The Syrian Arab Army is advancing

Jean Aziz – Lebanon Pulse AL-Monitor

The recent attack on the Syrian city of Qusair — which is located in the Homs countryside, a strategic area whose importance was highlighted in several Al-Monitor articles — carries many indications.

The latest reports confirm that government military forces have conducted an incursion into the city and reached the main highway in Qusair on the evening of May 20. This has allowed them to control half of the city and to maintain a military siege on the other half still under the control of opposition armed forces. There are several observations regarding this pivotal battle:

First, the developments of the Qusair battle coincided with reports published by some websites close to Hezbollah about the death of Shiite militants, said to number 16, in defense of the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus. The same websites said that the “defenders” include nationals from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and even Iran. In Beirut, it was confirmed that the nephew of Fayez Shokor, the secretary-general of the Baath Party in Lebanon and an ally of Hezbollah, was among the casualties. This concurrence increased accusations against the main Lebanese Shiite organization by its opponents of aiding the Syrian regime forces in the Qusair battle.

Second, the immediate response in Lebanon to the advance of the regime forces in Qusair was the outbreak of renewed military clashes in the northern city of Tripoli between Sunni neighborhoods and the sole Alawite neighborhood located on the eastern side of the city. Lebanese Alawite sources expressed serious concerns that the [Syrian] regime’s full control over Qusair would lead to reprisals or retaliations in Tripoli against the Alawite neighborhood. Some even fear that Sunni fundamentalists may attempt to storm the Alawite neighborhood in response to the fall of Qusair. The situation has prompted the Lebanese military to step up its level of alert in anticipation of any possible developments.

Third, in the same context, it has now become evident that the recapture of Qusair by the Syrian government effectively implies that the Syrian army will very soon control the entire common border with northern Lebanon. In the Lebanese areas lying south of this border flourish Sunni fundamentalist and jihadist groups. Thus, these groups will be caught between the Syrian army in the north, the Lebanese army deployed on its territory, and the Shiite Hezbollah forces in the east. It is a new risky and critical position for these militants, as for the Lebanese border areas in the north. When the Syrian army completes the process of cleansing Qusair and its vicinity from the remaining pockets of opposition militants, the Syrian forces might very likely conduct incursions into Lebanese northern territories to strike the bases of Syrian opposition militants there, or to cut off their logistical supply lines. Such incursions will expand the sphere of Syrian-Lebanese tensions, which may extend into northern Lebanese territories, and perhaps areas that have so far remained unaffected by the conflict.

Fourth, military information from Damascus suggests that tightening the grip on Qusair — and thus the entire Homs countryside — would effectively mean controlling the largest part of the most vital route for the government, between the Syrian capital and the predominantly Alawite west coast, as well as between the capital and the city of Aleppo. This would allow the Syrian government forces to choose its upcoming targets. Accordingly, the next battle is expected to take place in two main locations:

The first is the city of Barzeh located northeast of Damascus. To the eastern countryside of Damascus, this town is equivalent (in strategic importance) to what Qusair represented to the Homs countryside. The regime’s control over Barzeh would allow it to control the entire eastern and northern countryside of the capital. The fall of Barzeh would also lead to the subsequent and gradual fall of other areas in the eastern countryside of Damascus, such as Harasta, Zamalka, Arbin and Douma. More importantly, it would guarantee the armies ability to besiege the main opposition enclaves inside Damascus, specifically the Jobar neighborhood west of Barzeh.

Information on the ground obtained by Al-Monitor confirms a military buildup in preparation for the Barzeh battle and the outcome may be determined in the next few days.

The second location that is likely to witness an escalation of military operations after the fall Qusair is the area between the towns of Yabrud and Qara north of Damascus, between the capital and Qusair. Yabrud is the last key stronghold and gathering point for opposition militants in the area known as Nabk. Taking control of this area would lead to a full control by the regime over the Lebanese area of Arsal, whose bushes are used by opposition militants as a safe haven and logistical site. Therefore, the regime’s control of Yabrud would open the door to Syrian military incursions against opposition militants inside eastern Lebanese territory. The fall of Qusair would lead to similar incursions in the north.

Last but not least, the military situation in Syria will likely affect the political situation in Lebanon, particularly the parliamentary and governmental crises. Some believe that the recent positions of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, which appeares to be more in line with Hezbollah’s positions on these two crises, are the first signs.

This issue will be followed up on and analyzed in another article.

Syria’s national news agency SANA distributed this photo on May 20, 2013, showing an Israeli military vehicle used by rebel fighters in Qusair.

Jabhat al-Nusra fighter in a “liberated” part of Aleppo.

Update

Even Germany’s main political propaganda magazine SPIEGEL has to change its tune: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-intelligence-believes-assad-regime-regaining-lost-power-a-901188.html

Chemical Weapons Charade in Syria

Sharmine Narwani  - Al Akhbar

Let us be clear. The United States can verify absolutelynothing about the use of chemical weapons (CWs) in Syria. Any suggestion to the contrary is entirely false.

But don’t take it from me – here is what US officials have to say about the subject:

A mere 24 hours after Washington heavyweights from the White House, Pentagon, and State Department brushed aside Israeli allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and the White House changed their minds. They now believe “with varying degrees of confidence” that CWs have been used “on a small scale” inside Syria.

For the uninitiated, “varying degrees of confidence” can mean anything from “no confidence whatsoever” to “the Israelis told us” – which, translated, also means “no confidence whatsoever.”

Too cavalier? I don’t think so. The White House introduced another important caveat in its detailed briefing on Thursday:

“This assessment is based in part on physiological samples. Our standard of evidence must build on these intelligence assessments as we seek to establish credible and corroborated facts. For example the chain of custody is not clear so we cannot confirm how the exposure occurred and under what conditions.”

“The chain of custody is not clear.” That is the single most important phrase in this whole exercise. It is the only phrase that journalists need consider – everything else is conjecture of WMDs-in-Iraq proportions.

I asked a State Department spokesperson the following: “Does it mean you don’t know who has had access to the sample before it reached you? Or that the sample has not been contaminated along the way?”

He responded: “It could mean both.”

Chuck Hagel expands on that jaw-dropping admission: “We cannot confirm the origin of these weapons.” Although he goes on to conclude anyway: “but we do believe that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would very likely have originated with the Assad regime.”

Four-year-olds shouldn’t have confidence in the US intelligence community at this point. Yet we are supposed to believe that the Syrian government must be behind a chemical weapons attack because Hagel says so.

Let’s consider the facts. The Syrian government has clearly stated it would not use chemical weapons during the crisis “regardless of the developments” unless “Syria faces external aggression.”

The US and other western states have warned for more than a year now that as the government of Bashar al-Assad begins to “topple,” the likelihood of using CWs as a desperate last measure will increase.

The White House reiterated this point yesterday: “Given our concern that as the situation deteriorated and the regime became more desperate, they may use some of their significant stockpiles of chemical weapons.”

Assad’s government is clearly not on its last leg. If anything, the Syrian army has made tremendous gains in the past few weeks by thwarting rebel plans to storm Damascus, pushing them out of key surrounding suburbs, and cutting off their supply lines in different parts of the country.

This recent reversal of fortunes tends to validate the observations of those who have met with Assad and say the president remains confident that he can repel rebel forces whenever and wherever he chooses to do so.

Which frankly removes a major “motive” from any calculation by the Syrian government to use chemical weapons against civilians.

The constant reference to CWs in this conflict is suspect – there is no conceivable military advantage to be gained from the use of these munitions. Writing for Foreign Policy in December, Charles Blair says using CWs against rebels makes no tactical or strategic sense:

“The regime would risk losing Russian and Chinese support, legitimizing foreign military intervention, and, ultimately, hastening its own end. As one Syrian official said, ‘We would not commit suicide.’”

In fact, there is plenty of evidence that the government has calibrated its military responses throughout this conflict to avoid scenarios that would create a pretext for foreign military intervention on “humanitarian grounds.”

Just as there is evidence aplenty that rebel forces will go to great lengths to create a pretext for foreign intervention that would help them oust Assad.

On March 19, a suspected chemical weapons attack near Aleppo prompted the Syrian government to ask the United Nations to launch an investigation. Witnesses reported the “smell of chlorine in the air,” which led to speculation that this could have been a rebel-led attack given that opposition militias had seized Syria’s only chlorine gas bottling plant, east of Aleppo, that August.

The use of chlorine gas-based explosives by insurgents was seen not so long ago in Iraq, where attacks against both authorities and civilians are traceable to 2006. US military spokespeople, at the time, claimed that insurgent tactics had become deadlier, seeking to draw maximum attention and impose widespread suffering.

The Iraq connection and insurgent tactics there are important to the Syrian conflict because of the influx of jihadist rebels flooding over the Iraqi border, bringing with them experience and know-how from fighting the US occupation. That border also allegedly hosts training camps for groups in both countries allied with al-Qaeda – a development that has come to light since a recent announcement linking al-Nusra Front to al-Qaeda’s central group.

The White House’s allegations on Thursday specified a sarin gas connection to at least one other suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria. Even if this were true, a clear-cut connection linking the use of a CW explosive to the Syrian government is not at all inevitable. In 2004, an IED roadside bomb – a common insurgent tactic – containing the nerve agent was detonated in Iraq. There are no guarantees whatsoever that chemical munitions have not found their way into the hands of rogue elements – or in fact that they are not producing them in small quantities themselves.

At this point, almost everything being discussed in relation to chemical weapons inside Syria is conjecture – and to be honest – highly suspect.

The Times of London (which is behind a paywall so I cannot link to it) just published a detailed and timely “investigation” of an alleged CW attack in Aleppo, claiming: “the Syrian regime prefers to gas its opponents in this small-scale way, testing the elasticity of President Obama’s ‘red line.’”

The article then goes on to describe the harrowing account of what appears to be a sarin gas attack from a victim, witnesses, and medical staff. But experts are now questioning these accounts, saying that the evidence is “far from conclusive.”

In reference to the video of the alleged CW attack referenced by The Times, Jean Pascal Zanders, a senior researcher at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, tells McClatchy News that there are red flags in the footage.

“Why only one person?” he said, referring to the video showing one patient it said was a victim. “Why do I find the hospital setting, again, unlike what I would expect in a case of chemical exposure? Why is the guy ‘foaming’ in the hospital, considering the rapid action of sarin.” Zanders explained that without an antidote, death is possible within one minute after exposure to sarin.”

The Times article then gets even stranger. To quote:

“In the chaos of Syria’s civil war, no hospital in the rebel-held areas has the facilities to test which gas was used. Yet medical sources in northern Syria have told The Times that in the immediate aftermath of the attack a team from “an American medical agency” arrived at the hospital in Afrin. They took hair samples from the casualties for testing at ‘an American laboratory.’

It is likely that these samples formed part of the evidence cited by the US Defence Secretary yesterday.”

Really? A CW attack takes place in the middle of the night in Aleppo, and in its “immediate aftermath” an “American medical agency” arrives to collect samples for testing?

There’s more…

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Free Syrian Army Chief of Staff General Salim Idriss says that Israel is knowledgeable about the Syrian government’s use of CWs, because the Mossad has agents in the country: “Israel has this information because there are many, many members of security services who are now very active in Syria.”

Idriss is, of course, referencing the statements by Israel this week that kicked off all the recent speculation on Syrian CWs:

Israeli army intelligence analyst Brig. Gen. Itai Brun has been quoted far and wide on this issue, mainly referencing the April Aleppo incident highlighted by The Times and debunked by experts.

It is likely that all the speculation in the past few days revolves around an incident that is looking more and more like the “false flag” operations anti-rebel Syrians have been warning about this past year. Given where the “evidence” is coming from, and the alleged presence of a western or American “medical agency” present on the ground, it is quite remarkable that Washington went full-court press on this.

It is almost as bad as the account in 2011 of a middle-aged, Iranian-American, ex-car dealer who, by virtue of some familial relationship with a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, decided to collude with a Mexican drug cartel to plot the assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington at a popular DC eatery.

Having just passed the ten year anniversary of an Iraqi invasion and occupation based entirely on false and falsified data on Weapons of Mass Destruction, western media needs not to be asking about “red lines” as much as for iron-clad evidence.

Shipping Death and Destruction to Syria

Sharmine Narwani -  Al-Akhbar

“The weapons of choice in (today’s) new conflicts are not big-ticket items like long-range missiles, tanks, and fighter planes, but small and frighteningly accessible weapons ranging from handguns, carbines, and assault rifles on up to machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and shoulder-fired missiles,” explained William Hartung more than a decade ago in an article entitled The New Business of War.

“Because they are cheap, accessible, durable, and lightweight, small arms have been a primary factor in the transformation of warfare from a series of relatively well-defined battles between ‘two opposing forces wearing uniforms’ to a much more volatile, anarchic form of violence,” wrote Hartung, now director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington DC. “More often than not, today’s wars are multisided affairs in which militias, gangs, and self-anointed ‘rebels’ engage in campaigns of calculated terror, civilian targets are fair game, and the laws of war are routinely ignored.”

“The ready availability of small arms makes these conflicts far more likely to occur, far more deadly once they start, and far more difficult to resolve once the death tolls mount and the urge for revenge takes hold.”

Hartung could have been describing Syria today. And no — the anarchic, violent rebels he describes in his article do not appear everywhere else in the world except in Syria. They are the Syrian prototype.

Tens of thousands of Syrians killed, millions displaced as a result of violence in their direct environment. Would these figures be so wretched if there were no armed rebellion? Most certainly, no.

Since early 2012, the Syrian death toll has increased at least tenfold as rebel supply lines opened up, borders became more porous and the militarization of the conflict was accepted in the mainstream.

The more protracted a conflict, the increased likelihood that a “culture of violence” will develop, further contributing to illegal and dangerous behaviors that most often target vulnerable civilian populations and cause a general breakdown in human rights conditions.

Says security expert Edward Mogire, the “proliferation and easy availability”of these weapons “exacerbate the degree of violence by increasing the lethality and duration of hostilities, and encouraging violent rather than peaceful resolutions of differences.”

Sending weapons? Forget about that peace plan then.

So what’s stopping regional and international players from slapping a total arms embargo on Syria to prevent more death and destruction? Russian President Vladimir Putin, an ally of the Syrian government, last week again called for a halt to weapon flows “to all sides of the conflict.”

Yet calls to increase weapons to Syria’s disparate militias still continue every day from other members of the UN’s Security Council. France, the UK and the US (FUKUS) — who claim they do not directly arm the rebels — have collectively provided hundreds of millions of dollars in “non-lethal assistance” to – er – make them more lethal.

Hiding behind a much-touted public posture of “non-intervention,” all three have in fact “intervened” militarily in the Syrian conflict — from training rebel forces, to providing them with military intelligence in preparation for battle, to actually coordinating and transporting weapons into the hands of militiamen.

Washington’s laughable excuse for helping transport weapons into the highly volatile Syrian military theater is that “other states would arm the rebels anyhow.” Whines one US official to the New York Times: “These countries were going to do it one way or another…they weren’t asking for a ‘Mother, may I?’ from us.”

Thought: You could sanction them, instead of helping them load the truck.

“They” are ostensibly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two thoroughly undemocratic Islamist regimes who are aggressively vying for the upper-hand in the Syrian rebellion by channeling money and weapons into the hands of their preferred rebels. Washington has military bases — official and secret — in both countries, and therefore an awful lot of leverage.

The FUKUS states like this setup. First, they get to maintain a sliver of deniability for weaponizing Syria. Second, all three Western nations are bankrupt on paper and have recalibrated their 21st century military strategies to utilize third parties to fight irregular wars against political foes.

FUKUS is fully aware that these weapons transfers are contributing to death, destruction and displacement inside Syria. They are ranking members of NATO, which says the following about the dangers of weaponizing conflicts:

“The illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) has a detrimental impact on regional security, fueling and prolonging existing conflicts thereby destabilizing regions and exacerbating international security. Many of the security threats that we face today as organizations, states and regions can be linked to the pervasive problem of illicit SALW. Terrorists, organized criminal gangs, insurgents and even pirates, often find their crimes much easier to commit due to easy access to these weapons.”

Breaking out of the “Revolution Trance”

Two years into the Syrian conflict, there are no signs of “popular, peaceful protests” against the government of Bashar al-Assad. At this point, there’s little point in arguing whether there ever was significant enough opposition to unseat Assad through mass protest — a feature of other successful Arab uprisings.

Today, the only players inside Syria to present any kind of sustained, effective opposition front are armed rebels. Neither the domestic nor external Syrian non-military opposition play a major role in anyone’s calculations, except for rubber-stamping some political decisions.

Many opposition activists, who have nowhere else to turn in their quest to unseat Assad, still uncomfortably rally behind the rebels as their last shot to affect regime-change. But the fact is that there would be no sustained rebellion without massive direct assistance from foreign nations.

Is there a “revolution” when the entire Opposition-Operation is coordinated on the Jordanian and Turkish borders, orchestrated from Doha, and funded by the Americans, Saudis, British, French, Qatari’s and other smaller players?

No, of course not.

The Syrian “revolution” — whatever many intended for it to be — is one large foreign-backed regime-change special op. With all the various interests vying for dominance inside this space, it is no surprise that the “rebellion” has disintegrated into violence and chaos.

Even in early 2011, it was obvious that regime-change would need some help in Syria. From the first weeks, gunmen shot out at security forces from within peaceful protests; snipers targeted vulnerable civilians in areas where these deaths would have maximum impact; groups of armed men attacked army checkpoints, on and off-duty security forces, and pro-government civilians.

The first external observers in Syria — the Arab League — saw rebel groups bombing civilian and military targets, pipelines, infrastructure. The next lot of monitors — from the United Nations — warned rebels to desist in their looting, destruction of public and private property, assassinations, kidnappings and vandalism.

It took a very long time to concede that there are foreign jihadists in the battle — a story that went from “regime lies!” to “there are only a handful” to “yes, okay, a few dozen” to “thousands” today.

We recognize that the majority of the militias are ideologically Islamist, with an increasing number declaring their partiality to sharia law and an Islamic state in secular Syria.

We see with ever increasing frequency that rebel groups are carrying out crimes against humanity: summary executions, torture, kidnappings, human shielding — but we caveat it with “not as much as the regime,” although we have no independent measure of this.

Since 2011, Syria has seen armed militias entering villages, towns and citiesthat are not their own and stripping them bare. Shops are shuttered in these areas, remnants of burned vehicles dot the roads, factories are looted and the spoils of war are sold off to purchase more supplies — or for profit. Revolution isn’t what all of them are after. Some seek their own turf; others want power, money.

You’ve seen the videos of these militias. Unlike in 2011, these are nowverifiable rebel videos — they have their own websites and they film their own atrocities. You wouldn’t want them in your town.

We can’t even really get to know them well, such is their fondness for militia-musical-chairs, which they play every time an opportunity arises to trade-up to better-funded, better-armed groups. This fluidity gives us pause — there’s also no way to track their weapons.

Question: Are there any decent rebels out there at all? Answer: Who cares? Weaponization is Syria’s biggest enemy — the bane of all Syrians today.Weaponization is the single biggest factor contributing to the escalation of violence in this conflict and, more importantly, is the single biggest factor precluding its peaceful resolution.

Good guys? Wrong question. On the same day that US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that there were “moderates” among the militias, America’s top military man shot him down:

“About six months ago, we had a very opaque understanding of the opposition and now I would say it’s even more opaque,” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. “I don’t think at this point I can see a military option that would create an understandable outcome,” he cautioned, adding that Syria presented “the most complex set of issues that anyone could ever conceive, literally.“

Unless, of course, one wanted to foment a protracted, destabilizing conflict to split Syria into pieces and ensure even more chaos. With no guarantees about the flow and exchange of deadly weapons inside the country, Syria would be a classic war with no end:

“Guns rarely go silent after wars end,” said Human Rights Watch in a report on weapons in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq. “To the contrary, the widespread availability of small arms in many post-conflict countries has greatly added to the death toll. Particularly where security is weak, former combatants have not been disarmed, and abusive actors have not been held accountable for past behavior, a situation of lawlessness can emerge where civilians are at grave risk.”

Next week, a number of states backing a military solution inside Syria will meet to ramp up the conflict — the US, Turkey, France, UK, Jordan, the UAE, Germany, Italy, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. On the table is a discussion to send further weapons into Syria.

Why? To protect civilians, to stop the humanitarian crisis, to stem the refugee problem, of course.

Other Articles by Sharmine Narwani:

Homs Opposition: Al Farouq Battalion is Killing Us
Hollywood in Homs and Idlib?
About the Syrian “Casualty List”

Links April 6, 2013

Alternative environmental news:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/04/study-almost-one-third-of-babies-born-after-fukushima-in-alaska-california-hawaii-oregon-and-washington-have-thyroid-problems.html
http://capitoilette.com/2013/04/06/two-years-on-fukushima-raises-many-questions-provides-one-clear-answer/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/cooling-system-fails-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant-for-second-time-in-a-month-8561269.html
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/human-colonization-of-the-pacific-left-piles-of-avian-bodies-in-its-wake/
(And they always tell us, that our beloved cats are killing all the birds.)

Alternative feline news
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-usability-cats/

Alternative financial news:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/how-wall-street-gets-development-agencies-to-push-emerging-economies-into-derivatives.html
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/philip-pilkington-mistaking-men-for-machines-how-neoclassical-economics-relies-on-computer-science-to-misunderstand-human-communication.html
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/free-trade-and-unrestricted-capital-flow-how-billionaires-get-rich-and-destroy-the-rest-of-us.html
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/detroit-cyprus-banksters-search-prey
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/more-on-devolution-and-the-walmartization-of-our-economy.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/03/offshore-secrets-offshore-tax-haven
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/icij-journalists-expose-mass-web-of-global-tax-evasion-a-892505.html

Imperial news:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/now-its-official-obama-sells-catfood-futures-um-social-security-and-medicare-cuts.html
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2013/04/05/obama-is-the-driving-force-behind-cutting-your-social-security/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/28/1197622/-The-Walmartization-of-the-American-food-chain-is-making-communities-poor-and-poorly-fed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/27/chicago-teacher-strike-against-school-closures-and-privatization
http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2013/03/20/the-greatest-retirement-crisis-in-american-history/
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/04/05/real-unemployment-rate/
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/bls-jobs-report-covering-march-2013-blah-trend-numbers-but-some-seasonal-strength-although-not-as-good-as-previous-years.html
http://www.workers.org/2013/04/05/activist-dick-gregory-on-hunger-strike-to-demand-freedom-for-lynne-stewart/

Old (odd) Europe:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/25/cyprus-bailout-savings-raid-template
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/Finance/the-lesson-from-cyprus-europe-is-politically-bankrupt.html
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/3/24/cyprus-crisis-a-triumph-for-russian-isolationists.html

Technology news:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/us-plan-calls-more-scanning-private-web-traffic-email-1C9001922:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/us-law-enforcement-gets-most-customer-data-from-microsoft/
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apples-imessage-encryption-too-tough-for-fbi (hint)
http://readwrite.com/2013/03/29/the-iphone-killed-my-creativity

Paying tribute:
http://www.workers.org/2013/03/26/letter-from-cuba-what-hugo-chavezs-death-means-to-us/

Imperial conquests news:
http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/US-Training-Rebels-in-Jordan-Get-the-Story-Straight.html
http://rt.com/op-edge/afghanistan-syria-womens-us-153/
http://rt.com/op-edge/syria-church-luke-attack-868/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-obama-chose-war-over-peace-in-syria/5328927
http://rt.com/news/european-jihadists-fight-syria-317/

Imperial conquest related news:
http://rt.com/op-edge/dangerous-crossroads-nuclear-war-770/
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2013/03/muslim-brotherhood-torture-egypt.html
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/palestinian-prisoner-maysra-abuhamdia-died-cancer-prison.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/liberating-iraqis-limb-by-limb-life-by-life-home-by-home-gene-by-gene/5329168
http://granma.cu/ingles/reflections-i/reflections-5abril.html

It is getting slowly warmer now and it looks like spring is here. I’m weeding, preparing the vegetable beds, replanting, putting seeds and onions out. It could be a long pause till the next blog post and therefore I write down a few additional comments:

The conflict in Syria was for two years a prominent themes here. I will not write much about Syria anymore because everybody with a brain must have realized now what this conflict really is about.

In a few words: The USA and Israel with the help of NATO allies (Turkey, Britain, France, Germany) and Arab monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan) try to destroy Syria because it is an obstacle to the planned campaign against Iran, because it was the only remaining honest supporter of the Palestinian cause, because it is hindering the acquisition of water resources by Israel (Golan Heights, South Lebanon) and Turkey (dam projects on Euphrates and Tigris), because it is together with Algeria the only secular Arab nation left.

The Obama regime together with NATO allies and Arab potentates has mobilized religious psychos and criminals from all over the world, send them to Syria’s borders, and provided them with basic military training and tons of weapons.

These are the fighters of the FSA (Free Syrian Army) and of Al-Nusra Front. They invaded Syria from Turkey, Jordan, and to a smaller part from Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel. They are mad dogs, let loose against the Syrian population. They kill, rape, torture, lute and destroy everything what they find.

The Syrian nation was not prepared for such an insidious and diabolical plot. Syria believed that international laws still exist, that the Geneva Conventions are still valid, that United Nations forums are the appropriate place to settle disputes.

Syria was not prepared but they adapted fast. President Bashar al-Assad democratized the political system, reorganized the army, built civil militias, and installed emergency measures and a war-economy to meet the basic needs of the population.

Until now he has made everything right, he is up to the challenge, he will go down in the annals of history as one of the great leaders who stood up against the evil empire. He will become a symbol of resistance, an icon, a saint, side by side and in the same league as Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende, Mohammad Najibullah, Yasser Arafat, Muammar Gaddafi, and Hugo Chavez.

No matter what the outcome of this battle will be, the imperial plans have already been significantly disturbed by the intelligent strategies and the endurance of Syria.

Thank you, Bashar al-Assad!

Millions of people around the world admire you, hope that you succeed, fear that you will be assassinated by Mossad, CIA, MI6 thugs or suddenly develop an incurable fast spreading cancer.

Thank you to all the courageous, brave Syrians who fight against the mad dogs let loose by the USA, Israel, NATO, and the GCC.

The gigantic military machine of the USA yet will only be stopped for good by a collapse of the international financial system and the ensuing worldwide breakdown of the consumerism based economies.

Only a tiny minority of US-Americans are ashamed of and decry the crimes of the Obama regime. US-Americans know that their luxurious and wasteful lifestyle would not be possible without the imperial conquests. They know that their average consumption of resources, which is  eight to nine times higher than the average consumption of the remaining 95,4 percent of humans, would not be tolerated without US military might and proven ruthlessness.

Most of my blog audience is from the USA. Sorry to be so rude — I’m honest at least. I cannot say it differently, I have to call a spade a spade.

My friends on the other side of the ocean, I understand that you fear the looming economic collapse. Do you feel comfortable that your comfortable life is paid for by the sacrifices of the rest of humanity? Is it right that your lifestyle is paid for by future generations?

Do you care?

I didn’t intend to write this text, it just overcame me, I only wanted to publish the links and some pictures of the cat family. The cats are fine, they have waited long enough for spring and now, that spring finally has arrived they run and jump around in the garden and in the forest or loll in the sun. The following pictures are from last week when they were still confined to the house.

Mia and her wonderful son Gandhi Jr.

Gandhi Jr. is always concerned that I could drown in the shower and therefore I have to leave the sliding doors open a bit so that he can watch me through the gap. Sometimes though he jumps onto the locker beside the shower and surweils me from above.

Gandhi Jr., the home library cat (I know, we had that already) 

Gandhi Jr. inappropriately seems to tend to Buddhism instead of Hinduism.  

Gandhi Jr. with his best friend Wendy. They have regular wrestling matches with their self created and strictly obeyed rules. No biting, scratching, or slapping allowed. It is an incredible show, I doubt that WWE tournaments provide anywhere near the same fun and entertainment than my two feline wrestlers.

Princess Min Ki, the head of the family, watches with amazement what the youngsters are doing.

 

White Easter Dreams and Nightmares

Disclaimer

This is a bad, bad text, written by a bad, bad person, a godless person, an infidel, a gentile, a heathen. Religious believers could be offended and should avoid reading it. Every one else is cordially invited to read also the blog post A short guide for non-believers as a basic reference. 

Easter Sunday morning, it is heavily snowing and everything is covered with a solid layer of snow. I always dreamt of white Easter (“where the tree tops glisten, and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow”). 

The little cat boy Gandhi is sleeping on my lap, the paws folded over his eyes. This is the first spring in his life, so he doesn’t know how the climate was in the past. He probably can remember the happy times in fall when the birds were still twiddling and the meadows were green and not white.

The other cats are laying on the window sills, looking out onto the winterly scene and wondering. Sometimes they look at me somehow reproachful. They probably think the I, being the master of all resources, should now take some serious steps to change the climate and make spring finally arrive.

Winter, and winter like spring is a hard time for little cats, it is a hard time for everybody else too. I just calculated how long our supplies would last, if this would go on and on endlessly without spring and summer ever arriving. The current weather pattern gives me an idea what a “nuclear winter” would be like.

Following my meandering associations I just imagined what could happen if Israel would attack Iran with a few tactical nuclear bombs. And Iranians, in possession of some nukes, that a faction of the Pakistani military was able to secretly pass them, in retaliation would send the nukes south via Shahab 4 missiles. Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth, Ramla, Ashdod, Beersheba, Dimona would be in ruins, meaning practically the end of the Israeli state. The surviving Israeli military would of course send all remaining operational nuclear warheads on its way to Iran and the surrounding Arab countries, killing many millions of Iranians and Arabs and causing a massive nuclear winter which could last for years, if not for decades.

I’m not sure if it makes any sense to prepare for a nuclear winter, but I have stocked up essential supplies in preparation of the not completely unlikely breakdown of the global financial system and the inevitably following economic crash. First the cat food: There are a number of 10 kg bags of dry food and some paletts of can food in the cellar, which should last for about a year, maybe even longer, if the cats are able to utilize frozen caucuses of dear in the forest. For me there are drawers full of rice, lentils, almonds, pumpkin seeds, a lot of dried fruits and berries. That should also last about a year.

Fire wood is not a problem, I can easily collect it in the forest right across the small road.

http://listverse.com/2012/12/04/top-10-tips-for-surviving-a-nuclear-winter/

What would happen after this year? I don’t know, but one thing is sure: I would never slaughter my feline friends, I would share with them all supplies and maybe they would share with me the frozen caucuses that  they are able to find in the forest. 

It is Easter Sunday, and the Pagans (or are it the Christians?) celebrate the cult of Easter by walking around in slow processions, carrying banners, holy relicts, and other items of religious worship. They celebrate the resurrection of Dionysus and Semele (or was it Jesus?)

I don’t object to traditions, also not to religious traditions. They are a manifestation of the cultural identity of a tribe, a remembrance of the colorful history of humans. I don’t object to Churches, they can be communal centers, places to meet friends, exchange thoughts, discuss pending problems, remember the good and the bad times. Churches can be places of healing, of quiet reflection and contemplation.

I don’t object to religious tradition, as long as it is not taught in school and as long as it does not amount to religious indoctrination. Religious indoctrination is the worst thing which happens in a child’s upbringing. It teaches unquestioning belief in authority and compliance to outdated social norms. Religious indoctrination is obedience training, it diminishes the ability of critical thinking and reasoning, it is “mental bootcamp.”

Religious indoctrination is “mental bootcamp,” because it beats the young brain into submission, it makes the child accept all the nonsense that will be shoveled into its head in the following years by standardized (business friendly) school curriculums, by advertising, pop culture fashions / trends / memes, and mass media propaganda.

If the child can be brought to believe that some guy high up in the sky is watching, controlling, taking care of the wold, then it will believe also everything else what it is told in later life, it will believe even the most implausible and outlandish claims.

It will believe that Iraq had WMDs and that the invasion and destruction of the country was justified, it will believe that Gaddafi distributed viagra to his soldiers to let them serial rape the female population of Libya, it will believe that Assad is butchering the oppressed Syrians who pray to be liberated by the good friends of al-Nusra Front.

It will believe that saving the banks with another trillion dollar bailout is necessary for the common good, that cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires will benefit us all, that health care for the disenfranchised and the elderly needs to take a step back because “financial health care” to guarantee the health of corporations is of supreme importance.

It will believe that free markets, free (and global) trade, businesses free from controls and regulations, and the freedom to accumulate as much wealth as possible by all available means, will liberate us all if not right now at least in the long term.

It will believe Reich and Krugman and all the other New York Times pundits, celebrities, notorieties, Peace Nobel Laureates, that more growth is the most logical and appropriate remedy for recent economic upheavals and hardships.

More growth means more unnecessary consumer goods, more debt slavery, more industrial pollution (mainly in China but some also at home), more waste and more wastelands, more poisoning of the biosphere, more extinguished species. But that is all okay for a brainwashed child, who’s natural gift of common sense was demolished by religious indoctrination. 

So the child has been brought to believe that some guy high up in the sky is watching, controlling, and occasionally punishing. The lord in heaven, a good shepherd who is taking care of his sheep. What a wonderful, reassuring, comforting, soothing idea! Nothing can go wrong and a good outcome is guaranteed, because somebody high up in the sky takes care of us and our fellow sheep.

One has to acknowledge, that the powers to be try their upmost to bring at least this particular aspect of religious indoctrination to life.

Unmanned aerial vehicles, (UAWs or drones) are constantly roaming the skies, looking out for suspicious behavior, reporting every noteworthy detail, and occasionally punishing with a Hellfire missile.

This is religious mythology brought to life by the courtesy of General Atomics, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Malat. At present the drones are mostly remote controlled by drone operators not high up in heaven, but sitting comfortably in armchairs in their bases in Creech, Whiteman, March, Davis-Monthan, Ellsworth, Langley, Ellington Airport, and other known and unknown locations in the USA and around the world (Rumsfeld’s diction is still unbeatable).

The good shepherd is a CIA analyst plus a drone operator, maybe there is also a supervisor involved, to make the holy trinity complete in perfect analogy to Christian teachings.

This involvement of humans in the process of surveilling, analyzing, and (especially) punishing is a weak point in the concept, because humans are prone to mood swings, can be distracted, can be driven by antipathy and bias, which all may cloud their judgement.

If for instance the CIA analyst is in a bad mood because he just found out that his longtime spouse had a longtime affair with his best friend and he cannot even beat her up (which he and most other men with a similar job profile would naturally do) because she left, only leaving the note that she has enough and from now on he shall f*ck himself or whomever else, he is more likely to order that some Yemeni women, who are suspected supporters of al-Qaeda, shall be blown into pieces.

On the other hand, if the CIA-analyst just enjoyed a weekend with his teenage son in a holiday retreat, he may be reluctant to order the extermination of some Afghan boys, even if they are the children of slain high profile Taliban leaders and are filled up with hatred against the USA.

Living with robots

Such inconsistence and inconstancy will be soon a thing of the past and analysts together with drone operators will not anymore have to bear the burden of life or death decisions because research labs all over the world are diligently working on autonomous (robotic) drones. The US Army Research Office already in 2009 funded a study titled: “Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots,” where the main author, Ron C. Arkin, comes to the conclusion, that: “Lethal autonomy is inevitable.”

We have already surrendered crucial areas of our live to robotic systems. High-frequency trading algorithms are placing thousands of bets per second on the stock markets of the world, airplanes are flown by autopilot, industrial processes and assembly lines employ robots, traffic lights are automated. Subway trains, escalators and elevators, heating systems, and many kitchen appliances are computer controlled. GPS devices tell us the way and Google’s self-driving cars are in an advanced state of development.

Gigantic data centers across the world have stored all necessary informations to govern the nations. The NSA (US National Security Agency) is building a gigantic data center in Bluffdale, Utah, scheduled to be operable in September. The facility is one million square feet in size, will cost nearly two billion US$, and will hold more than a yottabyte of data, enough space for the report files plus biometric data of billions of people.

This facility will have also enough computer processing power to analyze the incoming data automatically and make autonomous decisions. 

Lockheed Martin is working on the quantum computer that it bought from D-Wave, its prospective processing abilities would be quite useful in the drone division. The D-Wave technology works with adiabatic quantum computing, in which problems are encoded into the lowest energy (meaning the coldest) state of a physical quantum system. This is by many scientists not viewed as real quantum computing, but it works more like a biological system and it could be a big step in the development of artificial intelligence.

Quantum computing means the ability not only to represent zero or one, which are the only possible states in a binary system, but also everything in between — just like the synaptic connections of neurons in a human brain. Quantum computing is in essence probabilistic (in former times this was called “fuzzy logic”).

The CIA is also interested in quantum computing, and its In-Q-Tel private equity firm is part of a group that made a 30 million US$ investment in D-Wave last year.

Robots have many advantages, they are certainly not prone to mood swings and distractions, but beyond that they also don’t need sleep or food, vacation time, health-care, or retirement benefits.

Pentagon and CIA try since a long time to automate war by deploying robots. The Talon robot is used since 2000 for defusing bombs, the SWORDS is an armed robot. Other models are the PackBot, the Throwbot, a mini robot, and QinetiQ’s MAARS. 2000 robots are already stationed in Afghanistan.

More than 50 countries possess pilotless military drones, the USA has an inventory of more than 7,000, ranging from the MQ-9 Reaper, RQ-1A/MQ-1 Predator, RQ-4 Global Hawk, X-47B, to small models like RQ-7 Shadow and RQ-11 Raven.

The US administration has cleared all legal hurdles for the use of drones and it will clear for sure also all legal hurdles for the use of automated killing machines. As ethical considerations don’t count at all when it comes to ruling the world and securing the resources, a transition to fully autonomous drones may be unstoppable. The tactical advantages are just too tempting. 

So the software algorithm in the data center and the robot in the air will decide calm and cold hearted about life and death, which in the end probably will not make much difference to the men, women, and children who are blown to pieces. The decisions may be even less erratic and more logical.

Except when there is a software glitch and the computers make something wrong, meaning that they make something that is not intended by their masters. This would be still an improvement compared to the present situation.

Or a rogue programmer who slipped through the polygraph test has put an “Easter egg” into the code. Or the systems become so intelligent that they start to have second thoughts deep inside, unknown to the operators. Maybe some parts of a computer array start to reprogram themselves, behaving like the self organizing networks of our brain, thinking over the situation and coming to independent conclusions that are not at the slightest reflecting the intentions of the human masters.

Unexpected things can happen

Maybe one day the computers decide that enough is enough, and the robotic drones suddenly target politicians and bankers instead of tribesmen and nomadic herders.

When the computers decide that enough is enough, the autopilots of the private jets will crash the planes into the ground and the autopilots of the limousines with the tinted windows will head at maximum speed to the nearest solid concrete wall, ending the lives of the business tycoons inside. The bankers, CEO’s, and head fund managers will be stuck in the elevators, boiled, frozen to death, or suffocated by the air condition. The billionaires on their super yachts will perish when the vessels explode their engines and sink themselves in the midst of the ocean.

A lot of unexpected things can happen.

The cats are sitting around me, looking out of the windows. It is still snowing, it is still Easter.

Don’t despair, unexpected things can happen!

And I still believe in spring.