Same ilk seeds madness, sustains conflict: U.S./Indyk in Middle East

Palestinians distrust
United States

Changing guard changes nothing in Middle East, particularly Palestine

Excerpt, editing, re-reporting by Carolyn Bennett

Martin Indyk was the first United States ambassador to be stripped of a security clearance. He was under investigation for improperly handling sensitive material. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in October 2000 restored Indyk’s security clearance.

John Kerry
Martin Indyk

Born into a Jewish family in London, England, and raised in Australia, Martin Indyk in later years moved to the United States and in 1993 took U.S. citizenship. In the United States he has held positions as vice president and director for foreign policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution; and, in the William Jefferson Clinton Administration, Ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. In the Obama government, he has been handed the position of Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, a post that Philip Giraldi and others find problematic.  

  

Giraldi  is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist, now executive director of the Council for the National Interest. In a recent article he expresses possibly feigned “surprise” that the Obama administration placed Martin Indyk in the latest planned negotiations ─ except if they're not serious ─ to help Israelis and Palestinians resolve their conflict in the Middle East. This is some of what Giraldi had to say about the Martin Indyk ilk and the corrupt and discredited state U.S. foreign policy: his article “Throw the Bums Out.”

Incestuous nepotistic inbreeds

“Martin Indyk is a symptom of the cancer that rots the [U.S.] political system,” Philip Giraldi writes, “and makes many Americans despair of our ever emerging from the darkness of the past twelve years.”

K

ey players in United States policy “tend to move around a lot: alternating between government posts and think tanks or universities with brief forays into the private sector where they make money exploiting the relationships they developed while in office.”

The appearance of Indyk (alongside the “new” man at State though an entrenched figure) is “an unpleasant reminder that even if everything changes in Washington ─ nothing changes when it comes to the Middle East.”

Though Indyk has again “been given great power to do still more damage in a part of the world where the United States has legitimate strategic concerns” ─ this man’s “willingness to do what is right for the United States and its people has to be considered questionable” … as “Indyk is a passionate Zionist completely Israel-focused.” Serious talks to aid resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “would be unimaginable,” he said, “with an interlocutor who has spent his entire life working on behalf of Israel.”

Giraldi concludes that, “in Indyk’s world view,” now re-ensconced in White House policy making, “there is nothing about the U.S. interest except as it coincides with that of Israel.”

 

P

ress TV has also reported on attentive observers’ view of Indyk as a problematic U.S. “mediator” because of his “very strong connections with the Zionist lobby inside and outside of the United States.” His involvement throws U.S. credibility into question.  

Political analyst Jim W. Dean also questions U.S. participation in helping (or pretending to help) resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or aid a “peace” process. The United States, he said, “should not have anything to do with the talks” scheduled this week because of the U.S. culpability in “actually emboldening Israel.”

‘…We need to launch a really big campaign publicizing the duplicity of Israel in all of the past negotiations and how ineffective America has been … as a mediator.’”

The protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Dean says, is a “‘horrendous situation’” from which the United States should absent itself and instead support a clearly “‘independent mediator.’”

 Discredited: Palestinians distrust United States

Results of a May 21-June 4 Gallup Poll released on July 26, 2013, found

66 percent no confidence in U.S. President Barack Obama’s helping “the process of Israel-Palestine talks” 

A great majority of Palestinians have no confidence in the role played by the United States in the Israel-Palestine talks.

Findings from face-to-face interviews with 1000 Palestinian and Israeli adults revealed:

74 percent of participants disagreed with the acceptability of solutions proposed by President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry.

R

enowned Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi is quoted this week saying Israel, against the international efforts, “‘is not stopping its consecutive strikes.’” And those “‘strikes’” [not unlike the continually expanding illegal settlements, which the U.S. has given only tepid comments, compared with its comments against governments of Syria, Iran, Libya, Korea and others] “‘are aiming at blocking the negotiations..’”

Disqualified as peace broker

A member of the executive committee of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ashrawi was careful in her words when she said ─

Hon. Hanan Ashrawi 

‘Israel is trying to empty the process of the U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations before it is really launched’

“‘I don’t believe,’” she said, “‘that the Palestinians are in need of meaningless negotiations with Israel.’”

Early this year veteran Arab journalist Nicola Nasser quoted Hanan Ashrawi lamenting Palestinians’ experience of Washington’s empty words and actual practice. “Our experience has been really tragic with this American administration,” she said, an administration that “started with such high hopes and tremendous promises [but] they backed down so quickly it was incredible.”

Ashrawi stated the obvious conclusion: “The U.S. has disqualified itself as a peace broker.”

Sources and notes

“Throw the Bums Out” written by Philip Giraldi, August 8, 2013, Martin Sean Indyk (born July 1, 1951), http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/news/opinion-a-analysis/item/3099-throw-the-bums-out

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer with several years work overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. His opinions on terrorism, intelligence, and security issues appear regularly in various U.S. news sources and at antiwar.com Giraldi is multi-lingual and holds academic credentials from degrees London and Chicago universities.

“Kerry names ex-ambassador as U.S. envoy to Israel-Palestinian talks─ US Secretary of State John Kerry has named Washington’s former ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, as the lead negotiator for Israeli-Palestinian talks,” July 29, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/29/316224/exenvoy-named-us-envoy-in-me-talks/

“The Palestinian delegation is led by chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat; Tzipi Livni will represent the Israeli side. Major topics on the agenda include the future of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, the status of al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

The previous Palestinian-Israeli talks were halted in September 2010 after Tel Aviv refused to freeze its settlement activities in the West Bank. Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds, and the Gaza Strip; and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967.  Tel Aviv, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to discuss the issue of al-Quds.

“U.S., Israel agenda behind talks with Palestinians must be exposed: Analyst,” August 13, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/13/318520/us-israel-agenda-must-be-exposed/

Jim W. Dean is managing editor and columnist for Veterans Today, a military and foreign affairs journal. Dean’s current writing focuses on national security, intelligence, black and ‘psy ops’, and military/Intel history including personal video archives and the current wars.

“Palestinians distrust U.S. in Palestine–Israel talks: Gallup poll,” August 7, 2013,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/07/317613/most-palestinians-distrust-us-poll/

“Palestinian officials slam Israel's decision to build 1,200 settlement units” (English.news.cn), August 12, 2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-08/12/c_125150594.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Indyk

“Palestinians Disqualify U.S. as Peace Broker  ─ The ‘unbreakable alliance,’ which will be confirmed by the upcoming visit of President Barack Obama to Israel, will disqualify the United States as an honest broker of peace in the Arab – Israeli conflict in Palestine, says a Palestinian veteran peace negotiator” by Nicola Nasser, Global Research, February 22, 2013, http://globalresearch.ca/palestinians-disqualify-u-s-as-peace-broker/5323873

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

______________________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Ancient nomads denied work, robbed of ancestral lands

Bedouin woman
1898-1914
Wikipedia image

Cries from Sinai: Bedouin subjected to needless crisis

Re-reporting, editing, end comment by Carolyn Bennett

Middle East: Asia/Africa bleeding

Contemporary
Bedouin man
 lighting camp fireJordan

Contemporary Bedouin shepherd
Syria

The Bedouin (also spelled Beduin; Arabic Badawi; plural Badw) are Arabic-speaking nomadic peoples of the Middle Eastern deserts: Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan.

Bedouin warriors were the nucleus of the Muslim armies that invaded the Middle East and North Africa in the 7th century and later on. Most of the Bedouin tribes migrated from the Arabian Peninsula (to what is now Jordan) between the 14th and 18th centuries. Today Bedouins make up 33 to 40 percent of Jordan’s population.

Historically, the Bedouin engaged in nomadic herding, agriculture and sometimes fishing. They also earned income by transporting goods and people across the desert. Scarcity of water and of permanent pastoral land required them to move constantly.

Bedouin population today: 4,000,000 (Wikipedia figures)

Regions with significant populations

Saudi Arabia 1,119,000 (2000)	Iraq 1,437,000
Jordan 832,000	Libya 919,000
Syria 1,389,000	Sudan
Egypt - mainly in Sinai 894,000 (2007)	Eritrea 46,000
Kuwait 260,000	UAE 765,000
Israel 111,000 (2012)	Western Sahara 13,100
Mauritania 54,000	Bahrain
Qatar 39,000	Oman 28,000
Yemen	Palestine 30,000

 Child inspects a destroyed
security building
Rafah

Palestinian city, southern Gaza Strip

site of Rafah Border Crossing

only crossing between 

Gaza Strip and Egypt

  Denied

Natural gas pipeline
running through
the Sinai

In the 1950s, Saudi Arabia and Syria nationalized Bedouin range lands; Jordan severely limited goat grazing; and conflicts over land use have increased since then.

In most countries in the Middle East the Bedouin have no land rights, only users’ privilege; this is especially true for Egypt. Since the mid-1980s, the Bedouins who held desirable coastal property have lost control of much of their land as it was sold by the Egyptian government to hotel operators. The Egyptian government did not see the land as belonging to Bedouin tribes, but rather as a state property.

In the summer of 1999, the latest dispossession of land took place when the army bulldozed Bedouin-run tourist campgrounds north of Nuweiba as part of the final phase of hotel development in the sector, overseen by the Tourist Development Agency (TDA). The director of the Tourist Development Agency dismissed Bedouin rights to most of the land, saying that they had not lived on the coast prior to 1982. Their traditional semi-nomadic culture has left Bedouins vulnerable to such claims.

Militarized

Egyptian border guards

The 2011–2012 Egyptian revolution brought more freedom to the Sinai Bedouin; but because of “weapons smuggling into Gaza” after a number of terror attacks on the Egypt-Israel border, a new Egyptian government in the summer-fall of 2012 initiated a military operation in Sinai.

Egypt-to-Gaza commerce through underground-tunnels that had brought income to Bedouins and Palestinians on either side of the border was abolished by the Egyptian military. This army (long-standing recipient of U.S. aid) demolished more than 120 of tunnels, threatened local Bedouin and forced them to cooperate with state troops and officials.

Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) Bedouin

Bedouin reside largely in the Sinai Peninsula and in the Egyptian suburbs of Cairo. The past few decades were difficult for traditional Bedouin culture because of changing surroundings and construction of new resort towns on the Red Sea coast (e.g., Sharm el-Sheikh). Bedouin in Egypt face a number of challenges: erosion of traditional values, unemployment and various land issues.

Because employers routinely offer low wages to Bedouins living in the Sinai Peninsula, they did not benefit much from the area’s initial construction boom. Also Sudanese and Egyptians were imported to the Peninsula to take jobs as construction workers and laborers. When the tourist industry started to bloom, local Bedouins increasingly moved into new service positions ─ such as cab drivers, tour guides, campgrounds or cafe managers ─ but competition was steep and many Sinai Bedouins remained unemployed.

Scarce employment opportunities led Tarabin Bedouins and other Bedouin tribes living along the border between Egypt and Israel to involve themselves in cross-border drugs and weapons smuggling and human trafficking.

Still robbed and denied 

Demonized and militarized

Al Jazeera reporting

Rafahpopulation of 71,003
Goods, people
move via
underground tunnels 

Bedouins today are prohibited (officially) from owning land, serving in the army or police (civil service jobs), or profiting from local tourism. Many locals cannot claim ownership of the ancestral lands their families and tribes have been using for centuries.

“Since the Egyptian uprising in 2011,” Al Jazeera reported in late December last year, “the Sinai Peninsula, a vast land of mountains and deserts, has become increasingly volatile. The new government (overthrown in 2013) inherited a legacy of lawlessness caused by 30 years of neglect, marginalization and hostility between the Bedouins native to the region and the state.”

Increasing attacks on “army checkpoints and police stations” have prompted “calls for more development in the region, which many see as a possible solution to the unrest.”

Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines edition “The battle for the Sinai” reported on underlying causes and the continuing crisis for “half a million people” wedged between Israel and the Gaza Strip. “For decades,” the report said,

The people have been governed by a strong security paradigm and the Camp David accords with Israel – underwritten by billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. 

The documentary concludes with a quote from Hossam Baghat of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights:

 

‘Only the people of Sinai can defeat terrorism. The central government is not going to defeat terrorism; it is stoking terrorism through its practices.’

 

Cannot simultaneously
prevent and prepare
for
war

This quote could have been referring to the people of the United States and the U.S. government's foreign relations character, policies and practices.

Sources and notes

Bedouin profile Britannica and Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin

“In Pictures: Egypt's troubled Sinai Peninsula ─ The Sinai has become more volatile since Egypt’s revolution - the result, many say, of years of government neglect” (Mosaab Elshamy, last modified December 27, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/12/2012122484750886262.html

“The battle for the Sinai: Fault Lines examines the changing U.S.-Egyptian relationship through the lens of the Sinai Peninsula), December 19, 2012. Fault Lines can be seen on Al Jazeera English each week at the following times GMT: Tuesday: 2230; Wednesday: 0930; Thursday: 0330; Friday: 1630; Saturday: 2230; Sunday: 0930; Monday: 0330; Tuesday: 1630, http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2012/12/2012121874352233407.html

Al Jazeera images

Egypt’s troubled Sinai Peninsula (in pictures)

A natural gas pipeline running through the Sinai has been targeted more than a dozen times since the 2011 uprising. Bedouins who oppose the peace treaty and export of gas to Israel have attacked the pipeline, which starts in the building pictured above and extends hundreds of kilometers through the desert.

A child inspects a destroyed security building in Rafah, which was targeted by armed groups during the uprising. The Mubarak government's iron-fist policy in Sinai alienated Bedouins and resulted in violent attacks on state buildings during the uprising.

In the border town of Rafah, goods and people smuggling to Gaza has thrived for years using the subterranean tunnels burrowed beneath the border. Just a few hundred meters away from the besieged (Gaza) strip, Rafah lives depend almost exclusively on the tunnels’ economic activity, a more or less open secret.

A now-deserted police checkpoint in north Sinai is one of many that has been attacked by armed Bedouins with heavy weaponry.

Rafah

A Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip, Rafah is the site of the Rafah Border Crossing, the only crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Located 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Gaza, Rafah’s population of 71,003 is overwhelmingly comprised of Palestinian refugees. Rafah camp and Tall as-Sultan camp form separate localities. Rafah is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate. Yasser Arafat International Airport, Gaza’s only airport, is located just south of the city; the airport operated from 1998 to 2001 when it was bombed and bulldozed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after the killing of Israeli soldiers by members of Hamas.

Rafah (Arabic: رفح‎; also known as Rafiah), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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“‘WE DON’T DO TERRORISM; THEY DO’”

U.S. in Iraq

Politicians’ dangerous, consistent inconsistency

Excerpt, minor edit for TIN by Carolyn Bennett

From the author of The Newest Explosions of Terrorism: Latest Sites of Terrorism in the 90s and Beyond; and Strategic Terror: the politics and ethics of aerial bombardment

Beau Grosscup spoke this week with FAIR's "CounterSpin" and soon after the Boston Marathon incident, he discussed the politically convenient and dangerously irresponsible, loose labeling “TERRORISM.”

U.S. President Barack Obama, Beau Grosscup writes, first called the Boston Marathon incident “a ‘tragedy’” and after this labeling “was roundly criticized by the political right,” the president “a day later” declared the incident “‘an act of terrorism.’”

U.S. in Japan

What appears to be mere semantics, Grosscup continues, “are real power politics at work.”

B

oston bombing facts

The FBI says it does not know who was responsible or how many were involved.

The FBI defines ‘terrorism’ as ‘the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives’; but then adds the operational criteria that for an act to be called terrorism a conspiracy of two or more must be established.

“In the past,” Grosscup says, “this definitional requirement has allowed the FBI to say ─

Domestic violence directed at the family planning community, black churches, LGBT community, environmentalists is not terrorism because they cannot find a conspiracy of two or more people.

U.S. left in Iraq

Yet, to the FBI, the Unabomber, a lone individual, was a terrorist.

“In short,” he comments, “the Boston bombing is only the latest example of the CONSISTENT INCONSISTENT application of the terrorism label for political purposes.”

Political convenience: Mind-Managing the masses

“Terrorism,”

he says, “is such a politically emotive concept that politicians around the world use it or not when they consider it politically convenient to do so.

“In the current contrived ideological context of ‘WE DON’T DO TERRORISM, OTHERS (THEY) DO’   -- add the voice of President Barack Obama.

DITTO 

chemical weapons political consistent inconsistency  

T

oday’s news

U.S. in Afghanistan
Civilian, children dead

“U.S., allies setting stage for Iraq-like invasion of Syria,” Press TV reporting: “The United States and its allies are stepping up pressure on Syria by accusing Damascus of using chemical weapons against foreign-backed militants.

U.S. in Middle East
families destroyed
refugees flooding region

“Analysts believe that the war rhetoric against Syria is very similar to the media propaganda launched by the U.S. and its allies ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“On Friday, the U.S. President Barack Obama claimed the world cannot stand by and permit the use of chemical weapons in Syria, calling for an investigation into the issue,” April 27, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/27/300562/us-allies-setting-stage-against-syria/

Syrian minister responds

“U.S., UK chemical arms claim barefaced lie,” Press TV reporting: “Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi says claims by the U.S. and Britain that Damascus may have used chemical weapons against foreign-backed militants are a ‘barefaced lie.’

U.S. in Vietnam

“‘First of all, I want to confirm that statements by the U.S. Secretary of State [John Kerry] and British government are inconsistent with reality and a barefaced lie,’ Zohbi told Russia Today (RT) television network on Saturday.”

He added

Might makes right
Global domination

‘I want to stress one more time that Syria would never use it [chemical weapons] -- not only because of its adherence to the international law and rules of leading war, but because of humanitarian and moral issues.’

“The remarks came after the U.S., Israel and Britain claimed that the Syrian government may have used chemical weapons against the militants. Zohbi, however, accused anti-Damascus militants of using chemical weapons.” April 27, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/27/300549/us-uk-chemical-arms-claim-mere-lie/

Sources and notes

Beau Grosscup

A college professor in International Relations (U.S. Foreign Policy, Politics of Terrorism, Political Economy of Post-Industrial Societies), Beau Grosscup is author of The Newest Explosions of Terrorism: Latest Sites of Terrorism in the 90s and Beyond; and Strategic Terror: the politics and ethics of aerial bombardment

He took his doctorate in International Relations at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and his research has focused on contemporary terrorism (Cluster Munitions and State Terror and militarization of North American society), http://chicowiki.org/Beau_Grosscup

Beau C. Grosscup is a member of Political Science faculty of California State University – Chico, http://webapps.csuchico.edu/directory/people/bgrosscup

“Beau Grosscup on Defining Terrorism, Hugh Kaufmann on Texas Explosion,” http://fair.org/counterspin-radio/beau-grosscup-on-defining-terrorism-hugh-kaufmann-on-texas-fertilizer-explosion/ Linked on CounterSpin April 23, 2013, “Use of Terrorism," Institute for Public Accuracy (4/17/13), http://www.accuracy.org/release/use-of-terrorism/

“Use of ‘Terrorism,’” April 17, 2013 (BEAU GROSSCUP, bgrosscup at csuchico.edu), http://www.accuracy.org/release/use-of-terrorism/

_______________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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This man’s 21st century Cold War: continuous aggression, human suffering

Yemenis protest
U.S.drones,  meddling

WHAT WOULD YOU DO if another nation invaded your country?

Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

Yemen across the Gulf of Aden from Africa’s horn (Djibouti)

 Breaching national sovereignty, murdering civilians

U.S. drone launch

Yemenis tell Press TV today that the United States’ “deadly drones have hit everywhere in Yemen” and that all Yemenis are united in fact that this aggression violates their “basic rights.”

A

sking the rhetorical question: “who would accept foreign intervention in his own land,” the Yemeni tells Press TV that the people of Yemen “strongly reject U.S. intervention” in their land.

We regard the use of U.S. assassination drones as an intervention, which has killed innocent people.

This is a violation of our independence and beliefs.

The continued use of these drones will only fuel more anger.

Somalis attacked by
U.S. drones

News stories have regularly reported that the U.S. government ─ claiming to be targeting “terrorists” ─ has been sending assassination drones against several countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia; and that these attacks have caused the deaths of large numbers of civilians.

Pakistanis protest
U.S. drones

However, in flagrant disregard of the United Nations’ sharp criticism of the U.S. terror drone attacks, its targeted killings, on ground of international law ─ and despite the slaughter of civilians, human displacement and interminable trauma, despite sovereign and domestic protests ─ the United States has persisted in this aggression and its Central Intelligence Agency is reportedly planning expansion of its covert drone attacks in Yemen.

Deepening U.S. aggression farther north: Syria

Reports today from Syria reveal the Obama Government’s Secretary State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the name of the United States, “has launched an aggressive campaign to re-establish a new Syrian opposition force.” The Secretary of Aggression has reportedly rejected “existing opposition leaders as ‘a bunch of out-of-touch exiles’ that should be replaced by a group representing active insurgents.”

During yesterday’s official visit to Croatia, the secretary is reported saying ─ 

‘We’ve made it clear that the SNC (Syrian National Council) can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition…. That opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard.’

The secretary’s belligerent and crassly undiplomatic declaration makes clear the United States' breach of Syria’s sovereignty, “fueling the anti-Syria insurgency aimed at removing the pro-resistance government of President Bashar Al-Assad.”

I

t would be fair to say that this man’s government is loose on the world, and is undermining both U.S. domestic and international law.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF ANOTHER NATION INVADED YOUR COUNTRY?

Opposition from within UNSC

UN Security Council

At least one nation within the five-permanent member UN Security Council has consistently opposed the United States’ violent descent to Cold War aggression.

Speaking to the press after a Wednesday meeting in Paris with France’s foreign minister, Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said what makes sense to any sane person:

Assad’s fate should be decided by the Syrian people.

Africa crossing Gulf of Aden, Red Sea
Syria
Middle East

Reported at Press TV, Lavrov sad, “If the position of our partners remains the departure of this leader whom they do not like, the bloodbath will continue …

“It is like daydreaming to speculate: to the effect that if the [Syrian] government is overthrown everything will fall into place.”

If this is somebody’s priority, he said, the “bloodshed will continue.”

Urging western states and Turkey to negotiate with the Syrian president, Foreign Minister Lavrov reiterated the fact that there is no military solution to the problem in and around Syria and encouraged pursuing a political solution to the Syrian conflict.

Cold War moves, counter moves

Loose on the world
Africa to Russian Federation

The U.S. military reportedly “has clandestinely transformed a remote former French military outpost in Djibouti named Camp Lemonnier into ‘the busiest Predator drone base outside the Afghan war zone.’  Nearly 3,200 U.S. soldiers, civilians and contractors are currently assigned to the military camp ─

‘[w]here they train foreign militaries, gather intelligence and dole out humanitarian aid across East Africa as part of a campaign to prevent extremists from taking root.’

Lemonnier is said to have “emerged as a hub for conventional aircraft” that last year deployed “a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets” ─ planes that “fly faster and carry more munitions than Predators.”

Russia again answers provocation.

Press TV reports, “Russia may deploy two reconnaissance aircraft to a French base in Djibouti where the United States is reportedly leading its secret drone war in the region.”

Soviet Cold War
 Ilyushin Il-38

Y

esterday, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said his country has asked France to host two reconnaissance planes (Ilyushin Il-38), joining French planes at France’s air base in Djibouti (Horn of Africa across the Gulf of Aden from South Central Asia). The Russian plane, Ilyushin Il-38, can fly at a maximum speed of 650 km/h with service ceiling of 10,000 meters.

Wikipedia note: The Il-38, first flown in 1967, is an adaption of the four-engine turboprop Ilyushin Il-18 for use as a maritime patrol aircraft for the Soviet Navy and meets a requirement to counter American ballistic missile submarines. On December 7, 2010, two Russian Navy Il-38s appeared over the Japan Sea near the Noto peninsula, interrupting a combined U.S.-Japan Navy drill. The exercises were canceled because of concern that Il-38s might be carrying out surveillance missions on U.S./Japan naval activities.

Russia says the intended deployment of this plane is for anti-piracy purposes. The United States, among other countries, Press TV reports, conducts “anti-piracy operations in Djibouti, a close front against piracy in the region based in neighboring Somalia.”

Sources and notes

“Angry Yemeni civilians call on US to stop drone attacks,” November 1, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/01/269919/us-drone-strikes-anger-yemeni-civilians/

“U.S. plans to establish new Syrian opposition force in Qatar meeting,” November 1, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/01/269906/us-plans-new-syrian-opposition-force/

“West call for Assad departure daydreaming: Russia,” October 31, 2012, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/31/269799/call-for-assad-ouster-daydreaming-russia/

Photo caption:

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (L) attends a news conference with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius at the French foreign ministry, Paris, Wednesday, Oct. 31 2012.

“Russia may deploy reconnaissance aircraft to French base in Djibouti,” October 31, 2012

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/31/269809/russia-may-send-aircraft-to-djibouti-base/

Ilyushin Il-38

The Ilyushin Il-38 (NATO reporting name: May) is a maritime patrol aircraft and anti-submarine warfare aircraft designed in the Soviet Union.  The Il-38 was operated by units in the Soviet Northern, Pacific and Baltic fleets.

Role: anti-submarine warfare and Maritime patrol aircraft

Design group: Ilyushin

First flight: 1967

Primary users: Soviet Naval Aviation;  Russian Naval Aviation; Indian Navy

Number built: 58

Developed from: Ilyushin Il-18

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-38

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