Some news bits in the last days may have left true believers of journalistic integrity and the truthfulness of Western media scratching their heads and wondering. For example:
The Orthodox Church in Syria reports, that 90 percent of the Christian citizens in Homs were displaced by force and their homes either occupied or destroyed by members of the Battalion Al-Faruk, which belongs to the FSA (Free Syrian Army).
The militants were going from house to house in the Christian neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Orchard Court, and families were forced to leave without giving them the opportunity to take anything from their property.
In the village of Hassiba near Homs members of the Battalion Al-Faruk slaughtered 13 people, including women and children.
Because of the present ceasefire members of the Al-Faruq battalion are not as actives as before, but they have imposed an “Islamic tax” on Christians in Homs and threaten to kill or kidnap everybody who is not willing to pay. Some Christians have already disappeared, whilst others have been imprisoned in a detention camp erected in the village of Ammar al-Husn, the battalion’s headquarter.
It was also reported that the FSA cells in the Dayr B’albah and Tir M’allah areas near Homs are mostly Pakistani fighters, These Pakistanis have arrived from Britain and Turkey.
At the start of April there were already reports (conveniently ignored by Western media), that Christians in al-Qusayr, a city near the Lebanese boarder, were killed and kidnapped by FSA gangs and their houses bombed or burned after being looted. The house of the local parish priest, Father George Louis was hit by four mortar rounds and completely destroyed. According to survivors, all property of the Christian families has been redistributed to local Sunni Muslims.
Syrian media until now reported 600 ceasefire violations by the FSA. A few examples:
The FSA killed Colonel Mahmoud Zaitoun and Warrant Officer Jihad Tawfik Ismael as they were going to their work in Hama. Lieutenant Colonel Said Assi was ambushed and killed in al-Mismiyeh.
Abdel Ghani Jawhar, one of the leaders of the Sunni fundamentalist group Fatah al-Islam and Lebanon’s most wanted terrorist, died in the city of al-Qusair, when the bomb that he wanted to plant, detonated accidentally. Another bomb went off and killed FSA member Majed Mansour al-Khalaf as he was preparing it in his house in Deir Ezzor.
The FSA assassinated Doctor Adnan Tawfik al-Samitt in Daraa.
Members of the Criminal Security Branch in Aleppo arrested seven armed FSA members who had abducted civilians to extort ransom. Also in Aleppo one soldier was killed and 42 injured when their bus was hit by a roadside bomb.
Despite the headline of this blog post, the preparations for war against Syria are not an unexpected development.
Former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark disclosed in 2003 that he was shown a plan at the Pentagon, made already before 9/11, which outlined a sequence of seven wars after Afghanistan in the world’s oil-rich regions, namely Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Sudan.
The USA until now has followed this plan and was quit successfully in achieving hegemony in the targeted regions. The actions against Syria are a logical continuation of the plan, they are not unexpected and preparations have indeed started years ago.
To undermine Iran and Syria, the USA has been bolstering Sunni extremist groups since 2007. Then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced this policy, saying: There is “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,” separating “reformers” and “extremists”. Rice pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the other side of that divide”.
Instrumental in this policy to support Sunni extremists was the Saudi government, which with Washington’s approval has continuously provided funds and logistical aid to Islamists in Syria and northern Lebanon.
This was in fact not a new policy, it was just an old policy applied to a new target.
In the 80s and early 90s, the Saudi government offered to support the covert CIA proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young Saudis were sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up madrassas (Islamic seminaries), training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then as now, many of the operatives who were paid with Saudi money were Salafis and Wahabis. Among them were Osama bin Laden and his associates, who founded Al Qaeda in 1988.
The USA did not rely only on Saudi Arabia to promote Islamic extremism. In the 80s US agencies supplied Afghan schoolchildren with millions of textbooks containing violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance against the Soviet occupation. The books, which are filled with talk of jihad and feature drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, still serve as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum.
That the radical Islamists despise Western culture, that they abhor Christians and want to install a caliphate and impose Sharia law across the world, is no hinderance to use them in US war projects.
The question remains: Who is using whom?
These two parties are like two snakes. They are like two predators, feeding on the same pray that they just collectively caught and defeated, waiting for the moment when their fellow predator will turn his back so that they can kill and eat him too.
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Syria faces a powerful coalition of predators, including the USA and her European NATO allies, Turkey and Israel plus the Gulf monarchies, lead by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Yet all of Syria’s adversaries have their own internal problems and weaknesses, they may not be as powerful as it looks at a first glance.
The European nations face a severe financial crises and a popular revolt against imposed austerity measures with Greece and Spain in turmoil. Britain and France experienced social unrest and severe riots, arson, and looting even before the present crisis.
Saudi Arabia has a significant Shiite minority in its eastern Province, a region of major oil fields. Sectarian tensions are high in this province and there have been terrorist attacks, though they are not reported by mainstream media.
The Saudi royal family has been, by turns, both a sponsor and a target of Sunni extremists, who object to the corruption and decadence among the family’s myriad princes. The princes are gambling that they will not be overthrown as long as they continue to support religious schools and charities linked to the extremists.
The core of Al Qaeda was defeated in a bloody battle lasting from 2003 to 2008 and the Saudi regime has used its resources since then to suppress internal dissent and has detained more than ten thousand people. Saudi Arabia is ruled by Sharia law, which allows the police and courts to do pretty much whatever they want. They are accountable only to God and the king.
Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world, 82 people were put to death in 2011.
In recent years Qatar has emerged as another important sponsor of radical Islamism, leading to rivalries with Saudi Arabia. Despite an apparent alliance with Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani will probably be mindful that the Saudi rulers have been implicated in coup attempts against him in 1996, 2002, 2009, and February 2011. Two weeks ago there were again rumors about a failed coup by high-ranking officers.
There are also tensions within the Al Thani ruling family and other powerful clans over what critics of the Emir call “his excessive alignment with US foreign policy and breaking of Arab ranks”. Various high positioned Qataris do not recognize the legitimacy of the Emir. There are also domestic problems of corruption and objections to the monopolization of Qatar’s lucrative property market by the Al Thanis.
I wrote about Qatar comprehensively in News from Doha, and only want to add here that Qatar fully embraces Western consumerism and that the incompatibilities of a Western lifestyle with Islamic traditions are leading to serious problems.
Qatar is not only the richest, but also the most obese nation on earth. Half of the adults and a third of the children in Qatar are overweight, and 17 percent of the native population suffer from diabetes. Related illnesses and complications like hypertension, blindness, partial paralysis, and heart disease are on the rise and in addition to that there are also high rates of birth defects and genetic disorders.
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By comparison, only a third of US citizens are obese, and only eight percent are diabetic, yet the USA is facing other serious internal problems and structural weaknesses.
As I mentioned before on this blog, the USA is a militarized society and weapons are a part of everyday life. The newest trend is to have a hidden (concealed) weapon ready at any time.
The established clothing company Woolrich sells its new chino pants for the fashion-aware gun owner. The company has added a second pocket behind the front pocket and a stretchable waistband to carry concealed weapons. The pants are part of the Woolrich Elite Concealed Carry line.
The Woolrich line includes also a lightweight water-resistant vest with strategic pockets for guns and a stealth compartment in front so the wearer can appear to be warming his hands while actually gripping a pistol in a waistband holster.
Under Armour and several other clothing companies are also trying to tap this market segment, which is growing fast because of the sharp rise in permits to carry concealed weapons.
Wisconsin just issued the 100,000th concealed-weapon permit after less than six months. In November Wisconsin became the 49th state to allow residents to carry concealed weapons, leaving Illinois as the only state still holding out and standing firm against NRA pressure.
In the years since Ohio passed a concealed weapons law, county sheriffs have issued 296,588 permits. Florida has issued 2,031,106 licenses since allowing concealed weapons and had 843,463 licensed permit holders in July 2011.
In 2011 seven million US citizens had permits, up from five million in 2008. The number of permit revocations is insignificantly small in all states, 37 states have “shall issue” statutes, requiring them to provide concealed-carry permits if an applicant meets legal requirements. Arizona, Vermont, and Alaska allow citizens to carry concealed firearms without permit.
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There are an estimated 280 million privately owned guns in the USA and according to the last Gallup poll 47 percent of US adults report to own a gun.
Between 8 and 12 million guns are sold every year.
Nearly 100,000 people are shot every year.
Recently I came across a comment on an alternative news site where the commenter told: “I live in the country-side where a lot people own like 30 guns, each one well stocked up on ammo. People sense collapse coming and are preparing for it.”
The USA has the greatest income disparity among Western industrialized nations, 49 million live in poverty, a further 100 million are low income (poor), 50 million have no health insurance.
One should not forget to mention the 22 million war veterans, many suffering from PTSD or being disabled, many of them having difficulties to adjust and reintegrate into civil society.
Popular dissent is growing and the authorities react with a militarization of the police (paramilitary police units, SWAT teams, assault weapons, grenade launchers, armored personnel carriers, tanks, drones), increased surveillance (eavesdropping, data mining of all communications, nationwide biometric databases, CCTV, X-Ray scanners and strip searches), and the curbing of civil liberties (Patriot Act, NDAA, CISPA, right-to-work laws and other anti-union laws).
Considering the falsehood and hollowness of US election campaign charades, the nauseating US media, the deep rooted corruption (called lobbying), and the takeover of all institutions by a ruthless money elite, it is not astonishing to see, that the democratic system of the USA is gradually disintegrating.
There could be dangerous and earth-shaking unexpected developments.
The USA spends 711 billion (included all camouflaged and secret expenses rather 1.2 trillion) US$ for its military efforts. US public debt has reached 15,600 trillion US$, everybody knows that this sum can never be paid back and it is clear that one day the US will tell the lenders that their money is lost.
Nobody will be able to hold the USA accountable for the default but it will be the end of the worlds financial system, the end of free trade, the end of globalization.
Will it be the end of the US imperium?
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I didn’t read science fiction for a long time. In my early years I read some books by Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and of course John Wyndham’s “The Day of the Triffids”.
I’m sure that there is a science fiction story where the evil empire is in decline and one by one loses its dominions. Failing to extort the necessary resources to fuel its war machine and facing internal conflict and disintegration the empire finally resorts to one last desperate measure and blackmails the rest of the universe by threatening to destroy everything by unleashing the full force of the most powerful and destructive weapon the universe has ever seen.
I am sure that this story or a very similar one is told in a book, but I have not read the book and I don’t know, how the story ends.
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