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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 15, 2013 4:20:58 GMT -7
Something is brewing. Keep June 5th in your mind as this will lead to a major event. Remember the role of the US Marine Corps is "First to Fight"!!!. Large US Marine force lands in Aqaba to deploy on Jordanian-Syrian borderDEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 5, 2013, 8:06 AM (GMT+02:00) Tags: US Marines Jordan Syrian war US Marines landing in AqabaA large American military force disembarked Tuesday, June 4, at the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba - ready for deployment on the kingdom’s Syrian border, debkafile’s exclusive military sources report. The force made its way north along the Aqaba-Jerash-Ajilon mountain road bisecting Jordan from south to north, under heavy Jordanian military escort. Our sources disclose that this American force numbers 1,000 troops, the largest to land in Jordan since the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2012. They are members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force carried aboard the USS Kearsage amphibious assault ship, which has been anchored off neighboring Israeli Eilat since mid-May. Upon landing, the marines took to the road in a convoy of armored vehicles including Hummers. Washington and Amman have imposed a blackout on their arrival. The Pentagon has only let it be known that the annual joint US-Jordanian “Eager Lion 2013” military exercise is due to begin later in June and last two months, with the participation of US F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile defense systems. According to our US sources, the arrival of the US force in Jordan was not directly related to the regular exercise but decided on at an emergency meeting at the Pentagon on May 31, which was attended by top military and civilian Defense Department officials. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is away from Washington, took part by video conference. The meeting decided that the military situation evolving in Syria and threats it posed to Jordan – including widening evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria - were urgent enough to warrant the dispatch of extra American military strength to Jordan, over and above the contingents participating in the joint exercise. The Israeli Air Force will provide air cover for the force until the F-16 jets are in place for the drill. The US Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. T.G. Taylor in a statement to the US media said only: “In order to enhance the defensive posture and capacity of Jordan, some of these assets may remain beyond the exercise at the request of the government of Jordan.” That request, according to our sources, was for the US to leave behind when the exercise ended and the troops departed - not just some of the weapons systems but all of the equipment which arrived with the marines Wednesday, as well as the F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles. There is no official word about Washington’s response to this request. However, the Obama administration is not expected to turn it down. Must Read / Syria | By Shoshana McCrimmon US Marines Deployed To Syria, Perhaps — Intel Blackout Breaking news today: US marines deployed to Syria, perhaps, as they were seen heading north toward Syria from the assault ship just off Jordan’s shore. US Marines Deploy in Aqaba Jordan June 2013 A thousand soldiers from the 24th US Marine Expeditionary Force deploy north from Aqaba, Jordan. Debkafile, in an exclusive report Wednesday, revealed that 1,000 members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force disembarked from the USS Kearsage amphibious assault ship in the Jordanian port of Aqaba and were seen heading north towards the Syrian border, under heavy Jordanian escort: Washington and Amman have imposed a blackout on their arrival. The Pentagon has only let it be known that the annual joint US-Jordanian “Eager Lion 2013” military exercise is due to begin later in June and last two months, with the participation of US F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile defense systems. According to our US sources, the arrival of the US force in Jordan was not directly related to the regular exercise but decided on at an emergency meeting at the Pentagon on May 31, which was attended by top military and civilian Defense Department officials. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is away from Washington, took part by video conference… The meeting decided that the military situation evolving in Syria and the threats it posed to Jordan were urgent enough to warrant the dispatch of extra American military strength to Jordan, over and above the contingents participating in the joint exercise. The US Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. T.G. Taylor in a statement to the US media put it this way: “In order to enhance the defensive posture and capacity of Jordan, some of these assets may remain beyond the exercise at the request of the government of Jordan.” That request, according to our sources, was for the US to leave behind when the exercise ended and the troops departed – not just some of the weapons systems but all of the equipment which arrived with the marines Wednesday, as well as the F-16 fighters and Patriot missiles.” The arrival of US troops has coincided with reports that Hezballah, an Iranian proxy in the region recently recognized as a terrorist group by the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council, transferred over 1200 of their own ‘fighters’ from Lebanon to Syria in mid-May to support the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad, which is having trouble drumming up support among the populace: “The armed members who arrived from Lebanon to Syria committed “a hideous crime” in the town of Talkalkh, the [Saudi al-Watan] daily said, adding that tens of thousands of fighters entered from Iraq to aid the Syrian regime… The daily quoted sources as saying that the Damascus regime “is resorting to the aid of fighters from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which implies that the Syrian recruits’ desire to fight alongside the regime is decreasing.” The source added that reservists are also not complying with the army command’s repeated calls to join the regime troops in their fighting. The regime has also been arresting men in their forties and forcing them to join recruitment camps so they join the fighting between regime troops and the rebels, the daily added.” The buildup of forces in the region is thought to be related to Iran nearing completion of its nuclear weaponization capabilities. Israel has promised to destroy such a capability, given public threats by the Iranian regime to destroy the Jewish state. The Iranians have positioned Hezballah along Israel’s northern border with an estimated 200,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israeli civilian populations and may once again resume active hostilities if Israel strikes the Iranian nuclear program. The Islamic republic has close ties with the Syrian regime and has been sanctioned by the US State Department for funneling weapons and money to Hezballah through Syrian territory. The current positioning of international players in the Mideast is reminiscent of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and United States squared off in the region using Arab countries and Israel, respectively, as proxies. Russia, which exports mainly weapons systems these days, is set to deliver an S-300 air defense system to Syria, but Israel has threatened to destroy the system if delivery is attempted out of concern the system would provide the Assad regime a military advantage preventing the effective defense of Israel. Such concern is not unfounded, as during the Cold War the Russian SA-6 system employed by Syria destroyed nearly 100 Israeli fighter jets in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Complicating matters are reports that the Syrian regime and/or rebel forces may be deploying chemical weapons, further escalating the 2-year conflict and prompting Israel to conduct homeland defense drills. The weapons were allegedly developed with Russian assistance, an allegation Moscow has vehemently denied. However, there are breaking reports from Britain and France, confirming the presence of sarin gas in samples taken from Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also allied with Iran, and in fact has provided much of the nuclear technology being implemented in the Islamic republic. There is real concern that either success or destruction of the air defense system in Syria, or the nuclear infrastructure in Iran, could spark a regional conflict with the potential to grow into global conflict, a catch-22 that will be difficult for the Obama Administration to navigate. Fri Jun 14, 2013 1:45AM GMT The United States has decided to keep F-16 fighter jets and Patriot anti-missile weapons in Jordan after ending a joint military drill there this month. On Thursday a US defense official said Washington will also keep a unit of marines on amphibious ships off the coast in the region after consultations with Jordanian leaders. The US officials decided to keep the troops and weapons upon the request of Jordan amid concerns over the conflict in neighboring Syria. The military equipment had been sent to Jordan for a major military drill, dubbed Eager Lion. According to military officials over 4,500 US troops, around 3,000 Jordanians, and 500 soldiers from other countries participated in the exercise, which started on Sunday. Russia and Syria have already shown concerns over the deployment of U-S Patriot missiles and fighter jets to the region. On May 14, Jordan’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lieutenant General Mishal Mohammed Zabin met with the army chiefs of the US, France and Turkey as well as the deputy secretary-general of the NATO, Alexander Vershbow, to discuss “preparations underway for the Eager Lion exercise.” Jordan has received bulky aid from the US in recent years. Washington has granted USD 2.4 billion (EUR 1.85 billion) in aid to Amman in the past five years, according to official figures.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 15, 2013 4:34:54 GMT -7
Saudi King Abdullah cuts holiday short due to ‘events in the region’ Saturday, 15 June 2013
Al Arabiya
King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia cut his holiday in Morocco short and returned to Jeddah on Friday “due to the repercussions of the events that are currently taking place in the region,” the state news agency SPA reported.
These events, according to the agency, inlude the American decision to provide military support for the Syiran opposition.
The United States’ announcement on Thursday was seen as a major shift in the Obama’s administration’s policy towards the Syrian crisis.
Senior U.S. officials have refused to elaborate on the kind of military aid Washington plans to offer the Syrian opposition forces.
Such military aid is classified and may be funneled to select Syrian rebels forces in a covert mission by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Associated Press reported.
“We do want to be responsive to the requests that have been made by the SMC and General Idris, consistent with our own national interests,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, referring to rebel military leader Selim Idris, according to the Associated Press.
Saudi Arabia has consistently called for arming the Syrian opposition. The kingdom has stepped up its diplomatic efforts to convince Western powers to take firm stances on Syria following recent advances by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Hezbollah and Iranian troops.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 15, 2013 4:36:58 GMT -7
Published on FRANCE 24 (http://www.france24.com/en)
Thousands of Egypt Islamists rally for Syria jihad
By blade
Created 14/06/2013 - 20:15
Thousands of Islamists rallied in the Egyptian capital on Friday in support of calls by Sunni Muslim clerics for a holy war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The demonstration took place outside a Cairo mosque where Saudi preacher Mohammed al-Oreifi called in a sermon for a "jihad in the cause of Allah in Syria."
Oreifi urged worshippers to "unite against their enemy."
Saudi Arabia, like Egypt, is an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country, and Sunnis are the backbone of the revolt against Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Demonstrators, most of them bearded and wearing the traditional white galabiya, shouted "there is no God but Allah, and Bashar is his enemy."
People waved not only the Egyptian flag but also the one adopted by the Syrian opposition.
On Thursday, influential Sunni clerics from several Arab states called for a holy war against the "sectarian" regime in Syria.
"We must undertake jihad to help our brothers in Syria by sending them money and arms, and providing all aid to save the Syrian people from this sectarian regime," they said in a statement at the end of a gathering in Cairo.
They called the "flagrant aggression" of Iran and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah -- both Shiite -- and their "sectarian allies" in Syria "a declaration of war against Islam and Muslims."
Hezbollah has been fighting alongside Assad's forces, and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Friday it would continue to do so.
Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia's top cleric Abdulaziz al-Shaikh has urged governments to punish the "repulsive sectarian group" while Qatar-based Sunni cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi has called on Sunnis to join the rebels.
Hezbollah's intervention in Syria, which helped Assad's troops overrun the strategic town of Qusayr, has been roundly condemned by Arab countries.
In Cairo, a senior aide to President Mohamed Morsi demanded on Thursday that the group "immediately end" its involvement in Syria.
The Shiite group's assistance to Assad could "further turn this conflict into a sectarian conflict that will spill over into the entire region," Khaled Al-Qazzaz said.
Qazzaz, Morsi's secretary on foreign relations, said the government was not trying to stop Egyptians from volunteering in Syria, mostly in relief work.
"The right of travel or the freedom of travel or taking certain positions is open for all Egyptians," he told reporters at a briefing.
"But we did not call on Egyptians to go and fight in Syria," he said.
Egypt believes the conflict will have to be resolved politically, he added.
The conflict has drawn Sunni volunteers from several Arab countries to join rebel ranks. In addition to Hezbollah, Shiites have travelled from Iraq to support Assad.
During Friday's rally, 22-year-old student Ossam Zeyd said "I am here to support the Syrian people. I am participating in jihad in Allah's cause by prayer and by sending money."
A number of Egyptian humanitarian organisations have set up stands outside mosques to collect funds for Syrians.
And Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, from whose ranks Morsi comes, will hold a gathering on Saturday at a stadium in Cairo under the slogan "in support of the Syria revolution."
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 16, 2013 4:04:12 GMT -7
We have a major war brewing here and we are smack-dab in the middle of it!!!
Iran will send 4,000 troops to aid Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria
World Exclusive: US urges Britain and France to join in supplying arms to Syrian rebels as MPs fear that UK will be drawn into growing Sunni-Shia conflict
Robert Fisk Sunday, 16 June 2013
Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.
For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.
The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran – even before last week’s presidential election – to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel.
In years to come, historians will ask how America – after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014 – could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed. The profound effects of this great schism, between Sunnis who believe that the father of Mohamed’s wife was the new caliph of the Muslim world and Shias who regard his son in law Ali as his rightful successor – a seventh century battle swamped in blood around the present-day Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala – continue across the region to this day. A 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, compared this Muslim conflict to that between “Papists and Protestants”.
America’s alliance now includes the wealthiest states of the Arab Gulf, the vast Sunni territories between Egypt and Morocco, as well as Turkey and the fragile British-created monarchy in Jordan. King Abdullah of Jordan – flooded, like so many neighbouring nations, by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees – may also now find himself at the fulcrum of the Syrian battle. Up to 3,000 American ‘advisers’ are now believed to be in Jordan, and the creation of a southern Syria ‘no-fly zone’ – opposed by Syrian-controlled anti-aircraft batteries – will turn a crisis into a ‘hot’ war. So much for America’s ‘friends’.
Its enemies include the Lebanese Hizballah, the Alawite Shiite regime in Damascus and, of course, Iran. And Iraq, a largely Shiite nation which America ‘liberated’ from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority in the hope of balancing the Shiite power of Iran, has – against all US predictions – itself now largely fallen under Tehran’s influence and power. Iraqi Shiites as well as Hizballah members, have both fought alongside Assad’s forces.
Washington’s excuse for its new Middle East adventure – that it must arm Assad’s enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them – convinces no-one in the Middle East. Final proof of the use of gas by either side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush’s claim that Saddam’s Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
For the real reason why America has thrown its military power behind Syria’s Sunni rebels is because those same rebels are now losing their war against Assad. The Damascus regime’s victory this month in the central Syrian town of Qusayr, at the cost of Hizballah lives as well as those of government forces, has thrown the Syrian revolution into turmoil, threatening to humiliate American and EU demands for Assad to abandon power. Arab dictators are supposed to be deposed – unless they are the friendly kings or emirs of the Gulf – not to be sustained. Yet Russia has given its total support to Assad, three times vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that might have allowed the West to intervene directly in the civil war.
In the Middle East, there is cynical disbelief at the American contention that it can distribute arms – almost certainly including anti-aircraft missiles – only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria represented by the so-called Free Syria Army. The more powerful al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, dominates the battlefield on the rebel side and has been blamed for atrocities including the execution of Syrian government prisoners of war and the murder of a 14-year old boy for blasphemy. They will be able to take new American weapons from their Free Syria Army comrades with little effort.
From now on, therefore, every suicide bombing in Damascus - every war crime committed by the rebels - will be regarded in the region as Washington’s responsibility. The very Sunni-Wahabi Islamists who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September, 2011 – who are America’s greatest enemies as well as Russia’s – are going to be proxy allies of the Obama administration. This terrible irony can only be exacerbated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adament refusal to tolerate any form of Sunni extremism. His experience in Chechenya, his anti-Muslim rhetoric – he has made obscene remarks about Muslim extremists in a press conference in Russian – and his belief that Russia’s old ally in Syria is facing the same threat as Moscow fought in Chechenya, plays a far greater part in his policy towards Bashar al-Assad than the continued existence of Russia’s naval port at the Syrian Mediterranean city of Tartous.
For the Russians, of course, the ‘Middle East’ is not in the ‘east’ at all, but to the south of Moscow; and statistics are all-important. The Chechen capital of Grozny is scarcely 500 miles from the Syrian frontier. Fifteen per cent of Russians are Muslim. Six of the Soviet Union’s communist republics had a Muslim majority, 90 per cent of whom were Sunni. And Sunnis around the world make up perhaps 85 per cent of all Muslims. For a Russia intent on repositioning itself across a land mass that includes most of the former Soviet Union, Sunni Islamists of the kind now fighting the Assad regime are its principal antagonists.
Iranian sources say they liaise constantly with Moscow, and that while Hizballah’s overall withdrawal from Syria is likely to be completed soon – with the maintenance of the militia’s ‘intelligence’ teams inside Syria – Iran’s support for Damascus will grow rather than wither. They point out that the Taliban recently sent a formal delegation for talks in Tehran and that America will need Iran’s help in withdrawing from Afghanistan. The US, the Iranians say, will not be able to take its armour and equipment out of the country during its continuing war against the Taliban without Iran’s active assistance. One of the sources claimed – not without some mirth -- that the French were forced to leave 50 tanks behind when they left because they did not have Tehran’s help.
It is a sign of the changing historical template in the Middle East that within the framework of old Cold War rivalries between Washington and Moscow, Israel’s security has taken second place to the conflict in Syria. Indeed, Israel’s policies in the region have been knocked askew by the Arab revolutions, leaving its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hopelessly adrift amid the historic changes.
Only once over the past two years has Israel fully condemned atrocities committed by the Assad regime, and while it has given medical help to wounded rebels on the Israeli-Syrian border, it fears an Islamist caliphate in Damascus far more than a continuation of Assad’s rule. One former Israel intelligence commander recently described Assad as “Israel’s man in Damascus”. Only days before President Mubarak was overthrown, both Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called Washington to ask Obama to save the Egyptian dictator. In vain.
If the Arab world has itself been overwhelmed by the two years of revolutions, none will have suffered from the Syrian war in the long term more than the Palestinians. The land they wish to call their future state has been so populated with Jewish Israeli colonists that it can no longer be either secure or ‘viable’. ‘Peace’ envoy Tony Blair’s attempts to create such a state have been laughable. A future ‘Palestine’ would be a Sunni nation. But today, Washington scarcely mentions the Palestinians.
Another of the region’s supreme ironies is that Hamas, supposedly the ‘super-terrorists’ of Gaza, have abandoned Damascus and now support the Gulf Arabs’ desire to crush Assad. Syrian government forces claim that Hamas has even trained Syrian rebels in the manufacture and use of home-made rockets.
In Arab eyes, Israel’s 2006 war against the Shia Hizballah was an attempt to strike at the heart of Iran. The West’s support for Syrian rebels is a strategic attempt to crush Iran. But Iran is going to take the offensive. Even for the Middle East, these are high stakes. Against this fearful background, the Palestinian tragedy continues.
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Post by pieter on Jun 17, 2013 4:23:29 GMT -7
Dear John, That is an exellent article of Robert Fisk, I read his article with pleasure and interest and largely share his views. I think that the USA must be very careful and restrained in it's approach towards Syria. I think that the situation in Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli Golan Heights, the Turkish border with Syria, Jordan and Iraq is very dangerous. The USA wants to help the Syrian rebels. Do they know who their enemies are and what forces are behind the Syrian regime? Yes, they do, and they were and are hesitant, but are now taking the risk in arming the Free Syrian army. On the other side the Syrian Baath regime of Assad is fully backed by Russian arms supply and probably Russian advisors too, Iranian revolutionairy guards and arms supplies, thousands of Hezbollah fighters with their rifles, guns, machine guns, artillery, RPG's, rockets and probably tanks, Armored cars and suicide bombers and terrorist units. ( Remember the Beirut Barracks Bombing [October 23, 1983] in Lebanon in which 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers died. The suicide bombers were from Hezbollah). Next to Iran, Russia and China the Syrian Baath regime will have the support of Shia Muslims from Azerbaijan, Iraq, but also from Pakistan, India, Lebanon (other Shia then Hezbollah, for instance the large Shia clans and their militia and Amal), Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan (Hazara) and various Arab Gulf states. The Shia will see this war as a holy war agains the Sunni Muslims and agains the West who back them. There are about 200 million Shia Muslims in the world. Next to Russia, China and Hezbollah and radical shia Muslim militia from Iraq, North-Korea is also an allie of Syria. We are dealing with not rational regimes and extremist forces here. North-KoreaNorth-Korean Scud ballistic missile during a military parade in Pyongyang, North-KoreaNorth Korea's missile exports to Syria also worried U.S. officials during the ninetees, though most of the missile-related technology for Damascus was being routed through Iran, a U.S. official told the Risk Report in 1996. In the late 1980s, Syria was looking for a partner to supply new surface-to-surface missiles and to help upgrade the Syrian arsenal. Syria first approached the Soviet Union, but was turned down. Damascus then turned to Pyongyang. Syria has since contracted to buy more than 150 North Korean Scud-Cs. In 1991, North Korea delivered an estimated 24 Scud-Cs and 20 mobile launchers, and in March 1992 shipped some unknown quantity of additional Scuds to Syria through Iran. Syria flight-tested Scud-C missiles in July 1992, in mid-1994, and in the summer of 1996. Israeli and Western officials also report that Syria in the ninetees was building its own Scud-C missile factory with North Korean help. The Syrian conflict attracts extremistsNext to Sunni Fundamentalist Islamist extremists and Shia fanatics other extremists will feel attracted to the conflict, like some extreme left and extreme right lunatics who will allign themselves with the Syrian regime and Hezbollah due to their anti-Western and anti-American ideology and affiliation. Western embassies, Consulates, trade missions, cultural institutions, companies and banks all over the world will be a target for these extremists. If the USA will get involved in the Syrian civil war it must have a reliable, stabile, loyal, Pro-Western, legal partner in Syria with a support base and grassrootsmovement in Syria. That movement must have a civilian branch next to the militairy one, a democratic and moderate, secular, political wing. There must be (structural) funds, supplies, institutions, the certainty of the rule of law and the implementation of a legal system after the war is over. The mistake of the Iraq war must be avoided. A sort of Marshall plan for Syria should be developped. MilitarySaudi special forcesIf the USA supports the Free Syrian army, then it must train, advice and support the Free Syrian army with militairy instructors, arms and advisors who stay in Syria with the Free Syrian Army. Free Syrian Army soldiers and officers can be trained in Turkey, the USA, Egypt, Saoudi Arabia and even in Northern-Iraq in the Kurd region. The USA could use Arab American, Iranian American or other American instructors who look Middle eastern, speak Arabic or will be trained in Arabic. If the USA will get involved in the Syrian conflict it must realize how much it will costs and generate the budget for that. The Free Syrian army needs artillery, rockets, anti-tank guns, tanks, armoured cars and fighter yets, to be able to conquer Assad's forces. Will the USA allow for instance Saoudi, Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese Sunni, and Turkish soldiers and officers to fight with the Free Syrian army against the Syrian army, the armed Allawite and Shia Syrian civilians, Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionairy guards, the Iraqi Shia militia, and probably other Syrian allies? If the USA wants to support the Syrian rebels and in the same time wants to avoid the capture of American arms by the Islamist rebels of the al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, it has to control the Free Syrian army with the help of Saoudi, Egyptian, Syrian, Turkish and maybe even Israeli allies. What unites all these countries and groups is their common enemy Iran. Only an American drilled, modelled, facilitated, backed, controlled, financed and armed Free Syrian Army with American supervisors, advisors, trainers and fellow fighters ( American special forces) will guarantee a Syrian opposition free of Al Qaida and Salafist ( Algerian, Libyan, Chechen)/ Wahhabist ( Saoudi and Yemenite extremist islamists) influence. This will require a great effort from the American intelligence agencies, American diplomacy (foreign affairs/Geopolitical strategies and tactical operation), the American armed forces ( US-Army), the state department ( foreign affairs), the American president, the Pentagon, the FBI ( for internal security in the US) and the close allies of the USA ( Great-Britain, France, Israel and Poland). You have to gain the support of the American and European public opinion (to get the support of the European partners - Great Britain and France-), and your own political party. The anti-war or pacifistic left wing in the Democratic party, and the opposition of the Republicans in congress, whom out of opportunistic, tactical and strategic political reasons could oppose an American involvement in the Syrian civil war. Nex to that you have the extra-parliamentary opposition of the Peace movement, anti-Globalist, the Occupy Wallstreet movement, student movements, Indpendent Conservatives and libertarians, and other possible radical extra-parliamentary opposition. Mecca, -, SAUDI ARABIA : Saudi Interior ministrys special forces perform before Interior minister and Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz (unseen) during a special parade on the eve of Hajj season in Mecca City, on November 01, 2011.In the case that the USA has decided to help the Syrian rebels, the so called secular, Free Syrian Army, then the USA should act in a pragmatic and realistic way. It should engage the best elements in it's security and military aparatus. The USA will use the intelligence of the CIA and NSA, the Military Intelligence Corps ( MI), the Marines, the Special Operations Forces ( SOF), the Delta Force, Navy Seals, the Green Berets ( the United States Army Special Forces), with the operational, tactical, strategic and intelligence support of the Special Operations Command and the United States Army Intelligence Support Activity ( USAISA). The USA will need the support from it's Western allies with a colonial heritage and experiance in the Middle east, Great Britain and France. The British Special Air Service ( SAS; known to be one of the best special forces in the world), the British secret services MI5 and MI6, the Royal Air Force ( RAF), the British Navy and British army, and the French Foreign Legion ( REP; the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment) and the GIGN (the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, commonly abbreviated GIGN (French: Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) ( a special operations unit of the French Armed Forces), the French army, navy and Airforce. The GIGN is part of the National Gendarmerie and is trained to perform counter-terrorist and hostage rescue missions in France or anywhere else in the world. Next to the Brits and the French the USA could get support of the Canadian Joint Task Force-2 (Canadian special forces), the German Krisenreaktionskräfte ( KRK) ( Crisis Reaction Forces), the paramilitairy borderguards of the GSG-9 ( Grenzschutzgruppe 9) who has a long history of experiance with domestic and foreign terrorism inside and outside Germany. Next to these Western allies the Free Syrian army could get help and training from the special forces and armies of Turkey, Saoudi Arabia and Egypt. Saoudi Arabia has three main enemies in the region: First Iran who threatens the Persian Gulf region and the Sunni Arab Gulf states, secondly Al Qaida (because the Saoudi Unitary Islamic absolute monarchy is supported by the USA) and thirdly Israel, because Palestinians are arabs and Sunni Muslims like the Sunni Muslim Saoudi Arabian arabs. (Saoudi Arabia has good ties with most Sunni Muslim countries and Sunni minority groups in the world. It is the largest funder of mosques outside Saoudi Arabia; in Europe, the USA, Africa, Asia and elsewhere). The Egyptian Unit-777So the Royal Saudi Land Forces, the Saudi Arabian National Guard and the (Saoudi) Special Security Force (the Saoudi's are trained by the American Delta Force, Navy Seals and by the German GSG-9 and the French GIGN), the Egyptian army and it's special forces like Unit-777 and Unit-333, and the Turkish army and the Department of Special Operations ( Commando Brigades and the Amphibious Navy Brigade) and the National Police Jandarma Commando's ( OIKB; a counterterrorism unit) could assist the Free Syrian Army. Only with a combined American, British, French, Turkish, Saoudi, Egyptian and Syrian multi-national force the opposition against Assad would have a chance. America is stil the superior military force in the world (the only superpower). Only such and International army would be able to conquer Assad. What must be avoided at all costs in my opinion is a full scale war against Iran. An Iranian war will drag all the nations of the region into a world war. Not only Iran, the USA and Israel, but also Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, India, China, Saoudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Lybia, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Great-Britain, France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and fighters from other Muslim countries. Turkish Special ForcesI think that Israel wants to remain neutral, due to it's Sunni Arab and Shia Arab neighbours. Israel has not the luxery nor the political will and strategic interest to get involved in the bloody Syrian civil war and the Sunni-Shia conflict which is linked to that. Israel has by the way exellent special forces and intelligence agencies with special Arab speaking units, Mistaravim, from the Militairy Intelligence Agency AMAN special field units. The Mossad has it's informants and units in the neighbouring Arab countries too. I am sure they have their guys in Syria as well to monitor the situation there on the ground. Cheers, Pieter P.S.- Personally I am against the involvement of the USA and European allies in every armed conflict in the world; civil war, anarchy situation or war. The best way would be if Syria was surrounded by a large international force, who seals of the Syrian border and enforces a No-flyzone over Syria, and controls the land and sea entrence to Syria. Such a Multinational peacekeeping force would block the import of arms, and in that way the war would fade out due to the lack of ammunition for the artillery, tanks and war planes. But ofcourse that is a dream now and naive thought, and the Syrian regime has a lot of arms supplies. And next to that the Syrian borders with Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest are to large to be able to control totally.
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Post by pieter on Jun 17, 2013 6:11:33 GMT -7
Dear friends, The war in Syria is a very sick war, because there is no compassion for civilians, for human beings, for women, children, teenagers, old people by both the regime and the resistance (rebel fighters/ Free Syrian Army). The humanitarian situation is very bad. Human rights violations are normal there. I hope that there are christians, Muslims and jews in the world who pray for them, and I know that there are Christian, Jewish and Muslim people who care about the Syrians. I saw sick video's this morning (youtube) of that war I don't want to post here. A family taken prisoner are beaten up in a truck surrounded by soldiers who beat them with rifle bats; teenagers tortured in prison cells or police stations. I saw two living men, still alive who where kicked in and stamped on their mutilated, bloody faces (the most awful images), and I couldn't stand the image of the mother, father and their sons who were abused, kicked and beaten by the soldiers. I don't know who is worse, the Syrian regime forces or backers or the rebels of the Free Syrian Army and the al-Nusrah Front. Mind you that a lot of the Free Syrian army soldiers and officers were former Government soldiers and officers who first attacked or fought against Syrian civilians themselves. We don't know their past and their real intentions. The Free Syrian Army and the Sunni Islamist fighters did their share of war crimes. Behading, torture, kanibalism, executions and torture. In a war all sides are crual. War veterans know this. ( John) Not one side is good and the other is bad in this case. The Western media are Pro-rebels (Free Syrian Army and thus the Sunni Muslim side in Syria) and not neutral. Maybe the best for Syria would be if a very powerful Multi-National Force would put an end to the civil war and the suffering of the Syrian people (regardless of what sect, religion or ethnic group they are). A new Syrian regime should respect the rights and property of all Syrians, regardless if they are Sunni muslim, Allawite, Shia Muslim, Christian, Druze, Kurd or Palestinian. That is why it is so important for the Syrians and the region (the Lebanese, Turkish, Jordanian and Israeli neighbours too) that the civil war is ended soon, that law and order returns to Syria (that the legal system will work again and justice returns to the Syrian society), and that the Syrian economy, education system, infrastructure and health care are restored and working again. Here another article from Marwan Bishara about Syria from a Middle eastern perspective: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/20136131049162160.html( Marwan Bishara was born in Nazareth, Israel and is an Israeli of Arab descent) You've listened. You've watched. You've witnessed the worst crime of the 21st century thus far. A people bombed, murdered, purged, tortured, imprisoned and humiliated. The world watches from the sidelines, as a whole society is destroyed and tens of thousands of its finest people killed for daring to demand a life of dignity. Clearly, " never again" is never really never again. The atrocities in Syria continue - again and again. It's the ultimate complicity of silence. The so-called international community's commitment to the doctrine of R2P, or " responsbility to protect", is more of a " right to peddle" unfulfilled promises. Alas, when it comes to Syria, Iraq and Palestine, the international community has proven to be neither international nor a community. Syria's four-decade-long dictatorship run amok has been permitted to slaughter its own citizens, wreak havoc in its country and forever stain the nation's history in blood. What began as largely peaceful protests against regime repression was soon turned by the regime into an open battlefield throughout the country as the opposition became armed and extremists joined the fight. But the state's belligerence has been to no avail: no force could deter the people or crush an idea whose time has come. Despite the excessive use of air-power against cities and the shelling of civilians, the Bashar al-Assad regime failed to quell the revolution or break its fighting spirit. Marwan BisharaCheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jun 19, 2013 4:13:59 GMT -7
June, 19 1667 - The raid of Chatham starts. In this succesful Dutch attack of England during the Second Anglo-Dutch war a large part of the English fleet was burned and the Flagship of the English fleet, The HMS Royal Charles was acquired by the Dutch. The painting 'Dutch attack on the Medway', June 1667 by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, painted c. 1667 shows the captured HMS Royal Charles, right of centre.In 1667, flagging English national morale was further depressed by the raid on the Medway in which a Dutch fleet invaded the Thames and Medway rivers and on 12 June captured the uncommissioned Royal Charles, removing her with great skill to Hellevoetsluis in the United Provinces. The Dutch did not take her into naval service because it was considered that she drew too much water for general use on the Dutch coast. She was auctioned for scrap in 1673. Her metal stern piece, showing the English coat of arms with a lion and unicorn) along with her white ensign, is now on display in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
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Post by pieter on Jun 19, 2013 4:26:07 GMT -7
June 19, 1586 – English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in North America.
June 19 1934 – The Communications Act of 1934 establishes the United States' Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
June 19 1944 – World War II: First day of the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
June 19 1953 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.
June 19 1991 – The Soviet occupation of Hungary ends.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 19, 2013 4:35:00 GMT -7
US deploys 1,500 Marines to Yemen: Yemeni official
Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:58AM The United States has deployed 1,500 Marines with advanced arms and military equipment to Yemen, says a Yemeni military official.
Some 1,500 Marines were deployed to al-Anad military base in the country’s southern province of Lahij, al-Sharea daily quoted the official as saying on Monday.
Another 200 also arrived in the capital, Sana’a, to join the American forces already stationed in the capital’s Sheraton Hotel.
The official also said that American forces usually enter the country in small groups, but the recent large deployment could be in preparation for a possible imminent incident in the region.
The United States has stepped up its drone operations in Yemen over the past few years, killing many civilians in the Muslim country.
According to the Washington-based think tank, the New America Foundation, the US drone attacks in Yemen almost tripled in 2012.
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Post by pieter on Jun 19, 2013 7:29:21 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Jun 19, 2013 9:48:33 GMT -7
guys,
thank you for continuing the subject of the day in the history. We really need to remember!
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Post by pieter on Jun 20, 2013 4:37:23 GMT -7
The Great Seal of the United StatesJune 20 1782 – The U.S. Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States. June 20 1819 – The U.S. vessel SS Savannah arrives at Liverpool, England, United Kingdom. It is the first steam-propelled vessel to cross the Atlantic, although most of the journey is made under sail. June 20 1863 – American Civil War: West Virginia is admitted as the 35th U.S. state. June 20 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army begins a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing, China. June 20 1942 – The Holocaust: Kazimierz Piechowski (a soldier in the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and Polish political prisoner) and three others, dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, steal an SS staff car and escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp. June 20 1943 – The Detroit Race Riot breaks out and continues for three more days. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_(1943) ) Ethnic groups were pressured to resent African-Americans especially. A historian of Detroit's Poles found that they were scared into seeing African-Americans as "threatening their jobs, homes, communities, and churches." June 1972 – Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex. June 20 1990 – Asteroid Eureka is discovered. June 20 1991 – The German Bundestag votes to move the capital from Bonn back to Berlin. June 20 2009 – During the Iranian election protests, the death of Neda Agha-Soltan is captured on video and spreads virally on the Internet, making it " probably the most widely witnessed death in human history". Neda Agha-Soltan
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 25, 2013 4:06:13 GMT -7
US troop buildup in Jordan after Turkey shuts US-NATO arms corridor to Syrian rebels
Special Report June 22, 2013, 5:44 AM (GMT+02:00)
The US decision to upgrade Syrian rebel weaponry has run into a major setback: debkafile reveals that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan phoned President Barack Obama in Berlin Wednesday, June 19, to report his sudden decision to shut down the Turkish corridor for the transfer of US and NATO arms to the Syrian rebels. Against this background, the US President informed Congress Friday, June 22, that 700 combat-equipped American military personnel would remain in Jordan at the end of a joint US-Jordanian training exercise. They would include crews of two Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries and the logistics, command and communications personnel needed to support those units. The United States is also leaving behind from the war maneuver a squadron of 12 to 24 F-16 fighter jets at Jordan’s request. Some 300 US troops have been in Jordan since last year. Erdogan’s decision will leave the Syrian rebels fighting in Aleppo virtually high and dry. The fall of Qusayr cut off their supplies of arms from Lebanon. Deliveries through Jordan reach only as far as southern Syria and are almost impossible to move to the north where the rebels and the Hizballah-backed Syrian army are locked in a decisive battle for Aleppo. The Turkish prime minister told Obama he is afraid of Russian retribution if he continues to let US and NATO weapons through to the Syrian rebels. Since the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week, Moscow has issued almost daily condemnations of the West for arming “terrorists.”
Rebel spokesmen in Aleppo claimed Friday that they now had weapons which they believe “will change the course of the battle on the ground.”
debkafile’s military sources are strongly skeptical of their ability - even after the new deliveries - to stand up to the onslaught on their positions in the embattled town by the combined strength of the Syrian army, Hizballah troops and armed Iraqi Shiites. The prevailing intelligence assessment is that they will be crushed in Aleppo as they were in Al Qusayr. That battle was lost after 16 days of ferocious combat; Aleppo is expected to fall after 40-60 days of great bloodshed.
The arms the rebels received from US, NATO and European sources were purchased on international markets – not only because they were relatively cheap but because they were mostly of Russian manufacture. The rebels are thus equipped with Russian weapons for fighting the Russian arms used by the Syria army. This made Moscow angrier than ever.
Until now, the Erdogan government was fully supportive of the Syrian opposition, permitting them to establish vital command centers and rear bases on Turkish soil and send supplies across the border to fighting units. He has now pulled the rug out from under their cause and given Assad a major leg-up
This about-turn is a strategic earthquake – not just in terms of the Syrian war but also for the United States and, as time goes by, for Israel too.
Ten years ago, Erdogan pulled the same maneuver when he denied US troops passage through Turkey to Iraq for opening a second front against Saddam Hussein. President Obama reacted by topping up the US deployment in Jordan by 700 combat-equipped troops to 1,000. Patriot missile interceptors and F-16 fighter jets are left behind from their joint war game for as long as the security situation requires. debkafile: The joint US-Jordanian maneuver was in fact abruptly curtailed after two weeks although it was planned to continue for two months until the end of August.
The widening disruptions of the surging Syrian war are on the point of tipping over into Jordan and coming closer than ever to Israel.
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Post by pieter on Jun 25, 2013 8:31:04 GMT -7
John,
This means that the USA will be more dependent on it's Sunni Arab allies. Not only Jordan, but also Saoudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt. I think in reality Turkey is not only afraid of Russia, but also for Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. Syrian agents, Hezbollah members or other allies of Syria recently attacked Turkey with bomb attacks. Turkey is in a very vulnerable situation right now with it's civil unrest, Syrian refugees, Turkish xenophobia towards the Syrian refugees (Turkish Ultra-nationalism and anti-arab/migrant sentiments), and the fact that Turkey has borders with Iran, Iraq (and Iranian and Syrian allie today) and Syria. Israel is an American allie, but also a strategic partner of Turkey in the region.
The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with which Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia, thus enabling the completion of a multi-billion-dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. Under the AK Party government, Turkey's influence has grown in the Middle East based on the strategic depth doctrine, also called Neo-Ottomanism. Neo-Ottomanism (Turkish: Yeni Osmanlıcılık) is a Turkish political ideology that in its broadest sense, promotes greater engagement with areas formerly under the Ottoman Empire. Neo-Ottomanism seeks to anchor Turkey firmly amongst its own neighbours, without losing track of the bigger picture.
The Ottoman Empire was a great power which, at its peak, controlled the Balkans, most of the modern-day Middle East, most of North Africa and the Caucasus. Neo-Ottomanist foreign policy encourages increased engagement in these regions as part of Turkey’s growing regional influence. Turkey uses its soft power to achieve its goals. This foreign policy contributed to an improvement in Turkey's relations with its neighbors, particularly with Iraq, Iran and Syria. However Turkey's relations with Israel, its traditional ally, suffered, especially after the 2008-09 Gaza War and the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid. The Turkish foreign policy used to lean westwards with such determination that it ended up alienating Turkey from its regional neighbours. Israel was the one exception, and its friendship with Turkey underlined Turkey's difficulties with the region it inhabited.
Turkey's foreign policy under the present minister of foreign affairs Ahmet Davutoğlu, is focussed on its regional neighbours, and is more assertive and self-confident than the foreign policies of previous Turkish governments, dominated by secular Kemalist secular parties.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 27, 2013 4:33:45 GMT -7
Wednesday, 26 June 2013 KSA 15:52 - GMT 12:52
Russia removes military personnel from Syria
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
AFP, Moscow
Russia has withdrawn all its military personnel from Syria and left its strategic Tartus naval centre unstaffed because of the escalating security threat in the war-torn country, the Vedomosti daily said Wednesday.
The respected business daily cited an unnamed source in the Russian defense ministry as saying that no Russian defense ministry military or civilian personnel were now present in Syria, a Soviet-era ally of Moscow.
The source said the decision was taken to limit the dangers posed to Russians amid a raging civil war and to reduce the threat of political damage that could result from Russians being killed by either side.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov had appeared to confirm the evacuation of military staff in an interview with the London-published Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat published on Friday.
"Today, the Russian defense ministry does not have a single person in Syria," he said.
"In Tartus, we never had a base in the first place. It is a technical facility for maintaining ships sailing in the Mediterranean," he added.
The facility in the Mediterranean port of Tartus, located in the Alawite Muslim heartland region of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, is Russia's only such asset outside the former Soviet Union.
Created as the result of an agreement between Damascus and Moscow in 1971, the Tartus facility was believed in recent months to have been staffed by just a few dozen Russian defense ministry personnel.
Russia always insisted on calling it not a base but a "point of military-technical supply of the Russian Navy". But analysts have always seen its sheer existence as a huge asset for Moscow.
The Vedomosti report said the decision to remove defense ministry personnel did not cover technical experts who are hired by the Syrian government to help train its army use Russian-issued weapons.
Russia supplies ground-to-surface interceptor missiles to Syria as well as warplanes and helicopters and other heavy machinery meant for national self-defense.
Moscow defends its military sales to Syria by arguing that it is only fulfilling contracts signed before the current conflict broke out in March 2011.
Syria represents Russia's last strategic ally in the Middle East and the fall of Assad would deal a significant blow to Moscow's geopolitical aspirations.
Russia now intends to keep between three and five warships permanently stationed in the region as a show of its strategic interest in the Middle East, the Vedomosti report said
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