May 2012
69 posts
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“With Arabs like you who needs Israel? With an Amerikan Islam like your who needs...”
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Syria rebels demand Hezbollah apology to free... →
Enjoy your sectarian, Israel-serving revolution: Syrian rebels in Aleppo province said in a statement that Lebanese Shiite hostages were with them… They also said negotiations to release them could start only after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, apologises for a speech in which he told the kidnappers that the incident would not change...
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The US already has undermined the integrity of the...
Nothing inspires more confidence in the impartiality and credibility of a UN investigation into a war crime than when the US calls for it and then, before it even commences work, predicts its findings with an enviable certainty:
Victoria Nuland, State Dept. Spokeswoman said that Washington welcomes the fact “that the Russians are willing to have a full investigation because we think...
Syria: Kofi Annan urges Bashar al-Assad to 'act... →
Nothing inspires more confidence in the impartiality and credibility of a UN investigation into a war crime than when the US calls for it and then, before it even commences work, predicts its findings with an enviable certainty:
Victoria Nuland, State Dept. Spokeswoman said that Washington welcomes the fact “that the Russians are willing to have a full investigation because we think...
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“Let us suspend all moral judgment of Bashar al-Assad for one moment and assume...”
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'Iran: Military intervention in Syria woul...... →
My last post before I retreat for the next couple of days to finish up some work. Both sides preparing for a possible showdown. Ali Larijani threatens war on Israel in case of invasion of Syria, which I am confident isn’t mere hyperbole or saber-rattling:“US military officials probably have a poor understanding of themselves and regional issues because Syria is in no way similar to Libya,...
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‘UN report on Houla massacre? But they only talk... →
VERY IMPORTANT piece that raises some excellent questions about investigations into Houla massacre. Some excerpts: The Houla massacre is to be brought to a rare gathering of the UN Human Rights Council. But what kind of findings will the council be presented? Anti-war campaigner Marinella Corregia is concerned UN observers only question opposition activists. Marinella Corregia called the Council...
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Syrian diplomat in California defects from Assad... →
Please don’t panic, the regime just might pull through this one intact: Hazem Chehabi, (Hikmat Chehabi’s son) Syria’s honorary consul-general ( i.e. a volunteer who occasionally notarizes documents) for the West Coast has resigned. Media are describing it as one of Syria’s “highest ranking” diplomatic defections, presumably since the defections of honorary...
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Why I envy the head of the Syrian Observatory for...
I am very disappointed with mainstream media: I was sitting in my bedroom office in Beirut, drinking my coffee and checking my Facebook periodically, while I spoke with 3 eye-witnesses on the phone (one of whom was my my uncle who called me from his lounge-chair on a beach in Cannes, France) who told me who committed the massacre in Houla. All 3 accounts tallied so I figured I had met the...
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Guaranteeing democracy by limiting political...
I don’t understand why we have to be politically “tolerant’” and endorse political diversity and pluralism. Of course, I am not referring to countries like Lebanon and Syria where even Zionist collaborators and NATO lackeys must be dialogued with to prevent/end civil war which is a far greater evil. But just in the general, theoretical sense. How does embracing a diversity...
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How Syrian Alawites get their arms: two different...
I am copy-pasting here two different accounts of how the Syrian Alawites get their arms. I subscribe to the second account, which I consider relevant in the context of the sectarian warfare that plagues Syria today.
The first account is made by Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and founder of the widely read blog, Syria Comment....
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Assuming the "Alawite revenge" narrative about the...
There is a new, and quite plausible, alternative narrative that has emerged these past two days which describes the Houla massacre as Alawite retaliation for an earlier massacre committed by armed Sunni oppositionists against the Alawite village of al-Shoumariyeh. According to many unconfirmed reports, vengeful and armed villagers and /or shabiha retaliated for the massacre by butchering villagers...
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“Lets see, so France, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia, (excuse me for forgetting...”
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Hamid Dabashi: "Brown-Skin White-Masked"... →
A couple of friends have tagged me on Facebook this week in article/book links by that comprador intellectual, Hamid Dabashi. I think it is important you all know that the author of “Brown Skin White Masks” is nothing but a brown-skinned, white-masked House Iranian himself. Not only is he an ardent supporter of Iran’s Empire-backed “Green Revolution” but he is also...
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Syrian rebel leader to Haaretz: Assad's opposition... →
First part understatement, second part just plain hilarious: “The Syrian opposition has plans to take control of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons depots and secure them in the first hours after the regime collapses, a senior figure in the opposition told Haaretz. The opposition leader, a former senior officer in the Syrian Army, spoke to Haaretz on conditions of anonymity. “I...
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US Devises 'Influence Games' For Working with... →
Don’t you just love it when the Amerikan army organizes simulation “games”?
“Surprised all too often by nominally less well-equipped adversaries in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US military wants to know more about what it is getting into before it has to fight another war. It especially wants to know if there are non-military ways of dealing with crises. ..In 2006, the US...
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'Atrocities' could trigger military intervention... →
Not that I think that this is more than saber rattling, but again interesting to see how Houla massacre serves no one but the military interventionists:
The escalating “atrocities” in Syria could end up triggering a military intervention, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Fox News on Monday — following the massacre that left more than 100 dead.
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AP News: Russia condemns ally Syria over massacre... →
Not sure what to make of Russia’s latest position, except that the Houla massacre has really pushed it into a corner, for now anyway. Only yesterday, its deputy U.N. ambassador Alexander Pankin’s had accused “a third force” operating in Syria — terrorists or external forces who want intervention and an opposition victory.” Lavrov on the other hand, laid the blame...
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“And another thing that really irks me is that job description the “Middle...”
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Phony ‘Houla Massacre’: How Media Manipulates... →
Brilliantly argued piece critiquing the mainstream narrative about the Houla massacre:
“Cui bono? Who benefits… from another civilian massacre? Clearly not the Syrian government. But western-backed terrorist groups who have been working to destablize the country for over one year now, do clearly benefit…Who would be the chief suspect for this latest massacre? How about the...
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US condemns Syria massacre and looks for Russian... →
And there you have it, a motive for the massacre, force Russia to accept a Yemen-like deal :
“In a strongly worded statement condemning the attack – which left more 90 dead including 32 children – Clinton accused Assad and his cronies of ruling by “murder and fear” adding that the regime must “come to an end”….Russia, as one of Assad’s few remaining...
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Why it is highly unlikely the Syrian regime was...
I am not saying any group is immune from committing war crimes or terrorism in times of war, and I am fully aware of the Syrian regime’s repressive tactics, but even the most horrific acts of violence are driven by a certain “logic” which strives to achieve concrete objectives. There has to be a motive and set of interests that are served by the heinous act in question,...
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Egypt's Brotherhood calls for intervention in... →
The new brand of Amerikan Islam—Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood calls for military intervention in Syria. It is safe to say that whether former regime strongman Shafiq or MB candidate, Mursi win the runoffs, Egyptian foreign policy will not be a significant departure from that of the Mubarak era:
“The Muslim Brotherhood calls on Arab, Islamic and international governments … and the...
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BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian... →
Italian photographer whose photo of Iraq massacre in 2003 was used by the BBC as evidence of the Houla massacre in Syria: “What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn’t check the sources and it’s willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That’s all.“Someone is using someone else picture for...
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Netanyahu: Israel 'appalled' by Syria massacre;... →
You know when I really think about it, the details of this unthinkable crime are very much reminiscent of Israel’s gruesome massacre of children in Sabra and Chatila in 1982. Am not so sure that killing babies is part of al-Qaeda’s modus operandi, looks more like it was taken right out of an IDF operations manual. “Netanyahu expressed “appall at the continuous slaughter of...
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“I will never forget how these same Third Way leftist types who now compete over...”
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“I have one question for third way intellectuals and activists (no I never tire...”
herr-amn asked: I'm curious. What do you think the Syrian Social Nationalist Party? Interesting blog, by the way. Greetings from Canada.
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My disgust with Third Way (on Syria)...
I have reached the point of absolute disgust with Third-Way intellectuals. I just read a very popular status (shame on all my Lebanese Facebook friends who liked it) on a Lebanese BDS activist/intellectual’s wall which basically says that even if the Houla massacre was committed by the opposition, the regime is still to blame because after all “isn’t it the state? How can it...
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What the Egyptian "low intensity democracy"...
At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be surprised at the outcome of the first round of the Egyptian presidential elections. What other probable outcome could we have expected given the SCAF and the United States’s hold on the political system? What better way to reverse Empire’s losses brought about by a revolutionary movement, than by attempting to co-opt and placate it with...
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The Egyptian junta’s fraudulent elections and the... →
Egyptian presidential elections, prime example of “low-intensity” democracy: “The Egyptian elections have exposed the sham character of the so-called “transition to democracy” organized by the Egyptian ruling class in conjunction with its allies in Washington…The elections were marked by low voter turnout reflecting the widespread sense amongst the masses that the junta’s...
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Excerpts from Nasrallah Speech Israeli Press Found...
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hezbollah-chief-nasrallah-no-fence-will-protect-israel-1.432673
“Hezbollah chief Nasrallah: No fence will protect Israel”
“The 2005 withdrawal was the final nail in the coffin of the Zionist ideology of expanding the borders of historic Israel,” Nasrallah said in a televised address. “Israel erects fences, but that...
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Highlights from Nasrallah speech today on...
Nasrallah hails May 25 as the day “which hammered the last nail in the so called “”Greater Israel” coffin.”
He quotes former Israeli Premier Yitzhak Shamir: “I never thought I would live to see the day when an Arab side/party would make Israel and its army flee, but Hizbullah proved that there is another kind of Arab.”
Regarding the FSA hostage takers...
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AP News: US poised to vet possible arms for Syrian... →
Seriously? I can understand their fears about al-Qaeda (although I am sure there are some US officials who secretly fund them as they have in the past) but in what parallel universe would Hizbullah have access to weapons intended for the FSA? “The effort, U.S. officials told The Associated Press, would vet members of the Free Syrian Army and other groups to determine whether they are...
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“Today is the12th anniversary of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from South...”
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“As a Shi’ite Muslim, here is how I see it: any Shi’ite who, because...”
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Nasrallah urges calm after Syrian rebels kidnap... →
Good roundup of developments related to FSA abductions of 12 Shi’ites and summary of Nasrallah speech:
“Updated 9:08pm: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged his followers to remain calm after reports emerged on Tuesday that Syrian rebels had kidnapped 13 Lebanese men.
The men were said to have been returning from a tour of Shia holy sites in Iraq, and were traveling through Syria...
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A Comparison between the Future Movement's and...
The clashes of yesterday and the sectarian rabble-rousing since warrant a comparison between the Future Movement’s thuggish and demagogic response to Sheikh Ahmed Abdul-Wahid’s killing and Hizbullah’s response to a similar incident against its own supporters on January 30, 2008. At the time, the Lebanese Army fired and killed 9 of Hizbullah’s Shiíte supporters who were...
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“All those pundits out there who are speculating whether Hizbullah will get...”
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Spy-Butterfly: Israel developing insect drone for... →
The word’s most cowardly army, desperate as ever to avoid direct combat, plans to dispatch insects to combat Hizbullah in next war:
The future is here and this is not a butterfly on your wall, as Israeli drones are getting tiny. Their latest project – a butterfly-shaped drone weighing just 20 grams - the smallest in its range so far – can gather intelligence inside buildings.
The new...
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“Our struggle against Israel isn’t existential merely because it has no...”
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More omissive reporting on Syria by AP: "Chaos"...
AP does it again. This has got be one of the most stupid inferences I have read so far in a report on Syria and one of the most flagrant examples of omissive reporting. Although the AP reporters didn’t directly make it themselves, the very fact that they left it to the rebels to “elaborate” on Assad’s intended meaning is effectively an endorsement of their absurd...
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Syria says gets 51 percent turnout for parliament... →
As with the voter turnout for the constitutional referendum, a little over half of voting age Syrians participated in the recent parliamentary elections. “Ridiculous” [to quote the US’s official reaction] or not, that’s half the population once again bestowing legitimacy upon Assad’s political system, a number that closely corresponds with turnouts in the West....
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everGreen: Arab Solidarity Vis A Vis Syria →
My friend and fellow blogger, Atlas Egbe, wrote this very perceptive note on how some Arabs view Palestine and hence, Syria:
The lack of Arab solidarity on the Syrian issue and by default the Palestinian issue is primarily perhaps due to lack of belief in the eventuality of an actual liberation of Palestine. Therefore, most don’t think of the Palestinian issue in practical terms (as they apply...
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A sample 2010 report about Syria's transfer of...
“The Syrian-made surface-to-surface missile, called the M600, is based on a solid propellant and is a clone of an Iranian missile called the Fateh-110. The M600 has a range of 250 km., carries a 500-kg. conventional warhead and is equipped with a sophisticated navigation system, giving Hizbullah accuracy it did not have until now. Israel believes Hizbullah has obtained hundreds of M600...
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