Links March 2015

Environmental news:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-11/fukushima-radiation-levels-high-four-years-after-disaster/6297718 Experts call for more testing (more testing is the ultimate solution of environmental problems)..
http://priceofoil.org/2015/03/03/climate-crisis-sales-suvs-booming-europe/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/anti-petroleum-movement-a-growing-security-threat-to-canada-rcmp-say/article23019252/
http://ensia.com/features/what-are-we-doing-to-our-childrens-brains/
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82856954/ Sea lions have a hard time.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/toxic-fumes-in-plane-cabins-pose-health-risks-to-frequent-flyers-says-coroner-10062362.html Fly at your own risk.
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/pdf/10.1210/jc.2014-4324 Endocrine disrupters are dangerous, as we already knew.
http://www.chron.com/life/healthzone/article/Your-cell-phone-could-be-making-you-fat-but-6123739.php Flame retardants are dangerous too.
dgrnewsservice.org/2015/02/16/open-letter-reclaim-environmentalism/Even if one is not a fan of Derrick Jensen, this letter is appropriate and right on target.
http://dgrnewsservice.org/2015/02/16/time-short-revolution-devolution/
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/climate_change_poses_serious_threats_to_food_distribution/
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/iran-land-grabbing-khamenei-environment.html
http://newint.org/blog/2015/03/04/agroecology-food-politics/
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2015/mar/war-birth-defects-iraq-rachel-carson
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175968/tomgram%3A_william_debuys%2C_a_global_war_on_nature
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/india-million-litres-untreated-sewage-polluting-holy-river-ganga-says-report-1491715
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/india-budget-energy-idINKBN0M812D20150312
http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2015/mar/10/industrial-waste-dyeing-chemical-slowly-killing-shitalakhya
http://www.newsweek.com/water-fluoridation-linked-higher-adhd-rates-312748
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4380445.ece Better grow your own strawberries.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/children-wasting-away-as-hunger-hits-200000-in-madagascar/ar-AA9D5ll
http://aeon.co/magazine/science/plastic-runs-in-my-family-and-in-yours-too/
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/12/national/norway-whale-meat-dumped-japan-pesticide-finding/#.VQk1cShteql First we poison them, then we kill them. Beware of the most ferocious predator on the planet.

Technology news:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/obama-just-took-a-huge-shot-at-europe-over-tech-2015-2?r=US

Economic news:
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2021 The most authoritative analysis of the Greek crisis and yet, it omits the biggest problem, which is, that Greeks, like all other Westerners, lived beyond their means for many decades and in a time of dwindling resources face a viciously fought class war in which the moneyed elites try to maintain their level of rent extraction by cutting wages and public services for the broad population.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/honduras-sold-libertarian-paradise-i-went-and-discovered-capitalist-nightmare
http://www.birchgold.com/dollar/beijing-doubles-down-on-yuan
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ian-fitzpatrick/secretive-and-seedy-how-aid-donors-are-opening-agribusiness-flood-gates

Imperial news:
http:///post/175957/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_walking_back_the_american_twenty-first_century/ The American Dream.
http://blackagendareport.com/node/14684
http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/03/12/u-s-ranks-as-worlds-worst-in-jailing-women/
http://chuckman.blog.ca/2015/03/13/the-cia-and-america-s-presidents-some-rarely-discussed-truths-shaping-contemporary-american-democracy-20184001/
http://www.businessinsider.com/israeli-spying-on-us-has-reached-terrifying-levels-2014-5?IR=T
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175970/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_is_a_new_political_system_emerging_in_this_country/

Imperial conquest news:
http://slavyangrad.org/2015/02/20/kindness-and-sympathy-from-europe-to-donbass/ Humanitarien help of the real kind!
http://journal-neo.org/2015/02/19/the-hilarity-of-george-soros-in-munich/
http://www.aina.org/news/20150216194247.htm
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/02/turkey-syria-weapons-civil-war-kessab-armenian.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/uk-mideast-crisis-nusra-insight-idUKKBN0M00G620150304
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-isis-us-empire-their-unholy-alliance-fully-exposed/5436019
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2015/02/phoenix-rising-ashes-syria/
http://www.mintpressnews.com/beleaguered-syrian-opposition-in-exile-is-about-to-collapse/203334/
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/world/Canadian+military+predicted+Libya+would+descend+into+civil/10853269/story.html
http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/27-01-2015/129621-green_resistance-0/ The West tries to ignore the majority of Libyans, who still hold Colonel Gaddafi in high esteem and desperately wish for one of his heirs to clean up the mess and reinstall the Jamahiriya revolution.
http://williamblum.org/aer/read/137
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2024 This is an outstanding analysis and a must read!
http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2027
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/02/gazas-natural-gas-became-epicenter-international-power-struggle.html
http://www.alanhart.net/who-and-what-is-the-real-bibi-netanyahu/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/12/aipac-busting-up-peace-efforts/
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/18/netanyahu-unmasks-israel/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/20/the-end-of-the-liberal-zionist-facade/
http://rt.com/news/243081-palestine-water-shortages-israel/
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2015/03/for-hamza-arms-sanctions-against-israels-everyday-terrorism/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cuban-revolution-the-u-s-imposed-economic-blockade-and-us-cuba-relations/5433797http://www.globalresearch.ca/president-obama-declares-venezuela-a-threat-to-national-security-seeks-regime-change/5435615
http://www.globalresearch.ca/implementing-democracy-and-regime-change-in-enemy-countries-the-electoral-integrity-project/5436945
https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/john-pilger-why-the-rise-of-fascism-is-again-the-issue/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hollywood-war-films-an-instrument-of-military-indoctrination-the-american-sniper-reviewers-consensus/5436277
http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/03/21/former-president-manuel-zelaya-calls-honduras-ruled-by-usa/

Everything else news:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/journalism_as_subversion_20150322
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/terrorism-security/2015/0227/Atheist-US-writer-killed-in-Bangladesh-familiar-attack-on-free-expression
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/786-conundrum-syriza-democracy-and-the-death-of-a-saudi-tyrant.html What else can the remaining few honest journalists do than point out the contradictions, the falsehood, and the hypocrisy of mainstream media reporting?
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne/why-i-have-resigned-from-telegraph
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-psychology-psychiatry-psychoanalysis-nexus-mental-disorders-drives-big-pharma-profit-and-social-control/5432803
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1664/20140094 This is about the origins of musicality across species (cats are unfortunately not very musical, but elephants, parrots, and sea lions are).
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/20/the-bonobo-spring-revolution/Very nice.

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The link collection is rather arbitrary again and interesting articles may have been overlooked.

Garden work has started in earnest and I’m out in the garden 8 hours a day and more. Everyday I have to look for the plants and I’m busy with weeding, pruning, seeding, planting, transplanting, watering. In the evening I’m most times too tired to write well (or at least acceptable) formulated and meaningful texts. Blog posts will be shorter and less frequent. I’m considering all options which include temporarily or permanently stop blogging.

This blog is critical of US-American (imperial) policies and using WordPress, a US based blog host, is inconsequential and unprincipled. The mirror site is on Blogger (Google), also a US company. I’m searching for alternative blog hosts, but have not found anything appropriate until now.

I’m feeling not comfortable here, I have to say. I’m feeling guilty of supporting a US company.

And yet, the blog has still 89 followers and between 60 and 100 hits a day. As mainstream media (including the so called “alternate media”) are perfectly controlled and synchronized (gleichgeschaltet), even the smallest dissident voice is needed to call out the lies and point at the inconsistencies.

Uncovering the lies and revealing the flaws in the officially approved and simultaneously by the media disseminated narrative is not too difficult, because in the last years the absurdities, implausibilities, and incongruities in the media stories have become more and more glaring.

Journalism is fiction writing, news are fairytales, analyses and background reports are propaganda.

That the media stories do not adhere to logic or common sense is on purpose — it is a design, not a flaw. 

Todays journalism has to fulfill two goals targeted at two different audiences: For the majority of uninformed, uneducated, naive people the stories need not to be logical, consistent, or plausible, they just need to fit common wishes, expectations, and prejudices.

For the minority of educated, informed, bright people the blatant distortions, inaccuracies, fabrications, lies themselves as well as the absence of even minimal efforts to conceal the lies and make the stories more congruent all purport a message. It is a message between the lines, it is a message which every intelligent person easily will understand.

The message is:

You are powerless, you are nothing, you have no chance. You are either for us or against us. You can either acquiesce, surrender, join the army of our minions, or resist and become a dissident, an enemy of the state, a terrorist, a target.

Don’t forget, we have the most advanced technologies at our disposal, and we improve our tools steadily (with your tax money).

Our automated mass surveillance will find you and monitor you.

Our automated propaganda (bots on social media and comment sections) will distract, confuse, indoctrinate, reeducate, brainwash your relatives, friends, and acquaintances. You will become isolated.

Our automated killing machines (drones, combat robots), will hunt you down and exterminate you.

We have warned you. Make a sensible choice.

Today I made a very sad discovery. On the small road between the garden and the forest I found two dead toads, squashed by a car. They were laying side by side, probably a couple who wanted to reach the garden ponds and put their eggs in.

There is not much traffic on this road and nevertheless the two toads were killed as they tried to cross. They were not guilty of anything, they did not hurt anybody, they did no damage, they just tried to live and reproduce to keep their species going on. Is that too much asked for by a little toad?

I hate cars.

News roundup

The dying in Syria goes on unabated and a steady inflow of weapons, money, and deranged young men keeps the flames of war burning bright.

There is more and more proof that IS (Islamic State) is a combined project of Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the USA. Recently a helicopter who delivered supplies to IS was shot down by Iraqi forces and three military contractors were detained. Two of them have dual US/Israeli citizenship.

Such news will never be published in Western media.

IS may be a joint project, but the intentions of the co-creators differ. For Israel the Islamic brutes are not different from the cluster bombs and white phosphorus which were poured onto Gaza. The IS fighters are human cluster bomblets and they shall destroy the societies of the Muslim states which surround Israel. IS members are disposable of course.

For Turkey the Islamic fighters are brothers in mind, who try to establish a social order which Turkey at the moment cannot openly aspire. IS are the trailblazers, establishing a rigid Islamic society, therefore they deserve all sympathy and loving support.

For Saudi Arabia IS constitutes one of many terrorist groups to which the local surplus of aggressive young men is assigned. These men with high levels of testosterone would only cause instability at home, so it is better to let them cause instability abroad. Saudi Arabia also acts as a facilitator for the USA by providing both funds and human material for the CIA-controlled terrorist groups.

For the US IS has three purposes. It first creates chaos in Syria and Iraq, it second opens the door for a military intervention (no fly zone) in Syria, and third is an entrapment scheme, where all undesirable and unneeded young men are gathered at one place to be easily targeted and whipped out.

The USA is step by step preparing the ground for military action against the Syrian government. First, as the FSA (Free Syrian Army) has collapsed, and there are no other “moderate” Islamic fighters which the West could use to destroy the Syrian state, some of the notorious Islamic terror groups are declared as “moderate” rebels, to be trained and equipped in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan. They will get adequate modern equipment for sure, but as they will be still underequipped in comparison to the Syrian army and also don’t have their own air force, they have to be protected by the USA. Which means: eventually a no-fly zone has to be established to protect the poor underequipped moderate Islamic terrorists. The term “no-fly zone” is an euphemism for a “shock and awe” bombing campaign a la Libya, and the goal is to destroy everything what, after four years of a draining war, is still left of Syrian state institutions.

The moderate Islamic terrorists will be advised to pause with beheadings and rapes in the weeks before the bombing (or at least not to publish videos of such pastimes) so that the US humanitarian efforts don’t get a bad rep.

Will Russia send enough S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems to make this plan a risky undertaking?

If not, Putin will be guilty a second time of standing by idle as the USA are bombing another nation into a failed state. And there will be no excuse, because Putin knows very well what happened in Libya.

The Ukrainian scenario is different, but idle aggressive young men play an important role too and are utilized in a similar way.

The Pravy Sektor is just negotiating to join the Ukrainian army as an independent division under Dmytro Yarosh. Until now the Pravy Sektor is an independent volunteer battalion like Azov or Airdar fighting alongside the Ukrainian army against pro-Russian separatists in the east.

This is an interesting concept. Imagine the Ku Klux Klan or the John Birch Society integrated into the US army as an independent division. Or Golden Dawn integrated into the Greek army. Or the German NDP into the Bundeswehr. Such a move would surely boost motivation and commitment of the mentioned military organizations.

There are winners and losers in the Ukrainian power games.

Losers are Rinat Akhmetov, Dmitry Firtash (at the moment locked up in Austria), and Viktor Pinchuk. Pinchuk supported Maidan wholeheartedly and has payed big sums to the Clinton clan, and yet, he is facing ruin.

A big winner is Petro Poroshenko. Becoming Ukraine’s president was for sure a good business move for him, because Roshen profits have sharply risen even as most other Ukrainian companies struggle to stay alive. Roshen revenue in 2014 was 1 billion US$, the Roshen Kyiv Factory increased its net income almost ninefold to $1.4 million. Only the Russian plant in Lipetsk is not doing well, in 2014 the factory incurred its first loss in six years.

Ihor Kolomoisky was a winner too, but after his troops were storming the headquarters of Ukrnafta and UkrTransNafta he was swiftly dismissed as governor of Dnipropetrovsk by Poroshenko. US ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt met with Kolomoisky during the stand-off and said in a radio interview afterwards that the Dnipropetrovsk governor realized “the law of the jungle” no longer applies, and that companies needed to be run as the law requires.

It is the USA which decides, but that was known before.

Kolomoisky still has means to fight Poroshenko. He owns Privatbank, arguably the backbone of the country’s financial infrastructure, and already blocked Poroshenkos account for a few hours. He is also said to be popular in Dnipropetrovsk, where he reportedly is seen as a savior from a Russian invasion.

Three more Ukrainian banks have been closed (VAB Bank, Astra Bank, and City Commerce Bank). In April various price and tax hikes will hit the Ukrainian population. Some utility prices will increase 300 percent. People will be furious and if Kolomoisky would have waited a few weeks longer he could have had a chance to topple Poroshenko in a coup. Some eight or nine thousand members of the punitive battalions are considered to be loyal to him (Azov, Aidar, Dnipro, Dnepr-1, Dnepr-2).

But he is an impulsive man and not a great strategist. He is just a ruthless gangster who became rich in the privatization rush after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I don’t dare to predict how this all will end. I don’t believe in grand analysis and also not in the descriptions of grand schemes which supposedly will determine the next decades.

There may be various grand plans (like Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard), but they work against each other and foil each other or are based on wrong assumptions.

Quite a few intelligent and well intentioned authors (Finian Cunningham, Pepe Escobar, Sharmine Narwani for instance) have fallen into the trap, publishing articles in which certain and inevitable outcomes of trends and developments were postulated.

Such analyses are often projections (wishful thinking) and while the articles are cheered by a receptive audience who is thankful for the easily understandable formulas and algorithms and also for the implied positive outlooks, these analyses are just crude abbreviations, necessarily so, because a detailed analysis of the particular situation would not fit into an article.

But who, in the age of Facebook and Twitter, has enough time and focus to carefully read a detailed analysis which exceeds 2000 words?

News from cat land

Only short because I’m terrible tired and want to sleep:

Everything is fine here and the cats are seemingly healthy. They are lovely and adorable, as always, and everyday we make a walk in the forest.

Linda and Gandhi Jr. have become the closest friends and are always together. If there can be a love story between cats, this is one, and if Linda would not have been spayed and Gandhi Jr. not been neutered there would be many lovely kittens frolicking in the house and in the garden.

Our little Linda lady never misses a walk but a few days ago she stayed in the forest and she was away the whole night and half of the next day. I was quite concerned, because in 2011 my beloved cat Cindy, who also had the habit to leave the group during the daily walk and remain in the forest, disappeared and was probably killed by a hunter.

It was hunting season when Cindy disappeared, and at the moment hunters are not active. But Linda could also have been attacked by a fox or a marten. Linda is very fast and the best tree climber of the family, but she is still unexperienced. It could easily have been that she just overlooked an approaching enemy.

At noon I went out with Gandhi Jr. to look for her and we took the same rout as the day before. I was regularly calling her name. Just as we reached the point furthest away from our home I heard a faint meowing. I called again and the responding meow made it clear that it was Linda indeed. She meowed continuously and apparently slowly came nearer, it seemed that she had a hard time making it to our position.

In the last years the forest has been overgrown with wild blackberries, who have nasty thorns and make many areas of the forest impassable. A thick maze of blackberries is nearly impenetrable for humans and hard to pass even for a cat.

Yet Linda made it and after approximately two minutes she appeared from the underbrush, exhausted but very relieved. She was so glad to be reunited with us, she purred and licked my hand and she rubbed here nose with Gandhi Jr. I told her that we really had missed her and had worried about her and that in the future she should not stay away for such a long time.

I’m not sure if she understood me, but she unquestioning accepted all what I said and we three went back together to our safe, dry, and warm home.

As I mentioned already in earlier blog posts, it could well be that this year and the two years before will be the most happy time in my life. I would wish that it could go on like this for many more years, but it will not. I will get older and my dear cat friends will die one by one. Or I will die before them, which would of course spare me the sorrow of loosing my feline friends, but would have the disadvantage that I could not guard them affectionately through their lives till their very end.

Anyway, we all will try to make the best out of it and enjoy the days which fate has allotted us to the fullest.

Women face setbacks in liberated Libya

Mustafa Fetouri

On June 25 last year, right after she cast her vote for the new Council of Representatives, Salwa Bugaighis was murdered at her home in Benghazi in eastern Libya. She was Libya’s most prominent female lawyer, a member of the former NTC (National Transitional Council) that led the rebel movement in 2011 and a well-known civil activist. In February, Libya was shocked again by news of murder targeting yet another well-known activist in Tripoli: Intissar al-Hasaari and her aunt were killed at a busy road west of Tripoli’s city center.

Those two cases made headlines inside the country, because the victims were well-known public activists. However, many more violent crimes against women go unreported. So far, not a single murder case has been thoroughly investigated, let alone solved and the killers brought to justice.

Since NATO enabled rebels to topple the government of Moammar Gaddafi, women in the new Libya have suffered ironically at the hands of those who claim to have liberated them, most of whom became militias involved in crime. While allegations of mass rape during the 2011 war never were investigated, it is well known that violence against women now is a major issue. Because of social taboos, it is hard for victims to come forward and the country’s successive governments have made no serious efforts to look into the matter.

In terms of legislation, the biggest setback has probably been the annulment of Gaddafi-era legislation virtually banning polygamy. On the eve of Gaddafi’s murder in October 2011, NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil called for polygamy to be legalized, claiming that banning it ran counter to Sharia. In 2013, the law was struck down and polygamy became legal again.

During Gaddafi’s rule, it was almost impossible for a man to marry a second wife. While polygamy was not banned outright, it was made very difficult thanks to a clever legal maneuver. The law required any man wishing to marry a second wife to obtain the consent of his first wife. Such consent is only legal if obtained through a court of law: A judge would ask the first wife, in private, whether she permits her husband to marry a second time. Should a man marry a second wife without the written consent of his first wife, the marriage contract is illegal.

Although official figures are unavailable, it is thought that this law played a significant role in making polygamy almost obsolete.

The NTC was also responsible for another piece of legislation that disadvantaged women when, in 2012, it adopted the election law allocating only 10 percent of the seats to women in the national elections, while leaving it to political parties how to fill seats at the local level. In a male-dominated society, women will have little say at the local level if the law is not on their side, since all political parties are led by men, making women’s chances of getting nominated in any party’s list slim. In fact, and in spite of its role in the revolution, the NTC itself only had two female members, one being the murdered Bugaighis. The other is Salwa el-Deghali.

During the Gaddafi era, women made steady progress in gaining access to education and work. It became very common to see female lawyers, judges, civilian pilots, and university professors.

One of the greatest achievements for women under Gaddafi’s rule was unlimited access to free education at all levels. Realizing the importance of education in modernizing society, the government made it compulsory for parents to keep their children of both sexes in school until the age of nine. This is now reflected in Libyan women being highly educated, as compared to the average in the region. In Libya today, a majority of female students intend to attend college and an almost equal number of women (32 percent) as men (33 percent) hold university degrees, while almost 77 percent of female high school graduates intend to pursue higher degrees both inside Libya and abroad.

Women’s participation in civic action in the new Libya is as low as 20 percent. One reason could well be the lack of security in the country after the NATO intervention in 2011 that plunged Libya into the chaos that has prevailed ever since. Similarly, while women are interested in politics and have voted in large numbers, with nearly 66 percent voting in 2012, they participated less in the elections in June 2014. One explanation for this regression could be disappointment and disillusionment in the previous elections, which failed to stabilize the country or end the violence.

While equality in the workplace was inching forward, it stalled after the civil war of 2011 and the emergence of various Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia. These organizations are less inclined toward gender equality, while some of them do not like to see women working outside the home at all.

Yet, one of the problems women in Libya suffer remains both cultural and social. Since society is tribally based and male dominated, the common view about women assuming a leading role in society tends to be negative. After years of women serving in the military, police force, education and the judiciary, such views were changing — however slowly, and mainly in big cities — whereas in rural areas, the traditional negative perception of women always remained strong.

Syria’s moderate and less moderate rebels

A short history of Syria’s moderate and not so moderate rebels.

Abdullah Suleiman Ali  As-Safir

It was not a coincidence that the fourth anniversary of the Syrian crisis has come at the same time as a highly significant event: Jabhat al-Nusra cleaning the clock of the “moderate” Hazm movement. As the war enters its fifth year, the moderation of its American version is fading, while extremism takes central stage with a supply of ammunition from the warehouses of “moderate” groups.

The year 2014 aptly deserves the title of the “year of extremism,” not only in Syria, but also on the regional and international level. The threat of extremism is no longer limited to the Syrian scene, but has become transnational, moving through countries and feeding on the smell of blood and oil.

An truly outstanding event in 2014 was the IS (Islamic State) announcement of the caliphate state on April 29 — a step that reversed the course of history back 90 years or so.

When the Syrian crisis began in the spring of 2011, ignited by a movement that, according to the organizers and their Western promoters, called for freedom and democracy, intellectuals expressed doubts at the time. They said that the movement was extracting the seed of extremism and threatening to spread chaos and destruction. Their arguments were based on the absence of a founding ideology and an authoritative command able to control the movement and prevent chaos. No one really thought that events would develop as such, to the extent of announcing a caliphate state, stealing history, destroying heritage, and besmirching Islam in such an unprecedented way as it now has happened.

The first parties to carry arms in Syria were Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar ash-Sham. Since the beginning, neither faction objected to the attribution of their operations to the FSA (Free Syrian Army) by the media. Supporting and funding countries wanted the FSA to be the facade of moderation and democracy, all while the command of both mentioned factions considered it a mere tool that could be used until the main goal was achieved. The main goal was: ousting the regime. After that, they would cross the next bridge when they came to it.

Although both factions had a non-homogeneous Islamic aspect, there were disparities, mainly that Jaysh al-Islam, which has a closeted Salafist jihadist penchant, limited its operations to inside Syria. Ahrar ash-Sham, however, which has a more determined and ambitious Salafist nature, had goals that went beyond Syria and included most of the levant. This was clearly expressed by its previous leader Hassan Abboud in an interview with Al Jazeera, when he showed desires to remove all borders between countries.

Given its stark jihadist nature, along with a purposeful display of this nature, Ahrar ash-Sham was able to attract the first foreign fighters to its ranks. It is no longer a mere assumptive to say that the majority of Jabhat al-Nusra and IS commanders fought in the first year of the Syrian crisis under the flag of Ahrar ash-Sham. These commanders were promoted directly by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. It has become known that the latter circulated a decision stipulating that the presence of al-Qaeda and its members be kept strictly secret in Syria as he did not wish for the name of al-Qaeda to constitute an impediment.

It is still unknown why al-Qaeda members split from Ahrar ash-Sham and formed their own entity under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra at the end of 2011, coincidentaly with Abu Mohammad al-Julani entering Syria after being delegated by the commander of Iraq’s IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to support the people of Sham. The sensitivities that accompanied this split indicated that it was not premeditated, but leveraged by disputes between both parties. Although its nature and reasons remained under the rug, the split constituted the first occasion to exchange cautious accusations about the formation of the Awakening Movement (The Sahwa force) in Iraq.

Ahrar ash-Sham, with its jihadist nature and transnational project, constituted a fertile ground for Jabhat al-Nusra, while Jabhat Al-Nusra in turn was the most fertile ground for the growth of IS and its inception in April 2013. This time, however, the split was fulminous, and ushered in the biggest jihadist strife in the history of these groups.

These splits, and the mutation of every group into one of a more extremist nature, were among the factors that instigated competition and encouraged attempts to acquire the biggest share of influence and control. The commands of these groups were trying to justify the disputes by saying they were “methodological.”

IS, controlling the majority of Raqqa and large swaths of Deir ez-Zor, in addition to the eastern rural area of Aleppo and different areas in Hasakah, Hama, and Homs, announced the caliphate state. The caliphate also included cities that fell under the organization’s control in Iraq, mainly Mosul.

Jabhat al-Nusra, which became also more extreme after its defeat in the eastern area, sought to found an emirate in northern Syria, while Jaysh al-Islam led by Zahran Alloush was imposing control on eastern Ghouta and breaking the exclusivity of operations inside Syria by mounting offensives against IS in Lebanon’s Arsal.

Amid this inter-rebel competition and ensuing conflicts, the environment proved no longer suitable for the FSA to remain, and the FSA was therefore put to death. The task was started by IS, fighting al-Shamal brigade in Azaz and Ahfad al-Rasul in Raqqa. At the end of 2013, Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar ash-Sham delivered to the FSA a severe blow at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, taking over its weapons warehouses, which were supplied by Arab and Western powers. At the end of 2014, the task was fulfilled by seizing the remaining FSA arms caches in the north: Jabhat al-Nusra overrun the Syria Revolutionaries Front and the Hazm Movement, taking over their quality weapons supplied by the USA, mainly anti-armor missiles.

This factional conflict that lasted for more than a year and a half could not have gone on that long without entailing radical changes in the factions that were party to it. When it comes to Ahrar ash-Sham, the movement reconsidered its ideological stands that almost ended in giving up on jihadist Salafism, had not scores of its commanders been killed in an operation that is still shrouded in ambiguity. The movement had to split into two currents, one holding on to Salafism, and the second looking to “repent,” as explained by one of its late commanders, Yazan al-Shami.

Jabhat al-Nusra is struggling with a clearly visible decentralization on the level of command. It looks like every branch, particularly in Qalamoun, South, and North of Syria, is split from the other. There is also a continuous dispute imposed by internal and external pressures over the issue of disentangling from al-Qaeda.

IS, which developed into the most extreme movement, was too preoccupied with clashes on all battlefronts in Iraq and Syria and its significant losses of men and material to think about settling its internal disparities. The discrepancies surfaced at times in the form of mysterious arrests and assassinations, or quick trials of its commanders and emirs over accusations of corruption and exaggeration.

These splits among jihadist groups indicate the seriousness of the dilemma that each is experiencing. The most important aspect of the dilemma is that any decision that is made under specific circumstances can lead to a group’s destabilization, and subject it to splits. This was clearly exemplified with Jabhat al-Nusra in what concerns disentanglement with al-Qaeda, and with Ahrar ash-Sham in what concerns giving up jihadist Salafism.

The seriousness of the dilemma is further intensified by the conflicts among the groups themselves, inflicting material and human losses that exceed those endured in the war with armies, such as the Syrian and Iraq militaries.

As the international coalition against the Syrian terrorist organizations — mainly Jabhat al-Nusra and IS — was formed, these groups reached a stalemate and became compelled to accept their dilemma against the backdrop of a regional and international isolation that is starting to hurt, although the isolation is still objected to and clandestinely circumvented by some countries for different reasons and interests. The projects of these groups have become nonviable. Even if they hold on, one has to ask how long they will able to survive under such complicated circumstances?

In light of the discussed facts and the general situation in the conflict zones of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Nigeria, the main question that can be asked as the Syrian crisis enters its fifth year is: Will the coming year witness a festering of the internal contradictions in these groups on various levels, leading to their inevitable demise, or will the existential dilemma lead to another mutation, whose genetics and specific traits cannot be predicted at the moment?

Note of the editor:

The author describes IS as just another jihadist terror group and not as a special creation of Western agencies, but one can argue that IS is a complex entity which can be viewed in both ways. The author mentions an international isolation which doesn’t exist or only exists in Western media as prevarication to fool the public.

Abdullah Suleiman Ali has written a follow up article about Jabhat al-Nusra, which likewise seems too optimistic about a possible isolation of this particular jihadist terror group, but the article is informative and includes many interesting details.

More about Jabhat al-Nusra

Abdullah Suleiman Ali  As-Safir

The increasing rejection of Jabhat al-Nusra and mounting criticism against its behavior and performance — be it on the part of the leaders of some rebel factions or opposition politicians — indicate that the latter have received the order communicated to them by their “liaison officers” to start fighting Jabhat al-Nusra. Therefore, work is underway to put that decision into effect.

The atmosphere of isolation surrounding Jabhat al-Nusra and the regularly mounting criticism against it show that this group may be destined for a fate similar to that of IS (Islamic State), its prime enemy. IS was fought by most of the Islamic factions early last year, with Jabhat al-Nusra spearheading that war. Jabhat al-Nusra seems to have been unable to envision that, one day, it might be fiercely fought as well.

There are growing indicators that most of the countries that supported and funded Jabhat al-Nusra have completely washed their hands of it in northern Syria. Meanwhile, the issue in the south of Syria is subject to different considerations, especially after Jabhat al-Nusra refused to yield to the pressure of these countries with regard to its disengagement with al-Qaeda.

Nevertheless, some countries — led by Qatar — still maintain a strong connection with Jabhat al-Nusra. This connection has been made clear through two main factors. The first is Qatar’s continued presence at the forefront of the negotiations related to the Lebanese kidnapped soldiers in Qalamoun; the second is Al Jazeera’s rhetoric, which overtly praises Jabhat al-Nusra and its leaders.

This rhetoric has recently angered factional leaders and activists, as it amplifies Jabhat al-Nusra’s role and tries to depict it as the only faction fighting on the ground. This prompted activists to launch a major campaign against Al Jazeera demanding more objective coverage.

The channel hosts several senior Jabhat al-Nusra leaders. Chief among these is Abu Maria al-Qahtani, Jabhat al-Nusra’s former general legal official, and Abu Khadija al-Urdini, who led the attack on the towns of Nebel and Zahra, among others. Abu Maria al-Qahtani and Abu Khadija al-Urdini are both identified as terrorists under international law.

Interestingly, Khaled Khoja, head of the opposition SNC (Syrian National Coalition), said that Jabhat al-Nusra “poses a threat to us and to the future of Syria, and is now expanding in areas under its control.” This is a radical shift of the SNC’s stance toward Jabhat al-Nusra, because the opposition had deemed Jabhat al-Nusra as “part of the revolutionary movement,” confirmed by the president of the SNC, George Sabra, in a famous statement that came in response to the US listing of Jabhat al-Nusra as a terrorist organization. Several opposition bodies and parties, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, asked the US administration to reconsider the listing.

Khoja made his negative comments about Jabhat al-Nusra in a press conference held March 16 in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, where he also talked about the efforts made by the SNC to form the nucleus of a central force that he called the “national army.”

Khoja said that the leadership of the coalition is communicating with “the leaders of Ahrar ash-Sham and other factions in order to form the nucleus of this army,” amid an indirect confirmation of recent reports about the role that can be entrusted to Ahrar ash-Sham, and that the latter may be designated as the spearhead in the fight against Jabhat al-Nusra. Ahrar ash-Sham also signed an agreement last month with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) concerning the administration of “liberated areas,” which was deemed as a challenge to Jabhat al-Nusra, given its enmity toward Kurdish fighters.

Although Khoja put the establishment of a national army in the context of the creation of buffer zones, as per a Turkish-French project, that does not negate the possibility of a conflict with Jabhat al-Nusra for the simple reason that the latter is the actual dominant faction in most of the land where such zones can be established, assuming that the scheme sees the light of the day.

Meanwhile, Ahrar ash-Sham has drawn clear boundaries with Jabhat al-Nusra, in a move seemingly aimed at “self-distancing” or skirting responsibility for its actions. Ahrar ash-Sham fears being affected by reactions that might not distinguish between the two (Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar ash-Sham) in light of their military alliance.

Thus, Ahrar ash-Sham declared that it “has taken a neutral stance in the events that took place in south Damascus,” in reference to the fighting between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Sham al-Rasoul Brigade.

In the statement issued March 15, Ahrar ash-Sham said that “it cares about the blood of Muslims from both parties.” This statement is a continuation of Ahrar ash-Sham’s policy that is pursued in various armed conflicts recently waged by Jabhat al-Nusra, against both the Syria Revolutionaries Front and the Hazm Movement. This confirms that the alliance between the two parties is more fragile than some think, and that it is only ongoing because of the constant field imperatives. But these imperatives can change any time.

In the context of a regional message addressed to Jabhat al-Nusra, threatening the noose to be tightened around its neck, news leaked about the arrest of Sheikh Saqr al-Jihad and his handing over to Saudi authorities. Several regional states known for providing facilities to Jabhat al-Nusra fighters have had a hand in this arrest.

Saqr al-Jihad is the Saudi counterpart of Ibrahim al-Bawardi. He fought with the late Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and then alongside Khattab (Thamer Sweilem) in Chechnya, and was one of the first “Arab-Afghans” to reach Syrian territory in 2011, where he secretly formed an armed battalion named Soqour al-Ezz. This battalion played a major role in the reception and transfer of foreign fighters to the various Syrian provinces.

Bawardi, who swore allegiance to Jabhat al-Nusra last year, was arrested after he had to leave Syrian territory in January to receive treatment in a Turkish hospital, where he spent several weeks before being transferred to “a safe state,” which was not specified and is not known until now. The state though was not as safe as he thought and he was arrested there, transferred to Saudi Arabia and dropped into the Saudi al-Ha’ir maximum-security prison.

Islamic State – a short recap

John Chuckman  chuckman.blog.ca

IS (Islamic State) certainly is not what a great many people think that it is, if you judge what they think by what our corporate press proclaims incessantly.

Judging by what IS actually does and whom its acts benefit, its clandestine associates, and the testimony of some witnesses, IS is a complex intelligence operation. Its complexity reflects at least in part the fact that it serves the interests of several countries and that it has more than one objective. Its complexity reflects also the large effort to reinforce a false image with disinformation and staged events such as a video of a beheading which could not have been a beheading unless they’ve discovered a bloodless method until now unknown to science.

The subject of IS is not without brief glimmers of humor. The image of bands of men, swathed in Arabic robes and bumping their way around the desert in Japanese pick-up trucks with Kalashnikovs raised in the air for every picture has elements of Monty Python. The idea of modern, trained and well-armed military units turning and running from them resembles a war scene in a Laurel and Hardy comedy such as the one with Hardy stuck upside down in a WWI tank turret kicking his legs the whole time Laurel drives towards the German positions managing accidentally to round-up a whole trench-full of prisoners with some wire fencing that becomes snagged on the tank.

Despite the tiresome stupidities we see and hear about it, IS unquestionably does kill people and destroy things, that being its purpose, and there is no humor in that.

IS appears to have served several tasks so far. First, it pushed Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki out of office. Maliki is a man the USA and Israel grew very much to dislike owing simply to his good relations with Iran, as one of the unintended consequences of America’s Iraq invasion was expanded Iranian influence in the region. No doubt al-Maliki was terrified not so much by ISIS approaching in their pick-up trucks as he was by his own military’s tendency, as if on cue, to turn and run from ISIS, often leaving weapons behind. The message was clear: you won’t be protected.

Second, America’s highly selective “air war” against IS somehow manages to attack infrastructure targets inside Syria with the feeble excuse that they are facilities helping IS. We’ve seen what American bombing can do when it’s undertaken seriously, and somehow I have a hard time imaging the men in Japanese pick-ups lasting long when faced with what hit the Taleban in Afghanistan or Gaddafi’s forces in Libya. The air strikes are partly a show for the world — after all, how can America be seen not to be fighting such extremely well-advertised, super-violent terrorists, guys putting out videos regularly from a studio trailer they must haul around with one of their pick-up trucks? The air strikes’ main purpose appears to be a way of hurting Assad and assisting those fighting Syria’s army without coming into conflict with Russia, as they would with a large, direct campaign. They likely also punish elements of IS which have exceeded their brief and serve as a reminder to the rest of what could happen to them if they stray too far from their subsidized purpose once the war comes to an end.

Three, in some of the ground fighting in Iraq where we’ve read of Iraqi units fighting IS, the units are often Kurdish, and sometimes the press uses expressions like “Iraqi and Kurdish troops.” But the Kurdish region is still part of Iraq legally, although it has been given a good deal of autonomy by the central government. The Kurdish region of Iraq is the country’s prime oil-producing area, and in the estimation of many observers, an area both the USA and Israel would very much like to see severed from Iraq in the way Kosovo was severed from Serbia after America’s devastating air war there. This would not only permanently assure Iraq’s weakness, it would create a rather grateful and more willing oil supplier.

Where does IS get its technical equipment and the know-how to produce videos and run Internet sites? These are not qualities commonly found among fanatical fundamentalists anywhere; indeed most true radical fundamentalists tend to eschew technology. A supply of advice, technical assistance, and equipment comes from somewhere. Where does IS get the money for food, gasoline, clothes, ammunition, and Japanese pick-up trucks? And I wonder, did one of those wild-looking jihadi types just show up one day at an Iraqi car dealership and order a fleet of Japanese pick-ups? Were they delivered out on the desert or did a gang of jihadists march in, waving their Kalashnikovs, to drive them away?

The effort to destroy the Syrian government, whether by means of IS or anyone else, is warmly and generously supported by Saudi Arabia and its sidekick Qatar — another oil-rich, absolute monarchy where political parties are banned — both these counties’ primary interest being the defense of their immensely privileged situations against creeping threats of progressive developments such as equal human rights and democracy or revolts led by external forces. The payments we now know the Saudi royal family made to Osama bin Laden before 9/11 were simply bribes to keep him and his anti-establishment work out of the country. They really didn’t care a lot about what the money bought elsewhere, but since 9/11 and its undeniable personal and financial Saudi connections the Saudi authorities are genuinely fearful of how America might respond and have become far more responsive to what their big friend across the ocean wants in the Middle East and now apply their money rather to such projects. What America wants in the Middle East is, invariably, what Israel wants, so there is now extensive, secret cooperation where once there was complete official hostility.

We have reports from plane-spotters in the region of daily flights of mysterious planes from Israel to Qatar. We have several eye-witness reports and photographs of supply bundles dropped from unknown planes into IS territory. Maybe IS has its own air force now?

We know Turkey has served both as an entry point for countless terrorists into Syria and as a place of retreat and refuge when fighting with the Syrian army becomes too hot for them, the volumes of such activity having been too great to keep secret. We have reports of Turkish supply flights. A Jordanian official recently told a reporter that IS members were trained in 2012 by American instructors working at a secret base in Jordan.

If IS is what our corporate news pretends that it is — a fanatical Muslim extremist group that sprang suddenly from the desert sands much like Jack’s bean stalk — one blindingly obvious question is, why does it not attack Israel or Israeli interest? Isn’t that what one would expect from such a cast of characters? But it has not done so, undoubtedly because Israel is an important covert benefactor and supplier.

We might equally ask why IS has not attacked Saudi Arabia or its interests, for although the Saudi royal family officially professes a strict and conservative form of Islam, Wahhabism, in fact many of them are very worldly people who spend a good deal of time and money at the world’s great pleasure palaces. Perhaps even more damning for a genuine fanatical fundamentalist, the Saudis now often secretly cooperate and make plans with Israel where mutual interests exist.

No, there is something highly suspicious about Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who avoid such interests while managing to brutally kill poor Syrian soldiers just doing their jobs along with the odd foreign journalist or aid worker who may just have seen something they shouldn’t have seen. Of course, we have Edward Snowden himself having described IS as an operation intended to protect Israel. Despite the fact that some news sources have said the interview in which this was revealed never took place, my instincts tell me it likely did. Snowden has never refuted it, and the news sources saying it did not are highly suspect on such a subject.

The way IS serves Israeli and US-American interests is by providing a focus point for extremists, attracting them from various parts of the world so that they can be recorded and kept track of. Also the tracks back to the various countries from which they come provide security services with leads to places where there might be some festering problems. In the meantime, IS serves the interest of helping to bring down President Assad, a goal dear to the hearts of Israelis. Please remember that black operations, even the ones about which we know, show little consideration for lives or property. Just think of Israel’s attack on an American spy ship in the Mediterranean during the Six Day War, its pilots knowingly shooting up and bombing for two hours the well-marked ship of its ally and benefactor, no explanation worth hearing ever having been offered.

Just read conservative mainline sources (pretty much a redundant pair of adjectives) about the harm Snowden has done: claims of everything from his revelations about American intelligence having served to help ISIS avoid detection (!) to his revelations having set up the United States for another 9/11! You might think intelligent people would be ashamed of making such asinine public statements, but, no, there are almost no limits to trying to discredit those revealing murderous, dark operations.

We’ve had many reports of officials in various countries, including Canada as I write, concerned about the odd individual or small group running off to join IS. Now why should that be a concern? A few flaky people going abroad just removes them from your country, something I should have thought was a complete gain from a security point of view. Even if they were ever to return in future, you would know exactly who they are. Where is the basis for serious concern? But the psychological advantages of noise and hype to scare people about obscure dangers and “lone wolves” and “home-grown terrorists” outweigh completely good sense and intelligence.

Finally, there are numerous reports that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (a nom de guerre, not his real name), the leader of IS, is a Western intelligence asset. What little we can learn about him makes that entirely plausible. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has said that the man is a Mossad agent, a claim supported supposedly by documents revealed by Edward Snowden. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is by all accounts a secretive man who speaks directly only with a few people, and even his birth place, given as Samarra, Iraq, is not sure. Records of his past, as those from his period of US captivity (always a great opportunity to turn someone into a double agent or exchange one with an impostor), are not available. He was once reported killed but is still alive. He is said to have received intensive training from Mossad and the CIA, and some sources give his real name as Simon Elliot (or, Elliot Shimon), but few details can ever be certain in such dark operations.

The truly terrifying aspect of IS and other forces fighting alongside it in Syria is that the United States and Israel have approved and supported terrible destruction, death and suffering in such a cultural rich and diverse place as Syria once was. Many ethnic minorities and religions lived together in one country, alone this was a remarkable and truly outstanding characteristic of this nation.

The Syria of religious and ethnic tolerance is gone now. Millions of lives were destroyed and countless historic places irreparably damaged as though they were all nothing more than a few pieces moved on a geopolitical chessboard. I think it fair to describe that as the work of psychopaths.