distressing scenes were at the house next door. I walked in and saw brains lying on the floor. There was a tablecloth covered in blood and flesh and someone had tried to mop the blood up by pushing it into the corner, but it seems they had given up because there was so much of it around.”
In a video clip posted on the internet, a Syrian woman named Lathat calmly described how the hamlet had been attacked by ”regime forces and Shabiha” (government militia) who killed children, including two of her daughters, with knives and axes. ”The army came with the Shabiha with a tank,” she said. ”May God take revenge on Bashar al-Assad.” Like much material emanating from Syria, it was impossible to verify independently.”
And
UN observers reach Syria massacre village, activists say
“United Nations observers on Friday reached the Syrian village of Al-Kubeirwhere dozens of residents were massacred two days ago, activists told AFP.
The monitors on Thursday were fired at by gunmen and forced to turn back as they tried to reach the village located in a farming region in the centralprovince of Hama.
”The observers first headed to the village of Maarzaf where the victims were buried and then to Al-Kubeir to survey the damage from army shelling,” activist Abdel Karim al-Hamwi said.
He said soldiers at a checkpoint in Maarzaf ordered residents not to speak to the observers or face reprisals.”
“Paul Danahar, a BBC correspondent travelling on Friday with the UN convoy, reported seeing gutted buildings in Al-Kubeir and no sign of life.
”The largest of the two houses on a hilltop in Al-Kubeir has been gutted by fire. The stench of burnt flesh is still strong,” he wrote in a post on the social networking website Twitter.
He quoted activists as saying that government forces had removed the bodies of the victims on Thursday while the observers were being hindered from reaching the village.
Danahar said Al-Kubeir consists of just a few single-story flat-roofed buildings set in the middle of corn fields.”
And what do they do about these in their own words barbaric acts? – Nothing as usual!
Expressing horror at the latest massacre in Syria, UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan told the major powers on Thursday that it was time to threaten ”consequences” if President Bashar al-Assad does not act to halt the strife.
Annan and UN leader Ban Ki-moon condemned the reported slaughter of dozens of people in the villageof Al-Kubeir on Tuesday and told the 193-nation UN General Assembly it was time to increase pressure.
Annan expressed ”horror and condemnation” at the Al-Kubeir killings. Ban said the massacre reports were ”shocking and sickening.”
”The trail of blood leads back to those responsible,” Ban said, in describing how UN monitors trying to get to Al-Kubeir were shot at. ”Any regime or leader that tolerates such killing of innocents has lost its fundamental humanity.”
The international envoy, who secured Assad’s agreement to a six-point peace plan, grimly told the assembly: ”I must be frank and confirm that the plan is not being implemented.”
Yeah, it took him over two months to discover that witch was obvious to anyone with eyes and more than one brain cell after only the first week..
And AS USUAL what do the UN/Kofi Annan recommend? MORE OF THE SAME TOTALLY USELESS “measures”. While the slaughter is going on.
“Annan called for stronger international action to back his peace plan, which includes demands for Assad to pull troops and guns out of cities and halt violence so that political talks can start. But a cessation of hostilities that officially started on April 12 has now all but collapsed.
Annan said the international community had united behind the peace plan ”but it now must take that unity to a new level.”
”We must find the will and the common ground to act—and act as one,” he said.
”Individual actions or interventions will not resolve the crisis. As we demand compliance with international law and the six-point plan, it must be made clearthat there will be consequences if compliance is not forthcoming.”
He warned that without change in Syria, ”the future is likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence and even all-out civil war”
The future???
IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING SINCE 15 months!
“UN leader Ban also expressed grave concern at the growing death toll, which Syrian activists say has now surpassed 13,000 in 15 months of conflict.
”In view of the deteriorating situation, I would welcome further international discussion on how we can act more effectively,” Ban said.
”No one can predict how the situation in Syria will evolve. We must be prepared for any eventuality. We must be ready to respond to many possible scenarios.”
As I said before what do the UN/Kofi Annan recommend? MORE OF THE SAME TOTALLY USELESS “measures”. While the slaughter is going on.
The most recent example: Annan now wants to create a new “contract group”.
It is to be composed of the five permanent Security Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) plus Iran,Turkey,Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
IRAN???
So it is NOT ENOUGH THAT RUSSIA and CHINA IS BLOCKING EVERY MOVE against Syria. Now that “genius” Annan wants IRAN, which together with Russia is the biggest supporter of Assad and made sure that he has survived so far, to be on the group that is supposed to make all the decisions regarding Syria.
And of course the Obama administration immediately approved of this plan. At least the French had the sense to demand that Iran be excluded from this group..
As for the rest of the countries on that list, they are the countries that have managed to do absolutely nothing during these 15 months of the slaughter and uprising,
Remember also that Iran have been trying for the last year to kill Saudi Arabian diplomats all over the world, including in USA. And Iran also want to overthrow ALL the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia. That’s what behind the troubles in Bahrain.
And Saudi Arabia on it’s hand is doing everything to thwart and overthrow the Iranian regime.
Doesn’t this sounds like a “lovely, peaceful and harmonious” group that is going to solve everything regarding Syria??
Only a “genius” like Annan and UN could come up with a so derailed plan. Because in their perverted world view it is ONLY diplomacy that MATTERS. If one plan fails, ok so we try another and another in all endlessness regardless of how useless or ridicules the plans are.
They change a comma here, add an asterisk there, change a word or the ending of a word here etc. in their “peace plans”.
And voila – everything is magically fixed and solved forever!
In the meantime, as we have seen time and time again ALL OVER THE WORLD, the civilian populations are getting killed and slaughtered year in and year out.
While the UN “observes” and condemns.
And do nothing in the name of the high charter they were founded on.
The contract group:
“Iran stalled the US Secretary and UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan’s plan to present the world body’s special session Thursday, June 7, with a plan for a contract group based on five permanent Security Council members and Iran to handle the Syrian impasse. Tehran refused to join the group as long as it faces nuclear conditions, after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Istanbul that Iran must come to the nuclear talks in Moscow “ready to take concrete steps” to curb its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity.
Discussion of the plan was therefore abandoned in the hall and confined to UN corridors. By forcing the pace at the special general assembly crisis session, Tehran once again demonstrated its refusal to play ball with the international community until its major power status in the Middle East is recognized.
Iranian sources have insisted in recent days that the six power talks with Iran were not just about its nuclear program but affected a wider spectrum, because the nuclear issue could be settled at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Tehran has made it clear that the continuation of nuclear diplomacy is contingent on the general recognition of Iran’s major power status.
Kofi Annan warned that if nothing changes in Syria, the future holds all-out civil war. His words attested to the helplessness of the world body to put a stop of the bloodshed in Syria, combined with the Obama administration’s refusal to intervene in the crisis in the expectation that Russia and Iran would step up. That expectation has faded.
Israel remains dormant despite the serious consequences to its strategic and security situation threatened by the new proposal the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria Kofi Annan is to present to the UN Thursday, June 7, for saving his peace plan. The nub of his proposal, is the creation of a “contact group” for handling the hot Syrian potato. It is to be composed of the five permanent Security Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) plus Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The proposal has won the blessing of the Obama administration, meaning its consent to letting the two powers that will dominate the contact group, Russia and Iran, determine the course and outcome of the Syrian crisis.
Washington believes that only they have the clout in the Syrian army for bringing about Bashar Assad’s removal and his replacement in Damascus by a provisional military regime. Washingtonalso hopes, according to our sources, that this gesture will give Moscowa strong incentive to lean hard onTehran for concessions at the next round of its talk with the six world powers on June 13.
Neither Iran nor Moscow have promised the US anything of the sort, but the administration hopes Iran will start being forthcoming on its nuclear programafter being permitted to assume a central role in Damascus.
There is less optimism outside administration circles and inIsrael. They expect from Tehran nothing more at the next round of talks than token nuclear concessions, and none at all toward curtailing its work on a nuclear weapon.
However the Obama administration appears to have opted for this course, even though it is the first time since the outbreak of the Arab Revolt in December 2010 that the United States is willing to let go of a major Middle East crisis and allow its foremost Middle East rivals, Moscow and Tehran, to take charge.
President Barack Obama had proposed to President Vladimir Putin the creation of a large force of 5,000 international monitors for Syria, most of them Russians, to safeguard Assad’s stock of biological and chemical weapons against falling into the hands of al Qaeda or Syrian rebels. This team consisting of thousands of Russian troops would be the operational arm of the future “contact group.”
As far as Israelis concerned, the plan has disastrous connotations. Instead of containing the spread of hostile Iranian influence in the region, as Obama promised Israel, he is opening for the door for Iran to extend its influence squarely in the countries neighboring on – and still at war with – Israel, while at the same time moving back from a focused effort to draw the sting of Iran’s nuclear bomb program.
Israel’s political and security tacticians never took into account that a consequence of the Syrian revolt would be the establishment of full-blown Iranian sway over Damascus in partnership with Russia. Indeed, for 15 months, they insisted that the Syrian uprising was proof ofAmerica’s success in breaking up the dangerous Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah axis.”
France backs new Syria “Contact Group,” says Foreign Ministry
“France backs UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s bid to bring key powers into a contact group on the Syria crisis, but it opposes bringing Iran into the group, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.
”We are favorable to any initiative that can help put into operation the Annan plan,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bernard Valero told reporters.
But he noted that Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had already stated two days ago that Iran, an ally of the regime led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, could in no way be involved in such a group.
Setting up a new contact group on Syria was not incompatible with the Friends of Syria group meeting on July 6 in Paris, said Valero.
That group seeks to co-ordinate Western and Arab efforts to stop the violence inSyria.
Annan is under pressure to revive his six-point peace plan, which the international community has accused Assad of flouting. A series of massacres of civilians have heightened international outrage over the conflict.
Annan’s proposal for a contact group however risks setting off new tensions over Syria.
The United States quickly made it known that it considered Iran to be a ”spoiler” in the worsening Syria crisis.
Russia, Assad’s last major ally, has offered to host an international conference on the situation in Syria.”
And this is the UN that wants to be a “world government” and a words power.
See Part 9 – UN and Kofi Annan in my original series for more info
“The Russians have no problem telling the truth: They have no idea of the direction the Syrian crisis is heading to. In ongoing diplomatic contacts amongIsraeland senior Russian officials, the Russians admit that their policy is determined from one week to the next.
In fact, they’re not alone. The Russian policy, which the Chinese share, is no different in essence than Europe’s and America’s policy towards Syria. In Mideastern terms we can say that both sides are making their decisions from one massacre to the next.
A few weeks ago, the head of Israel’s National Security Agency, Major-General Yaakov Amidror, visited Moscow in a bid to convince the Russians to end their support for Assad and stop pouring weapons to his regime. The Russians made it clear that they have no intention of doing so, and never had such intention.
It’s not as though they are clinging to Assad the man; they would have no trouble endorsing someone else, as long as he will be able to preserve Russia’s regional interests the way Assad can. They also have no trouble, alongside the arms shipments, to prepare the immediate evacuation of their people should Assad fall.
IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz heard the same mantra, more or less, when he visited China recently and the Syria issue came up.
The Foreign Ministry’s political research center, which is an intelligence agency in every way, has been drafting detailed lists of the civilians killed in Syria since the crisis erupted: The total stands at 12,500 people. The killing rate at this time stands at 50-60 dead civilians per day, on average.
See you in next massacre
Yet despite this, the conclusion of Foreign Ministry researchers is that the state of Assad’s regime today is essentially no different than it was six months ago. There is indeed gradual erosion, yet one cannot yet see the great crisis that will prompt its collapse.
Indeed, all the talk about Assad’s de-legitimacy is meaningless as long as the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians and the Lebanese think he’s legitimate. He also maintains his legitimacy for now in large sectors of Syrian society.
So the US State Department publicizes yet another plan referring to the need to invoke the UN’s Chapter 7 and accuse Assad of undermining the global order. Big deal. The Americans are talking about 3,000 monitors – instead of the current 300 – who would also engage in enforcement. They are again talking about buffer zones along the Syrian border and about humanitarian corridors deep in Syria to be protected by gunships. For the time being, it’s all talk.
So what did we have in Syria this week? Two brutal massacres, more horrific pictures, and a meeting of world leaders in Turkey that produced numerous declarations on the Syrian question and zero actions.
We’ll see you in the next massacre. Under this state of affairs, President Assad can survive for a long time. “
Third, the countries and organizations that makes this possible (continuation):
TURKEY
There are reports that Turkey has switched side again (for the fourth time). Remember that up to last summer Erdogan was Assads (and Iran’s) buddy and ally. Then Turkey switched to “neutrality”, sort of. Then last winter Turkey switched to sort of support for the opposition.
It is now reported that Ankara had secretly notified leaders of the rebel Free Syrian Army on Thursday, May 31 that it had withdrawn permission for them to launch operations against the Assad regime from Turkish soil.
So the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has double-crossed Western/UN/Arab Syrian policy and moved over to help prop Assad up at the very moment his regime was partly on the point of buckling under international after-shocks from the systematic massacres of his own people
That day, Foreign Minister Davutoglu announced over Turkish NTV: “We have never advised either the Syrian National Council or the Syrian administration to conduct an armed fight, and we will never do so.” He added: “The Syrian people will be the driving force that eventually topples the Syrian regime. Assad will leave as a result of the people’s will.”
This was precisely what Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the day before when he spoke out against violent rebellion, military intervention and sanctions to topple the Syrian ruler.
Obama and his administration have built their whole Syrian policy by letting Erdogan in practice be in the driving seat. Remember also that Obama repeatedly have said that he consider Erdogan to be a “close personal friend” and one of the five top international friends.
To be fair, Turkey had some proposals how to support the opposition and what to do, But they were ALL turned down by the Obama administration, And Turkey didn’t dare going at it alone.
See Part 6 –Turkeyin my original series for more info
“European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday condemned the ”horrendous” and ”unforgivable” massacres of citizens in Syria.”
Just a hint – if they are SO ”horrendous” and ”unforgivable” why don’t you DO SOMETHING FOR A CHANGE!
”It is totally unacceptable and unforgivable that any party to the Syrian conflict, either government oropposition forces, continues to commit these heinous acts of violence against innocent Syrian citizens,” she said.”
So let’s se if I get this right – The Syrian civilian population are in effect, according to this “brilliant analysis of EU: s Foreign Minister, slaughtering themselves in the most barbaric way??
Yeah, that sounds right.
”I strongly condemn the brutal violenceand killing of dozens of civilians yesterday” in the villages of Al-Kubeir and Maarzaf in Hama province, she added in a statement.
”The Syrian government has the responsibility to protect its people,” the statement also said. ”I call for a full investigation of the horrendous crimes and support all efforts to this end.”
Well, the Assad regime doesn’t want to “protect” its people. It wants to slaughter ALL the opposition, which is most of the country.
“Ashton said the EU also condemned efforts to obstruct the implementation of Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s six point plan and called on the international community ”to unite behind a political process leading to a democratic transition.”
”It is time for us to agree on a united way forward. There is no time to lose. The UN Security Council must continue to support Kofi Annan and use all its influence to stop the violence.”
“There is no time to lose” Eehh – the slaughtering has been going on for over 15 months by now. With over 15 000 dead. And the brutal dictatorship has been going “on” for over 45 years.
After all this talk, what do they propose? More of the same that has failed all this time. And time and time again before Syria.
Another meaningless sanction.
Another condemnation.
Another meeting or conference.
Another “peace plan”.
Another “observation” mission.
Etc.
See Part 8 – EU and NATO in my original series for more info
A new Massacre (number XX) – now in al-Qubeir. In the all too familiar pattern. First, the army begins by a merciless barrage of artillery on a village, town or neighborhood. Second, the Shabiha goes in and literally slaughter EVERYONE. From the youngest child to the oldest pensioner.
Syria: full horror of al-Qubeir masacre emerges
The voice of Laith al-Hemary’s brother whispered on the mobile phone: ”There are shouts and screams coming from outside,” he said. ”They are killing everyone they find.” Then the line went dead.
“This was the last time that Mr Hemary, 30, spoke to his brother before he was killed inside the family home in the Syrian hamlet of al-Qubeir on Wednesday.
He was among 78 victims who are believed to have died in a frenzied onslaught in this village in a farming district some 15 miles from the city ofHama.
The full horror of the atrocity was betrayed by bloody videos of mutilated children’s bodies and charred corpses.
In a few hours, almost the entire population of al-Qubeir was massacred in what appears to have been one of the bloodiest incidents since the start of the Syrian uprising.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were responsible, according to opposition activists. They said that regular forces were working in tandem with a pro-government militia, known as the Shabiha, recruited largely from Mr Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
The regime’s troops began the attack on Wednesday afternoon with a heavy artillery barrage, said the activists. Then Shabiha militiamen entered the hamlet armed with sticks, guns and knives. They attacked homes and farmhouses, shooting and slaughtering all the inhabitants they could find.
Mr Hemary and his cousin were among only a handful of survivors of the massacre. ”I could see thick smoke rising from al-Qubeir,” he said. ”I called my brother constantly on the mobile. He was hiding in our home. He told me cars full of Shabiha had come to the village and were attacking everyone and burning houses.”
At 5.10pm, three hours after the attack began, Mr Hemary’s brother’s voice died away and he stopped answering his calls. Pushing open the door of his home several hours later, Mr Hemary found the bodies of his mother, three sisters and three brothers lying bloodied on the ground.
”They had been beaten on the head by sticks and stabbed with knives,” he said. ”I went to other homes. I saw family after family slaughtered by knives.”
After the militia departed and al-Qubeir fell quiet later that evening, people from nearby villages ventured into the stricken hamlet. ”I saw a two-month-old child without a head,” said Abou Hisham al-Hamouli, who lives in a village just over a mile from al-Qubeir. ”I saw the burnt corpse of a woman. Her two children were wrapped around, hugging her. They died like that. There were two many burnt bodies.”
Other eyewitnesses reported how the militiamen sang songs in praise of Mr Assad.
A former soldier who joined the rebel Free Syrian Army said that he reached the village within hours of the massacre, but left quickly because Syrian government troops were still in the area. ”I went into houses and saw children without a head, and others without arms. Some were burned and some were without eyes,” he said.
There were only five known survivors, he added. The exact number of victims could not be confirmed, but people from the nearby village of Maarizab said they had buried 57 corpses. A further thirty bodies were missing and had not yet been buried, said activists.
With almost no foreign reporters inSyria, the accounts of what happened in this remote farming village cannot be independently verified.
The massacre comes less than two weeks after an atrocity in the town of al-Houla in Homs province, where eyewitnesses blamed the killing on the same Shabiha milita.”
Or as EU:s Lady Ashton said: ”It is time for us to agree on a united way forward. There is no time to lose”
Yeah sure, You are going to hit Assad with a 16th round of sanctions and he will be “so scared” that he stops the slaughtering don’t you think?
And the as always helpful Russians are as usual blocking EVERY ACTION:
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Thursday vowed there would be no UN Security Council mandate for outside intervention in Syria, indicating Moscow would use its veto to block any military action.
”There will not be a Security Council mandate for outside intervention, I guarantee you that,” Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of a trip toKazakhstan by President Vladimir Putin.”
This piece from Amal Hanano sums up the desperation inside Syria quite well:
“Confession: the images of the carnage in Houla did not move me like they seem to have moved the rest of the world. Yes, they were tragic, horrific acts of violence against the most innocent of victims. But they didn’t break anything inside of me that was not already broken, nor did they raise the level of outrage or sorrow I feel everyday over what is happening in Syria.
Maybe it was because in the twenty-fours hours before hearing about the Houla massacre, I had heard that a friend’s relative had been killed, I had heard that another friend’s elderly relative had been kidnapped by gangs for ransom, I had received desperate Skype messages from an activist in Homs, crying, “my precious ones are gone, my precious ones are gone,” referring to three Shaam News Network media activists who had been shot dead by Assad forces, I had spoken with the brother of a martyr in Aleppo, who told me that since his older brother was killed one week ago, he was trying to act normally but the truth was, his “heart was burning.” By late afternoon, when I watched the first video of the children of Houla, with their tiny throats slit open below their ashen, angelic faces, all I could feel was yet another heavy thud of dread. One we had felt many times before.
The days after Houla brought the news of the death of Basel Shehade, the brilliant, young filmmaker who was killed by the shells falling over Homs. (Will the shells ever stop falling over Homs?) The days after Houla brought news of continued shelling and burning of Aleppo’s and Idleb’s countryside, and the deaths of another a dozen men — their eyes blindfolded and hands bound — executed in Deir al-Zor. The days after Houla brought news of thousands of Syrian refugees inEgypt who found themselves stranded with empty homes, empty pockets, and a bleak, uncertain future.
The days after Houla continued as all the days had before. But the world’s eyes halted on the massacre.
Houla’s images instigated the world’s outrage in its predictable forms: in heart-wrenching eyewitness accounts of children watching their families being murdered; in sectarian-tainted op-eds that cynically questioned who had perpetrated the crimes; in dry-eyed, canned statements by regime mouthpieces complaining about the media’s “tsunami of lies” which painted the regime as criminal when in fact it was a “victim.” There was outrage over the images themselves andoutrage over the decision to exposing the international public to the violent images (as not to upset an innocent British boy or girl).
And the outrage moved from analysis and narrative to questions: Is the UN plan working? Is a regime-led investigation a fair way to proceed? Who committed the crimes? Is killing by shelling (by the regime) as bad as killing by close-range (by unknown “monsters” according to Bashar al-Assad)? Is it pronounced Houla or Huli? Were the slaughtered people Sunni or Shite (or Sunnis who had converted to Shiism)? Are we with or against foreign intervention? Who will replace Assad? Who will arm the rebels? Who are the rebels? Why is the Syrian opposition still fragmented?
And of course the debate: Will Houla be Syria’s Sabra and Shatila, Syria’s Srebrenica, Syria’s game changer?
What exactly is the “world” responding to? The graphic images? The sheer brutality? The number of dead? The gruesome stories?
Over the last fifteen months we have seen Houla and variations of Houla happen over and over. We witnessed slaughtered bodies in February in the Karm al-Zeitoun massacre. We have seen men and boys dripping with blood, with half their face blown off, still struggling to breath. We watched while an entire city was destroyed, missile by missile.We watched a man flattened by an Assad tank, over and over, into human road kill. We have seen dead children, not only slaughtered but bombed, burned, and mutilated. We know in addition to Houla’s fifty-two dead children,there are hundreds of others; in addition to Houla’s murdered men and women, there are thousands of others. Our dead have been left to rot on the streets of Homs. Our dead have been buried in the public parks ofHama. Houla’s mass grave is just one more to add to the others, inHoms,Hama, Rastan, and Jisr al-Shoughour. And let’s not forget the unknown thousands of Syrians buried under the concrete foundations of a luxury hotel inHama by Assad the elder.
Houla was tragedy. But it was not a game changer. Not even close. Not to us, at least. Maybe it was to those who have been hedging bets on Syria’s future. Or to those who keep a secret, magic “number” of how many Syrians are allowed to die before it’s too much.
How many more gruesome violent videos can we watch before we really can’t stomach it any more? How many people have to die before the world either says enough is enough, or turns away from their screens? How long before the daily death toll in Syria is no longer on the front pages and becomes an invisible battlefield, like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Libya?
How long before you are desensitized?
How long before you forget?
The cynics still claim that the majority of the Syrian people still back the murderous regime, (although by this time the regime and its “silent majority” should be irrelevant like it would be anywhere else in the world in face of such violence, includingBahrain). When a regime decides to kill thousands of its own, its supporters have become accomplices not neutral citizens.
Why the empty debates? Because the cautiously-watching (yet horrified) world has not decided yet on our “so-called” revolution. They claim it has changed from its romantic (and just) beginnings and has become armed, violent, and sectarian. While the world doubts, we watched the “sectarian” Abd al-Basset Sarout and his “bloodthirsty Salafi” FSA brothers sing in a room to a gleaming wooden coffin with a cross, that held their friend Basel Shehade’s shrapnel-ridden body. We witnessed the regime shut down Basel’s memorial service last Thursday in Damascus to the peaceful thousands who wanted to join the church service and light a candle in his honor. We watched last Friday in mosques across Syria, as Muslim men performed an “absentee” prayer for their martyr,Syria’s martyr,Basel. These are the Syrian people too, whether the world wishes to see them or not. Or perhaps they only tolerate seeing them as shrouded corpses.
Those who still argue searching for game changers in Syria should stop exerting themselves. Those who wait for Assad to change his ways and stop the killing, don’t hold your breath. For those who have been waiting for their magic “number,” it’s too late. The number is too high and has passed the threshold of forgiveness.
The game changed months ago while you were turned away.
Whether your eyes decide to confront or slide away from the images of our slain children makes no difference. Because we have already moved on, to face tomorrow, which holds only one Syrian certainty: there will be blood.
I, along with thousands of Syrians, made a decision from the moment the first fingernails were torn from the innocent hands of Bashir Abazid and his schoolmates in Daraa.After decades of our own silence, we had two words for the Assad regime: Game Over.
As for the world, across the spectrum, from the ones fretting anxiously to the ones claiming Houla was a “hoax,” and everyone else in between: we have one question:What’s your number?”
That is a good question.
What is the number of dead and slaughtered civilians the world “accept”? It now stands at over 15 000 dead.
Without the enormous Russian material support, weapons, training, intelligence, troops, personal, diplomatic support etc. the Syrian regime would not survive very long.
Russia has invested more than 55 years into this country and this regime going back to Soviet times. So the Russians are not going to give all that vested strategic interest up voluntarily. Regardless of how many civilians Assad is going to slaughter.
After all, Vladimir Putin is the butcher of Grozny and Chechnya. Or as Paul Conroy so aptly put it: “What Russia taught Syria: When you destroy a city, make sure no one — not even the story — gets out alive.”
And
“Five years later, Russia was back. And Putin’s new strategy was unbending: silence, encircle, pulverize, and ”cleanse.”
To just give one small example of this Russian duplicity. While they “talk” about their support for the Annan peace plan another huge arms shipment was delivered toSyria.
Thursday, May 24, a Russian arms ship, the Professor Katsman (owned by the Russian arms company Rosoboronexport), was detected outside Cyprus. The crew had shut down ALL communications systems, including its transponder, in breach of international regulations and crept forward in silence. The ship also refused to disclose its cargo manifests.
The Russian vessel anchored in the Syrian port of Tartus Friday May 25. Military equipment was then unloaded behind tarpaulin screens and transferred to waiting Syrian military truck convoys.
The cargo? Large quantities of artillery and tank shells as well as spare parts for tanks.
And of course none of these shells is ever going to be fired at the Syrian civilian population, as they have been everyday for the last 15 months.
On June 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, as for reports that Russia is arming the Syrian military, “Russia is not shipping weapons that could be used in a civil conflict.”
And more arms are on the way, the North Korean arms ships Odai is also reported on its way to Tartus with hardware for the Syrian army.
Rosoboronexport by the way is Syria’s main weapons supplier. Since 2007, Rosoboronexport has had a virtual monopoly on arms exports from Russia.
According to shipping records collected by ThomsonReuters, at least four cargo ships have left Russia’s Black Seaport of Oktyabrsk – which Reuters said is used by Rosoboronexport for weapons shipments – for the Syrian port of Tartus since December 2011. In addition, a Russian-operated vessel, the MV Chariot, was carrying four containers of “dangerous cargo” from St. Petersburg to Syria when it stopped in Cyprus in January 2012. Although the ship ostensibly changed course for Turkey, it nevertheless traveled to Syria, according to Reuters, which described the cargo as ammunition reportedly supplied by Rosoboronexport. Davidenko, the company spokesman, declined to confirm or deny the report, telling Reuters, “We do not comment on where our deliveries go, when they leave port or how.”
Here is a list by SIPRI, which is considered an authoritative source on the trade in heavy weapons, of Russian arms transfers to Syria. I want to point out that this by far IS NOT a complete list. This is the ones they found out. Also, it doesn’t include the huge quantities of ammunition, spare parts and lighter weapons etc:
•36 Pantsyr-S1 mobile air-defense systems, delivered between 2008 and 2011;
•Some 700 surface-to-air missiles for use with the Pantsyr mobile air-defense systems, delivered between 2008 and 2011;
•87 anti-ship missiles, delivered from 2009 to 2010;
•Two Bastion-P mobile coastal defense systems, delivered from 2010 to 2011;
•72 anti-ship cruise missiles, delivered from 2010 to 2011, for use with the Bastion-P coastal defense system;
•300 air-to-air missiles, ordered in 2010 for use with MiG-29 combat aircraft;
•Two surface-to-air missile systems, delivered in 2011, from an order for eight such systems;
•40 surface-to-air missiles, delivered in 2011, from an order for 160 such missiles, for use with the missile systems;
•36 Yak-130 jet trainers/combat aircraft ordered in 2011; and
•24 MiG-29 fighter aircraft, ordered in 2007 (delivery pending).
In addition, Jane’s Defense Weekly in 2010 cited a deal for Russia to supply armored vehicles to Syria. The Moscow-based arms research organization Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) has reported that from 2007 to 2011, Russia completed a contract to upgrade 1,000 T-72 battle tanks. A media report indicates that Russia also has arms contracts with Syria worth $250-$400 million for delivery of ammunition, pistols, sub-machine guns, machine guns, anti-tank missiles, and rocket-propelled grenades.
Just to mention a “few” Russian arms deals.
These are the people that Obama and his administration are basing their whole policy on that they, the Russians, are going to “change” somehow.
In the “meantime”, every day Syrian civilians are slaughtered with Russian arms, Russian ammunition, Russian trained “soldiers” and “officers”, Russian advisers, sometimes directing at the “front”, and with the use of Russian intelligence.
See Part 3 –Russia in my original series for more info
Without the enormous Iranian material support, weapons, training, intelligence, troops, personal, diplomatic support etc. the Syrian regime would not survive very long.
Between Russia and Iran, there is a division of labour of how they support Syria. Iran, usually, has more troops, personal, advisors etc direct on the “front line” where the direct slaughtering is going on.
Assad TOTALLY depends on Iran (together with Russia and China) for his survival.
For Iran, Syria plays a vital roll in its ambitions to control parts of the Middle East. In addition, Syria is crucial for Iran’s support and control of Hezbollah and Lebanon. And Hamas in Gaza.
For the first time the Iranian regime have openly admitted that it has troops in Syria and is actively supporting the Syrian thugs.
On May 27, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) first published and then removed an interview with a senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force in which he said Iran is involved inSyria.
“Someone” understood what a blunder this was and pulled the plug a few hours later.
The interview was with Deputy Quds Force commander Brigadier General Ismail Ghaani. He said ”Thanks to Iran’s presence in Syria– physically and nonphysically– big massacres were prevented.” He also said that “the Quds Force had had an ”effective” presence in Syria.”
He also claimed that ”if the Islamic republic had not been present in Syria, the massacre of its people would have been multiplied.” SIC!
And he said: ”Despite all the problems that the Syrian government has — and we have asked them to address those — Syria is a location of resistance. The reason for all the pressure from the U.S. and Israel is that they have realized the country is impossible to occupy”.
In another twist of fate, Hezbollah, with over a 25-year record of kidnapping and murder against Israelis, Americans and other Westerners, have had a taste of their own medicine.
In two incidents, Hezbollah operatives were kidnapped by the Syrian opposition.
You should remember that Hezbollah, together with Iran, actively has helped the Assad regime against his own people.
The first group of eleven was captured on May 22 in a bus heading home through Aleppo from Iran. The story was that these people were “pilgrims” returning. In reality, they were Hezbollah operatives. They are now held by FSA.
The second and much more serious for Hezbollah was a very sophisticated commando raid outside Damascus, where 5 top Hezbollah officers was kidnapped. This has sent shock waves through Tehran and the Al Qods Brigades command there.
The unidentified commandos, guided apparently by precise intelligence, ambushed a Hezbollah car 15 km west of Damascus after they left the Syrian military base of Al-Hame 4 km from the Syrian capital. And captured five top-ranking Hezbollah officers. A sixth escaped.
Al-Hame is one of the two big military bases Hezbollah has outside Damascus. The other one is in Al Zabadani. It is there that Hezbollah maintains its heavy Scud D long-range missiles, as well as it’s more sophisticated and advanced hardware and missiles/rockets it intends to use against Israel.
One of the kidnapped Hezbollah officers was Ali Safa, a senior officer of Hezbollah intelligence and nephew of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. The kidnapped also included Hussein Hamid, Dep. Commander of Hezbollah forces in South Lebanon; and Ali Zerayb, member of the Hezbollah Jihad Council.
This is part of Hezbollah core leadership so no wonder Tehran is worried.
It is said that Obama is doing nothing in Syria because he does not want to “disturb” the nuclear weapons negotiations with Iran. Negotiations that have led nowhere during all these years. In the meantime, Iran is SO MUCH closer to make nuclear weapons, if it decides to do so.
At the same time, every day Syrian civilians are slaughtered with Russian and Iranian arms, Russian ammunition, Iranian led “soldiers”, Iranian advisers and with Iranian intelligence.
See Part 4 –Iran in my original series for more info
Without the Chinese material support, weapons, training, intelligence, personal, diplomatic support etc. the Syrian regime would not survive very long. The Chinese support is however on a smaller scale than Russia and Iran.
China helps Assad mostly through its sanction busting system it has set up to help Iran.
China has helped Iran to sidestep the regular global financial system to create a huge clandestine money-transfer, commercial and currency exchange machine for getting around the US-led Western sanctions hurting Iran’s international trade.
They are assisting in the construction of this underground network as a pipeline through which Iran can continue to conduct its commercial business with the outside world. And to help Iran evade the financial isolation because of the sanctions regarding its nuclear weapons program.
China also profits enormously from these sanctions-busting measures. Two years ago, anticipating the blockage of its regular trade relations, Iran began transferring billions of dollars to Chinese banks, which as a rule do not enter into foreign currency transactions with foreign banks.
China undertook to make available the amounts need to buy essential goods that the embargo prevents Iran from acquiring directly.
Beijing does the shopping and draws on the Iranian deposits to pay for the purchases. The goods are delivered to China and transferred to Iran via Pakistan.
China is making a very tidy profit from its shopping service for Iran. China is charging Iran an extra four-percent to cover insurance dues and another four percent surcharge as a “risk fee,” over and above the expensive roundabout delivery route. Already, China may be clearing as much as a billion dollars a year from this service alone.
And the Chinese use this system to also help Assad with ALL the things he needs to suppress the uprising.
See Part 5 –China in my original series for more info
It is now nearly one month since I finished my 11 parts series of background on what is going on in Syria (Syria and Vladimir Putin: The Butcher of Homs Part 1-11). So I thought it would be appropriate to give an update of what has happened or not happened since then.
And surprise, surprise – NOTHING HAS CHANGED. The same old same old.
The barbaric slaughter of civilians, including children continues unabated. While’s the rest of the world talks, make statements, have meetings etc.
And yet Assad hangs on, slaughtering his own people, destroying and despoiling whole neighbourhoods, calling the bluff of the Arab League, Turkey, UN, USA and EU/NATO.
Helped to a very large degree by the enormous material support, weapons, training, intelligence, troops, personal etc. from Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah.
As for the do nothing as usual UN, it “proudly” upholds its tradition of doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when it really maters, like Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia (Srebrenica anyone?) etc.
And this is the UN that wants to be a “world government” and a words power.
So very shortly, here are some observations.
First the Houla Massacre:
Click on the satellite image and it gets bigger
These Assad Thugs are some of the people responsible for the Houla Massacre where 49 children were literally slaughtered one by one:
“Supervisor: Brigadier General Mohammad Anis, serving in the role of Deputy Commander of the 67th Brigade, Commander of Tank Battalion 11.
Implementer: Staff Colonel Ali Khalouf, head of Reconnaissance Brigade #67, Tank Battalion. He also looted homes and stole personal property. He personally raped the wife of a Colonel who was killed by internal security in Taldo.
Colonel Habib Mohammed, Battalion Tank Commander. He carried out the bombing.
Colonel Mohamed Nasr Khaddam, Commander of the Shabiha groups. He stole personal property and set fire to homes. He drives a Toyota Double Cabin pickup truck painted in camouflage colors.
Captain Tamam Rahija, platoon leader and shabih who stole houses and cars.
Lieutenant Shaher Ibrahim, a platoon leader and shabih who stole cars and robbed houses.
Lieutenant Colonel Nidal Salman, Commander of a Tank Company; responsible for the Taldo checkpoint. He robbed houses, stole cars, and raped women.
Lieutenant Colonel Ali Jahani, Company Commander and leader of secret patrols and shabiha. He is from Al-Masoudieh village inHoms.
Lieutenant Colonel Ayham Salameh, head of the Kafar Laha and Tal Dahab checkpoints. He murdered, robbed, tortured, and raped women in his office, which contains a torture chamber.”
”!HOULA MASSACRE – THE CHILDREN HAD THEIR HANDS TIED BY ASSAD’S FORCES BEFORE THEY WERE SLAUGHTERED.
Bashar Al Assad’s forces first began shelling the town indiscriminately towards the city center. While on the outskirts of the town, where the people had no protection from the FSA, Assad’s forces moved from house to house and butchered men, women and children.”
“The children of Houla were not killed by random shelling. The UN yesterday revealed that they were murdered one by one. The militia came in the night armed with knives and guns, and the young victims were executed with a bullet to the head or a knife to the throat.
One photograph shows a cherubic baby girl, no older than 2, with a tiny gold ear-stud. She is wrapped in a white shroud. Half her skull has been hacked or blown away. A saucer of bone juts from a bloody gash in what remains of her head.
Another shows what appears to be a boy of perhaps 6 or 7. The blanket in which he is wrapped has fallen away to expose a bare white shoulder. He looks as if he is sleeping, but the back of his head has been lopped off like the top of a boiled egg. His brain lies on the blanket behind him.
A third shows a pretty young girl staring upwards, her mouth slightly open as if smiling. Above her right eye there is a large, bloody bullet hole surrounded by a mess of flesh and bone.
The pictures go on, some mercifully out of focus, most far too shocking to print in The Times though our failure to do so spares the Assad regime.
There is a baby wearing nothing but a nappy, seemingly untouched except that it lacks an arm. Another young girl wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt with the word “Baby” or “Dolly” written on it has had her jaw shot away. A man carries the body of a child with only half a head remaining.
There are children — brothers, sisters, cousins? — wearing blood-drenched shorts and T-shirts with their eyes gouged out, with their faces slashed by knives or with neat bullet holes in their torsos. One girl has had her nose and cheek sliced off. A couple of the children lying on the floor of a makeshift mortuary appear to have had their hands bound.
These are some of the 49 children killed in the Houla massacre, not by random shelling but knifed to death or shot at close range by President Assad’s Shabiha thugs. They were summarily executed, the United Nations said yesterday.
At least 108 civilians were killed in total, 34 of them women, in a slaughter of infants and innocents with few modern precedents. Only 20 of the deaths could be attributed to artillery or tank fire, Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, said.
“What is very clear is that this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, women and children.At this point it looks like entire families were shot in their houses,” he added.”
You can se the rest of the horrific pictures of the slaughtered children here:
“An elderly woman from the Abdel Razzak family who survived the attack told Human Rights Watch:
I was in the house with my three grandsons, three granddaughters, sister-in-law, daughter, daughter in-law and cousin. [On May 25] around 6:30 p.m., before sunset, we heard gunshots. I was in a room by myself when I heard the sound of a man. He was shouting and yelling at my family. I hid behind the door. I saw another man standing outside by the entrance door and another one inside the house. They were wearing military clothes. I couldn’t see their faces. I thought they wanted to search the house. They walked in the house; I didn’t hear them break in because we never lock the doors. After three minutes, I heard all my family members screaming and yelling. The children, all aged between 10 and 14, were crying. I went down on the floor and tried to crawl so I could see what was happening. As I approached the door, I heard several gunshots. I was so terrified I couldn’t stand on my legs. I heard the soldiers leaving. I looked outside the room and saw all of my family members shot. They were shot in their bodies and their head. I was terrified to approach to see if they were alive. I kept crawling until I reached the back door. I went outside, and I ran away. I was in shock so I don’t know what happened later.”
A 10-year-old boy from the Abdel Razzak family told Human Rights Watch that he saw men wearing military clothes shoot his 13-year-old friend:
I was at home with my mother, my cousins, and my aunt. Suddenly I heard gunshots. It was the first time I heard so many gunshots. My mother grabbed me and took me to a barn to hide. I heard men screaming and shouting. I heard people crying especially women. I looked outside the window. I was peeking sometimes but I was afraid they would see me. Men wearing [uniforms] like army soldiers, green with other colors [camouflage] and white shoes, entered our house. They went outside after a couple of minutes. Then across the street I saw my friend Shafiq, 13 years old, outside standing alone. An armed man in military uniform grabbed him and put him at the corner of a house. He took his own weapon and shot him in the head. His mother and big sister – I think she was 14 years old – went outside and started shouting and crying.The same man shot at both of them more than once. Then the armed men left and the FSA soldiers came.
The boy’s mother confirmed many of the details to Human Rights Watch:
At around 6:30 – 7:00 p.m., we started hearing the sound of gunshots. They were very close to us. We ran and hid in the barn. After the armed men left, and I heard the sound of their cars driving away, my sister and I went outside. I saw Shafiq [the 13-year-old friend of her son] on the ground dead. I saw three families: three women, two of them with children. All of them were shot. Some were shot in the head and others had multiple shots in the body. One of the children survived. She is 14 years old. She was shot twice in the leg. I also saw my cousin who was shot in the chest. A 13-year-old boy who was paralyzed was shot three times in his chest as well.”
Remember also that the, as always, “helpful” Russians blamed this barbaric massacre on the opposition:
“President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Friday that he rejected outside military intervention as an answer to the increasingly horrific bloodshed in Syria, and the Kremlin publicly sided with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in blaming Mr. Assad’s armed rebel opponents for a massacrethere last week that incited world outrage. “
“Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said it was clear the army had used tank shells but not who shot civilians at point blank range.
“We are dealing with a situation where both sides participated in the killings of innocent civilians… this district is controlled by the armed militants and at the same time it’s encircled by the governmental forces and troops,” he said.”
And
“Alexei Pushkov, chair of the international affairs committee of the Russian parliament, the Duma, was more explicit: “We have very strong doubts that those people who were shot at point blank [range] and were stabbed, that this was the action of forces loyal to President Assad,” he told the BBC.
“The shelling was probably the responsibility of the troops of Mr Assad, but the stabbing and point blank firing was definitely from the other side.”
These are the people that Obama and his administration are basing their whole policy on that they are going to somehow “change”.
Also remember that this massacre happened under the UN/Kofi Annan and their “observers” watch.
The independent Front Page May 27
Second the Assad thugs are continuing, now with UN “observers” watching, with what they always have been doing and are “good at” – atrocities and massacres:
There are SOOO MANY videos EVERY DAY showing their barbaric behaviour. It’s sickening. Here are just three.
LEAKED VIDEO – ”ASSAD’S FORCES RUN OVER A MAN IN THEIR TANKS – ONE AFTER ANOTHER. (Idleb) – Words can do no justice to the disgust and barbarity that epitomizes Assad, his forces and his supporters as they cheer and encourage such things.
Where on Earth can this happen other than Syria? How sick does one have to be to find joy in running over a human being in a tank?”
LEAKED VIDEO – ”HORRIFIC – A TRUE SCENE OF HELL. ASSAD’S FORCES FILM INSIDE THE HOMES OF FAMILIES THEY JUST MURDERED IN BABA AMR & JOBAR. Homs (Baba Amr) – Bodies of mutilated, burnt and crushed men and women are strewn about the rubble after Assad’s forces enter the district of Baba Amr after a month long siege where they shelled the area round-the-clock for 30 days and cut off all food and medical supplies.
When they finally entered the neighborhood, the most impoverished in Homs, they went from house to house and executed entire families or anyone that dared to stay. Many of their victims had their throats slit and were burnt.
This is Assad. These are his forces. This is what they do.”
LEAKED VIDEO – ”ASSAD’S FORCES FILM THEMSELVES SMILING AS THEY STAND ON THE BODIES OF MEN THEY JUST KILLED. Rastan (Date Unknown) – As is the case with many of these videos, Assad’s forces have no problems showing their faces, smiling and laughing over bodies of people they just killed.
They live in Assad’s Syria, where they are free to do as they please.”
This is one of the best and succinct descriptions of EU I have seen:
“The European Union is like a hospital where all the doctors are mad. It doesn’t matter what is wrong, the treatment is always the same – more integration – and it is always wrong. The best thing to do is never to enter it.
Once you are in, the best thing to do is to leave. If you can’t get out, you will probably die.”
I disagree with one thing this author says: “EU is the Stupid Empire”. EU is a POLITICAL project. The Euro is part of that political project.
A lot of EU’s decisions make no economic sense whatsoever. In that regard, Peter Hitchens observation that “EU is the Stupid Empire” is completely right. Not to mention the enormous cost to the common people of all these political motivated but economically disastrous decisions.
The economic side was always a way to “sell it to the people”. Step by step. So that the political agenda could be slowly, but steadily implemented. Until it was too late. The political elites new ALL along that had the EU project been presented to the people for what it really is, people in ALL countries would have rejected it.
BUT EU was on purpose designed this way. So that the people could not stop this political project.
Never forget that ALL the political elites, irrespective of party or ideology, in the EU countries were behind this. With very few exceptions.
One small example, before the referendum on the Euro in September 2003 in Sweden, ALL parties (with the exception of some communists, greens, socialists and some from the agrarian party, ALL big unions, ALL mainstream media, ALL the representatives of the business world etc was for the Euro. And they put massive financial and personal resources behind this.
But the Swedish people, wisely, rejected this with 56% to 42%.
In the latest opinion poll, December 2011, 87,6% of the Swedish people were against the Euro. 9,7 % for.
They planned this, and wanted this. And they kept on purpose this real ideology behind the EU project well hidden from their citizens in their countries.
They kept everything on purpose, including treaties, SO technical and juridical that it was totally unreadable for the common people. Like the EU “constitution”.
Just to give one example of how meaningless the local parliaments have become:
In Sweden 65 to 85%, depending of which area, of “decisions” made by the Swedish parliament HAVE ALREADY BEEN DECIDED IN BRUSSELS.
I.E. The national Swedish parliament is in reality rubber-stamping Brussels decisions and implementing them.
That’s all!
And they cannot change even one syllable in these decisions. So much for “representing” the will of the people.
But of course, they are not telling us that. They pretend that ALL these decisions are made locally by the Swedish parliament as the “sovereign” representatives for the Swedish nation. When in reality they can, to the most part, only decide the colour of their on toilets.
”The European Union is like a hospital where all the doctors are mad. It doesn’t matter what is wrong, the treatment is always the same – more integration – and it is always wrong. The best thing to do is never to enter it.
Once you are in, the best thing to do is to leave. If you can’t get out, you will probably die.
Those of us who pay attention to history, politics and truth have known this for many years.
But as the EU’s ‘experts’ and ‘technocrats’ insanely destroy the economies ofGreece,SpainandItaly, it must now surely be obvious to everyone.
The EU, far from being a bright future, offers nothing but bankruptcy and decline.
If the old USSRwas an Evil Empire – and it was – the EU is the Stupid Empire. Obsessed with the idea that the nation state is obsolete, the EU has sought to bind its colonies tightly, while pretending they are still independent.
This is why what is essentially a modern German empire is not held together by armies, but by a sticky web of regulations and a currency that destroys prosperity wherever it is introduced (with one important exception, Germany itself, for whom the euro means cheap exports to Asia).
It is also why it has been built backwards, starting with the roof and ending with the foundations. Old-fashioned empires were at least honest.
They marched in, plundered everything they could cart away, killed or imprisoned resisters, suborned collaborators, and imposed their language on the conquered.
Other humiliating measures followed – forcing the newly-subject people to live according to the invader’s time, to pay special taxes to their new masters, to surrender control of their borders, to use the invader’s weights and measures, salute the invader’s flag and obey the invader’s laws.
Eventually, after a few years of imposed occupation money, set at a viciously rigged exchange rate, the subjugated nation’s economy would have been reduced to such a devastated and dependent state that it could be forced to accept the imperial currency.
The EU, which cannot admit to being what it really is, has to achieve the same means sideways or backwards. The colonial laws are disguised as local Acts of Parliament. The flag is slowly introduced, the borders stealthily erased, the weights and measures and the clocks gradually brought into conformity.
Resources (such as Britain’s fisheries) are bureaucratically plundered, giant taxes are quietly levied, but collected by our own Revenue & Customs as our ‘contribution’, our banking industry is menaced.
Opponents are politically marginalised, collaborators discreetly rewarded, armed forces quietly dismantled or placed under supranational command. It is happening before our eyes and yet, while the exit is still just open, we make no move to depart.
Our grandchildren will wonder, bitterly, why we were so feeble.”
”UN mediator Kofi Annan’s plan for Syria was ”on track,” though progress in implementing the ceasefire is slow, his spokesperson said Friday.
”The Annan plan is on track and a crisis that has been going on for over a year is not going to be resolved in a day or a week,” Ahmad Fawzi, the UN and Arab League envoy’s spokesperson, told journalists in Geneva.
”There are signs on the ground of movement, albeit slow and small,” he added.
”Some heavy weapons have been withdrawn, some heavy weapons remain. Some violence has receded, some violence continues. And that is not satisfactory, I’m not saying it is.”
Overall, Fawzi said, the plan and the UN observers who are on the ground overseeing its implementation—a team he reported had grown to about 50 by Friday—have had an impact.
But he decried continuing violence between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and opposition forces in a conflict that has killed more than 11,000 people since flaring in March 2011.
”This is a difficult and complex mediation effort. There are days when things are progressing in a satisfactory manner and there are days where we feel that it’s a rough ride,” he said.
”However having said that, even on the days that we feel there is satisfactory progress… we are horrified by the extent of the violence that we see on the ground.”
So let’s see if I get this right: UN is horrified by the extent of the violence even on “good” daysbut STILL the Annan plan IS ON TRACK!
That in a nutshell is UN/Kofi Annan “ceasefire” and peace plan and logic for you.
International diplomacy at it’s best.
So here are some examples of the UN peace plan and how on “track” it is:
Remember that these leaked videos were filmed by the Assad militia, thugs, intelligence people etc. to show how “good”, loyal and efficient they are:
“GRAPHIC LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES FILM THEIR LATEST MASSACRE. Another macabre ‘trophy’ for their collection of murdered Syrians. All in the name of their master, Bashar Al Assad.”
“GRAPHIC LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES MURDER TWO YOUNG MEN THEN STRAP THEIR BODIES TO THEIR TANK TO PARADE THEM. (Date & Location Unknown) This is what Assad’s forces do. This is who they are. Animals.”
“VERY GRAPHIC LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES FILM THEIR LATEST MASSACRE AND CONGRATULATE THEMSELVES. The cameraman says at one point (about the dead men) “hahaha, they were making coffee!, they even drink coffee” … Assad’s forces say this because it helps them de-humanize their victims .. using words such as “them” and exclaiming such facts as “they even drink coffee (like us)”.
This has been the key element to Assad’s hodl on power, his ability to convince his mercenaries that the people they murder are not human and deserve a brutal death. No matter if they are men, women or children.”
”LEAKED VIDEO – THIS IS HOW ASSAD’S FORCES ENTER A NEIGHBORHOOD – THE GUNFIRE IS DEAFENING AND THEIR CHANTS ARE DISGUSTING. Damascus (Eastern Ghouta): They chant “Shabeeha (Thugs) Forever, For Your Eye’s Oh Assad!” which is a variation of the Pro – Revolution chant “Freedom Forever Despite You Oh Assad” (both slogans rhyme in Arabic.
Listen to the deafening sound of the the gunfire as these animals announce their arrival into the neighborhood, firing into thee air and at the surrounding buildings – spreading terror and fear.”
Syrian state TV in action – a case of literally shotgun journalism.
“LEAKED VIDEO – SYRIAN STATE TV REPORTER CONDUCTS AN ‘INTERVIEW’ THEN HAS ‘FUN; WITH ASSAD’S FORCES & FIRES GUNS WITH THEM. Homs (Baba Amr) – As he conducts a fake interview with a ‘local citizen’ who proclaims that he was happy to see the army come into Baba Amr (the district that was flattened by Assad’s forces over a one month period and where hundreds if not thousands were killed), this Syrian State TV reporter then puts on his coat and starts firing off a mercenaries gun for fun …”
“The Hitlers or Assads of this world cannot personally collect taxes, torture citizens, shoot into crowds of protesters, operate public transport or fix roads by themselves. They need obedience and co-operation to do so. And if enough people deny obedience and withhold their co-operation—even after credible threats—rulers simply cannot rule.”
Srdja Popovic, one of the leaders of the Serbian Revolution and member of Otpor
(Otpor=resistance was a civic youth movement that existed from 1998 until 2003 in Serbia, employing nonviolent struggle against the regime of Slobodan Milošević. They were credited for their role in the successful overthrow of Slobodan Milošević on 5 October 2000.)
And the protest go on. Here a whole village is out demonstrating.
“THE SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION WILL NEVER BE CRUSHED – AN AMAZING PROTEST. Daraa (Mia’rbah): May 4, 2012 – In a tiny village which measures no more than 2 blocks wide and 4 blocks across in Daraa, the whole village emerges to protest aginst Assad’s rule and for freedom and dignity.”
“DAMASCUS // The protest came out of nowhere, a holiday afternoon in central Damascus busy with shoppers interrupted by lofted banners demanding freedom and democracy.
With surprising calmness given the risk of dire consequences if they were caught by security forces, a dozen or so activists emerged from the crowd outside the historic Hamediyeh market.
Most were young, some teenagers. A majority were women, evidently secular, dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts. There were no chants or songs, no words, just the banners, most in Arabic, one in English, calling for freedom, calling for an end to regime killings, reminding the hundreds of onlookers that in Syria doctors can pay with their lives for helping wounded civilians.
The audience at first seemed to have little idea of what was happening: Damascus is full of banners and posters for candidates in forthcoming parliamentary elections.
But when reality began to sink in, they stood mute, eyes wide, watching.
A delivery boy on an old-fashioned bicycle stopped and stared, mouth agape. Drivers leaned out of their car windows or ducked their heads for a better view through the windscreen.
In a country that for decades has brooked no public dissent, scenes like this are hard to comprehend and, even after 13 months of an uprising that has thrown entire cities into an anti-regime revolt, somehow unimaginable and shocking.
The very heart of Damascus is still not used to such blatant shows of rebellion. On Fridays people expect protests and, as a result, many who prefer to turn a blind eye to the uprising simply stay at home, doors locked, windows shuttered, televisions tuned into the propaganda and soap operas on state-run channels
A midweek May Day protest seen by hundreds of ordinary people is a different matter, however. It is much harder to ignore, dismiss or defame, especially when it doesn’t fit with the government’s insistence that the opposition are Islamist terrorists waging a campaign of violent intolerance.
This protest was peaceful and well organised, carried out with a smooth confidence by young men and women who could be the sons or daughters of almost any modern, middle-class Damascene family.
From the pavement, a smattering of applause rose – perhaps from other activists among the shoppers. A few drivers honked their horns in frustration at the blocked traffic. But mainly there was silence. No one hurled abuse at the protesters. There were no spontaneous shouts of loyalty to the president, Bashar Al Assad.
As if time had slowed, the demonstration moved across the road, leaving the way free for the cars. It resumed on the central reservation, banners held aloft again.
Walking casually, some smiling, some serious, the protesters crossed a busy road junction. They stopped in front of the justice palace, which houses the courts where scores of political dissidents have been sentenced to long jail terms over the years. The banners were again thrust into the air.
One of the protesters, a man in his thirties with grey hair, smiled broadly as if enjoying a simple day out with friends. Another, face stern, held his fingers up in the universal signal for victory and peace.
Ten minutes after the protest started, there was still no visible response from the security forces. Traffic police made no move to intervene, carrying on with their endless labour of keeping the traffic moving.
Then a siren wailed. Soon afterwards, the protesters melted away, disappearing quickly in small groups down side streets, hidden by their ordinariness.
A minute or so later, the Shabbiheh, burly men in olive drab trousers and T-shirts emblazoned with Mr Al Assad’s face framed inside a heart, were running towards the justice palace.
They were too late to catch their quarry, arriving at the main entrance to Hamediyeh market with everything ostensibly back to normal.
But everything had already forever changed.”
More on the atrocities in the Idlib area. This time from Amnesty:
Inside Syria’s crackdown: ‘I found my boys burning in the street’ Amnesty International reports the harrowing testimonies of the people of Idlib and nearby villages terrorised by regime forces
“Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior crisis adviser, was in Syria for 10 days during the second half of April. Rovera has worked at Amnesty International for 20 years and has extensive experience of working in conflict zones, including Libya, South Sudan, Ivory Coast and Gaza. Here she reports some of the first-hand accounts of the brutal crackdown by the Syrian regime against its people.
”Soldiers came to our home and took my son. Later, as I was peering out of the window I saw soldiers line up eight young men standing facing the wall with their hands tied at the back and shoot them. Then they put the bodies in the back of a pick-up truck and left. I don’t know if the men were all dead or injured. At that point I did not know that one of the men was my son. His body was found with other bodies at a school not too far from our home.”
“In several villages and towns around Idlib the scars of the recent army incursions are very visible. Hundreds of houses have been burned down and everywhere I met families whose relatives were killed. Many were killed in exchanges of fire, in what seemed rather futile attempts by hopelessly outgunned armed opposition fighters to prevent scores of army tanks from entering the towns and villages. Others, both opposition fighters and people not involved in any fighting, were extra-judicially executed after they were arrested at their homes and those of their relatives.”
“In Taftanaz I met the families of two 80-year-old men who were killed in their homes during the army incursion into the town on 4 April. One was burned in his home. His wife told me: ”I had been staying with relatives across the street and my husband was at home. When I went back home I found it burned down but did not find my husband. I went out and asked the soldiers outside where they had taken him. I thought they had arrested him. A soldier replied ‘Go back in and look for him’. I went back andfound his remains in a pile of ash.”
“In addition to the human loss, families are having to cope with the loss of their homes and livelihood. Those whose homes and businesses have been burned down or destroyed and who have been left with nothing other than the clothes on their back are relying on the charity of relatives and friends. Some are trying to repair or salvage what they can from their wrecked properties but many are beyond repair. There is no doubt that the burning down of so many homes and businesses – and including medical facilities such as field hospitals and pharmacies – was deliberate, seemingly a combination of revenge and collective punishment.
The extra-judicial executions, the shooting and shelling of residential areas, and the deliberate destruction of homes, businesses and other properties in the Idlib area, are consistent with the pattern of violations inflicted by Syrian forces on the population in other parts of Syria where there have been opposition protests and/or armed opposition. Soldiers, members of the security forces, and the civilian leadership up and down the chain of command should know that such abuses constitute crimes against humanity and the claim that ”I was just carrying out orders” will not keep them from being brought to justice – either in Syria or in other countries around the world.”
Say Cheese the UN observers are here!
“Syria‘ Moving Scuds to Israel, Turkey Borders”
All this of course in full agreement with the UN/Annan peace plan. Especially that part that Syria will not hesitate to fire missiles at Israel and Turkey in order to ignite a large scale regional war.
Sounds like a real peace loving government doesn’t it? Fully intent of following ALL points in the peace plan and ceasefire.
“Jordanian news site Ahbar Baladna reports that western spy satellites have recently spotted movements of Syrian heavy missile launchers northward and southward, toward Syria’s borders with Turkey and Israel.
The site says hundreds of high-caliber launchers are being moved, and that these could only be long range Scud missile launchers.
Syria has threatened in the past that in the event of foreign military intervention on its soil, it will not hesitate to fire missiles at Israel and Turkey in order to ignite a large scale regional war.
Turkish and French officials said ten days ago they were mulling a potential military intervention inSyria, where civil war has been raging for 14 months.
“In the face of developments in Syria, we are taking into consideration any kind of possibility in line with our national security and interests,” Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu told parliament during a briefing to lawmakers.”
More on the US non-policy on Syria
U.S. Syrian Policy: A Massacre in Progress; A Disgrace in the Making
“U.S. policy toward Syria is turning into a scandal on both strategic and humanitarian grounds. The next three months will be wasted in a toothless observer effort during which time the Syrian regime will go on massacring people and mopping up the rebellion. In addition, U.S. policymakers admit that they have no real back-up policy and what they should do next.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been gaining more power in large part because instead of financing and helping the moderate opposition, U.S. policy has combined being soft on the regime with helping the Islamists, especially in the absurd exercise in which an American initiative produced an anti-American, Brotherhood-dominated Syrian opposition leadership in exile.
And then to show how ridiculous the whole thing is, Syrian troops opened fire at oppositionists trying to talk to the UN monitors, forcing the observers to flee for their lives and injuring eight demonstrators. The UN responds by proposing a few dozen more, equally helpless, observers.
This is the same UN that in 2006 promised Israel that it would intercept Syrian weapons being smuggled to Hizballah in Lebanon and stop that radical group from reoccupying its pre-war positions in the south of the country.In six years, not a single weapon has been intercepted and not a single Hizballah terrorist stopped. On the contrary, withSyrian backing, Hizballah has terrorized the thousands of soldiers in the UN forces in Lebanon.
There should be no question as to what should be done. Along with Iran, North Korea, and Cuba, the Syrian regime is the most anti-American government in the world. It has done everything possible to sabotage U.S. interests, to sponsor terrorism, and to block peace. That regime is also Iran’s main ally.
Any conceivable president who cared about or understood U.S. interests would make the overthrow of the Syrian regime a top priority for the United States. I’m not talking about sending troops or going to war but about every conceivable other means. This should be blindingly obvious.
In addition, any competent president would work hard to help the moderate pro-democratic forces in the Syrian opposition so that they can gain power in the country. Instead, the Obama Administration that subcontracted dealing with the Syrian regime to the UN has subcontracted dealing with the Syrian opposition to the Islamist regime in Turkey. Not surprisingly, the Turkish regime has pushed Muslim Brothers and other Islamists and their clients into the ”official” leadership of the Syrian opposition, the Syrian National Council. This has led to a fracturing of opposition leadership.
And the Syrian regime is being rewarded with no more pressure and being given the ability to stall for time even though it has already violated the ceasefire. This is not merely a bad U.S. and Western policy; it is the worst possible policy, lacking any strategy to undermine the radicals and help the moderates.
After 2.5 years of the Obama Administration treating this enemy as a friend we have seen almost a year of dithering over the opportunity to get rid of that regime. It is like when the administration ignored the stealing of the election in Iran and the opposition movement there, as if it wanted to coddle, not confound, the Tehran regime. It also came to the rescue of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, pressingIsrael to minimize sanctions.
In contrast, the administration has not hesitated to overthrow an ally in Egypt and come close to doing that in Bahrain.
The pattern is that the radical side breaks every agreement, rejects compromise, and escalates aggression and the Obama Administration takes it all with a smile on its face and a song in its heart.
But back to Syria. Even the pro-Obama CNN network is amazed by U.S. policy. It admits the UN mission will fail, agrees that the Syrian government is the aggressor in shredding the ceasefire–using heavy weapons aimed at civilian targets, and adds:
“Monitoring missions can only work when the parties to a conflict have had enough of fighting or can be coerced into negotiation by outside powers. The Arab League mission members in Syria earlier this year were little more than bystanders, unable or unwilling to operate amid the government crackdown….The [Syrian] government has made it clear that the observers won’t have free rein.”
Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for the UN envoy Kofi Annan, whose past record hardly inspires confidence, says two truly shocking things;
”The United States is leaving it in the hands of Kofi Annan, as is the rest of the world.…We’re the only path in town. There is no alternative.”
But why should the United States turn over its policy to the UN, especially since a number of members are pro-Syrian regime and blocking any serious action? And have we really reached a point in time when the UN can present itself as the only channel for international action?
In other words it is assumed that theUnited Statescan have no independent policy. CNN accepts that view, adding, “That in itself illustrates how few options there are for the West to influence events inSyria.”
That’s nonsense. There are many other options. But how can there be hope for any alternative when a U.S. official actually admits:
”Our allies were coming back to us and saying, ‘What’s your next move?,‘ and we were forced to admit we didn’t have one.'”
The U.S.economy is merely hopelessly in debt, but U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is hopelessly bankrupt.”
“The authorities are touting Monday’s parliamentary election as a showcase of these reforms.
However, the opposition says it will change little in a rubberstamp assembly that has been chosen by the ruling Assad family, backed by the powerful secret police, for the past four decades.
The assembly currently does not have a single opposition member and official media said half the seats would be reserved to ”representatives of workers and peasants”, whose unions are controlled by Assad’s Baath Party.
”Nothing has changed. Syria‘s political system remains utterly corrupt and election results will be again determined in advance,” said opposition activist Bassam Ishaq, who unsuccessfully ran for parliament in 2003 and 2007.
”There are effectively very few seats for independents, and these will go to the highest bidder.”
A plea for help from long-time hum rights lawyer and judge Haitham Al Maleh:
“Syrians feel forgotten and betrayed by an international community whose support has been poor compared with that given Libyan rebels.
By Haitham Al Maleh
Syria yearns for freedom from the brutality of the Assad regime. For four decades, thousands upon thousands paid the price for their opposition to Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez Assad. We have been intimidated, arrested, tortured and killed. Since the uprising began in 2011, opposition forces put the death toll at more than 10,000, with many more imprisoned. And all because we want a free, fair Syria.
I am 81; I have dedicated my life to advancing democracy, constitutional principles and an independent judiciary in my country. I have been arrested on many occasions for having resisted the dynastic family rule of the Assads. I hope this awful period of Syria‘s history will end with the demise of this murderous regime, and I call on the international community to do more to bring that about.
I started my law practice in 1957, and in 1958 I became a judge. That lasted only until 1966, when the Baath Party, which had come to power in 1963, issued a special law that dismissed me. The excuse? I did not ”fit” with the revolution
It did not take them long to imprison me. Accused of ”spreading false news that could weaken the national morale,” I was sent to jail from 1980 to 1986 along with other activists by Hafez Assad, who had taken control of the government in 1970. During my time in jail I started a hunger strike that nearly ended my life.
When I was released, I returned to my work as a lawyer in private practice. But life was never easy; I was constantly monitored by the Mukhabarat, the military intelligence service, and its many branches.
In October 2009, I appeared on Barada TV — an opposition satellite channel — to speak out against government abuses, in particular the regime’s unjustified perpetual declaration of martial law and its suspension of the Syrian Constitution, actions that had enabled it to use unfair prosecution and imprisonment procedures since the 1960s.
Two days after my television appearance, Syrian authorities took me into custody, and on July 4, 2010, I was once again sentenced to prison for ”spreading false news that could weaken the national morale
When I was released this time, in 2011, the uprising had begun, and soon after, the regime’s violent crackdown.
The international community’s response has been poor at best. Syrians on the ground have felt forgotten and betrayed. A system that is supposed to protect civilians from brutal force has failed on a monumental scale.
We hear excuses for why intervention cannot happen in Syria as it did in Libya. The longer it takes, the more it looks as if the international community acted in Libya only because of oil, despite the much-trumpeted rationale of protecting civilians. Compared with Libya, many more Syrians are dying at the hands of their own government, and more still will perish as a result of international inaction.
One of steps that the international community could take to end the suffering and speed the demise of the Assad regime would be arming the Free Syrian Army. As it stands, the FSA can only fight what will be a losing battle. The government forces are heavily armed; the FSA has only small arms. If the international community does not want to arm the FSA, another option is to enforce no-fly and heavy-armor-free zones.
For now, however, the international community is putting its faith in the peace plan mediated by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. While I commend Annan’s work in trying to halt the slaughter of innocent civilians — and I hope it works — the violence continues. Even if a truce were to be honored, I cannot help but wonder what will happen when the people again take to the streets — as I know they will — to peacefully demand the downfall of the regime. My sources say that more than 1,000 civilians, including 34 children, have been killed by the Assad regime since the cease-fire.
Syria has been ruled ruthlessly by one party for nearly 50 years. Sooner or later the Assad regime will end.The international community must help the opposition by funding various opposition leaders to build political parties, so we can be ready to govern. It must help build democratic institutions and educate the population about political accountability, an alien concept to most Syrians, who have known only the anti-democratic Assad regime.
In short, we need all the help we can get to build a free, fair nation, one that represents all Syrians and respects human rights, the judiciary, international law and human life.
Syrian lawyer and former judge Haitham Maleh has been awarded many prizes for his human rights activism. He lives part time inEurope and part time in theMiddle East.”
Through Assad’s boots
How the naiveté and carelessness of western journalist put the lives of the opposition and civilian population at risk:
The spy who came in from the code
How a filmmaker accidentally gave up his sources to Syrian spooks
“Last fall, “Kardokh,” a 25-year-old dissident and computer expert in the Syrian capital of Damascus, met with British journalist and filmmaker Sean McAllister. (Kardokh is his online pseudonym, used at his request.) McAllister, who’s made award-winning films in conflict zones likeYemen and Iraq, explained that he was shooting a documentary for Britain’s Channel 4 about underground activists in Syria, and asked if Kardokh would help him.
At the time, the situation in Syria was deteriorating rapidly, as protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s repressive regime turned violent following a vicious crackdown by security forces. The Syrian government had drastically curtailed visits by foreign journalists, but McAllister had managed to get in undercover. Kardokh was grateful for a chance to tell his story. “Any journalist who was making the effort to show the world what was happening, that was a very important thing for us,” he told me in February.
At the time, Kardokh was providing computer expertise and secure communications to the resistance. He agreed to be interviewed about his work on camera by McAllister, who filmed his face, telling Kardokh that he would blur it out before publishing the footage. McAllister also asked Kardokh to put him in touch with other activists.
But some of McAllister’s practices made him uneasy, Kardokh said. He worried that the filmmaker didn’t realize how aggressive and pervasive the regime’s surveillance was. Kardokh and his fellow activists took elaborate measures with their digital security, encrypting their communications and using special software to hide their identities online. “I started to feel that Sean was careless,” Kardokh told me. He said he had urged McAllister to take more precautions in his communications and to encrypt his footage. “He was using his mobile and SMS, without any protections.”
Then, in October, McAllister was arrested by Syrian security agents. He wasn’t harmed, but was held for five days and said that he could hear the cries of prisoners being tortured in nearby rooms. Eventually, he was released and returned to the UK. “I didn’t realize exactly what they were risking until I went into that experience,” McAllister said in an interview on Channel 4 after his release.
The Syrians had interrogated McAllister about his activities, and seized his laptop, mobile phone, camera, and footage. All of McAllister’s research was now at the disposal of Syrian intelligence. When Kardokh heard that McAllister had been arrested, he didn’t hesitate—he turned off his mobile phone, packed his bag, and fledDamascus, staying with relatives in a nearby town before escaping to Lebanon. He said that other activists who had been in touch with McAllister fled the country as well, and several of those who didn’t were arrested. “I was happy that I hadn’t put him in contact with more people,” Kardokh said.
Rami Jarah, a Syrian activist based in Cairo, said that he tried to help another activist, known as Omar al-Baroudi, get out of the country after McAllister’s arrest. “He was terrified,” Jarrah said. “His face was in those videos. He said that his number was on Sean’s phone.” The next day, Baroudi disappeared, and Jarah said that he has not been heard from since.
Officials at Channel 4 say they took action to help McAllister’s sources after his arrest. “We have been in contact with everyone who felt at risk because they spoke to Sean,” said Amy Lawson, the channel’s head of communications. “He is an experienced filmmaker and took steps to protect his material.Syriais an extremely difficult environment to work in, so we continue to look for ways to minimize that risk whilst ensuring we tell this important story.”
It’s easy to argue that McAllister should have taken stronger precautions, but what, exactly? How many reporters are familiar enough with the technical aspects of digital security that they could protect their computers and phones from the Syrian intelligence service? The fact that McAllister, an experienced and committed journalist, jeopardized his sources with inadequate digital precautions is indicative of a broader problem in journalism today: We haven’t kept pace with technological advancements that have revolutionized both information-gathering and surveillance.
After researching the subject of digital security, I realized that there have been occasions in my own work as a freelancer covering the conflicts in Libyaand Afghanistanwhen I’ve exposed myself and my sources by carrying unencrypted data or e-mailing sensitive information over insecure channels. It’s unclear what, if anything, major news organizations are doing about it. When CJR’s Alysia Santo recently tried asking outlets like The New York Times, she got a firm “no comment.” Curious, I e-mailed an informal survey to journalist friends and colleagues, and several who’ve worked as senior correspondents in Afghanistan for major US news outlets said they’d had little-to-no formal training or assistance from their organizations in digital security.
“I think that the journalism community in the US, and to some degree elsewhere, is just beginning to grasp the fact that they need to protect their information and, by extension, their sources,” said Frank Smyth, who is the senior adviser for journalist security at the Committee to Protect Journalists and also runs a private company, Global Journalist Security. “It’s just too easy to get in and lift their information or monitor their communications without them ever knowing they were compromised.”
“He wished, though, that journalists would better inform themselves about the risks before visiting. “I think Western journalists can’t imagine the power of the regime here.”
Paul Conroy and the targeting and killing of journalists
Paul Conroy, a Sunday Times photographer was together with other journalist in the makeshift “press centre” in Baba Amr in Homs reporting on the slaughter going on.
That “press centre” was in reality, a four-story family home converted to this use as it was one of the few places that had a generator. It was also fortified. But its location was maintained by the rebels in tight secrecy.
Some of the journalists were using secure channels of communications protected by anti-jamming and anti-tracking devices.
But the Assad regime determined that they (the journalists) should be taught a lesson and deterred from ever coming back. And put a stop to this embarrassing reporting of the massacres inHoms.
So together with Russian satellite tracking and Iranian intelligence personal on the ground, on that Wednesday morning the building took a direct hit by a rocket and was totally erased.
The Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin and the French Figaro video-photographer Remi Ochik was killed. Three other Western journalists were injured. And Paul Conroy was badly wounded in the legs.
Also many people were killed when trying to get the wounded journalist out of Homs.
Now Kill the witnesses
Syrian activists killed in Paul Conroy rescue mission
Up to 13 activists died smuggling the Sunday Times photographer out of the country, it has emerged
“Paul Conroy, the Sunday Times photographer wounded in the leg in an attack in the besieged city of Homs, has been smuggled out of Syria in a dramatic and dangerous rescue in which up to 13 activists lost their lives, it has emerged.
Conroy survived the attack last week that killed his colleague Marie Colvin. Three other western journalists, including Edith Bouvier, who was badly injured in the same incident, were reported to be still trapped in Homs on Tuesday night. A claim by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that Bouvier had also been evacuated was later retracted by his office.”
Paul Conroy: Syrian activists killed during rescue• Volunteers die while getting photographer out toLebanon• Three other journalists remain trapped in Homs • UN human rights chief calls for immediate ceasefire
“Paul Conroy, the British Sunday Times photographer who was wounded in the besieged city of Homs, has been smuggled out of Syria toLebanon in a dramatic rescue.
According to those familiar with his escape a number of Syrian opposition activists died during the rescue effort after they came under artillery fire while leaving the city.
The evacuation party came under fire twice. Three activists were killed on the first occasion while more were reportedly killed when they came under fire again.
A spokesman for the paper said: ”The Sunday Times can confirm that the photographer Paul Conroy is safe and inLebanon. He is in good shape and good spirits.”
According to the Times, the sister paper of the Sunday Times, Conroy’s rescue took 26 hours from the moment he was carried out of his hiding place in Homs on a stretcher.”
”Despite the successful rescue of Conroy – whose colleague Marie Colvin was killed last week in Homs along with French photographer Rémi Ochlik during an attack on the makeshift media centre in the suburb of Baba Amr – three other journalists remain trapped in the city. They are Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro, who sustained a broken femur, French photographer William Daniels and the Middle East correspondent of El Mundo, Javier Espinosa.
The dramatic nature of Conroy’s evacuation underlines the high level of risk being faced by those who have been trying to run medical, food and other supplies into the besieged suburbs ofHomsand evacuate the injured, including foreign journalists.
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which has recently moved the elite 4th Division commanded by his brother Maher into the battle for Homs, has been using a foreign-supplied drone to target its artillery and mortar fire into the city.2”
Here is an interview with Paul Conroy on BBC’s Newsnight March 2 from the hospital were they had taken out Russian shrapnel
“A present from the Russians”
Paul Conroy: Homs is comparable to Srebrenica or Rwanda
“It was a star-filled night in Chechnya’s besieged capital of Grozny. The snow crunched under my feet as I walked with the Chechen rebel commander away from the warmth of our safe house. When we entered a bombed-out neighborhood 15 minutes away, I put the battery in my Iridium satellite phone and waited for the glowing screen to signal that I had locked on to the satellites.
I made my call. It was short. Then the commander made a call; he quickly hung up and handed me back the phone. ”Enough,” he said, motioning for me to remove the battery.
As we walked briskly back to the safe house, it was exactly 10 minutes before the cascade of double wa-whumps announced the Grad rocket batteries pounding the vacant neighborhood we had just left.
It was December 1999, and the Russian assault on Grozny was unfolding in all its gruesome detail. After the dissolution of so much of the former Soviet empire, Chechnya was one country that the newly minted prime minister, Vladimir Putin, refused to let go of. His boss, Boris Yeltsin, and the Russian army had been defeated and then humiliated in the media by Chechen forces in the first war. Five years later, Russia was back. And Putin’s new strategy was unbending: silence, encircle, pulverize, and ”cleanse.”It was a combination of brutal tactics — a Stalinist purge of fighting-age males plus Orwellian propaganda that fed Russians a narrative wherein Chechen freedom fighters were transformed into Islamist mercenaries and terrorists. More than 200,000 civilians were to die in this war, the echoes of which continue to this day.
This time, journalists were specifically targeted to prevent sympathetic or embarrassing reports from escaping the killing zone. As such, you can’t find a lot of stories about the second Chechen war. One of the few and best accounts was written by Marie Colvin, who described her terrifying escape from Grozny for the Sunday Times. Last month, Colvin thought she could roll the dice and enter the besieged Syrian city of Homs to defy yet another brutal war of oppression. This time she lost.
It’s impossible to know whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — a longtime ally of Russia– studied the success of the last Chechen war before launching his own assault on the restive city of Homs. However, his Russian military advisors surely know the tactics well. The crackdown in Homs carries a grim echo of Grozny, both in its use of signals intelligence to track down and silence the regime’senemies and in its bloody determination to obliterate any opposition, including Western journalists.
Assad’s ability to lethally target journalists using satellite-phone uplinks could well have cost Colvin her life. Multiple reports have suggested that Syrian forces used phone signals to pinpoint her location and then launched a rocket barrage that resulted in her death on Feb. 22, along with that of French photographer Remi Ochlik and multiple Syrian civilians. “
“Russia has spent a long time perfecting these techniques. On April 21, 1996, Chechnya‘s breakaway president, Dzhokhar Dudayev, was speaking on a satellite phone with Russian envoy Konstantin Borovoi about setting peace talks with Yeltsin. During the phone call,he was killed by a signal-guided missile fired from a Russian jet fighter. The warplane had received Dudayev’s coordinates from a Russian ELINT (electronic intelligence) plane that had picked up and locked on to the signal emitted by the satellite phone. It was Russian deception and brutality at its finest.
It should have been clear even back then that there was a benefit and a distinct penalty to modern communications on the battlefield. “
“These past few weeks, under a barrage of mortar, tank, and artillery shells, their plaintive calls for help from inside the besieged Baba Amr neighborhood of Homssparked international outrage. But without Western journalists filing for newspapers and television outlets, these videos — mostly shaky, low-resolution footage of corpses and artillery strikes — wouldn’t have had the impact they deserve.
In a welcome resurgence of non-embedded journalism, brave reporters like Colvin and many others risked their lives to enter Homs and report from the ground. What they showed us was moving, horrific, and embarrassing. Once again, Western governments were caught doing nothing — while women, children, and innocents were murdered by their own government. It’s a playbook the Syrians are good at: The shelling of Homs began on Feb. 3, 2012 — exactly 30 years after the Hama massacre, in which Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, killed up to 15,000 civilians over three weeks in a similar program of wanton destruction.
What we haven’t seen as clearly is the extent to which the Syrian regime (thanks to its Russian advisors) now has the tools of electronic warfare to crush this popular uprising — and anything that happens to get in the way. Syria is one of Russia’s biggest clients for weapons, training, and intelligence. In return for such largesse, it has offered the Russian Navy use of Tartus, a new deep-water military port in the Mediterranean. Moscow sold Damascus nearly $1 billion worth of weapons in 2011, despite growing sanctions against the oppressive Assad regime. With these high-tech weapons comes the less visible Russian-supplied training on technologies, tactics, and strategies.
The sounds of rockets pulverizing civilians should have brought back memories and warnings to Colvin. She would have recognized all the signs from her previous reporting in Chechnya, where she and her escorts were hunted relentlessly by Russian domestic security agents who sought to arrest, silence, or kill any journalist attempting to report on the slaughter of civilians.
My time in Grozny included being surrounded three times by the Russian army, numerous direct bombardments, and frequent close calls. I paid attention to the safety warnings of the Chechen rebel commanders who kept me alive. These rebels were once part of the Soviet military and intelligence apparatus and were fully schooled in Russia‘s dirty tricks. They taught me much. Chief among them was not communicating electronically while in country, not trusting ”media guides,” and never telling people where I was going. If captured by Russian troops, they urged me — for my own safety — to say that I had been kidnapped by Chechen forces.
Just as I exited Chechnya, I met Colvin, who was heading in. She wanted to know as much as she could. I warned her of the duplicity and violent intent of the Russian military and their Chechen proxies. Despite my warnings, she bravely entered Chechnya and wrote riveting, award-winning stories that now sound almost identical to her coverage from Syria.
I was distressed to read of Colvin’s death in Syria, and even more distressed to think she might still be alive now if she had remembered some basic warnings.Her first error was that she stayed inside the rebel ”media center” — in reality, a four-story family home converted to this use as it was one of the few places that had a generator.
The second was communication.The Syrian army had shut down the cell-phone system and much of the power in Baba Amr— and when journalists sent up signals it made them a clear target.After CNN’s Arwa Damon broadcast live from the ”media center” for a week, the house was bombarded until the top floor collapsed. Colvin may have been trapped, but she chose to make multiple phone reports and even went live on CNN and other media channels, clearly mentioning that she was staying in the bombed building.
The third mistake was one of tone. She made her sympathies in the besieged city clearly known as she emotionally described the horrors and documented the crimes of the Syrian government.
Unsurprisingly, the next day at 9 a.m., a barrage of rockets was launched at the ”media center.” She was killed — along her cameraman, Remi Ochlik, and at least 80 Syrian civilians across the city — targeted with precision rocket barrages, bombs, and the full violence of the Syrian army.
In Grozny, Russian forces decided that they would eliminate everything, everybody, and every voice that stood up to the state — including journalists who tried to enter. Syria has clearly made the same determination in Homs. This military action is intended to be a massacre, a Stalinist-style lesson to those who dare defy the rulers of Syria.
The United Nations estimates that more than 7,500 Syrians have so far been killed in the yearlong spasm of violence there. Perhaps this ghastly toll would be even higher now if brave reporters like Colvin had not entered. With the recent news that the rebels have retreated from the bombardment of Baba Amr to safer territory, Assad’s forces, as well as their Russian advisors, are claiming victory. According to official news reports from the Syrian Information Ministry, ”the foreign-backed mercenaries and armed terrorist groups” have fled, the corpses of three Western journalists have been ”discovered,” and Homs is now ”peaceful.”
Despite what Damascus claims, this fight is not yet over. And we need more brave and bright journalists who will shine a light in places like Syria, where a regime works diligently to plunge its people into darkness. But let’s not forget whose callous playbook they’re using. “
By California-based Robert Young Pelton wrote The Hunter, the Hammer, and Heaven about his experiences inChechnya in 1999 to 2000. He is currently publisher of Somalia Report, a 24/7 news source that works with over 100 Somali reporters. His book The World’s Most Dangerous Places contains survival tips from what he has learned in over a dozen conflicts.”
by Paul Conroy on Facebook
The Butcher of Homs
“Last Tuesday I was asked to join a panel discussion at the House of Commons. I readily agreed as it was to screen Jonathan Miller’s fantastic and ground breaking film ‘Syria’s Torture Machine. One of the most insightful and inspiring pieces of filmmaking I have seen in many years.
The event was hosted by Anne Clywd MP with representatives from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, a Syrian torture victim, a representative from theRussian federationand me.
After an introductory round of speeches we watched Jonathan’s superb film and the panel then opened for answers. By this time I had moved back to the audience as my leg injuries were not ideal for sitting up front. Still wishing to take part in the panel discussion and perhaps do a little Q&A I asked if I could have a microphone. My colleague asked one of those media study, large red glasses and tight jeans assistant producer types if this was possible “It’s not going to happen” he was told in a rather bolshie and self-important way. “I think you will find he’s doing it anyway” my colleague Miles Amoore from the Sunday Time grinned.
The point in this is that all week I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a comment from the Russians regarding arms supplies to Syria. Now, right there in front of me, was a real life, in the flesh card carrying representative of theRussian federation and a Channel 4 work placement fruit bat wouldn’t give me a microphone.
I was reduced to putting up my hand and rather grumpily waiting my turn. In the event the wonderful Ann Clywd chairing the proceedings saw my rather desperate outstretched hand, similar to that of a child at school who finds he miraculously knows the answer to a question and is desperate not to go unnoticed.
Given that I had had a large piece of Russian shrapnel removed from me a few days previously I was eager to ask about the Russians continued supply of arms to Syria. I started by reminding him that it was a piece of a Russian made shell that had just been removed from my back. He looked suitably embarrassed but said nothing.
My main question I said was a three part yes or no question which he agreed to have a pop at
Q Is it true that Russia is supplying arms and heavy artillery munitions toSyria
A. Yes
Q. Are you are aware that these weapons and munitions are being used against civilians
A. Yes
Q. Knowing this will Russia stop selling weapons and heavy munitions to Syria
A. No (brief gasp from me and others) if we don’t do it somebody else will.
Now excuse me but that seems like an answer that a crack dealer would resort to when caught outside of a primary school with a huge bag of class A drugs he has been peddling to pre-teens, not the answer of a representative of one of the most powerful (and dangerous) nations on the planet.
So there we have it, direct from the horse’s mouth. Vladimir Putin ‘The Butcher of Homs’ as he so fondly known on the streets of Babr Amr is indeed supplying the Assad regime weapons, munitions and who know what else on the solid conviction that ‘If they don’t sell it someone else will’.
It’s little wonder we live on such a peaceful and harmonious planet.”
And more from Facebook
“Stop Assad’s Massacre #Syria
18/03/12Paul Conroy
Ok, thanks firstly to Bonnie for getting this page up and running.
In all my years as a war photographer I have never seen such systematic slaughter as I personally witnessed in the very small neighbourhood that is Babr Amr. Men, women and, most abhorrently, children have been massacred in their hundreds if not thousands.
Forget the phoney propaganda that is now a trademark of the Bashar- al-Assad regime. As an eye witness I can assure you that what is being reported is fact.There is no need to embellish or hype the slaughter that is taking place. It’s real, it’s happening now and it chills me to the bone.
I pay tribute to every man woman and child murdered by this regime. I salute the people who kept me alive whilst I was wounded in Syria. To the Free Syrian Army, The Farouk Brigade, Avaaz and to the all the Martyrswho died helping me escape. I can never repay you. I am forever in your debt.
Marie and Remi gave their lives to bring you the truth. Please don’t forget them; they were both devoted people who had a mission to bring you honest reporting, they gave their lives doing so. To the people of the media centre, who lost six cameramen in the line of duty and daily risked their lives to bring you what was happening whilst Bsahar-al -Assad tried in vain to crush the souls of the people of Syria. I salute you also.
In stark opposition to the likes of Remi and Marie there is a plethora of armchair pro regime activists who are vainly trying to back the regime. Please, these people have neither the tenacity, the courage nor sense of honour needed to go into Syria and report fact. My advice is to ignore them. Please let them have their say and fade into oblivion. They mean harm but mean nothing if ignored.
People who read this fight on. This regime can be broken, your spirit cannot. I will do all I can to fight for the cause. I have spoken to my Prime Minister, foreign secretary and other American politicians. I hope my words have an impact. In the dark hours that will follow please have the strength to continue. Too much blood has been spilt, to many lives destroyed for it all to be in vain.
I hope my leg gets better after the Russian missile blew a hole in it. Putin, the real ’Butcher of Homs’ abandoned you all in your hour of need. Never forget this.The Chinese stood by and watched you being murdered. Never forget this.When you regain control of your country do not forget those who stood by and allowed the massacres to continue
People of Syria we know you are not Al Quaeda, or terrorist groups. Have no fear we understand propaganda. I know the FSA well; they are not nor ever will be terrorists. We understand
To the People of America we know you can help, please, even though its election year and Obama has to win votes he must stand up as a man and disregard party politics. You have the power to stop men women and children dying. DO IT. Forget basketball, forget the opinion polls and start saving lives. NOW.
Vladimir Putin. You don’t seem as much of a man as the photographs make you out to be. We see you as a Judo black belt, tiger hunter and bare chested man of action. Is this just a myth? Why do you sit and supply weapons to a regime that slaughters its own people. Maybe you are just a Stalinist who never worried of such matters. To us all you appear ridiculous and week. I appeal to the ‘Butcher ofHoms’ help stop the slaughter. If not then your image will remain a vacuous myth
As I write the slaughter continues. Bombard your embassies, protest, scream and shout and demand answers!!! NOW. Every second of every minute is precious. Don’t waste a moment. We have been here before. Disregard Kofi Annan, he provides cover while Assad continues to kill. The time for talking is long gone. Now we must all demand action.
I would like to thank every person involved in my rescue. The Farouck Brigade. To Neil my dead brother who has given me strength, my parents. All at News International. Hm government. To Kate who kept my profile high. Max Kim and Otto, I love you. To Bonnie, thank you so much for all. Tom, the British Ambassador and his beautiful family. To Joss Stone who stands by me through the worst of times and through the best of times
To everyone I missed I’m sorry but pain kicking in now
Thank s
Paul Conroy”
And more
Opinion: World must not forget Syria’s missing activists By Paul Conroy, special to CNN
“Editor’s note: Paul Conroy is a British photographer and cameraman who has worked in troublespots around the world. While working inSyriaearlier this year forBritain’s Sunday Times newspaper, he was seriously wounded in the attack which killed his colleague Marie Colvin, and fellow photographer Remi Ochlik.
London(CNN) — The situation in Syriaposes a seemingly unending series of new challenges: Challenges that can either stun you into silence or propel you deeper into the steaming cauldron of propaganda, murder, misery and ultimately death that is now life in Syria.
Over the last few days the authorities have opened a new front in their mission to suppress the flow of information coming from Syria.
The house which I and other international journalists used as a base in Homs was destroyed in a rocket attack that killed my friends and colleagues Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik.
This building was the hub from which many local activists bravely transmitted the images that have kept an open window through which the world has viewed the onslaught of the Assad military against the men, women and children of Baba Amr. The house is now a pile of rubble, the activists dispersed.
Having removed the operational center of the citizen journalists, the regime is now engaged in a manhunt to track, capture and destroy the remnants of that network.
Tough talk from anti-Assad coalition The regime fear these people for good reason:They have provided the most compelling documentary evidence of crimes committed by the state.The sustained and systematic use of heavy artillery against an unarmed population isn’t a rumor or urban myth. It is well documented and, thanks to courage of the activists, we now posses a large body of video and eye witness evidence.
Crimes against humanity are a serious charge against any state. To know that such evidence exists and continues to be collected will doubtless be causing concern to some in Damascus. For all their apparent willingness to engage in the bombardment against a civilian population there must be those within the regime pragmatic enough to realize that such evidence can, and almost inevitably will, be used against them if the regime falls and justice prevails.
The case of Ali Othman highlights perfectly this ongoing fear of the state.
Ali Othman, a vegetable seller by trade, is now in the custody of the feared state security services. He was arrested on March 28, near the town of Aleppo, and — according to well placed sources — is now being tortured.
Despite international pleas for his release, there are reports that other activists have been receiving calls from Ali asking them to meet him, regardless of the fact that he is now in custody. Those who have responded to his calls and arrived at the meetings have been immediately arrested by state security. It is unlikely that Ali voluntarily made these calls.
Ali Othman never smuggled international journalists into Syria. He was one of the first citizen journalists to film the peaceful protests. His only crime was to record the abuses committed by his own government. The world should keep up the pressure on the Syrian government to pay heed to the calls for his release.
Another prominent figure who disappeared this week is Noura Aljizawi, one of the first activists of the revolution. Her work involved humanitarian aid, handing out medicines and medical help at field hospitals and to those with long-term illnesses who could no longer find the drugs they needed. She visited them at home and offered them help on where to find medical advice and assistance.
Noura left home last Wednesday, March 28, and has not been seen since.
Injured journalist tells of Syriahorror Her sister reports that six of her cameras and a laptop have disappeared and that since her disappearance seven other female and five male activists have also gone missing. I have received reports that she too has been making calls to other activists urging them to meet up — making calls from captivity that is. Hardly encouraging news for those concerned for her well being.
The fear among the activist network is that Noura, who was so well connected and involved, could well be the key that allows the regime to deal a decisive blow to those struggling to keep open that window onto the activities of the Syrian state.
Meanwhile, the Assad regime continues to have a free hand in the systematic and murderous destruction of those involved in the uprising.
The world response has been lamentable and few world leaders have dared raise their heads above the parapet. The UK’s foreign secretary showed good leadership when he issued a statement calling for the release of Ali Othman. We need more of the same from others in power.
While Assad and his inner sanctum believe they can act with impunity we will continue to see more stories similar to those of Ali and Noura. This regime continues to murder and crush opposition figures while hiding behind the six point plans of the likes of Kofi Annan.
Meanwhile the world continues to watch in horror as men, women and children die at the hands of a regime seemingly unaffected by world opinion.
I was asked the other day in an interview if I had crossed the line between being a journalist and being an activist. I answered, somewhat incorrectly, that I was a humanist. What I meant to say was that I was — that I am — a human being.”
From Facebook:
Stop Assad’s Massacre in Syria
Paul Conroy
“The situation in Syria continues to slip rapidly, and even more violently, out of control. The ceasefire, if it could ever be realistically be called that, now lays in tatters and the death toll continues to mount. The regime though has little to fear. The presence of a few unarmed observers on the ground is hardly likely to have Assad and company trembling in their boots and with no plan B on the table to actively put an end to the killing of civilians, we can be pretty sure they will sleep well in their beds tonight.
And what of the Annan plan if the ceasefire fails? Well, look at it for yourselves, apart from the non existent ceasefire,all of the points of the plan seem based on the people of Syria placing their trust in a government that has systematically, shelled, sniped and tortured a large portion of the population for over a year now. Doesn’t seem too likely, when all things are considered, that anyone is likely to lay down there arms and go home.
So what happens next? Mr Annan will continue to be ‘optimistic’ that his plan has a few teething problems but will ultimately succeed. Why? On what grounds does he go to bed thinking, ‘should be ok tomorrow?’ Well, I guess because it’s the only game in town right now. While Russia stills supplies the arms and munitions that are causing the mass casualties, Iran supplies advisors and specialist help and China continues to be China, the Annan plan is the only thing the west, and the Arab league, can point to and say ‘look, we are doing something.’ The only problem is it’s achieving little and the death toll steadily mounts.
Lives cannot be saved by goodwill and optimism alone. Time for the world to start thinking of safe havens, yes, I can hear people scream, that will involve troops on the ground. Troops on the ground, or more dead men women and children. It’s a big choice, but one I fear needs making. And making soon.”
Some we have come to the end of my 11 parts series on what’s going on in Syria.
As I said in part 1 of this series: There is so much to be said about the uprising in Syria and the extremely brutal suppression by the Assad regime. And as usual, most of it is not said in the mainstream media.
So I thought I give you some pieces that are to the point and that give you some perspective of this slaughter of civilians. In other words, some insight into the world of real politics. This is a different universe that the normal platitudes and declarations our political elites are so good at excelling at.
The focus is therefore going to be on some countries and international organisations and what they have done or not done in 11 posts.
So I hope I have given you some insight into this extremely brutal suppression of a popular uprising by the civilian population. And the world of real politics behind the declarations.
As I said, there is so much more to be said.
This Syrian uprising started little over a year ago with spontaneous demonstrations that demanded that the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad reform Syriato a free and democratic state. Assad responded, as usual, with relentless force and a brutal crackdown. Which led to the people to call for the president to step down, and heed to his people’s will to relinquish his power. And for a peaceful transition to democracy.
All reasonably demands wouldn’t you say?
And from this start the Assad’s regimes force and a brutal crackdown have just intensified and widened. The death toll is now over 12 000. Mostly civilians: children, women, families, elderly etc. Many of them executed in the most barbaric way.
On top of that, the deliberate destruction of WHOLE blocks of cities, Block after Block, Neighbourhood after Neighbourhood.
Turning of electricity, water, telecommunications etcfor cities and neighbourhoods. Destroying hospitals and preventing medicine and food to reach these areas etc.
I can add systematic rape to that mix of systematic violation of human rights.
Wouldn’t you say that this regime seems utterly barbaric and worthy of world condemnation?
And wouldn’t you have thought that the world would have done something by now?
And the sad answer to these questions is of course – YES ands as usual NO.
NOTHING have in realty been done except some cheap and empty rhetoric. A lot of grandstanding as usual with these people. And of course a lot of meetings, summits, conferences etc. Usually in very nice places very far from the reality they are supposed to talk about.
And yet Assad, hangs on, slaughtering his own people, destroying and despoiling whole neighbourhoods, calling the bluff of the Arab League, Turkey, UN, USA and EU/NATO.
Helped to a very large degree by the enormous material support, weapons, training, intelligence, troops, personal etc. from Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah.
And by a traditional policy of dived and conquer the different ethnic and religious groups in Syria. And of course by terror and fear.
Nonetheless, this is a regime, with an enormous arsenal of heavy weapons, which in a year has not been able to dispatch a divided, badly organized, having hardly any weapons, and disparate opposition. It can be defeated and it will implode from the inside. The slaughter would end much faster if the people got some, any support, from abroad. And the fear is gone.
As for the do nothing as usual UN, it “proudly” upholds its tradition of doing ABSOLUTLY NOTHING when it really maters, like Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia (Srebrenica anyone?) etc.
Refusing to arm or help the opposition will not end the conflict or limit it; it will drag on as all the above examples shows. Leading to massacres and atrocities.
And by waiting the situation gets worse and much more complex, then “they” used its complexity as an excuse not to intervene while decrying the lost opportunity for intervention. And ALL this time the killing and atrocities committed by Assad’s regime just continues as nothing has happened.
On the contrary, the Assad regime has increased it’s attacks since Bashar al-Assad agreed to implement the “new” peace plan.
The international community’s response has been ludicrous. Syrians on the ground have felt forgotten and betrayed. A system that is supposed to protect civilians from brutal force has failed on a monumental scale.
And to ALL these countries, USA, EU, NATO, Turkey etc. that are supposed to defend and protect freedom, liberty and human rights.
To ALL these global government organisations (UN),and local ones like the Arab League etc.
To ALL the statesmen and politicians that talk so loudly about “responsibility to protect” (Samantha Power anyone?), freedom, liberty and human rights.
I say only one thing: You should BE REALLY PROUD of yourselves and the children of Syria will remember you. Each one.
As usual, I start with some recent news and developments:
Al-Arabiya: Tuesday’s death toll in Syria rises to 43 people (May 1)
The atrocities continuous, ceasefire or no ceasefire, UN peace plan or no UN peace plan, it doesn’t matter.
A young boy shot through the eye by a sniper from Assad’s forces. A very brave solder indeed.
”A LITTLE BOY IS SHOT THROUGH THE EYE AND KILLED BY ASSAD’S FORCES. Homs(Jouret Al Sheyah): May 1, 2012- Kutaiba Amer Saber was shot by an Assadist sniper straight through his eye. what kind of human can take aim at a child and murder them in such a brutal way … all in the name of their leader, Bashar Al Assad.”
And the destroying of mosques continuous and were are the protests?
“THIS IS THE RESPECT ASSAD AND HIS FORCES HAVE FOR RELIGION. THEY DESTROY A MOSQUE MINARET. Homs(Al Sa’an): May 29, 2012- The Muslim world is outraged by cartoons, yet when Assad destroys mosque after mosque and forces detained men, women and children to renounce God … there is nothing but silence.”
”DAILY LIFE FOR A FAMILY – HUDDLED IN FEAR IN A BASEMENT. Idleb (Jisr Al Shighour): May 1, 2012- This is how these children live. This is how they are being raised, in cramped basements acrossSyria. When the cameraman asks the kids “Do you like Bashar?” They respond “No!” He asks why and they respond simply “because he’s hitting us with rockets”
The deliberate destruction and looting of Syria’s culture heritage. Remember that this happened in Iraq to but that was AFTER the fall of Saddam. In Syria, it happens with Assad’s consent and on his watch:
“In one of the most egregious examples, shells thudded into the walls of the 12th century al-Madeeq Citadel, raising flames and columns of smoke as regime forces battled with rebels in March. The bombardment punched holes in the walls, according to online footage of the fighting.
Local activists said regime forces carried out the assault and afterward moved tanks into the hilltop castle. Later footage showed bulldozers knocking through part of the walls to create an entrance.
The government and opposition have traded blame for damage and looting of sites around the country. But a group of European and Syrian archaeologists tracking the threats through witness reports from the ground says that in several cases, government forces have directly hit historic sites and either participated in or turned a blind eye to looting.
”We have facts showing that the government is acting directly against the country’s historical heritage,” said Rodrigo Martin, a Spanish archaeologist who has led past research missions inside Syria.”
And there is a new report from Human Rights Watch witch documents war crimes by Assad’s forces in Idlib “War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations”:
Syria: War Crimes in Idlib During Peace Negotiations
(New York) – Syrian government forces killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses during a two-week offensive in northern Idlib governorate shortly before the ceasefire, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The attacks happened in late March and early April, as United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan was negotiating with the Syrian government to end the fighting.
The 38-page report, “‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations,” documents dozens of extrajudicial executions, killings of civilians, and destruction of civilian property that qualify as war crimes, as well as arbitrary detention and torture. The report is based on a field investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch in the towns of Taftanaz, Saraqeb, Sarmeen, Kelly, and Hazano in Idlib governorate in late April.
“While diplomats argued over details of Annan’s peace plan, Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another,” said Anna Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at Human Rights Watch. “Everywhere we went, we saw burnt and destroyed houses, shops, and cars, and heard from people whose relatives were killed. It was as if the Syrian government forces used every minute before the ceasefire to cause harm.”
Human Rights Watch documented large-scale military operations that government forces conducted between March 22 and April 6, 2012, in opposition strongholds in Idlib governorate, causing the death of at least 95 civilians. In each attack, government security forces used numerous tanks and helicopters, and then moved into the towns and stayed from one to three days before proceeding to the next town. Graffiti left by the soldiers in all of the affected towns indicate that the military operation was led by the 76th Armored Brigade.
In nine separate incidents documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces executed 35 civilians in their custody. The majority of executions took place during the attack on Taftanaz, a town of about 15,000 inhabitants northeast of Idlib city on April 3 and 4.
A survivor of the security forces’ execution of 19 members of the Ghazal family in Taftanaz described to Human Rights Watch finding the bodies of his relatives:
“We first found five bodies in a little shop next to the house. They were almost completely burnt. We could only identify them by a few pieces of clothes that were left. Then we entered the house and in one of the rooms found nine bodies on the floor, next to the wall. There was a lot of blood on the floor. On the wall, there was a row of bullet marks. The nine men had bullet wounds in their backs, and some in their heads. Their hands were not tied, but still folded behind.”
Human Rights Watch researchers were able to observe the bullet marks on the wall that formed a row about 50-60 cm above the floor. Two of those executed were under 18 years old.
In several other cases documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces opened fire and killed or injured civilians trying to flee the attacks. The circumstances of these cases indicate that government forces failed to distinguish between civilians and combatants and to take necessary precautionary measures to protect civilians. Government forces did not provide any warning to the civilian population about the attacks. For example, 76-year-old Ali Ma’assos and his 66-year-old wife, Badrah, were killed by machine-gun fire shortly after the army launched its attack on Taftanaz in the morning on April 3 as they tried to flee the town in a pick-up truck with more than 15 friends and family members.
Upon entering the towns, government forces and shabeeha (pro-government militias) also burned and destroyed a large number of houses, stores, cars, tractors, and other property. Local activists have recorded the partial or complete burning and destruction of hundreds of houses and stores. In Sarmeen, for example, local activists have recorded the burning of 437 rooms and 16 stores, and the complete destruction of 22 houses. In Taftanaz, activists said that about 500 houses were partially or completely burned and that 150 houses had been partially or completely destroyed by tank fire or other explosions. Human Rights Watch examined many of the burned or destroyed houses in the affected towns.
In most cases, the burning and destruction appeared to be deliberate. The majority of houses that were burned had no external damage, excluding the possibility that shelling ignited the fire. In addition, many of the ruined houses were completely destroyed, in contrast to those which appeared to have been hit by tank shells, where the damage was only partial.
During the military operations, the security forces also arbitrarily detained dozens of people, holding them without any legal basis. About two-thirds of the detainees remain in detention to date, despite promises by President Bashar al-Assad’s government to release political detainees. In most cases, the fate and whereabouts of the detainees remains unknown, raising fears that they had been subjected to enforced disappearances.Those who have been released,many of them elderly or disabled, told Human Rights Watch that during their detention in various branches of the mukhabarat (intelligence agencies) in Idlib city they had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment.
Opposition fighters were present in all of the towns prior to the attacks and in some cases tried to prevent the army from entering the towns. In most cases, according to local residents, opposition fighters withdrew quickly when they realized that they were significantly outnumbered and had no means to resist tanks and artillery. In other towns, opposition fighters left without putting up any resistance; residents said this was in order to avoid endangering the civilian population.
The fighting in Idlib appeared to reach the level of an armed conflict under international law, given the intensity of the fighting and the level of organization on both sides, including the armed opposition, who ordered and conducted retreats. This would mean that international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) would apply in addition to human rights law. Serious violations of international humanitarian law are classified as war crimes.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented and condemned serious abuses by opposition fighters in Syria, including abuses in Taftanaz. These abuses should be investigated and those responsible brought to justice. These abuses by no means justify, however, the violations committed by the government forces, including summary executions of villagers and the large-scale destruction of villages.
Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations Security Council to ensure that the UN supervisory mission deployed to Syria includes a properly staffed and equipped human rights section that is able safely and independently to interview victims of human rights abuses such as those documented in this report, while protecting them from retaliation. Human Rights Watch also called on the UN Security Council to ensure accountability for these crimes by referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, and for the ongoing UN Commission of Inquiry to support this.
“The United Nations – through the Commission of Inquiry and the Security Council – should make sure that the crimes committed by Syrian security forces do not go unpunished,” said Neistat. “The peace plan efforts will be seriously undermined if abuses continue behind the observers’ backs.”
Eyewitness Accounts From “‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations”
“The soldiers had handcuffed him behind his back. They didn’t hit him in front of me, but I saw that his eye was bruised. I tried to be quiet and nice to the soldiers so that they would release him.
They spent about 15 minutes in the house, asking him about weapons and searching everywhere. I think they were looking for money. I didn’t say good-bye so as to not make him sad. He didn’t say anything either. When they left, the soldiers said that I should forget him.”
–Mother of Mohammad Saleh Shamrukh, chant-leader from Saraqeb, who was summarily executed by the Syrian security forces on March 25, 2012
“The soldiers placed the four of us facing a wall. They first asked Awad where his armed sons were. When Awad said that he was an old man and that he didn’t have any armed sons, they just shot him three times from a Kalashnikov. They then said to Ahmed that apparently 25 years in prison had not been enough for him. When he didn’t say anything, they shot him. They then shot Iyad without any questions and he fell on my shoulder. I realized that it was my turn. I said there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet and then I don’t remember anything else.”
–Mohammed Aiman Ezz, 43-year-old man shot three times in the back of the head and neck by government forces in an attempted execution of four men in Taftanaz on April 4. He was the only survivor
“I knew in my heart it was my boys [my son and my brother], that they were killed. I ran out, and about 50 meters from the house there were nine bodies, next to the wall. There were still snipers on the roofs, and we had to move very slowly, using flashlights. I pointed my flashlight at the first body, then the second – it wasn’t Uday or Saed. Then I asked the neighbors to help, and we found them both. Saed still had his hands tied behind. People later told me that Uday and Saed were executed there, and the other seven were FSA fighters brought from other places. Uday had a bullet wound in the neck and the back of his head; Saed in his chest and neck.”
–“Heba” (not her real name), mother of 15-year-old Uday Mohammed al-Omar and 21-year-old Saeed Mustafa Barish, both executed by the Syrian security forces in Saraqeb on March 26, 2012
“The tank was on the main road, just 10 meters away from the house. Suddenly, they fired four shells, one after the other, into the house. I was in the house next door, with my mother and six children. We were all thrown into the air by the blast, and for 15 minutes I couldn’t see or hear anything. Then we went into the room that was hit by the shells. One of the walls had a huge hole, some 1.5 meters in diameter, and the opposite wall was completely destroyed. We found Ezzat in the rubble; we could only see his fingers and part of his shoe. It is a miracle that his wife and child were not hurt. They were in the same house, but went to the kitchen when the shells hit. We took Ezzat out, but couldn’t save him. His chest was crushed, and blood was coming out of his mouth and ears.”
–“Rashida” (not her real name), a relative of 50-year-old Ezzat Ali Sheikh Dib who died when the army shelled his house in Saraqeb onMarch 27, 2012
“They put a Kalashnikov [assault rifle] to my head and threatened to kill us all if my husband did not come home. The children started crying. Then an officer told a soldier to get petrol and told the children that he would burn them like he would burn their father because he is a terrorist. When the soldier came back with some sort of liquid – it didn’t seem to be petrol – they poured it out in three of the rooms while we were staying in the living room. We wanted to get out of the house, but the soldiers prevented us. My young daughters were crying and begging them to let us go. We were all terrified. Finally, they allowed us to leave the house, but I became even more afraid when I saw all the soldiers and tanks in the street.”
–“Salma” (not her real name), whose house in Taftanaz was burnt by the soldiers on April 4, along with the houses of her five brothers-in-law
“They put me in the car, handcuffed, and kept there all day, until seven in the evening. I told them, ‘I am an old man, let me go to the bathroom,’ but they just beat me on the face. Then they brought me to State Security in Idlib, and put me in a 30-square-meter cell with about 100 other detainees. I had to sleep squatting on the floor. There was just one toilet for all of us. They took me to an interrogation four times, each time asking why some of my family members joined the FSA. I didn’t deny it, but said there was nothing I could do to control what my relatives do. They slapped me on the face a lot.”
– “Abu Ghassan” (not his real name), 73-year-old man who was detained in one of the towns in northern Idlib and held in detention for 18 days
“Syrian security forces have kept heavy weapons in cities in breach of a UN brokered cessation of hostilities, but the government and opposition both have committed truce violations, a top UN official said Tuesday.
The 34 unarmed military observers now in Syriahave seen Howitzer guns, armored personnel carriers and other weaponry in cities, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told a press conference at UN headquarters.
Ladsous insisted, however, that the monitors were having an effect in cities where they have been allowed to go.
Withdrawing weapons and troops from Syrian cities was a key part of a six-point peace plan agreed by President Bashar al-Assad and UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. Syria has told the UN that weapons have been pulled back.
”Regarding the heavy weapons, yes, our military observers do see a number of APCs, for instance, they see a number of Howitzers and other military equipment in most places where they are,” Ladsous said.
Syria has told the monitors that the armored carriers have been disarmed but this has not been verified, Ladsous added.
The UN Security Council has approved a 300 strong force to monitor the cessation of hostilities which started on April 12 but has barely held. Ladsous said only 150 monitors have been promised by UN member states so far. Syria has refused visas for three monitors that the UN wanted in the country.
Ladsous, a UN under secretary general, said that government forces and opposition groups have broken the truce.
”All the parties need to take further steps to ensure a cessation of violence in all its forms.”
”The important fact is that violations do come from both sides,” he said while refusing to say whether one side had committed more breaches.
Annan is to brief the Security Council on May 8 on events in Syria, where the UN says well over 9,000 people have died since an uprising against Assad started in March last year.”
The new Berlin Wall, but of course, it’s ONLY to “protect” the people inside the wall. And were are the international protests?:
Syria’s sealed-off rebels
Baba Amr in Homs, once an opposition stronghold, is now isolated by a 10-foot high concrete wall
BABA AMR, Syria— For Syrians on both sides of the concrete wall that now surrounds this neighborhood, the comparisons to the region’s longest running conflict are unavoidable.
“When my wife described the wall to me I immediately thought of the wall built by the Israelis to isolate Palestinian villages and towns in theWest Bank,” said Abu Annas, formerly a resident of Homs’ devastated Baba Amr district.
“I can understand that Israel built a wall to protect Israeli settlers from Palestinians. But I cannot understand how a national government builds a wall to separate its citizens from each other.”
Since forcing the retreat of rebel fighters from Baba Amr after a brutal month-long bombardment in February, government forces have constructed a massive concrete wall to seal off the former opposition stronghold.
A reporter for GlobalPost recently visited Baba Amr and the wall, describing it as up to 10-feet high and made of cement. It’s still so new there is no graffiti. Since most residents have long fled, the neighborhood behind the wall has become “a dead land for cats and dogs,” as one former resident described it.
Soldiers and secret police guard the few narrow passages through the wall, arresting any male aged between 13 and 60, said Annas, whose wife and young daughter recently went to check on what remained of their home inside Baba Amr.
“They spent half an hour arguing with the security officer who said his men would have to check them before they passed through,” he said. “She came back crying, saying, ‘There is no Baba Amr.’”
Those houses not destroyed in February’s siege have been taken over by soldiers, Annas said. Electricity and phone lines have been cut for months and now cars cannot enter, nor delivery trucks, meaning shops are almost all closed.
Activists in the area said the neighborhood — once home to some 28,000 people — has now been all but abandoned, with only about 1,000 still living inside the wall.
In other Sunni-majority opposition neighborhoods throughout Homs, such as Karm al-Zeitoune, where whole families were killed in recent sectarian massacres, and Deir Balbah and Qarabes, the majority of residents have also fled.
With the UN-Arab League ceasefire plan in tatters — at least 462 people have been killed since April 16 when the UN resolved to send ceasefire monitors, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees — and veto-wielding Russia blaming the armed opposition for the majority of attacks, the Assad regime appears to be taking steps to re-exert long-term security control and collectively punish rebellious communities.
On Saturday, Abu Bakr Saleh, a spokesman for the Baba Amr media center who lived through the bombardment, said other security measures were preventing residents from traveling between Baba Amr and neighboring Joubar neighborhood, to the far southwest of the city.
Last week, GlobalPost witnessed continued shelling in Khaldiyeh and Bayada, Sunni-majority neighborhoods in north Homs that support the opposition and lie adjacent to Zahara, a neighborhood of mainly Allawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to which the ruling Assad family and a majority of government elites belong.
Cairo Street, which leads from north Homsinto Zahara in the east of the city, has been renamed “Death Street” by locals after the deadly snipers deployed to rooftops, presumably to protect the pro-regime neighborhood.
On their first visit to Homs on April 21, members of the advance team of UN observers, the first of 300 due to be deployed to monitor violations of the ceasefire agreement, were forced to take cover after shots rang out as they walked down Cairo Street from Bayada.
“The regime will not adhere to the Annan plan and the near future will prove that,” said Omar, a 24-year-old member of the rebel Free Syrian Army, told GlobalPost in an interview at his home inHoms’ Deir Balba.
“The regime is preparing for the post-Annan cease-fire by building walls around Sunni districts to block our movement and is digging a long trench around Homs two meters wide.”
Reports of Assad’s forces digging trenches around the south and west of Homs, where Baba Amr is located, first emerged last November. A video journalist working with GlobalPost witnessed the trench during a visit to Homs this February. The purpose of the trench remains unclear, but it appears to be a another military tactic to hinder access to rebellious neighborhoods.
In Daraa, the first city to rise up against the regime and suffer a sustained military assault, GlobalPost recently witnessed a labyrinth of checkpoints and deployment of tanks, troops and snipers, effectively sealing off the population from surrounding areas and the capital.
The regime blames “armed terrorist groups” for the breakdown in the ceasefire agreement. Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud told state-run Syrian Arab News Agency last week that the “terrorists” had committed more than 1,300 violations.
Russia last week echoed a similar line. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich accused the opposition of shifting “to tactics of terror on a regional scale,” claiming Western governments were arming the rebel fighters.
Rather, it appears post-revolutionary Libya, which strongly supports Syria’s opposition, has made the first serious effort to arm the rebels. On Saturday Lebanese authorities announced they had discovered guns and rocket propelled grenades aboard a ship attempting to dock in north Lebanon’s Tripoli, a Sunni-majority city also widely supportive of Syria’s opposition.
Omar, the young rebel fighter from Homs, said the FSA was now restructuring after suffering a strategic defeat in Baba Amr.
“We will adopt guerilla tactics,” he said. “We are fighting in small groups and moving from one district to another so we don’t let the regime block this district and kill us. The FSA leaders made a big mistake when they tried to hold Baba Amr.”
As the rebels seek new strategies for their armed struggle, the Assad regime has made its contempt of the international diplomatic effort clear. Assad himself revealed his scorn for last December’s Arab League monitoring mission in an email, first obtained and verified by the Guardian.
Writing to Hadeel Ali, his young media consultant, the president forwarded a YouTube video ridiculing the mission’s inability to spot hidden Syrian tanks, to which she responded, “Hahahahahahaha, OMG!!!”
That same contempt appeared to be on display more recently as Kofi Annan, the Arab League envoy, briefed the Security Council on a letter received from Syrian Foreign Minister Waleed Mualem on April 21. The letter stated that the government had now withdrawn all heavy armor and troops from population centers, the first step in Annan’s cease-fire plan.
But daily videos of smoke billowing above Homs and troops opening fire in urban protest centers have told a very different story.
Syrian officials see Annan’s plan as “a license for the regime to do more of the same,” the respected International Crisis Group, one of the only international think tanks able to still interview Syrian officials, wrote in its April 10 report.
“As the regime sees it, Annan’s mission, far from presenting a threat, can be a way to drag the process on and shift the focus from regime change to regime concessions,” ICG reported, “granting humanitarian access, agreeing to a ceasefire and beginning a vaguely defined political dialogue, all of which can be endlessly negotiated and renegotiated.”
As that process unfolds, the wall in Baba Amr stands as a physical symbol of the deep-seeded sectarian hatred that a year of relentless violence in Syria has engendered in former neighbors.
“The Sunni districts are hosting terrorists and armed gangs so the government should close them off by all means. If this needs a high wall, why not?” Haidar, a 35-year-old Allawite fromHoms’ Zahara neighborhood, told GlobalPost.
A member of the Popular Committees, the official name for armed civilian militias fighting for the regime, Haidar said the possible collapse of the regime would mean no future for three million Allawites in Syria’s big cities. “We would return to our villages in the mountains,” he said.
“We have been occupying senior positions in the army, security agencies and government in Syria for four decades and we will keep the power in our hands, whatever this costs us.”
Students at the university of Aleppo send a message to the world
Yazen is a four-year-old boy from Homs who found refuge in the Lebanese town of Ras Baalbek three months ago. He lost his ability to speak because of the psychological trauma he endured after being brutally beaten by the Syrian regime’s thugs when they came into his home in search of his father.
The killing machine in Syria did not spare children; rather, since the start of the uprising, the regime of Bashar al-Assad has intentionally targeted them, earning the Syrian president the title of “child murderer” among his detractors.
According to the Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria, 1,089 children – boys and girls alike – have been killed so far, and 464 wounded.
At the start of the uprising, a group of Syrians launched an initiative on Facebook calling for keeping children out of protests to keep them protected from the pro-regime forces that attack demonstrations. But it was not enough, as the killers go after children in their homes and schools. Reports by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch indicate that schools have been turned into detention and torture centers run by regime forces, who would also position snipers on the roofs.
According to the same reports, children have been shot by snipers, killed by shelling, tortured to death, and have died from untreated wounds. Reports also mention children being raped in prisons.
Anna Neistat, an associate director at Human Rights Watch, worked for years on conflicts from Chechnya to Zimbabwe to Sri Lanka. In an article in the Global Post, she said that the level of state-sanctioned torture taking place in Syria is incomparable with any other conflict she has ever witnessed. There is no distinction between children and adults in prisons, she said, adding that if anything, children are more brutally beaten, as investigators believe they respond faster to such practices.
In the same context, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the BBC that hundreds of children were taken as hostages or information sources. The Human Rights Watch report said that regular troops used children as human shields and put them in tanks and buses when the Syrian army stormed Ain Larouz in theprovince of Edleb on March 10.
The Syrian regime uses methodical violence against children for many reasons, including revenge, as children have played an essential role in the uprising from the beginning; indeed, it was children who wrote anti-regime slogans on walls in Daraa, launching the protests last year.
The regime is also trying to send other children a message. A year ago this week, the regime brutally tortured Hamza al-Khatib before sending his mutilated body to his parents, thus delivering a message to its opponents right from the start, namely that it is not bound by any moral and humanitarian deterrent and is capable of committing atrocities if the revolution goes on.
By targeting children, the regime is “striking the foundations” of the new generation and undermining the stability, safety and future of society and family, especially in rural areas where children are regarded as an “investment” by parents and a means to provide for them when they grow old, according to the UC Davis Human Rights Initiative Blog.
These practices have tremendous and dangerous effects on children who survive or witness such violence. “[The child] suffers from deep disorders and experiences a state of concern and feeling of being unsafe. This renders him or her unable to plan for the future, ignites his or her anger and influences his or her behavior,” says Psychoanalyst Rena Sarkis. “Any change in the child’s habits, such as having a different school or home, can put him or her in a state of shock. Seeing pictures of an earthquake in some countries affects the child’s spirit, as he or she fears that something similar may happen to him or her. This holds especially true when war invades his or her street, home and school. It is as though he or she was left alone in this life without any reference and markers,” Sarkis added.
Children victims of violence need to rebuild their sense of security and dignity by talking over what happened to help them understand and move on, Sarkis said, though UNICEF Child Protection Officer Abir Abi Khalil noted that while some children can express themselves using words, others find it difficult to do so.
In an attempt to provide them with psychological support, UNICEF established “child-friendly spaces” in the Lebanese regions in which Syrian nationals took refuge. Volunteers organize entertainment, cultural and educational activities for children and use drawing to help them express what they cannot put into words. “Drawings speak,” says Abi Khalil, adding that in their first drawings, many children depicted weapons, fire and guns. “Several months now into their displacement and participation in activities, they have started drawing suns and children.”
According to UNICEF Media Director Souha Bsat, the idea underlying the project is to allow the child to lead a normal life away from home, since parents – due to their mental state – cannot provide an atmosphere of joy and calm. These activities also help Syrian children mingle with their Lebanese peers, who also need spaces for playing and entertainment, since the Lebanese regions that saw an influx of Syrian refugees are the poorest inLebanon. Bsat goes on saying that these spaces fill the free time of displaced children constructively, especially for those who have been unable to enroll in Lebanese schools or were forced to work in order to provide for their families.
In Syria too, despite the killing, groups have started providing psychological support to children. “We are rebelling for them so that we provide them with a more beautiful future. The calendar of freedom gives a detailed description every Tuesday of activities and games that help children deal with psychological trauma resulting from violence,” according to the Facebook page of Syrian journal Ayyam al-Horriya (Days of Freedom).
But as Sarkis points out, it is only after the violence ends can Yazen and other children recover the glitter, color and songs of their childhood. “
And thanks to NATO’s, EU’s and US overthrow of Qaddafi weapons are flowing all over the place. Defected Syrian officers and agents desperately pleading with the Obama administration to change policy but to no avail. And this lunacy policy is CREATING EXACTLY THE SITUATION which this no arms policy is said to prevent:
“In the seven months since the Qaddafi regime was destroyed, Washington, London and Paris have turned a blind eye to the impossibility of establishing a stable government in Tripoli because rebel factions and militias identified with al Qaeda which control Libya’s main towns are too busy running the biggest arms smuggling network ever seen in North Africa.
Rockets, explosives and every kind of weapon is reaching al Qaeda elements and affiliates in abundant quantities across northern Africa and the Middle East, including their offshoots in Egyptian Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
Groups identified with al Qaeda have seized control of large parts ofMaliand directly threaten the stability of the Algerian government.
Sources report fears that Syriamight go the same way as Libya. Syrian officers and agents who have deserted from Syrian military and security agencies have made their way to Washington to implore administration officials to abandon the US policy of non-intervention in Syria. They warn that the rebel Free Syrian Army is falling into the clutches of al Qaeda.It won’t be long, they say, before these jihdist terrorists not only wreak mayhem in Syria, but turn that country into their haven and base for cross-border attacks against Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.
Their pleas have not moved the Obama administration. That so long as the Americans stay out of involvement in Syria, France, Turkey and Arab League nations will also stand aside, because the US alone is capable of establishing combined commands and infrastructure for coordinating an operation with multiple air support on the scale required for Syria.
By opting out of action in Syria, the West and the Arab League not only give Assad free rein to continue slaughtering his people but leave the door open for al Qaeda to move in on the various Syrian rebel movements and add the element of terror to the ongoing carnage.”
“He is a liar, a liar,” he said. ”It was just talk, talk, talk. Nobody helped us.”
Inside Syria’s broken city of Homs
The eccentricity of terror is drawn in dust-covered colours in the homes of Baba Amr.
“Few people were prepared to talk, but one man was upset enough on learning he was talking to a Briton to damn the perfidy of David Cameron, who had seemed to want to help but had ”done nothing”.
”He is a liar, a liar,” he said. ”It was just talk, talk, talk. Nobody helped us. The whole world was against us.”
Another man described how he had been held in prison for 50 days – though not long enough to avoid the savagery of February’s bombardment that finally drove the Free Syrian Army’s Farouq Battalion from the suburb. It was a humiliating retreat which may have marked the turning point of this war.
”Every day for thirty days the shells came. They started at six in the morning and ended at eight at night. In between, there was not a minute’s peace.”
And this video makes fun of the Syrian state TV’s propaganda:
“THE LUNACY OF SYRIAN STATE TV – SAME MAN APPEARS IN 10 DIFFERENT VIDEOS FOR STATE TV AS ‘COMMON BYSTANDER OR WITNESS’. The video speaks for itself.”
Remember the suicide bombing against the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on April 18, 1983 that killed over 60 people, mostly embassy staff members and United States Marines. An additional 120 people were wounded in the bombing
Of the Americans killed, eight worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, including the CIA’s top Middle East analyst and Near East director, Robert C. Ames, Station Chief Kenneth Haas and most of the Beirut staff of the CIA.
Following the attack, the embassy was moved to a supposedly more secure location in East Beirut. However, on September 20, 1984, another car bomb exploded at this embassy annex, killing twenty Lebanese and two American soldiers.
And then there was the Beirut Barracks Bombing on October 23, 1983 in Beirut, when two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing United States and French military forces—members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon—killing 299 American and French servicemen.
Of the 299 killed 241 was Americans. And sixty Americans were injured. Representing the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, and the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II.
The blasts led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force fromLebanon.
Well, that was “daddy” Hafez al-Assad and Iran (Hezbollah).
As I have been saying, It’s a family affair. A deadly one.
And here they are (from 1994):
At the front are Hafez al-Assad and his wife, Mrs Anisa Makhlouf. In the back row, from left to right, are Maher (1967 -), Bashar (1965 -), Bassel (1962 – 1994), Majid (1967 – 2009), and Bushra Assad (1960 -).
Under the Bush administration US policy towards Syria cooled in 2003. Then Secretary of State Colin Powell was the last high ranking person to go to Damascus in May 2003.
And the Bush administration recalled its ambassador to Damascus on February 15, 2005 after Syria’s assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Al-Hariri on 14 February 2005. Under the rest of Bush’s term no US ambassador where stationed in Damascus.
Following Hariri’s death, there were several other bombings and assassinations against anti-Syrian figures. These included Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni, Pierre Amine Gemayel, and Walid Eido. Assassination attempts were also made on Elias Murr, May Chidiac, and Samir Shehade who was investigating Hariri’s death.
It was the “son” this time. Together with Iran (Hezbollah).
The assassination gave rise to the so-called Cedar Revolution, a rare Lebanese political consensus. Syria, cowed by the collective anger, had to withdraw its troops.
The primary goals of the original activists were the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the replacement of a government heavily influenced by Syrian interests with more independent leadership, the establishment of an international commission to investigate the assassination of Prime Minister Hariri, the resignation of security officials to ensure the success of the plan, and the organization of free parliamentary elections.
The UN investigation and the Mehlis report
“The Mehlis Report is the result of the United Nations’ investigation into the 14 February 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. The investigation was launched in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1595 and headed by the German judge, Detlev Mehlis. It involved questioning of Lebanese and Syrian officials.
The official Mehlis Report made no specific mention of anyone in the Syrian government as responsible for the assassination. However, the report was first erroneously released as a Microsoft Word document which preserved changes that had been made in the document since its creation. According to that document, the original U.N. report had specifically named many high-ranking Syrian government and military officials by name as being personally responsible for the death of Rafik Hariri.
For example, a previous editing of the report stated that ”Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamil al-Sayyed” were behind the killing of Hariri. But in the official version, this is replaced by ”senior Lebanese and Syrian officials”. Maher al-Assad is the brother of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and Assef Shawqat, a powerful figure within the regime, is married to their sister Bushra. Suleyman is a top Syrian security official and al-Sayyed, the only Lebanese of the four, was formerly the head of Lebanon’s General Security Department.
Some suggest that the document indicates the report was altered to remove these names during a meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, despite the fact that he had personally stated that this would not happen. Mehlis himself has denied outside influence on the report, and said that Annan did not suggest any changes. The motivation for removing the names is not known.”
Since the Bush administrations recall of the ambassador to Damascus there were some parading of politicians going to Damascus and meeting Assad. Many democrats but some republicans too.
The most notorious is when Nancy Pelosi (D), Speaker of the US House of Representatives, in April 2007 meets Assad in an effort to sabotage Bush foreign policy:
”We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace,” said Pelosi, who met for three hours with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Even the Washington Post did not defend her:
”We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascusis a road to peace,” Ms. Pelosi grandly declared.
“Ms. Pelosi was criticized by President Bush for visiting Damascusat a time when the administration — rightly or wrongly — has frozen high-level contacts withSyria. Mr. Bush said that thanks to the speaker’s freelancing Mr. Assad was getting mixed messages from theUnited States.
Never mind that that statement is ludicrous: As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president. Two weeks ago Ms. Pelosi rammed legislation through the House of Representatives that would strip Mr. Bush of his authority as commander in chief to manage troop movements in Iraq. Now she is attempting to introduce a new Middle East policy that directly conflicts with that of the president. We have found much to criticize in Mr. Bush’s military strategy and regional diplomacy. But Ms. Pelosi’s attempt to establish a shadow presidency is not only counterproductive, it is foolish. “
Meeting Assad, Pelosi calls visit to Syria the ‘road to peace’
“DAMASCUS– House Speaker NancyPelosi challenged the White House on Middle East policy yesterday, meeting with Syria’s leader and insisting ”the road to Damascus is a road to peace.”
That brought a sharp attack from the Bush administration, which has rejected direct talks with Damascusuntil it changes its ways.
”Unfortunately that road is lined with the victims of Hamas and Hezbollah, the victims of terrorists who cross from Syria into Iraq,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for President Bush’s National Security Council. ”It’s unfortunate that she took this unilateral trip which we only see as counterproductive.”
The United States accuses Syria of backing Hamas and Hezbollah, two groups it deems terrorist organizations. It also says Syria is fueling Iraq‘s violence by allowing Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory and is destabilizing Lebanon‘s government. Syrian security officials have been implicated in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri in Beirut, thoughDamascus has denied a role.”
Assad’s Speaker
Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria is part of a larger problem.
”In one fell swoop, the Speaker legitimized and emboldened a ruthless thug whose unyielding support for terrorism has bogged down our attempts to bring stability and peace to the region at every step of the way. The excursion, condemned by most major newspapers, undoubtedly won Pelosi plaudits from her reflexively anti-Bush liberal base.
But most instructively, it revealed why Democrats remain woefully unfit to set the nation’s foreign policy.
Presenting Assad with “a new Democratic alternative” — code for making President Bush look feckless — Mrs. Pelosi usurped the executive branch’s time-honored foreign-policy authority.Her message to Assad was that congressional Democrats will forbid the president from increasing pressure on Damascus to stop its murderous way. Several leading legal authorities have made the case that her recent diplomatic overtures ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American “without authority of the United States” to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States. Regardless of the law, Pelosi proceeded to make Assad an important regional player without first having to become a responsible one. At such a critical moment in the volatile Middle East, this is no time for the United States to be sending out mixed signals to our enemies.”
Then enter the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton. With a total change of policy. They sent a new ambassador to Damascus. And were the Bush administration refused to lend the UN “Human Rights” Council credibility by U.S. membership and withholding taxpayer dollars.
In 2009 President Obama, signed on, paid the dues, and is currently seeking a second three-year term for the United States on the Council. Etc(see my part 9).
Why??
Because the Obama administration had determined that Assad was a “reformer”
Yeap, you read right. According to Obama, Clinton and the top democrats, Assad was a “reformer” who they could work with.
And they did and tried. And kept silent about the atrocities. As long as he was “their man”.
As late as March 28 2011 Clinton STILL called Assad a “reformer”. That was two weeks after the uprising stared in earnest.
Back in March Hillary Clinton said (in CBS “Face the Nation) their would be no intervention in Syria because the dictator Bashar Assad was a “reformer.”
Syrian President Assad Regarded As a ‘Reformer,’ Clinton Says
“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday drew a contrast between Syrian President Bashir Assad and his late father and predecessor, and said U.S. lawmakers who recently have visited Damascus regarded him as a “reformer.”
She made the startling comment while explaining why the United States will not intervene on behalf of Syrian civilians revolting against the regime as it has done in the case of Libya.”
“Doing the round of Sunday television talk shows with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Clinton told CBS’s Face the Nation that the U.S. would not enter the conflict in Syria as it has in Libya.
“No,” she said. “Each of these situations is unique.”
While saying the administration deplored the violence in Syria, she contrasted the situation to that of Libya.
“What’s been happening there [in Syria] the last few weeks is deeply concerning, but there’s a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities and then police actions, which, frankly, have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see.”
“CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, the interviewer, noted that the president’s father, Hafez Assad, had “killed 25,000 people at a lick” – a reference to the crushing of an Islamist revolt in the town of Hama in 1982 – and said the regime now was firing at civilians with live ammunition.
“Why is that different from Libya?” he asked.
“There’s a different leader in Syria now,” Clinton said. “Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.”
Despite appeals from the Obama administration, Bashir Assad has aligned himself with Iran and Hamas.”
“A regular visitor to Damascus is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who has met with Assad at least six times, most recently last November.
Kerry was a strong supporter of the Obama administration’s decision to re-engage the Assad regime and to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in five years. He has also taken an interest in prodding Syria and Israel towards peace talks.
In a March 16 speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on U.S. policy in the light of what he called “the new Arab awakening,” Kerry referred to the situation in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Oman and Lebanon.
There was not a single reference in the speech to Syria, however.
When Kerry was asked about Syria during a question-and-answer session afterwards, he voiced optimism about the direction relations were taking.
“I have been a believer for some period of time that we could make progress in that relationship,” he said. “And I’m going to continue to work for it and push it.”
“President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had,” Kerry continued. “And when I last went to – the last several trips to Syria – I asked President Assad to do certain things to build the relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward.”
He mentioned some of the requests, including the purchase of land for the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, the opening of an American cultural center, non-interference in Lebanon’s election and the improvement of ties with Iraq and Bahrain, and said Assad had met each one.
“So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.”
Kerry said nothing about the need for internal reform in Syria.
In contrast, Kerry early this month was an outspoken advocate for the administration to act in Libya, describing Gaddafi as “a mad man bent on maintaining power” and saying the U.S. should lead the world in preventing the slaughter of more Libyan civilians.”
“Assad, like his father, has nurtured strong ties with Iran and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, while continuing to host Palestinian terrorist groups in Damascus.
He also maintained Syria’s decades-old policy of political and military interference in Lebanon, and his regime was suspected of high-level involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
The Hariri killing prompted President Bush to withdraw the U.S.ambassador from Damascus. Seeking improved relations with Syria,President Obama nominated Robert Ford as ambassador and,after the process stalled in Congress, appointed him during a recess last December.”
So slaughtering civilians, including children, execute and massacre them, commit war crimes, destroying block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood with the world largest mortar bomb (Russian 240 mm) is OK IF YOU ARE DEEMED A REFORMER by the Obama administration.
Then all high talk and “responsibility to protect” doesn’t matter.
And Washington Posts Fact Checker concluded: “Clinton’s remarks gave a highly misleading impression”
“There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believehe’s a reformer.”
–Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on “Face the Nation,”March 27, 2011
“I referenced opinions of others. That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration.”
–Clinton, two days later
Hillary Clinton is known for making provocative statements, but few have generated such a firestorm as her comment last week that the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, may be a reformer. She made her remarks after “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer noted that Assad’s late father had killed 25,000 people during an uprising against his regime.Clintonresponded by noting that the son was now in power and he was a “different leader.”
Lawmakers and columnists quickly condemned her remarks. So two days later Clinton tried to deflect the criticism by telling reporters she was only referencing “the opinions” of lawmakers who had met with Assad and that she was not speaking for the administration. But then she added: “We’re also going to continue to urge that the promise of reform, which has been made over and over again and which you reported on just a few months ago – I’m a reformer, I’m going to reform, and I’ve talked to members of Congress and others about that, that we hear from the highest levels of leadership in Syria – will actually be turned into reality.”
Officially, the State Department has taken a dim view of Assad’s pledges, describing him as “authoritarian” in the most recent human rights report. “The government systematically repressed citizens’ abilities to change their government,” the report said. “In a climate of impunity, there were instances of arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life.
There’s no question that Assad had promised reform to reporters, most recently in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. But have “many of the members of Congress of both parties” who have met with Assad actually come away from those meetings believing that Assad was a reformer?
Relations between the United States and Syria hit a low point in 2005 after the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri, was assassinated and the Bush administration withdrew the U.S.ambassador.
But President Obama has sought to repair relations, believing a peace deal between Israel and Syria would help stabilize the region. Over congressional opposition, he returned the ambassador to Damascus.
In a meantime, a number of congressional delegations have made trips to Damascusto meet with Assad. Most famously, then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with Assad in 2007 over the objections of President Bush, though Republicans such as Rep. Darrell Issa of California also traveled there, believing it was important to maintain a dialogue. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has made repeated visits to Damascus to meet at length with Assad.
We will take it as a given that a number of Democrats believed Assad could be a reformer. On March 16, for instance, Kerry said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: ”So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.”
But what about Republicans? Clinton claimed that “many of the members of both parties” who had gone to Syria “in recent months” had decided Assad was a reformer. The State Department, however, refused to provide any names.
So, using news articles, the Internet and other sources, we tried to identify every Republican lawmaker who had gone to Syria on an official trip since Pelosi’s visit in 2007. We came up with a list of 13 names, some of whom are now retired and some of whom have made repeated visits. We then checked every public statement or news release the lawmakers made about their trips or meetings with Assad.
We could not find anything close to sentiments indicating Assad was a reformer. Issa, for instance, urged a need for dialogue but said that “we should hold no illusions about the regime of Bashar al-Assad.” Issa added, “Our discussions were tense and focused on Syria’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas, interference in Lebanon, the movement of foreign fighters to Iraq and the repression of the Syrian people.”
“Throughout the Middle East uprisings, Clinton has had trouble calibrating her comments to the mood of the moment, such as when she pronounced the Mubarak regime to be “stable’ and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” Days later, Mubarak was gone.
But did any of these lawmakers come away from the meeting believing Assad was a reformer? Shelby, through a spokesman, said he never believed or said that (and also did not brief Clinton after the trip). “He has known both the father and son, and believes they are brutal dictators with horrible reputations,” said spokesman Jonathan Graffeo. Other senators on the trip also denied that, though not all immediately responded.
Interestingly, even Kerry seems to have lost patience with Assad, blasting him in a statement on Thursday, just four days after Clinton suggested Assad was a reformer.
“Violence against peaceful protesters is unacceptable — whether in Syria, Bahrain, Yemen or anyplace else — and betrays the values that we, as Americans, respect and that people everywhere should share. I am particularly concerned about the violence against protesters in Syria.President Bashar al-Assad did not use his speech yesterday to promise concrete reforms, including lifting the emergency law. With large protests scheduled for tomorrow, it is essential that his government refrain from using violence against its own people)
The State Department’s refusal to identify these lawmakers is also suspicious, especially after Clinton backtracked and sought to pin the blame for the sentiments she expressed on others. So we are left with a public record that suggests Clinton was exaggerating or inventing the chorus of support on the GOP side.
In fact, Clinton’s remarks gave a highly misleading impression — that there was general consensus by experts on Syria in both parties that Assad was a reformer, even though Clinton’s own State Department reports label him otherwise. “
That “reformer” has now killed over 11 000 civilian men, women, children, elderly etc.
Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone toSyriain recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.
— Hillary Clinton on Bashar al-Assad, March 27
Few things said by this administration in its two years can match this one for moral bankruptcy and strategic incomprehensibility.
First, it’s demonstrably false. It was hoped that President Assad would be a reformer when he inherited his father’s dictatorship a decade ago. Being a London-educated eye doctor, he received the full Yuri Andropov treatment — the assumption that having been exposed to Western ways, he’d been Westernized. Wrong. Assad has run the same iron-fisted Alawite police state as did his father.
Bashar made promises of reform during the short-lived Arab Spring of 2005. The promises were broken. During the current brutally suppressed protests, his spokeswoman made renewed promises of reform. Then Wednesday, appearing before parliament, Assad was shockingly defiant. He offered no concessions. None.
Second, Clinton’s statement is morally obtuse. Here are people demonstrating against a dictatorship that repeatedly uses live fire on its own people, a regime that in 1982 killed 20,000 in Hama and then paved the dead over. Here are insanely courageous people demanding reform — and the U.S. secretary of state tells the world that the thug ordering the shooting of innocents already is a reformer, thus effectively endorsing the Baath party line — “We are all reformers,” Assad told parliament — and undermining the demonstrators’ cause.
Third, it’s strategically incomprehensible. Sometimes you cover for a repressive ally because you need it for U.S. national security. Hence our muted words about Bahrain. Hence our slow response on Egypt. But there are rare times when strategic interest and moral imperative coincide completely. Syria is one such — a monstrous police state whose regime consistently works to thwart U.S. interests in the region.
During the worst days of the Iraq war, this regime funneled terrorists into Iraq to fight U.S. troops and Iraqi allies. It is dripping with Lebanese blood as well, being behind the murder of independent journalists and democrats, including former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. This year, it helped topple the pro-Western government of Hariri’s son, Saad, and put Lebanon under the thumb of the virulently anti-Western Hezbollah. Syria is a partner in nuclear proliferation with North Korea. It is Iran’s agent and closest Arab ally, granting it an outlet on the Mediterranean. Those two Iranian warships that went through the Suez Canal in February docked at the Syrian port of Latakia, a long-sought Iranian penetration of the Mediterranean.
Yet here was the secretary of state covering for the Syrian dictator against his own opposition. And it doesn’t help that Clinton tried to walk it back two days later by saying she was simply quoting others. Rubbish. Of the myriad opinions of Assad, she chose to cite precisely one: reformer. That’s an endorsement, no matter how much she later pretends otherwise.
And it’s not just the words; it’s the policy behind it. This delicacy toward Assad is dismayingly reminiscent of President Obama’s response to the 2009 Iranian uprising during which he was scandalously reluctant to support the demonstrators, while repeatedly reaffirming the legitimacy of the brutal theocracy suppressing them.
Why? Because Obama wanted to remain “engaged” with the mullahs — so that he could talk them out of their nuclear weapons. We know how that went.
The same conceit animates his Syria policy — keep good relations with the regime so that Obama can sweet-talk it out of its alliance with Iran and sponsorship of Hezbollah.
Another abject failure. Syria has contemptuously rejected Obama’s blandishments — obsequious visits from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry and the return of the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since the killing of Hariri. Assad’s response? An even tighter and more ostentatious alliance with Hezbollah and Iran.
Our ambassador in Damascus should demand to meet the demonstrators and visit the wounded. If refused, he should be recalled to Washington. And rather than “deplore the crackdown,” as did Clinton in her walk-back, we should be denouncing it in forceful language and every available forum, including the U.N. Security Council.
No one is asking for a Libya-style rescue. Just simple truth-telling. If Kerry wants to make a fool of himself by continuing to insist that Assad is an agent of change, well, it’s a free country.But Clinton speaks for the nation.”
And on top of that, Hillary Clinton is telling the Syrian freedom protesters to lay down their arms.
“A few weeks ago, Amar met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He presented to her, among other things, information about soldiers who defected and plan to launch a guerilla fight against the army. “To my surprise, she asked that the defectors lay down their arms,” he says. “That’s an odd request. Why didn’t they ask the rebels in Libya to lay down their arms? How can they do it if at any moment they can be fired at and murdered? It’s impractical.”
“I can’t understand why the Americans are silent,” Amar says. “We expected them to intervene. Militarily. To bomb the Syrian army from the air. They intervened in Libya and managed to prompt Gaddafi’s removal, and that is what we expect them to do to Assad now. Thus far, more people were killed in Syria than in Libya at the point where Obama decided to launch a military offensive in order to avert a greater massacre. NATO also bombed in Kosovo when it was necessary. Why this hypocrisy?”
As I wrote in part 1 and 9:
“It is also very interesting to compare how eager the Obama administration, EU and NATO was to go into Libya with their do nothing attitude with Syria.
The dictator Gaddafi had not killed as many civilian people as Assad’s regimes have by a long shot. Or destroyed as many neighbourhoods as Assad. Nor did Gaddafi support so many terrorist groups as Assad. Or had the same strategic value for USA as Syria.
Nor did Gaddafi kill so many Americans as did Assad (Bashar and Hafez al-Assad – It is A Family affair). Etc. Etc.
So in every way and shape or form, in comparison Libya under Gaddafi doesn’t even come close to Syria under Assad.
Samantha Power, a prominent advocate of humanitarian intervention and the principle of ”responsibility to protect”, is considered to be the key figure within the Obama administration in persuading the president to intervene militarily in Libya.
Power, was a senior foreign policy adviser to senator Obama, and now a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council.
But on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
And some of the “excuses” for not doing anything, like “the arms could end up in the wrong hands”, become ABSOLUTELY mind-boggling hypocritical when you remember that NATO and US special operations troops together with their intelligence operatives in Tripoli, armed and put Al-Hakim Belhadj in control over Tripoli. And gave him “the keys” to Gadhafis armoury.
Those arms were advanced items which British and French special operations forces gave the rebels, according to “a senior” American source.
Who is Al-Hakim Belhadj you may ask. He is a leader and commander of LIFG, the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Which by the way is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. He is an al Qaeda veteran from Afghanistan, he joined the Talliban etc.
He was first captured in Pakistan 2001 and handed over to US security officials, he was repatriated to Libya two months later. Later CIA captured him in Malaysia in 2004. He was then transferredto Bangkok, where he was then placed in the custody of the CIA. Later they extradited him to Libya where he was kept in prison for six years by Qaddafi.
According to the Spanish, Al-Hakim Belhadj was suspected of complicity in the 2004 Madrid train bombings etc. etc.
For the first time, therefore, the armies of Western members of NATO took part and helped directly in a bid by extremist Islamic forces to capture an Arab capital and overthrow its ruler.”
Then there was NO concern “that it would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region”. In fact, NATO gave sophisticated weapons to known Al Qaeda groups like LIFG.
As I said before, it is so ABSOLUTELY mind-boggling hypocritical that you just want to throw up.
And while NATO is “concerned”, the Syrian civilian population continues to get slaughtered.
But how cares?
And that Samantha Power, Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council, mentioned above just got apointed by Obama to head the new White House Atrocities Prevention Board.
But still on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
So apparently she is Very SELECTIVE in which atrocities to “prevent” and when to use “responsibility to protect”.
Or as Tom Hayden posted at the Rag Blog, a far-left website that is home to radical 1960s anti-war leaders, some with previous close ties to Obama, Hayden remarked on Power’s use of war.
Tom Hayden was the principal organizer for the 1960s anti-war movement group Students for a Democratic Society, from which the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group splintered.
Hayden contended that Power’s Balkans experience led her to become an advocate of American and NATO military intervention in humanitarian crises.
“She began to see war as an instrument for achieving her liberal, even radical, values,” he stated.”
The Saudis and the Gulf countries ALL mistrust Obamas Middle East policy, including his Syrian policy.
Here is just one example from the editor Tariq al-Homayed of the pan-Arab Al-Sharq Al-Awsat:
”The blame for the situation in Syria does not lie with Russia alone; one of the biggest problems is also the Obama administration, which has squandered a golden opportunity to get rid of a significant obstacle to security in the region – and by extension US national security, Bashar al-Assad. However, it is clear that Obama is not concerned with the security of the region – even though it impacts upon international security as a whole, especially with the chaos in Syria overlooking the Mediterranean – rather Obama is preoccupied with his re-election bid.
The US administration has directed as much blame, if not more, towards the Syrian opposition as it has towards al-Assad. What is worse, and indeed a major scandal, is that the Obama administration has said that there could be an al-Qaeda presence [among the opposition] in Syria, even though al-Qaeda ran wild in Iraq under the auspices of the al-Assad regime. When I say this is a scandal, this is because the American newspaper The Washington Post – quoting US intelligence agents – reported that the only evidence Washington has of an al-Qaeda presence in Syria is the style – yes the style – of the bombing that took place in Damascus, and nothing more! The Obama administration is the one calling for the Syrian opposition to unify their ranks, yet Washington knows full well that the unification of the opposition requires international support and hard work, in any situation, not mere statements.
The problem with the current US administration is that it is notorious for misinterpreting events in the region. Here it is suffice to consider Obama’s dealings with the Green Revolution, where instead of supporting it he decided to withdraw from Iraq, leaving it in the hands of al-Maliki and Tehran. With regards to Syria, the Obama administration says that the al-Assad regime is still cohesive, but this is something to be expected for several reasons. Washington knows the extent of Iranian support for al-Assad, in terms of arms, money, men, equipment and all manner of resources, via Iraq. This makes it difficult for any Syrian official to defect. How could they, when they don’t see Obama taking any form of serious stand, and instead opposing the armament of the Syrian opposition and refusing to declare that overthrowing the tyrant of Damascus is an issue of national security?
How could a full military division defect when there is no buffer zone to ensure the protection of the defectors and to help them re-organize their ranks? Those who defected in Libya went to Benghazi, but where would the Syrian defectors go? If the Obama administration wants to see significant and rapid divisions, then it must adopt a firm stance. Let us recall the era of George W. Bush, when the US administration brandished the stick towards al-Assad after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, with an international tribunal just around the corner, at a time when Ghazi Kanaan was rumored to be plotting a coup and was subsequently assassinated!Where is the stick today, and where is the international tribunal?
Furthermore, from reading recent history we would find that no one defected from Saddam Hussein’s regime prior to the US invasion, and even in its early days, because at the time all members were aware that their families would be targeted.The al-Assad regime is worse than Saddam in that regard. But first and foremost, how can the Syrians mobilize when they don’t see a serious stance coming from Washington?
So the problem is not Russia alone, but also the hesitance of President Obama and his administration. Events have been interpreted in the wrong manner, the Syrians have been left alone to face the crimes of the al-Assad regime, and the biggest chance to create stability in the region and curtail Iran’s influence has been lost, so who will tell Obama this?”
“On Monday, the editor of the pan-Arab Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Tariq al-Homayed, penned a column that delivered a scathing critique of the Obama administration’s Syriapolicy. The title of the piece said it all: “Obama is the problem, not just Russia.” While one can’t say for sure, it’s hard to read Homayed’s editorial as anything other than an indicator of Riyadh’s exasperation with Washington’s dithering as the Syrian uprising marks its first year anniversary.
The Saudis’ frustration with the Obama administration’s approach was already evident at the “Friends of Syria” gathering in Tunis last month, when Foreign Minister Saud al-Faysal left the meeting, citing lack of serious action. It was then that al-Faysal publicly went against the administration’s declared policy, calling the arming of the Syrian opposition “an excellent idea.” The Qataris, too, shared the Saudis’ desire for more robust action, including direct support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
However, if that’s the case, then why did Riyadh and Doha agree to yet another futile initiative with the Russians, which did nothing but buy more time for Assad to escalate his military campaign? In addition, reports continue to suggest that the Saudis and Qataris remain far from aggressively supplying the FSA with weapons. To answer these questions, one must again turn to Washington.
Last week, an anonymous administration official disclosed that a “decision has been made at the next Friends of Syria meeting to not oppose any proposals to arm the FSA and we’re not going to publicly or privately message on that,” the official said. “We’re not going to publicly or privately tell the Friends of Syria not to do this.”
The problem, of course, is that the administration did continue to message publicly against any lethal support to the FSA, and against any military options more broadly. As late as this Tuesday, the White House spokesman was still repeating the familiar mantra: “It is certainly our position that providing arms is not a move that we’re considering right now because we believe it could heighten and prolong the violence in Syria… So it is our position that we do not want to contribute to the further militarization of Syria because that could lead down a very dangerous road.”
In addition to administration officials making the same arguments in testimonies before Congress, press briefings were organized by intelligence officials with the sole aim of trashing the notion of arming the FSA. Unnamed US officials warned of al-Qaeda’s supposed infiltration of the revolution, and exaggerated to a laughable extent the capabilities of the Assad regime in order to counter any push for military action, which some influential voices in Congress had begun voicing.
At the same time, the US renewed its efforts to engage Russia at the Security Council, introducing a new draft resolution, which, according to one leaked version, calls for a dialogue between the regime and the opposition, thereby making a remarkable concession to Moscow, tantamount to reversing the declared US policy of regime change.
Despite the embarrassing fiasco of the Kofi Annan mission to Syria, and the predictable lack of any progress with the Russians, President Obama yesterday still doubled down on this failed approach.“[F]orus to provide strong support to Kofi Annan, to continue to talk to the Russians, the Chinese and others… that’s the most important work that we can do right now.”
As a result, it’s not hard to see why the Saudis and Qataris felt forced to go through Russia one more time. It was the expressed wish of the President of the United States. A careful rereading of the statement made by the anonymous official to ForeignPolicy.com shows that this was the message communicated to US allies.
The official noted that the USwould take the passive attitude toward arming the FSA “at the next Friends of Syriameeting,” which will take place early next month. In other words, the Obama administration opted to waste a full month banging on the Kremlin’s door, yet again, as Bashar al-Assad escalated his military campaign in Homs, Idlib and Daraa.
The administration has been criticized repeatedly for not asserting leadership when it came to Syria. In reality, however, the administration did very much push its preferences on its regional allies. Its public messaging and diplomatic activity left no doubt that it continued to oppose any military aid to the FSA and that it insisted on going through Moscow one more time, regardless of the time this would buy Assad.
So, although the official said that the administration was not going to “publicly or privately” tell allies not to arm the FSA, as a matter of fact, Washington has been quite verbose these last three weeks, and its message to regional allies, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, against arming the opposition, has been unmistakable. After all, the US Secretary of State herself twice said that arming the Syrian opposition might be like sending weapons to Al-Qaeda.
It’s clear that President Obama, who’s running on a policy of extrication from the region, sees that opening the door to military aid risks drawing the US in. Despite the increased pressure to move in that direction, the president is determined to keep the US out of the game.
This was not lost on Al-Sharq Al-Awsat’s Homayed. “[I]t is clear that Obama is not concerned with the security of the region… rather [he] is preoccupied with his re-election bid,” he wrote in his column.
The Saudis may not yet have gone as far as Senator John McCain, who the other day called the administration’s policy “disgraceful and shameful.” However, with their media now openly labeling President Obama as part of the problem alongside Assad’s Russian allies, they’re hardly being subtle.”
And as I wrote in Part 6 about Turkey:
“And to further prove that point that the Obama administration is ACTIVLY discouraging and opposing ANY small step Turkey wants to take regarding Syria:
“In a previously unreported turn of events, it has now come to light that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her meeting with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu last month, emphatically dismissed a number of forward leaning options on Syria that the Turkish top diplomat proposed to the Obama administration.
What this means is that Washington, which at one point subcontracted its Syria policy to Ankara, has now called the Turks off the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
According to well-informed Turkish and US sources, during his meeting with Secretary Clinton, Davutoğlu put forward a set of measures, including, among others, creating a buffer zone and/or a humanitarian corridor, as well as organizing and equipping the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The secretary of state responded in no uncertain terms that the Obama administration had no interest in pursuing any of these options. In fact, according to one account, Clinton told her Turkish counterpart no less than three times, “We are not there.”
This conversation fits well with the administration’s message to other regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia, against arming the FSA and pushing Washington’s preferred policy of going through the Russians, in an attempt to reach a “political solution” to the Syrian crisis.”
“Apparently, the Turks, much like the Saudis, were looking to the first Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis as a possible forum to bypass the Russians and begin a more muscular effort, with US backing. The Saudis found out at the meeting that no such action was forthcoming, and withdrew in frustration, while publicly voicing their preference for arming the Syrian rebels.
The Turks got their answer from Secretary Clinton well before the Tunis gathering, and, according to the Turkish sources, were dismayed at the Obama administration’s extraordinary passivity and refusal to lead.
The message conveyed to the Turks was the same one made clear to the Saudis. According to one US source, when Davutoğlu ended up asking Clinton where the administration was on the issue, her response simply repeated the mantra about the Arab League initiative and going to the Security Council again for another go at the Russians.In other words, it was more of the same.”
“As a result, the administration has found itself in the surreal position of siding closer with Assad’s Russian ally and at cross-purposes with its own regional allies – and, most significantly, in contradiction with its own stated policy of regime change in Syria.”
With “allies” like this who need enemies?
And then is the push by the Obama administration together with Turkey to make SNC (the Syrian National Council), the sole voice for the Syrian uprising i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood. And the sole recipient and controller of money for the uprising.
(See also what I wrote in part 6 about this)
In Syria, America Allies with the Muslim Brotherhood
The president’s support for the Syrian National Council strengthens Islamists.
“While the Obama administration’s burgeoning contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptcontinue to cause controversy, the administration’s policy of growing cooperation with the Syrian opposition continues to enjoy almost unanimous support. This is remarkable, since by virtue of that policy the administration is openly allied with none other than the Muslim Brotherhood: that is, openly, but with perhaps just enough misdirection for the alliance to escape the notice of the broader public.
The Syrian opposition organization that the United Statesand other Western powers have been officially supporting is, of course, the Syrian National Council (SNC). At a meeting in Istanbulon April 1, the so-called Friends of Syria, including the United States, recognized the SNC as “a legitimate representative of all Syrians.” Although the use of the indefinite article suggests there were reservations on the part of some participants, U.S. State Department statements both before and after the Istanbul meeting leave no doubt that the Obama administration treats the SNC as its principal Syrian interlocutor. The SNC is also the presumptive recipient or at least conduit of the aid that the Obama administration has pledged to the Syrian opposition. While in Istanbul, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with representatives of the SNC, and she afterwards promised that “there will be more assistance of all kinds for the Syrian National Council.”
But who is the Syrian National Council? Although the chairman and most recognizable face of the council is the secular Paris-based political scientist Burhan Ghalioun, it is openly acknowledged that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is a major force within the council. In fact, there is strong evidence that it is the major force. When several members of the council resigned in mid-March, they cited the overwhelming influence of the Brotherhood as a reason for their decision. “The Brotherhood took the whole council,” departing council member Walid al-Bunni told the New York Times. “We became like extras.”
The Belgian Syria expert Thomas Pierret, a lecturer in contemporary Islam at the Universityof Edinburgh, estimates that “around half” of the SNC’s members are Islamists. According to Pierret, moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood controls the council’s “commission on humanitarian aid” and thereby the distribution of SNC funds in Syria. As a consequence of the repression of the organization by the Syrian regime, the leadership of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has been living in exile for decades. Pierret notes that the Brotherhood now stands accused of using its control over the SNC aid spigot in order to reconstruct a base of popular support within the country. Pierret cites remarks made by Kamal al-Labwani to the Arab press as the source for the accusation. Al-Labwani is one of the SNC members that resigned in March.
The contrast between the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s outreach to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the widespread indifference to its alliance with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is particularly odd in light of al-Labwani’s accusation regarding the latter’s control of SNC aid money. For, if this accusation is correct, American and other international support for the SNC does not only imply joining forces with the Muslim Brotherhood: It implies helping the Brotherhood to obtain an influence inside Syria that it did not previously have.”
Iran and Obama’s Syrian hesitation
The president fears confronting Assad because of the effect it might have on his nuclear diplomacy.
”Despite months of negotiations by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and extensive Security Council deliberations, hostilities in Syria continue. Although overall violence is down slightly and the council has increased U.N. observers to 300, the civilian death toll continues to rise. Syria’s dictatorship ignores Mr. Annan’s “cease fire,” and Bashar al-Assad himself shows no signs of stepping down.
President Obama seems paralyzed for two basic reasons: First, he is committed to a U.N. process almost certainly doomed to failure; and second, he fears taking on the real nemesis in Syria, namely Iran’s ayatollahs.
The decision to deploy additional military observers was a positive step but the existing observers have hardly displayed much initiative. They have, for instance, declined to monitor anti-Assad demonstrations to avoid, they said, making their mission part of the dispute. One might confuse this with satire were the consequences not so grave.
Perhaps recognizing the U.N.’s lack of real impact to date, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently suggested that the Security Council impose an arms embargo against Syria’s government if hostilities continue. It was unclear, however, if other governments would agree. Neither Russianor Chinahas responded positively. Given their February double veto against stronger sanctions, there is considerable doubt that they would ever allow an effective arms embargo, especially given Russia’s long-standing arms-supplier relationship with Syria.
An enforceable U.N. embargo would require invoking Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, to restore “international peace and security,” which Moscow and Beijing intensely distrust, particularly after Libya. There, the Security Council acted ostensibly to prevent humanitarian tragedy, and NATO then used the mandate to facilitate ousting Moammar Gadhafi. Russia and China will not repeat that mistake. Moreover, they could insist on a total weapons ban, both to Assad and the opposition. In the U.N. world of moral equivalence, they would almost certainly prevail, as with the 1992 arms embargo when the former Yugoslavia broke up.
Mr. Obama’s real failure is not reliance on the cumbersome, ineffective U.N., but his unwillingness to confront Iran, which is determined to maintain Assad in office. Tehran has long treated Syria as a satellite, part of its regional arc of influence that includes terrorist Hezbollah, now politically and militarily dominant in Lebanon. It is prepared to shed considerable Syrian blood to save Assad. The Islamic Republic has supplied arms and financial assistance to the Assad regime, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers are on the ground in Syria aiding government forces.
Mr. Obama knows that if he confronts Iran directly in Syria, any chance will disappear for a negotiated settlement to Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. While he should have long ago understood that diplomacy will never persuade Iran to renounce its objective of becoming a nuclear power, he has not. So despite Iran’s obvious role (backed by Russia and China) in defending Assad’s brutality, the president cannot bring himself to admit his Iran policy’s futility. And Mr. Obama is entirely unwilling to risk foreign adventures that might imperil his re-election.
Washington needs to acknowledge that effectively challenging Assad means moving beyond sanctions and diplomacy, and toward regime change in Tehran. Mr. Obama seems unable or unwilling to understand that Iran is an enemy of the U.S. and that its nuclear and regional hegemonic ambitions must be thwarted, or the ayatollahs overturned. Such an uncertain leader cannot handle a critical confrontation effectively. Unfortunately, we may have to wait for a more resolute president rather than proceed and fail inSyria with a weak one.
Israel may not be willing to wait for a firm American hand to deal with Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. And if the conflict in Syria is concluded in Assad’s (and Tehran’s) favor, it could well have significant negative implications for Israel, and for peace and security in the Middle East as a whole. That will be the real cost of Mr. Obama’s fruitless deference to the U.N. process, and of his unwillingness to confront Iran’s mullahs.”
Well the efforts to try to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons have been going on for ages without nothing to show.
Some examples: UN Security Council has passed seven resolutions on Iran since 2006. Including sanctions and an arms embargo.
Result? So far nothing.
EU has been going at it for nine years now, including sanctions, and nothing to show for it.
IAEA has made a lot of reports and resolutions, and nothing has changed.
USA has for a long time imposed many sanctions against Iran (since 1979) but nothing has changed. That is 33 years of futile sanctions that has not achieved its objective.
Other countries like Canada, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Switzerland etc also have imposed various sanctions. And nothing has changed.
Etc. Etc.
Now Obama is spinning this wheel another turn. And since he doesn’t want to “offend” Iran, Assad can continue to slaughter his people.
No“responsibility to protect” there.
I could continue for a very long time, there is much more to be said, but this already a way to long post. So I stop here. You get the picture.
As usual, I start with some recent news and developments:
As we have seen before the relentless shelling of block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood continues during this “ceasefire” as if nothing has happened. Now they are shelling cemeteries:
”EVEN THE DEAD OF SYRIA CANNOT REST IN PEACE – ASSAD’S FORCES SHELL A CEMETERY. Damascus (Douma): Apr 26, 2012- Assad’s forces not only murder the living of Syria, but they try their best to disturb the dead. Multiple times over this 13 month long Revolution, Bashar Al Assad’s forces have attacked and shelled cemeteries … they will not even allow the dead to rest in dignity.”
And the UN observers did something good – They shielded families from Assads forces sniper fire so that they could fetch the dead bodies AFTER 45 days:
”ASSAD’S FORCES REFUSED TO ALLOW THEM TO RETRIVE BODIES OF THE DEAD – THEY NEEDED THE U.N. OBSERVERS TO ACCOMPANY THEM. Homs(Bab Dreib): Apr 28, 2012- The bodies had been laying in the street for 45 days. For one month and a half, these bodies lay in the street, murdered by Assad’s forces – they didn’t allow family and friends to retrieve the bodies, so they rotted and decomposed. The only way they were able to get the bodies was for the UN to literally shield them from Assad’s snipers.
And some more leaked videos. Remember that these videos were filmed by the Assad militia, thugs, intelligence people etc. to show how “good”, loyal and efficient they are:
”LEAKED VIDEO -I SWEAR TO GOD I DONT WANT FREEDOM!” – IS WHAT THIS BOY TELLS HIS INTERROGATORS AS THEY BEAT AND HUMILIATE HIM. – In this leaked video clip taken by Assad’s thugs, they have a young boy in the back of a car and begin to humiliate, threaten and beat him. They even use a taser on him.
Assad’s thugs repeatedlyforce the boy to ‘confess’ that he is an armed gunman, that he owns a gun and that he fired on them. They force him to give them the names of all his friends and to ‘admit’ that they too are gunmen. They also force him to confess that he protested and ask him if he wants freedom, to which he replies “i swear i dont want freedom!”
They also tell him repeatedly that they will rape his sister and force him to agree that they will rape her.
These are Assad’s men. This is what they do. These are the people that Assad’s supporters look up to and respect.”
LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES BEAT AND HUMILIATE THREE MIDDLE-AGED MEN. This is all they know … violence, terror and oppression. These men could be their fathers.”
LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES DRAG A MAN THROUGH THE STREETS TIED TO THE BACK OF A CAR. Homs: (Date Unknown) – This is what Assad’s forces are allowed to do in Assad’s Syria. Only they could drive through town with the body of a man being dragged behind it. Unfortunately, he would most probably have been alive when they started off.
As they drive through town they scream at people who attempt to get close “Back Off!” they shout. When they stop they exclaim “this is what happens to traitors!” in the unmistakable tone of Assad’s thugs.
They did this in order to terrorize the citizens into stopping their protests for freedom.”
One of the least explored aspects of the Syrian regime’s repression is the raping of women. Various human rights monitors have documented cases of sexual violence perpetrated by Bashar al-Assad’s security forces against men, many of them young boys as young as 11 years-old. According to the UN Human Rights Council’s November 2011 report on Syria, former detainees testified to being subjected to “beatings of genitals, forced oral sex, electroshocks and cigarette burns to the anus in detention facilities, including those of the Air Force Intelligence in Damascus, the Military Intelligence in Jisr Al Shughour, the Military Intelligence and the Political Security in Idlib and Al Ladhiqiyah and the intelligence detention facilities in Tartus.”
While rumours of women being raped have run rampant in Syria since the early months of the uprising, first person testimonies have been harder to come by. This is owing to both an Arab cultural stigma on the subject and to fears of regime reprisals. Many of these rape victims have already lost parents or children to the state’s barbarism. They’re told if they want to keep the one who are left, they’ll keep quiet.
I spoke yesterday to a Syrian expat living in Washington, D.C. who asked to be identified as Farha Ghazi. She left her nativeHama18 years ago and has lately been working with Syrian women’s organisations. I’d been put in touch with Farha by a Syrian doctor friend of mine, and I knew broadly what to expect from our conversation. Still, nothing in a year’s worth of reporting on the carnage and misery of this country has chilled me more than what Farha told me.
Salma was a young girl in Baba Amr whose house was raided last February by the shabbiha – pro-Assad mercenary militias – when that rebel-held neighbourhood in Homs fell after a month-long siege. “She told them, ‘Please, please – don’t you have sisters? Don’t you have mothers?’”, Farha said. “Just leave me, please not in front of my dad.’” They didn’t listen. Instead, the shabbiha strapped Salma’s father to a chair in his own house and forced him to watch as three or four men raped his daughter. “They made him keep his eyes open and watch.”
This is standard practice now in Assad’s Syria. Boys and men might be spirited away to a mukhabarat dungeon for torture, but the women are done over in their own homes, in front of their families.
Farha said that she’s begun coordinating with gynaecologists who can attend to those who have been impregnated by their rapists. These victims’ ages range between 11 and 46. “We have documented 11 cases so far of women needing abortions because they were raped. We had to move them all from either Baba Amr or Idleb to Aleppo, where it was safer to perform this procedure. They are all safe now, but when I called some of them, they were in hysterics. All have suffered severe psychological trauma because of what they’ve gone through.” Many, she said, want reconstructive surgery to repair their hymens so as to make them appear virgins again. ”We are working with a team of doctors, but it’s hard. This is not the medical priority right now.”
And impregnation isn’t the only aftereffect. Some girls have sustained severe internal damage. Farha emailed me the following medical note written by a Syrian doctor and stamped by the Ministry of Health attesting to types of injuries common to rape victims. The names of the doctor and patient and all identifying marks have been blacked out. The note reads:
”To Whom It May Concern:
I have reviewed the case of _______, the daughter of Hassan, on Wednesday, date _______. She was suffering from bruising and tears along the posterior vaginal wall, along with tears in the anal sphincter. These injuries were the result of a sexual rape. A surgical procedure was done repairing the wall of the vagina and the sphincter. She is now in the hospital recuperating.
Signed, Surgical consultant. This report was written free from duress”
So according to Ban Ki-moon the violence in Syria has reached ‘intolerable stage’.
Eeehhh…wasn’t the UN ceasefire plan and the observers supposed to put an end to that?
Syria violence has reached ‘intolerable stage’, says Ban Ki-moon UN secretary general condemns crackdown on protests and tells regime to live up to its promise of ceasefire
” The UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon said President Bashar al-Assad’s continued crackdown on protests had reached an ”intolerable stage”, and that the UN would try to speed up the deployment of up to 300 monitors to Syria. Only 15 are there now. ”The government of Syria must live up to its promises to the world,” he said.”
Some more videos of the destruction in Hama. And in one attack, more than 70 people are believed to have been killed.
That’s life during a UN ceasefire.
”THE AFTERMATH OF THE HAMA MASSACRE – BUILDING AFTER BUILDING DESTROYED AND REDUCED TO RUBBLE – 70 PEOPLE WERE KILLED. Hama (Mashaa’ Al-Tayyar):Apr 25, 2012- This is where entire families were obliterated as they huddled together waiting for Assad’s forces to fire the next shell at their homes …”
”THEIR HOMES COLLAPSED ON-TOP OF THEM AS SHELLS RAINED DOWN FROM THE SKIES. Hama (Masha’a Al Tayaar): Apr 25, 2012 – 70 people are believed to have been killed in this one single attack alone. The police, fire-fighters, ambulance or any sort of municipal rescue services did not respond to the cries of the dying and injured. The only help they got were from family, friend’s, neighbors and citizens that have hearts and used their bare hands to dig out any survivors.”
And here Assad’s forces roll into Douma guns blazing. Another glorious example of the UN ceasefire!
”ASSAD’S FORCES ROLL INTO TO DOUMA TO IMPLEMENT THE CEASEFIRE PLAN – WITH GUN’S BLAZING.Damascus(Douma):Apr 26, 2012- In the words of @HamaEcho “Won’t mention this “ceasefire” again, it’s pointless.” ….
“Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive access to the network of Syrian medical professionals who are trying to help the towns and cities under siege from the government inDamascus.
Medical treatment for people caught up in the violence is becoming increasingly hard to obtain, not just for injured fighters who cannot go to public hospitals for fear of arrest or worse, but for any civilian who the government suspects of helping the opposition.
Medics face mounting challenges as they try to treat injured fighters and civilians, while under attack.
Activists have smuggled entire field hospitals into the country and developed a secret network to bring in supplies.”
And according to Kofi Annan, the guy in charge of this “ceasefire”, what’s going on now IS MUCH BETTER THAN WAR.
Somehow, I think the civilian population in Syria begs to differ.
And he said: “Our patience has been tested severely-close to its limits”.
Well, I don’t think that comes even close to the “patience” tested by the Syrian population.
Annan to Security Council: Diplomacy may suck, but it’s a lot better than war
“Special Envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council today (April 24) in a closed-door session that an expanding U.N. monitoring mission still stands a chance of calming the violence in Syria, despite a spike in killings on Monday, including a report of a government attack on civilians in the town of Hama after U.N. observers left the town.”
”Our patience has been tested severely-close to its limits,” he said. ”But we have also seen signs that there is the possibility for the parties to implement a cessation of violence, which can lead to a political process and peaceful way out of the crisis.”
”Under the circumstances, the peace we are trying to build could never be perfect — and we have all been shocked by events in Syria,” he said. ”But if we succeed, the prospects are far better than any promised through war.”
Annan said that he had received written assurances on Saturday (April 21) from Syrian Foreign Minister Wallid Moallem that ”the withdrawal of massed troops and heavy weapons from in and around population centers is now complete and military operations have ceased.” Annan said he was ”encouraged” by Moallem’s pledge but that ”it should be understood that the only promises that count are the promises that are kept.”
The resistance has to fight over the few weapons and ammunition there is
FEATURE-Rebel rivalry and suspicions threaten Syria revolt
”When it comes to getting weapons, every group knows they are on their own,” says the 25-year-old with a patchy beard. ”It’s a fight for resources.”
Nominally Mustafa’s rebels fight for the Free Syrian Army (FSA), but the FSA, lacking international recognition or direct state funding, is a often just a convenient label for a host of local armed groups competing fiercely for scarce financing.
So fiercely, they sometimes turn their guns on each other.
”Everyone needs weapons. There is tension. There is anger and yes, sometimes there is fighting if rebels in one town seem to have an unfair share of weapons,” said Mustafa, who comes fromSyria’s north western province of Idlib, which borders Turkeyand has been a hotbed of resistance to Assad.
Such mistrust is compounded by the competing agendas of outside parties who are further fragmenting the rebel movement.”
“A 60-year-old rebel commander called Abu Shaham, from the central city of Hama, accused the Brotherhood of hanging back from the battlefront to overpower other rebel groups later.
”The Brotherhood is pumping money into the rebel units yet their men don’t fight as much as us. They are almost always the first to retreat. Why?” he asked.
”They are not thinking about this phase in the battle. They care about what comes next. They want to save themselves for the struggle after Assad falls, to come out the strongest.”
Analyst Joseph Holliday, of the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War, said if foreign powers do not engage with the rebels in an orderly way, their rivalries could create chaos.
”If we don’t recognise the rebels, anyone can set up shop in Turkey and start funding opposing groups,” said Joseph Holliday, of the U.S-based Institute for the Study of War. ”We don’t know who is arming who … I’m afraid by the time the West decides to do something it may be too late.”
The case for military intervention in Syria
Former US ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker argues that the West should not wait for a single mass atrocity before it intervenes in Syria, as it did in Bosnia. What is the magic number of deaths that will prompt the international community to act? We’ve already passed 9,000
“What is missing, therefore, is not an understanding of the case for intervention, or even a means to intervene, but a “catalyst” that justifies and forces action. If that catalyst occurs, the US and others might act. And then America and its friends should ask themselves why they did not act sooner, and prevent the very catastrophe that spurred them into action.”
Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to NATO, is a professor of practice at Arizona State Universityand a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
“Last year President Obama ordered U.S. intervention in Libya under the grand new doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect.” Moammar Gaddafi was threatening a massacre in Benghazi. To stand by and do nothing “would have been a betrayal of who we are,” explained the president.
In the year since, the government of Syria has more than threatened massacres. It has carried them out. Nothing hypothetical about the disappearances, executions, indiscriminate shelling of populated neighborhoods. More than 9,000 are dead.
Obama has said that we cannot stand idly by. And what has he done? Stand idly by.
Yes, we’ve imposed economic sanctions. But as with Iran, the economic squeeze has not altered the regime’s behavior. Monday’s announced travel and financial restrictions on those who use social media to track down dissidents is a pinprick. No Disney World trips for the chiefs of the Iranian and Syrian security agencies. And they might now have to park their money in Dubai instead of New York. That’ll stop ’em.
Obama’s other major announcement — at Washington’s Holocaust Museum, no less — was the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board.
I kid you not. A board. Russia flies planeloads of weapons to Damascus. Iran supplies money, trainers, agents, more weapons. And what does America do? Support a feckless U.N. peace mission that does nothing to stop the killing. (Indeed, some of the civilians who met with the U.N. observers were summarily executed.) And establish an Atrocities Prevention Board.
With multiagency participation, mind you. The liberal faith in the power of bureaucracy and flowcharts, of committees and reports, is legend. But this is parody.
Now, there’s an argument to be made that we do not have a duty to protect. That foreign policy is not social work. That you risk American lives only when national security and/or strategic interests are at stake, not merely to satisfy the humanitarian impulses of some of our leaders.
But Obama does not make this argument. On the contrary. He goes to the HolocaustMuseum to commit himself and his country to defend the innocent, to affirm the moral imperative of rescue. And then does nothing of any consequence.
His case for passivity is buttressed by the implication that the only alternative to inaction is military intervention — bombing, boots on the ground.
But that’s false. It’s not the only alternative. Why aren’t we organizing, training and arming the Syrian rebels in their sanctuaries in Turkey? Nothing unilateral here.Saudi Arabia is already planning to do so.Turkey has turned decisively against Bashar al-Assad. And the French are pushing for even more direct intervention.
Instead, Obama insists that we can act only with support of the “international community,”meaning the U.N. Security Council — where Russia and China have a permanent veto. By what logic does the moral legitimacy of U.S. action require the blessing of a thug like Vladimir Putin and the butchers of Tiananmen Square?
Our slavish, mindless self-subordination to “international legitimacy” does nothing but allow Russia — a pretend post-Soviet superpower — to extend a protective umbrella over whichever murderous client it chooses. Obama has all but announced that Russia (or China) has merely to veto international actions — sanctions, military assistance, direct intervention — and America will back off.
For what reason? Not even President Clinton, a confirmed internationalist, would acquiesce to such restraints. With Russia prepared to block U.N. intervention against its client, Serbia, Clinton saved Kosovo by summoning NATO to bomb the hell out of Serbia, the Russians be damned.
If Obama wants to stay out of Syria, fine. Make the case that it’s none of our business. That it’s too hard. That we have no security/national interests there.
In my view, the evidence argues against that, but at least a coherent case for hands-off could be made. That would be an honest, straightforward policy. Instead, the president, basking in the sanctity of the Holocaust Museum, proclaims his solemn allegiance to a doctrine of responsibility — even as he stands by and watches Syria burn.
If we are not prepared to intervene, even indirectly by arming and training Syrians who want to liberate themselves, be candid. And then be quiet. Don’t pretend the U.N. is doing anything. Don’t pretend the U.S. is doing anything. And don’t embarrass the nation with an Atrocities Prevention Board. The tragedies of Rwanda, Darfur and now Syria did not result from lack of information or lack of interagency coordination, but from lack of will. “
“But Obama didn’t need to reach to the historical catchphrases of the Holocaust and its past to find a challenge. Preceding him on the stage at the event commemorating the Holocaust was Elie Wiesel. And though Wiesel’s soft-spokenness and European accent can make it hard to hear the force in his words, the Nobel Peace Prize winner did throw down a gauntlet to the president.
“The greatest tragedy in history could have been prevented had the civilized world spoken up, taken measures,” he said, referring to the Holocaust and how its perpetrators “always wanted to see what would be the reaction in Washington and London and Rome, and there was no reaction so they felt they could continue.”
So he asked the audience at Monday’s ceremony: “Have we learned anything from it? If so, how is it that Assad is still in power?”
He raised a similar question of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – “How is it that the No. 1 Holocaust denier Ahmadinejad is still the president?” – and then repeated, “Have we not learned?”
UN
What does Rwanda, Somalia, Darfur, Balkans (Srebrenica) etc. all have in common, besides genocide and atrocities?
I throw in the biggest corruption and bribe scandal in modern times to, i.e. the United Nations’ Oil for Food Programme in Iraq
Have any idea?
OK, the answer is – Kofi Annan!
Yeap, the present “peace emissary” to Syria himself.
He was directly in charge of the appropriate UN agencies that were supposed to stop things like this.
Short bio:
In 1962, he started working as a Budget Officer for the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations (UN).
1987–1990 head of Human Resources,
1990–1992 head of Program Planning, Budget and Finance, and Controller
1993 – 1996 head of Peacekeeping Operations and also served as Under-Secretary-General from 1994-1995
1995-1996 He was appointed a Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia.
1997 to 2006 Secretary-General of the United Nations
He directed and was responsible for ALL peacekeeping
He really is the loyal company man.
So it was on his watch that the genocide in Rwanda took place. Remember, he was in charge of ALL peacekeeping operations.
The United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda(UNAMIR) lasted from October 1993 to March 1996. Its activities were meant to aid the peace process between the Hutu-dominated Rwandese government and the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
The Genocide took place in 1994 a mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people. Over the course of approximately 100 days April 6 through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate. Estimates of the death toll have ranged between 500,000 and 1,000,000.
Roméo Dallaire served as Force Commander of UNAMIR, the peacekeeping force forRwanda between 1993 and 1994.
In his book “Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda” (2003), he gives detaild description of what happened or did not happened.
He claimed that Annan was overly passive in his response to the imminent genocide. General Dallaire asserted that Annan held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict, and from providing more logistical and material support. He claimed that Annan failed to provide responses to his repeated faxes asking for access to a weapons depository; such weapons could have helped Dallaire defend the endangered Tutsis.
In 2004, ten years after the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, Annan finally said, ”I could and should have done more to sound the alarm and rally support.”
“At a memorial conference at the UN, Mr Annan said he realised he personally could have done more to rally support for international efforts to stop it.
”The international community is guilty of sins of omission,” Mr Annan said.
The genocide – in which some 800,000 people died – occurred when Mr Annan was head of UN peacekeeping forces.
The UN Security Council failed to reinforce the small UN peacekeeping force in the country.
”The international community failed Rwanda and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret,” Mr Annan said.
He said the painful memory had influenced many of his later decisions as secretary general.
”I believed at that time that I was doing my best,” he said.
”But I realised after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support.”
“In April 2000 the UN Security Council admitted responsibility for failing to stop the genocide.
The Canadian Foreign Minister, Bill Graham, told the conference that 10 years after the genocide the international community had still not learned how to stop such killings from happening again.
”We lack the political will to achieve the necessary agreement on how to put in place the type of measures that will prevent a future Rwanda from happening,” he said.
Lessons learned?
The head of the small UN peacekeeping force in Rwandaat the time, Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, told the conference that no-one was interested in saving Rwandans and the bulk of his force was ordered to leave.
He suggested that attitudes now had not changed.
”I still believe that if an organisation decided to wipe out the 320 mountain gorillas there would be still more of a reaction by the international community to curtail or to stop that than there would be still today in attempting to protect thousands of human beings being slaughtered in the same country.”
The UN has designated 7 April as international day of reflection on the genocide.
Mr Annan announced he was backing a call from the Rwandan government for the world to observe a minute of silence to remember the victims and resolve to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again.
”Let us be united in a way we were not 10 years ago,” he said.”
It took him 10 YEARS to admit that he “should have done more”!
And as we see now in Syria NOTHING HAS CHANGED, AND NOTHING HAS BEEN LEARNED. It probably will take another 10 years before he admits the he, and UN, could have done more. The question is how many more civilians will have been killed before that?
Let’s continue to another of Kofi Annas “successes” when he was in charge and did absolutely nothing to prevent the massacre.
Balkans and the massacre in Srebrenica July 1995.
On 16 April 1993, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 819, whichdemanded that: all parties and others concerned treat Srebrenica and its surroundings as a safe area which should be free from any armed attack or any other hostile act. On 18 April 1993, the first group of UNPROFOR troops arrived in Srebrenica. On 8 May 1993 agreement was reached of demilitarization of Srebrenica. According to UN reports ”General Sefer Halilovic and General Ratko Mladic agreed on measures covering the whole of the Srebrenica enclave and the adjacent enclave of Zepa.
Under the terms of the new agreement, Bosnian forces within the enclave would hand over their weapons, ammunition and mines to UNPROFOR, after which Serbs’ ”heavy weapons and units that constituted a menace to the demilitarized zones which will have been established in Zepa and Srebrenica will be withdrawn.” Unlike the earlier agreement, the agreement of 8 May stated specifically that Srebrenica was to be considered a ”demilitarized zone,” as referred to in article 60 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).”.
A Security Council mission led by Diego Arria arrived in Srebrenica on 25 April 1993 and, in their subsequent report to the U.N., condemned the Serbs for perpetrating ”a slow-motion process of genocide.” The mission then stated that ”Serb forces must withdraw to points from which they cannot attack, harass or terrorise the town. UNPROFOR should be in a position to determine the related parameters. The mission believes, as does UNPROFOR, that the actual 4.5 km by 0.5 km decided as a safe area should be greatly expanded.” Specific instructions from United Nations Headquarters in New York stated that UNPROFOR should not be too zealous in searching for Bosnian weapons and, later, that the Serbs should withdraw their heavy weapons before the Bosnians gave up their weapons. The Serbs never did withdraw their heavy weapons
By early 1995, fewer and fewer supply convoys were making it through to the enclave. The already meager resources of the civilian population dwindled further and even the UN forces started running dangerously low on food, medicine, ammunition and fuel, eventually being forced to start patrolling the enclave on foot. Dutchbat soldiers who went out of the area on leave were not allowed to return and their number dropped from 600 to 400 men. In March and April, the Dutch soldiers noticed a build-up of Serb forces near two of the observation posts, ”OP Romeo” and ”OP Quebec”.
By mid 1995, the humanitarian situation of the Bosnian civilians and military personnel in the enclave was catastrophic. In May, following orders, Naser Orić and his staff left the enclave by helicopter to Tuzla, leaving ranking officers in command of the 28th Division. In late June and early July, the 28th Division issued a series of reports including urgent pleas for the humanitarian corridor to the enclave to be reopened. When this failed, Bosnian civilians began dying from starvation. On Friday, 7 July the mayor of Srebrenica reported 8 residents had died of starvation.
On 4 June 1995, the French commander of the UN forces in former Yugoslavia, generalBernard Janvier, secretly met Ratko Mladic to obtain the release of hostages, many of whom were French. Mladic demanded of Janvier that there would be no more air strikes.
The Serb offensive on Srebrenica began in earnest on 6 July 1995. In the following days, the five UNPROFOR observation posts, in the southern part of the enclave, fell one by one in the face of the Serb forces advance. Some of the Dutch soldiers retreated into the enclave after their posts were attacked, but the crews of the other observation posts surrendered into Serb custody. Simultaneously, the defending Bosnian forces came under heavy fire and were pushed back towards the town. Once the southern perimeter began to collapse, about 4,000 Bosnian residents, who had been living in a Swedish housing complex for refugees nearby, fled north into Srebrenica town. Dutch soldiers reported that the advancing Serbs were ”cleansing” the houses in the southern part of the enclave.
Colonel (ret.) Thomas Karremans was the commander of Dutchbat troops in Srebrenica.
In 1994 Karremans was appointed as commander of Dutchbat III battalion that was sent to the Srebrenica enclave. On 11th, 12th and 13th July this battalion had to deal with the capture of the enclave by Serb soldiers. Karremans requested NATO air support to defend the enclave, which arrived too late and was too little to stop the Serbian advance. After Serbian forces entered Srebrenica, Karremans met with Serb General Ratko Mladić. During the meeting Karremans was defensive and submissive, excusing himself from ever requesting air strikes against Bosnian Serb forces, claiming the decision was made by higher authorities based on information he provided. This is in sharp contrast with facts – it was determined that it was Karremans who requested air strikes several times, but they were first denied, then delayed, and later granted by UN General Janvier. After this Karremans was filmed raising a glass with war crimes suspect and Serb General Ratko Mladić.
Following negotiations between UN and Bosnian Serbs, on Friday, July 21st, 1995, lieutenant-colonel Karremans and Dutch UN soldiers were allowed to leave Srebrenica. On the farewell, Colonel Karremans accepted gifts from General Mladić, smiled, shook his hand and departed. Shortly after his return to The Netherlands Karremans was promoted to full colonel.
In July 1995 more than 8,000 Bosnian muslims, mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenicain Bosnia and Herzegovina, were executed by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The mass murder was described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War.
A paramilitary unit from Serbiaknown as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, also participated in the massacre.
The vast majority of those killed were adult men and teenage boys but the victims included boys aged under 15, men over the age of 65, women and reportedly even several babies. The Preliminary List of People Missing or Killed in Srebrenica compiled by the Bosnian Federal Commission of Missing Persons contains 8,373 names, some 500 of them under 18, and includes several dozen women and girls.
In 2005, in a message to the tenth anniversary commemoration of the genocide, the Secretary-General of the United Nations noted that, while blame lay first and foremost with those who planned and carried out the massacre and those who assisted and harboured them, great nations had failed to respond adequately, the UN itself had made serious errors of judgement and the tragedy of Srebrenica would haunt the UN’s history forever
‘MAY WE ALL LEARN AND ACT ON THE LESSONS OF SREBRENICA’, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN MESSAGE TO ANNIVERSARY CEREMONY
“Today, we pay tribute to the victims of a terrible crime -– the worst on European soil since the Second World War. Throughout the world, this date is marked as a grim reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.”
“But we cannot evade our own share of responsibility.
As I wrote in my report in 1999, we made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality and non-violence which, however admirable, was unsuited to the conflict in Bosnia. That is why, as I also wrote, “the tragedy of Srebrenica will haunt our history forever”.
And
“May we all learn, and act on, the lessons of Srebrenica.”
Here we go again;it took him another 10 YEARS to admit that he and UN “should have done more”!
And for lessons learned, remember he said the same thing about Rwanda. Eeehh.. and just watch the glorious UN ceasefire and observation plan under Annan in Syria.
The same old same old.
These hypocrites keep repeating at regular intervals how “sorry” they are and how they could have “done more”. And then they gladly move on to the next catastrophe and do exactly the same again (i.e. nothing). Where a lot of civilians get massacred, slaughtered etc.
That is international and UN “diplomacy” in a nutshell.
And this UN “proudly” upholds its tradition of doing ABSOLUTLY NOTHING when it really maters, like Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia (Srebrenica anyone?) etc. And now inSyria.
Refusing to arm or help the opposition will not end the conflict or limit it; it will drag on as all the above examples shows.
And by waiting the situation gets worse and much more complex, then “they” used its complexity as an excuse not to intervene while decrying the lost opportunity for intervention. And ALL this time the killing and atrocities just continues as nothing has happened.
Unforgiven, unforgotten, unresolved: Bosnia 20 years on
Visegrad, site of one of the worst atrocities of the Bosnian war, is still in denial about the past
“I have come, after all, to thelandofSerbnationalist permafrost. Visegrad is in Republika Srpska, the ethnically cleansed enclave carved out by Radovan Karadzic in the 1992-1995 war. When I ask about the picture, the mayor looks a little embarrassed, as he is, understandably, when I ask how Visegrad is confronting its past.
“There are no solutions,” he says. “Time has to pass. Where would we start if we got involved in dealing with the past? Would we not have to begin with theOttoman empire? All truths have to come to the surface and everyone who committed crimes should be prosecuted, but we have to look at everyone equally.”
He speaks, carefully, as if by rote. I recall the words of a young Bosnian Muslim lawyer I had spoken to a day before. His family were stalwarts of Visegrad’s Muslim establishment before the war. “Visegrad was worse than Srebrenica,” he had told me. “It was a small, slow genocide that went on for weeks. Teachers murdered pupils. Pupils murdered teachers. Godfathers murdered each other … It was a hunting party and we were the prey.”
And the final irony, survivors of the July 1995 massacre sued the UN for it’s responsibility in the massacre. But the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the UN has “the most far-reaching form of immunity and cannot be prosecuted by any national court”.
In other words, regardless how UN screws up and regardless how many civilians get killed, massacred, slaughtered, genocide etc. etc., NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE ONES RESPONSIBLE!
U.N. can’t be tried for Srebrenica massacre -Dutch court
“The Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the United Nations cannot be prosecuted in the Netherlands for failing to prevent genocide against Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica near the end of Bosnia‘s war in 1995.
The final ruling was the last legal option in theNetherlandsfor a group of survivors of the July 1995 massacre, when as many as 8,000 boys and men were killed by Serb forces in an area that the United Nations had declared a ”safe haven”.
Lawyers representing a group of 6,000 survivors calling themselves the Mothers of Srebrenica said they would appeal against the decision at the European Court of Human Rights.
”The U.N., as the international human rights champion, should not stand above the law but should take responsibility for its role in the Srebrenica genocide in 1995,” a statement issued by the group said.
”This is a violation of fundamental human rights and in contravention of the case law of the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ).”
In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judged that the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre was an act of genocide.”
”The Supreme Court upholds the opinion of the (lower) court that the U.N. has the most far-reaching form of immunity and cannot be prosecuted by any national court,” a summary of the ruling said.”
Syria: The evil results of doing good
The Annan Plan is ‘worse than feckless’, because it buys the Assad regime time and precludes more effective options.
“Yes, all this makes Kofi Annan a logical choice as emissary. He is, after all, a professional peacemaker. He will not choose sides, and his six-point interim peace proposal for Syria is a model of even-handedness, both as between the regime and the rebels, and as between their respective allies. When circumstances will not permit distinctions between oppressor and oppressed, between aggressor and victim, or between right and wrong, Kofi is your man. The patient Ghanaian will deal impartially with anyone. He will sit, as he did over the past weekend with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to discuss his peace proposal, as though the latter were earnestly seeking justice in the Levant.
But does anyone honestly think that the Syrian regime, committed as it is to a programme of violent intimidation and collective punishment, will provide ”full humanitarian access”, or a daily ”humanitarian pause” for those whom it suspects of aiding its adversaries? What are the chances that the tender Mr Assad will release detainees who may promptly rejoin the struggle against him, or that he will permit foreign journalists to freely document his atrocities? Who would want to bet his life, or the lives of those dear to him, that Bashar and his generals will honour a ceasefire, or engage in good faith in a ”political dialogue” with those who are challenging their power?
Pursuing such ”solutions” is worse than feckless, for it forestalls other, potentially effective actions. By permitting the Syrian regime added time, it is morally equivalent to aiding and abetting Bashar al-Assad.
Diplomats at the UN embraced the Annan proposals – not because they had any chance of implementation, but because they demonstrated ”progress”. Diplomats love a process, and that’s what the Annan Plan provides them. The hope is that when – not if – the proposals are effectively stymied by Syria, the unanimously approved UN ”statement” by which the Annan proposals were launched might then be passed as a ”resolution”.More ”progress”. But a feckless statement will not be any more effective for having become a resolution. This is the diplomatic equivalent of Zeno’s Paradox, for each progressively smaller step forward slowly converges on, but can never pass the hard barrier of Sino-Russian obduracy.
Violence continues
Meanwhile, the Syrian Army that devastated Baba Amr continues its brutal shelling of al-Khalidiya and its offensive in HamaProvince. And the rebels of the Free Syrian Army, who are rapidly running out of arms and ammunition, are being progressively forced to flee toTurkey andLebanon.”
“But such good as can be done in these circumstances will only be done by those who are willing to climb metaphorically into the ring, and to dirty themselves in the process of providing such assistance as is possible to the oppressed of Syria as they struggle to liberate themselves from an unspeakable regime. It will mean taking sides.”
“For what the situation needs is not high-minded sentiments, but effective, lethal aid to Syrians willing to fight for basic freedoms against a regime that has shed any pretense of legitimacy or respectability.
Edmund Burke famously said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.The good and high-minded people, the Kofi Annans if you will, who vote on statements and pass resolutions, who promote quixotic peace proposals, who hold earnest parleys with implacable dictators, may appear to have clean hands in the end. Those who engage, who try to do good in an evil world, on the other hand, will be compromised. But when ultimately the smoke has cleared, both literally and metaphorically, and the final accounting is made, and judgments are passed on all those implicated, either for their action or for their inaction, it will be upon the shoulders of the ”good” that the weight of moral opprobrium should fall.”
Douma – ”We do not want to live easily in humiliation rather we die with pride”
Another example under Annans watch, the United Nations’ Oil for Food Programme in Iraq. Below is just a small sample of all the corruption which was going on.
The Oil-for-Food Programme (OFF), established by the United Nations in 1995 (under UN Security Council Resolution 986) was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military capabilities.
The programme was introduced by United States President Bill Clinton’s administration in 1995, as a response to arguments that ordinary Iraqi citizens were inordinately affected by the international economic sanctions aimed at the demilitarisation of Saddam Hussein’sIraq, imposed in the wake of the first Gulf War. The sanctions were discontinued on November 21, 2003after theU.S.invasion ofIraq, and the humanitarian functions turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority
In addition to criticism of the basic approach, the programme suffered from widespread corruption and abuse.
Benon Sevan of Cyprus, was head of the programme. While Benon Sevan was in charge of the programme, he stonewalled efforts to review and investigate the programme. He ordered his staff that complaints about illegal payoffs should be formally filed with the whistleblower’s country, making them public and allowing Iraq to bar any whistleblowers.In 2000, Dileep Nair, the UN corruption watchdog, wanted to determine the programme’s level of vulnerability. Sevan, along with UN Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Frechette, rejected any such investigation, claiming that it would be too expensive to be worthwhile. Sevan ordered the shredding of years’ worth of documents concerning the programme.
In response to these criticisms, and to evidence acquired after the United Statesinvasion of Iraq, UN Secretary-General accusations were made that skimmed profits were being used to buy influence at the UN and with Kofi Annan himself.
According to an interim report released on February 3, 2005by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker’s commission, much of the food aid supplied under the programme ”was unfit for human consumption”. The report concluded that Sevan had accepted nearly $150,000 in bribes over the course of the programme, and in 2005 he was suspended from his position at the United Nations as a result of the investigation of fraud in the programme.
Peter van Walsum, the now-retired Ambassador of the Netherlandsto the United Nations and chairman of the Iraq Sanctions Committee from 1999 to 2000, speculated in a recent book that Iraq deliberately divided the Security Council by awarding contracts to France, Russia, and China but not to the United Kingdom and the United States. He also stated he encountered a number of cases in which he felt the lack of Iraqi cooperation was designed to exacerbate the suffering of its own people. He also claimed that it was his opinion that the sanctions were not an effective deterrent.
Until 2001, the money for the Oil-for-Food Programme transited through the BNP Paribas bank, whose main private share-holder is Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a man estimated to be worth about $1 billion according to Forbes, and ranks 13th in Britain according to The Guardian. Auchi received a 15-month suspended sentence for his involvement in the Elf scandal, which has been qualified by the British newspaper as ”the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War. Elf became a private bank for its executives who spent £200 million on political favours, mistresses, jewellery, fine art, villas and apartments”. Elf, an oil company, merged with TotalFina to become Total S.A. in 2003.
One of the earliest allegations of wrongdoing in the programme surfaced on 25 January 2004, when al Mada, a daily newspaper in Iraq, published a list of individuals and organizations alleged to have received oil sales contracts via the UN’s Oil-for-Food Programme. The list came from over 15,000 documents which were reportedly found in the state-owned Iraqi oil corporation, which had close links to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
Named in the list of beneficiaries were British MP George Galloway and his charity, the Mariam Fund; former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua; and Shaker al-Kaffaji, an Iraqi-American businessman, India’s foreign minister, Natwar Singh, was removed from office because of his role in the scandal.Many prominent Russian firms and individuals were also included on the al Mada list. Even the Russian Orthodox Church was supposedly involved in illegal oil trading. The former assistant to the Vatican secretary of state, Reverend Jean-Marie Benjamin, is said to have received rights to sell 4.5 million barrels.
The scheme is alleged to have worked in this way: individuals and organizations sympathetic to the Iraqi regime, or those just easily bribed, were offered oil contracts through the Oil-for-Food Programme. These contracts for Iraqi oil could then be sold on the open world market and the seller was allowed to keep a transaction fee, said to be between $0.15 and $0.50/barrel oil sold. The seller was then to refund the Iraqi government a certain percentage of the commission.
The final official version of the Iraq Survey Group report (Duelfer Report) cites only France, Russia and China as violators who paid kickbacks. According to the report, the top three recipients of oil included Russia (30%), France (15%), and China (10%). The US received 2–3%.
According to high-ranking Russian SVR defector Tretyakov, the Oil-for-Food program was sabotaged by an undercover Russian intelligence officer Alexander Kramar who worked in the UN. Kramar set up the artificially low oil prices in 1998 to allow Saddam to use the oil vouchers as lucrative bribes. The difference between the market price and the artificial price (defined by Kramar) was pocketed by people who received the vouchers from Saddam. Among the bribed were top officials from Russia, France, and China. The biggest part of vouchers (to buy 1,366 billion barrels of oil) went to forty-six individuals or organizations in Russia, including Russian Orthodox Church. They pocketed $476 million. Among Russians who received the money were Alexander Voloshin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Sergei Isakov, a buddy of Voloshin, carried bags with money from Moscow to Baghdad to return some of the ”earned” money as kickbacks to Saddam.
This is “sanctions” a la UN.
GAO investigation after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and subsequent Coalition victory over the Iraqi army, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was given the task of finalizing all Oil-for-Food related supply contracts made with the now-defunct regime as well as tracking down the personal fortunes of former regime members. During the execution of this task, the GAO found weaknesses in the programme that allowed kickbacks and other sources of wealth for Saddam Hussein.
The GAO estimates that the Saddam Hussein regime generated $10.1 billion in illegal revenues. This figure includes $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges on oil sales and after-sales charges on suppliers. The scale of the fraud was far more extensive than the GAO had previously estimated. A U.S. Department of Defense study, cited by the GAO, evaluated 759 contracts administered through the Oil-for-Food Programme and found that nearly half had been overpriced, by an average of 21 percent.Unlike the 661 committee, members of the Security Council had the authority to launch investigations into contracts and to stop any contract they did not like. The British and the Americans had turned down hundreds of Oil-for-Food contract requests, but these were blocked primarily on the grounds that the items being imported were dual-use technologies.
Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, told a House hearing that UN auditors had refused to release the internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme. Benon Sevan, with support from Kofi Annan, had written letters to all former Oil-for-Food contractors asking them to consult Sevan before releasing any documents to GAO or US congressional inquiry panels.Throughout its history, the programme had received both complaints from critics saying that it needed to be more open and complaints from companies about proprietary information being disclosed.
The United Nations has denied all requests by the GAO for access to confidential internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.
And then there where all these allegations against his son Kojo Annan who worked for Cotecna:
The younger Annan stopped working for Cotecna in late 1998, but it now turns out that he continued to receive money from Cotecna not only through 1999, as recently reported, but right up until February of this year. The timing coincides with the entire duration of Cotecna’s work for the U.N. oil-for-food program. It now appears the payments to the younger Annan ended three months after the U.N., in November, 2003, closed out its role in oil-for-food and handed over the remains of the program to the Coalition Provisional Authority inBaghdad.
Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq under the oil-for-food program
The pattern in this scandal has been that Secretary-General Annan, until confronted by the press, has either failed to spot or failed to disclose timely information about Cotecna’s paychecks for his son
“So far, the secretary-general has refused requests from Congress for inter views with U.N. staff, or access to the U.N.’s 55 internal audits of the oil-for food program. One of those internal audits, which leaked this past May, noted serious irregularities with the U.N.’s handling of the Cotecna contract, including an ”inappropriate” upward revision of Cotecna’s lowball $4.87 million bid, just four days after Cotecna and the U.N. signed the deal.
At every turn, the saga of the secretary-general’s family ties to Cotecna raises questions about Kofi Annan’s handling of potential conflicts of interest. Even if Mr. Annan cannot be held responsible for the decisions of his son, his job does entail responsibility for the actions of the U.N. Secretariat. As the oil-for-food scandal has unfolded, it has become clear that U.N. secrecy and lack of accountability evolved, in effect, into complicity with Saddam’s scams and influence-buying. By now, between congressional and other investigations, there are allegations that Saddam, on Mr. Annan’s watch, under U.N. sanctions and oil-for-food supervision, scammed and smuggled some $17.3 billion in oil money meant for relief, using some of that money to fund terrorism, import weapons, and buy influence with Security Council members France, Russia, and China.
On top of that, only now is it learned that for fully more than eight years, from 1995-2004, the secretary-general’s son was in one way or another on the payroll of Cotecna, which for almost five of those years held a crucial oil-for-food inspection contract with the U.N. Secretariat. All this, said the investigator for Mr. Hyde’s congressional committee, is good reason why ”the U.N. Secretariat should move swiftly to lift the gag order on U.N. employees and contractors and publicly release its oil-for-food program files.”
Are you not impressed with these guys?
Then we have various organization of the UN like the Human Rights Council witch replaced the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights because it was so one-sided and more like a forum for dictators.
Well, it only got worse and it’s funded by our tax money.
These people are supposed to protect the civilian population all over the world, including Syria. Instead, the butchers sit at the table. Totally failing its founding mission to defend the world’s victims of human rights violations.
According to it’s statues:
“The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them. It has the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention throughout the year. It meets at the UN Office atGeneva. “
Here in glaring detail who corrupt and one-sided, selective and politicized this UN Human Rights Council is by Unwatch Director Hillel Neuer in a speech on March 19, 2012 in the Human Rights Council:
With Syria and Mideast Aflame, UN Maintains Permanent Focus onIsrael
”delivered by Executive Director Hillel Neuer on March 19, 2012, under Agenda Item 7, “Human rights situation inPalestineand other occupied Arab territories.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.
Starting three years ago in Tehran, then spreading the past year from Tunis to Tahrir Square, and continuing as we speak in Hama, Homs and Deraa, millions of young men and women have braved bullets and beatings to peacefully stand up for their rights; to cry out—after decades of corruption, cruelty and oppression—for human dignity and freedom.
As they break the chains of their bondage, many lift their heads up and ask: Where was the world? In all the years that we were imprisoned by brutal bullies that trampled our basic human rights, where was the United Nations?
To these courageous and idealistic youth, we must tell the truth. We must say to them in all candor: Sadly, world policy was to look away from your suffering.
We must tell them: Despite its declared mission to protect human rights, when faced with gross human rights abuses by Col. Qaddafi’s Libya, Assad’s Syria, Mubarak’s Egypt and others, UN policy—this council’s policy—was to look away.
Indeed, until the Arab Spring, abuses by these governments were met by not a single council resolution, inquiry, or urgent session.
We must also tell them: It was worse than that. The policy, embraced in session after session of this council, was to allow these governments to act and be treated as champions of human rights. In 2003, Col. Qaddafi’s Libya was elected Chair. In 2010, it was reelected to this council.
The agenda item under which we meet today—the only one that targets a single country, Israel—is the living symbol of this illogical and immoral policy.
For decades, while thousands were tortured in Libya, Syria and Egypt, the only country to be the object of a permanent agenda item was Israel. Under this item, the countries that introduced the resolutions, and made the accusations, were themselves the violators.
And yet despite everything that happened this past year, despite the sudden realization that hundreds of millions living across the Middle East were being victimized by their governments, this Council has just renewed its permanent agenda item on Israel.
This Council decided that no agenda item was needed on Syria, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia or any of the other countries in the Middle East—or around the world. Only on Israel.
And so today we ask: What if?
What if the world, what if the United Nations, what if this Council had turned a spotlight on the abuses of the Middle East’s brutal dictators, and held them to account?
What if, over the past decades, these tyrants’ systems of repression had been exposed, if they had been stripped of international legitimacy, if world pressure were brought to bear? Would they still be in power?
Would President Assad still be in power? Would he still be murdering his own citizens today?
Thank you, Mr. President.”
And another one:
Why Does the U.N. Human Rights Council Turn A Blind Eye to Terrorism?
“UN Watch testimony before the UN Human Rights Council, 19th Session,March 5, 2012,Geneva, delivered by executive director Hillel Neuer.
Thank you, Mr. President.
UN Watch welcomes the report on the issue of human rights of victims of terrorism, A/HRC/19/38, which is before us today. We support the exchange of information on efforts made at the international level to protect the rights of victims of terrorism and their families.
Terrorism does not grow in a vacuum. It breeds on a ground of hatred. It thrives in an atmosphere that teaches extremism, and that legitimizes violence against civilians.
This Council is the world’s highest human rights body. As such, it has the unique ability—through its sessions, resolutions and experts—to send the opposite message. It can educate the hearts and minds of millions with the message that the deliberate killing of civilians is wrong—that terrorism is illegal, immoral and a violation of the right to life. It can show sympathy and support for the victims.
And so we ask: how has the Council responded to acts of terrorism? What messages has it sent? Is its current approach helping victims?
Let us consider the record.
Over the past decade, terrorist attacks were perpetrated in New York; in London; in Madrid; in Mumbai; in Iraq; and in Jerusalem. These attacks, and many more, were carried out in the name of an extremist religious ideology. Thousands of innocents were killed.
How many urgent sessions did this Council convene to condemn these atrocities?
Not one.
How many inquiries were created?
Not one.
How many resolutions were adopted in response to these attacks?
Not one.
Instead, when justice was served on Osama Bin Laden, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay questioned this act.
Instead, after staying silent when Hamas and Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets against civilians, this Council convened sessions, inquiries and reports condemning the victim for defending itself.
Instead, this Council appointed an expert, Richard Falk, whom the Palestinian Authority itself has accused of being “a partisan of Hamas.”
Mr. President,
To protect the human rights of victims of terrorism, it is time to adopt a new approach.
Thank you, Mr. President.”
Another glorious example of this UN madness:
U.N.-ADOPTED REPORT ON QADDAFI RIGHTS RECORD CALLED ”ABHORRENT” BY AMNESTY USA CHIEF
“March 14, 2012—A U.N. report ridiculed worldwide for lavishing praise on the Qaddafi regime’s human rights record was unanimously adopted today by the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council, with president Laura Dupuy Lasserre overruling the objection made in the plenary by UN Watch.
After it was first exposed by UN Watch last year, the report card giving high marks to Qaddafi was mocked by the New York Times, The Economist and other major media worldwide, causing a red-faced UN to postpone the report’s adoption repeatedly — until today.
Said the Times:
”Until Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s violent suppression of unrest in recent weeks, the United Nations Human Rights Council was kind in its judgment of Libya. In January, it produced a draft report on the country that reads like an international roll call of fulsome praise, when not delicately suggesting improvements. Evidently, within the 47-nation council, some pots are loath to call kettles black, at least until events force their hand. Last week Libya was suspended from the body, and the report was shelved.”
Even ardent defenders of the council are slamming the report. Echoing UN Watch’s recent protest, Suzanne Nosssel, the head of Amnesty USA and former top human rights official in the Obama Administration, described the Libya report as ”abhorrent,” and called for a complete ”redo.”
Testimony delivered before UN Human Rights Council by UN Watch director Hillel Neuer,March 14, 2012.
Thank you, Madam President.
In the 16th session last year we outlined our grave concerns with this report, which records this council’s 2010 review of Libya’s human rights record under the rule of Col. Moammar Qaddafi.
We recall that the report before us includes the following:
•“Pakistan praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s commitment to human rights.”
•“Algeria noted the efforts of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to promote human rights.”
•“The Islamic Republic of Iran noted that the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya had implemented a number of international human rights instruments and had cooperated with relevant treaty bodies.”
•“Qatar praised the legal framework for the protection of human rights and freedoms.”
•“Sudan noted the country’s positive experience in achieving a high school enrolment rate and improvements in the education of women.”
•“The Syrian Arab Republic praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its serious commitment to and interaction with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. It commended the country for its democratic regime.”
•“North Korea praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its achievements in the protection of human rights.”
•“Palestine commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the consultations held with civil society in the preparation of the national report, which demonstrated its commitment to the improved enjoyment of human rights.Palestinepraised the country for the Great Green Document on Human Rights.”
•“Brazil noted the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’s economic and social progress.”
Madam President,
As delegates here know, for years UN Watch brought victims of Libyan torture to testify before this council, including Bulgarian nurse Kristyana Valchyeva, Ashraf al-Hajouj and the brother of Fathi Eljahmi. Libyan delegates rudely interrupted them, and called them liars.
In May 2010, we pleaded for Libya not to be elected to this council. Tragically, our voice was ignored; it was elected in great numbers. Not a single country spoke in opposition.
Madam President,
The 2010 review that is before us today does not live up to basic standards. It should be completely redone.
For the victims, is that too much to ask?
Thank you, Madam President.”
And more praise of dictators:
Qaddafi Regime’s Human Rights Record Praised in Controversial Report
“A controversial report dealing with the extent of Libya’s pre-revolutionary compliance with human rights norms is currently being debated by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Despite unequivocally praising the record of the notoriously repressive Qaddafi regime, which was found by a separate commission of inquiry to be responsible for gross violations of human rights, it is expected the report will be adopted next week by the 47-nation council.
The report forms part of the Universal Periodic Review mechanism – a state-level peer evaluation process – and was originally scheduled for consideration at a session held last March, following a review undertaken in November 2010. At the time, Libya’s human rights record was lauded by Algeria, Sudan, Qatar, Iran, North Korea and Syria, amongst others. The summary of the report “noted with appreciation the country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the ground.”
“The Bush administration refused to lend the UN “Human Rights” Council the credibility offered by U.S. membership and withheld taxpayer dollars accordingly.
In 2009 President Obama, signed on, paid the dues, and is currently seeking a second three-year term for the United States on the Council.
The only trouble is, in just six short years the body created in 2006 as a reform of the discredited UN Human Rights Commission, has gone from very bad to even worse.
As of this past Friday, 42% of all the resolutions and decisions critical of the human rights records of specific states ever adopted by the Council have been directed at Israel. The scorecard was 44 resolutions against Israel and 61 resolutions directed at all of the other 192 UN members combined. And Council resolutions never even mention “Hamas.”
The Council has a permanent agenda governing every regular session composed of ten items, one reserved for criticizingIsraeland one for “human rights situations that require the Council’s attention” anywhere else.
192 of 193 UN members meet in five regional groups before the Council’s public sessions to strategize and share information – Israel is the only UN state excluded.
The Council has commissioned thirty reports condemning Israel alone. That’s compared to five specific reports on Syria’s executioners, three on Iran’s genocidal regime, and none on Council members like Saudi Arabia – which tyrannizes its entire female population, or China – which denies more than a billion people elementary freedoms.
The reports damning Israel all follow the same pattern. Israel’s actions to defend itself – combating rocket attacks from Gaza, preventing a Gaza port for Iranian arms, establishing checkpoints to deny terrorists a way in to Israel, targeting the rocket launchers and terrorist masterminds – all become violations of Palestinian rights. Like the infamous Goldstone report,Israelis the villain and Palestinians are the victims from the outset.
The reports aren’t made for dusty library shelves. They are terrorist manifestos and manuals in what can best be described as Anti-Semitism 101. “
“UN demonization is not idle bureaucratese. Last March Palestinian terrorists stabbed and killed members of the Fogel family, three children and their parents, including a 3-month old baby “settler.” But a year later, the only reference to “violence” in this perverse UN “human rights” resolution was trumped-up “violence by Israeli settlers.”
So where was the Obama administration? Its UN Geneva Ambassador Eileen Donahoe ducked out, and a political counselor and a first secretary were sent in to cast and explain America’s vote against the slew of new anti-Israel resolutions“
Team Obama decided to use this moment to criticize Israel– “we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity” – and to reinforce the Council’s bona fides by depicting Americans as a member of a like-minded club. “As members of the Human Rights Council, we all share a responsibility to promote and protect human rights.”
Everyone listening understood the code language. President Obama cares more about propping up the credibility of the Council than he does about protecting Israel from UN-driven harm.
In case anyone missed it, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland was asked at a Friday briefing: “the council keeps doing these things that you say are unwise and biased and one-sided. Why are you a member?”Her response: “the Human Rights Council…generally provides a good moral bellwether.”
Anne Bayefsky is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust
This is a good one, a representative of the Assad regime, denounces Israel for, alleged, violations of human rights on the Golan Heights. This is the same regime who had slaughtered around 9000 people at the times, some of them sought refuge on the Israeli side of Golan.
“On Friday, the HRC will conclude a month long deliberation by submitting four more resolutions condemningIsrael.
The HRC heard testimony from a representative of the Assad regime, in formulating one of the resolutions, which denounces Israel for, alleged, violations of human rights on the Golan Heights. At the same time, the Assad regime has already murdered 8,000 Syrian dissidents and rebels, causing tens of thousands of refugees, some seeking asylum in Israel’s Golan Heights.
80% of all 2010 UN resolutions criticizing specific countries for human rights violations were directed at Israel. Only six other UN members faced human rights criticism at all, one of which was the United States. The HRC subjected the USA to harsh criticism—by Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Russia—for, supposed, human rights violations. The HRC criticized the elimination of Bin-Laden and Israel’s defense against PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.”
“GENEVA— I have spent the past few days inGenevawith some of the most remarkably brave people one is ever likely to meet. All have suffered horrendously for calling for freedoms in their countries — the kind of freedoms that people elsewhere take for granted.
But none of them were invited to Geneva by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN’s most prominent body that is supposed to deal with human rights, which is meeting here in annual session.
This is the organization behind the infamous and now discredited “Goldstone report” on Gaza. This is the organization that in 2009 praised Sri Lanka’s human rights record shortly after that country’s military had killed 40,000 Tamil civilians.
On Monday, I sat in on this year’s UNHRC debate, and listened to the Syrian ambassador — with a straight face and with no gasps of disapproval from other delegates — tell the chamber that it was really Israelis who were behind the ongoing violence in Syria. And I heard delegates from Cuba, Syria, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and elsewhere praise the Iranian government’s human rights record. (In fact, in addition to a litany of other abuses, Iran carried out the highest number of executions of any country in the world last year, for such “crimes” as being homosexual, or being a member of the Baha’i faith — though it is true that some other countries’ delegates did condemn Syria and Iran for other matters.) This week, the HRC also adopted a report heaping praise on the Gaddafi regime’s human rights record.
The human rights ambassadors engaged in this activity while sitting under the newly painted ceiling art of the council chamber — a remarkably unimpressive piece that the UN says cost $23-million — money that the UN might have used to, say, feed starving children in Africa.
In the entrance to the chamber, two pieces of art, from the time before its renovation, remain. On one, the plaque reads “A statue of Maat, ancient goddess of truth and justice”; it was donated by Egypt’s Mubarak regime. On the other, it says “A statue of Nemesis, Goddess of justice, donated by the Syrian government.”
Just down the road from the UN, another human-rights summit took place the following day — one where actual human rights heroes were present. That summit was organized by UN Watch, and a coalition of 20 other human-rights groups, fromTibet toUganda.
Among the speakers were Chinese dissidents Ren Wanding, who during more than 10 years in prison produced a two-volume attack on the Chinese government painstakingly written on toilet paper; and Yang Jianli, who was released from jail in 2007, and who in 2010 was asked by the jailed Liu Xiaobo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on his behalf.
Also speaking were Joo-il Kim and Song Ju Kim, who endured a living hell in North Korea before risking their lives to escape. And Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, who survived 20 years in prisons in Castro’s Cuba, where he was severely tortured and had his bones broken on many occasions. He was finally released last year and immediately expelled from Cuba. He has now taken refuge in Spain.
Then there was Zimbabwean activist Jestina Mukoko, who was imprisoned and tortured for calling for democracy in her country. And Burmese activist Zoya Phan, a member of the Karen minority, which has undergone virtual genocide in recent decades. In addition, there were other brave democracy campaigners fromVietnam, Tibet, Pakistan and elsewhere.
I chaired the final session, which was on the Middle East. Impassioned speeches were given by Maikel Nabil, a young Egyptian veterinary student released seven weeks ago after enduring 302 days in a Cairo prison. For much of this time, he was held in solidarity confinement in a one-metre square space. In other periods, he was packed into a cell with 50 common criminals who were bribed by the guards to beat him. Maikel’s crime? After President Mubarak’s ousting last year, he dared to ask the Egyptian military to cede power too, and wrote blog posts calling for Egyptian society to treat women, gays and Jews with respect. In jail, Maikel went on a hunger strike for 80 days and almost died. But none of this broke him, and on his release on January 24 he waved a “V for victory” sign to waiting supporters.
Also on the panel was Ebrahim Mehtari who, for daring to oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2009 presidential bid in his nativeIran, was thrown into prison, raped, tortured and left for dead on the side of a road. Ebrahim’s life is still at risk, since he is one of the few who speak out about the widespread use of sexual torture in Iranian prisons.
Finally, there was 20-year-old Hadeel Kouki, who had been studying English literature in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Caught trying to bring medical supplies to children injured in one of her government’s barbaric and indiscriminate bombardments of civilians last year, she was imprisoned for eight weeks. During that time, she was subjected to electric shocks and repeatedly raped by prison guards. She asked me to tell the world the name of the guard she says was her chief rapist: Abdul Hakeem Abdullatif.
Upon her release, Hadeel managed to escape across the border to Turkey. She has now been offered political asylum by a Western country. I won’t name that country since Syrian thugs— who see her as a particular threat because she is a Christian standing up against the regime when Syria’s Christian leadership are still backing Assad —sent her messages only last week, warning that “we will catch up with you wherever you are and throw acid all over your beautiful face”.
American and Canadian embassy staff came to UN Watch’s alternative Geneva human rights summit. But where were the other ambassadors? Does the UN care about human rights? Or does it prefer to be in league with the criminals of the world?”
And some more of this one-sided madness, this time from UNESCO:
UNESCO condemns Syria, keeps it in rights committee
“U.N. cultural agency UNESCO condemned Syriaon Thursday for its crackdown on a year-long uprising but did not expel Damascus from its human rights committee as some Western and Arab countries had demanded, diplomatic sources said.
The executive board of the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)elected Syria to two panels in November, including one that assesses human rights violations.
Angered by Syria’s inclusion on the committee, a group of Western and Arab nations had pressed for Syria‘s expulsion following the violence in the country.
But a resolution, seen by Reuters and submitted by Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Britain, Denmark, and other countries, stopped short of expelling Damascus from the key committee.
Washington and campaigners criticised the ommission.
”The United Statesis profoundly disappointed that this resolution does not call for the outright removal ofSyriafrom the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations – something for which we have repeatedly called for,” said Ambassador David Killion, U.S. Permanent Representative to UNESCO.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, which has been campaigning to getSyriaexpelled from UNESCO, called the decision scandalous.
”For UNESCO to keep Assad on a human rights committee while his regime mercilessly murders its own people is simply immoral, indefensible and an insult to Syria’s victims,” he said.
The resolution condemned Damascus for ”the continued widespread and systematic violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities.”
“Ambassadors, including those of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Qatarand Kuwait, had asked in December for Syria’s situation to be discussed at the 58-member UNESCO executive board. Russia last week attempted to block the move and appears to have succeeded in convincing members to water down the resolution.”
I think I stop here. You got the picture.
And the prospect for this UN cease fire with these people in charge.
Al-Jazeera: Syrian forces’ shelling of Hama kills 54 people, activists say (April 25)
So the same UN that outlaws and forbid discrimination and racism is allowing the Syrians regime to pick and chose which colour and country the observers come from:
“Timor Goksel, the former spokesman of the U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon. defended the observer mission in Syria. He said it will take time for the team to deploy and get acclimated, but that it would ultimately have a positive effect on the situation.
”Once they are there in force with the proper command structure, then they will try to start making themselves felt by going to trouble spots and doing reporting,” said Goksel. ”We are hoping to get unbiased, neutral, impartial reports that we don’t get from anybody else and by their presence in the area, they will calm down the situation and help contribute to an atmosphere of dialogue of some sort, but they are not the ones who are going to solve this problem.”
Goksel said that extra time is needed to get the full observer team on the ground, since the Syrian government insists on approving what nations will participate.
Analyst Nadim Shehadi of Chatham House inLondon, however, said that time is of the essence in deploying the U.N. observer team.
”We should not repeat the Iraq experience of the ’90s of allowing Saddam Hussein to massacre his people while the world is undecided about what to do,” said Shehadi. ”Time is not a neutral element. Time is measured by people being killed and by the regime gaining an upper hand.”
Some more examples of the glorious UN ceasefire and its observers:
From Facebook
“From People of Zabadany regarding the UN Observers
We, the residents of the city of Zabadany, draw your attention to the fact that the international delegation of UN observers visited the city yesterday, Monday, April 23, and met with opposition activists. The meeting lasted 10 minutes.
Upon their arrival, only three of the monitors emerged from the UN vehicle: the head of the mission, an Indian; a Brazilian monitor; and a third, a Moroccan, Col. Ahmad Hamishi. The rest of the observers remained in the vehicle.
When we requested that Col. Hamishi receive the lists of detainees, some of whom had been detained for 8 months, and lists of local martyrs and their causes of death, he refused, explaining that it was not part of his mission.
After that, we asked him to take possession of our activists’ Google Earth satellite images of the map of Zabadany. The images show clearly where heavy military equipment is stationed in the city, and where tanks and artillery equipment are deployed; this equipment has a range of approximately 45 kilometers. Col. Hamishi refused to accept the images, providing no reason for his refusal.
When we informed him that we had risked our lives to meet him, and were ready to accompany him so that he could see with his own eyes the widespread military checkpoints,he refused, saying he did not have the time.
As he walked to his car to leave, after fewer than 10 minutes with us, one of our activists pointed to a house in which a wall had been destroyed during Assad forces’ bombing. Col. Hamishi informed us that he did not believe that the damage was the effect of shelling, and that his position was justified by the fact that the house had not completely burned down.
When the mother of a missing person approached to request that he return her son, he refused to listen to her, and informed her that he did not know Arabic.
After that, the UN observers’ delegation met with a regime delegation made up of Intelligence agents and shabiha. The regime representatives informed the UN observers that there was no military or tank deployment in the city – even though they would have had to pass through checkpoints to reach the area where the opposition activists were gathered.
It is important to note that the Syrian Intelligence agents listed the names of the activists who met with the UN delegation, and listed those activists as armed and dangerous criminals who must be prosecuted and executed.”
Some more examples of the UN/Annan ceasefire:
Massgrave:
“THERE ARE SO MANY DEAD – THEY MUST ALL BE BURIED IN A MASS GRAVE. Hama (Al-Arbe’en): Apr 24, 2012 – This is the aftermath of the massacre in Al-Arbe’en neighborhood of Hama after Assad’s forces mercilessly shelled the area with an unrelenting barrage of Russian made and supplied shells, rockets and mortars … all falling on residential buildings.”
“But an activist outside the city of Hama said that demonstrators had been chanting against the presence of U.N. monitors. “We don’t want more people to watch us be killed,” said Mousab Alhamadee via Skype, calling instead for practical help for the opposition, including arming rebel forces. “
But killed they are. Sometimes watched by these observers.
And according to the as always very “helpful” Russians, it is the population and resistance that are the culprits:
“Russia accused the Syrian rebels on Thursday of waging a wide-scale terror campaign that is designed to kill as many civilians as possible despite a formal ceasefire.
”Opposition groups have essentially reverted to waging wide-scale terror in the region,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich.”
So the civilian population is apparently shelling themselves with the Russian 240 mm mortar bombs to destroy their own houses and apartments. And killing themselves so they can put themselves in mass graves.
Yeap that sounds like a very plausible theory doesn’t it?
EU
I was going to write about EU’s part but what’s the point? On Monday April 23, EU imposed the 14th round of sanctions.
14!
I mean come on! 14 in little over one year -That’s one every 24 day. It’s becoming ridiculous.
And as I wrote in part 1 after the 13th round of sanctions:
“EU the other day “strengthened” sanctions, the 13 in a row, banned Assad’s wife from shopping on the Continent. Yea, I bet Syria’s dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad felt threatened to his core!”
This is NOT serious. It’s just cynical and hypocritical.
This is the EU that according to the official rhetoric was set up to be a “big” player on the international arena, be a counterweight to USA, and to promote peace.
The mouse that squeaked?
And EU hasn’t even worked out which goods will be included in the new embargo!
“EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said the EU’s 27 foreign ministers approved the new set of sanctions — the 14th in the past year — ”because of deep concern about the situation and continuing violence in spite of the cease-fire.”
”We expect the government to withdraw all troops and heavy weapons from towns and cities (and) we want to make sure that the regime gives full access to humanitarian organizations.”
“Previous rounds of U.S. and EU sanctions have done little to stop the bloodshed, although there are signs the Syrian economy is suffering. International measures against Assad’s regime have depleted its foreign currency reserves by half, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said last week.
EU experts will work out later precisely which goods will be included in the new embargo. One of the diplomats said so-called ”dual-use” goods can include anything from vehicles to fertilizers and other chemicals.
The only precedent in international relations for the luxury ban is one imposed by the EU in 2007 on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Officials said this could serve as a model for the same measure against Syria. That ban included foods such as caviar and truffles, high-quality wines and spirits, fashion accessories including bags and shoes, perfumes, crystal and silverware, and purebred horses.
”We need to continue to intensify pressure on the Assad regime,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. ”They are not in complete compliance with the cease-fire provisions of the Annan plan.”
”The European Union agreed Monday to slap new sanctions on the Syrian regime, banning luxury goods exports and further restricting the sale of items used to repress dissidents, a diplomat said.
”These sanctions will be put in place against Syria,” the diplomat told AFP after EU ambassadors endorsed the measures ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
The extent of the luxury ban has yet to be defined but the aim is to deliver a symbolic blow against the posh lifestyle of President Bashar al-Assad and his glamorous British-born wife Asma, another diplomat said.
”The Assad couple, as well as his inner circle and leaders of the regime must be made to understand that events in Syria will also impact their personal lives,” the source added.
Brusselsalso decided to expand the blacklist of dual-use goods which can be used for internal repression or for the manufacturing of equipment used for internal repression.
The 14th round of EU sanctions comes as violence continues in Syria despite the presence of UN truce observers in the country.”
So now after the 14th round of sanctions the EU blacklist is totalling 126 people and 41 firms or utilities.
Yes, the sanctions have some small effect and it annoys the Assad ruling circle but that’s about it.
With the massive help from Russia, Iran and China. And the use of the already established sanction busting network forIran(see part 4), which Syria can use
So what are EU doing about the Russian, Iranian and Chinese massive support and sanction busting?
Nothing of course.
Because then you have to annoy them, and of course you cannot do that.
So instead, ALL the efforts of EU is into these quite meaningless sanctions.
When EU has imposed the say 48th round of sanctions, maybe will be worth writing a post about it.
NATO
On one side Russia, Iran and China literally pouring in all types of heavy weapons (remember the 240 mm Russian mortar bomb), personal, training etc for the Assad regime.
On the other unarmed civilians and a resistance with some light arms.
And NATO is apparently very worried that if the civilians get anything more than Kalashnikovs and the odd RPG, so they at least can defend themselves and offer some resistance to the Assad forces, that that would constitute “a proliferation of weapons in the region”.
“NATO’s chief on Monday said the alliance was opposed to providing arms to the Syrian opposition seeking to counter a regime crackdown, warning that it would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for a diplomatic solution and reiterated that NATO, which led the Libya air war that contributed to Moammar Qaddafi’s downfall last year, had ”no intention whatsoever to intervene in Syria.”
And to top it off:
”We monitor the situation closely,” Rasmussen said, adding that the situation in Syriacould impact neighboring Turkey, a NATO member.
”It’s absolutely outrageous what we have witnessed in Syria,” he added.”
This must be one of the most hypocritical, cynical and ridiculous statements ever made by NATO.
The people of Syria will “thank you” for your “deep concern” as they are being slaughtered by the Assads forces.
So according to this superb NATO logic, the Russian 240 mm mortar bomb, supplied by the as always helpful Russia, used to destroy block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood in CIVILIAN Syrian cities, is NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.
It isthe largest mortar bomb known to be in production and use. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
By the way, the use of such weapons in dense urban environments is a war crime.
But giving this to the resistance so they can defend themselves is a serious “proliferation of weapons in the region”.
Really good work there NATO!
This is the same NATO that without any hesitation went in full scale in Libya. Then it wasn’t any talk about “that it would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region”.
As I wrote in part 1:
“It is also very interesting to compare how eager the Obama administration, EU and NATO was to go into Libya with their do nothing attitude with Syria.
The dictator Gaddafi had not killed as many civilian people as Assad’s regimes have by a long shot. Or destroyed as many neighbourhoods as Assad. Nor did Gaddafi support so many terrorist groups as Assad. Or had the same strategic value for USA as Syria.
Nor did Gaddafi kill so many Americans as did Assad (Bashar and Hafez al-Assad – It is A Family affair). Etc. Etc.
So in every way and shape or form, in comparison Libya under Gaddafi doesn’t even come close to Syria under Assad.
Samantha Power, a prominent advocate of humanitarian intervention and the principle of ”responsibility to protect”, is considered to be the key figure within the Obama administration in persuading the president to intervene militarily in Libya.
Power, was a senior foreign policy adviser to senator Obama, and now a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council.
But on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
And some of the “excuses” for not doing anything, like “the arms could end up in the wrong hands”, become ABSOLUTELY mind-boggling hypocritical when you remember that NATO and US special operations troops together with their intelligence operatives in Tripoli, armed and put Al-Hakim Belhadj in control over Tripoli. And gave him “the keys” to Gadhafis armoury.
Those arms were advanced items which British and French special operations forces gave the rebels, according to “a senior” American source.
Who is Al-Hakim Belhadj you may ask. He is a leader and commander of LIFG, the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Which by the way is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. He is an al Qaeda veteran from Afghanistan, he joined the Talliban etc.
He was first captured in Pakistan 2001 and handed over to US security officials, he was repatriated to Libya two months later. Later CIA captured him in Malaysia in 2004. He was then transferredto Bangkok, where he was then placed in the custody of the CIA. Later they extradited him to Libya where he was kept in prison for six years by Qaddafi.
According to the Spanish, Al-Hakim Belhadj was suspected of complicity in the 2004 Madrid train bombings etc. etc.
For the first time, therefore, the armies of Western members of NATO took part and helped directly in a bid by extremist Islamic forces to capture an Arab capital and overthrow its ruler.”
Then there was NO concern “that it would fuel a proliferation of weapons in the region”. In fact, NATO gave sophisticated weapons to known Al Qaeda groups like LIFG.
As I said before, it is so ABSOLUTELY mind-boggling hypocritical that you just want to throw up.
And while NATO is “concerned”, the Syrian civilian population continues to get slaughtered.
But how cares?
And that Samantha Power, Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council, mentioned above just got apointed by Obama to head the new White House Atrocities Prevention Board.
But still on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
So apparently she is VERY SELECTIVE in which atrocities to “prevent”.
Al-Jazeera: Syrian forces killed 66 people Monday, activists say (April 23)
Regime forces killed at least 28 civilians with heavy gunfire in the central city of Hama on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (April 23)
“Déjà Failed!
Another monitoring mission, another set of people from all over the world making excuses, trying to explain the unexplainable and getting frustrated and fired upon to boot. When will the world follow a plan that makes sense. To the world we say: Give us what we need to get the mission accomplished, not what you need to feel good about yourselves.”
Ammar Abduhamid a liberal democracy activist
To really show the absurdity of this UN “ceasefire” and their observers:
Two UN observers come under sniper fire from Assad’s forces in Homs April 21 and had to take cover and the civilian population protected the UN observers. The same civilian population that these UN observers were supposed to “protect”
That what I call a ceasefire a la UN!
I therefore suggest to the UN Security Council a new resolution with a “new” UN observation team that will “protect and observe the first team of observers”.
There are many videos showing this, here are two:
04/21/12 Assad’s Snipers shoot at UN Monitors in Homs
“We saw the Free Syrian Army (FSA) protecting the Blue Berets, particularly in Homs, where the head of the observer mission, Col. Ahmed Himmiche, was present.”
“A YouTube video-clip has appeared showing the international monitors being targeted and shot at by forces belonging to the tyrant of Damascus, whilst members of the FSA formed a human barrier to protect them as they were beset by panic. Indeed this video-clip shows one FSA member protecting one of the international monitors from gunfire, reassuring him by saying “don’t be afraid!” Of course, anybody who views this YouTube video-clip understand the extent of the irony inherent in this situation, and as the saying goes, the worst disaster is the one that brings laughter, particularly when we are looking at a UN monitoring delegation transform into a delegation of the “terrified.”
This represents a clear insult from the Assad regime toward the UN and international community, particularly as the targeting of this delegation took place on the same day that the UN Security Council took the decision to send more monitors to Syria! So after all of this, can we say that there is any expected benefit from sending international monitors to Syria? There can be no doubt that this is completely out of the question.
Assad’s shelling of Homs, Deraa, Hama and other cities is ongoing, and Syrian people are being killed on a daily basis, so after all of this how can we say that the delegation of international monitors will play an effective role, or confirm Assad’s compliance with the Annan initiative? The targeting of the international observers, and their being subject to gunfire in Homs, means that Assad has taken aim at Annan’s initiative, and this means that we cannot rely on this initiative, or wait another three months — which is the timeframe provided for the observer mission by the UN initiative — for Assad did not even wait a few days for his forces to fire upon the delegation of the “terrified.”
What is funny is that Washington is claiming that its patience has run out, and that it will not renew the observer mission in 90-days, in other words Washington has already begun to negotiate — from today — about renewing the observer mission, which should end in 3 months! This is the true definition of absurdity, whilst it also makes light of the Syrian blood that has been shed non-stop over the past 12 months, particularly as this delegation of the “terrified” — on Friday — refused to monitor the scene, despite the huge anti-Assad demonstrations taking place, with the head of the observer mission saying that his team would not undertake any field trips for fear that “our presence is used for escalation.”
Is this a joke? Must the FSA now also protect the international delegation of the “terrified” from the Assad forces? It is clear that the international delegation of the “terrified” will not accelerate or delay anything in Syria, particularly at their current level, therefore the Emir of Qatar was right when he said that the Annan initiative has only a 3 percent chance of success!
What everybody must be aware of is the fact that Assad only understands the language of force; anything other than this is nothing more than a license to kill, a waste of time and a deepening of the Syrian crisis.”
And these UN observers WILL NOT “OBSERVE” on Fridays when most of the protests are! Another glorious example of this great UN “ceasefire”.
“Col. Ahmed Himmiche, the Moroccan officer heading the advance team of United Nations observers in Syria, was quoted as telling reporters in Damascus that they would avoid Friday patrols, a statement that confirmed suspicions of many who have experienced the brunt of government oppression that the mission would be toothless. “We don’t want to be used as a tool for escalating the situation,” he said.
Those remarks were met with some disbelief, particularly in Damascus, where antigovernment protesters said they faced arrest, bullets, tear gas and a wide deployment of government security forces trying to suppress their demonstrations — all violations of the supposed cease-fire plan.One point of the six-point peace plan negotiated under United Nations auspices is that Syrians be allowed to demonstrate freely.
“I have no hope in the monitors; if they don’t tour on Fridays, why did they come to Syria?” said Yaser, 30, a protester in Jober, not far from downtown Damascus, where an attack by government thugs wounded demonstrators. “For us nothing is changed — we are demonstrating, the Assad forces are killing and the monitors are watching.” Demonstrators in Homs, which has endured more than two months of shelling, were more sarcastic. At the beginning of every video from a demonstration, someone off camera held up a piece of paper indicating the place and the date. One from Homs on Friday in Arabic and slightly mangled English read: “Dear Observer. We are waiting. Note: Homs is a city in Syria (can u come please?”).
Abu Omar, 28, an activist reached by telephone, said sardonically that perhaps the Syrian government no longer considered the city part of the country since it evidently had no intention of respecting the cease-fire there or of withdrawing its forces, as the peace plan specifies. “Tanks are still deployed in every corner of the city, and checkpoints are everywhere,” he said. “So what is the meaning of this cease-fire?”
And of course, the shelling continues as usual during this “ceasefire”:
Just two out of many videos showing this continued destruction:
Syria, Homs city: Violent Shelling on Khaldiyeh area by the regime army
“Government forces’ continued shelling of the Syrian city of Homs has left some neighbourhoods unrecognisable.
Satellite images taken this Mach reveal a deserted city centre, destroyed areas and heavy deployment of tanks across the city.
This contracts to the images shot in August, which showed a busy city of around a million. The latest imagery, commissioned by Al Jazeera, provides a snapshot of what appears to be an increasingly dire situation. “
Remember that in Part 1 I wrote “But for the most part, most of the army stays out of this. They have “defected in place” And one example I gave was from Golan:
“From division level down to battalions and brigades level. Entire units from commander down defy orders from the General Staff in Damascus to fight the rebels without crossing the lines to the opposition. To keep the spreading passive mutiny, Assad keeps the defiant units supplied in their barracks with funds and food.
Another example of this passive mutiny by the Syrian army, was when the five Syrian divisions stationed on Syria’s Golan border with Israel and its frontier with South Lebanon; were told by their commanders in beginning of March to ignore orders from Damascus to join the crackdown on rebels because their mission was “to defend the Syrian homeland from external threats” – another form of “defection in place.”
Well it seems that the situation has gotten worse, according to Israeli sources. Since Assad now have diverted food and supplies from these army units to his militia:
“The wretched plight of the troops manning Syrian defense divisions defending the Golan border and Mt.Hermon was clearly visible from lookout points on the Israeli side in the last two days. The regular water and food supplies to their bases, the backbone of Syria’s defense lines against Israel, were stopped and redirected to the units fighting anti-Assad rebels in other parts of the country. Large groups of armed soldiers have gone AWOL to hunt for food. For the first time in years, some have approached the border fence. They don’t ask Israeli soldiers for food, but parcels thrown across the fence vanish in a trice.
The 5th Division posted in the Golan town of Quneitra has suffered the largest number of desertions, estimated at more than 1,500 officers and men, around 15 percent of the full complement. But hundreds of dropouts occur daily from the 15th, 9th and 7th Divisions stationed in central and southern Golan.
The district commands have meanwhile lost control of the Syrian-Israeli border deployment. Military facilities are deserted with no one to guard against trespassers. Gangs, local and from across Syria’s eastern borders with Jordan and Iraq, were quick to realize the bases are unguarded and have begun stripping them of equipment and looting everything they can lay hands on.“
”For them the palaces, for us the coffins.”
And it seems that slowly the disaffection with Assad is growing among his main internal support the Alawites:
“DAMASCUS // In the Alawite heartlands of Latakia and the mountainous rural hinterlands surrounding the city, the regime of President Bashar Al Assad still commands overwhelming support, buttressed by patronage networks and deeply entrenched fears of sectarian bloodshed.
But activists in the region say there are signs disaffection with Al Assad family rule is slowly spreading among those outside of privileged elite circles, a discord encapsulated in a new slogan, increasingly heard among ordinary Alawites: ”For them the palaces, for us the coffins.”
”People are saying, ‘how long will we have to bear this’, more and more army families are wondering what they are sacrificing their children for, they are starting to say ‘where are the martyrs from the Assad family?’,” said an Alawite activist from Latakia, a once bustling port and tourist resort on Syria’s verdant Mediterranean coastline.
Another influential Alawite opposition figure from a village in the Alawite mountains said dissent had become more pronounced since January, when an elderly Alawite widow buried her son, a soldier killed in the uprising. She had lost her husband and father in conflicts during the 1970s and 1980s under the former president Hafez Al Assad.
”She stood at the funeral and said: ‘You Assads have taken my whole family, and all for nothing,‘” the activist said. ”People sympathised with her. Since then there have been similar sentiments at other funerals – not all of them, but some of them, people are becoming angry, the pressure is rising.”
Nonetheless even opposition figures in the region acknowledge most of Syria’s Alawites – members of the same obscure Shiite sect as Mr Al Assad and his ruling faction – continue to side with the regime.
”Ninety per cent of the Alawite community in Latakia and the villages support Assad, either because they have direct interests with the regime or because they are terrified,” said a leading Alawite dissident.
”Alawites believe they are facing a jihad by Sunni extremists who are coming to chop off their heads, they are really sacred of that.”
”The regime has convinced the minorities it is their protector and it has succeeded in neutralising the Alawites though fear, through linking their destiny to the regime’s,” said a Christian protester from Latakia city.
”For that reason, the majority [in Latakia] are not involved in the revolution, while they are in many other places, if you go to Hama you have no doubt the revolution will win, but in Latakia it is like a different world compared to the rest of Syria,” he said.
Demonstrations, typically involving 100 to 150 young protesters and lasting up to 15 minutes, have stubbornly persisted in Latakia city, although they are confined to a few neighbourhoods and outlying villages, all where Sunnis are in the majority.
To keep public protests at that low level, security forces have been deployed in strength throughout much of the city. Activists say it takes just minutes for dozens of security cars to arrive at the scene of any dissent.
The Ramel neighbourhood, an impoverished Sunni ghetto that was assaulted by security units in August, remains sealed off by heavily fortified checkpoints.
In the heart of Latakia, the school where Hafez Al Assad was educated has been shut down and garrisoned by the army, with hundreds of soldiers and plainclothes security officers on hand to prevent it – or the statue of the former president standing on a plinth outside – from being defaced by opposition activists.
While the regime needs to hold Damascus and Aleppo if it is to remain in power, Latakia, as an unofficial capital for Syria‘s Alawites, is just as important.
”The regime hasn’t reached the point where it feels it is losing in Latakia yet, but it is not comfortable. It is working hard to keep the control it has,” said a local doctor who has been supporting protests.
A protest organiser from the city, a 40-year-old engineer, said the opposition was similarly working hard to keep going under immense pressure, including widespread detentions and pervasive surveillance of activists.
”We were weakened by the arrests but we have reorganised and adapted,” he said.
As with other parts of Syria, numerous activists in Latakia confirmed an increasing tendency among anti-regime groups to favour taking up weapons, and they reported growing activity by the Free Syrian Army, including raids made from rural areas into the heart of the city to help soldiers trying to defect.
”The regime is weakening slowly, it is breaking up like an iceberg,” said another grassroots activist in the region. ”But as it has become harder to have peaceful demonstrations, the armed opposition has become stronger and everyone is saying the same thing now – a peaceful uprising alone is not going to topple this regime.”
A protester from Ramel, a 23-year-old Sunni, said he would stop peaceful demonstrations and join the armed opposition if it were being supplied with weapons from the West or Arab states.
”It is our right to carry arms and to defend ourselves, don’t blame us if that is what we do,” said the protester, whose father and brothers have been arrested and held for months and who was himself detained for 50 days. ”We want any foreign air force over the skies of Syria to protect us from this regime, let them bomb the presidential palace,we would make a pact with the devil if he could help us get rid of the regime.”
”In the beginning I used to say there was no way a civil war could happen here, that the Syrian people would not do that but after one year, we cannot keep saying the same thing. What we saw in Homs [sectarian violence] is a worry because we have the same mix of sects here in Latakia,” the Christian activist said.
The young Sunni protester echoed that alarm. ”I’m afraid of a civil war with the Alawites,” he said. ”They have been fooled by the regime into taking its side and when the regime feels it has reached its end they will murder a lot of people in Latakia, there will be a lot of violence.”
A seasoned Alawite dissident gave an equally bleak assessment of the region’s, and Syria’s, immediate prospects. ”We will be dragged into a civil war by this regime, it will be like the Balkans, it will be Bosnia all over again.”
Arab League
There is a lot to be said about the Arab League and what is has done or mostly not done in the region. This post thou are about what the Arab League has done or not done regarding the civilian uprising inSyria.
A short background and timeline:
On November 3 2011, the Syrian government accepted an Arab League peace plan to halt its crackdown on protesters. The ceasefire quickly broke down, as government forces continued their suppression of protests. From 2 to12 November 2011, more than 250 people were killed.
The peace plan – to allow foreign observers from the Arab League to monitor Syria’s progress in removing troops from protest areas, free political prisoners and negotiate with dissidents.
On December 19, Syria agreed to the Arab League peace plan, agreeing to let observers into the country.
On December 26, 67Arab League monitors arrive in Syria.
On January 22 2012 Saudi Arabia withdraws from the Syrian observers mission.
On January 24 Gulf Arab states announce that they are withdrawing from the Arab League’s observer mission in Syria.
On January 28 The Arab League suspends the monitoring mission due to ”the critical deterioration of the situation” .
Arab League suspends Syria mission as violence rages
“Reuters) – The Arab League suspended its monitoring mission in Syria on Saturday because of worsening violence, a move Damascus said was an attempt to draw foreign intervention as it struggles to quell a 10-month revolt against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
The Arab League took the decision days after calling, unsuccessfully, for Assad to step down and make way for a government of national unity. It will take an Arab peace plan to the U.N. Security Council next week.
”Given the critical deterioration of the situation in Syria and the continued use of violence … it has been decided to immediately stop the work of the Arab League’s mission to Syria pending presention of the issue to the league’s council,” Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said in a statement.”
UN resolution proposal
On January 31, the Arab League asked the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution, based on the League’s action plan for Syria, including a call for Assad to step down. Yet, on February 4, the resolution was vetoed by China and Russia.
Eventually, a non-binding resolution by the UN General Assembly was endorsed, with China and Russia voting against. The UN General Assembly resolution has no legal force, unlike the UN Security Council.
So the as always very “helpful” Russians and Chinese even voted against a non-binding resolution by the UN General Assembly. Just to show who is in control. They could have abstained but they didn’t want to “risk” anything.
So much for the Arab League peace plan.
”Arab observers- All the claims about Syria are lies. We saw nothing”
And who in their wisdom did the Arab League chose to lead the mission and obsevers in Syria?
The Sudanese general Mustafa al-Dabi.
Just a short reminder here that the Assad regime and Sudanese president Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir are “buddies”. And general Mustafa al-Dabi has been very close and loyal to president Al-Bashir
A short background general’s Dabi’s career:
1989 – Chief of military intelligence
1995- Chief of Sudan’s foreign intelligence agency
1996 – Deputy chief of General Staff
2000 – Ambassador to Qatar
2005 – Commissioner of security arrangements in Darfur ceasefire monitoring committee
“This has dismayed human rights groups, with Amnesty International warning that it could threaten the credibility of the entire mission.
”The Arab League’s decision to appoint as the head of the observer mission a Sudanese general on whose watch severe human rights violations were committed in Sudan risks undermining the League’s efforts so far and seriously calls into question the mission’s credibility,” it said in a statement.
Gen Dabi served as head of the Sudanese directorate of military intelligence when Mr Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989 – a period marked by ”arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance and torture”, Amnesty says.
Syrian opposition activists say they have little faith in the Arab League’s initiative His name was also linked with the summary trials and execution of 28 army officers who mounted a failed coup attempt against Mr Bashir in April 1990, an anti-government Sudanese news site, Alrakoba, reports.”
Syrian opposition groups have also expressed concern about Gen Dabi’s strong military background.
”He won’t be neutral, and would sympathise with those in similar positions, thus it won’t be surprising if he supports and sympathises with the Syrian regime and its henchmen who are committing crimes against humanity round the clock in Syria,” said the head of the Syrian League, Abd-al-Karim al-Rayhawi.”
Activists alarmed over Sudanese head of Syria mission
“(Reuters) – The choice of a Sudanese general to head an Arab League mission in Syria has alarmed opposition activists who say Sudan’s own defiance of a war crimes tribunal means the monitors probably won’t recommend strong action against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.
But some critics of Khartoum say it is all but impossible to imagine a Sudanese general ever recommending strong outside intervention, much less an international tribunal, to respond to human rights abuses in a fellow Arab state.
Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, who studies Sudan and has written strong criticisms of its government, said the choice of a Sudanese general was a sign the Arab League might not want its monitors to produce findings that would force it to take stronger action.
”There is a broader question of why you would pick someone to lead this investigation … when he is part of an army that is guilty of precisely the sort of crimes that are being investigated in Syria,” Reeves said.
”I think a Sudanese general would be one of the least likely people in the world to acknowledge these findings even if they are right there before him… It doesn’t make any sense unless you want to shape the finding. They want it shaped in ways that will minimize the obligation to do more than they already have.”
Syrian opposition activists are reluctant to publicly criticize a monitoring mission in which they have invested high hopes. But several have privately voiced concern over whether a Sudanese military man would be willing or able to take a hard stance towards Assad.”
Amnesty International said Sudan’s military intelligence, at the time Dabi led it, ”was responsible for the arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, and torture or other ill-treatment of numerous people in Sudan.”
”The Arab League’s decision to appoint as the head of the observer mission a Sudanese general on whose watch severe human rights violations were committed in Sudan risks undermining the League’s efforts so far and seriously calls into question the mission’s credibility.”
“Jehanne Henry, Sudan researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said that as head of Sudan’s military intelligence in the 1990s, Dabi ”certainly would have been in a position to know what the security services were doing at that time.”
”As we and others have documented in reports from that period, the security services were implicated in serious human rights violations such as the arbitrary arrest and detention of political activists and their ill treatment and torture.…”
She said rebel leaders had accused Dabi of violations in Darfur, although Dabi was not one of the figures Human Rights Watch had linked to specific abuse documented in its research.
”He obviously does not fit the profile as a human rights monitor,” she added.”
“But that will not be enough to persuade rights groups. Omer Ismail from the Enough Project, an anti-genocide campaign organized by the influential U.S. think-tank the Center for American Progress, said the choice of Dabi was ”perplexing.”
”Instead of heading a team entrusted with a probe of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by Syria, the general should be investigated by the ICC for evidence of similar crimes in Sudan,” Ismail said in a statement.
”When he served as Sudan’s former head of Military Intelligence, and when he oversaw implementation of the Darfur Security Arrangement, alleged war crimes including genocide were committed on his watch.”
And his direct involvement in the Darfur genocide by the Arab Janjaweed:
(In Darfur the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says the army carried out war crimes and the United Nations says 300,000 people may have died. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity.)
“As Arab League monitors work to expose President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown, the head of the mission is a Sudanese general accused of creating the fearsome ”janjaweed,” which was responsible for the worst atrocities during the Darfur genocide.
”I am going to Homs,” insisted Sudanese Gen. Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, the head of the Arab League observer mission, telling reporters that so far the Assad regime had been ”very cooperative.”
But Dabi may be the unlikeliest leader of a humanitarian mission the world has ever seen. He is a staunch loyalist of Sudan‘s President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity for his government’s policies in Darfur. And Dabi’s own record in the restive Sudanese region, where he stands accused of presiding over the creation of the feared Arab militias known as the ”janjaweed,” is enough to make any human rights activist blanch.
Dabi’s involvement in Darfur began in 1999, four years before the region would explode in the violence that Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled as ”genocide.” Darfur was descending into war between the Arab and Masalit communities — the same fault line that would widen into a bloodier interethnic war in a few years’ time. As the situation escalated out of control, Bashir sent Dabi to Darfur to restore order.
According to Julie Flint and Alex De Waal’s Darfur: A New History of a Long War, Dabi arrived in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, on Feb. 9, 1999, with two helicopter gunships and 120 soldiers. He would stay until the end of June. During this time, he would make an enemy of the Masalit governor of West Sudan. Flint and De Waal write:
Governor Ibrahim Yahya describes the period as ‘the beginning of the organization of the Janjawiid’, with [Arab] militia leaders like Hamid Dawai and Shineibat receiving money from the government for the first time. ‘The army would search and disarm villages, and two days later the Janjawiid would go in. They would attack and loot from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., only ten minutes away from the army. By this process all of Dar Masalit was burned.’
Yahya’s account was supported five years later by a commander of the Sudan Liberation Army, a rebel organization movement in the region. ”[T]hings changed in 1999,” he told Flint and De Waal. ”The PDF [Popular Defense Forces, a government militia] ended and the Janjawiid came; the Janjawiid occupied all PDF places.”
”[T]he army command finds the militia useful and fearsome in equal measure,” De Waal said. ”So al-Dabi’s regularization of the Arab militia served both to rein them in, but also to legitimize their activities and retain them as a future strike force.”
Dabi’s role in Darfuris only one episode in a decades-long career that has been spent protecting the interests of Bashir’s regime. He has regularly been trusted with authority over the regime’s most sensitive portfolios: The day Bashir took power in a coup in 1989, he was promoted to head of military intelligence. In August 1995, after protesters at Khartoum University rattled the regime, Dabi became head of Sudan’s foreign intelligence agency — pushing aside a loyalist of Hassan al-Turabi, the hard-line Islamist cleric who helped Bashir rise to power but would be pushed aside several years later. And as civil war ravaged south Sudan, Dabi was tasked from 1996 to 1999 as chief of Sudan’s military operations. “
Doesn’t this sound like the prefect qualifications for leading a mission observing human rights violations?
And after this “promising” selection what happened during this mission? Well, surprise, surprise:
Arab League observers see ‘nothing frightening’ in Syria hotspot
”Campaigners expressed alarm Wednesday after Arab League observers in Syriasaid they saw ”nothing frightening” during a visit to Homs, the city activists say is the epicenter of nine months of deadly clashes with government forces.
”Some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening,” Sudanese General Mustafa al-Dabi, the chief of the monitoring contingent, told Reuters by telephone fromDamascus.
”The situation seemed reassuring so far,”he added after his team’s short visit to the city of one million people, Syria’s third largest.
Head of Syria monitors says ‘nothing frightening’ in Homs
“An Arab League observer in unrest-swept Syria said Wednesday he has quit the mission, accusing the regime of committing a series of war crimes against its people and of duping his colleagues.
”I withdrew from the Arab observers mission because I found myself serving the regime, and not part of an independent observer group,” Anwar Malek told the Doha-based news channel Al-Jazeera.
The Syrian regime is playing ”dirty,” charged the Algerian observer. ”It even began killing its supporters to convince the Arab observers that it is carrying out its duties and to gain their sympathy.”
”The mission was a farce and the observers have been fooled. The regime orchestrated it and fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime,” Malek said.
”What I saw was a humanitarian disaster. The regime isn’t committing one war crime but a series of crimes against its people,” he said. ”Children are killed and they are starved and terrorised.”
But an official at the Cairo-based Arab League dismissed Malek’s accusations, saying they were all unfounded because he was bedridden and was never in the field.
”He was ill and bedridden at his Syria hotel. So how could he make those claims?” said the unnamed official.
The observer who said he spent 15 days in the flashpoint central city of Homs said it must be declared a ”disaster” zone. ”I saw charred and skinned bodies that had been tortured,” said Malek.
Soldiers ”attempting to flee or defect were executed,” said Malek. ”I saw three bodies of executed soldiers. They were shot from the back.”
In the interview, Malek said that there had been ”an assassination attempt on Monday as we were being taken by car from Homs to Damascus” via the restive Baba Amro district where the mission came under gunfire.
Malek accused the Syrian regime of plotting the attack on the road ”controlled by the army and pro-regime ‘shabiha’ militiamen.
Also on Monday, two Kuwaiti army officers in the observer mission were ”slightly hurt” in an attack by ”unidentified protesters,” the Gulf state’s defence ministry has reported.
The observers were attacked while heading to the coastal city of Latakia, said the ministry.
Malek accused the Syrian regime of sending ”spies and intelligence officers with our team to act as drivers and minders to get our information, and as soon as we left an area they attacked people.”
On the detainees, he said that ”none of the real prisoners on the lists of detainees the opposition has provided us with have been released.”
Aparently he was on another planet than the Sudanese general Mustafa al-Dabi.
But of course he was just hallucinating in his hotelroom as the official at the Cairo-based Arab League HQ said when he dismissed Malek’s accusations, saying they were all unfounded because he was bedridden and was never in the field.
Good job Arab League!
And more:
Observing the Observers
The Arab League’s monitoring mission in Syria has been a miserable failure, and no international white knight is waiting in the wings. Syrians are on their own.
”In December, after months of stalling and facing enforced sanctions, the Syrian regime finally seemed to buckle under pressure from the Arab League and agreed to sign a ”protocol” ostensibly aimed at quelling the uprising. The agreement called for the regime to remove heavy artillery from urban areas, halt the use of force against civilians, release all political prisoners, and allow independent media into the country. Late last month, an advance team of 15 Arab League observers arrived in Syria on a one-month mission to monitor the regime’s compliance with the protocol. They have since increased to 153 observers; that number still falls far below the 500 observers that was part of the original agreement.
”Observe” is a banal word sucked of accountability, responsibility, action — a fitting way to describe an Arab League mission. Monitoring abuses of power is a function one would not expect from the Arab League, which, let’s face it, represents mostly dictatorships and absolute monarchies that have less-than-stellar human rights records. But observing Syria is an activity we have all become complicit in — observing the meetings, agreements, conferences, opposition groups forming and reforming, while Syrians are killed every day.
These discussions, devoid of action, build a cruel barrier between ruthless international power games and innocent people who are being played. This is why the Syrian people suspiciously view the Arab League as a protector of the regime and by extension its brutality.
The observers’ arrival changed the rules of the game. The regime sends spies to take pictures of the protesters who dare speak to the observers. Before every excursion, the streets are secured in any way necessary, by bullets or arrests (for the safety of the observers or to preserve what’s left of the regime’s tarnished image?). The streets of Deraa have to be scrubbed clean of its people, silencing their voices and erasing any sign of dissent, to present an image of control, safely guarded by snipers lurking on rooftops.
”When the observers first arrived, the people were extremely optimistic,” he tells me. ”On the first day the team met with the mayor, so we couldn’t do anything. The second day, we invited them to a protest at a martyr’s funeral. They said, ‘We don’t have cars for transportation.’ We asked, ‘How could the team of observers not have cars?‘ So we postponed the protest. The third day, we asked them to come and observe the protest, but the regime took them somewhere else. Their work is not even at 1 percent. Nothing is happening. They aren’t gathering testimonies from the families. They are witnessing the snipers and the army on the streets. They see this with their own eyes. A stranger walking in the streets would know.”
So far, the regime has freed 3,500 prisoners, but an estimated 30,000 more still remain imprisoned, and according to Syrian activists, 5,700 people have been detained since the Arab League mission began. One week before the observers arrived, the regime escalated the crackdown, killing at least 250 people in four days. Since then, the casualties have gone down to an average of a couple of dozen people a day, according to numbers tallied by various human rights groups and local coordination committees.
The Arab League mission has been declared a failure for multiple reasons: the insufficient number of observers to cover all the ”hot spots”; the questionable integrity of the head of the mission, Sudanese Lt. Gen. Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi; and the observers’ heavily monitored movement by security forces, which limits their ability to ”observe.” As Qatar’s prime minister and head of the Arab League committee on Syria, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, admitted last week, ”There are mistakes, but we went there not to stop the killing, but to monitor.” He cited the Arab League’s inexperience with leading this type of mission as one of the main concerns.“
“One of the most important shifts in the revolution during the Arab League mission has been its coverage, not by the media but by citizen journalists. Protesters who have been filming demonstrations and atrocities for months have turned their lens to film the observers filming the regime’s atrocities. Their powerful YouTube clips feature the monitors in their bright orange vests surrounded by the sounds of gunfire, confronted with dead bodies of children, and bombarded by protesters’ complaints and grievances. Observing the observers has emerged as the people’s powerful media weapon against the regime and its propaganda.
Khaled Abu Salah, a prominent activist in Homseven confronted Dabi. ”Our problem is not with you as individuals,” he told him. ”Our problem is with the protocol itself. The first article of the protocol is ‘stop the killing.’ When 15 people die in one day while you’re here, then what have we benefited from your presence?” (The Russian Foreign Ministry later said Dabi’s remarks about the situation inSyria were ”reassuring.” He has since claimed the statement as ”unfounded and not true.”)
“On Sunday, Arab League ministers met in Cairoto discuss the mission’s progress. Opposition groups and activists hoped the league would admit the mission’s failure to stop the continuing violence and refer Syria’s case to the U.N. Security Council. Instead, Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby confirmed the mission would carry on as planned. Another Arab League meeting has been scheduled for Jan. 19 to re-evaluate the observers’ progress. On the rejection of any kind of assistance from the United Nations, Elaraby said, ”We do not live in an ideal world, and there is no country in the world that is willing to use force.”
“Turning a strategically blind eye has become the norm to Syrians. Once again, the headlines tell the same story: ”Arab League Asks Syria to Halt Violence” on a day when activists claim 26 people were killed, and the Syrian regime insists, observed or not, it’s going to be bloody business as usual. “
”Instead of seeing reality, observers watch movies by the regime”
“Human rights activists now fear the Arab League mission is turning into a farce, as shootings and killings take place almost under the observers’ noses in places like Homs, Hama and other trouble spots.
There are also questions about the head of the mission – a Sudanese general who is himself accused of human rights abuses.”
“Local witnesses claim tanks had been removed from the streets just ahead of the mission’s arrival only to be hidden nearby, where they could supposedly be redeployed as soon as the monitors were gone.
Soazig Dollet from the organisation Reporters Without Borders says the Syrian regime is simply exploiting the observers’ visit for its own ends.
(Soazig Dollet speaking)
”This visit is totally biased,” she says. ”It’s a farce. The Syrian regime is making a mockery of respecting the Arab League agreement by accepting the presence of observers.”
She also claims that Syrian authorities are engaged in an elaborate game to show the observers what they want to see.
(Soazig Dollet speaking)
”Some prisons in Homs were emptied and detainees transferred to other places,” she says. ”Fake armed soldiers were shown to observers in order to demonstrate that the Syrian resistance is an armed one. It is armed, but that is not the only kind of resistance. It’s obvious that it has all been staged for the observers of the Arab League.”
And the final humiliation.
To recapitulate:
After having Assad making a mockery of the Arab League peace plan. And their observers mission in Syriaa total failure. The Arab League took the same peace plan to the UN Security Council only to be vetoed by the as always helpful Russians and Chinese. And to REALLY rub it in the Russians and Chinese even voted against a non-binding resolution by the UN General Assembly.
So what did the humiliated Arab League do after that? Eehhh… they went to one of the powers behind their humiliation, Russia, and literally “begged” the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov for ANY kind of a deal.
So in the end the Arab League got a new, even more watered-down deal dictated to them by Russia, which then became the UN/Annan peace plan. And as a result got even more humiliated.
Because when they tried (Qatar) to make some amends to the total sellout, as they well know, they were literally repriminded by Lavrov like naughty/misbehaving school children.
“Lavrov lords it over the Arab League foreign ministers
Assad’s victory has therefore vindicated Putin and awarded Russia a political and military achievement on a scale that has eluded Moscow for many years. Putin proved he could win over an Arab country to Russian influence, shut doors to the Obama administration’s interference and wind up calling the shots in Damascus. The Russian Foreign Minister arrived in Caro Saturday, March 10, ready collect kudos..
It was strange to see Lavrov sitting in a place of honor at the 22-member Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting Saturday, March, 10. Stranger still, they let him talk the Arab ministers down and dictate Russia’s five-point plan for the Arab world to follow for resolving the Syrian crisis.
It called for a complete cease-fire, monitoring procedures, no foreign interference, humanitarian aid supplies and “firm support” for international envoy Kofi Annan’s mission to promote dialogue between the government and opposition.
Russia will be there for Iran at nuclear talks too
Aware of the true situation in Syria the Arab foreign ministers bowed to the Russian plan although it was clearly tilted in Assad’s favor.
And when the Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani tried later to undo some of the damage by demanding military intervention to stop the bloodletting in Syria after he had despaired of a Libyan-style Western-Arab operation, he was publicly rebuked from New York by Lavrov.
Arriving there to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Russian foreign minister said: “I was amazed …that while I was in the air my colleague, with whom we agreed on these principles, the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, called publicly for dispatching Arab or international forces to Syria. It absolutely contradicts what we agreed on and announced publicly.”
Lavrov’s tone strikingly demonstrated Moscow’s utter confidence in its ability to dictate the course of events in the Arab world in contrast to Washington’s withdrawal from the scene.
Not exactly one of the proudest moments in the Arab Leagues history. And as usual the ones paying the price the people of Syria.
“But the situation was relatively calm as the five observers toured rebel-held areas in Homson Saturday. Activists said fighting and government shelling stopped and troops hid tanks in advance of the visit by U.N. cease-fire observers, their first to the city.”
“In the Jouret el-Shayah neighborhood of Homs, the observers were quickly thronged by residents who chanted, ”The people want military intervention,” according to video broadcast on the Al-Jazeera satellite TV station.
In amateur video from the same neighborhood, posted online Saturday, observers are seen walking silently through rubble-strewn deserted streets lined by heavily damaged apartment buildings.
A man in military uniform, apparently a rebel, pointed to the destruction, telling the team that ”it’s all destroyed buildings.” Dozens of residents chanted, ”The people want to execute the president,” and ”Freedom forever, against your will, Assad.”
As reported before by HWR and others (se my post 2), rape is useed as a weapon by Assad’s forces.
“On April 1, a Syrian doctor named Moussa al-Kurdi told Al-Jazeera that he received a report regarding the rape of two girls, aged 10 and 14, by government forces in southern Syria, which resulted in their being impregnated.
According to Kurdi, these two girls are part of a group of around 260 child refugees, boys and girls, whose parents were killed or arrested and who live in a hotel provided by a charity. Intelligence services in Syria prevented doctors from documenting the rapes and filing an official report about it. Kurdi said that the children are being threatened.
This story is a sample of the horrors committed against the Syrian people. For more than a year now, the Syrian regime has been fighting a war against its own people to regain control of the country. Rape may be the best means to destroy the morale of the enemy, not only in the present, but also for the future, as victims, especially those who became pregnant as a result of the rape, have to live with it for the rest of their lives, according to writer Hazem Saghiyeh. “
“However, according to a HRW researcher who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to speak on the subject, it has been confirmed that rape is being used as a method of torture against men and women in Syrian prisons. The researcher also mentioned reports of sexual assault against women when the army raids houses in search of wanted men or weapons. “
And the Iraqis have a problem:
Central Bank of Iraq: $10B Siphoned Off in Support of Iranian and Syrian Currencies
“The deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), Mudhhir Mohammad Saleh, has revealed that Iraq’s foreign currency reserves, estimated at $54 billion, have declined by $10 billion since last November,and that the money was used by banks, money-changers and money-transfer companies in support of the Iranian and Syrian economies, which are subject to sanctions. He asserted that speculators have exploited the monetary crisis in the two neighboring countries to make a quick profit. The rush to buy dollars has caused the Iraqi dinar to lose 11% of its value against the dollar, despite considerable foreign currency reserves available to support it. “
Same old same old:
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice wrote on Twitter April 18 that the “Syrian regime lied to the world, lied to its people & the biggest fabricator is Asad himself. Words are meaningless. Actions are what matter.”
Ok, after this “great” and “sudden” insight after more than a year keeping up appearance while Assad was killing unarmed civilians, what then??
Well, who could have guessed – MORE OF THE SAME! I.E. doing nothing.
“Ambassador Rice’s interview with CNN the other day. When asked the most pressing question – what next? – Rice replied that the “next step really is for those who have maximum influence on Assad to continue to use it,”
That is of course the very helpful Russians and Iranians. And if you have read any of my previous post, you know how “helpful” they have been. So this is the “great” Obama and Clinton plan – The two countries that has done the most to prop up and secure the Assad regime, with all means possible, are supposed to put “pressure on him???
Really???
Assad a “mafia bacteria”.
This is quite interesting. The people inside Syria has made some contacts withIsrael before. Like when the put the same message on the IDF Facebook site.
Syrian opposition leader, in unprecedented interview with Israel Radio, says Syrians want peace with Israel Speaking from Paris, Nofal Al-Dalawibi, son of a former Syrian PM, calls Assad a ‘mafia bacteria’ and says opposition will not negotiate with him
“In an unprecedented interview with Israel Radio, Nofal Al-Dalawibi, a Syrian opposition leader and son of former two-time Syrian prime minister Maarouf Al-Dalawibi, said that the Syrian people want peace, including with Israel, and seek stability after the ongoing bloodshed.
The interview comes against a background of decades of overt Syrian hostility to Israel, and shatters a taboo of Syrian representatives in any forum talking openly with Israelis. At international events, Syrian leaders have always sought to ensure that Israeli journalists are kept out of their press conferences, and ignored questions from Israeli reporters on the rare occasions when Israelis did manage to address them directly. Israeli journalists are never granted visas to enterSyria.”
”Dalawibi’s interview marked the potential beginning of a change from that mindset, should the Syrian opposition struggle prevail. When asked about the “fear that many Israelis have” that Islamic forces may occupy the political vacuum in Syria if Assad falls — and what effect that would have on Syria’s relationship with Israel — Dalawibi replied that the Syrian people do not want any more fighting. Syrian civilians have been left out of the political process for over 40 years and they only want peace, he added.
“Dalawibi also commented on the “long struggle” of the Syrian opposition. “We are not interested in negotiating with Assad,” Dalawibi told Zinger, and referred to the Syrian president as “mafia bacteria.”
Turkey
Recep Erdogan and his Islamic AKP party have ruledTurkeysince 2002. Their slow, but gradual, islamization of Turkish society has progressed. AKP has very effectively neutralized all the secular parties and organisations.
Including the military which was supposed to be the last guarantee of Ataturks legacy – a civilian society with separation of mosque and state.
Erdogan was imprisoned in 1998 for his involvement with the banned Welfare Party, which the Turkish government considered Islamist. Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy describes the Welfare Party as the “motherboard of Turkish Islamists since the 1980s,” saying it was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2001, he founded the AKP, which took a more moderate line, portraying itself as committed to separation of mosque and state but “faithful governance,” as Dr. Essam El-Erian, the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political bureau, described the AKP’s “moderate Islamist” ideology.
Dr. El-Erian praised Erdogan’s victory, saying that it was the result of the “exposing of the failure of the secular trend.” El-Erian confirmed that the Muslim Brotherhood had close ties to the AKP, but the West treated Turkey as if nothing had changed. It wasn’t until Turkey steadfastly refused to allow U.S. soldiers to transit their territory to overthrow Saddam Hussein that the West began questioning the allegiance of Erdogan’s government.
As Erdogan said in the beginning of February this year, “We want to raise a religious youth”:
“We want to raise a religious youth,” said Erdogan, himself a graduate of a clerical school and the leader of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), during a parliamentary address last week.”
“Secular quarters argue Erdogan’s conservative government is also step by step imposing religion in every aspect of life, saying many restaurants already refuse to serve alcohol during Ramadan.”
“But since then the influence of the military, considered as guardian of secularism, has waned.
Dozens of retired and active army officers, academics, journalists and lawyers have been put behind bars in probes into alleged plots against Erdogan’s government.
Critics accuse the government of launching the probes as a tool to silence opponents and impose authoritarianism.
Secular quarters argue Erdogan’s conservative government is also step by step imposing religion in every aspect of life, saying many restaurants already refuse to serve alcohol during Ramadan.
They also criticize recent changes to legislation under which religious school graduates will now be able to access any university branch they like, while in the past they had only access to theology schools.
Birand expressed fears that the changes would not be confined to this and would lead to censorship in television broadcasts.
The Turkish television watchdog RTUK “will restrict all kissing scenes; they will confuse pornography with explicit broadcast and all television screens will be made pious,” he added.
“Then will come religious foundations. After them, it will be municipalities. All kinds of Koran teaching courses, legal or illegal, will mushroom.”
As Turkish Penal Code specifies, ”Anyone who openly denigrates the religious values of a part of the population shall be sentenced to imprisonment of from six months to one year, where the act is sufficient to breach public peace.”
In the referendum 2010 26 amendments where made to the constitution. One example: It now permits the parliament to select who sits on the Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges. Previously, the judiciary was independent, choosing its own leadership free of political influence. And since the AKP holds a majority in the parliament, its allows the party to oversee the judiciary without any significant checks and balances.
“Renowned U.S. author Paul Auster said he refused to visit Turkey because of the number of journalists and writers that have been jailed in the country.
Speaking to daily Hürriyet’s Buket Şahin, Auster said he had protested the Turkish and Chinese governments for their treatment of journalists.
“I refuse to come to Turkey because of imprisoned journalists and writers. How many are jailed now? Over 100?” Auster said, adding that Turkey was the country he was most worried about.“
Erdogan and the Decline of the Turks
When I asked the prime minister about stories alleging a U.S.-Israeli murder and organ selling scheme in Iraq, he could not bring himself to condemn them..
“To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness.”
“For example, while there was much hand-wringing in our own media about ”Who lost Turkey?” when U.S. forces were denied entry to Iraq from the north in 2003, no such introspection was evident in Ankara and Istanbul. Instead, Turks were fed a steady diet of imagined atrocities perpetrated by U.S. forces in Iraq, often with the implication that they were acting as muscle for the Jews. The newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s daily read, claimed that Americans were tossing so many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that local mullahs had issued a fatwa ordering residents not to eat the fish. The same paper repeatedly claimed that the U.S. used chemical weapons in Fallujah. And it reported that Israeli soldiers had been deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq and that U.S. forces were harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. ”organ market.”
The secular Hurriyet newspaper, meanwhile, accused Israeli soldiers of assassinating Turkish security personnel in Mosul and said the U.S.was starting an occupation of (Muslim) Indonesia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. Then U.S. ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman actually felt the need to organize a conference call to explain to the Turkish media that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. One of the craziest theories circulating in Ankara was that the U.S.was colonizing the Middle East because its scientists were aware of an impending asteroid strike on North America.
The Mosul and organ harvesting stories were soon brought together in a hit Turkish movie called ”Valley of the Wolves,” which I saw in 2006 at a mall in Ankara. My poor Turkish was little barrier to understanding. The body parts of dead Iraqis could be clearly seen being placed into crates marked New York and Tel Aviv. It is no exaggeration to say that such anti-Semitic fare had not been played to mass audiences in Europe since the Third Reich.
When I interviewed Prime Minister Erdogan (one of several encounters) in 2006, he was unabashed about the narrative.
Erdogan: ”I believe the people who made this movie took media reports as their basis . . . for example, Abu Ghraib prison—we have seen this on TV, and now we are watching Guantanamo Bay in the world media, and of course it could be that this movie was prepared under these influences.”
Me: ”But do you believe that many Turks have such a view ofAmerica, that we’re the kind of people who’d go to Iraq and kill people to take their organs?”
Erdogan: ”These kind of things happen in the world. If it’s not happening in Iraq, then its happening in other countries.”
Me: ”Which kind of things? Killing people to take their organs?”
Erdogan: ”I’m not saying they are being killed. . . . There are people in poverty who use this as a means to get money.”
I was somewhat taken aback that the prime minister could not bring himself to condemn a fictional blood libel. I should not have been. He and his party have traded on America and Israel hatred ever since. There can be little doubt the Turkish flotilla that challenged the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza was organized with his approval, if not encouragement. Mr. Erodogan’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, is a proponent of a philosophy which calls on Turkey to loosen Western ties to the U.S., NATO and the European Union and seek its own sphere of influence to the east. Turkey‘s recent deal to help Iran enrich uranium should come as no surprise.”
‘Muslims Don’t Cause Genocide, especially in Sudan:
Erdogan: Israel Worse than Sudan, ‘Muslims Don’t Cause Genocide’
Turkish PM Erdogan says he would rather talk to Sudanese leader al-Bashir than to Israeli PM Netanyahu, because “Muslims cannot commit genocide.”
“Erdogan claimed to know that Bashir is innocent, and that there is no genocide taking place in Sudan. “A Muslim can never commit genocide,” he said in explanation. “It’s not possible.”
The Turkish PM added that he had visited Darfur and did not see evidence of genocide during his trip.”
Much more can be said about AKP andTurkeybut that’s maybe for a later post.
So lets move on to Turkeysr elations with Syria, Iran and its foreign policy ambitions.
“SUMMARY: In a recent speech before the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) retreat, Turkey‘s Foreign Minister Davutoglu appeared to embrace the concept of Neo-Ottomanism as a framework for Turkish foreign policy.”
“Twice yearly, AKP party leaders and members of parliament meet at Kizilcahamam for a consultative retreat to go over party policies and the state ofTurkeyin a relaxed, informal environment. At the most recent retreat, held November 21 and 22, FM Davutoglu co-opted his critics’ derisive term for his personalized foreign policy, saying,
”Yes, we are the New Ottomans.” In so doing, he made coherent the past six years of Turkish foreign policy, which has seen an intensive interest in being part of peace negotiations stretching from Bosnia through Palestine to Afghanistan, the opening of embassies throughout much of Africa, and rapprochement with previous rivals, such as Iran, Syria, andArmenia.
Davutoglu had previously hinted at such a policy in a speech made in Sarajevo on October 16, in which he envisioned an economically and culturally integrated Balkans and Middle East as the driver of a peaceful, affluent civilization, and not the crisis-ridden periphery it is perceived to be today. In his estimation, the Ottoman Empire is the ”only positive exception” to have created such an entity, and Turkey, as successor to the Ottoman state, should be the focus of the re-establishment of a strong Eastern Mediterranean.”
“Borrowing from Western rhetoric that Turkey is a bridge between the East and the West, Turkey is aspiring to broaden its horizons to include not just Europe but the
Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia in its strategic considerations as well. The policy also attempts to promote two popular trains of thought among conservative Turkish intellectuals: the concepts of a global Islamic solidarity (previously promoted by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan) and the concept of a Turkish-Islamist synthesis (popular in nationalist circles and also among members of the Fethullah Gulen religious community).
AKP’s domestic detractors, however, see the policy as more evidence of Turkish society slowly turning away from the West; embracing regional autocrats, such as Bashar al-Assad, Mahmud Ahmedinejad, and Omar al-Bashir; and Islamization of the populace as part of their plan to one day install Sharia law ”overnight.” Turkey’s choice of regional friends does at times highlight its religious outlook more than cultural ones: estranging historical trade and military partner Israel over the Gaza crisis sits unsteadily when Turkey comes to Sudan’s defense.”
I think that sets the tone.
And then there is all the treats and demands on it’s “allies” in NATO, EU:
Erdogan issued a direct threat on NATO when he warned on September 27, 2011:
“ISTANBUL—Turkey officially accepted delivery of its first domestically manufactured warship Tuesday at a ceremony that underscored the country’s push to become a regional power.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the occasion to criticize oil drilling in the eastern Mediterranean by Greek interests. He pointedly noted that the ceremony took place on the 473rd anniversary of the Battle of Preveza in northwestern Greece, where a fleet from the Ottoman Turkish empire defeated a much larger Christian force.
”I recommend the international community take the necessary lessons from the Preveza victory”, Erdogan said. ”Turkey’s national interests in the seas reach from its surrounding waters to the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean.”
The battle of Preveza 1538 was a” decisive Turkish/Ottoman naval battle against a Papal “Holy League” Pan-Christian Alliance”.
And
‘Turkeywill never share intelligence from NATO radar system with Israel’
“Turkey will never share intelligence gathered by a NATO radar system stationed on its soil with Israel, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday, during a joint news conference with visiting NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Ankara.
Turkey agreed late last year to deploy the early warning radar system after seeking guarantees from the U.S. that Israel would not have access to intelligence gathered by it. NATO also agreed to post a high-ranking Turkish general at its headquarters in Germany, where intelligence gathered through the radar system would be processed, according to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet.
The radar system has been up and running since January, and has already drawn criticism from Tehran. “The U.S. radar stationed inTurkeyis no good for any Muslim country,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said at a mid-January press conference. “But we have confidence in our Turkish friends,” he said, adding that Iran would request more information on the matter.”
US senators voice worry over radar deal with Turkey
“Two key US senators expressed concerns Tuesday about a possible agreement to base a missile-shield radar in Turkey, citing the NATO ally’s strained ties with Israel and relations with Iran.
Republican Senators Jon Kyl and Mark Kirk wrote Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seeking reassurances on the possible deal, which was described in a news report last week.
The lawmakers asked for ”written assurances” that data collected by a so-called X-band radar ”will be made available, in real time” to staunch US ally Israel to be ”fully integrated into its battlement management and control.”
They also sought a guarantee that ”Turkish entities are not engaged, or suspected of engaging” in activities that fall afoul of various US laws aimed at curbing suspected nuclear weapons programs in Iran and Syria and keeping sensitive know-how from North Korea.
And President Barack Obama’s administration must also certify that the powerful radar will only be operated by US personnel, and for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for maintenance breaks, the senators said.
Kirk and Kyl, the number-two Senate Republican, also questioned whether the reported decision to locate the radar in Turkey would ”ensure the best defense of the United States against the Iranian long-range ballistic missile threat.”
They cited a US Missile Defense Agency study that found that the South Caucasus to be ”the optimum placement” if the system is designed to defend against an eventual Iranian ballistic missile attack.
”The administration’s plans for missile defense will require the cooperation of the Congress; the prospects for such cooperation are jeopardized if the Congress is not provided the information it requests,” they warned.”
“Turkish objections have thwarted Israel’s attempt to open a NATO office, says Turkish FM, stressing determination to also keepIsrael out of data-sharing after a high-powered US radar system is deployed inTurkey.
Turkey has blocked an Israeli move to open a representation office at NATO headquarters, its foreign minister said Sunday, adding that data collected by a radar system in eastern Turkey would not be shared with Israel.
“Israelrecently made an attempt to open an office at NATO [headquarters] in Brussels. We said we would veto this attempt and the issue was not even put on the agenda,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in an interview with the CNNTürk “news channel.
Turkey refused to allowIsrael to participate in annual military exercises also involving Italyand the U.S. Instead Turkeywill hold military exercises withSyria:
After snubbing Israel, Turkey to hold defense drills with Syria
Syrian defense minister says two nations to hold drills days afterTurkeynixed maneuvers withIsrael.
“Syriasaid on Tuesday it would hold military exercises with Turkey, shortly after Turkeycanceled maneuvers with Israel.
Ankara’s decision, which was commended by Syria, revived fears of cooler relations betweenIsrael and NATO memberTurkey.
”We held our first joint land military exercise (with Turkey) last spring. And today we have agreed to do a more comprehensive, a bigger one,” said Syrian Defense Minister Ali Habib, speaking at a news conference. “
“In Washington, the U.S. State Department on Tuesday objected to Turkey‘s last-minute decision to exclude Israel from the exercise.
”We think it’s inappropriate for any nation to be removed from an exercise like this at the last minute,” said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. “
And in a ironic twist when one consider what Turkey has “done” or not done regarding Syria, Turkey blocked in the beginning the US/NATO intervention in Libya.
“So far, the NATO alliance has been unable to reach an agreement on participation in the military implementation of the no-fly zone. Turkey is resisting the measure and is calling for a new review of other possible measures the alliance could take in Libya.Ankara has also called for an immediate Western cease-fire, with Turkish officials calling on NATO to give greater consideration in its discussions to the possibility of civilian deaths, a NATO diplomat told the news agency AFP under the condition of anonymity. Ankara has rejected any NATO intervention against Libya, including the implementation of a no-fly zone. “
Another example:
Turkey to freeze EU ties if Cyprus gets EU presidency
“Reuters) -EU-candidate Turkey will freeze relations with the European Union if Cyprusis given the EU presidency in 2012, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency Anatolian late on Saturday.”
Another:
Turkey warns Greek Cyprus on oil drilling ahead of Israeli PM visit
“Turkeywarned Thursday that it will not allow under any circumstances foreign oil companies to conduct unauthorized oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation activities in the Eastern Mediterranean and will take all necessary measures to protect its rights in the areas within its continental shelf.
Turkey’s strong worded warning came after an announcement published in the EU Official Journal dated11 February 2012 that the Greek Cypriot administration has called for a new international tender for off-shore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation within its so-called economic exclusive zone.”
“This situation would bring those international companies that might be interested in bidding for this illegal tender into confrontation with the TRNC (TurkishRepublicof NorthernCyprus) and the TPAO (Turkish Petroleum Corporation) , and thus would lead to an undesired tension in the region,” the statement said. “
“Greece’s prime minister called his Turkish counterpart Monday in a bid to calm a spiralling dispute over energy resources off Cyprus as a Turkish ship began explorations under military protection.
George Papandreou ”called for calm and restraint” and reiterated that Cyprus ”was entitled to decide what it wants to do”, said Greek government spokesman Elias Mossialos.
Papandreou also told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Turkey has to ”avoid unilateral acts”, referring to Ankara‘s decision to retaliate in kind for the Greek Cypriot government’s launch of offshore energy exploration.”
“Cyprus government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou on Monday told reporters Nicosia was monitoring the situation closely.
”Where necessary it will make representations and form a political and diplomatic shield for Cyprus‘ right” to explore and exploit possible deposits, he said.
Stefanou also accused Turkey of violating international law and causing tension in the region.”
Etc. Etc.
But lets move on to Turkeys policies an actions regarding Iran and Syria. They have shifted drastically. First, as part of this “ottoman” expansion I talked about above, Turkey became very friendly with Iran and Syria. And cooperated on ALL matters with both of them building a strategic alliance. Including helping Syria and Iran fight their internal opposition and uprising.
That policies only started to change last summer and even more so at the beginning of this year.
Lets start with Iran
Turkey has never accepted any of the official EU and US sanction against Iran:
“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates expressed frustration withTurkeyon Friday over its refusal to support a new round of United Nations sanctions against Iran, but he suggested that the alliance betweenWashington and Ankara remained robust.”
“I’ll be honest, I was disappointed in Turkey’s vote on the Iranian sanctions,” Mr. Gates said at the end of a two-day meeting of defense ministers at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels. “Allies don’t always agree on things, but we move forward from here.
The Security Council on Wednesday approved its fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Twelve of the 15 nations on the Security Council voted for the measure, while Brazil and Turkey, which had negotiated a deal with Iran to swap some of its nuclear fuel, voted against, and Lebanon abstained. “
“Among other things, the sanctions took aim at military purchases, trade and financial transactions by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which controls Iran’s nuclear program and has taken a more central role in running the country and the economy. “
“Turkey, which imports oil and gas from Iran, says it is only bound by U.N. sanctions against its eastern neighbor, despite the U.S. campaign to sanctionIran further over its nuclear program.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said Turkey would evaluate the content of the U.S.sanctions but it ”does not feel it is bound by any other sanctions.” Unal spoke during a weekly news conference, which followed a meeting between Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani.”
Ads the Turkish trade with Iran keeps growing, in direct contradiction of US and EU supposed strategy!
And as I said in my previous posts, Turkey too has its hands deep in sanctions-busting transactions with Iran: Its seventh largest bank, the state-owned Halkbank, is a conduit for Iran’s oil-related earnings. To facilitate Iran’s international oil sales
Turkey import large quantities of Iranian oil, and Iran use Turkish banks to facilitate its international oil sales.
Turkeyis also deeply involved in an effort to have the new Iranian and Iraqi pipelines to Europe routed through Turkey, reducing the Strait of Hormuz’s crucial importance as a primary route for the world’s oil supplies. This pipeline would also hurt Saudi Arabiaand the other Gulf oil producers, all of whom are dead set against Erdogan’s hegemonic aspirations in the Middle East.
“U.S. ally Turkey and U.S. arch-enemy Iran have formed a military alliance to drive opposition Kurds from bases in northern Iraq they have used since 2004 to launch guerrilla operations inside Iran, rebel leaders told Newsmax at a secret base in the Qandil mountains.
Both Iran and Turkeyhave vowed to send troops into northern Iraq, but until now evidence of active military cooperation between them has remained a closely-held secret.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up political and diplomatic threats in recent days, telling the United States he would cut off U.S. access to the strategic Incirlik airbase in eastern Turkey if the U.S. tried to prevent Turkey from sending troops against the Kurdish bases in northern Iraq.
Leaders of the Party of Free Life of Iranian Kurdistan, known as PJAK, provided Newsmax with extensive evidence of the Iran-Turkey alliance in two days of exclusive interviews at a secret guerilla base deep in the Qandil mountains. An Iranian Revolutionary Guards outpost was visible on a nearby mountain peak.
“Iran and Turkey attacked jointly on August 16 against our forces inside Iran and against Turkish self-defense forces in northern Iraq,” a PJAK commander using the nom de guerre Xerat told Newsmax at the Iranian rebel base.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards “attacked us across a broad front in the areas of Sardasht, Piranshahr, Shaho, Urmieh, and along the border line,” Xerat said, citing the names of major cities in Iranian Kurdistan where PJAK rebels have been operating.
While those ground operations were underway, Iranian and Turkish artillery simultaneously began shelling civilian villages inside Iraqi Kurdistan from Metina, Zaab, Haftani, and Hakurke in the north, to Haji Oumran, Qalatdizza, Zeh, Marado, and Xinera in the south, he added.
Turkish artillery hit the northern villages, while Iranian gunners hit the southern ones.
Iranian troops attempted to cross into Iraq through the mountain passes, but PJAK fighters held the line.
“The goal of the Iranians is to drive us from the border area,” rebel leader Biryar Gabar told Newsmax. “They want to turn this area into a no-man’s land, so they can use it to smuggle weapons and Islamist guerillas into Iraq to fight the Americans.”
He called the Iran-Turkey entente “an anti-American alliance,” not just an anti-Kurdish agreement,and said that it resulted from deliberate decisions from the ruling Islamist AKP party of Prime Minister Erdogan to transform Turkey into an increasingly Islamist state.
A senior European official, who was involved in talks to bring Turkey into the European Union, told Newsmax recently he had been “stunned” by the hard-line toward the Kurds taken by AKP party leader Abdullah Gul, now Turkey’s president.
“He was totally uncompromising,” the official said. “He took a harder line than the Turkish military.”
Iran has been offering Turkeyan economic agreement with Iran in July to build a strategic pipeline that will bring Iranian natural gas to Europe, in defiance of a U.S. led effort to increase the economic squeeze on Iran.”
“Since the liberation of Iraq by the Coalition, PJAK has maintained control of the Iran-Iraq border in this area, and prevented infiltration by Iran or al-Qaida-related terrorists.
The U.S. military sent liaison officers to meet with PJAK in 2003 and again in 2005 to discuss Iranian efforts to infiltrateIraq, but have not pursued discussions further, PJAK officials said.
“From August 16-24, the Iranians tried to cross the border along the mountain ridge line, but we pushed them back,” Biryar Gabar said.
During the Iranian ground attacks, PJAK learned from its operatives on the ground inside Iran that Turkish officers were acting as military advisors to the Iranian troops, he told Newsmax.”
“Since the failed ground offensive by the Iranians, Turkish officers have begun training Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops in counter-insurgency operations at the Soleiman training camp near the Iranian city of Urmieh.
“The Iranians had little experience in counter-insurgency operations, so the Turks are training them,” guerilla leader Xenat said.
“Our friends saw Turkish officers coordinating the operations of the Iranian army in the Kelaresh area,” he added. Kelaresh is in the border region outside of Salmas andUrmieh,Iran.
An exclusive Newsmax source in Iran reported in late August that eight Turkish officers were then in Urmieh, coordinating the anti-Kurdish military campaign with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
At the command level, Iranian and Turkish military officers have held monthly coordination meetings in the Turkish cities of Harakeh, Van, Bashakale, and in the Iranian cities of Urmieh, Mahabad, and Salmas, PJAK officials said.
The Iranian government sent a 12-member delegation to Hakkari, Turkey, for a summit meeting with Turkish officials on Sept. 10, PJAK officials said.”
“PJAK guerilla leaders also pointed to the recent creation by Iran of civilian village guards, known as “jash,” in the Iranian Kurdish areas, as another sign of Turkish military cooperation with Iran.
“The Turkish army used a similar tactic when fighting the PKK in the 1990s,” said Xenat, a former PKK fighter who is originally fromTurkey but joined PJAK once the PKK dissolved its military wing in early 2000.
The “jash” village guards act as spies for the Revolutionary Guards to identify PJAK guerilla fighters., he said. They are also dressing up in Kurdish guerilla uniforms and attacking Iranian villagers, pretending to be PJAK fighters.
“The Turks have been fighting a dirty war in anti-guerilla operations for 30 years. Now they are teaching this to the Iranians,” Xenat said.”
”The government and nation of Turkey has always clearly supported the nuclear positions of the Islamic republic of Iran, and will continue to firmly follow the same policy in the future,” Erdogan was quoted as saying in the statement issued by Ahmadinejad’s office.
Ahmadinejad thanked Turkey for its ”clear and frank” stance on the issue, the statement added.”
Another interesting fact, in October 2011 the Chinese air force was in Turkey and took part in joint exercise with the Turkish air force. Before arriving inTurkey, the Chinese air force had been in Iran and had a similar joint exercise there.
And Israel was very concerned with what was going on inTurkeyand its relations with Iran:
If there is not a change in personality, then Turkeywill become Iran No. 2
“Israel‘s defense community has assessed that Turkey was moving toward becoming a radical and nuclear Islamic state.
Officials and leading analysts asserted that the government of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was rapidly dismantling the secular Turkish state. They said Erdogan could turn Turkey into another Iran, a radical Muslim state with nuclear weapons.
”There could be a deep strategic change,” Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, said.
Officials cited Turkey’s referendum that would revise the secular constitution. They said the 26 amendments approved by 58 percent of voters on Sept. 12 would significantly increase the authority of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party while marginalizingTurkey’s military.
Leading officials expressed concern over Erdogan’s growing power in Turkey and his success in intimidating the once-powerful Turkish military. They said Erdogan could use his referendum victory to expand Turkey‘s alliance with neighboring Iran and Syria while fomenting another crisis with Israel.
”If there is not a change in personality, then Turkey will become Iran No. 2,” former National Security Council director Uzi Dayan said.”
And most devious at all: Turkey has allowed Iran to supply Syria with arms to crush the civilian uprising through its territory. It only stopped in January this year.
Iran army supplies to Syria via the Turkish Dogubayazit route
In the middle of January, Turkey reported halting five Iranian trucks loaded with weapons for Syria at the Killis Turkish-Syrian border crossing and impounding its freight. Actually, the Iranian convoy was not really stopped at Killis but at the eastern Turkish Dobubayazit border crossing with Iran, near Mount Ararat. This supply route for Syria had been going strong for months. Ankara‘s decision to suspend it has reduced its volume by 60 percent.
The Turks kept very quiet about the Dogubayazit route because disclosure would have exposed them as working two sides of the Syrian conflict – letting Tehran set up a clandestine arms route for helping the Assad regime crack down on protest, while publicly posing as the leading champions of the Syrian protest movement – even to providing the Free Syria Army with bases and training facilities.
The influx of Iranian arms supplies via Turkey gave the Syrian army a major boost in quelling the uprising especially in the restive towns of Hama, Homs and Idlib, where demonstrations have dwindled. Now Ankara is worried about the consequences. Thursday, President Abdullah Gul raised fears of the Syrian uprising mutating into civil war.Ankara is concerned that sectarian conflict inSyria could spill over intoTurkey.
With “friends” like this how need enemies?
Over to Syria
A year ago Turkey’s prime minister Erdogan addressed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus as “my brother”.
And Hakan Fidan (very pro Iranian), chief of Turkish MIT intelligence service, has on Erdogans orders gone frequently to Damascus to update Assad’s regime on Syrian opposition activities. One of Assad’s key sources of information about what the opposition is up to.
This stopped on May 24, and even more so in August, 2011when Erdogan finally realised that after three months of unstinting support for the Assad regime, the Turkish government circles seek to shun finding themselves ”backing a regime which shoots to kill Muslims in the street.” After the number of Syrian deaths rose past 1,100, one high-ranking official commented, ”Turkey is a Muslim democracy. It must not lend support to dictators who murder their citizens.”
So at least then Erdogan stopped to openly supporting Assad. It would take longer for Turkeyto actually start doing something. That happened in January this year.
And the rhetoric of setting up “safe” or “buffer zone” has been talked about by the Turks for nearly a year buy now and nothing has been done.
(Reuters) – Just over a year ago, Turkey’s prime minister addressed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus as “my brother”. Today, illusions of kinship are long gone and the region’s rising power finds itself marshalling efforts to press him from power, but increasingly wary of being pitched into military action.
The falling out between Assad and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan grew personal as well as diplomatic as Syria’s president ignored Turkish calls for restraint and pressed his attacks on protesters. Erdogan drew a comparison with Nazi Germany in some of the strongest words of any major leader onSyria.
In one email, intercepted and published in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Assad’s wife Asma is asked if she would pass her email address to Erdogan’s wife. “I use this account only for family and friends,” she replies. “It would be difficult for me at this stage to consider her in either category after the insults they have directed towards the president.”
The Syrian insurrection has tested the limits of Turkish regional diplomatic power that has grown markedly under Erdogan’s stewardship. For years Ankara invested heavily in relations with Syria and Assad,calculating closer ties could foster both trade and reforms in its southern neighbour, as well as weaken its reliance on Iran, for centuries Turkey’s main regional rival.
“They thought that because of the personal relationship that had developed between Erdogan and Bashar, the Syrians would be a pushover,” said Philip Robins of Oxford University.
“There was a complete misunderstanding based on an assumption that they had manoeuvred the other side so that they would do their bidding, and that absolutely was not the case.”
Syrian protests escalated from March last year. Assad failed to heed ever more insistent telephone calls from Erdogan and visits from Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appealing for reform. By August, Ankara had had enough.
TURKEY SEES RED LINES
Having seen the rapid revolution in Egypt and with the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi seemingly imminent, Turkey sharply turned against its erstwhile ally in Damascus.
“They wanted to position themselves on the right side of history, expecting the Syrian regime to fall in weeks as in Tunisia and Egypt,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
Turkey now hosts Syria’s main opposition groups and shelters the rebel Free Syria Army on its side of the common frontier. On April 1, it will be the venue of a meeting of Western and Middle Eastern officials and groups involved with Syria.
Assad has shown himself to be impervious to verbal assault and resilient to increasingly violent protests and guerrilla attacks. He is also for now at least largely insulated from strong United Nations-backed action due to the vetoes of China and his backer Russia on the Security Council.
“Right now there is a disappointing situation for Ankara,” said Salem. “What they banked on didn’t happen. Their bluff and bluster was met by bluff and bluster from the Syrian side and now we are certainly in a bit of a stalemate.”
Without backing from the U.N., or at least the Arab League and NATO, Turkey is unwilling to go it alone in Syria. But with a 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria, more than 16,000 Syrian refugees on its soil and hundreds more arriving each day, it is not a problem from which Ankara can simply walk away.
Turkey has signalled a huge flood of refugees or massacres on its door-step would be red lines that would force it to act, but short of military intervention, there are few effective options available, analysts said.
Erdogan said last week setting up a “safe” or “buffer zone” along the border was one of the options under consideration, but that would mean troops going into Syria to seize and secure territory which the rebel Free Syrian Army has failed to do.
“We need to consider maybe to have a buffer zone inside Syrian territory, but without Syrian consent this may lead to some kind of military conflict … and this may escalate the situation,” said Kamer Kasim of the International Strategic Research Organisation (USAK), Turkish think-tank.
Like it or not, Turkey finds itself centre stage of diplomatic efforts to dislodge Assad, and would be on the front line of any military intervention, whether an Arab peace force or arming the Free Syrian Army, both measures the Arab League could discuss when it holds a summit in Baghdad next week.
REGIONAL REALITIES
But there are very good reasons why Turkey should be wary of intervening in Syria, given its strategic backing by Turkey’s neighbour and regional power Iran, and the closeness to Iran of Ankara’s other Middle Eastern neighbour, Iraq.
“Turkey has got itself into a position where it has a major foreign policy issue with its three Middle Eastern neighbours,” said Robins. “This is really not clever, especially in a part of the world where power politics is still the name of the game.”
“If it were just Turkey versus Syria then the Turks if they were minded to could probably just pile in,” he said. “But when you factor in the presence of other regional powers … and you also have Israel which is getting closer to Cyprus and Greece, and then of course you have the Russians to the north who are supporting Syria, it suddenly becomes much more complex.”
Some in Turkey see a Western attempt to pushAnkara into taking the leading role, and a large part of the risk, inSyria.
Parliament speaker Cemil Cicek, from Erdogan’s AK Party, blamed what he called “Western cunning” for trying to push Turkey into action. “Everyone is on the sidelines as if they are watching a match and saying ‘let Turkey sort it out’.”
That at least was how many observers saw last week’s visit to Ankara of CIA Director David Petraeus.
“It seems Turkeyhas been left holding the baby,” said Ali Nihat Ozcan, a security analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey.
The Americans, he said, “are probably trying to encourage Turkey to get more involved. Turkey is having second thoughts.”
Turkey has not yet rowed back, but much of the rhetoric has been replaced by a determined attempt to forge more consensus on Syria, hosting a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul on April 1 to try keep it high on the international agenda.
There Turkey will do what it diplomatically does best, bringing together the West and the Middle East where it uniquely has a foot in both camps.
“I would have thought the thing to do is to get back in the pack as far as NATO and the Western alliance is concerned; you are not exposed in the way that Turkey has been,” said Robins.
“You can have your own perspective on what is happening. You are still deeply alarmed at the loss of life and devastation in Syria, but you can only really move in tandem with the alliance more generally and with the Americans in particular.”
What really turned the Turks to doing something was when Assda played the PKK card in January this year. And opened a direct route fromIraq via Syria to Turkey for PKK.
Remember that Turkey nearly invaded Syria in 1998 for sponsoring Kurdish terrorism.
On October 20, 1998, Syria and Turkey signed the Adana Agreement under pressure from Iran and Egypt. The agreement was for Syria to keep the PKK from threatening Turkish sovereignty from Syrian bases.
After that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was expelled by Syrian authorities. Abdullah Öcalan then bounced around the capitals ofEurope, only to be captured in Kenya and handed over to the Turks by the CIA.
After the undeclared war between Turkey and Syria, Syria placed restrictions on PKK activity on its soil.
Idlib Binnish -”The People Who Represent Us are Those Fighting in the Trenches Not The Ones Sleeping in Hotels (SNC Members)”
And then there is the Turkish effort, with the Obama administrations backing and collaboration, to make SNC the sole voice of the opposition. So the SNC can receive all money and all supply toSyria must be funneled and coordinated through them so they are in full control.
Only one problem, SNC is in reality a Muslim Brotherhood controlled organization even if it pretends to be “neutral”.
See this video which shows Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni claiming that the Brotherhood chose Birhan Ghalioun to be the SNC leader as a front man because he would be more appealing to the West than an open Islamist.
But the Syrian National Council (SNC) has failed. The people of Syria has seen trough this and rejected SNC as “a sole voice of the opposition”.
In fact, several SNC members, including Kamal al-Labwani and Haitham Maleh, have announced their resignations. They are both elderly veteran dissidents who are not Islamists. The reason being given most often for this crack-up is that the group’s leadership is “autocratic,” excluding most of the membership from any role in decision-making.
Leaving aside the element of personal ambition, however, why is it autocratic? Because it is imposing the Muslim Brotherhood line rather than responding to the preferences of the activists within Syria, that’s why.
As the New York Times admits, al-Labwani, “accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of `monopolizing funding and military support.’” Yet there is not a word about how the Obama Administration pushed this Brotherhood-dominated leadership onto the Syrian opposition.
Most of the Kurds involved in the original talks angrily walked out of the negotiations because of their objection to Islamist leadership. The Obama Administration’s choice of Turkey to coordinate this operation made it even harder to bring in Syrian Kurds, who play an important role in the revolution, since Turkey has fought a long war against Kurdish nationalism at home. Another issue of conflict is the SNC’s bad relationship with the FSA (Free Syrian Army) and its rejection of armed struggle to overthrow the dictatorship.
The opposition inside Syria say that this is because the Islamists hope to make a deal with the regime that would empower them (and they hope would eventually bring them to power in the longer-term) rather than fight it out.
Of the nineteen announced members of the top leadership of SNC, ten of them were Islamists, (Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist). A reliable Syrian opposition source tells that two more members are secretly Islamist tools.
In short, the U.S. government was helping to turn Syria’s revolution over to the Islamists. If this group had succeeded, the West would be facing still another radical Islamist regime that hated the West, wanted to go to war with Israel, and would be imposing a new dictatorship on its country.
That’s one of the reasons why there are more than a half-dozen other opposition groups have developed as rivals to the SNC.
And by the way, Erdogan is close personal friend of Obama which have made Turkeya key cornerstone in his Middle East policy.
“President Barack Obama is continuing his love affair with Turkish Islamist leader Recep Erdogan. As Erdogan continues to undermine Turkish democracy, throw hundreds of moderates into jail, destroy the nation’s institutions, help Iran, throw hysterical tantrums about how much he hates Israel, promote Islamism in the region, and is fresh from still another meeting with Hamas leaders, Obama continues to use Erdogan as his guru.
When the two men met at the Seoul, South Korea, Nuclear Security Summit on March 25, Obama practically slobbered over the anti-American ruler, calling Erdogan his “friend and colleague….We find ourselves in frequent agreement upon a wide range of issues.”
When Erdogan goes to elections or is criticized by the opposition he uses statements like this to “prove” that his policies aren’t radical or anti-Western at all.Here’s a man whose regime can help terrorist groups organize a violent confrontation with Israel, preside over a virulently anti-American media, insist Iran isn’t seeking nuclear weapons and has a wonderful government, and then be lionized by the president of the United States.
Obama adds:
“I think it’s fair to say that over the last several years, the relationship between Turkey and the United States has continued to grow across every dimension. And I find Prime Minister Erdogan tobe an outstanding partner and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues.”
What did the two men talk about? Well, they first discussed Syria, an issue on which Obama praised Erdogan’s “outstanding leadership.” In fact, Turkey has helped to engineer an Islamist leadership in the Syrian National Council that wrecked any chance that the opposition could unite.Turkey’s rulers did this not to promote democracy but to promote the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now, according to reliable sources, Obama is discouraging Erdogan from advocating a no-fly zone and safe haven in northern Syria because the U.S. government has basically decided not to help the opposition, which will ensure that the Syrian dictatorship crushes it and continues to be Iran’s main ally in the region.
Instead, Obama is opting, in his words, for “a process whereby a transition to a representative and legitimate government in Syria takes place.” In other words, Obama advocates a deal between the opposition and the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad If this sounds like a contradiction, remember that this is also the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood line but is opposed by both the Free Syrian Army and the moderate oppositionists.
Of course, however, this strategy will merely buy time for the regime to achieve a bloody victory. Erdogan is now headed to Tehran where he will try to convince his friends there to stop helping their friends in Syria. Does that sound like a mission likely to succeed?”
“Erdogan can well be delighted. He can do whatever he wants, trample on human rights at home; court radicals abroad including Hamas, Hizballah, and Iran; subvert U.S. interests, and still have Obama sit worshipfully at his feet.”
And to further prove that point that the Obama administration is ACTIVLY discouraging and opposing ANY small step Turkey wants to take regarding Syria:
”In a previously unreported turn of events, it has now come to light that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her meeting with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu last month, emphatically dismissed a number of forward leaning options on Syria that the Turkish top diplomat proposed to the Obama administration.
What this means is that Washington, which at one point subcontracted its Syria policy to Ankara, has now called the Turks off the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
According to well-informed Turkish and US sources, during his meeting with Secretary Clinton, Davutoğlu put forward a set of measures, including, among others, creating a buffer zone and/or a humanitarian corridor, as well as organizing and equipping the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The secretary of state responded in no uncertain terms that the Obama administration had no interest in pursuing any of these options. In fact, according to one account, Clinton told her Turkish counterpart no less than three times, “We are not there.”
This conversation fits well with the administration’s message to other regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia, against arming the FSA and pushing Washington’s preferred policy of going through the Russians, in an attempt to reach a “political solution” to the Syrian crisis.”
“Apparently, the Turks, much like the Saudis, were looking to the first Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis as a possible forum to bypass the Russians and begin a more muscular effort, with US backing. The Saudis found out at the meeting that no such action was forthcoming, and withdrew in frustration, while publicly voicing their preference for arming the Syrian rebels.
The Turks got their answer from Secretary Clinton well before the Tunis gathering, and, according to the Turkish sources, were dismayed at the Obama administration’s extraordinary passivity and refusal to lead.
The message conveyed to the Turks was the same one made clear to the Saudis. According to one US source, when Davutoğlu ended up asking Clinton where the administration was on the issue, her response simply repeated the mantra about the Arab League initiative and going to the Security Council again for another go at the Russians.In other words, it was more of the same.”
“As a result, the administration has found itself in the surreal position of siding closer with Assad’s Russian ally and at cross-purposes with its own regional allies – and, most significantly, in contradiction with its own stated policy of regime change in Syria.”
With “allies” like this who need enemies?
And finally some FSA comedy:
THE FREE SYRIAN ARMY COLLECTS DONATIONS FOR THE TURKISH ARMY – The FSA, who barely have enough weapons and supplies for themselves, conduct a charity drive for the Turkish Army.
Assad’s forces attacked a refugee camp in the town of Kilis on the Turkish side of the border and injured a couple of Turks in addition to wounding a dozen Syrians and killing two.
The Turkish Army has yet to respond to the attack, so the FSA conducted this donations drive for them.
“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday said that the Syrian armed opposition exercises provocative acts to bring back violence and foil Annan’s plan.”
“Lavrov added that Moscow calls to solve all issues in peaceful methods through dialogue without foreign interference in accordance to the international law and within respecting the countries’ sovereignty and independence.”
So according to the Russians it is the unarmed civilians that are provoking the SYSTEMATIC destruction of cities, block by block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood.
And remember the destruction is done by Russian weapons, sold by Russia, the Syrian crews and troops trained by Russia, with Russianadvisers attached etc.: T-72s, 240mm mortar bomb system etc.
So that is what Lavrov means when he said “Moscow calls to solve all issues in peaceful methods through dialogue”.
This is the Russian version of “peaceful methods through dialogue”
And remember, as I said in my previous posts, one of the weapons used by the Syrian regime in Homs was the Russian 240mm F-864 high explosive mortar bomb. The world’s largest high explosive mortar bomb designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
This weapon system is notable for its capability to conduct a “plunging attack,” in which the munition is fired at a high angle and comes down nearly perpendicular to penetrate a building or fortification.
And Russians used a LOT of that “peaceful methods through dialogue” when the same weapon was used to destroy Grozny in 1994-96. And now they have passed on these “peaceful methods” to the Syrians
Remember also that Russia has blocked every attempt of a UN arms embargo. Just another helpful and friendly Russian way of “Moscow calls to solve all issues in peaceful methods through dialogue”.
And the French President Sarkozy has “discovered that Assad is lying and destroying Homs:
Sarkozy says Assad wants to “wipe Homs from the map”
“French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday accused Syria‘s Bashar al-Assad of seeking to ”wipe Homs from the map,” comparing his campaign to the Libyan regime’s attacks on the city of Benghazi.
”Bashar al-Assad is lying in a shameful way, he wants to wipe Homs from the map like [former Libyan strongman Moammar] Qaddafi wanted to wipe Benghazi from the map,” Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio station.
”The solution is the creation of humanitarian corridors so an opposition can exist inSyria,” he said.
The French president and other Western leaders had cited the Qaddafi regime’s attacks on Benghazi as reason for the international community to intervene in Libya.”
OK, so now you “got it”. And what exactly are you doing about it? More bombastic statements?
“Sarkozy also said that the isolation of Russia and China on Syria ”will not last” and that the two countries will eventually join the rest of the international community against Damascus.
”The Chinese and the Russians do not like being isolated,” he said.”
Well I wouldn’t bet on it. Russia and China will only change if the real costs are getting to high. And so far it is costing them nothing to protect and support Assad. On the contrary they feel that they have bolstered their position.
Some interesting stories from Syrian intelligence, police and army officers why they defected. Usually when they found out that the regime they where actively supporting had arrested, killed or destroyed houses of their relatives or family members.
Defectors Recount Tales of Conflict; ‘Blood on My Hands’ .
“RAMTHA, JORDAN—Sitting among family in this Jordanian town on the Syrian border, an ex-army intelligence officer recounted how he worked against rebel forces by intimidating family members to prevent military defections.
Now he’s a defector.
At the start of the Syrian revolution a year ago, the 21-year-old said he sat in his barracks with colleagues and watched TV reports of widespread protests against the government that met with increasingly brutal crackdowns. One day, he said, the TVs were removed and his commanders told him and his colleagues they were fighting against terrorists aligned with the U.S. and Israel who were plotting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
The intelligence officer said he worked tirelessly to crush the uprising in western Homs for five months, finally being granted two days of leave in July. He returned to his home in southern Deraa but it was riddled with bullets. His brother had been arrested under the charge of ”protesting” and his cousin killed by bullets fired by Syrian troops while demonstrating, he and his family members said in interviews.
The officer then realized he hadn’t been fighting terrorists, but his own people, he said.
”I have innocent blood on my hands,” he said, staring at the floor as his 3-year-old sister played beside him and his father and brother smoked cigarettes.”
“Here in Ramtha, a former lieutenant colonel recounted his swift—and short-lived—decision to desert the Syrian police and join rebel forces.
”I fought until they locked up my father, interrogated my sisters and burned down my house,” said the former officer, while sitting on floor cushions with other refugees. ”Now that I’m no longer fighting and left Syria, the pressure on my family is less.”
“Elsewhere in Ramtha, a former soldier who escaped to Irbid, Jordan, near the Syrian border, said his brother defected from the Syrian air force in April only to be caught and arrested. When their father went to the prison to inquire about the brother, he too was locked up, the soldier said.
The rest of the family is too scared to ask after the father and son, worried they too will be jailed, the former soldier said.
”No country is providing us weapons, Saudi and Qatarsay they want to, but don’t,” said the former solider, 29 years old. ”If the West doesn’t help us or other Arab countries, we’ll go to Al Qaeda. We don’t want to accept them, but what can we do when our children are being killed?”
“He said that what especially haunts him is the intelligence he provided to colleagues to arrest defectors’ female family members, a way to pressure the former soldiers to turn themselves in. He said he heard reports of rape perpetrated by his colleagues as another form of intimidation against family members, but hadn’t seen any firsthand.
”I defected because of what I saw how they killed people, like my own cousin, and destroyed their houses,” he said. ”I decided I couldn’t do this.”
A normal sign on any road wouldn’t you say?
“STOP. WATCH OUT FOR THE SNIPER”
And here is former Syrian General Akil Hashem take on the Uprising in Syria:
(His background: Joined the Syrian Army in 1962 and were promoted in the Military ranks until Brigadier General. He served in the armoured military units to become the Head of Operations for the Armoured Brigade.
He fought in 1967 June War and the 1973 October War, were he was badly injured, for that he was granted medals for his bravery: He retired – upon his request – in 1989.)
Former Syrian General Akil Hashem on the Uprising in Syria
“For a military perspective, Foreign Affairs’ Jordan Hirsch spoke with former Syrian Brigadier General Akil Hashem about the overall state of the rebellion, the capabilities of the military and the opposition, and what it will take to oust Assad. Excerpts:
Over a year after the uprising in Syria began, what is the state of the revolution?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is rapidly escalating its military campaign and will continue killing no matter what. But at the same time, the revolution will continue no matter what. This stalemate will not end unless the international community intervenes militarily.
One of the main reasons given by Western powers for their reluctance to intervene in Syriais the power of Syria’s military and air defenses. As a former brigadier general, what is your assessment?
I cannot believe that the United States, Britain, and France, with all of their intelligence capabilities, do not realize that the Syrian military is weak, largely thanks to rampant corruption. It’s one thing to have equipment and weapons, but it’s another thing to have the leadership to deploy them. And the leadership of the Syrian military is particularly decrepit. It starts with junior officers who ask soldiers to buy them cigarettes and then refuse to pay them back and goes all the way up to division commanders who divert army matériel to build their castles, villas, and mansions, ordering soldiers to construct them without compensation.
What about matériel?
The Syrian military is relatively well equipped, but the weapons that it does have are severely outdated. The T-72 tank, the top-of-the-line tank in Syrianow, entered service in 1979. The air defense missiles, except for some new ones from Iran, were purchased in that era as well. The same goes for armed vehicles. So this notion that Syria has a sophisticated air defense system or army is ridiculous “
“Where do you see the uprising heading over the next several months?
Assad cannot put down the rebellion. More than 10,000 people have been killed, but there are millions of Syrians participating directly or indirectly in the revolt, so the revolution will continue. That said, the rebels cannot win on their own. If the international community does not intervene, the conflict will persist indefinitely unless there is a military coup, an assassination of Assad or of top members of his regime, or a mass defection among the Alawite sect itself. The battle could continue like this for at least a year, if not longer. “
“What would it take for the West to intervene?
Western countries will only intervene if the Assad regime escalates its killing, or there is a massacre on the scale of Srebrenica. According to my sources, the regime actually regulates how many should be killed per day. At the beginning of the armed uprising, the number was about 50; after the assault on the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, the number increased to 100. Assad knows that if he commits a large-scale massacre, he will trigger intervention. So if the numbers climb to 30,000 or 40,000 dead, or many thousands are killed at once, then you may see the international community act.Syria may also provoke its neighbors — similar to what happened last week, when Syrian troops fired across the border into a Turkish refugee camp.
If Assad were to fall, what would Syria look like?
There will be chaos. It will be like Iraq — a totalitarian regime that controlled everything suddenly collapsing, opening the door for all kinds of problems, even sectarian violence. But anything that comes after the regime would be a million times better than what we currently have. The doomsday scenarios of the Muslim Brotherhood or al Qaeda taking over Syria are ridiculous. Eventually, the opposition forces in the diaspora and within the country will find a way to unite to establish a free, democratic country.”
And the wifes of Britain’s U.N. envoy and Germany’s U.N. ambassador (Sheila Lyall Grant and Huberta von Voss-Wittig) have produce a video were they appeal to Assads wife Asma ‘Stop your husband’
“Stand up for peace, Asma. Speak out now. For the sake of your people. Stop your husband,” asks the video. “Stop being a bystander. No one cares about your image. We care about your action
“We strongly believe in Asma’s responsibility as a woman, as a wife and as a mother. As the vocal female Arab leader that she used to be, as a champion of female equality, she can not hide behind her husband,” Lyall Grant and Wittig said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Well good luck with that. But I wouldn’t count on anything.
I was going to write about Chinas help and support for the Assad regime but it became to long. So I just am going to make two quick points.
First, that China, together with Russia, has blocked ANY international intervention or condemnation of the Syrian regime. Through vetos in the UN Security Council, voted against sanctions, voted against condemnations of the Assads regimes human rights record in various international bodies etc.
And China doesn’t recognize ANY of sanctions by the UN, EU etc.
Second, that China helps Assad mostly through Iran.
China has helped Iran to sidestep the regular global financial system to create a huge clandestine money-transfer, commercial and currency exchange machine for getting around the US-led Western sanctions hurting Irans international trade.
They are assisting in the construction of this underground network as a pipeline through whichIran can continue to conduct its commercial business with the outside world. And to help Iran evade the financial isolation because of the sanctions regarding its nuclear weapons program.
China also profits enormously from these sanctions-busting measures. Two years ago, anticipating the blockage of its regular trade relations, Iran began transferring billions of dollars to Chinese banks, which as a rule do not enter into foreign currency transactions with foreign banks.
However, the sums were so vast and the profits so tempting that China was persuaded to make an exception to this rule. International financial circles estimate that Iran transferred sums in the $ 25-50 billion range to Chinese banks.
China undertook to make available the amounts need to buy essential goods that the embargo prevents Iran from acquiring directly.
Beijing does the shopping and draws on the Iranian deposits to pay for the purchases. The goods are delivered to China and transferred to Iran via Pakistan.
China is making a very tidy profit from its shopping service for Iran. China is charging Iran an extra four-percent to cover insurance dues and another four percent surcharge as a “risk fee,” over and above the expensive roundabout delivery route. Already, China may be clearing as much as a billion dollars a year from this service alone.
When Washington found out about these arrangements about a month ago, US officials turned to China to get them stopped. They ran into a blank wall; the Chinese refused to give up their hugely profitable service for Iran
And the Chinese use this system to also help Assad with ALL the things he needs to suppress the uprising.
And as I told you in my previous post that Assad is short of money to pay for all the costly fuel (via Lebanon) his troops need to suppress the uprising. Because the embargo on fuel sales to Syria puts Assad in the hands of these Lebanese merchants.
So he has offered Russia and China $30 billion worth of government bonds for a massive injection of funds to his government.
“China said Thursday it was considering sending observers to monitor a Syrian ceasefire that came into force last week but is under threat as violence escalates.
”China is earnestly looking into whether to send observers to Syria or not,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Weimin told reporters at a regular briefing.”
OK, lets see if I got it: first you send money, arms, specialist, training etc. to help Assad to suppress the uprising and killing unarmed civilians, And then you send “observers” to see and make sure that the help you sent Assad has the effect it was supposed to. Of course all in the name of “observing the peace plan”.
The future for this peace plan and ceasefire looks better and better wouldn’t you say?
“The extent to which the monitors would be able to work independently was also called into question Sunday, as Syrian officials insisted that they take an active role in the work of the observers.
Government spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban told reporters Sunday that the government could not be responsible for the safety of the monitors unless it was involved in “all steps on the ground.” She added that Syria reserved the right to reject observers according to nationality. “
Ehhh, maybe I have misunderstood something here but that’s called discrimination and racism. In addition, it is wildly condemned and outlawed according to various UN charters. So the same UN that outlaws and forbid discrimination and racism is allowing the Syrians regime to pick and chose which colour and country the observers come from.
“But an activist outside the city of Hama said that demonstrators had been chanting against the presence of U.N. monitors. “We don’t want more people to watch us be killed,” said Mousab Alhamadee via Skype, calling instead for practical help for the opposition, including arming rebel forces. “
“We don’t want more people to watch us be killed,” I would say that that is a reasonably demand wouldn’t you?
And wasn’t there supposed to be a truce with the observers in place and all?
“Al-Arabiya: Syrian security forces killed 45 people Monday, activists say”
And the destruction and shelling of block after block, neigbourhood after neigbourhood continues as if nothing has happened from the Syrian regime.
One example of this “ceasfire” and destruction from the Syrian regime you can see here:
“Homs (Khalidiyeh): Apr 15, 2012 – Unbelievable level of destruction. Five (5) shells land in the span of 54 seconds on this small area alone.”
And in this video, also from Homs, you can litterally hear one shell a second.
“SO MANY SHELLS HIT THIS NEIGHBORHOOD, YOU CAN COUNT ONE EVERY SECOND Homs (Qarabis): Apr 15, 2012 – Assad’s forces are literally blanket-shelling the city of Homs. They are erasing the entire city and wiping off the map of Syria. There are no military targets in the city – only Syrian residents.
The world pats itself on its back for every shell that lands – after all, Assad ‘agreed’ to the so-called ‘ceasefire’ …. no response was thought of when he broke it … “
And an Assad minister have built a “modest” palace:
“At a time when pro-Assad troops and death squads are busy pounding towns and villages all over the country, the country’s Minister of Economy (note: I had earlier said Interior, which was a mistake of course), a George Washington University Alumnus, Nedal Alchaar, was busyputting the final touches on his villa in Aleppo City. Work was “finally” done, to use his own words, and he posted pictures of the villa on his Facebook page earlier yesterday, before he removed it when people began chatting about it on the net. Too late. It’s this kind of impunity by Assad officials that paved the way to the revolution. It’s this kind of impunity that will continue to fuel it, until the whole regime is brought down.”
Ammar Abduhamid a liberal democracy activist
Russia, as always “helpful”, announced on Friday, April 13, “A decision has been made to deploy Russian warships near the Syrian shores on a permanent basis.”
“Russian warships will be continuously deployed for patrol duty off the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean, a high-ranking source in the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.
“A decision has been made to deploy Russian warships near the Syrian shores on a permanent basis,” the source said. The Russian Kashin-class guided-missile destroyer Smetlivy is currently deployed near the Syrian coast.
“Another Black Sea Fleet ship will replace the Smetlivy in May,” the source said, adding that several Russian warships were on their way to the Mediterranean.”
It is the first time that Russia officially has announced the permanent deployment of naval vessels in the eastern Mediterranean and off Syria. Thus extending a protective shield over Assad and his regime against outside military intervention.
IRAN
Like Russia, Iran’s strategic interest and massive support forSyria in all shapes and form goes way back, to the 1979 revolution in Iran.
For Iran, Syria plays a vital roll in it’s ambitions to control parts of the Middle East. And Syria is crucial for Iran’s support and control of Hezbollah and Lebanon. And Hamas in Gaza.
Syria was the first Arab country to recognize the provisional government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan after the shah’s ouster. Syria also provided invaluable diplomatic and military support to Iran after Iraq’s 1980 invasion.
Both countries worked together against their mutual foe Saddam Hussein and Iraq, Syria was also a channel for arms shipments to Iran during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Etc
The alliance was first formalized in March 1982 with a series of bilateral agreements on oil, trade and a secret pact on military cooperation.
They cooperated on everything from development of ballistic missiles. To arming, training and supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. To influence events in Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. Etc.
Both also provided significant aid to internal and foreign forces in Iraq, challenging the U.S. military and the new government in Baghdad.
Interestingly the balance of power in the Syrian-Iranian alliance has shifted since 1979. Syria was the dominant partner in the 1980-90s. Today Iran is the stronger partner and Assad depends on Iran (together with Russia) for his survival.
One example: From 1976 to 2005, Syria was the more dominant player in Lebanon due to its military presence. But its leverage weakened after Damascus was forced to pull out troops in 2005. Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian party and militia, has since become the most influential ally in Lebanese politics even if Syria still has a very strong influence there.
Another interesting aspect is that they cooperate very well even if they have very different ideological and political goals.
For example,Syria and Iraq were intense political rivals, and often came close to military blows, because they shared the same Baa’thist ideology. The political elites in Tehran and Damascus were never competing.
Iran has vied for leadership of the Islamist bloc in the Middle East and beyond, a role in which secular Syria has no interest. Syria has long sought to be ”the beating heart of Arabism,” a role in which Iran, a non-Arab country, has no interest. Except for a brief period of rival ambitions in Lebanon, the two countries have never been in competition — ideologically, economically, or militarily. Neither has tried to upstage the other.
But enough of background, lets go to present times.
As I said above, today Iran is the stronger partner and Assad TOTALLY depends on Iran (together with Russia and China) for his survival.
Iran has spent many billions on shoring up the survival of the Assad regime and the Syrian economy against the uprising. It has sent thousands of Iranian military, intelligence, cyber warfare and drone warfare personnel and civilian experts to fight on its behalf.
Iran thinks that by backing the “winning horse” in Damascus they have empowered their Russian partnership as well as the pro-Iranian bloc embracing Assad’s Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Hamaz on the Gaza Strip.
Iran is de facto the banker of last resort for Assad. So far, every time Assad has asked the Iranians for more money he got it. Although Iran is enduring hard times itself.
It is estimated that Iran has sent more than two billion dollars into the Syrian treasury emptied by Western sanctions.
Iranian financial and banking agents also act for Syriain overseas transactions. Iran arranged for Syrian oil to reach buyers, putting to work the sanctions-busting measures it had developed to overcome the sanctions imposed on Iran itself by the US, Europe and Arab countries.
“Iran is helping its ally Syria defy Western sanctions by providing a vessel to ship Syrian oil to a state-run company in China, potentially giving the government of President Bashar al-Assad a financial boost worth an estimated $80 million.”
Another:
Iran covers the payroll for the military and security personnel and the government departments that’s keep the regime functioning – to the tune of more than half a billion dollars a month, according to estimates.
Assad’s biggest problem now is to keep the money flowing to buy fuel for the Syrian war machine. All the Russian tanks, self-propelled artillery, trucks etc. are constantly on the move from one rebel flashpoint to another, reinforcing units and ferrying troops, equipment and ammunition.
But the embargo on fuel sales to Syria puts Assad in the hands of Lebanese merchants. He has run out of funds to meet their exorbitant charges for petrol and diesel, without which his military crackdown would grind to a stop. So now, Russia and China have therefore been asked for the necessary funding since Iranis already paying for so much.
Assad has survived so far thanks to massive Russian and Iranian backing and cooperation.
Another example of this cooperation and High-level Iranian-Russian coordination:
As I wrote in my previous post:
“Russia knew exactly what Assad needed after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov had paid a visit to Damascus on February 7 and talked to Assad.
While the visit was billed as a Russian bid to persuade him to accept political reforms, “They were seeking to find ways for stabilisation in Syria through democratic reforms.” http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c142/337363_print.html, it actually focused on the ways and means in which Russia could help the Syrian ruler quickly stamp out the armed revolt against his rule.
Moreover, this move was coordinated with Iran. Iran and Russia have a division of labour so to say between themselves. They have divided who does what in a high-level coordination.”
Well guess what,
Iran’s al Qods Brigades commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani was there February 5-6 at the head of a large military-intelligence delegation. And when the Iranians left, the Russians arrived.
Their combined missions: to finalize Russian-Iranian-Syrian collaboration in Syria and the Middle East after the regime finally suppresses the revolt.
So while the Obama administration was working through Moscow to bring Iran to the negotiating table with the Six Powers on its nuclear program, Russian and Iranian clandestine agencies were busy working together in Syria to undercut US and Western positions.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put two top officials in charge of the Save Assad mission and the cementing of Iranian-Syrian ties: Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi and Al-Qods Brigades’ commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The pair operated in close sync both with the Syrian leadership and their Russian colleagues, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov and Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin’s ambassador-at-large in Arabia, whose formal title is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.
The Quds Force is normally Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) special department tasked with furthering the Islamic revolution outside of the country’s borders, and is also responsible for arming and training Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad – as well as supporting Iran-backed terror operations around the world.
As the Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi claimed with some justification on March 27 “Iran has the most powerful intelligence service in the region”
The ‘men’ in the house are: Bashar Al Assad, Vladimir Putin, Ayatollah Khaemeni and Hassan Nasrallah.
Another area where Iran has really helped Assad is in controlling and suppressing civilian uprising in the cities and social media.
Iran sent Syria thousands of military, intelligence and security strategists and riot dispersal experts, surveillance equipment for guidance and training in cracking down on the uprising in the cities. Cyber warfare specialists to help the work of Syrian security and intelligence services. It has also shared techniques on Internet surveillance and disruption. Etc.
The Iranians become masters of this during the crackdown on the Green Revolution witch started June 13 2009. And they are now passing on this lessons to Assda’s regime.
(You can see some of the names of the killed and detained here:
And by the way, Obama did nothing to support that uprising either. Except some platitudes of course.
On example:
It was the Iranians agents and special operations units that disabled the Western logistical intelligence network in beleaguered Homs and helped Syrian intelligence block Syrian rebel arms smuggling routes incoming fromIraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Etc.
Remember the killed journalist in Homs? A “successful” cooperation of Russian SIGINT satellite tracking and Iranian special forces on the ground.
They have been so successful that Assad has lifted restrictions on social networking web sties to lure dissents out into the open.
“Iranian-assisted computer surveillance is believed to have led to the arrests of hundreds of Syrians seized from their homes in recent weeks” (May 2011).
“In the account provided by the diplomat and the U.S. officials, the Iranian military trainers were being brought to Damascus to instruct Syrians in techniques Iran used against the nation’s “Green Movement’’ in 2009, the diplomat said. The Iranians were brutally effective in crushing those protests.
Officers from Iran’s notorious Quds Force have played a key role in Syria’s crackdown since at least mid-April (2011), said the U.S. and allied officials. They said U.S. sanctions imposed against the Quds Force in April were implicitly intended as a warning to Iran to halt the practice.”
“The Obama administration mentioned the role of the Quds Forces in announcing two sets of sanctions imposed against Syrian government officials in the past month. A White House executive order last week that targeted Assad and six other top government officials also included a little-noticed reference to Mohsen Chizari, an Iranian military officer who is the No. 3 leader in the Quds Force in charge of training.”
Imagine how EASY it is to track the opposition if they use Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc, In an INSTANT you have hundreds of names and contact details. YUM for any dictator.
And by the way, that “warning” one year ago from the Obama administration to Iran to halt it’s “practice” seems to have fallen on totally deaf ears.
Iran helping Assad to put down protests – officials
“Iranian security officials have also travelled to Damascus to advise Assad’s entourage how to counter dissent, the official said. Some Iranian officials have stayed on inSyriato advise Assad’s forces, he added.
A European official said that the Iranians were providing Syrian security agencies with hardware and software that would help them disrupt efforts to organize protests inside Syria and efforts by anti-government elements to spread their message to supporters outside the country.
Officials said that Syria had also obtained some surveillance technology from European suppliers.
The Treasury imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Ismail Ahmadi Moghadam and Ahmad-Reza Radan, chief and deputy chief of Iran’s national police force, because their agency had ”provided support to the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate and dispatched personnel to Damascus in April to assist the Syrian government in suppressing the Syrian people.”
The Treasury alleged that Radan had travelled to Damascus to meet with Syrian security agencies, to whom he allegedly provided ”expertise to aid in the Syrian government crackdown on the Syrian people.”
“WITHDRAWL OF THE CITIES FROM ARMY (HELD) AREAS” … Assad’s army has not withdrawn from all cities as agreed to in the UN brokered ‘Ceasefire’ plan. So, the people of Kafranbel have anther suggestion…
“The Iranian regime has also provided Assad with technology to monitor e-mail, cell phones, and social media. Iran developed these capabilities in the wake of the 2009 protests and spent millions of dollars establishing a ”cyber army” to track down dissidents online. Iran’s monitoring technology is believed to be among the most sophisticated in the world — second, perhaps, only to China. Shortly after Iran shared its know-how with Syria this summer, Assad lifted restrictions on social networking Web sties, presumably to lure dissents out into the open.
In addition to sharing weapons and surveillance tools credible reports from Syrian refugees indicate that Tehran sent its own forces to Syriato quash the protests. A number of revolutionary guards from the elite Quds Force are also reported to be there, presumably to train Syrian forces. On May 18, the U.S. Treasury Department mentioned the role of the Quds Force directly, asserting that Mohsen Chizari, the Quds Force’s third-in-command, was training the security services to fight against the protestors”
In really desperate situation for the Syrian regime the Iranians “come out of their shadows” and take directly part:
Syrian refugees say Iranian forces involved in crackdown
“Mostafa, an injured Syrian refugee, said: ”There were both plainclothes and uniformed Iranian soldiers. I saw them with my own eyes. We asked them not to attack us, but they didn’t speak Arabic.”
The 23-year-old man added that his attackers wore black shirts, which is uncommon in Syria, and wore beards. He added that the Syrian military is forbidden to wear beards.
A 17-year-old Syrian student named Akram reported: ”Most of these people are snipers. They do not speak Arabic and, most significantly, they carry weapons that are unfamiliar to us.”
Guardian correspondent Martin Chulov on Iranian soldiers inSyria
”Over the past year,Iran has provided security assistance to Damascus to help shore up Assad. Tehran during the last couple of months has been aiding the Syrian regime with lethal assistance – including rifles, ammunition, and other military equipment – to help it put down the opposition,” a U.S. official said.
”Iran has provided Damascus (with) monitoring tools to help the regime suppress the opposition. It has also shared techniques on Internet surveillance and disruption,” the official continued.
He added that Iran had also provided Assad’s government with ”unarmed drones that Damascus is using along with its own technology to monitor opposition forces.”
The more advanced drones Iran supply directly to Syria. But Syria’s military industry manufactures some less advanced Iranian drones. The drones are manufactured at Syria’s Scientific Research Center, where rockets and advanced missiles are also manufactured.
And then there is the Iran-Iraq-Syria and of course Lebanon axis.
As it is now Iran has a massive leverage in Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s is considered by the Saudis and the Gulf States to be just a Iranian agent or at least committed to a very pro-Iranian policy.
In 1979, al-Maliki fled Iraq after he was discovered to be a member of the outlawed Islamic Dawa Party. He left Iraq via Jordan and to Syria. He then left Syria for Iran in 1982, where he lived inTehran until 1990, before returning to Damascus where he remained until U.S. coalition forces invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam’s regime in 2003. While living inSyria, he worked as a political officer for Dawa, developing close ties with Hezbollah and particularly withIran, supporting that country’s effort to topple Saddam’s regime.
Why is this important? Well most of the massive Iranian aid and support for Assad goes via or over Iraq.
In February this year, Iran organized the biggest airlift with aid to Assad. The biggest Iran had ever organized and it was critical in helping Assad win out over the revolt.
As OC US Central Command Gen. James Mattis explained March 3 to the Senate Armed Services Committee: They (Iranians) are working earnestly to keep Assad in power. They have flown in experts. They are flying in weapons. It is a full-throated effort by Iran to keep Assad there and oppressing his own people.”
And this heavy airlift was made possible by Baghdad’s permission to fly over Iraq directly to Syria. Obama tried interceding with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to block the Iranian transport flights to Syriaonly to be turned down.
US concerned about Iranian flights over Iraq to Syria
“The United States said Friday it is concerned about Iranian cargo flights over Iraq to Syria, saying it has warned Iraq they might contain arms that could be used by Damascus to crush protests.
”Without getting into intelligence matters, we are concerned about the over flight of Iraq by Iranian cargo flights headed to Syria,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters.
”We are consulting with Iraq about them and we are making the point that any export of arms or related materials from Iran, frankly, to any destination would be a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1747,” she said.
Nuland said the Iraqis were also being told ”that any arms sent to the Syrian regime at this time would obviously be used in the brutal repression that the regime is exacting on its own people.”
She added: ”So we are in consultation with Iraq… encouraging the government of Iraq to be absolutely sure about any cargo that is overflying its territory.”
Iraqi Premier Nuri al-Maliki insisted Friday that all items transported through Iraq to Syriawere humanitarian goods, after a US newspaper reported Iran was moving weapons to Syria via Iraqi air space.”
Very strange “humanitarian goods” since it’s sole purpose is to kill people.
And Obama was turned down by Nouri al-Maliki and this exceptionally heavy airlift by the Iranian military was just “humanitarian goods”.
Yeap, that was a VERY good return for overthrowing Saddam and installing Nuri al-Maliki as premier in Iraq.
Was it worth ALL these allied lives??
Killed in Iraq
US – 4486
UK – 179
Other – 139
And the ENORMOUS money you spent??
Total cost for US around $2 Trillion.
And by the way, Iran now ALSO have a permanent naval base in Latakia inSyria.
On February. 25, an Iranian-Syrian naval cooperation accord was signed providing for Iranto build its first Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port. The base will include a large Iranian Revolutionary Guards weapons depot stocked with hardware chosen by the IRGC subject to prior notification to Damascus. Latakia harbor will be deepened, widened and provided with new “coastal installations” to accommodate the large warships and submarines destined to use these facilities.
Quiet a coup for Iran. It has acquired its first military foothold on a Mediterranean shore and its first permanent military presence on Syrian soil. Tehran will be setting in place the logistical infrastructure for accommodating incoming Iranian troops to fight in a potential Middle East war.
Syrian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Mohammad Habib said:” At a ceremony in honor of the Iranian Navy Commander Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Habib said: ”Iranian warships’ presence in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time after 32 years is a great move that is going to cripple Israel.”
So for the first time in 32 years two Iranian warships were allowed to pass through the Suez Canal (the Egyptians have stopped them before), and they are now building a permanent naval base in the Mediterranean.
And the as always very helpful Russians have said that they are willing to contribute towards the Iranian port’s defenses and looking forward to cooperation between the Russian, Iranian and Syrian fleets in the eastern Mediterranean opposite the US Sixth Fleet’s regular beat.
“Nothing impresses anymore: killing entire families by smashing their skulls or slashing their throats, pounding residential neighborhood with tanks, missiles, choppers and heavy artillery, burning people alive, commanding snipers to target children… nothing!The world remains indifferent to our suffering. After all, it’s nothing people haven’t seen before. Just another dictator torturing and killing his people, so what! So what!”
Ammar Abdulhamid a liberal democracy activist
And there are signs of ethnic cleansing:
“In the mountains along the coast, where Sunni, Alawite, Christian, Kurdish and Turkmen communities intermingle, pro-Assad militias have conducted a major raid against Sunni communities (namely the villages of Al-Kabaneh and ‘Akko) near the town of Slenfehin Al-Akrad Mountain. The ensuing clashes left at least 2 dead and drove hundreds away from their homes, as pro-Assad militias ransacked their homes. Another troubling report from the Coast comes from the city of Jablehwhere local activists say that walls have recently been constructed to separate Sunni and Alawite neighborhoods. The Sunnis represent a little less than 30% of the local population and seldom venture out of their neighborhoods at this stage, as they are often subject to harassment and arrests. Pro-Assad militias, made up mostlyof Alawite inhabitants, periodically ransack and loot their shops”
The issue of ethnic cleansing in the coastal regions and surrounding mountains is something that requires careful monitoring, because, regardless of what people say about the viability or non-viability of an Alawite state, most pro-Assad militias seem to have adopted a philosophy that calls for cleansing their traditional strongholds of Sunnis, irrespective of whether the end product is the creation of an Alawite state or not. It’s a philosophy inspired in part by pure sectarian vindictiveness (preventative vindictiveness to be specific), and in another by a just-in-case mentality. In either case, it’s a dire foreteller of things to come.”
Russia
The Russian strategic interest and massive support in all shapes and form goes way back to the1950s and Soviet times.
Most of the Syrian political and military “structures” where modelled after the Soviet ideas and structures and Soviet methods. Done to the smallest lever and minute detail.
The command structure, which used to be modelled on that of France, was restructured after that of the Soviet Union. Some uniforms, such as the army combat clothing, have been changed to resemble Soviet prototypes. Etc.
Virtually all Syrians sent abroad for military training went to the Soviet Bloc and all foreign instructors have come from there. A Soviet style ”political department” was introduced to assure ideological homogeneity among the soldiers and officers. The Syrian military introduced a fourth service, the Air-Defence Command, patterned on the Soviet Troops of Air Defence. Etc.
And Soviet personnel have taken over military operations within Syria in emergencies. During the 1973 war with Israel, the headquarter staffs of a Soviet airborne division was flown to Damascus to prepare for the defence of that city.
Soviet pilots flew combat missions in Syrian airplanes and operated a reconnaissance squadron of MiG-25s in the 1970s with their own soviet ground crews. Etc.
The Syrians acquire over 95 percent of their weapons, some of them extremely advanced, from the Soviet Union. A practice that goes on still to day with Russia.
In the mid 1980s, Syria has contracted for $19 billion in Soviet military hardware.
For example, Syria had the most sophisticated and densest Soviet-supplied air defence system outside the Soviet Union.
This air-defence network in Syria was (and is) linked electronically to stations in the Soviet Union/Russia. And to Soviet/Russian ships in the Mediterranean. Making Syria an integral part of the Soviet/Russian security apparatus. The Soviets had ”hands on” control of air activity based in Syria: according to U.S. intelligence. All of the radar data, missile readiness status, interceptor aircraft conditions-such as fuel and armaments-and other battle information that is fed into central command posts in Syria will also be displayed for Soviet/Russian generals in the Soviet Union/Russia via space relayed transmissions.
And at all times, there was a huge number of Soviet/Russian troops, advisors, technicians etc, more than in any other Third Worldcountry.
Not to forget the Soviet/Russian bases in Syria. Soviet submarines operating in the Mediterraneanwhere based primarily at Tartus and their naval airplanes have access to the Tiyas field etc
Syrian leaders consistently and closely identified with Soviet goals. For example, Syria was one of very few states freely choosing to vote at the UN in favour of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. And it agreed with the Soviet Union on every issue in the UN etc.
Damascus supported all the causes of the Soviet bloc and in return, Syria’s received support from the whole Soviet bloc. Just one example, when Syria needed military help in 1973 and 1974, Cuba provided tank operators, MiG- and helicopter pilots.
Another example, the 1980 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, created a ”strategic alliance between the two great forces of socialism and national liberation.” So the Syrian-Soviet ties were VERY CLOSE.
And the Soviet Union and now Russia built up and trained, and supervised, the Syrian intelligence and internal protection forces.
One example: In mid-1980, at the peak of a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood, 500 KGB advisors were training Syrian intelligence officers at an army base south of Damascus. Other Syrians went to the Soviet Union for similar training. A few days after the rebellion in Hama erupted in 1982, the chief of Syrian internal security, ‘Ali Duba, requested help from the Soviets. Twelve Soviet officers, experts in street fighting, went to Hama, where three of them were killed.
Somewhere between 20 000 to 40 000 civilians, from the youngestchild to the oldest person – no “discrimination” in killing here, were slaughtered in Hama in February 1982. The Syrian army, under the orders of the president, Hafez al-Assad, conducted a scorched earth operation against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against the regime of al-Assad. The Hama massacre was carried out by the Syrian Army under General Rifaat al-Assad, president Assad’s younger brother.
So to recapitulate:Soviet Union trained, “advised” and took part with the troops that slaughtered the civilians in Hama. Besides supplying the weapons used.
There was another massacre in Hama in April 1981. The Syrian, Alawite dominated, army massacred about 400 of the Sunni Hama’s inhabitants, chosen randomly among the male population over the age of 14.
As you can see, it is really a “family affair” and a tradition of the Assad’s. And the “business model” seems to be slaughter of civilians.
But enough of background, lets go to present times.
As we have already established, first theSoviet Union, and nowRussia, have a long history of massive support and protection of the Assad’s and the Syrian regime.
So let’s start with the arms.
Russian arms STILL accounts for around 95 % of Syrian weapons imports
According to the latest “official” figures just released by SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute):
“Russia supplied 78 per cent of Syria’s imports in 2007–11. During 2011 Russia continued deliveries of Buk-M2E SAM systems and Bastion-P coastal defence missile systems to Syria, as well as securing an order for 36 Yak-130 trainer / combat aircraft. These deliveries contributed to a 580 per cent increase in the volume of Syrian arms imports between 2002–2006 and 2007–11.”
Nearly $1bn worth of Russian missiles and aircraft upgrades were reportedly sold to Syria in 2011, while shipments of smaller weapons have been harder to trace.
The second biggest supplier in 2007-2011 was Belarus, which supplied 17% of the total.
Remember that the Belarus weapons in reality are Russian weapons.
The third one was Iran with 5% of imported weapons to Syria. Some of these weapons are also Russian.
And remember, as I said in my previous posts, one of the weapons used by the Syrian regime in Homs was the Russian 240mm F-864 high explosive mortar bomb. The world’s largest high explosive mortar bomb designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
This weapon system is notable for its capability to conduct a “plunging attack,” in which the munition is fired at a high angle and comes down nearly perpendicular to penetrate a building or fortification.
This is the same weapon that Russia used to destroy Grozny in 1994-96. And now they have passed on these “skills” to the Syrians.
Remember also that Russia has blocked every attempt of a UN arms embargo.
“In addition, SIPRI experts point out that the main importer of weapons to Syria – Russia – ignores the UN proposal to impose an embargo on arms supplies to Syria and plans further deliveries, including 24 combat aircraft MiG-29M2 and 36 Yak-130.”
Virtually all of Moscow’s arms sales are processed by the state-owned corporation Rosoboronexport, the Russian treasury have much to gain from a spike in Syrian arms deals.
Here is an example of the length Russia will go to break the arms embargo:
Russia boosts arms sales to Syria despite world pressure
In January, the Russian ship Chariot, loaded with arms and ammunition, was halted during a refuelling stop inLimassol, Cyprus. It gave reassurances it was not travelling to Syria. However, after being released, the ship dropped off the tracking systems and radar and sailed quietly to the Syrian port of Tartus.
To avoid attracting the attention of world powers increasingly frustrated byRussia and China’s refusal to back U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at ending violence,
“But rebel soldiers and an official who defected from the government say Moscow’s small arms trade with Damascusis booming,and the government doubled its military budget in 2011 to pay for the crackdown on the opposition.
”I would say that on average the funds (for Defence Ministry expenditure) were doubled for 2011,” said Mahmoud Suleiman Haj Hamad, the former chief auditor for Syria‘s Defence Ministry who defected in January.
He said by telephone from Cairo that Russian arms accounted for 50 percent of all deals before Assad’s crackdown on the protesters. China and North Korea provided 30 percent, and Iran and other suppliers 20 percent, he said.
The government had boosted its defence budget and arms imports by cutting funds to other ministries in areas such as education and health by as much as 30 percent, he said.
”Before the uprising, Russia was trading weapons with Syria in a more limited manner. More recently … Russia began giving more weapons to Syria,” he said.
”To my knowledge, Russia was shipping monthly,” he said, referring to deliveries prior to his defection last month.
Thomson Reuters shipping data shows at least four cargo ships since December that left the Black Seaport of Oktyabrsk – used by Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport for arms shipments – have headed for or reached the Syrianport of Tartous.
Separately was the Chariot, a Russian ship which docked at the Cypriot port of Limassol during stormy weather in mid-January. It promised to change its destination in accordance with a European Union ban on weapons to Syria but, hours after leaving Limassol, reset its course for Syria.
A Cypriot source said it was carrying a load of ammunition and a European security source said the ship was hauling ammunition and sniper rifles of the kind used increasingly by Syrian government forces against protesters.
The source also said Russian manufacturers had increased production to meet the demand from Syria. The ship’s owner Westberg said that the ship was carrying a ”dangerous cargo.”
Syria hosts a Russian naval facility on its Mediterranean coast, a rare outpost abroad forMoscow’s military. Damascus has also been a loyal Russian arms customer since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when it used Soviet-made weapons against Israelwhich was largely supplied by theUnited States.
Numerous Russian weapons advisers work in Syria and Rosoboronexport has an office with a staff of about 20 in the country, a source close to the company said.
CAST, a Moscow-based defence think tank, says Russia sent Syria at least $960 million worth of heavy arms – which included several missile systems – in 2011 and has some $4 billion in outstanding contracts.
Hamad, the former military auditor, said many sales of Russian small arms are carried out through traders. It was not clear if they had the Kremlin’s blessing to trade the weapons.
Soviet arms are also sold by other states that have stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons that can be confused with arms coming from Russia.
”I know that Syria is paying for some of the weapons through traders and middlemen, not through contracts between states,” said Hamad.
But shipments of Russian arms to Syria have become so frequent that rebel soldiers try to track the deliveries from Syria’s ports to military bases in the interior.
A former army lieutenant who defected in August and gave his name only as Omar explained how he and dozens of other fighters use a network of port workers to find out when shipments of arms arrive and where they are going, sometimes ambushing convoys.
”Every few weeks, trucks move weapons from the coast to bases in the interior,” he said. ”Almost all of them are Russian.”
Another example from December 2011:
“Expanded Russian military and diplomatic support for the Assad regime was underscored by the deployment Friday, Dec. 16 (2011), of advanced Moscow-supplied Yakhont (SSN-26) shore-to-sea missiles along Syria‘s Mediterranean shore to fend off a potential Western-Turkish invasion by sea. Last week, Russia airlifted to Syria 3 million face masks against chemical and biological weapons and the Admiral Kutznetsov carrier and strike group was sent on its way to Syria‘s Mediterranean port of Tartus.
Russian naval sources in Moscow stressed that the flotilla is armed with the most advanced weapons against submarines and aerial attack. Upon arrival, the Russian craft will launch a major marine-air maneuver in which Syrian units will take part.
Syria has received from Russia 72 Yakhont missiles able to hit marine targets up to a distance of 300 kilometers – i.e., over the horizon, our military sources report. The missile’s radar remains inert, making it hard to detect, until it is close to target. It is then switched on to guide its aim.
Its high speed – 2,000 kmh – enables the Yakhont to strike before its target has time to activate self-defense systems.
Thursday night, in response to the deployment of 21 Syrian Scuds on the Turkish border, including five with chemical warheads, Ankara convened its top military council and declared its armed forces ready for war. Syria also rushed armored reinforcements to the Jordanian border.”
Another:
The 50 Pantsyr-S1 interceptor batteries, now the backbone of Syrian air and missile defenses, which Moscow sold Syria. And that Russian military crews have since mid-January taken over their operation from Syrian personnel.
Another:
The only Russian naval base in the Middle East is Tartus, a deep-water military port in Syria. And Moscow has been restoring and upgrading that base since 2008. It also has permanently stationed ships and troops there.
And do the Russian have any intention of stopping the accelerated arms export to Syria? On the contrary, they boldly states that they will continue:
The Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claimed in a speech to Russia’s lower house of parliament in the beginning of March, with a straight face, that Russian weapons sent to Syria were for “external threats” and have not been used against civilians or peaceful demonstrators.
And on March 14, Russia‘s Deputy Defence Minister insisted his government would not halt weapons sales to Damascus. Despite the US and Europe imposing arms embargoes, Anatoly Antonov insisted that Russia’s deals with Syria were ”perfectly legitimate” and would continue.
“Russia enjoys good and strong military technical co-operation with Syria, and we see no reason today to reconsider it. Russian-Syrian military co-operation is perfectly legitimate,” said Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov. “It’s part of our contractual obligations. When we supply weapons, we have to provide training
Despite this growing evidence that the arms it sells the regime are being used against civilians, Russia remains defiant. ”Russia enjoys good and strong military technical co-operation with Syria, and we see no reason today to reconsider it,” Mr Antonov said yesterday. ”Russian-Syrian military co-operation is perfectly legitimate,” he added. Mr Antonov admitted that Russia has military instructors on the ground in Syria training the Syrian army.
”It’s part of our contractual obligations,” said the minister. ”When we supply weapons, we have to provide training.” He denied thatRussia had sent special forces to assist in military planning.”
And are the Russian government upset with, or in any shape or form protesting the Syrian regimes mass slaughter of unarmed civilians?
Remember that in 1982 they ACTIVELY took part in the slaughter in Hama
On the contrary, they vigorously deny it and defend the Syrian regime.
One small example by Russian Embassy inWashington:
“That the U.S.and most Western nations are at odds with Russian policy should not come as a surprise. Nevertheless, the manner in which Moscow is shamelessly pushing its case demonstrates the seriousness with which they view the Syrian issue. Take, for instance, the Capitol Hill briefing on Tuesday afternoon held by the Russian embassy and hosted by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). Led by embassy officials Anton Vushkarnik and Sergey Kuznetsov, they refused to even acknowledge that Bashar al-Assad was killing his own people. They brazenly defended their ongoing sale of arms to the Assad regime by citing that there was no international law that prevents such sales — even though it was Russia and China that vetoed the very UN Security Council resolution that would have put the ban in place.
“The Russian embassy officials refused to acknowledge basic facts about the burgeoning conflict in Syria, including that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continues to kill his own people. The Russia officials also claimed that an equal number of Syrian civilians have died at the hands of the Syrian opposition.
The Russian officials also defended their country’s ongoing arms sales to the Syrian regime, pointing out that there is no international law preventing such sales. (Of course, it was Russia along with China that vetoed the U.N. Security Council resolution that would have instituted such an arms embargo.) “
”The UN Human Rights Council ordered Friday an extension of a probe into violations inSyria, asking investigators to map out abuses since a deadly crackdown on protests in the country erupted a year ago.
The resolution was passed by the 47-member state council with 41 votes in favor, two abstentions and three — Russia, China and Cuba — against.”
And this glaring example of the deceitful Russian hypocritical attitude when in a statement on March 22, the Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its “deep concern” over human rights violations committed by armed groups affiliated with the Syrian opposition. Extensively citing an open letter on this issue published by Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch also learned that Russian diplomats used the open letter in informal Security Council discussions on March 22 in an attempt to equate the violence by both sides.
Human Rights Watch issued the following statement on March 23, 2012, concerning the Russian Foreign Ministry’s use of a Human Rights Watch statement to support a one-sided position onSyria:
“Since the beginning of the protests in Syria, Human Rights Watch has produced over 60 publications, including three extensive reports, on human rights violations by Syrian government forces. These publications contain detailed documentation of widespread and systematic abuses, including killings of peaceful protesters, shelling of residential neighborhoods, large-scale arbitrary detention and torture, “disappearances,” executions, denial of medical assistance, and looting.
Human Rights Watch concluded that that some of these violations constitute crimes against humanity and repeatedly called for an end to abuses and accountability for the perpetrators. Human Rights Watch presented the findings directly to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, urgingRussia to use its strong bilateral relations with the Syrian government as well as its weight in the international arena to put an end to government abuses.
None of these findings have been ever acknowledged by Russian officials.
Instead, despite overwhelming evidence of egregious crimes committed by the Syrian security forces, Russia provides diplomatic and military support to Bashar al-Assad’s government and has repeatedly blocked international action aimed at stopping the violations and bringing those responsible for these crimes to justice.
Russia should not pick and choose. If it relies on Human Rights Watch’s findings to support its condemnation of abuses by the Syrian opposition, it should pay equal attention to the extensive documentation of violations by government forces and support international efforts to stop those violations.”
Russian anti-personal PMN-2 mines planted by Syria on the border with Turkey
And there is the Russian help to bypass all embargos and sanctions. Since the outbreak of the Syrian protests last March, Russia has undermined every possibility of external intervention. The fact that Russia is continuing to arm and assist the Assad regime makes Russia complicit in the growing list of Syrian government atrocities.
Russia, like China, does not recognize the legitimacy of the oil embargo or the financial sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe.
Western financial sources suspect a number of local Russian banks which have no business dealings with the American banking system may be handling transactions between Syrian, Iranian and Far Eastern banking institutions
Not to mention the veto’s in the UN security council. And the Russians work very had to ensure that there is NO hard conditions put on the Syrian regime.
Russia rejects deadline for Annan’s Syria peace plan
“Russia on Monday rejected Arab and Western calls for a deadline to be set for the Syrian regime’s implementation of a peace plan put forward by international mediator Kofi Annan.
”Ultimatums and artificial deadlines rarely help matters,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said while on a visit to the former Soviet nation of Armenia.
Lavrov added that only the UN Security Council, where Russia wields veto power, could put any time restrictions on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s compliance with the six-point initiative.
”Annan has a Security Council mandate and it is up to the UN Security Council to decide who is complying with this plan and how,” he said.
The so-called ”Friends of Syria” meeting of Arab and Western nations in Istanbulagreed this weekend to ask the UN to give Assad a deadline to cooperate with Annan’s solution to the year-long conflict.
The plan itself demands that Assad pull out his forces from major flashpoint cities and introduce a daily two-hour ceasefire that could let aid workers deliver supplies and treat the thousands of injured civilians.
But it puts forward no time frame in which Assad has to comply.
Lavrov said the peace plan would not work unless rebel forces also agreed to halt fire.
”The demands should be put to all sides of the barricades,” Lavrov said.”
Another point of this cooperation:
Russia knew exactly what Assad needed after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov had paid a visit to Damascus on February 7 and talked to Assad.
While the visit was billed as a Russian bid to persuade him to accept political reforms, “They were seeking to find ways for stabilisation in Syria through democratic reforms.” http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c142/337363_print.html, it actually focused on the ways and means in which Russia could help the Syrian ruler quickly stamp out the armed revolt against his rule.
Moreover, this move was coordinated with Iran. Iran and Russia have a division of labour so to say between themselves. They have divided who does what in a high-level coordination..
And in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin is claiming as his personal victory the policy of holding the line against American and Western intervention in the Syrian uprising and their attempts to make Assad’s overthrow part of the Arab Spring against autocratic rulers. It was his idea to threaten to deploy Russian troops to Syria to stand in for local units transferred from their regular duties to suppressing dissidence.
And there is the intelligence cooperation and assistance.
One example:
In November two Russian (SIGINT) spy satellites monitoring military movements in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Israel and Syria began feeding Syrian president Assad‘s strategists precise intelligence on FSA units in Turkey and rebel concentrations within Syrian cities (military sources report).
This new resource enabled the special syrian forces stationed along the Syria-Turkey border to ambush the deserters moving back and forth, capturing some and liquidating many.
Since Assad gained access to reliable Russian intelligence, he no longer seeks to capture deserters for information and has ordered his troops to shoot them on sight where they stand.
These capabilities was also used to track, destroy an kill the western journalist (Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik) in the makeshift “press centre” in Baba Amr (Homs).
The Russians have a long and expert practice of this, which they showed in Chechnya.
On April 21, 1996, Chechnya’s breakaway president, Dzhokhar Dudayev, was speaking on a satellite phone with Russian envoy Konstantin Borovoi about setting peace talks with Yeltsin. During the phone call, he was killed by a signal-guided missile fired from a Russian jet fighter. The warplane had received Dudayev’s coordinates from a Russian ELINT (electronic intelligence) plane that had picked up and locked on to the signal emitted by the satellite phone. It was Russian deception and brutality at its finest.
Another:
The Russians have a electronic and surveillance station at Jabal Al Harrah south of Damascus, They have now upgraded and expanded this complex with advanced technology and manpower. Today, its range extends to all parts of Israel and Jordan, the Gulf of Aqaba and northern Saudi Arabia
One reason behind the expansion was to add resources especially tailored to give Tehran early warning of an oncoming US or Israeli attack. Partly as a response to a complaint from Tehran that it could not longer count on Russiafor a real-time alert on an incoming US or Israeli military strike, because those resources were stretched to the limit in support of the Assad regime.
The Russians have also upgraded the Russian-equipped Syrian radar stationed on Lebanon’s Mount Sannine and connecting it to the Jabal Al Harrah facility in Syria. Russia is now able to track US and Israeli naval and aerial movements in the Eastern Mediterranean, up to and including Cyprus and Greece.
The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kutznetsov’s stay at the Syrian port of Tartus through most of January and up to mid-February had the special mission of keeping an eye out for any Israeli preparations for attacking Iran, Syriaor Hizballah. It filled the gap left by the Russian station south of Damascus which was fully occupied with feeding data on Syrian opposition movements to Bashar Assad and watching out for signs of foreign intervention, military or covert, against his regime.
The Russian vessel meanwhile followed increased traffic of US drone over Syria keeping track of the Syrian arsenal of missiles with chemical, biological and nerve gas warheads.
Moscow ordered the Admiral Kutznetsov to depart Tartus on Feb. 13 and sail to home port at Severomorsk on the Kola Peninsula. The Russian stations in Syria and Lebanon were by then ready for their expanded missions.
Also the Russians have permanently stationed a Russian naval reconnaissance and surveillance ship in their naval base in Tartus.
April 10 was the latest day that Assad was supposed to stop all attacks and withdraw troops from the cities, according to the “peace” plan. Well, we already know that he did, as usual, the exact opposite. Also “as usual” following his previous pattern of seemingly agreeing to a “plan” or “accord” but with NO intention of ever following it. Instead, he is using these plans to buy time and at the same time crush all opposition. .
Because he knows, he can get away with it. And the world let him do that as I said before again and again.
Especially the “brilliant minds” behind all these “peace” plans including the latest one, which put NO TIME FRAME OR DEADLINE in which Assad has to comply.
That’s REALLY a brilliant idea wouldn’t you say?
REPORTS
Here are some (and there is many out there), of the more important reports about the human rights situation in Syria:
“In a desperate attempt to crush the uprising, Syrian forces have executed people in cold blood, civilians and opposition fighters alike,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They are doing it in broad daylight and in front of witnesses, evidently not concerned about any accountability for their crimes.”
“Syrian security forces will stop the executions only if they sense that accountability is inevitable,” Solvang said. “It is up to the Security Council to send this message.”
Report here:
In Cold Blood: Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias
The 25-page report, “In Cold Blood: Summary Executions by Syrian Security Forces and Pro-Government Militias,” documents more than a dozen incidents involving at least 101 victims since late 2011, many of them in March 2012
Press release:
Syria: ‘Shoot to Kill’ Commanders Named
Security Council Should Refer Syria to ICC for Crimes Against Humanity
“Former Syrian soldiers identified by name 74 commanders and officials responsible for attacks on unarmed protesters, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report names commanders and officials from the Syrian military and intelligence agencies who allegedly ordered, authorized, or condoned widespread killings, torture, and unlawful arrests during the 2011 anti-government protests. Human Rights Watch has urged the Security Council to refer the situation inSyriato the International Criminal Court (ICC) and impose sanctions against the officials implicated in abuses.
The defectors’ statements leave no doubt that the Syrian security forces committed widespread and systematic abuses, including killings, arbitrary detention, and torture, as part of a state policy targeting the civilian population, Human Rights Watch said. These abuses constitute crimes against humanity.
About half the defectors Human Rights Watch interviewed said the commanders of their units or other officers also gave them direct orders to open fire at protesters or bystanders, and reassured them that they would not be held accountable. In some cases, officers themselves participated in the killings.”
“Amjad,” who was deployed to Daraa with the 35th Special Forces Regiment, said that he received direct verbal orders from his commander to open fire at the protestors on April 25:”
“Three defectors described to Human Rights Watch incidents of summary executions and deaths from torture, involving 19 victims. Lieutenant-Colonel “Ghassan,” who served in the Presidential Guard, said that around August 7, he witnessed a summary execution of a detainee at a checkpoint in Douma:”
Report here:
“By All Means Necessary!”
Individual and Command Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Syria
The 88-page report, “‘By All Means Necessary!’: Individual and Command Responsibility for Crimes against Humanity in Syria,” is based on more than 60 interviews with defectors from the Syrian military and intelligence agencies. The defectors provided detailed information about their units’ participation in attacks, abuses against Syrian citizens, and the orders they received from commanders and officials at various levels, who are named in the report.
“The systematic nature of abuses against civilians in Homs by Syrian government forces, including torture and unlawful killings, indicate that crimes against humanity have been committed, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch urged the Arab League, meeting inCairo onNovember 12, 2011, to suspendSyria’s membership in the League and to ask the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo and sanctions against individuals responsible for the violations, and referSyria to the International Criminal Court.
As in much of the rest of Syria, security forces in Homs governorate subjected thousands of people to arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and systematic torture in detention. While most were released after several weeks in detention, several hundred remain missing. Most detainees were young men in their 20s or 30s, but security forces also detained children, women, and elderly people. Several witnesses reported that their parents or even grandparents – people in their 60s and 70s – had been detained.”
Report here:
“We Live as in War”
Crackdown on Protesters in the Governorate of Homs,Syria
The 63-page report, “‘We Live as in War’: Crackdown on Protesters in the Governorate of Homs,” is based on more than 110 interviews with victims and witnesses from Homs, both the city and the surrounding governorate of the same name. The area has emerged as a center of opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The report focuses on violations by Syrian security forces from mid-April to the end of August, during which time security forces killed at least 587 civilians, the highest number of casualties for any single governorate.
Press release:
Syria: Crimes Against Humanity in Daraa
Killings, Torture in a Locked-Down City Under Siege
“Systematic killings and torture by Syrian security forces in the city ofDaraasince protests began there onMarch 18, 2011, strongly suggest that these qualify as crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
”For more than two months now, Syrian security forces have been killing and torturing their own people with complete impunity,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. ”They need to stop – and if they don’t, it is the Security Council’s responsibility to make sure that the people responsible face justice.”
“Witnesses from Daraa interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided consistent accounts of security forces using lethal force against protesters and bystanders, in most cases without advance warning or any effort to disperse the protesters by nonviolent means. Members of various branches of the mukhabarat (security services) and numerous snipers positioned on rooftops deliberately targeted the protesters, and many of the victims had lethal head, neck, and chest wounds. Human Rights Watch documented a number of cases in which security forces participating in the operations against protesters in Daraa and other cities had received ”shoot-to-kill” orders from their commanders. “
“Syrian authorities also routinely denied wounded protesters access to medical assistance by preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded, and on several occasions opening fire on medical personnel or rescuers who tried to carry the wounded away. Security forces took control of most of the hospitals in Daraa and detained the wounded who were brought in. As a result, many wounded people avoided the hospitals and were treated in makeshift hospitals with limited facilities. In at least two cases documented by Human Rights Watch, people died because they were denied needed medical care.”
“Syrian authorities also imposed an information blockade on Daraa. They prevented any independent observers from entering the town, and shut down all means of communication. Security forces searched for and confiscated cellphones that contained footage of events in Daraa, and arrested and tortured those whom they suspected of trying to get images or other information out, including some foreign nationals. In some areas, electricity and communications remain cut off. “
This 54-page report is based on more than 50 interviews with victims and witnesses to abuses. The report focuses on violations in Daraa governorate, where some of the worst violence took place after protests seeking greater freedoms began in various parts of the country. The specifics went largely unreported due to the information blockade imposed by the Syrian authorities. Victims and witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch described systematic killings, beatings, torture using electroshock devices, and detention of people seeking medical care.
Syria: Local Residents Used as Human Shields
Reports of Residents Forced to March in Front of Soldiers in Idlib
“Witnesses from the towns of al-Janoudyah, Kafr Nabl, Kafr Rouma, and Ayn Larouz in the Idlib governorate in northern Syria told Human Rights Watch that they saw the army and pro-government armed men, referred to locally as shabeeha, force people to march in front of the advancing army during the March 2012 offensive to retake control of areas that had fallen into the hands of the opposition. From the circumstances of these incidents, it was clear to the witnesses that the purpose of this was to protect the army from attack.”
“By using civilians as human shields, the Syrian army is showing blatant disregard for their safety,” said Ole Solvang, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Syrian army should immediately stop this abhorrent practice.”
“The Syrian army’s use of human shields is yet another reason why the UN Security Council should refer Syria to the International Criminal Court” Solvang said. “Somebody should be made to answer for these violations.”
Syria: Government Uses Homs Tactics on BorderTown
Indiscriminate Shelling, Sniper Killings, Attacks on Fleeing Residents
“Syrian security forces are committing serious abuses in their military campaign on al-Qusayr, a city of approximately 40,000 in Homs governorate near the Lebanese border. Witnesses describe heavy shelling of residential neighborhoods, snipers shooting residents on the streets, and attacks on fleeing residents. Humanitarian conditions are dire, including food and water shortages, communications blackouts, and virtually non-existent medical assistance.”
“Following their bloody siege of Homs, the Assad forces are applying their same brutal methods in al-Qusayr,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle Eastdirector at Human Rights Watch. “Having seen the devastation inflicted on Homs, the Russian government should stop arms sales to the Syrian government or risk becoming further implicated in human rights violations.”
‘Friends of Syria’: Push to End Indiscriminate Shelling
“Local sources have reported that approximately 700 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in Homs since the Syrian military began its current assault on the city onFebruary 3, 2012.
Video footage from Homsreviewed by Human Rights Watch indicates that the army has used Russian-made240mm mortar systems against Homs. These systems fire the world’s largest high explosive mortar bomb, designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue.
This Russian-made munition shown in the video is the largest mortar bomb known to be in production and use. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
“The indiscriminate attacks on populated areas with heavy-duty weapons in Homs and other citiesdemonstrate the price of blocking an international consensus to end the horrific human rights violations in Syria,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Russia and China have a particular responsibility to put pressure on Syria, given that they vetoed Security Council consensus, and Syria has so far shown itself impervious to condemnation by most other states of its actions.”
Marie Colvin, one of two Western journalists killed in Baba Amr on February 22 by Syrian army shelling, had reported the previous day that she had witnessed 14 shells fall on the neighborhood in the span of 30 seconds and had watched a baby die of shrapnel wounds for lack of proper medical care. Another Western journalist who was in Baba Amr from February 15 to 17 told Human Rights Watch that “on a good day, a shell hit the neighborhood every 4 to 5 minutes while on a bad day, they heard 55 shells in 15 minutes.”
UNICEF steps up its response to children affected by the crisis in Syria
“The UN says that at least 500 Syrian children have been killed in the violence thus far, while hundreds more have been injured, put in detention or abused. Schools have closed and health centres have shut down or become too dangerous for families to reach. “
UNICEF denounces killings of children, women in Syrian city of Homs
“UNICEF today denounced the reported killing of children and women whose bodies were found in the Syrian city ofHomson Sunday.
According to Syrian and international media reports, young children were among the victims discovered in the Homsneighbourhood of Karm el-Zeytoun. Some of the bodies had their throats slit. Others bore marks of torture.
“It’s hard to come to terms with savagery on this scale especially when it involves children paying the highest price for events over which they have no control,” said UNICEF Regional Director Maria Calivis. “We urgently call on all sides in this crisis to live up to their responsibility to safeguard children.”
UNICEF statement on children caught in the bloodshed in Syria
“This must stop. Even one child killed in the violence is one child too many,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “We urge the Syrian authorities to allow help to all those who need it desperately.”
Statement by UNICEF Executive DirectorAnthonyLake in Bangkok on the Human Rights Council Resolution on the human rights situation in Syria
“UNICEF is greatly disturbed by the confirmed reports of violent attacks on children in Syria. We share the deep concerns presented in the recent report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry, and welcome the Human Rights Council’s Special Session that addressed among other things these grave violations of children’s rights.
“The HRC’s resolution reflects global outrage over the more than 300 children killed by state forces in Syria since March 2011 and confirmed reports of abhorrent abuses, including sexual violence against children in places of detention.
“Such blatant disregard for children’s lives must not be ignored. UNICEF urges the government of Syria to abide by its commitments to uphold the rights of children, and in particular to protect them from arbitrary arrest, detention, torture or sexual violence.”
UNICEF alarmed about reported extreme violence against children in Syria
“Since mid-March, reports of children injured, detained, displaced and at times killed have been increasing. While UNICEF cannot verify the reported cases and events, we are particularly disturbed by the recent video images of children who were arbitrarily detained and suffered torture or ill-treatment during their detention, leading in some cases to their death. We call on the government to thoroughly investigate these reports and ensure that perpetrators of such horrific acts are identified and brought to justice. “
Syria: Security Forces Barring Protesters from Medical Care
At Least 28 Killed in Bloody Friday Crackdown in Daraa, Harasta, and Douma
“”Syrian security forces in at least two towns prevented medical personnel and others from reaching wounded protesters on April 8, 2011, and prevented injured protesters from accessing hospitals, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 20 witnesses from three Syrian towns, urged Syrian authorities to allow injured protesters unimpeded access to medical treatment and to stop using unjustified lethal force against anti-government protesters.
”To deprive wounded people of critical and perhaps life-saving medical treatment is both inhumane and illegal,” said Sarah Leah Whitson,Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
Report reveals crimes against humanity in Syrian town
“The brutal methods used in a devastating Syrian security operation in the western town of Tell Kalakhmay constitute crimes against humanity, Amnesty International said today in a new report.
Crackdown inSyria: Terror in Tell Kalakh documents deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention that took place in May when Syrian army and security forces mounted a broad security sweep, lasting less than a week, against residents of the town near the Lebanese border.”
Syria: ‘I wanted to die’: Syria’s torture survivors speak out
“A grim catalogue of torture has emerged from former detainees describing their treatment in Syria’s detention centres since the predominantly peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began in March 2011. This report reveals that all the various security forces are routinely torturing and ill-treating detainees held in the context of the protests and unrest, using methods of cruelty mostly used for decades. The torture carried out appears to be part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population as part of Syrian government policy to crush dissent. “
“The Syrian authorities have been blocking and manipulating access to health care for people wounded during the unrest that has swept across the country since mid-March 2011, putting many lives at risk. They have routinely deemed those wounded by firearms as opponents of the government and treated them as detainees and held them incommunicado. The patterns of abuse recorded in this report show how the authorities are preventing health care professionals from treating those wounded freely and without fear. Such actions flagrantly violateSyria’s obligations under international human rights law.”
Syria: Deadly detention: Deaths in custody amid popular protest in Syria
“Relentless repression has marked Syriasince March 2011, as the government continues its efforts to stifle increasing numbers of pro-reform protests. Scores of people – believed to have been detained for their actual or suspected involvement in the protests – are reported to have died in custody. Some were children. However, the Syrian authorities have failed to carry out credible investigations into any of the cases or ensure accountability for the perpetrators. Amnesty International is calling on the UN Security Council to refer the situation inSyria immediately to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.”
Syria: The long reach of the Mukhabaraat: Violence and harassment against Syrians abroad and their relatives back home
“Many Syrians abroad have been vocally expressing their solidarity with the mass pro-reform protests which have rocked Syriasince March. In this briefing, Amnesty International is documenting the cases of more than 30 Syrian activists living in eight countries in Europeand North and South Americawho say they have faced intimidation from embassy officials and others apparently because of their activities in solidarity with the pro-reform movement in Syria. The long reach of the feared Syrian mukhabaraat, or intelligence services, seems to be in evidence.”
Press Conference by Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria
“The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syriahad concluded that Syria’s army and security forces committed crimes against humanity in their repression of a largely civilian population in the context of peaceful protests, members of the United Nations-backed panel said today. “
“The widespread and systematic violations of human rights in Syria could not have happened without the consent of the highest ranking State officials,” he continued, noting that under international law, “the State of Syria is responsible for these violations and bears the duty to ensure that the perpetrators are punished and that the victims received reparations.”
Mr. Pinheiro said excessive force — including by live fire and snipers — was used against peaceful demonstrators. Further, the State had shown little or no recognition of the rights of children in quelling dissent, and reliable sources had indicated that some 256 children had been killed by State forces as of 9 November. Torture, sexual violence and other forms of ill treatment were also inflicted against people sympathetic to the protests, regardless of their gender or age. “
The report here:
Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic
“The oppressive regime inSyriaused all its military and security forces against their unarmed people, waging open war on the crowds of peaceful demonstrators. In some documented cases, the regime used military equipment such as helicopters, armored sea vessels, and military tanks, to bomb residential neighborhoods in many cities. This is in addition to using internationally banned weapons, such as poison gas and expanding bullets, to disperse peaceful demonstrators.
Many public venues, such as cinemas, stadiums, and theaters, were turned into detention centers in which systematic brutal torture occurred, resulting in many death-under-torture cases. In addition, there have been several forced disappearance of citizens who were kidnapped for months, and disappeared completely thereafter.
There are many documented cases of hospitals that were invaded to prevent treating the wounded; in some cases, the wounded were detained or even killed. All of the above happened during seven months of an almost complete international silence, save a few shy statements by the international community that did not reach the point of condemning those documented cases as crimes against humanity.
It is unacceptable for the Arab nations, the Arab League, and the United Nations and their organizations to remain on an undecided weak stance. They have not been able, so far, to adopt one serious and strong move to stop the instruments of this regime from committing more crimes and violations against the peaceful people who are merely demanding their basic rights.
This hesitance and the lack of a conclusive stance is sending very negative signs to the Syrian people, who are starting to consider this indirect participation in the ongoing assault against. This also gives the regime the leeway to continue its nihilistic approach, and provides incentives to similar regimes in the world to commit atrocities against their own people and remain unaccountable.”
”One of the more detailed accounts — from the Violations Documenting Center (V.D.C.) — shows almost 10,000 deaths since the protest began last year on March 15.”
The number of killed (by age, sex, place, crowd map etc.) in the conflict, according to the Syrian opposition website
“The stories are more atrocious than I could have imagined. We have evidence that there’s possible sexual enslavement going on, mutilation — really horrific atrocities,” Wolfe said.
Red Dots are destroyed or damaged buildings, yellow dotsare craters in fields or roads (pic taken on 25 Feb 2012, Baba Amr was retaken by Assad`s troops on March 1)
If you click on the picture it gets much larger
Picture2
Another close-up also shows a number of large dust clouds caused by the probable impact of several shells that landed within an estimated 10 to 15 minutes before the satellite image was recorded. It also shows hundreds of smaller impact craters across the adjacent fields next to the buildings, most of which are heavily damaged.
If you click on the picture it gets much larger
“These new satellite photos and witness accounts show the extent of the brutality unleashed on Baba Amr,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite the killing, Russia and China continue to block any international action.”
And remember, as I said in my previous post, one of the weapons used by the Syrian regime was the Russian 240mm F-864 high explosive mortar bomb. The world’s largest high explosive mortar bomb designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
This weapon system is notable for its capability to conduct a “plunging attack,” in which the munition is fired at a high angle and comes down nearly perpendicular to penetrate a building or fortification
In this video, you can see the total destruction and some pices of the mortar bomb. The footage was filmed in the old part of Baba Amr, known as al-Hakura
According to “The Military Balance 2011,” published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Syria possesses ten 240mm mortar systems.
But of course, any respectable “army” need these kind of weapons to fight very dangerous unarmed civilians. Especially since they are hiding in their own homes.
What a threat!
And by the way, this system has been used in the past to bring devastation to civilian neighbourhoods, by the Russians during the siege of the Chechen capital of Grozny over a decade ago, where thousands of civilians were killed and hundreds of buildings reduced to rubble. So the Syrians have learned well from their master.
The use of such weapons in dense urban environments is a war crime.
The Syrian army also used 122mm howitzers and 120mm mortars and 81mm and 121mm shells and 107mm ground-to-ground rockets to “fight” against these unarmed civilians.
“In late March last year, Syrian opposition activists say, a young government worker inDamascusnervously handed a scrap of paper to a friend. On it were four handwritten codes that the friend was instructed to pass to a small group of exiled Syrians who would know what to do with them.
The paper contained two email addresses: sam@alshahba.com and ak@alshahba.com. They are thought to have been the personal email usernames and passwords of the president, Bashar al-Assad, and his wife, Asma.
For the next nine months they were to offer a cell of activists an extraordinary window into what appeared to be the private lives ofSyria’s first family and their attempts to turn around the country’s steady descent towards the abyss.”
Very interesting reading to say the least!
As this one on December 24 from Hussein Mortada, an influential Lebanese businessman with strong connections to Iran.
“It is not in our interest to say that Al-Qaida is behind the operation because such statements clear theUSadministration and the Syrian opposition of any responsibility;Americais fighting Al-Qaida and it will condemn the operation.
Based on what we saw from events on the ground yesterday, we have to acknowledge how well orchestrated it was, and we have to say that the US administration, the opposition and the states which infiltrated weapons are behind the operationso that we can start the attack.
But blaming Al-Qaida alone won’t be in anyone’s interest but Al-Qaida’s, because the organisation has been in existence for decades and this is nothing new. I have even received contacts from Iran and Hezbollah – me being the head of many Iranian and Lebanese media channels – and they directed me not to mention that Al-Qaida was behind the operation cause it would be a blatant media and tactical mistake and futile.”
VIDEOS
There are soooo many videos out there taken by brave civilians, showing the brutal and barbaric killings and executions, And the destruction of whole blocks and neighbourhoods in cities.
So these are just a sample.
I am going to start with a special type of videos – the leaked ones. These videos where taken by Assad troops themselves to show how “good” they are at killing civilians, as trophies, to prove their loyalty etc. etc.
The text and translations are from opposition sites.
LEAKED VIDEO – Assad’s forces show off their latest mass excecution – Homs (Baba Amr): Date Unknown – An Assad lojaist clearly says to his commander “Sir, I shot this one in his eye, and in his eye and in his eye!”
Contains some sequence from the video above
LEAKED VIDEO – An assadist soldier films the DESTRUCTION he and his FORCES BROUGHT UPON THE NEIGHBORHOOD of BABA AMR. Homs(Baba Amr) – He takes us through the destroyed streets and past the obliterated buildings. He then shows us a glimpse of a half dozen men in a room, all executed (as shown in this video of Assad mercenaries gloating about it).
To think that the world just sat back and watched an entire neighborhood of 12sq/km be erased off the map and it’s people cleansed …
LEAKED VIDEO – Syrian Government snipers in action from a rooftop in Aleppo’s Atareb
More snipers:
LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES HAVE A “GRAND OL’ TIME” LAUGHING, JOKING, MURDERING …. Damascus(Dier Qanoun): This is what the “battle” looks like from the vantage point of Bashar Al Assad’s forces. They have no fears that anything remotely bad may happen to them … they know exactly who they are firing at … unarmed Syrian civilians.Watch as they joke, make small talk, smoke a cigarette in one hand and fire their guns with the other ….
LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES FIRE RANDOMLY INTO PEOPLE’S HOUSES TO SCARE THEM. Lattakia : (Date unknown) – Watch Bashar Al Assad’s mercenaries fire randomly down streets. Then they take aim at building directly above them and start firing away … laughing and joking until one of them finally says “ok guys, enough …”
Methodical destruction of homes:
LEAKED VIDEO – UNBELIEVABLE FOOTAGE OF ASSAD’S RUSSIAN MADE TANK FIRING RANDOMLY INTO THE HOMES OF SYRIAN CIVILIANS. Homs- As the tank fires randomly into the homes of innocent men, women and children, the cameraman (a fellow Assadist mercenary) cheers on with each explosion, exclaiming “God, Syria & Bashar!”.
LEAKED VIDEO – ASSAD’S FORCES CASUALLY FILM THEMSELVES AND MAKE SMALL TALK AS THEY SHELL AND ATTACK THE TOWN. Homs (Quseir) – No, these men are not preparing to liberate the Golan Heights, they are casually shelling a small town of innocent and unarmed Syrians – their supposed brothers and sisters that Assad has successfully de-humanized in his propaganda campaign fed to his forces.
They are shelling the town of Quseirin preparation to invade. The tank you see firing a machine-gun is actually a Russian made “Shilka” anti-aircraft tank that can fire upto 1,000 rounds per minute. It’s meant to bring down fighter-jets, but in this case it’s used against human-beings. The other tanks are randomly shelling the town in order to “soften” it up for an all out invasion.
Notice how casual Assad’s forces are, laughing and joking and all eagerly filming the “action” as mementos…
LEAKED VIDEO – THIS IS WHAT A DESTROYED AND ANNIHILATED CITY LOOKS LIKE – FROM THE EYES OF THE PERPETRATORS THAT DID IT.Homs (Baba Amr) – The footage is unbelievable as it is devastating. Every building on every street is destroyed. The entire neighborhood of Baba Amr has been literally wiped off the map. Its inhabitants either “cleansed” in Assad’s ordered genocide, arrested or expelled from their homes.
Assad’s mercenaries take pride in what they did to this town with their Russian backed weapons and supply lines. Filming themselves and waving to fellow cowards.
Never forget that it took 7,000 of the most elite mercenaries from Assad’s army along with 30 days of shelling by the world’s heaviest shells, complete blockade of all food, water, fuel and medicine in addition to the cut of all electricity and supply lines to the neighborhood in order for Assad’s forces to enter an area of 12 sq/km that was guarded by no more than a few hundred lightly armed and ill-trained Free Syrian Army fighters and thousands of unarmed civilians. Even then the FSA actually withdrew when they ran out of ammunition.
LEAKED VIDEO – A terrible massacre by Al-Assad and his thugs in Doumma-Damascus-Syria and “thugs” are celebrating
LEAKED VIDEO – A genocide by Al-Assad and his thugs in Baba Amr-Homs-Syria
Now to the videos taken by brave civilians.
A BRAVE CITIZEN JOURNALIST CONTINUES TO REPORT DESPITE ROCKETS LITERALLY FALLING ALL AROUND HIM. Homs: Apr 3, 2012- I don’t know his name yet and he’s been featured in a number of similar videos before. Watch as the rockets hit nearby buildings as he reports with his cameraman. They risk everything in order to show the world the miserable hell they live in.
Stark WARNING! – these next five videos are VERY STRONG AND GRAPHIC with pictures of executed children, teenagers, women and old people.
If you are sensitive – DO NOT LOOK!
And remember these videos are just a few, there are HUNDREDS LIKE THIS out there!
Which show the shocking scale and barbarism of the Assad regime
There is still no clear idea about the final number of killed civilians in the last ten days, but what we documented is more than thundered person killed. The most brutal one was in al-Adawi, the following videos bring you close to the event:
Adawiyah: pro-Assad death squads break into a house and execute its occupants, all women
Homs, Martyrs of the massacres of Al-Rifai and Karm Al-Zetoon neighborhoods .. Mar 20, 2012
SyriaFreedom Fighters Captured an Assad Hitman
March 25, 2012 – Free Syria Army Captures this Assad Air Force Mukhabarat Secret Police Officer who admits in this video that he and Iranian and Hezbollah Accomplices kidnapped and killed a famous Syrian Freedom Activist- This Guy is a cold blooded killer and was the leader of the group of secret police who kidnapped , tortured and killed Ghrias Mattar, a famous pro Democracy Organizer in Dariya , Damascus.
The Secret Police killed Gaith Mattar and then Mattar’s Wake Was Attended by dignitaries such asUSAmbassador Robert Ford and the French Ambassador and the German Ambassador — It is important to note that immediately after the Ambassadors left the Wake the Assad Forces came and shot at the other people, The Syrians, who were attending the ceremony.
English Translation:
“I am sergent Rabi3 Abdallah Ramadan in the intelligence aviation (under) the branch of special missions
Question: what was your mission in Daraya ?
A: I’m a driver of a black jeep, a black Mitsubishi.
Question: What were the missions you took part in?
A: We captured and shot the activist Ghiyath Matar..took him to the hospital and we finished him there (in the hospital) with the help of sergent Bashar Daher (also) known by the name of Abou Haidar
Question: Who was giving orders?
A: The officer Jamil Hassan and officer Ghassan Ismail
Question: Were there foreigners with you?
A: Yes, the Irananian Revolutionary Guards and members of Hezbollah as well
Question: How (did you) break into Daraya houses?
A: We were getting orders to loot and steal (from) activist houses and burning them
Question: What is your advice to security forces?
Answer: I advice them to defect because this regime will fall for sure”
CNN – Syrians try to clear Russian ANTIPERSONNEL MINES NEAR TURKISH BORDER
CNN’s Ivan Watson reports on evidence Syrian forces mined border areas to stop fleeing civilians
He took one out and brushed dirt off its green molded plastic case. It was about the size of a soup bowl and stamped with Cyrillic letters. Hajisa pointed at a raised black cross on the top of the device. “If you put pressure on this trigger,” he said, “It will explode.”
Hajisa’s deadly stash of booby-traps are just a fraction of more than 300 similar devices he claimed he and several other Syrian volunteers dug up from the border between Syria and Turkey over the last two months.
And finally some desperate black humour from people inside Syria as they describe their situation:
”In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate … We, the free men of Idlib, announce the formation of the ‘We Hope to Be Armed’ brigade,” the speaker says. ”We do not have any weapons. We ask the National Council and the commander of the Free Army to fulfill their lying promises and to stop serenading the revolutionaries on the ground without sending weapons, because your serenades are killing us.”
And another one where a fighter is begging for bullets.
”Brother, Can You Spare A Loaded Arms Clip?” FromHoms
”Just Give Me A Bullet Clip”, says this Syrian Freedom Fighter in Homs City as he mocks the failure of the World to arm the Syria Army Defectors who are struggling to bring Freedom and Democracy to the long suffering nation of Syria. The USA under Obama has sold out the Syrian people the same way that Obama sold out the Iranian Green Revolution a few years ago. After one whole year of Protests and Violent Repression and thousands of Dead Civlians – the US politicians like Hillary Clinton are still on TV even as of today talking Bullshit about ”setting Timetables” for Assad to stop killing his people. This is a sick joke as Assad is never going to stop killing Democracy Activists and he is never going to step down peacefully. The only thing the Assad Baathist Regime understands is Sheer Military Power, which is how they got in power in the first place, and the world must smarten up and must send a flood of arms to the Free Syria Army now , including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. This is one of those once-in-a-generation moments in time where the USA has the opportunity to get a ”4 for 1” victory for very little investment.
1) If the USarms the Syrian people they will overthrow the Assad Regime and bring Freedom to a nation that has lived under a Dictatorship for 50 years.
2) The US gets to screw the Iranians real good if Assad goes down –no more Iranian dreams of a new Persian Shiite Empire stretching fromTehran toBeirut.
3) the US gets to screw Hezbollah real good if Assad falls – They will be cut off fromIran and the Sunni Syrians will kick them all out ofSyria and they will shrink into a small local militia
4) the US gets to screw the Russians real good -Russia will get kicked out of its only navy port outside ofRussia and will lose air force landing rights inSyria and will lose its military contracts which can then go to the Western Democracies.
There is so much to be said about the uprising in Syria and the extremely brutal suppression by the Assad regime. And as usual, most of it is not said in the mainstream media.
So I thought I give you some pieces that are to the point and that give you some perspective of this slaughter of civilians. In other words, some insight into the world of real politics. This is a different universe that the normal platitudes and declarations our political elites are so good at excelling at.
I have so much material, all from public and open sources, that it is ridiculously big and unwieldy. Therefore, I have to drastically cut it down. Otherwise, it would become a book. The focus is therefore going to be on some countries and international organisations and what they have done or not done in 11 posts.
Part 1- Introduction. Part 2-Repports/Videos/Photos, Part 3- Russia, Part 4- Iran, Part 5- China, Part 6- Turkey, Part 7- Arab league, Part 8- UN, Part 9- EU/NATO, Part 10- US and the Obama administration and Part 11- Paul Conroy
The explanation for the headline you get at the end of this post.
This Syrian uprising started little over a year ago. The movement began in Syria on March 15th of 2011 with spontaneous demonstrations that demanded that the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad reform Syria to a free and democratic state. Assad responded, as usual, with relentless force and a brutal crackdown. Which led to the people to call for the president to step down, and heed to his people’s will to relinquish his power. And for a peaceful transition to democracy.
All reasonably demands wouldn’t you say?
And from this start the Assad’s regimes force and a brutal crackdown have just intensified and widened. The death toll is around 11 000. Mostly civilians: children, women, families, elderly etc. Many of them executed in the most barbaric way.
On top of that, the deliberate destruction of WHOLE blocks of cities, Block after block, neighbourhood after neighbourhood.
Turning of electricity, water, telecommunications etc for cities and neighbourhoods. Destroying hospitals and preventing medicine and food to reach these areas etc.
I can add systematic rape to that mix of systematic violation of human rights.
Wouldn’t you say that this regime seems utterly barbaric and worthy of world condemnation?
And wouldn’t you have thought that the world would have done something by now?
And the answer to these questions is of course – YES ands as usual NO.
NOTHING have in realty been done except some cheap and empty rhetoric. A lot of grandstanding as usual with these people. And of course a lot of meetings, summits, conferences etc. Usually in very nice places very far from the reality they are supposed to talk about.
EU the other day “strengthened” sanctions, the 13 in a row, banned Assad’s wife from shopping on the Continent. Yea, I bet Syria’s dictator Bashar Hafez al-Assad felt threatened to his core!
Some of these people, for over a year now, have assured us that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad is about to fall. These assurances from the so-called “experts” are always delivered with great confidence.
And yet Assad, hangs on, slaughtering his own people, destroying and despoiling whole neighbourhoods, calling the bluff of the Arab League, Turkey, UN, USA and EU/NATO.
Helped to a very large degree by the enormous material support, weapons, training, intelligence, troops, personal etc. from Russia, Iran, China and Hezbollah.
And by a traditional policy of dived and conquer the different ethnic and religious groups in Syria. And of course by terror and fear.
Nonetheless, this is a regime, with an enormous arsenal of heavy weapons, which in a year has not been able to dispatch a divided, badly organized, having hardly any weapons, and disparate opposition. It can be defeated and it will implode from the inside. The slaughter would end much faster if the people got some, any support, from abroad. And the fear is gone.
It is also very interesting to compare how eager the Obama administration, EU and NATO was to go into Libya with their do nothing attitude with Syria.
The dictator Gaddafi had not killed as many civilian people as Assad’s regimes have by a long shot. Or destroyed as many neighbourhoods as Assad. Nor did Gaddafi support so many terrorist groups as Assad. Or had the same strategic value for USA as Syria.
Nor did Gaddafi kill so many Americans as did Assad (Bashar and Hafez al-Assad – It is A Faimly affair). Etc. Etc.
So in every way and shape or form, in comparison Libya under Gaddafi doesn’t even come close to Syria under Assad.
Samantha Power, a prominent advocate of humanitarian intervention and the principle of ”responsibility to protect”, is considered to be the key figure within the Obama administration in persuading the president to intervene militarily in Libya.
Power, was a senior foreign policy adviser to senator Obama, and now a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director of the National Security Council.
But on Syria? NOT A PEEP!
And some of the “excuses” for not doing anything, like “the arms could end up in the wrong hands”, become ABSOLUTELY mind-boggling hypocritical when you remember that NATO and US special operations troops together with their intelligence operatives in Tripoli, armed and put Al-Hakim Belhadj in control over Tripoli. And gave him “the keys” to Gadhafis armoury.
Those arms were advanced items which British and French special operations forces gave the rebels, according to “a senior” American source.
Who is Al-Hakim Belhadj you may ask. He is a leader and commander of LIFG, the Al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Which by the way is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. He is an al Qaeda veteran from Afghanistan, he joined the Talliban etc.
He was first captured in Pakistan 2001 and handed over to US security officials, he was repatriated to Libya two months later. Later CIA captured him in Malaysia in 2004. He was then transferredto Bangkok, where he was then placed in the custody of the CIA. Later they extradited him to Libya where he was kept in prison for six years by Qaddafi.
According to the Spanish, Al-Hakim Belhadj was suspected of complicity in the 2004 Madrid train bombings etc. etc.
For the first time, therefore, the armies of Western members of NATO took part and helped directly in a bid by extremist Islamic forces to capture an Arab capital and overthrow its ruler.
As for the do nothing as usual UN, it “proudly” upholds its tradition of doing ABSOLUTLY NOTHING when it really maters, like Rwanda, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia (Srebrenica anyone?) etc.
Refusing to arm or help the opposition will not end the conflict or limit it, it will drag on as all the above examples shows.
And by waiting the situation gets worse and much more complex, then “they” used its complexity as an excuse not to intervene while decrying the lost opportunity for intervention. And ALL this time the killing and atrocities committed by Assad’s regime just continues as nothing has happened.
On the contrary, the Assad regime has increased it’s attacks since Bashar al-Assad agreed to implement the “new” peace plan.
“The feeling here is one of desperation — and steadfast defiance”
”They are planning to retake the region piece by piece,” said Abu Hamdo, a member of the Revolution Command Council in Idlib. ”But there is no going back, because if they catch us we are dead, and if we fight them we are dead.”
It is a scenario that is playing out repeatedly here: The army and security forces sweep into village after village, leaving behind bodies and burned homes, and the routed rebels must regroup.
Mazen Arja, an agricultural engineer “We have to organize anew and figure out who was killed and bring people together to begin the liberation of the northern region,” Arja said. “If we’re not patient and fight, we’re all dead anyway.”
”When we first went out in protests, we had hope for foreign support, but that hope was dashed. We had hope for buffer areas; that was dashed. We had hope for support for the Free Syrian Army, and that was dashed,” said the militia’s 25-year-old leader, Bilal Khabeet, who like Free Syrian Army members is a military defector. ”A rifle and 120 bullets, that’s all I have. Once they are finished, I am finished.”
Or as Ammar Abdulhamid a liberal democracy activist said:
“Of April Fools and Useless Tools!
The irony involved in holding an international conference on Syria on April Fools is all too noticeable, and the fact that just on the day before, an Assad official would claim victory simply adds a certain “je ne sais quoi” to the mix. But the Revolution-cum-Devolution goes on, no amount of irony or wishful thinking will make it go away.”
And
“Whatever the geopolitical calculations of Arab, regional and international leaders may be, ours is still a revolution for freedom, dignity, justice and equality. Is there any power in heaven or earth whose basic interests are commensurate with these aspirations of ours? If so, act now! Or forever be damned.”
“Sayyed Mahmud, an activist in Daraa reached by Skype, told AFP the situation was extremely tense in Dael.
”They burned down 14 houses yesterday. They are arresting people and have sent in troop reinforcements,” he said.
”As part of the regime’s campaign to starve the people, troops are raiding homes, destroying food stocks and equipment,” he added. ”For example, if they see a sowing machine, they destroy it.
”They go into bakeries and destroy the dough. There are 15-hour power cuts a day.”
You REALLY get “impressed” by these “brave soldiers” who “attacks” and destroy dough and sowing machines. Not to mention killing unarmed civilians.
That is really a “worthy” adversary for a real soldier.
And the endless deception and chicanery, round 27, of the Assad regime continues. Making a mockery of all so called “peace” deals. In addition, the world let him get away with it again and again. Without doing ANYTHING except generate “new peace” plans.
With all the usual strong and optimistic words and platitudes. Or as one Syrian said:
“As Obama and Erdogan talk, Assad kills”
You can put whatever country and organisation there instead, it doesn’t change anything.
“The Syrian regime is not bound by a deadline to withdraw its troops from strife-torn areas, pro-government daily Al-Watan on Thursday quoted a government official as saying.
”There is no set date or deadline,” the unnamed official said.
”April 10 is the date set for the beginning, not the end, of the withdrawal of troops and it does not constitute a deadline.”
Before that:
Syria says army will not be first to lay down arms, rejecting appeal by UN chief
“Syria rejected international envoy Kofi Annan’s call for the regime to halt violence first just days after the government agreed to a cease-fire plan. A senior official declared victory over the opposition.
It was the government’s first response to an appeal by Annan, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, to stop military operations first as “the stronger party” in a “gesture of good faith” to the lightly armed opposition. Annan brokered the agreement aimed at stopping the bloodshed and Assad agreed to it on Monday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said the government will not pull tanks and troops from towns and cities engulfed by unrest before life returns to normal there.
“The battle to bring down the state in Syria has already ended and the battle of reinforcing stability has started,” Makdessi said in an apparent reference to a string of recent regime offensives that drove rebels from key strongholds. He spoke on state TV late Friday.”
An to rely prove this point :
“Certain he is safe from Western-Arab intervention, Bashar Assad Sunday unleashed an across-the board air and ground offensive against the last surviving rebel locations.
Starting Sunday noon, April 8, 30 towns and villages were hit simultaneously.For the first time since the outbreak of revolt thirteen months ago, heavy long-range artillery and air force helicopters pounded the rebel positions remaining in the northern mountains of Idlib near the Turkish border. The scale of the onslaught was such that it is hard to come by casualty figures, but they certainly run into hundreds.
As he lifts all restraints, the Syrian ruler is also certain he is backed to the hilt byTehranandMoscow.”
And today, April 9 Assad’s forces attacked a Syrian refuge camp in Turkey.
Turkey: Three wounded as Syrian forces fire over border
”A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, saidTurkeyimmediately protested the incident to the Syrian charge d’affaires and asked that the fire be halted, the Associated Press reported.
Two refugees and one Turkish citizen, a translator, were wounded inside the camp near the town of Kilisin the southwestern Gaziantep province, he said.”
Yeap, that’s REALLY showing respect for the “ceasefire” and UN “peace plan”. And the “world” will let Assad get away with again, and again.
”The army is destroying buildings and bombing them till they turn to charcoal,” said Mohammed Khatib, a refugee who said he came from Kastanaz, a Syrian town of 20,000 people.
”The army wants people to move out of their houses. If the residents refuse, they destroy them with the people inside.”
”For the past three days there have been bodies lying in the streets. Around 200 have been killed. The town is now abandoned.”
I could go on an on to give one witness after another of atrocities and planed destruction.
“Using information stored on laptops, army intelligence officers detain all manner of people. Bad-mouthing the regime? Arrested. Seen at a protest? Arrested. Got an internet connection? Arrested. The list goes on.
”The shabiha (pro-government militia) came to my house and took my children,” said Fatoum Haj Housin, a resident of the town Sarmin, five miles north-west of Saraqeb, which had been attacked a few days earlier.
”They took all three of them. They were young men in the army but they defected in January. The militia shot them in the head and burned their bodies in front of me in our courtyard. In the name of God, bring me a Kalashnikov and I will kill Assad myself!”
There was still scorching and ash in front of her house – and much evidence elsewhere in Sarmin of destruction by ground forces. The field hospital had been torched, walls and houses sprayed with AK47 fire and the mosque smashed by three shells.
When the tanks leave the city centres and the ground forces come in, this is what happens – with nobody from the outside to see.
Yet for every person killed the rebels’ resolve seems to grow day by day.
”We can never go back now,” said Feras Mulheen, a student from Saraqeb who had just seen his house destroyed by the tanks. ”There’s nothing to go back to. We either win or we die trying. There’s nothing in between.”
“We are getting money mainly from individuals, from Syrians living abroad. We hear a lot of promises from the international community, but nobody will support us,” said Mohammed.
His unit has 50 men and two satellite phones in a country where mobile telephone networks are down, security forces tap landlines, and the Internet is dysfunctional.
As for the guns, Mohammed said, his unit has just light weapons, not enough to confront the Syrian army.
“The air force attacks us and we do not have artillery to fight back,” said the commander.
He said there are a lot of soldiers in the regular army who are too afraid to defect, but help the FSA from the inside.
“Our unit exchanged a carton of cigarettes for 200 bullets; we get gasoline from a soldier who steals it from the tanks in the bases,” he said.
Other local commanders described their constant hustle to-and-fro across the Syrian-Turkish border to secure money for their supplies.
“We have enough men. The defectors’ numbers have increased. But they do not have weapons. If they have a gun, they do not have ammunition,” he said while busily working on his laptop.
Communications technologies are a precious commodity. Asked about internal FSA communications, Abu Muhammed, commander of a unit in the Idlib countryside, replied with sadness and irony, “We use pigeons.”
“There’s not a lot of direct communication between the ground and the leadership,” he said, explaining how his men do not take specific daily orders from the officers sitting in the Turkish camps, like Col. Riad al Asaad, nominal head of the FSA.
“With the means we have, this is only self-defense,” he admitted.
“It’s a view widely shared by defectors, arms dealers, and refugees alike here along the Turkish-Syrian border. For months, Assad’s opponents have been buying black-market weapons from the countries bordering their volatile state — from Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan — as well as from within Syria, primarily from members of the corrupt regime or military sympathizers who remain embedded with loyalists. But it’s getting harder. Money doesn’t seem to be the main problem. Securing supplies is.
Nor have Assad’s staunchest enemies — the ArabGulf kingdoms — opened their armories to the rebels. In late February, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal raised the FSA’s hopes when he said that arming Assad’s opponents was ”an excellent idea.” Yet, more than a month later, Saudi supplies have not made their way to the front, according to the FSA leadership as well as numerous rebel commanders inside Syria.
Still, the ire and resentment of many activists and fighters on the ground is directed primarily toward the so-called leaders of the opposition, all of whom are in exile. The depth of anger was perhaps best expressed in a short video in which a small group of men in civilian garb stand in two neat rows in front of an olive tree, scarves concealing their identities. The clip is not unlike countless others purporting to show members of the FSA, except that none of the nine men featured in it holds any weapons. Some carry lemons instead of grenades; others hold sticks as if they were rifles. One wields a hammer.
”In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate … We, the free men of Idlib, announce the formation of the ‘We Hope to Be Armed’ brigade,” the speaker says. ”We do not have any weapons. We ask the National Council and the commander of the Free Army to fulfill their lying promises and to stop serenading the revolutionaries on the ground without sending weapons, because your serenades are killing us.”
Col. Ahmad Hijazi, the FSA’s chief of staff, says he can understand the resentment. ”I don’t blame them,” he says. ”The people are angry and they are taking out their frustrations on us. But what can we do? They are asking us for more than what we can do. Governments must support the Free Army.”
In the absence of such aid, Syria‘s military defectors just wait. The camp housing the FSA officers looks just like the others Turkey has established for the thousands of civilians who have fled across its border — rows of white tents are neatly pitched along lanes of uneven loose white gravel. But unlike most of the others, the officers’ camp is isolated from nearby towns and villages. It’s in the middle of a lush agricultural plain in Apaydin, about 12 miles from Antakya, where verdant fields abut plowed, upturned earth, and snow-capped hills rim the horizon.
The FSA may claim to be operating a ”command and control center” for the anti-Assad military effort from the camp, but it’s unclear whether they can control much of anything from a base with regular power cuts. Its critics, like the ”We Hope to Be Armed Brigade,” say it has offered little to the men fighting and dying inside Syria in its name. How do the FSA’s commanders account for their seeming lack of impact on the ground?
Hijazi shifts uncomfortably in his plastic chair inside one of the many identical tents in the officers’ camp. He doesn’t like the question. Nor does his fellow officer, Major Maher Nuami, who is seated on a single bed (the only one) in the tent. ”It’s sensitive,” Hijazi finally says. They won’t say if the FSA has sent emissaries to Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Libya — which recently pledged $100 million to the Syrian opposition — but insist that they have received no help on the ground from these states.
If the international community doesn’t arm them and provide logistical support, ”everything” the world fears from the fall of Assad will come to pass, Nuami argues.
”The people will get weapons, one way or another, so help us,” Nuami continues. ”If you give us weapons, we can control them. We want the fall of the regime, not the fall of the state. If the international community helps us, we’ll help them. If it doesn’t, our people offer no guarantees.”
According to the FSA officers, the claims of foreign fighters in Syria — eagerly touted by the Assad regime — are wildly overblown. A lone Libyan had reportedly volunteered to fight with their FSA unit recently, but left after a few days. ”He said, ‘You guys are crazy, this is suicide, you don’t have weapons’,” Mokbat said. ”He was right. I wish the revolution would go back, it was better before. We used to shoot into the air, we didn’t worry about ammunition. Now we think twice about using each bullet.”
Although Turkey houses the FSA, it ”does not allow any weapon to be transferred to Syria in [an] illegal way,” a Turkish government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. Anyone caught trying will be arrested and the weapons confiscated, he added.
That’s exactly what many Syrian refugees, defectors and civilian revolutionaries accuse the high-level defectors in the camp of doing — just sitting there. In the absence of an organized military effort, the burden of securing weapons and funding has fallen to lower-level officers like Alaa, as well as ordinary Syrians like Abdel-Salim, a taxi driver turned thuwar who commands the ”Free Syrians,” a ragtag bunch of farmers, taxi drivers and other civilians from a string of villages abutting the Turkish border. Abdel-Salim, a 40-year-old with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard and high cheekbones, had crossed the border into southernTurkey to try and secure supplies for his group: 3,000 bullets, to be precise.
The ”Free Syrians” are under the FSA banner, he explains, and are in regular communication with its leadership via a few defectors in his group. ”We ask the defectors to go to the officers’ camp to ask for help but we haven’t got anything from the Free Army yet,” Abdel-Salim says. ”But to be fair, I don’t think the Free Army has anything itself.”
Abdel-Salim recalls that he participated in peaceful protests for months, and only picked up a weapon four months ago, when he ”lost hope” in protests. He was shot about a month before that, in his stomach and his right leg, and spent 10 days recuperating in a Turkish hospital. He walks with a limp, but that didn’t deter him from crossing back into Syria to fight Assad’s army. ”I didn’t want to pick up a weapon,” he says, ”but I think Israel is more honorable than the Syrian regime.”
The longer Abdel-Salim speaks, the angrier he gets. ”Where is the money the Syrian opposition got from the Libyans?” he seethes. ”We haven’t seen any of the [Syrian] National Council members down here. … What is Riad al-Assad doing in Turkey anyway? Army commander? He should cross the border, lift people’s morale. What is he scared of — dying?”
The Assad System – to kill more
Another from defected soldiers:
Defectors: Torture of children, rape by #Syrian army ‘routine’ !
In addition to shooting unarmed civilians, Syrian military personnel routinely have raped women and girls, tortured children and encouraged troops to loot the houses they storm, former foot soldiers say.
“What I have seen with my own eyes, it was indescribable,” said Rolat Azad, 21, who said he’d served as a master sergeant in Idlib province in the northeast of Syria. There, he commanded 10 men who’d break into houses seeking to arrest men whose names they’d been given by the country’s intelligence agencies. “They gave us orders: ‘You are free to do what you like,’ ” he recalled.
Starting last July, he said, his unit arrested and tortured five to 10 people daily. “We had a torture room on our base,” he said. “There was physical torture — beatings — and psychological tortures,” said Azad, a Syrian Kurd who deserted and fled in March to the Kurdistan region of Iraq. “They also brought women and girls through. They put them in the closed room and called soldiers to rape them.”
The women often were killed, he said.
Azad — as with other former soldiers here, the name is a pseudonym assumed to protect his family, still in Syria — was interviewed at a camp that Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government set up for Syrian army deserters. He recalled the torture of two young teenage boys. He said they’d been arrested either for shooting videos of the military or showing disrespect for the military and the regime, something that wasn’t uncommon, even among children. “I once asked a small kid why he wasn’t going to school,” Azad said. “He said, ‘We won’t until this regime is gone.’ “
One boy, about 13, was brought into the torture room and given electrical shocks, Azad said. Another, 14, was brought into the room in late February. His screams could be heard in the camp outside the town of Jisr al Shughour. “It was painful for all the soldiers,” he said. Azad said he had no idea of the boy’s fate. “They held him one or two days. Either they killed him or sent him to military security,” he said.
Even worse, he said, was hearing the wailing and screaming of old men being tortured: “When they tortured old men, I couldn’t stand it. I went outside. Others closed their eyes. I could not stay.”
An independent U.N. commission of inquiry has described the Syrian government’s offensive against civilians as possible “crimes against humanity.” The commission, which reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, detailed arbitrary arrests, disappearances and torture, including the torture of children, in its latest report, issued in February, but it didn’t detail the practice of rape. Commission officials said they had yet to talk with a rape victim.
He was assigned to a military construction unit but was ordered to the scenes of demonstrations, where troops would shoot at civilians.
“It was an ugly scene. We were at the top of a building and would shoot at civilians: children, women, men, anyone against the regime.” He said the Syrian intelligence agencies stationed personnel to make sure they shot civilians. “They were watching anyone not shooting and taking down names,” he said.
Several soldiers said Kurdish and Sunni Muslim troops tried wherever possible to fire over people’s heads, but Alawites — members of the sect related to Shiite Islam that President Bashar Assad belongs to — boasted about how many demonstrators they’d killed.
“We had an order to shoot and kill,” said Khaled Derecki, 20. “But some of those demonstrating were my friends, and we fired over their heads. “But the Alawites in my unit were very proud. They’d say: ‘Today, we killed seven or eight.’ “
240mm mortar bombs
One of the weapons used by the Assad’s regime in “attacking” and destroying cities and neighbourhoods is the Russian SM-240 (2S4) 240-mm self-propelled mortar known to the West as the M-1975.
This systems fire the world’s largest high explosive mortar bomb (240mm F-864), designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks” according to a Russian arms merchandizing catalogue.
It is the largest mortar bomb known to be in production and use. It weighs 130 kilograms and contains 31.93 kilograms of TNT as an explosive charge.
Other munitions used by Assad’s regime on the “attack” is Russian 122mm howitzers and 120mm mortars and 121-mm and 81-mm shells.
You REALLY get “impressed” by these “brave soldiers” who attacks civilian cities and destroy whole blocks and neighbourhoods by using among other things 240mm mortar bombs. Designed to “demolish fortifications and fieldworks”
That is really a “worthy” adversary for a real soldier – killing unarmed civilians in their homes.
This is a photo of the 240mm mortar bomb. I cut it from a Russian instructional video.
So who are these “brave” men slaughtering unarmed civilians?
The main force is Assad’s loyal shabiha, a militia of an estimated 35,000 Alawites who have pledged loyalty to Assad and are his regime’s key prop.
The Syrian opposition refers to this ragtag band of Assad loyalists as jaysh abu shahhata— or the “army of the sandals,” referring to its shoddy equipment and lack of discipline.
Another one is the infamous Fourth Armored Division, under the control of the president’s brother, Maher. The Syrian 14th Infantry Division and the 40th and 90th mechanized brigades has also taken part.
In addition, they are not very “professional” or good at their work, except of course to destroy cities and kill civilians.
For example when the 4th Armored Division were sent (February 28) to the Baba Amr district of Homs, after Syrian forces failed in their three-week long offensive (including intensive shelling) to enter the city. It wasn’t until the army shut off the last supply line that it was able to enter Baba Amr—spearheaded by nearly 7000 soldiers from the 4th Armored Division, which is roughly the entire unit.
The resistance there was carried by one of the most professional Syrian rebel group, The Al Farouk Brigades, which kept the Syrian military at bay for nearly a month although they have no ties with the FSA and number no more than 300 to 400 fighters. The rebel movement has some 40 small “brigades”, mixed freelancers who fight at random here and there but demonstrate little operational ability.
And what did this “glorious elite” Armored Division do after the capture?
Well one of the first thing it did was to behead 17 civilians.
A “normal routine” for any professional soldier wouldn’t you say?
”Assad’s security forces have just beheaded – yes, beheaded – 17 civilians in Baba Amr, according to the human rights group Avaaz. I have been speaking to Will Davies, Avaaz’s media campaigner, who confirmed with me that he is ”100 per cent” sure that this story is true as it’s been corroborated by independent sources. In fact, he provided a list of all the victims:
But for the most part, most of the army stays out of this. They have “defected in place”
From division level down to battalions and brigades level. Entire units from commander down defy orders from the General Staff in Damascus to fight the rebels without crossing the lines to the opposition. To keep the spreading passive mutiny, Assad keeps the defiant units supplied in their barracks with funds and food.
Another example of this passive mutiny by the Syrian army, was when the five Syrian divisions stationed on Syria’s Golan border with Israel and its frontier with South Lebanon; were told by their commanders in beginning of March to ignore orders from Damascus to join the crackdown on rebels because their mission was “to defend the Syrian homeland from external threats” – another form of “defection in place.”
In other words, we are so “busy” protecting the borders so we don’t want to and don’t have time for this kind of “nonsense”.
For the most part, the Syrian army is a declining, anachronistic force, whose high officers is afraid of the leader, and watch each other’s backs. The problems with corruption, nepotism, poorly organized technical and maintenance support etc. This keeps much of the army paralyzed.
Some Special Forces and armored units are exceptions, but promotion is highly dependent on favoritism and nepotism.
That is why – contrary to what the West believes – Assad is not using his army to crack down on the uprising but the loyal Alawite Shabiha brigades and battalions.
Many artists, writers etc have taken part in the protests and uprising. To name some:
Samar Yazbeck, Ibrahim Qashoush, Rasha Omran, Ali Farzat, Mai Skaf, Khaled Khalifa, Samih Shqair,Fadwa Sulaiman —there’s an impressive list of Syrian writers, musicians and artists who have bravely and unambiguously supported the people’s aspirations for dignity.
As the Alawi actress Fadwa Sulaiman, on November 8, 2011, leading the crowd in besieged and blood-soaked Homsin chants of “No Muslim Brotherhood, No Salafis, We All Want Freedom.” And “One, One, the Syrian People are One.”
“Districts are being raided since last night, searching for me. People are being beaten to reveal my hiding place. In case I get arrested by the security or army forces, who might force me to appear on Al-Dunia channel to make me to admit that I am part of the conspiracy against Syria the way they did with the honorable Sheik Al-Sayasneh and the brave officier Hussein Harmoush. If they hurt me or any members of my family in any way, then I hold the government and its security apparatus and thugs fully responsible.”
“I urge the great Syrian people to continue their peaceful struggle until they topple the regime and achieve the democratic civic state that all Syrians dream of. And I invite you to unite and stand together to overthrow the regime which lost its legitimacy the moment the constitution was changed to accommodate the appointment of Bashar Al-Assad as president ofSyria, for no reason other than being the son of the late president.
I urge you to come out to the streets and squares today and every day to declare civil disobedience and hunger strike until the withdrawal of the security and military forces from the streets and the release of all the political and opinion prisoners which are currently in the oppressive jails and to spare the blood of all Syrians.
I urge all the Syrians around the world, and all people to support us and stand in front of our embassies around the world declaring hunger strike to express the right of people to express their opinion about their regimes without being killed by these regimes.”
“Baba Amr is living a real humanitarian disaster. Stand by Baba Amr, because no district or road in Syria is exempt from a fate similar to that of Bab Amr, as long as the Arab league is providing the regime with one extension after another so that it continues repressing the Syrian people, and depriving them from their freedom, dignity and life, and peace be upon Syria and its people.”
And journalist, writer and screenwriter Samar Yazbek speaks up on Syria in an Italian magazine, April 24, 2011
“I’m not optimistic, to the contrary. In recent weeks people have finally broken the silence and fear, I myself have participated in the demonstrations”, she says. “We have found the courage to ask for freedom and democracy, an end to emergency laws that oppress us since 1963. We demand real political parties and elections, the right to express ourselves. But the repression is very hard, with many deaths and arrests. As always, the regime makes promises, but does not maintain them. The army and security forces control everything.”
“The regime has indeed destroyed the Alawite religion, a peaceful religion, as it engaged in things foreign to the faith, leading some to become its Alawite thugs. But many of us are opponents, in jail, in exile, or banned from travel. The regime is playing with sectarianism to terrify “its” minority and get support. A game that will end, but first, I fear, there will be clashes between the communities. ”
In Syria, Holding a Camera is a Death Sentence
Most of the documentation, videos, photos etc from the Assad’s regimes slaughter of it’s own people has been documented by very brave civilians who risk their life every time they try to document and record what is happening. Many has paid with their life for this “crime”
Here is an interview with the founder of the of Syria’s Dier Press Network. How a group of doctors became the vanguard of Eastern Syria’s free press.
“In the town of Dierez-Zour on the road from Syria to Iraq, a doctor, who we’ll call Kareem, put down his medicine bottles. It wasMarch 15, 2011. The media blackout in Syria had just begun. Kareem had no experience as a journalist. But when he turned on the TV and saw the blackout, he picked up the phone. On the other end is his cousin, who we’ll call Ahmed, a young law student in theUK.
When Syria’s crackdown on protests began to intensify, Ahmed and Kareem made a commitment to respond. On March 21, they formed a network of smugglers, cameramen, and tech support that has become known as the Dier Press Network (DPN.), Syria’s first citizen-journalist media company.
One year later, Ahmed and Kareem reflect on the small company that has grown into a satellite TV network, the colleagues they’ve lost, and the future of the Syrian free press. Their names have been changed to protect their families.”
”Guernica: How did you start?
Ahmed: Kareem gave me a call one day. The government started using live ammunition on protesters, beating them up, and if you were caught you risked torture. You could hear the metal clang of tanks outside the classroom windows, the drone of airplanes above the teacher’s voice, the plodding of artillery, like footsteps of a faraway giant. I had already left the country about a year ago. But he was seeing all these things with his own eyes and he wanted to show the world what he saw.
Kareem: Most news was on the Western side ofSyria, but the East was rebelling and no one knew about it. I wanted to do something, but I was really starting from zero. It was a process of trial and error at the beginning.
Guernica: How did you build a citizen-journalist network? How would others do so?
Kareem: First thing was to start a Facebook page. The problem with this, we found out, was that Facebook was heavily monitored by the government. But still, we felt the most prominent way to spread the news during the media blackout was through Facebook.”
“Guernica: What is DPN exactly?
Ahmed: It stands for Dier ez-Zour Press Network. Dier ez-Zour is our province in Syria. DPN. is a non-partisan, non-sectarian news group. We rely on a mix of volunteers within and without the company. It is a sort of crowd-sourced journalism that relies on ordinary citizens.
Guernica: What are the next steps in expanding this kind of media network?
Ahmed: You need a lot of public support. We had it. But after the media blackout worsened, we depended less and less on trusted friends and more and more on anonymous volunteers. Basically, we went from one cameraman and Kareem to hundreds cameramen and hundreds of Kareems [smugglers]. The problem was that when the army entered towns like Dier ez-Zour, filming any citizens getting killed was very dangerous, and yet DPN. was carrying all of these videos. Carrying a camera was a death sentence.”
Some recent headlines from local media:
Al-Arabiya: Saturday’s death toll in Syriareaches 133 people (April 7)
Turkeysays 2,800 fleeSyria in one day (April 5)
More than 1,000 Syrian refugees flee toTurkey in single day (April 4)
Al-Jazeera: Wednesday’s death toll in Syriarises to 92 (April 4)
Al-Arabiya: Sunday’s death toll in Syriarises to 57 people (April 1)
Al-Jazeera: Syrian forces kill 50 people on Saturday, activists say (March 24)
Al-Jazeera: Syria’s Thursday death toll rises to 81, activists say (March 22)
Wednesday’s death toll in Syriarises to 70, Local Coordination Committees say (March 21)
Al-Arabiya: Syrian forces kill 55 people on Tuesday (March 20)
Monday March 19, 2012
Death toll: 52, including 6 inDeraaProvince, and 6 inDeirEzzorProvince. Explosions were heard in Arbeen and Harasta inEastern Ghoutah region ofDamascus, as well as in Qaboun District inDamascusCity itself. The pounding of Old Homs continues, as locals find 6 bodies belonging to local women killed by pro-Assad death squads.
Al-Arabiya: Friday’s death toll in Syriarises to 41 (March 16)
Al-Jazeera: Thursday’s death toll in Syriarises to 72 (March 15)
One thousand Syrians flee toTurkey in single day, official says (March 15)
More than 9,000 killed inSyria violence, monitors say (March 15)
Syria– one year after the revolution: 10,000 confirmed dead.20,000 missing / 120,000 detained / 230,000 internally displaced / 150,000 refugees(Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, Gulf, Europe) / 1,400,000 at risk of famine(according to FAO).
Wednesday March 15, 2012
Tuesday: Forty people were executed by pro-Assad death squads near Bilal Mosque inIdlibCity. But ten loyalist troops were killed in an ambush in the city of Ma’aratAl-Nouman. In Homs City, the pounding of Jub Al-Jandali Neighborhood continued,leading to the death of at least 5 residents. In nearby Talbisseh, poundingleft 14 locals wounded. In the town ofDa’el,DeraaProvince, 12loyalists were killed in an ambush by local FSA units.
Wednesday: 85 people were killed mostly inIdlib City as pro-Assad death squads took controlover the city. The death toll also includes 6 who died under torture in HamaCity (3) and AleppoCity (3), 6 killed inDamascus and suburbs, and 11 who werekilled in a renewed incursion intoDeraaCity.
Thursday: 91 people were killed including at least 23 who were executed by pro-Assad death squadsinIdlib City. Death toll also includes 5 children and 4 defectors.
Al-Jazeera: Syrian security forces kill 76, activists say (March 14)
And by the way, the headline Vladimir Putin ‘The Butcher of Homs’ was given by the people on the streets in Homs and Babr Amr. That’s as he so “fondly” known on the streets of Babr Amr.
It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
The official February temperature figures are out. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent February US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 42 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature February 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.29 F / Decade
US temperature February 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 0.39 F / Decade
US temperature February 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.03 F / Decade
US temperature February 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is – 1.27 F / Decade
US temperature February 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is – 1.63 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 for February is exactly – 1.63 F degrees a decade. That is a – 16.3 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
And to REALLY show you this “accelerated warming” trend lets recapitulate the last three months and their trend /decade (se my previous posts):
US temperature December 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.86 F / Decade
US temperature January 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is – 1.18 F / Decade
US temperature February 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is – 1.63 F / Decade
You REALLY, REALLY can see the accelerating trend can you not?
Take cover – The sweat is really breaking out.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, “journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of February ”accelerated warming” trend:
The February trend 1970-2011 is exactly 0.39 F degrees a decade.
The February trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.03 F degrees a decade.
The February trend 1990-2011 is exactly – 1.27 F degrees a decade.
The February trend 2000-2011 is exactly –1.63 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 42 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
It is getting cooler and cooler. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
The official January temperature figures are out. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent January US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 112 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature January 1900-2012
The trend for 1900 to 2012 is 0.12 F / Decade
US temperature January 1970-2012
The trend for 1970 to 2012 is 1.16 F / Decade
US temperature January 1980-2012
The trend for 1980 to 2012 is 0.72 F / Decade
US temperature January 1990-2012
The trend for 1990 to 2012 is 0.03 F / Decade
US temperature January 2000-2012
The trend for 2000 to 2012 is – 1.18 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.).
So the “warming trend” 2000-2012 for January is exactly – 1.18 F degrees a decade. That is a – 11.8F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of January ”accelerated warming” trend:
The January trend 1970-2011 is exactly 1.16 F degrees a decade.
The January trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.72 F degrees a decade.
The January trend 1990-2011 is exactly 0.03 F degrees a decade.
The January trend 2000-2011 is exactly –1.18 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Irish economist David McWiliams, of Punk Economics, explains how EU has evolved from a democracy to a bankocracy.
In this illustrated video, he explains Europe’s (and US )’dirty little secret’ where economic policy is being run almost exclusively for the banks. And the political elite are becoming more and more detached from the people.
I disagree on one point; EU was never a democracy in the first place. It was never designed to be that by the political class/elites.
The Euro was always a political project. That’s why “they” haven’t done the ”proper” economic policies. Because these policies would undermine the political purpose of the Euro. So they, the political elites of EU, are trapped. And that’s why the Euro was domed from the beginning.
“How can brokeeconomies lend money to other broke economies who haven’t got any moneybecause they can’t pay back the money the broke economy lent to the other broke economy and shouldn’t have lent them in the first place because the broke economy cant pay it back”.
Even a 5 year old can understand this. But not “our” politicians and bankers.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous post December U.S. Temperature trend/decade: – 8.6 F COOLER in 100 years, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 12 months (year to date, January-December) US temperature from a “historic” perspective since we now have a whole year of official data. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 12 month, a year by year consecutive trend 111 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan-Dec) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.12 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.45 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.37 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.22 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (Jan- Dec) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.60 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2011 to 2000-2011??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.60Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 6.0 F COOLER in 100 years. The freezer next!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 12 months trend 1970-2011 is exactly 0.45 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.37 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly0.22 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.60 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
The official December temperature figures are out. As usual I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent December US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature December 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.12 F / Decade
US temperature December 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.34 F / Decade
US temperature December 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.40 F / Decade
US temperature December 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.86 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 for December is exactly – 0.86 F degrees a decade. That is a – 8.6 F COOLER in 100 years. That’s what I call “warming”!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of Decembers ”accelerated warming” trend:
The December trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.34 F degrees a decade.
The December trend 1990-2011 is exactly–0.40 F degrees a decade.
The December trend 2000-2011 is exactly –0.86 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 31 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska alla mina läsare ett riktigt Gott Nytt År! Framförallt i dessa tider med kyla och snö. Förlåt, jag menar förstås detta strålande exempel på Global Warming.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Happy New Year! Especially in these cold and snowy days. Sorry, I mean of course these glorious Global Warming days.
Vill ta tillfället i akt att önska all mina läsare en riktigt God Jul!
Så här skrev jag för exakt tre år sedan:
”Jag ser med förtröstan fram mot 2009. Det år då den största politiska och vetenskapliga skandalen i modern tid kommer att spricka – Global Warming Hysterin.”
Nå, det blev ju så eller hur.
Så år 2012 ser jag med förtröstan fram emot att den största politiska och vetenskapliga skandalen i modern tid– Global Warming Hysterin – kommer att fortsätta att falla ihop som det korthus det är.
Tyvärr så är de sista att överge detta gigantiska svindleri våra intälägänta politiker. Så vi vanliga människor kommer att få fortsätta att betala mycket dyrt för denna hysteri.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas!
In my post exactly three years ago I wrote:
“I am looking forward to 2009, the year when the biggest political and scientific scandal in modern time is going to implode – The Global Warming Hysteria.”
Well, it did happen.
So for 2012 I am looking forward to that the biggest political and scientific scandal in modern time – The Global Warming Hysteria – is not only going to implode, which it already has, it is going to vanish into the thin air.
But our “dear” intelligent politicians are the last ones to abandon this scam and heist. So we, the common people, are still going to pay dearly for this hysteria.
The traveling UN circus is over for this time. This was the 17th show on the road so far.
Some highlights:
– ‘they are supposed to be saving the planet and they can’t even run a meeting…‘
– Everything here is a study, there is nothing tangible
– Awkward silence as Russian delegate asks what we just decided on
– He still doesn’t understand what’s going on w docs. No one else does either, but they want to go home
– decisions passed more due to exhaustion/lack of clear communication, not active consent
I have written extensible about the blatant hypocrisy from the UN pack and their jet set allies, this traveling circus that fly around the globe in first class, or private jet, stay in hotel rooms at $700-800 per night in spa resorts, and gets wined and dined at expensive restaurants.
All of this of course paid by us, the normal people.
While they at the same time preach austerity, frugality and sacrifice from us, the taxpayers.
This blatant hypocrisy is so mind numbing that it would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that these people have the power to force us to obey them.
They are a truly parasitic class in the sense that Karl Marx wrote about it.
How ironic that today most of this class is leftists and so called “liberals”.
And here are the inner workings of this parasitic class, described live from people in the conference, via twitter feeds.
I think it sums it all up very well.
Any one that has been to any of these marathon meetings/conferences in the UN or EU, I have, instantly recognizes the very familiar settings and how “things” proceed.
President smashing out the decisions quicker than delegates can rush out the door to catch their flights
Here is Christopher Monckton going through the real agenda in Durban. In their own words.
And this is the real danger, in all these small prints and haggling over words and commas; the people driving this Global Warming Hysteria successfully advance their agenda one sentence and paragraph at a time.
Fully knowing that the delegates at these conferences, as it gets closer to the end of the meting, they just want to adopt “something” and go home so they can say publicly that they achieved anything (se above on the twitter feeds).
That’s when you can push trough your agenda when most people are just exhausted. Ant they know that most people, especially politicians, don’t read these very lengthy documents with all small print and all the paragraphs and sub paragraphs.
The politicians leave that to their “bureaucrats”. So the “bureaucrats” are very much in control of “the show”. And can push their own agenda.
The report is here:
Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention,November 29 2011
”DURBAN, South Africa— “No high hopes for Durban.” “Binding treaty unlikely.” “No deal this year.” Thus ran the headlines. The profiteering UN bureaucrats here think otherwise. Their plans to establish a world government paid for by the West on the pretext of dealing with the non-problem of “global warming” are now well in hand. As usual, the mainstream media have simply not reported what is in the draft text which the 194 states parties to the UN framework convention on climate change are being asked to approve.
Behind the scenes, throughout the year since Cancun, the now-permanent bureaucrats who have made highly-profitable careers out of what they lovingly call “the process” have been beavering away at what is now a 138-page document. Its catchy title is “Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention — Update of the amalgamation of draft texts in preparation of [one imagines they mean ‘for’] a comprehensive and balanced outcome to be presented to the Conference of the Parties for adoption at its seventeenth session: note by the Chair.” In plain English, these are the conclusions the bureaucracy wants.
The contents of this document, turgidly drafted with all the UN’s skill at what the former head of its documentation center used to call “transparent impenetrability”, are not just off the wall – they are lunatic.”
“Main points:
Ø A new International Climate Court will have the powerto compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”.The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.
Ø “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.
Ø “Right to survive”: The draft childishly asserts that “The rights of some Parties to survive are threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change, including sea level rise.” At 2 inches per century, according to eight years’ data from the Envisat satellite? Oh, come off it! The Jason 2 satellite, the new kid on the block, shows that sea-level has actually dropped over the past three years.
Ø War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.
Ø A new global temperature target will aim, Canute-like, to limit “global warming” to as little as 1 C° above pre-industrial levels. Since temperature is already 3 C° above those levels, what is in effect being proposed is a 2 C° cut in today’s temperatures. This would take us halfway back towards the last Ice Age, and would kill hundreds of millions. Colder is far more dangerous than warmer.
Ø The new CO2 emissions target, for Western countries only, will be a reduction of up to 50% in emissions over the next eight years and of “more than 100%” [these words actually appear in the text] by 2050. So, no motor cars, no coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, no aircraft, no trains. Back to the Stone Age, but without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in your caves. Windmills, solar panels and other “renewables” are the only alternatives suggested in the draft. There is no mention of the immediate and rapid expansion of nuclear power worldwide to prevent near-total economic destruction.
Ø The new CO2 concentration target could be as low as 300 ppmv CO2 equivalent (i.e., including all other greenhouse gases as well as CO2 itself). That is a cut of almost half compared with the 560 ppmv CO2 equivalent today. It implies just 210 ppmv of CO2 itself, with 90 ppmv CO2 equivalent from other greenhouse gases. But at 210 ppmv, plants and trees begin to die. CO2 is plant food. They need a lot more of it than 210 ppmv.
Ø The peak-greenhouse-gas target year – for the West only – will be this year. We will be obliged to cut our emissions from now on, regardless of the effect on our economies (and the lack of effect on the climate).
Ø The West will pay for everything, because of its “historical responsibility” for causing “global warming”. Third-world countries will not be obliged to pay anything. But it is the UN, not the third-world countries, that will get the money from the West, taking nearly all of it for itself as usual. There is no provision anywhere in the draft for the UN to publish accounts of how it has spent the $100 billion a year the draft demands that the West should stump up from now on.
The real lunacy comes in the small print – all of it in 8-point type, near-illegibly printed on grubby, recycled paper. Every fashionable leftist idiocy is catered for.”
First about Anthony Watts: He has my unreserved admiration for his long and unique work on surface stations in USA, revelling their poor locations, quality etc. This is exceptionally good work from a private citizen when the government and “scientific” organisations failed to do their work.
And then his dedicated work on his blog (http://wattsupwiththat.com/) to expose the flawed “science” behind the Global Warming Hysteria. All this work has made his blog, rightfully so, one of the must influential ones. This is extraordinary work from a private citizen. I stand in salute for that.
But, as I said, he has crossed a line that should not be crossed with the above post.
As a former journalist and working in the government, I am deeply troubled. I posted a comment to his post (see at the end of this post), but I like to explain in more detail why I am so troubled by his post.
What shines through is the absolute naiveté, especially the political naiveté. It’s incredulous. And dangerous.
So let’s first recapitulate which persons/groups are behind the greatest scientific/political scandal in modern time – The Global Warming Hysteria:
So called “scientists” (Big science), the political elites, governments, EU, UN, NGO: s (all goes under Big Government and Global Big Government), the mainstream media (Old Big Media), Big Companies (including ironically Big Oil). Many of them have been at it for nearly 30-40 years.
In sum the establishment.
They don’t care about the truth and give no quarters to anybody. Especially if people are perceived as a threat. These people and groups will never give up their power or privileges voluntarily, or because they are “nice”. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep it.
So it is this “charming lot” we are up against.
There are two parts to this.
First:
The first part is the extensive speculations, going through categories of persons that could have done it, and tips on who is behind the leak etc.
As I said in my comment to his post:
“Why on earth should you in any shape or form abet them in trying to catch the person/persons behind the leak?”
This is not your job, Anthony. The governments, with ALL their disposable resources; from police via tax authorities to different intelligence agencies and special ops; HAVE ALL the resources in the world to find this person/persons. If they so chose.
As a journalist, the first rule is to protect your sources. And especially you don’t try and go and expose them through lengthy examinations and discussion about who they can be.
To give you an analogue with one of the most famous of them all “Deep throat”. This exposed the Nixon administration, including the Watergate scandal.
Imagine if Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had written lengthy articles about who the source could be, which persons actually had access to that kind of information, which department etc he or she could come from.
How many new sources do you think they would get? – None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. They would be the pariah of investigative journalism. And for a very good reason too.
Her you have a very reliable source with data that can be controlled and verified. And you want to find out who it is. Thereby risking that person/persons untold “unpleasantness”. Just by speculating.
And Anthony, why do you think FOIA after two years of silence published the WHOLE email file this time, even if you could only access 5000 of them? The rest covered by high encryption and a very long pass phrase?
Because this is his or her insurance against the resources the state can put against them.
Remember that FOIA was very naïve to in the beginning. He/she gave it first to the mainstream media (including laughingly enough BBC). Which of course refused to do anything.
It was only after that it was “leaked”. But however FOIA is, he/she have quickly learned the hard political lessons.
Very telling is the absent from the leaked emails of ANY regarding contacts between the so called “scientists” and politicians or person high up in various administrations/agencies etc.
Why, because I am quite sure that they are there among the rest of the 250 000 emails behind that encryption. So if the state or politicians gets “to close” FOIA will release the pass phrase which will reveal everything in the hidden emails.
That alone should give you pass for thought. And stop this helping to find the person/persons behind the leak.
Second:
So let’s again recapitulate which “charming lot” are behind the greatest scientific/political scandal in modern time:
So called “scientists” (Big science), the political elites, governments, EU, UN, NGO: s (all goes under Big Government and Global Big Government), the mainstream media (Old Big media), Big companies (including ironically Big Oil). Many of the have been at it for nearly 30-40 years.
In sum the establishment.
They don’t care about the truth and give no quarters to anybody. Especially if people are perceived as a threat. These people and groups will never give up their power or privileges voluntarily, or because they are “nice”. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep it.
So it is this “prime example of truthful and nice people” we are up against.
And what does Anthony do?
He writes an email to one of the chief architects behind the Global Warming Hysteria Phil Jones (CRU)and Journal of Geophysical Research;and kindly informs them that he has discovered some security holes.
And admonishes that they “should immediately change all passwords access for these CRU members and I would advise against allowing transmission of live links such as the one above in the future. JGR might also consider a more secure method of manuscript sharing for review.”
Let me se if I get this right:
Anthony writes to Phil Jones, a guy who literally hates him and has done everything possible to smear and stop him, and tells him about security problems on their systems. And how to stop them so there can be no leaks in the future?
HUUHHH??????
Leaks like Climate gate 1 and 2, which showed in black and white these “scientist”, politicians and “journalists” to be lying, breaking the law,“adjusting” and manipulating data to fit their agenda, stopping ANY dissent and suppressing any person or paper that dared to question them.
Out of respect for Anthony I will not make some very tempting analogies here.
You have accomplished what the Global Warming Hysterics in their wettest dream didn’t dare to dream.
How sad. And what a shame.
I can only conclude by saying that Anthony, you have crossed a line, and even if you do not understand it yourself, you have become Colonel Nicholson (se below).
Here is my comment to his post published 4.24 am today:
______________________________________
Anthony, have you lost it?
Why on earth should you in any shape or form abet them in trying to catch the person/persons behind the leak? As some have pointed out in their comments.
And Charles.U.Farleys comments are spot on
“In fact if the roles were reversed i think theyd have used any foothold, any loophole to ensure they brought you down rather than simply seek the truth. Personally i dont think its wise to assist them in any way shape or form as its simply helping them to continue unabated.
After all, this is a global war theyre involved in, a war based on lies and disinformation, of treachery and vilification of anyone not supporting “the cause”, and comfort shouldnt be given to enemies of freedom, especuially ones who stoop so low as these.”
Sadly, you very much remind me of commander, Colonel Nicholson played by Alec Guinness in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).
The prisoners (British soldiers) are working as little as possible and sabotaging whatever they can at the construction of a bridge.
When Nicholson and his officers are released, he conducts an inspection of the bridge and is shocked by what he finds. Against the protests of some of his officers, he orders Captain Reeves and Major Hughes to design and build a proper bridge, despite its military value to the Japanese, for the sake of his men’s morale. The Japanese engineers had chosen a poor site, so the original construction is abandoned and a new bridge is begun 400 yards downstream.
Nicholson drives his men, even volunteering to have them work harder to complete the bridge on time
The commandos who where parachute in, plant explosives to destroy the bridge and a train carrying Japanese soldiers and important dignitaries is scheduled to be the first to use the bridge the following morning
Making a final inspection, Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Japanese commander attention. As the train is heard approaching, the two hurry down to the riverbank to investigate. Joyce, hiding with the detonator, breaks cover and stabs Saito to death; Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. Joyce is killed by Japanese fire. Shears swims across the river, but is shot just before he reaches Nicholson.
Recognising the dying Shears, Nicholson exclaims, ”What have I done?”
Well my post made some stir. As it should because it concerns some important principles.
First, let me say that I find it depressing that so few people really understands the need to protect the sources. And doesn’t understand that mindless speculations are very dangerous in this regard
Second, what shines through, still, in the debate is the absolute naiveté, especially the political naiveté. It’s incredulous. And very dangerous.
This is NOT some tea party where you discus things friendly over biscuits and cake. And have a wee argument.
This is about Power and Real Politics. And the persons behind the Global Warming Hysteria have been playing it for a long time. And very successfully so.
Until people understand this, that it always has been a political agenda, the Global Warming Hysterics will have the upper hand. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
Here are some who publicly have commented and linked to my post about Anthony Watts:
Why on earth would be do that when the Climategate releases have been so helpful to skeptics? It appears to be out of some misguided sense of honour but I suspect that the real motive is that he is tired of being reviled by the climate establishment and is hungry for some praise from them: Deeply regrettable on many levels.
A Swedish blogger who herself finds great holes in the reporting of climate statistics is particilarly upset because she knows how unprincipled and dishonest the climate establishment is. She sees what Watts has done as akin to aiding and abetting criminals in their crime.
”Anthony wrights to Phil Jones, a guy who literarily hates him and has done everything possible to smear and stop him, and tells him about security problems on their systems. And how to stop them so there can be no leeks in the future?
HUUHHH??????”
Johnosullivan (Legal analyst and specialist writer on anti-corruption, acts as legal consultant to Dr. Tim Ball)
Why Did Anthony Watts Help Climategate’s Phil Jones?
“A schism in the ranks of global warming skeptics may ensue due to another gaffe by the world’s most popular science website, WattsUpWithThat. WUWT blogger, Anthony Watts has unashamedly boasted to have tipped off Climategate fraudster, Professor Phil Jones, about a potentially critical further security leak on university Internet servers.”
”You got that? It was his “duty,”says Watts, to help FOIA-denying fraudster Jones (the data-destroyer who unlawfully obstructed other researchers from trying to independently verify CRU climate calculations) to hide even more evidence. With such principled ‘friends’ like Watts does Steve McIntyre need any enemies?
Respected Aussie skeptic, Dr John Ray was so stunned by the Watts email that he penned ‘Controversial action by Anthony Watts’ (December 07, 2011) in response. Dr. Ray bemoans, “Watts has been assisting prominent Warmists to avoid any further releases of their emails. He is trying to disable any Climategate III.” Then Watts appeared to give the finger to Ray and fellow skeptics by declaring, “I opted on the side of doing what I felt was the right course of action. If that upsets a few people, so be it.”
Watts: Not the First Fool to Aid Professor Jones
When roundly condemned by more savvy commenters on his blog Watts responded on December 6, 2011 at 10:38 am:
“I was told in the reply from Phil Jones and from AGU that others had also been made aware of it, so I wasn’t the first.”
This Watts statement gives the game away: by declaring he was not aware that others had already tipped off Jones and in offering no further justification for his tactically inept action, he is merely conceding, “it wasn’t me who did it!”
As such the image of a snivelling schoolboy caught misbehaving springs to mind. Above all else, this ill-advised gaffe by Watts proves, if proof were needed, that Watts acted in haste and probably without consulting others. As such it shows once again that “Our Side” are a rag-tag bunch of renegades and not the “well-funded and well-organized” team that the narrative of Gore, Hansen, Mann, et al. would have the public believe.
I relate entirely to Dr. Ray and others who are now questioning why Watts would act to help the dastardly Phil Jones to block a potentially excellent source of information for skeptics. Ray speculates that Watts’s apoplexy appears to be triggered by some ”misguided sense of honor.” I can’t see any other logical reason so that may be true.
Ray suspects that an underlying motive is that Watts has become “tired of being reviled by the climate establishment and is hungry for some praise from them: Deeply regrettable on many levels.”
Wider International Frustrations Due to Watts
Ray’s frustrations are echoed by a Swedish blogger (read her comments HERE) similarly perplexed that Watts, a champion of exposing flaws in the ground level global thermometer readings, should want to sink to “aiding and abetting criminals in their crime.”
Watts just doesn’t seem to have the broader expertize to join the dots on this. In legal parlance, both the mens rea and actus reas were there for any jury to convict Jones of such crimes. Watts doesn’t comprehend that the original criminal charge against Jones under the FOIA was not pursued merely because of a tecnicality – the short six-month time limit had already expired. “
However, only the self-serving elite in the Crown Prosecution Service, police and UK Government refuse to see that Jones may still be prosecuted for his offenses as per the Fraud Act 2006 ( see Ch. 35. Fraud. ‘1 Fraud. 2 Fraud by false representation. 3 Fraud by failing to disclose information’) where no such time limit gets Jones off the hook.Watts, by being so amenable to Jones, is bolstering the edifice of climate criminality.
Watts just doesn’t get it – these authorities to which Jones is but a mere stooge – are not going to suddenly acquire the principles they manifestly lack and actually start playing by the rules. My own view is thatWattsacted hastily and foolishly to tip off fraudster Jones – such a gaffe gains us nothing and may cost us valuable new information. Scum like Jones do not deserve a helping hand because he and his governmental handlers can’t win a fair fight.”
“But why should Watts want to help scum like Jones? Professor Jones is a man patently caught out engaging in criminal misconduct expressing his intent in emails to colleagues and urging them to join him in unlawfully defying Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. “
As usual and as a complement to my previous post October U.S. Temperature – The trend is 0.03 deg F / Decade, I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent October US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature October 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.03 F / Decade
US temperature October 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.39 F / Decade
US temperature October 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.16 F / Decade
US temperature October 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.20 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 for October is exactly – 0.20 F degrees a decade. That is a – 2.0 F COOLER in 100 years. Take cover!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of Octobers ”accelerated warming” trend:
The October trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.39 F degrees a decade.
The October trend 1990-2011 is exactly 0.16 F degrees a decade.
The October trend 2000-2011 is exactly –0.20 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 31 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
FOIA.org has released another batch of 5,000 additional emails from the same Poole as those released two years ago in November 2009 witch become known as Climatgate.
I made a LOOOT of post regarding that (see the archives, Climate Gate – All the manipulations and lies revealed1 to 368)
And the reason as FOIA 2011 puts it is spot on:
“Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes. One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.
Poverty is a death sentence.
Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize
greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”
Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline.”
“Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the ”scientists” at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they’d like it to be.
In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism. This, it seems, is what motivated the whistleblower ‘FOIA 2011’ (or ”thief”, as the usual suspects at RealClimate will no doubt prefer to tar him or her) to go public.”
“FOIA 2011 is right, of course. If you’re going to bomb the global economy back to the dark ages with environmental tax and regulation, if you’re going to favour costly, landscape-blighting, inefficient renewables over real, abundant, relatively cheap energy that works like shale gas and oil,if you’re going to cause food riots and starvation in the developing world by giving over farmland (and rainforests) to biofuel production, then at the very leastyou it owe to the world to base your policies on sound, transparent, evidence-based science rather than on the politicised, disingenuous junk churned out by the charlatans at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”
” Can’t see what the fuss is about, meself … just another 5,000 e-mails showing the climate science ”community” committing collective suicide – nothing a few ”independent” scientific inquiries and a BBC documentary can’t fix … hide the recline, so to speak.”
“The emails appear to be genuine, but this has yet to be confirmed by theUniversityofEast Anglia. One of the emailers, the climate scientist Prof Michael Mann, has confirmed that he believes they are his messages.”
Now the new emails are searchable in a database. It took less than a day through volunteer work by independent bloggers. That’s why the political elite, politicians, the mainstream media (old media) and so called scientists; in the end don’t have a change to hide the truth. And to continue to drive their political agenda and manipulations even if they have all the money in the world.
Which they have, it is we, the taxpayers that is forced to finance this giant scam. And it is we, the common people that have to pay two/three times for the “pleasure” of watching our politicians reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
They also have the backing of the big corporations, including ironically BIG Oil.
That’s why this fight for truth, real data and real science, and freedom is taking so long. They are not going to voluntarily give up all this power and money.
And here is a very good description of the reactions of the above mentioned elites when confronted with all these lies and manipulations from James Delingpole.
Climategate 2.0: the Warmists’ seven stages of grief
”Climategate 2.0 – the gift that goes on giving. And you know how good it is from the reaction of the trolls. They’re going mental. On the one hand they’d like to insist it’s a non-story. On the other hand, the more shrilly they shriek it’s a non-story the more evident it becomes just what a great story it is.
Here’s an amusing analysis of the warmist trolls’ various lines of defence, which I picked up from the comments at Watts Up With That: (I wd give a hat tip except I’ve gone and lost the bit: if anyone can re-find it for me let me know)
Stage 1: they aren’t real emails
Stage 2: they are real emails but they aren’t in context
Stage 3: they are in context, but that’s how scientists work
Stage 4: ok, this isn’t really science, but you guys stole the emails!
Stage 5: this is old stuff
Stage 6: this is nothing
Stage 7: look everyone! Winter storm! See, we have proof of our theories now.
You just have to love the free spirit, the dedication and ingeniousness of the bloggers. Now EcoGuy has maid the emails from Climate Gate 1 and 2 searchable in the same database.
And the same Buffy Minton has produced a spreadsheet of Climate Gate 1 and 2 emails in chronological order. An excellent tool to follow the conversations in the emails.
The official October temperature figures are out. And it is down quite much compared with October last year – 1.01F.
And remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
October temperature 1900-2011
“The average temperature in October 2011 was 55.7 F. This was 0.9 F warmer than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 33rd warmest October in 117 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. “
And the “warming trend” 1900-2011 is exactly 0.03 F degrees a decade. That is a whopping 0.3 F warmer in 100 years. The sweat is really breaking out! Put on the AC!
And as usual there are some wild swings from year to year. Which humankind somehow mysteriously survived without any catastrophe.
Notice the dramatic drop from 1924 to 1925. A drop of –6.21 F degrees
And the dramatic rise from 1925 to 1926. A rise of 6.11 F degrees.
A total change of a whopping 12.32 F degrees in two years. Talking about a temperature roller coaster.
And notice the dramatic rise from 1946 to 1947. A rise of 5.59 F degrees.
And the dramatic drop from 1947 to 1948. A drop of –5.6 F degrees.
Another temperature roller coaster that we somehow survived. A total change of a whopping 11.19 F degrees in two years.
That’s what I call RAPID WARMING and COOLING and an eminent treat to humankind!
And according to the “science” and “logic” of the Global Warming Hysterics humankind would have been killed 3 times over during these years. Especially in North America.
And we all know what happened – USA ceased to exist because of this catastrophic rises and drop in temperature.
Except it didn’t – nothing happened. Everything went on as normal.
There are other years in the chart when the temperature increases/dropped 5 – 6 F in one year. And still, somehow mysteriously, USA went on as normal.
So a “predicted” rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
But an ACTUAL RISE OF 6.11 F degrees IN ONE YEAR is nothing.
And an ACTUAL CHANGE OF12.32 F degrees in two years is also nothing to bother about. Move on, NOTHING to see here.
So we can easily survive an actual change of temperature of 12.32 F degrees in two years. But a “predicted”, (by these “eminent” Global Warming Hysteric “scientists” and their models which cannot predict the weather one week from now), rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
Interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Even on a regional level. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind everywhere. Move on, NOTHING to see here.
Here is the last part of my regional analysis of the recent 9 months (year to date, January-September) US temperature from a regional perspective.
I wanted to see how the national trend is, or is not, mimicked in the 9 US climate regions. And how these regional decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 9 month consecutive month trend 111 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And since the October temperature data are just out today I will do a quick comparison between the 10 months (year to date, January-October) data and compare it with the 9 months data.
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So to summarize this evidence of this US regional “accelerated warming” trend:
North West (WA, OR and ID)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.11 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.39 F/ Decade
West (CA and NV)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.16 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.38 F/ Decade
West North Central (MT, NE, ND, SD and WY)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.19 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 2.08 F/ Decade
Southwest (AZ, CO, NM and UT)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.18 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.84 F/ Decade
South (AR, LA, KS, MS, OK and TX)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.01 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.19 F/ Decade
East North Central (IA, MI, MN and WI)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.11 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is– 1.05 F/ Decade
Central (IL, IN, KY, MO, OH, TN and WV)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.02 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is– 0.33 F/ Decade
Southeast (AL, FL, GA, NC, SC and VA)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is– 0.03 F/ Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.26 F / Decade
Northeast (CR, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI and VT)
The recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.09 F / Decade
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.83 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2011 to 2000-2011??
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
As I said in the beginning the temperature data for October is just out today so I thought it would be really interesting to compare the new 10 month consecutive month trend for 111 years to the 9 month data in my posts.
So here is a quick comparison for the Trend/Decade for 1900-2011 (and this time I spare you all the graphs OK):
North West (WA, OR and ID)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.11 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.02 FCOOLER
West (CA and NV)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.16 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is none, it is the same.
West North Central (MT, NE, ND, SD and WY)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.17 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.02 FCOOLER
Southwest (AZ, CO, NM and UT)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.17 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.01 FCOOLER
South (AR, LA, KS, MS, OK and TX)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.01 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is none, it is the same.
East North Central (IA, MI, MN and WI)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.09 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.02 FCOOLER
Central (IL, IN, KY, MO, OH, TN and WV)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.00 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.02 FCOOLER
Southeast (AL, FL, GA, NC, SC and VA)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is – 0.04 F/ Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.01 FCOOLER
Northeast (CR, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI and VT)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.07 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.02 FCOOLER
And remember that this is the whole 10 month consecutive temperature Trend/ Decade for 111 years.
I don’t know about you, but I consider this 10 month consecutive month trend 111 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And what was the difference between the 9 and 10 month Trend/Decade?
In 7 regions the COOLING increased and in 2 they stayed the same.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F in 100 years?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
And remember that there where two regions that had some warming during 2000-2011 (SE and NE). And that in reality it was a few states that were behind this warming in each region?
So I could not help myself but to include the new data for 2000-2011 (and I could not resist the graphs either):
Southeast (AL, FL, GA, NC, SC and VA)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.15F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.11 FCOOLER
Northeast (CR, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI and VT)
The recent 10 months (Jan-Oct) trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.80 F / Decade
The difference to the 9 months data is – 0.03 FCOOLER
So the only two regions that had some warming during 2000-2011 are COOLING too.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really comfortable and warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” on a regional US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Even on a regional level. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind everywhere. Move on, NOTHING to see here.
Here is the third part of my regional analysis of the recent 9 months (year to date, January-September) US temperature from a regional perspective.
To see how the national trend is, or is not, mimicked in the 9 US climate regions. And how these regional decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that theUSstations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends for the third and last three regions:
Central (IL, IN, KY, MO, OH, TN and WV)
Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.02 F / Decade
Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.40 F / Decade
Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.36F / Decade
Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is0.16 F / Decade
Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.33 F / Decade
Southeast (AL, FL, GA, NC, SC and VA)
Southeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is – 0.03 F / Decade
Southeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.32 F / Decade
Southeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is0.35 F / Decade
Southeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.03 F / Decade
Southeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.26 F / Decade
Northeast (CR, DE, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI and VT)
Northeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.09 F / Decade
Northeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.41 F / Decade
Northeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.43 F / Decade
Northeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.39 F / Decade
Northeast temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.83 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.).
As you can see this is a more mixed result, some cooling and some warming.
If we look at the 6 states in the Southeast region, it is only Virginia and to some part South Carolina that drives this value for the whole region. Florida for example has – 0.19 F trend/decade for the same period (2000-2011). And interestingly the trend for the last 111 years (1900 to 2011) is – 0.03 F/ Decade for the whole region.
Also notice the swings between decades: 1980 to 2011 is 0.35 F, 1990 to 2011 is– 0.03 Fand 2000 to 2011 is 0.26 F.
And if we look at the 9 states in the Northeast region it is in reality only four states that drive that temperature for the whole region – ME, DE, NJ and VT. For example New Hampshire, between Maine and Vermont does not have even half the value of the neighboring states.
Remember that NOAA /NCDC determined these 9 climate regions because they are:
“nine climaticallyconsistent regions within the contiguous United States”.
There is not supposed to be wild swings and huge differencies in temperature trend/decade just because you pass to the neighbouring state a few a miles away. We are not talking about diffrence in temperatur over the day or week here, but temperature trend/decade within miles of each other.
Another reason to be “confident” in the “sience” behind the Global Warmin Hysteria wouldn’t you say?
But it is an interesting observation none the less.
And these states are geographically very small so I suspect that these huge differences within the same region (and between neighboring states) has more to do with the placement of stations, the urban heat island effect etc.
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.33 F,0.26 F and 0.83 F degrees COOLER and warmer a decade for these 3 regions. That is a – 3.3 F, 2.6F and 8.3 F COOLER and warmer in 100 years.
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The Central recent 9 months trend 2000 -2011 is exactly– 0.33 F degrees a decade.
The Southeast recent 9 months trend 2000 -2011 is exactly 0.26 F degrees a decade.
The Northeast recent 9 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly0.83 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really comfortable and warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” on a regional US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Even on a regional level. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind everywhere. Move on, NOTHING to see here.
Here is the second part of my regional analysis of the recent 9 months (year to date, January-September) US temperature from a regional perspective.
To see how the national trend is, or is not, mimicked in the 9 US climate regions. And how these regional decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends for the second three regions:
Southwest (AZ, CO, NM and UT)
Southwest temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.18 F / Decade
Southwest temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.64 F / Decade
Southwest temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.47F / Decade
Southwest temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is0.27 F / Decade
Southwest temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.84 F / Decade
South (AR, LA, KS, MS, OK and TX)
South temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.01 F / Decade
South temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.42 F / Decade
South temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is0.39 F / Decade
South temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is0.35 F / Decade
South temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.19 F / Decade
East North Central (IA, MI, MN and WI)
East North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.11 F / Decade
East North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.41 F / Decade
East North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.06 F / Decade
East North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.14 F / Decade
East North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.05 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2011 to 2000-2011??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.84 F, – 0.19 F and – 1.05 Fdegrees COOLER a decade for these 3 regions. That is a whopping – 18.4 F, – 1.9 F and– 10.5 F COOLER in 100 years. The freezer next!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F in 100 years?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The Southwest recent 9 months trend 2000 -2011 is exactly– 1.84 F degrees a decade.
The South recent 9 months trend 2000 -2011 is exactly– 0.19 F degrees a decade.
The East North Central recent 9 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.05 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really comfortable and warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” on a regionalUSstyle.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Even on a regional level. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind everywhere.
As a complement to my previous post Recent 9 Months U.S. Temperature trend/decade – 7.8 F COOLER in 100 years, and while waiting for the October figures, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 9 months (year to date, January-September) US temperature from a regional perspective. To see how the national trend is, or is not, mimicked in the 9 US climate regions. And how these regional decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 9 month consecutive month trend 111 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that theUSstations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
NOAA and NCDC define the 9 US regions like this:
“Through climate analysis, National Climatic Data Center scientists have identified nine climatically consistent regions within the contiguous United States which are useful for putting current climate anomalies into a historical perspective (Karl and Koss, 1984).”
So here are the trends for the first three regions:
North West (WA, OR and ID)
North West temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.13 F / Decade
North West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.41 F / Decade
North West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.24F / Decade
North West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.41 F / Decade
North West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.39 F / Decade
West (CA and NV)
West temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.16 F / Decade
West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.39 F / Decade
West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is0.16 F / Decade
West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.07 F / Decade
West temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.38 F / Decade
West North Central (MT, NE, ND, SD and WY)
West North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.19 F / Decade
West North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.30 F / Decade
West North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is – 0.11 F / Decade
West North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.21 F / Decade
West North Central temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 2.08 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2011 to 2000-2011??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 2.08 F, – 1.38 F and – 1.39 Fdegrees COOLER a decade for these 3 regions. That is a whopping – 20.8 F, – 13.8 F and – 13.9 F COOLER in 100 years. The DEEP freezer next!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F in 100 years?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
TheNorth West recent 9 months trend 2000 -2011 is exactly– 1.39 F degrees a decade.
The West recent 9 months trend 2000 -2011 is exactly– 1.38 F degrees a decade.
The West North Central recent 9 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 2.08 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really, really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” on a regional US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
“Insanity in Britain: With people dying from the cold because they can’t afford enough home heating, the government is deliberately raising heating costs in an attempt to make it slightly colder outside.”
And remember, this policy IS DONE ON PURPOSE! Even as the temperature is cooling.
And, as I have sad on so many occasions, it is we the common people who have to pay the gigantic price, now literally, for this anti human madness
This is another perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And now these policies, and there INTENDED effects, are actually killing their own people.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Another proud day for the politicians, and the so called “scientists”, in the name of Global Warming Hysteria and “saving” the Earth BUT NOT THE PEOPLE.
“More people die each year because they are unable to afford their household fuel bills than are killed in crashes on Britain‘s roads, a Government-commissioned report has found.
At least 2,700 people are dying in Britain every year because they are unable to adequately heat their houses, according to the interim findings of a report commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
The number of deaths outstrips the 1,857 people killed in road traffic accidents last year, said Professor John Hills, the academic at London School of Economics who wrote the report on fuel poverty and described it as a ‘very serious problem.’
He said that the estimate for people dying from cold is conservative and could be far higher.
“It is making people ill, for some people it is actually killing them, it is worsening hardship for people who are already poor,” said Professor Hills.
And Professor Hills warned that the government’s push towards more greener energy supplies could push thousands more Britons into fuel poverty through rising costs.
His report – which was commissioned by Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, in March this year – found that “regressive” energy and climate change policies could add up to £140 to the annual energy bills of the country’s poorest households by 2020.
Four million households in the UK are currently in fuel poverty. This figure has trebled from 1.2 million households since 2004.
Sally Copley, head of UK poverty at Save the Children, said that keeping the home warm is “becoming a luxury that only the better off can afford.”
“It is estimated that a fifth of an electricity bill is made up of climate change policies, equivalent to £15 per megawatt-hour. This could more than double in the next decade.”
And remember this nearly two years ago:
Pensioners burn books for warmth
Hard-up pensioners have resorted to buying books from charity shops and burning them to keep warm.
“Volunteers have reported that ‘a large number’ of elderly customers are snapping up hardbacks as cheap fuel for their fires and stoves.”
“Ruth Davison, of the National Housing Federation, said: ‘The spiralling cost of energy means heating homes has become a luxury rather than a necessity for many people – particularly the elderly, low paid and unemployed.’”
And no two years later it is even worse thanks to “our” dear politicians. Way to go.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous post September U.S. Temperature trend/decade – It is getting cooler and cooler, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 9 months (year to date, January-September) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider a 9 month consecutive month trend 111 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan-Sep) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.13 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.48 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.36 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.17 F / Decade
US temperature recent 9 months (Jan- Sep) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.78 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2011 to 2000-2011??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.78 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 7.8 F COOLER in 100 years. The freezer next!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme increase” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is actually cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 9 months trend 1970-2011 is exactly 0.48 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.36 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly0.17 F degrees a decade.
The recent 9 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.78 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
As usual and as a complement to my previous post September U.S. Temperature – The trend is 0.07 deg F / Decade, I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent September US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature September 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.07 F / Decade
US temperature September 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.61 F / Decade
US temperature September 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.46 F / Decade
US temperature September 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.35 F / Decade
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 for September is exactly 0.35 F degrees a decade. That is a whopping 3.5 F warmer in 100 years. Take cover!
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of Septembers ”accelerated warming” trend:
The September trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.61 F degrees a decade.
The September trend 1990-2011 is exactly 0.46 F degrees a decade.
The September trend 2000-2011 is exactly 0.35 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 31 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
The official September temperature figures are out. And it is down a little: – 0.16 deg F compared with September last year.
And remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that theUSstations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
September temperature 1900-2011
“The average temperature in September 2011 was 66.9 F. This was 1.5 F warmer than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 21st warmest September in 117 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. “
And the “warming trend” 1900-2011 is exactly 0.07 F degrees a decade. That is a whopping 0.7 F warmer in 100 years. The sweat is really breaking out!
And as usual there are some wild swings from year to year. Which humankind somehow mysteriously survived without any catastrophe.
Notice the rise from 1918 to 1919. A rise of 7.93 F degrees.
And the dramatic drop from 1917 to 1918. A drop of –4.46 F degrees.
A total change of a whopping 12.39 F degrees in two years. Talking about a temperature roller coaster.
And notice the dramatic rise from 1985 to 1986. A rise of 8.36 F degrees.
And the dramatic drop from 1911 to 1912. A drop of –8.07 F degrees.
That’s what I call RAPID WARMING and COOLING and an eminent treat to humankind!
And according to the “science” and “logic” of the Global Warming Hysterics humankind would have been killed 3 times over during these years. Especially in North America.
And we all know what happened – USA ceased to exist because of this catastrophic rises and drop in temperature.
Except it didn’t – nothing happened. Everything went on as normal.
There are other years in the chart when the temperature increases 5 – 7 F in one year. And still, somehow mysteriously, USA went on as normal.
So a “predicted” rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
But an ACTUAL RISE OF 8.36 F degrees IN ONE YEAR is nothing.
And an ACTUAL CHANGE OF12.39 F degrees in two years is also is nothing to bother about.
So we can easily survive an actual change of temperature of 12.39 F degrees in two years. But a “predicted”, (by these “eminent” Global Warming Hysteric “scientists” and their models which cannot predict the weather one week from now), rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
Interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And the cooling continues. Sorry – I mean that Global Warming is an imminent treat to humankind.
As a complement to my previous post August U.S. Temperature trend/decade – It is getting cooler and cooler, I thought it also would be interesting to look at the recent 8 months (year to date, January-August) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
I don’t know about you, but I consider an 8 month consecutive month trend 111 years long to be a “quit good” indicator.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that theUSstations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan-Aug) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.14 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan-Aug) 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.47 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan-Aug) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.31 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan-Aug) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.10 F / Decade
US temperature recent 8 months (Jan-Aug) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.02 F / Decade
Do you notice the “accelerated warming” trend from 1970-2011 to 2000-2011??
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.02 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 10.2 F COOLER in 100 years. The freezer next!
And this is also the decade that the Global Warming Hysterics have been screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to scare us to death, about the catastrophic treat that the “extreme rinsing” in temperature is to mankind and earth.
This is a perfect example of what I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
And all of this to “save” the Earth from a “catastrophic warming” when it is ACTUALLY cooling.
And the most absurd thing is that all the things that the “intelligent” politicians and the so called “scientists”, with the willing help of mainstream media, have forced through at EXTREME cost to us, are actually helping to accelerate the cooling.
Talking about an eminent treat to humankind!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 8 months trend 1970-2011 is exactly 0.47 F degrees a decade.
The recent 8 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.31 F degrees a decade.
The recent 8 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly 0.10 F degrees a decade.
The recent 8 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.02 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer looks really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
As usual and as a complement to my previous post August U.S. Temperature – The trend is 0.12 deg F / Decade, I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent August US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 41 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature August 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.12 F/Decade
US temperature August 1970-2011
The trend for 1970 to 2011 is 0.48 F/Decade
US temperature August 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.45 F/Decade
US temperature August 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.81 F/Decade
US temperature August 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is 0.18 F/Decade
Noticing the “accelerated warming” trend??
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
Or as Obi-Wan so aptly put it: These aren’t the droids you’re looking for – Move along.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of Augusts “accelerated warming” trend:
The August trend 1970-2011 is exactly 0.48 F degrees a decade.
The August trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.45 F degrees a decade.
The August trend 1990-2011 is exactly 0.81 F degrees a decade.
The August trend 2000-2011 is exactly 0.18 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 41 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
And interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
The official August temperature figures are out. And it is up.
And remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that theUSstations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
August temperature 1900-2011
“The average temperature in August 2011 was 75.7 F. This was 3.0 F warmer than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 2nd warmest August in 117 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.”
And the “warming trend” 1900-2011 is exactly 0.12 F degrees a decade. The same as in May and April. That is a whopping 1.2 F warmer in 100 years. The sweat is really breaking out!
And as usual there are some wild swings from year to year. Which humankind somehow mysteriously survived without any catastrophe.
Notice the rise from 1982 to 1983. A rise of 3.07 F degrees.
And the dramatic drop from 2003 to 2004. A drop of –4.49 F degrees.
And notice the dramatic rise from 1946 to 1947. A rise of 3 F degrees.
That’s what I call RAPID WARMING and COOLING and an eminent treat to humankind!
And some years there was a temperature roller coaster.
From 2003 to 2004 the August temperature dropped by –4.49 F degrees.
And from 2004 to 2005 a dramatic rise of 3.06 F degrees.
A total change of a whopping 7.55 F degrees in two years.
And according to the “science” and “logic” of the Global Warming Hysterics humankind would have been killed 2 times over during these years. Especially in North America.
And we all know what happened – USA ceased to exist because of this catastrophic rises and drop in temperature.
Except it didn’t – nothing happened. Everything went on as normal.
There are other years in the chart when the temperature increases 3– 3.5 F in one year. And still, somehow mysteriously, USA went on as normal.
So a “predicted” rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
But an ACTUAL RISE OF 3.07 F degrees IN ONE YEAR is nothing.
And an ACTUAL CHANGE OF7.55 F degrees in two years is also is nothing to bother about.
So we can easily survive an actual change of temperature of 7.55 F degrees in two years. But a “predicted”, (by these “eminent” Global Warming Hysteric “scientists” and their models which cannot predict the weather one week from now), rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
Interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
It shows the% change in the lowest quintile median incomes, the poorest Americans, from 1968 (in 2010 dollars).
And the drop is – 6.04% in one year (2010)
And then let’s have a lock at Black Americans in the same lowest income quintile.
They have suffered almost double as the average American in the same quintile under Obama:
The drop is– 11.58% in one year (2010) and is at the lowest level ever.
That’s what I call “change”!But I wouldn’t call it “hope”.
Some other highlights in the name of hope and change:
– Median household money income for the nation was $49,400 in 2010, adecline of 2.3 percent from 2009, in real terms.
– The 2010 official poverty rate for the nation was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009, with 46.2 million people in poverty, an increase of 2.6 million since 2009. The highest percentage since 1993 (15.1%) and 1982 (15.2%), and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.
– The 2010 official poverty rate for blacks was 27.4 percent, up from 25.8 percent in 2009, with 10.7 million people in poverty, an increase of 731 000 since 2009. The highest percentage since 1996 (28.4%), and the largest number in 17 years.
– The decline of Real Median Household Income among the15 to 24 years was – 9.3%.
Are you extremists?
Obama had three pillars that swept him to power – huge turnout among young (under 30), Hispanics and Blacks. Now the young and Hispanics are gone, down to 43-44% as the rest of the population. So he is toast.
But the blacks are still overwhelmingly behind Obama (around 81%).
The obvious question is why? Since under Obamas “eminent leadership” they have had the biggest drop in income and living standard ever. Not to mention skyrocketing unemployment.
With so much “hope” and “change”, I guess that’s why he is so “popular”.
____________________________________________
A quick update on September 27 to my post:
I wrote:
“Obama had three pillars that swept him to power – huge turnout among young (under 30), Hispanics and Blacks. Now the young and Hispanics are gone, down to 43-44% as the rest of the population. So he is toast.
But the blacks are still overwhelmingly behind Obama (around 81%).
The obvious question is why? Since under Obamas “eminent leadership” they have had the biggest drop in income and living standard ever. Not to mention skyrocketing unemployment.
With so much “hope” and “change”, I guess that’s why he is so “popular”.
Well, it seems that the blacks have started catching on because now Obama is losing the blacks too in a BIG Way
According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, his favorability rating among blacks has dropped off a cliff, plunging from 83 percent five months ago to a mere 58 percent today –a drop of 25 points!
In the election of 2008, he was able to increase black’s participation from 11 percent of the total vote in 2004 to 14 percent. And he carried 98 percent of them.
Way to go Obama!
Click on the graphs for a larger image
Jobb aproval economy
State of the country
Some more revealing graphs of Obama economics
This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms – this time from the start of the recession. This is by far the worst post WWII employment recession.
This graph shows the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers). A very high level.
This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. The level is extremely high.
This is straight shooting and strong language from comedian Felonious Munk directed at President Barak Obama.
And he asks some very good questions:
– You bastards can not even balance a checkbook. That is something EVERY American have to go through EVERY week!
– How do you owe China?How can I tell my daughter with a straight face that capitalism is a better system than communism if we are borrowing all of our F* money from the biggest communist country in the F* planet?
– Don’t pay your bills because they aren’t paying theirs. You are a leader and I am following – you don’t pay I don’t pay”
– What is your credit score? What is the government’s credit score just now? It must be 350. And you are telling me that I can not buy a car if my credit score is at a certain number!
– Get your S* together! President Obama personal to you. All the black people are proud. We have a black president and you are acting like one just now. Pay your F* bills on time!
And this post neatly complements my previous post about the riots in Britain–i.e. the behaviour and example of our political class/elites in our countries.
Felonious Munk Presents: Stop It B! OBAMA PAY YOUR &*%$#% BILLS
There is much to be said about the riots in Britain. And as usual most of it is not said in the mainstream media. So I thought I give you three pieces that are to the point and that give you some perspective of the latest riots. The focus is on the example and behaviour set by the political class/elites. And why we should not be surprised that “things” like these happen.
And I finish with medias role in this.
The Bullingdon Club
“Things got out of hand & we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets.”
David Cameron (Prime Minister and leader of the conservative party) recalls his time at Oxford speaking in 1986. And the Boris Johnson he is talking about is the present Mayor of London.
Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?
As a young man, he was in a gang that regularly smashed up private property. We know that you were absent parents who left your child to be brought up by a school rather than taking responsibility for his behaviour yourselves. The fact that he became a delinquent with no sense of respect for the property of others can only reflect that fact that you are terrible, lazy human beings who failed even in teaching your children the difference between right and wrong. I can only assume that his contempt for the small business owners of Oxford is indicative of his wider values.
Even worse, your neglect led him to fall in with a bad crowd.
There’s Michael Gove, whose wet-lipped rage was palpable on Newsnight last night. This is the Michael Gove who confused one of his houses with another of his houses in order to avail himself of £7,000 of the taxpayers’ money to which he was not entitled (or £13,000, depending on which house you think was which).
Or Hazel Blears, who was interviewed in full bristling peahen mode for almost all of last night. She once forgot which house she lived in, and benefited to the tune of £18,000. At the time she said it would take her reputation years to recover. Unfortunately not.
But, of course, this is different. This is just understandable confusion over the rules of how many houses you are meant to have as an MP. This doesn’t show the naked greed of people stealing plasma tellies.
Or Jeremy Hunt, who broke the rules to the tune of almost £20,000 on one property and £2,000 on another. But it’s all right, because he agreed to pay half of the money back. Not the full amount, it would be absurd to expect him to pay back the entire sum that he took and to which he was not entitled. No, we’ll settle for half. And, as in any other field, what might have been considered embezzlement of £22,000 is overlooked. We know, after all, that David Cameron likes to give people second chances.
Fortunately, we have the Met Police to look after us. We’ll ignore the fact that two of its senior officers have had to resign in the last six weeks amid suspicions of widespread corruption within the force.
Of course, Mr and Mrs Cameron, your son is right. There are parts of society that are not just broken, they are sick. Riddled with disease from top to bottom.
Just let me be clear about this (It’s a good phrase, Mr and Mrs Cameron, and one I looted from every sentence your son utters, just as he looted it from Tony Blair), I am not justifying or minimising in any way what has been done by the looters over the last few nights. What I am doing, however, is expressing shock and dismay that your son and his friends feel themselves in any way to be guardians of morality in this country.
Can they really, as 650 people who have shown themselves to be venal pygmies, moral dwarves at every opportunity over the last 20 years, bleat at others about ‘criminality’. Those who decided that when they broke the rules (the rules they themselves set) they, on the whole wouldn’t face the consequences of their actions?
Are they really surprised that this country’s culture is swamped in greed, in the acquisition of material things, in a lust for consumer goods of the most base kind? Really?
The last few days have revealed some truths, and some heartening truths. The fact that the #riotcleanup crews had organised themselves before David Cameron even made time for a public statement is heartening.The fact that local communities came together to keep their neighbourhoods safe when the police failed is heartening. The fact that there were peace vigils being organised (even as the police tried to dissuade people) is heartening.
There is hope for this country. But we must stop looking upwards for it. The politicians are the ones leading the charge into the gutter.
David Cameron was entirely right when he said: “It is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society, people allowed to think that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities, and that their actions do not have consequences.”
He was more right than he knew.
And I blame the parents.”
Cartoon by Peter Nicholson Source: The Australian
British rioters the spawn of a bankrupt ruling elite
“British rioters the spawn of a bankrupt ruling elite
Theodore Dalrymple,August 11, 201112:00AM
THE riots in London and elsewhere in Britain are a backhanded tribute to the long-term intellectual torpor, moral cowardice, incompetence and careerist opportunism of the British political and intellectual class.
They have somehow managed not to notice what has long been apparent to anyone who has taken a short walk with his eyes open down any frequentedBritish street: that a considerable proportion of the country’s young population (a proportion that is declining) is ugly, aggressive, vicious, badly educated, uncouth and criminally inclined.
Unfortunately, while it is totally lacking in self-respect, it is full of self-esteem: that is to say, it believes itself entitled to a high standard of living, and other things, without any effort on its own part.
Consider for a moment the following: although youth unemployment in Britainis very high, that is to say about 20 per cent of those aged under 25, the country has had to import young foreign labour for a long time, even for unskilled work in the service sector.
The reasons for this seeming paradox are obvious to anyone who knows young Britons as I do.
No sensible employer in a service industry would choose a young Briton if he could have a young Pole; the young Pole is not only likely to have a good work ethic and refined manners, he is likely to be able to add up and — most humiliating of all — to speak better English than the Briton, at least if by that we mean the standard variety of the language. He may not be more fluent but his English will be more correct and his accent easier to understand.
This is not an exaggeration. After compulsory education (or perhaps I should say intermittent attendance at school) up to the age of 16 costing $80,000 a head, about one-quarter of British children cannot read with facility or do simple arithmetic. It makes you proud to be a British taxpayer.
I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty, from my experience as a doctor in one of the areas in which a police station has just been burned down, that half of those rioting would reply to the question, ”Can you do arithmetic?” by answering, ”What is arithmetic?”
British youth leads the Western world in almost all aspects of social pathology, from teenage pregnancy to drug taking, from drunkenness to violent criminality. There is no form of bad behaviour that our version of the welfare state has not sought out and subsidised.
British children are much likelier to have a television in their bedroom than a father living at home. One-third of them never eat a meal at a table with another member of their household — family is not the word for the social arrangements of the people in the areas from which the rioters mainly come. They are therefore radically unsocialised and deeply egotistical, viewing relations with other human beings in the same way as Lenin: Who whom, who does what to whom. By the time they grow up, they are destined not only for unemployment but unemployability.
For young women in much ofBritain, dependence does not mean dependence on the government: that, for them, is independence. Dependence means any kind of reliance on the men who have impregnated them who, of course, regard their own subventions from the state as pocket money, to be supplemented by a little light trafficking. (According to his brother, Mark Duggan, the man whose death at the hands of the probably incompetent police allegedly sparked the riots, ”was involved in things”, which things being delicately left to the imagination of his interlocutor.)
Relatively poor as the rioting sector of society is, it nevertheless possesses all the electronic equipment necessary for the prosecution of the main business of life; that is to say, entertainment by popular culture. And what a culture British popular culture is!
Perhaps Amy Winehouse was its finest flower and its truest representative in her militant and ideological vulgarity, her stupid taste, her vile personal conduct and preposterous self-pity.
Her sordid life was a long bath in vomitus, literal and metaphorical, for which the exercise of her very minor talent was no excuse or explanation. Yet not a peep of dissent from our intelllectual class was heard after her near canonisation after her death, that class having long had the backbone of a mollusc.
Criminality is scarcely repressed any more in Britain. The last lord chief justice but two thought that burglary was a minor offence, not worthy of imprisonment, and the next chief justice agreed with him.
By the age of 12, an ordinary slum-dweller has learned he has nothing to fear from the law and the only people to fear are those who are stronger or more ruthless than he.
Punishments are derisory; the police are simultaneously bullying but ineffectual and incompetent, increasingly dressed in paraphernalia that makes them look more like the occupiers of Afghanistan than the force imagined by Robert Peel. The people who most fear our police are the innocent.
Of course, none of this reduces the personal responsibility of the rioters. But the riots are a manifestation of a society in full decomposition, of a people with neither leaders nor followers but composed only of egotists.”
“Well, I think we can finally say that social welfarism has utterly failed as a project. The case made to me was that welfare, if nothing else, stopped the great unwashed rioting and looting on the streets. This week demonstrates fairly well that it doesn’t even do that.
We have a state school system producing kids who couldn’t and won’t get a job and a wider population who thinks the Easter Bunny will pay for their retirement, housing and day to day needs. Meanwhile, thanks to the cultural gas chambers we laughingly call schools, British business would rather not employ Brits if there is an alternative.
We have a justice system that serves only itself and its welfare clients, while occasionally slapping down the odd tax payer to ensure their obedience to the state. It is a system that works for the perpetrator, not the victim.
And who are these kids tearing down our cities? It is said they are the disenfranchised who have no stake in ”our society”. Kids who feel there is no reason to comply with the basic rules of civil society because it does not pay dividends. Their obedience is required, but for what?
There’s a kid I know who has not had a proper job in over ten year years. I say kid because, for all that he is a grown man, he has remained kid by way of remaining a client of the state. Cosseted with a head full of silly notions about where money comes from, and all that he is ”entitled” to. The reason I continue to help him is because he has not yet given up. He still wants a job and has not resorted to criminality.
He is one of the rare ones who, every week, goes walking round the industrial estates asking for work, applying for anything he can find. But he has no skills. He has nothing to offer them. He has no work experience of value, no qualifications of value and very little natural ability.
What makes him different from the rest of his generation is his willingness to find work. I think most by now would have quit looking and found a way onto the incapacity benefit system. And after ten years of ceaseless heartbreak, I wouldn’t blame him, and I would actually support such a move.
The continual humiliation of going round and round inside the welfare system, a mere statistic in a creaking bureaucracy, fighting for a pittance that makes the difference between starving or not, erodes the soul. To be routinely told you have nothing of value to offer, even if that’s true, cannot be good.
And what has government done in this regard. They have fed him on false hopes. He has been round the system, on this or that training course and placement scheme. His list of ”qualifications” is now longer than some graduates I know. But these ”qualifications” are a contrivance of government, neither useful to, nor demanded by business.
The kid has what is known as a European ”Computer Driving Licence” without possessing any marketable computer skills. The course is useless, the material is easy and all that is served by it is a fat cheque from the government to the public and private bodies who award such junk.
This all at a time when public spending was at an all time high. We have to face the simple fact that it doesn’t work. Throwing money at the problem simply perpetuates it.
Abandoned by his parents and abandoned by the school system to become just another human life on the scrapheap before it has even begun. I have done what I can to help with remedial education but you can’t deprogramme all that sense of entitlement. That lesson has to be taught first hand. But it will probably never happen for him.
You could certainly say he has no stake in society. He is certainly ”disenfranchised”. Thanks to the mechanisms of the state and his background (generational welfare), his fate was sealed early on. He has every right to be angry and frustrated, which indeed he is, but he is not out looting this week.
He has always, with the intervention of friends and distant family, known the difference between right and wrong. He has been known to shoplift the odd tin of beans on the odd occasion when a giro has not gone as far as feeding him. Anyone who has been on the dole long enough, with no family to speak of, would probably confess to likewise. Who of us would not?
What keeps him from rioting is the hope that eventually something will come up, that he will get a break in life. He is perhaps more optimistic than I would be. All evidence suggest that he will not. Especially not now we’re looking down the barrel of a global market meltdown.
But for every one of him who does know the difference between right and wrong, there is evidently a legion that does not. Or maybe does, but does not care. Obedience will bring them nothing but a miserable, unhealthy, unproductive life. One could even say my young friend is dumb, expecting that he will get somewhere pegging his hopes on the system he finds himself in.
We have just enjoyed ten years of unprecedented wealth and opportunity, but for most of these kids, those opportunities weren’t available to them, not speaking Polish being one of the many reasons. All we have done by maintaining a welfare underclass is subsidise a pressure cooker that is now blowing its top. Much like the banking crisis, we have thrown money at a problem to delay the inevitable, only to feel the consequences much harder later on.
After decades learning bit by bit that petty crime is tolerated and they can get away with it, that underclass is now probing the system to see what else they can get away with. The answer is: a lot. This is simply all our chickens coming home to roost. Welfarism, a useless police force, a court system whose moral compass is spinning round faster than ride at Alton Towers, and state school system which at its very best is unfit for purpose.
While that is obvious to most, the statists are fighting for their agenda. They cannot allow the liberation of the poor. The poor are their livelihoods, their clients, their power base. And so the Left must present it in terms of social division. There are vested interests who, once again are trying to make this about race.
We must not allow them to succeed. These are black and white and Asian kids. They are all victims of the state welfare system. If we allow this to become a race debate as we have the last few times, we will simply get more of the same: more red tape for the police, more equality surveys, more outreach workers and more ghettoisation.
The race riots of decades past are no different to these riots in some senses. They are also the result of state mechanisms not only allowing, but facilitating ghettoisation of society, if not by race and faith, then by class. I have always said that if you subsidise poverty, you will always have poverty. We need to stop it. Welfare at best needs to be a temporary lifeline, not a lifetime habit.
But in amongst the disorder, we also see mass larceny by people with full time jobs. Opportunistic theft by supposedly respectable people. Are we a society in moral decline? Were we ever of high moral fibre? We like to think we are more civilised than other countries because of the values we teach. But we’re not. Order is kept because most people live under the illusion that they will be caught if they do bad things. Now they’ve worked out they won’t be. This theft is brazen and is done with impunity.
We know from experience the police will not investigate, let alone catch thieves on a day to day basis. There is no reason to think this will be any different when the lid has blown off the pressure cooker. There was a time when the police would come to a crime scene and take fingerprints (this was my earliest memory of a police encounter), this in the days before super computers.
Now, for all the police resources they will simply turn up, give you a crime number and refer you to your insurance company. Consequently insurance premiums drive up costs for everyone.
The police have largely abdicated from routine police work. They have virtually given up on enforcing narcotics laws. Whatever your views on drugs, the law is the law. But now we have police making their own minds up about which laws to enforce. The law is so out of step with the people, and so unpopular, that if the police want to maintain a level of order, they have to decide which laws to uphold and which to ignore.
The law has made a mockery of itself. We have a law engine spewing out law after contradictory law. Not knowing which way to turn, enforcement becomes neglected in populist areas and so a quota or a crackdown to suit the political zeitgeist is launched resulting in knee-jerk unpopular policing. That is how we arrive here.
So again we draw the same conclusion: this is a crisis of politics. An establishment that does not know what it is for. But that is hardly surprising when that same establishment has abdicated government to other powers. The rot starts at the top. Our government is dysfunctional, without direction, without ambition, without guiding principles and is mired in the institutional larceny of the parasite class.
The immigration system is creaking, the roads are broken, our armed forces in complete disarray, the DVLA has lost the plot, Social Services are bandits, the welfare system is swamped and our energy grid is rapidly running toward rolling blackouts while parasitic corporates asset strip the country for everything it’s worth. And what do we see in government? Children with their infantile preoccupations following one media bandwagon to the next, fire-hosing more borrowed money at problems they created.
Now the streets are littered with broken glass, and the burnt out husks of buildings still smoulder, we again ask what can government do? The answer is nothing. It has demonstrated beyond any doubt that it is incapable of taking grown-up, difficult decisions. Again, that is reflected in the wider population.
We are flat broke and yet we march to stop cuts. We praise the bravery of the police when they stand idly by while the criminals wreck our cities. We are a nation of infants under the illusion that only government can, or should, come to our aid.
Until we reject this notion, put government back in its place and ask the question of what government is actually for, we will be back here again and again. Government is not a creator of jobs or wealth. And nor should it be. In recent years it has been the biggest obstacle to jobs and wealth.
The only way the bulk of our youth can have a stake in society is if we create opportunities for them. We will not give them opportunities by confiscating wealth and redirecting it to the many foreign corporates who build government-mandated projects. Wealth must be left in the hands of those who earn it, to spend as they see fit and to care for those they find deserving.
But while our masters get fat off the proceeds of big government, it is not in their interests to introduce any meaningful reform. They need to subsidize the poor to secure their power base. If we want significant change we must throw the scraps from their table back at them, boycott government involvement in our lives and starve the beast. We must rid ourselves of them and start doing things for ourselves.
They do this to us because we let them. “
And this piece which in all its glaring clarity shows the absurdity of the mainstream media and their total PC view of the world. That is that certain facts, figures, etc. should never, ever be allowed to be mentioned or published, regardless of the circumstances.
And this has nothing to do if it’s black, white, yellow, pink, green or whatever “color”, race or sex, etc. it is. It is about the utter betrayal by journalists and the mainstream old media of their journalistic role, and of all that good and independent journalism was supposed to be.
Instead, the journalist and the media are pushing their political and social agenda.
We have seen this so many times, again and again. On this blog, I have written extensively about press and mass media and their role in this the greatest scientific and political scandal of modern times – the Global Warming Hysteria. And their willing participation in driving and promoting this hysteria.
AT THE SAME TIME, AS THESE MEDIA HAVE TAKEN AN ACTIVE PART in SUPPRESSING FACTS and IS CENSORING AND INTIMIDATING EVERYONE WHO HAS OPPOSED THIS HYSTERIA.
A truly “worthy” goal for the organizations and companies whose goal was supposed to protect and enhance freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
“Funniest interview ever on Sky. Female Sky reporter interviewing a white guy who has had his shops burned. He said to her , the arsonists/looters were all black. She said to him , you can’t say that , there must have been white guys there as well. He thought about and then said , ok they were not all black , i was the only white guy there. Is that ok to say ?
This guy states this with a totally dead pan face without a hint of the pc faux pas.
She again corrects him and states nervously you just cant say they were all black , he responds , but they werei was there.
Unbelievable. The interview describes the state of our society in a nut shell.”
The summer is finally here after, again, being a cold winter and “spring”. Isn’t it “lovely” with this “accelerated warming” that is not going on?
And I want to wish every one of you a warm (in the name of Global Warming Hysteria) and nice summer. It will also mean that I will write less and more sporadic posts.
But you have 1115 posts and 2414 comments to go through at your leisure.
This is what I wrote three years ago:
”I’m hopeful, the wind has turned and the Global Warming Hysterics are on the defensive. It is particularly noticeable in Europe where people have finally realized the insanity of these gigantic sums of money that will be squandered on nonsense action. And that will ruin the common people and national economies.
Please note that they are still talking as if nothing has happened but behind the scenes there has been a 180 degree change of course in many countries. Because no one will officially acknowledge this overall shift, instead they will continue to tell you that they have ”adapted” the policies to the prevailing circumstances, etc. Or other euphemisms.
It is only our “intelligent” Swedish politicians, plus the media, who have not understood it yet. And they are still relentlessly pushing this agenda and harping on us to take the lead and be a world leader in terms of restrictions on CO2.
It’s just that if you take the lead, you must have some following, too. And the last two months the crowd behind them has thinned considerably. And it becomes thinner by the day.
The biggest scientific and political scandal in modern times is on track to be exposed and derailed. And I would like to thank you other bloggers who have participated tirelessly in this fight for science and truth. We actually make a difference, even if it does not seem to go so fast sometimes. ”
And you can only note that this trend has continued, and that it has become increasingly obvious to the average person how little of truth and science the Global Warming Hysteria has.
It is now only our “intelligent” politicians who pretend that nothing has happened, and repeat their learned mantras like a drunken parrot. You know that Monte Phyton sketch.
And by the way, it’s the same political elites that are responsible for the current crisis in the EU and the U.S.
Nice work wouldn’t you say!
Thank you for that double whammy courtesy of “our” elected “representatives”.
Sommaren är äntligen här efter att det återigen har varit en kall vinter och ”vår”. Visst är det skönt med denna ”accelererande uppvärmning” som inte sker?
Och jag vill tillönska alla er en riktigt varm (i Global Warming Hysterins anda) och skön sommar. Det innebär också att jag kommer att skriva mycket mer sporadiskt under denna period.
Men ni har ju drygt 1115 inlägg och 2414 kommentarer att botanisera bland. Om ni använder kategorier och taggar plus sökfunktionen så kommer ni att hitta många intressanta saker.
Så här skrev jag för tre år sedan:
”Jag är hoppfull, vinden har vänt och Global Warming Hysterikerna är på defensiven. Det märks inte minst ute i Europa där man äntligen har insett vansinnet med dessa gigantiska summor som kommer att förslösas på nonsensåtgärder. Och som kommer att ruinera vanligt folk och de nationella ekonomierna.
Märk väl att man fortfarande pratar som om inget har hänt men bakom kulisserna så sker just nu en 180 gradig kursomläggning i många länder. För INGEN kommer på officiellt håll att erkänna denna totala omläggning utan man kommer att säga att man har “anpassat” kursen efter rådande omständigheter etc. Eller andra förskönande omskrivningar.
Det är bara våra intälägänta svenska politiker plus massmedia som inte har förstått det ännu. Och som oförtrutet kör på i denna återvändsgränd och tjatar om att vi skall gå i täten och vara världsledande vad det gäller begränsningar av CO2.
Det är bara det att skall man gå i täten så måste man ha några som följer efter också. Och de senaste 2 månaderna så har skaran bakom glesnat betydligt. Och blir glesare för varje dag.
Den största vetenskapliga och politiska skandalen i modern tid är på god väg att avslöjas. Och jag vill passa på att tacka er andra bloggare som oförtrutet har deltagit i denna kamp för vetenskap och sanning. Vi gör faktiskt en skillnad även om det inte verkar gå så fort ibland.”
Och det är bara att konstatera att denna utveckling har ytterligare fortsatt, och att det har blivit alltmer uppenbart för gemene man hur lite med sanningen och vetenskap hela Global Warming Hysterin har.
Det är numera bara våra intälägänta politiker som låtsas som om inget har hänt, (på samma sätt som med FRA lagen, IPRED, datalagringsdirektivet etc.), och upprepar sina inlärda mantran som en drucken papegoja. Ni vet den där Montephyton sketchen.
Och by the way, det är samma politiska elit som är ansvarig för den rådande krisen inom EU ochUSA.
Nice work wouldn’t you say!
Tack för den dubbel smällen från ”våra” valda ”representanter”.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan-May) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.16 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan-May) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.25 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan-May) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.32 F / Decade
US temperature recent 5 months (Jan-May) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.87 F / Decade
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.87 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 18.7 F COOLER in 100 years. The freezer next!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 5 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.25 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly – 0.32 F degrees a decade.
The recent 5 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.87 F degrees a decade.
So the “warming” trend is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Some more “rapid warming” like this and the freezer look really warm.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind!
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
As usual and as a complement to my previous post May U.S. Temperature – 5.39 F cooler than the warmest May, I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent 3 months (March-May) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
See also my figure for cities, state and regional here:
US temperature recent 3 months (Mar-May) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.13 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Mar-May) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.26 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Mar-May) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.16 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Mar-May) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.03 F / Decade
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.03 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 10.3 F COOLER in 100 years. Take cover!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
Even worse, “our” politicians, “scientists”, journalists” and the mainstream medias attitude is: Move on, NOTHING to see here.
Or as Obi-Wan so aptly put it: These aren’t the droids you’re looking for – Move along.
As I have been saying all along, it has always been a political agenda – anti human, anti freedom, anti development and anti capitalism. And this Global Warming Hysteria is part of that agenda. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.
All of this, as always, paid by us, the common people, in the form of taxes, high energy costs and reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 3 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.26 Fdegrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly 0.16 Fdegrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.03 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind! Especially during the last 31 years.
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
May temperature 1900-2011
“The average temperature in May 2011 was 60.0 F. This was -1.0 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 25th coolest May in 117 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.”
This year, the May temperature is – 5.39 F cooler than 1934, the warmest May. And if we compare this year’s May with 2000 it is – 4.09 F cooler.
If we compare with 1936 this year’s May is – 4.17 F cooler. And if we compare with 1987 is – 3.98 F cooler.
And the “warming trend” 1900-2011 is exactly 0.12 F degrees a decade. That is a whopping 1.2 F warmer in 100 years. The sweat is breaking out!
And notice the rise from 1933 to 1934. A rise of 4.77 F degrees.
And the dramatic drop from 1934 to 1935. A drop of –7.38 F degrees.
And the dramatic rise from 1935 to 1936. A rise of 6.16 F degrees.
That’s what I call RAPID WARMING and COLING and an eminent treat to humankind!
So to summarize these three years:
From 1933 to1934 the May temperature rose 4.77 F degrees.
And from 1934 to 1935 it dropped by –7.38 F degrees.
And from 1935 to 1936 a dramatic rise of 6.16 F degrees.
Talking about a temperature roller coaster!
A total change of a whopping 18.31 F degrees in three years.
And according to the “science” and “logic” of the Global Warming Hysterics humankind would have been killed 3 times over during these years. Especially in North America.
And we all know what happened – USA ceased to exist because of this catastrophic rises and drop in temperature.
Except it didn’t – nothing happened. Everything went on as normal.
There are other years in the chart when the temperature increases 5 – 6.1 F in one year. And still, somehow mysteriously, USA went on as normal.
So a “predicted” rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
But an ACTUAL RISE OF 6.16 F degrees IN ONE YEAR is nothing.
And an ACTUAL CHANGE OF18.31 Fdegrees in three years is also nothing to bother about.
So we can easily survive an actual change of temperature of 18.31 F degrees in three years. But a “predicted”, (by these “eminent” Global Warming Hysteric “scientists” and their models which cannot predict the weather one week from now), rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
Interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
In this to the point, pedagogic and very telling video (by Clarke and Dawe), the whole madness behind the euro and the present crisis in Greece,Spain,Ireland,Portugal,Italy, etc. is explained.
All thanks to our “dear” local and European politicians and banks (private and central banks, ECB) etc.
“Roger, Financial Consultant: They lent all these vast amounts of money to other European economies that can’t possible pay them back.”
“How can brokeeconomies lend money to other broke economies who haven’t got any money because they can’t pay back the money the broke economy lent to the other broke economy and shouldn’t have lent them in the first place because the broke economy cant pay it back”.
I think even a 5 year old can understand this. But not “our” politicians and bankers.
And remember this video was done a year ago. So now the situation (and the figures) is worse by a factor of two.
Thank you for ruining the common people in all our countries!
And this is on top of their efforts to drive us back to the Stone Age through the Global Warming Hysteria.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 12 months (May-Apr) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.12F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (May-Apr) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.34 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (May-Apr) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.28 F / Decade
US temperature recent 12 months (May-Apr) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.50 F / Decade
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.50 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 5.0 F COOLER in 100 years. Brrr!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 12 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly0.34 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly0.28 F degrees a decade.
The recent 12 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.50 F degrees a decade.
And remember, the latest 3 Month “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.44 Fdegrees COOLER a decade.
And the latest 6 Month “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.64 Fdegrees COOLER a decade.
So the “warming trend” is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind!
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 6 months (Nov-Apr) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.15 F / Decade
US temperature recent 6 months (Nov-Apr) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.30 F / Decade
US temperature recent 6 months (Nov-Apr) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is 0.07 F / Decade
US temperature recent 6 months (Nov-Apr) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 0.64 F / Decade
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.64 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 6.4 F COOLER in 100 years. Take cover!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 6 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.30 F degrees a decade.
The recent 6 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly0.07 F degrees a decade.
The recent 6 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 0.64 F degrees a decade.
And remember, the latest 3 Month “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.44 Fdegrees COOLER a decade.
So the “warming trend” is really accelerating wouldn’t you say.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind!
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
As a complement to my previous post April U.S. Temperature – 3.37 F cooler than the warmest April, I thought it would be interesting to look at the recent 3 months (February-April) US temperature from a “historic” perspective. To see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 111 years.
Especially to see how the decade trends have evolved during the last 31 years. The period that according to the Global Warming Hysterics and computer models they worship should show a steady and accelerated increase in temperature.
And as I always point out:
Remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
So here are the trends:
US temperature recent 3 months (Feb-Apr) 1900-2011
The trend for 1900 to 2011 is 0.19 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Feb-Apr) 1980-2011
The trend for 1980 to 2011 is 0.18 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Feb-Apr) 1990-2011
The trend for 1990 to 2011 is – 0.40 F / Decade
US temperature recent 3 months (Feb-Apr) 2000-2011
The trend for 2000 to 2011 is – 1.44 F / Decade
So the “warming trend” 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.44 Fdegrees COOLER a decade. That is a whopping – 14.4 F COOLER in 100 years. Take cover!
According to the computer models that the Global Warming Hysterics love so much, worship and blindly follows (especially our intelligent politicians), it should be EXACTLY the opposite.
And we are supposed to be very worried about a predicted rise of 3-4 F?
But not this ACTUAL trend?
And for this predicted trend the politicians want to take our societies back to the Stone Age. But, as usual, they DO NOTHING about the actual trend.
So to summarize this evidence of this “accelerated warming” trend:
The recent 3 months trend 1980-2011 is exactly 0.18 F degrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 1990-2011 is exactly – 0.40 F degrees a decade.
The recent 3 months trend 2000-2011 is exactly – 1.44 F degrees a decade.
Another brilliant and glorious example of RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind!
That is truly “Global Warming” US style.
An interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
And remember, these are the official figures. With the poor placement of stations (91 % of the stations are CRN 3 to 5 = bad to very poor); where they have purposely taken away the urban heat island effect, use huge smoothing radius, the historical “adjustment and tweaking”tocool the past etc.
Not to mention the great slaughter of GHCN stations 1990-1993 – roughly 63 % of all stations were “dropped”. Oddly enough many of them in cold places – Hmmm? Now the number of GHCN stations is back at the same numbers as in 1890.
Also remember that the US stations are now nearly a third of the all GHCN world stations.
And as I said in the beginning – always remember that these figures are based on the official data that has been tweaked, “adjusted” and manipulated to fit their agenda (cool the past, ignore UHI and land use change factors, huge smoothing radius – 1200km etc.)..
April temperature 1900-2011
“The average temperature in April 2011 was 52.9 F. This was 0.9 F warmer than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average, the 39th warmest April in 117 years. The temperature trend for the period of record (1895 to present) is 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. “
This year, the April temperature is – 3.37 F cooler than 2006, the warmest April. And if we compare this year’s April with 1981 it is– 3.26 F cooler.
If we compare with 1946 this year’s April is – 2.62 F cooler. And if we compare with 1915 is – 2.63 F cooler.
And the “warming trend” 1900-2011 is exactly 0.12 F degrees a decade. That is a whopping 1.2 F warmer in 100 years. Take cover!
And notice the dramatic rise from 1907 to 1908. A rise of 5.24 F degrees.
And the dramatic rise from 1975 to 1975. A rise of 5.05 F degrees.
Or the rise from 1909 to 1910. A rise of 4.79 F degrees.
That’s what I call RAPID WARMING and an eminent treat to humankind!
And we all know what happened – USA ceased to exist because of this catastrophic rise in temperature.
Except it didn’t – nothing happened. Everything went on as normal.
There are other years in the chart when the temperature increases 4.5 – 5.0 F in one year. And still, somehow mysteriously, USA went on as normal.
So a “predicted” rise of 3- 4 F degrees in 100 years is a total catastrophe for humankind.
But an ACTUAL RISE OF 5.24 F degrees IN ONE YEAR is nothing.
Interesting ”science” wouldn’t you say.
This is the “stuff” that “Global Warming” is made of.
Below is an insider’s perspective of Portugal’s “Green” madness from EcoTretas. With ALL the NOW so well-known and typical ingredients from this Global Warming Hysteria.
Read, and be truly horrified over how our “intelligent” politicians on purpose are committing economic hara-kiri (Seppuku) for “our” countries.
And, as I have sad on many occasions, it is we the common people who have to pay the gigantic price for this madness.
Many of my international readers should know that Portugalis seeking a rescue package. The reason for the bailout? Strange as it may seem: a green economy that has gotten dark, so much darker… Portugalwill be the ONLY country in the World, according to the IMF (check out Table 2.2), that will have a GDP negative growth in 2012! José Sócrates, Environment Minister between 1999 and 2002, and Prime Minister since 2005, is the person behind this tragedy. His green vision has brought Portugal some recognition amongst greenies, but mainly a dark future!
Almost everything imaginable in this Green promise has gone wrong. Murphy’s law at its best:
Portugal was the first country with wave power in the world, at Aguçadoura; it broke down only two months later. Portugal has one of the biggest solar photovoltaic power stations in the World, at Amareleja, owned by Acciona, a Spanish company. The huge feed-in tariffs being paid for this solar energy is being sent to our neighbors…
Wind power has been a big bet. Big promises included green jobs, but the truth is that they are only a few thousands… The reality is that the more the wind blows, the poorer we get. This is true because wind feed-in tariffs are much higher than energy prices in the spot market.
With such a high share of wind energy, dam construction has started, so thatthey can be used for energy storage. A double cost, which would not be needed, if wind energy was not so big. But it doesn’t stop here: gas power stations had to be paid for being in standby, rising even more the indirect costs of wind power.
Portugal has boasted that it exported electricity energy for the first time in 2010. The truth is that most of that energy was exported at zero cost, a strange concept with an easy explanation: when wind blows, especially at night, energy consumption is low; the same does occur also in Spain, so they don’t need the energy. Spain exports it through France, and gets our excess energy for free. Once again, Portuguese consumers and taxpayers are subsidizing other richer countries…
It isn’t no surprise that electricity prices are very high in Portugal. Despite slightly above the European mean value, the low income means that energy is comparably much more expensive in Portugal. And this is only half of the picture, as the KWh energy price accounts for only about 40% of the electricity bill, the rest being taxes and subsidies…
Gasoline and Diesel also have very high prices in Portugal, amongst the biggest in the World. The reason: multiple taxes and subsidies paid at the gas pump. All this has a great impact on the Economy, and is the main reason behind fuel tourism to Spain, where prices are much lower. In fact, they are so much lower, that near the border, people drive 50Km or more just to fill the tank!
Lately, things have gotten even worse. Sócrates is pushing for electric cars, but nothing in those cars is being made in Portugal. Once again, we are effectively paying for R&D being made somewhere else, without any advantage for the country. Despite being one of the countries with the highest lithium reserves in the World, no value is added in Portugal.
Portugal also has some well proven gas reserves. Despite that, they are not being explored, with tourism fears being invoked. My view is that Sócrates wouldn’t go this way, as it is not green… And despite potential shale gas reserves being pointed out, no one talks about it in Portugal!
And I could continue. Talk about CO2 compensations sent to other countries, projects involving offshore wind or even more expensive solar energy. The truth is that the green promise has brought us a dark future. Remember this the next time someone tries to sell you a green economy…
UD/RK Samhälls Debatt 