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Tag: Syria

  • As Biden Bombs Syria and Iraq, 80 Groups Push Gaza Cease-Fire to Avert Wider War

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    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

    The crew of a U.S. aircraft carrier direct warplanes conducting airstrikes against Houthi fighters on January 22, 2024.  (Photo: U.S. Central Command)

    “We urge you to prioritize diplomatic pathways to de-escalation, which must include urgently pressing for and securing a permanent cease-fire in Gaza,” the groups said in a letter to the president.

    As U.S. forces on Friday launched intense airstrikes against Syria and Iraq in retaliation for this week’s deadly drone strike on an American outpost in Jordan, scores of advocacy groups urged President Joe Biden to avoid a wider Mideast war by pressing Israel for a cease-fire in Gaza.

    According to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), American warplanes struck Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and “affiliated militia groups” in Syria and Iraq—countries that have suffered various degrees of U.S. bombardment since 2014 and 1991, respectively.

    This, after U.S. and U.K.-led airstrikes last month targeted Houthi fighters in Yemen amid attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

    “We fear that, as tensions continue in this escalatory spiral, the U.S. could become engaged in a protracted new war that spans across the entire region.”

    “U.S. military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States,” CENTCOM said Friday. “The facilities that were struck included command and control operations, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, unmanned aired vehicle storages, and logistics and munition supply chain facilities of militia groups and their IRGC sponsors who facilitated attacks against U.S. and coalition forces.”

    Anti-war voices condemned the latest bombings in the 22-year, open-ended U.S. War on Terror, during which millions of lives have been lost and trillions of dollars spent. A coalition of 80 advocacy groups sent a letter to Biden imploring his administration to eschew war by “leading with diplomacy.”

    “We fear that, as tensions continue in this escalatory spiral, the U.S. could become engaged in a protracted new war that spans across the entire region,” the groups wrote. “To avoid such an unacceptable outcome, we urge you to prioritize diplomatic pathways to de-escalation, which must include urgently pressing for and securing a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.”

    Stephen Miles, president of Win Without War—one of the signatories to the letter—said that “while these strikes come in response to the recent tragic loss of three U.S. service members, there is little reason to believe that they will be any more successful at halting the growing spread of violence across the Middle East than multiple previous rounds of similar U.S. bombing.”

    “Instead, the president should do everything in his power to immediately secure a cease-fire in Gaza, the fire at the core of this regional inferno, while leading robust, regional diplomacy aimed at a genuine de-escalation of violence,” he continued. “More war will only put U.S. forces and people in the region at greater risk than they already are.”

    “Finally, we remain concerned about the clear lack of appropriate legal authorization for this prolonged military engagement,” Miles added. “While the president always retains the constitutional right to engage in self-defense, planned retaliation and prolonged bombing campaigns are not self-defense.”

    Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been demanding that Biden attack Iran in retaliation for Sunday’s drone strike on the Tower 22 outpost in northeastern Jordan that killed three soldiers serving in the Army Reserve’s 718th Engineer Company and wounded dozens more.

    The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI)—a coalition of Shia Islamist militant groups backed by Tehran—said it carried out the attack on the U.S. base. Iran denies any involvement in the strike, and the Biden administration admitted Monday that it has no proof that Tehran ordered the attack.

    U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza—which has left more than 100,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing—has stoked intense outrage throughout the Muslim world. IRI warned following Sunday’s strike that “if the U.S. keeps supporting Israel, there will be escalations.”

    “Nothing in the region is likely to de-escalate unless there is de-escalation in Gaza.”

    Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the letter signer Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Friday that “Biden’s strategy appears more focused on reducing the militias’ capability to strike the U.S. than reducing their interest in targeting Americans.”

    “This is ultimately a suboptimal strategy. It would be more effective to reduce their interest in striking against the U.S. since that would render their capacity a lesser problem,” Parsi warned. “What would reduce their interest? A cease-fire in Gaza.”

    “But Biden is doing everything he can to avoid putting any real pressure on Israel. He is accepting significant risk to U.S. soldiers—even willing to risk a regional war—just to make sure he doesn’t cross the Netanyahu government on the issue of a cease-fire,” Parsi continued, referring to far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    “Regardless of how Biden’s campaign is choreographed and calibrated not to elicit lethal retaliations from the militias or Iran itself, there is no escaping this reality: Nothing in the region is likely to de-escalate unless there is de-escalation in Gaza,” he added.

    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

  • US approves plan to bomb Iraq and Syria

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    Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    US troops conduct area reconnaissance in Syria (Photo: Spc. Jensen Guillory)

    The country approved plans to widen the scope of the regional war originating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

    Following an attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against US foreign outpost “Tower 22”, which killed three US soldiers stationed near the Syria-Jordan border, the United States has approved plans for a multi-day strike against Iraq and Syria. 

    The death of three US troops, the first casualties among US forces in a widening conflict in West Asia, drew attention to the hundreds of US military bases and outposts spread throughout the world. 

    In confirming responsibility for the attack, an Islamic Resistance official declared, “If the United States continues to support ‘israel,’ there will be an escalation.” and that “All American interests in the region are legitimate targets.”

    The United States is using the strikes as a way to continue to blame Iran for the wider resistance in West Asia. The strikes will purportedly be against “Iranian targets.” Resistance organizations such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq are frequently accused of being Iranian “proxies” by US officials and in the mainstream press. 

    Contrary to seeking peace for the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered in Gaza, the United States and the Western world have continually chased escalation. Earlier in January, the US and the UK began an airstrike campaign against Yemen, in retaliation against the nation’s casualty-free blockade of the Red Sea, which Yemeni forces claim to be carrying out in solidarity in Gaza. The only deaths surrounding the blockade have been suffered by Yemenis, and have been as a result of the US and UK’s bombing campaign. 

    The United States and several Western nations have also directly worsened the plight of Gazans by cutting all their funding to the UNRWA, due to dubious accusations made by Israel that some UNRWA were involved in the October 7 operation. 

    Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

  • Death toll from the devastating earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria has soared above 5,000

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/death-toll-devastating-earthquake-hit-turkey-and-syria-has-soared-above-5000

    Rescue workers and medics carry a woman out of the debris of a collapsed building in Elbistan, Kahramanmaras, in southern Turkey, Tuesday, February 7, 2023

    THE death toll from Monday’s devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria has soared above 5,000, with some experts predicting that the tally could reach as high as 20,000.

    Thousands of people have been injured by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake but many more have yet to be accounted for.

    Search teams and emergency aid from 30 countries poured into the affected areas on Tuesday as rescuers dug through the remains of buildings flattened by the earthquake and the reported staggering 145 aftershocks.

    But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation has struggled to reach devastated towns and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/death-toll-devastating-earthquake-hit-turkey-and-syria-has-soared-above-5000

  • Sunday evening politics review

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    First off, I’ve had a really stinking cold for a week now. I turned to brandy for some respite and all of a sudden it seemed the cold was cured. Drinking more than one bottle of brandy does have it’s disadvantages but at least I appear to turn into a ranting fool rather than a death-threatening ranting fool. One of the dangers of overindulgence is that you think everything you say, think and do is fantastically profound and important. That’s the magick of eau de vie.

    On the subject of death-threats, there has been at least one arrest for making death threats to MPs on facebook. I’ve failed to find what was actually said but come on. I’m certain that New Labour ministers and policemen did allsorts of nonsese to me while I was legitimately participating in the democratic process. The problem was that I was good at it ;) These MPs did after all vote to kill people – and it is expected – innocent people too unless these astoundingly super-wonderful weapons of mass destruction ‘Paisley’ missiles have got some truly divine abilities. That’s understandably likely to piss some people off a lot.

    More false-flag attacks. C’mon, you’re finding it so easy that you’re not really trying. Don’t forget the issue that the innocent patsies are executed as part of that BS.

    Image of Mhairi Black, SNP MP
    Mhairi Black, SNP MP

    Congratulations to Mhairi Black awarded University of Glasgow’s Young Alumnus of the Year.

    Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Anton Muscatelli said: “Mhairi has been a true ambassador for the University of Glasgow, demonstrating huge commitment to her final year studies at the same time as canvassing for election.

    “Students and staff at the University of Glasgow have shown they can change the world – I am certain that Mhairi will make a difference to the lives of others as she strives to combat poverty in her role as an MP. I am also sure that she will be an inspirational role-model for other young people to engage in the democratic process.”

    There are various calls from disgruntled Labour MPs for Corbyn to step-back or disassociate with Stop the War Coalition and the Momentum movement and to refuse to attend the Stop the War fundraiser as guest of honour. Well he has already stepped back from Stop the War but a Corbyn spokesman is entirely correct in saying

    “The anti-war movement has been a vital democratic campaign, which organised the biggest demonstrations in British history and has repeatedly called it right over 14 years of disastrous wars in the wider Middle East,” the spokesman said. “Jeremy Corbyn rejects any form of abuse in politics from any quarter. But he will not accept attempts to portray campaigning, lobbying and protest as somehow beyond the pale. In fact it’s at the heart of democracy”.

    Is Corbyn responsible for all actions of all Momentum or Stop the War members and activists? What can he realistically do to stop any online abuse? He appears to be held to a far higher standard than others. Does the left call for Blairites to distance themselves from right-wing thinktanks?

    Alex Salmond suggests Corbyn does a shadow cabinet reshuffle. Well, what did they expect?

    I’m sure that I read a report that Corbyn’s chief whip Rosie Winterton refused to whip the Labour Party saying that she answers to the shadow cabinet. I can’t find any mention of it now but I’d like to know. Perhaps someone could buy me a ticket to the fundraiser and I’ll ask him?

    And lastly, Jeremy Corbyn in a santa hat raising money for refugees.

    Image of Jeremy Corbyn in a santa hat raising money for Oxfam's refugee appeal.

    slightly later edit: I think that I understand Corbyn’s drive for a new politics. It is a different politics inspired by the Stop the War Coalition. In my case I also saw it in the 2005 G8 campaign.

    It’s a real desire for consensus rather than confrontational politics. We did this at my own Stop the War group when delegates were representing the views of the group (which strangely enough is not the way unions and political parties do it).

    Cameron claimed that he wanted consensus with the Syria vote. He didn’t and instead simply wanted a win to look the big war leader. Clearly there was and there is division rather than consensus.

  • Going Underground Special: John Pilger on Paris, ISIS and Media Propaganda

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    Going Underground Special: John Pilger on Paris, ISIS and Media Propaganda

    4/12/15 00.25 GMT Pilger: “That’s a ludicrous argument”. Do both of them share knowledge – probably like all real journalists that it’s ludicrous, er, perhaps like a ludicrous diversion?

    From Pol Pot to ISIS: “Anything that flies on everything that moves”

    by John Pilger

    (on 2014-11-02)

     …

    Last year, the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas revealed that “two years before the Arab spring”, he was told in London that a war on Syria was planned. “I am going to tell you something,” he said in an interview with the French TV channel LPC, “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria… Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate… This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned.”

    …

    READ a 2007 State Department cable published by WikiLeaks about the 2006 declaration of the “Islamic State of Iraq”, the forerunner organisation of ISIS.

    READ two US Congressional Research Reports on the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq under the leadership of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (the predecessor of ISIS’ Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi), following the death of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, in 2006. See here and here.

    READ a 2007 cable showing Islamic State presence in Iraq during 2007, and how demographic shifts in response to sectarian Shia-Sunni tensions, directly provoked by the US invasion and installation of a Shia-dominated government, were already playing into the hands of the group.

    VIEW 113 Iraq War Logs documenting US forces encountering ISI in Iraq from 2007 onwards.

    BROWSE nearly 3,000 documents published by WikiLeaks which mention the Islamic State of Iraq.

    READ three US Congressional Research Report on the history of the US-backed “Sons of Iraq” Sunni militias, formed to oppose Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The failure by the US-backed Shia government to integrate the Sunni militias into the Iraq army later led to many “Sons of Iraq” returning to the jihadi insurgency, swelling the ranks of modern-day ISIS. See here, here and here.

    READ a 2009 cable on AQI/ISI in Mosul.

    READ in a 2010 State Department cable how Syria’s head of intelligence Ali Mamlouk discussed with US diplomats the migration of foreign “takfiri” fighters, such as the Islamic State, into Syria from war-torn Iraq, and offered the US a military and intelligence partnership to address them. Declining, the US later lent support to jihadi groups as Syria’s “opposition” during the Syrian civil war.

    READ a leaked 2010 STRATFOR email containing a private intelligence product documenting the transition of Islamic State leadership to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after the killing of former-ISI leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in 2010.

     

    4/12/15 00.45 about the Guardian newspaper

    http://off-guardian.org/about-2/#comment-5091

    reinertorheit

    I understand the anger and frustration many people have voiced here – and I think that it would be worth posting an explanation of what has actually happened at The Guardian.

    In 2013, The Guardian filed some of the worst financial accounts in the newspaper’s history. The publishers were clearly in deep financial trouble, and were forced to sell-off some of their assets, simply to avoid immediately bankruptcy. The financial outlook appeared very grim.

    But ‘hope’ was around the corner… although it was a vile kind of ‘hope’ indeed.

    The Guardian was (quietly) relaunched, positioning itself primarily in the USA and Australia – whilst aiming to retain as much as possiible from its former days as a left-wing newspaper in Britain. New and mysterious ‘backers’ appeared, who were now controlling the political content of the newspaper. Alan Rusbridger was quickly removed and thrown on the rubbish-heap – the usual nonsense about wanting to develop his career (in retirement?).

    It was a very simple idea – “buy up the opposition to neoconservative American ideas – and neatralise it with a daily diet of pro-Pentagon, pro-Washington, shabby indoctrination”. Unwanted old left-wingers were quietly pushed aside. Ambitious Americans like Hadley Freeman were shoved forwards. New right-wing writers were hired, such as “Rafael Behr” (who he?). The screaming voices of the lunatic right, such as TImothy Garbage-Trash, suddenly become Leader Writers..

    Let’s just explain what “neoconservative” actually means. It means following right-wing policies and ideas under the apparently acceptable cloak of being socialists, in order to secure public support for these extreme right-wing policies. Tony Blair is the perfect example… a man who found himself in perfect accord with George Bush – a god-bothering war-mongering racist fascist psychopath with the brain of a mollusc.

    But it gets worse. The Guardian is now not really written by Guardian journalists any longer. Instead, coverage of all “sensitive” topics has been franchised out to American rightwing organisations. Now we get articles and editorial which have been “sponsored by the John D Rockefeller Foundation” (an extremist rightwing organisation), whose authorship and views chime perfectly with American hard-line exceptionalist Christian white right. Sometimes the sourcing is hidden more carefully… for example, the “Calvert Journal” – an American-funded pile of rightwing trash based in Calvert Street in London…. trailed as an “expert source” on Russia, but actually ghost-written in Washington. A few down-at-heel Russian emigres were hired as the ostensible “authors” of this crap. So now the Guardian’s Russia coverage is written by spooks in Washington under the guise of being written by “Russian opposition voices cowering from Putin in London”. I’ve met these filth – they are pathetic users who are happy to take Washington’s dollars to fund their empty-headed glamorous lifestyles in London. This comes under the heading of “New East”, headed by a new rightwing extremist at the Guardian called Maeve Sheerlaw… a cheap hack who has never been to Moscow in her life, yet was made an Overnight Expert to parrot the opinions of filth like Andrew McFaul, failed American Ambassador to Moscow.

    Then there are all the articles ‘syndicated’ from the Moscow Times – another fake newspaper funded by American rightwingers in Washington, via a chain of anonymous holding companies in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Don’t be fooled by that “Moscow Times” title – it was one they picked on purpose, to make it sound like a serious newspaper. In fact it’s staffed by a team of cheap American journalism students, and there are no Russians working there at all. A few Russian names appear as columnists… but – surprise! – they are all Russian runaways, living in Miami or Brighton Beach, and delighted to have Washington’s cash in exchange for some bitter hatred penned during a drunken lunch-hour.

    In summary, then – The Guardian which readers remember from the 1980s and 1990s no longer exists at all. Its exterior appearance and readership has been bought for cash by American fascist organisations… but covertly, so that readers “believe” they are still reading The Guardian. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because it’s how Tony Blair came to power in Britain – the most Tory leader Britain has ever had. And where are his ‘socialist’ allies? Peter Mandelson, a penniless journalist, is now Lord Mandelson, with a two-million pound house and a seat in the House of Lords. Socialism, my arse.

    The Guardian is now more right-wing than the Daily Telegraph. It features articles from Timmy Garbage-Trash saying how Britain should go to war against Russia, to save those jolly, plucky, Right Sector genocidal fascists in Ukraine.

    None of this has ever been mentioned in the Guardian itself, of course. You are all still clinging to this rabid pro-American sheet of garbage until the moment they actually write it on the front page. That day will never come. Yet you still think the Guardian is a ‘socialist’ newspaper.