Video — Aleppo: Syria’s key battleground?
The ruins of empire: Asia’s emergence from western imperialism
Pankaj Mishra writes: The British empire, George Orwell wrote, was “despotism with theft as its final object”. So what has made imperialism an intellectual fashion in our own time, reopening hoary disputes about whether it was good or bad? After five years as a colonial policeman in Burma, where he found himself shooting an elephant to affirm the white man’s right to rule, Orwell was convinced that the imperial relationship was that of “slave and master”. Was the master good or bad? “Let us simply say,” Orwell wrote, “that this control is despotic and, to put it plainly, self-interested.” And “if Burma derives some incidental benefit from the English, she must pay dearly for it.”
Orwell’s hard-won insights were commonplace truisms for millions of Asians and Africans struggling to end western control of their lands. Their descendants can only be bewildered by the righteous nostalgia for imperialism that has recently seized many prominent Anglo-American politicians and opinion-makers, who continue to see Asia through the narrow perspective of western interests, leaving unexamined and unimagined the collective experiences of Asian peoples.
Certainly, as Joseph Conrad wrote in 1902, “the conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” Two years after Conrad published Heart of Darkness, Roger Casement, then a British diplomat, revealed in a report that half of the population of Belgian-ruled Congo – nearly 10 million people – had perished under a brutal regime where beheadings, rape and genital mutilation of African labourers had become the norm. Such overt violence and terror is only a small part of the story of European domination of Asia and Africa, which includes the slow-motion slaughter of tens of million in famines caused by unfettered experiments in free trade – and plain callousness (Indians, after all, would go on breeding “like rabbits”, Winston Churchill argued when asked to send relief during the Bengal famine of 1943-44).
The unctuous belief that British imperialists, compared to their Belgian and French counterparts, were exponents of fair play has been dented most recently by revelations about mass murder and torture during the British suppression of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s. Nevertheless, in one of the weirdest episodes of recent history, a Kipling-esque rhetoric about bringing free trade and humane governance to “lesser breeds outside the law” has resonated again in the Anglo-American public sphere. Even before 9/11, Tony Blair was ready to tend, with military means if necessary, to, as he put it, “the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant” around the world. His apparently more intellectual rival Gordon Brown urged his compatriots to be “proud” of their imperial past. Sensing a sharper rightward shift after 9/11, many pith-helmet-and-jodhpurs fetishists boisterously outed themselves, exhorting politicians to recreate a new western imperium through old-style military conquest and occupation of native lands. [Continue reading…]
WikiLeaks: The Latin America files
Peter Kornbluh writes: On June 19, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange slipped into the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, seeking sanctuary and asylum from extradition to Sweden for questioning on alleged sexual misconduct. If and when the government of Rafael Correa grants his request—a decision that had yet to be made as The Nation went to press — Assange will become a resident of Latin America, where the trove of US State Department cables he strategically disseminated has generated hundreds of headlines, from Mexico to the Southern Cone.
“Cablegate,” as the revelations have come to be known, has had a different degree of impact in each Latin American nation — on politics, the media, and the public debate over transparency and government accountability. In two countries it led to the forced departure of the US ambassador; in another it helped change the course of a presidential election. In some countries, the documents revealed the level of US influence in domestic affairs; in others they detailed criminal activities and corruption within a number of host governments. In many nations, the cables disclosed the parade of local political, cultural and even media elites who lined up to divulge information — or gossip — to US Embassy officers, never suspecting that their discussions would become front-page news.
Collectively, the Americas have been treated to a mega– civics lesson in globalized whistleblowing. And US citizens have also peered into the foreign policy abyss of our bilateral and regional ties. A year after the diplomatic dust has settled on the WikiLeaks phenomenon in Latin America, it seems appropriate to assess — drawing attention to the experiences of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia — what the biggest leak of US documents in history has left in its wake. [Continue reading…]
The battle for Aleppo
As a major battle is being faught between regime forces and rebels over Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, GlobalPost reports: Travelling the road into Aleppo from Idlib, GlobalPost saw dozens of burned out tanks and armored vehicles, suggesting rebel fighters were attempting to target the government troops before they entered the city.
But for every crippled tank or Armored Personnel Carrier, another one rumbled by, carried by a convoy of military trucks heading to Aleppo from Homs, Hama and Idlib, as the regime masses its forces for its looming assault on the ancient city.
Today, Aleppo’s labyrinth of cobbled markets, scented with cardamom and coffee, where pearls and gold and woodwork have been bought and sold since the history books began, stand shuttered and silent. The 13th-century citadel — a UNESCO world heritage site — awaits its likely fate as a barracks against the bombs.
“All Aleppo’s businessmen want a solution and today we see this solution without President Assad,” said Abu Omar, a local factory-owner, a member of the Sunni merchant class who for so long kept Aleppo quiet, hoping their long alliance with the regime would keep them open for business.
Today, with Turkey closing its border to all trade and the roads to Iraq and Damascus too dangerous to transport goods along, Abu Omar said he knew of “dozens” of industrialists who had once paid the regime’s militias to attack protesters, but who were now paying the armed rebels of the Free Syria Army.
“They want to speed up the collapse of the regime. Sooner or later Assad is finished, but sooner is better,” he said. The switch in allegiances also followed a series of kidnappings by rebels of wealthy Aleppan businessmen and their relatives and the torching of several large factories, he said.
As regime forces begin launching bombardments on Aleppo from above, injuries from the attacks are already overwhelming city hospitals.
“We are taking in four times our capacity of patients, but what else can we do?” said a doctor at the state-run Al Razi Hospital, Aleppo’s largest. “We have hundreds of seriously wounded residents, old people, women and children.”
As in Damascus, much of the hospital staff was unable to reach work due to the attacks and the absence of public transport, said the doctor, who added that he was fast running out of blood bags.
“We asked the government to send more help but got no answer. On the contrary, the Ministry of Health has increased the price of a bag of blood from 1,200 Syrian Pound ($17) to 3,500 ($50),” he said. “I am calling all people of Aleppo to come and donate blood to help injured civilians.” [Continue reading…]
The Independent reports: Fighting centred around the south-western neighbourhood of Salaheddine [on Saturday], one of the first areas seized by the rebels after they were routed from the capital, Damascus. Activists said helicopters strafed the area and rebels faced artillery barrages and tanks.
Mohammed Saeed, an Aleppo-based activist, said the government counterattack had begun and rebels were fighting back. “Thanks be to God, they haven’t succeeded in entering any of the neighbourhoods yet,” he said.
Though Western media is largely unable to gain access to the areas held by rebels, the BBC reported a heavily artillery bombardment could be heard throughout Aleppo, and there were reports of heavy casualties.
An emergency call went out to doctors to help. It said there had been constant shelling and mortar rounds all day, together with weapons fire from helicopters. A steady stream of vehicles has been heading out of the city carrying hundreds of families trying to escape the violence and deteriorating conditions.
President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are massed outside the city. Mr Saeed said rebels from around the country have also been pouring in to help defend the areas under their control. “About 1,000 fighters have come from the Free Syrian Army from outside the province to help,” he said.
State television reported that government forces had inflicted heavy losses on groups of terrorists, the term the regime uses for the rebels. The pro-government daily newspaper Al-Watan called it “the mother of all battles”.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the government attack started before dawn with the bombardment of several areas, followed by the movement of armoured vehicles backed by attack helicopters. Based on reports from contacts on the ground, SOHR reported attacks in the north-eastern area of Sakhour as well as other areas, and said the rebels had disabled a number of the regime’s armoured vehicles. [Continue reading…]
CIA knows Israel can’t be trusted — viewed as primary counterintelligence threat in the region
The Associated Press reports: The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.
The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel.
It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.
In a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel’s security services were responsible.
Such meddling underscores what is widely known but rarely discussed outside intelligence circles: Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its closest ally in the Middle East and despite statements from U.S. politicians trumpeting the friendship, U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be, at times, a frustrating ally and a genuine counterintelligence threat.
In addition to what the former U.S. officials described as intrusions in homes in the past decade, Israel has been implicated in U.S. criminal espionage cases and disciplinary proceedings against CIA officers and blamed in the presumed death of an important spy in Syria for the CIA during the administration of President George W. Bush.
The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency’s Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel. [Continue reading…]
Obama or Romney? Who’s most likely to start a war against Iran?
Glenn Greenwald writes: When it comes to praising President Obama’s foreign policy skill and Toughness (in the neocon sense of that term: i.e., a willingness to risk other people’s lives with the use of military force against foreigners), The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg has been one of the most reliable and vocal voices. Considered by Obama aides “as the ‘official therapist’ of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Goldberg has been particularly important in vouching for Obama to Israelis and American Jews on the ground that nobody will be Tougher on Iran than Obama (in return for this service, Goldberg — like all helpful journalists are — has been rewarded by the White House with substantial career-boosting access). In his Bloomberg column this morning, Goldberg argues that Israeli officials should pray for Obama’s victory in the November election, and makes this argument in support:
On the matter of Iran, however, Netanyahu would be wrong to root for Romney. Barack Obama is the one who’s more likely to confront Iran militarily, should sanctions and negotiations fail. He has committed himself to stopping Iran by any means necessary, and he has a three-year record as president to back his rhetoric. Romney has only rhetoric, and he would be hamstrung in many ways if he chose military confrontation.
He goes on to argue that despite the GOP challenger’s Tough rhetoric, “Romney would face several critical challenges in a conflict with Iran that Obama would not”; specifically:
Kurds must feel included in the Syrian opposition
Fazel Hawramy writes: Almost unnoticed last week, as attention focused on battles in Damascus, Kurdish activists in north-eastern Syria started taking over control of a few towns without encountering much resistance from the Assad regime’s security forces.
It was a significant development, as Syria’s Kurds number about 2 million people and could potentially tilt the balance of power towards the opposition.
President Masoud Barzani of the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) in northern Iraq, who is a fierce opponent of the Assad regime, is credited with bringing together the main Kurdish opposition groups from Syria to form a united front.
A few days before last week’s attack that killed four of Assad’s top aides in Damascus, the main Syrian Kurdish groups – the Kurdish National Councils (KNC) and the Democratic Union party (PYD) – signed an important agreement in Erbil to set up a Supreme Kurdish Council to co-ordinate their efforts.
They agreed to form a popular defence force consisting mainly of Kurdish Syrian soldiers who have defected to Iraqi Kurdistan since the uprising began in March last year. These soldiers are being retrained in military camps funded by the oil-rich KRG and are preparing to enter the Kurdish areas in Syria to defend towns such as Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) that are in the hands of the Kurdish activists.
President Barzani is also developing close political and commercial ties with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has considerable influence over the Syrian National Council (SNC). It seems almost inevitable that in the near future the SNC and the Kurdish opposition groups will co-ordinate their efforts to accelerate the downfall of the Assad regime. [Continue reading…]
Video: Al Jazeera interviews Kurdish president Massoud Barzani
By ceding northeastern Syria to the Kurds, Assad puts Turkey in a bind
Piotr Zalewski writes: The retreat of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces from parts of northeastern Syria along the Turkish border might have been welcomed by Turkey, a key supporter of the Syrian rebellion, except for one thing: The region is predominantly Kurdish, and Ankara fears the resulting power vacuum will be a major boon to its number one enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) whose three-decade separatist insurgency has seen some 40,000 people killed.
Until recently, Syria’s Kurds had been divided. A coalition of roughly a dozen Kurdish parties had tentatively backed the popular uprising against Assad, while the PKK’s Syrian ally, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), appeared to align itself with the Syrian regime, intimidating opposition activists and quashing popular protests. Others sat on the sidelines, wary of closing ranks with a Sunni Arab-dominated opposition that turned a deaf ear to Kurdish demands for new rights in a post-Assad Syria. Two weeks ago – perhaps sensing that the regime’s fall was imminent – the rival Syrian Kurdish political currents put aside their differences, under the coaching of Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. In Irbil, capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish Regional Government, they signed a unity agreement that has allowed them to take control of several northeastern towns, Assad’s forces mostly retreating without a fight.
The news sparked a Turkish media and political clamor about the imminent rise of a “PKK Republic” or a “Western Kurdistan” on Turkey’s southern flank. Commentators fear that the rise of a second Kurdish statelet, following the emergence of the one in neighboring Iraq in 2003, would embolden Turkey’s own 12-15 million Kurds to pursue their own dream of autonomy. Worse still, it could potentially provide the PKK — branded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU — with sanctuaries from which to launch cross-border attacks.
(MORE: Five Syria Nightmares: The Middle East Can’t Live with Assad, but Living Without Him Won’t Be Easy)
Picking up where the media left off, Turkey’s fiery leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, banged the war drums. Though he and his government proclaim the Kurds a “brother nation,” Erdogan told a TV interviewer on Wednesday, a Kurdish state in northern Syria would likely become a “terrorist entity”. If need be, he warned, Turkey would not hesitate to hit the PKK inside Syria, as it has done repeatedly in northern Iraq. “If a formation that’s going to be a problem emerges, if there is a terror operation, an irritant, then intervening would be our most natural right.”
It would not be easy. In northern Iraq — where the PKK has come under pressure from a Barzani government that seeks to improve ties with Ankara — the rebels remain ensconced in remote mountain hideouts, making it easier for Turkish forces to target them with relative impunity. In Syria, the PKK-aligned PYD is an urban-based outfit. To bring the fight to them, Turkish troops would have to operate in large population centers, many of them within a stone’s throw of the common border. [Continue reading…]
Video: Kurdish forces prevent Iraqi troops from disputed border area
BBC report from Aleppo
Ian Pannell reports: We came into the city last night and since first light, we have been hearing the amplification of artillery bombardment.
There have been gunfights in a number of areas and helicopters flying overhead.
We are hearing that there is a government offensive targeting Salah el-Din, which has been one of the most restive neighbourhoods – perhaps the key district – and which has been in the hands of the opposition Free Syrian Army for a number of days now.
We had heard that government troops were massing outside the city, though on this occasion we believe they are coming from an area they control inside Aleppo.
The rebels are saying that they have destroyed a number of tanks. Though this cannot be verified, there is evidence that they have been able to do that – they have rocket-propelled grenades and know how to use them to target these vehicles.
But the truth is they are outgunned and outmanned.
A regular trickle of trucks and cars packed with civilians has been leaving from Salah el-Din and other areas.
They have a few belongings, but not much. They don’t appear to have had much time to pack before heading out into the countryside, and safety.
It is almost impossible for us to get into some areas – one has to conclude that it would be equally difficult for residents to get out and some undoubtedly must be trapped.
The atmosphere has changed since we were here three days ago. It is eerily quiet, there are very few residents around and the mood amongst the rebels is very tense.
The commander of one of the largest brigades operating in Aleppo was even deliberating pulling his men out because he was not getting enough ammunition.
He was urged by his men not to leave – they are still here, they have been fighting this morning and wounded fighters have been brought back to the area for treatment in a makeshift clinic.
The rebels may insist in interviews that they will prevail, but the mood on the ground is different.
It is very hard not to conclude that the firepower they face is so overwhelming and Aleppo so important for President Assad’s government that resisting will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. [Continue reading…]
Video: The Crisis of Civilization
Rediscovering LSD
Tim Doody writes: At 9:30 in the morning, an architect and three senior scientists—two from Stanford, the other from Hewlett-Packard—donned eyeshades and earphones, sank into comfy couches, and waited for their government-approved dose of LSD to kick in. From across the suite and with no small amount of anticipation, Dr. James Fadiman spun the knobs of an impeccable sound system and unleashed Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68.” Then he stood by, ready to ease any concerns or discomfort.
For this particular experiment, the couched volunteers had each brought along three highly technical problems from their respective fields that they’d been unable to solve for at least several months. In approximately two hours, when the LSD became fully active, they were going to remove the eyeshades and earphones, and attempt to find some solutions. Fadiman and his team would monitor their efforts, insights, and output to determine if a relatively low dose of acid—100 micrograms to be exact—enhanced their creativity.
It was the summer of ’66. And the morning was beginning like many others at the International Foundation for Advanced Study, an inconspicuously named, privately funded facility dedicated to psychedelic drug research, which was located, even less conspicuously, on the second floor of a shopping plaza in Menlo Park, Calif. However, this particular morning wasn’t going to go like so many others had during the preceding five years, when researchers at IFAS (pronounced “if-as”) had legally dispensed LSD. Though Fadiman can’t recall the exact date, this was the day, for him at least, that the music died. Or, perhaps more accurately for all parties involved in his creativity study, it was the day before.
At approximately 10 a.m., a courier delivered an express letter to the receptionist, who in turn quickly relayed it to Fadiman and the other researchers. They were to stop administering LSD, by order of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Effective immediately. Dozens of other private and university-affiliated institutions had received similar letters that day.
That research centers once were permitted to explore the further frontiers of consciousness seems surprising to those of us who came of age when a strongly enforced psychedelic prohibition was the norm. They seem not unlike the last generation of children’s playgrounds, mostly eradicated during the ’90s, that were higher and riskier than today’s soft-plastic labyrinths. (Interestingly, a growing number of child psychologists now defend these playgrounds, saying they provided kids with both thrills and profound life lessons that simply can’t be had close to the ground.)
When the FDA’s edict arrived, Fadiman was 27 years old, IFAS’s youngest researcher. He’d been a true believer in the gospel of psychedelics since 1961, when his old Harvard professor Richard Alpert (now Ram Dass) dosed him with psilocybin, the magic in the mushroom, at a Paris café. That day, his narrow, self-absorbed thinking had fallen away like old skin. People would live more harmoniously, he’d thought, if they could access this cosmic consciousness. Then and there he’d decided his calling would be to provide such access to others. He migrated to California (naturally) and teamed up with psychiatrists and seekers to explore how and if psychedelics in general—and LSD in particular—could safely augment psychotherapy, addiction treatment, creative endeavors, and spiritual growth. At Stanford University, he investigated this subject at length through a dissertation—which, of course, the government ban had just dead-ended.
Couldn’t they comprehend what was at stake? Fadiman was devastated and more than a little indignant. However, even if he’d wanted to resist the FDA’s moratorium on ideological grounds, practical matters made compliance impossible: Four people who’d never been on acid before were about to peak.
“I think we opened this tomorrow,” he said to his colleagues.
And so one orchestra after the next wove increasingly visual melodies around the men on the couch. Then shortly before noon, as arranged, they emerged from their cocoons and got to work.
* * *
Over the course of the preceding year, IFAS researchers had dosed a total of 22 other men for the creativity study, including a theoretical mathematician, an electronics engineer, a furniture designer, and a commercial artist. By including only those whose jobs involved the hard sciences (the lack of a single female participant says much about mid-century career options for women), they sought to examine the effects of LSD on both visionary and analytical thinking. Such a group offered an additional bonus: Anything they produced during the study would be subsequently scrutinized by departmental chairs, zoning boards, review panels, corporate clients, and the like, thus providing a real-world, unbiased yardstick for their results.
In surveys administered shortly after their LSD-enhanced creativity sessions, the study volunteers, some of the best and brightest in their fields, sounded like tripped-out neopagans at a backwoods gathering. Their minds, they said, had blossomed and contracted with the universe. They’d beheld irregular but clean geometrical patterns glistening into infinity, felt a rightness before solutions manifested, and even shapeshifted into relevant formulas, concepts, and raw materials.
But here’s the clincher. After their 5HT2A neural receptors simmered down, they remained firm: LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. And the establishment agreed. The 26 men unleashed a slew of widely embraced innovations shortly after their LSD experiences, including a mathematical theorem for NOR gate circuits, a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, a technical improvement of the magnetic tape recorder, blueprints for a private residency and an arts-and-crafts shopping plaza, and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties. Fadiman and his colleagues published these jaw-dropping results and closed shop. [Continue reading…]
Music: Robert Wyatt — ‘Sea Song’
Robert Wyatt and Annie Whitehead perform the “Sea Song” from the Wyatt’s album “Rock Bottom.”
The Palestinian dilemma over Syria
Sharif Nashashibi writes: Palestinian leaders, organisations and officials were generally silent at the start of Syria’s revolution, mainly out of concern for the fate of the half million Palestinian refugees in the country.
However, that has now changed, and not in President Bashar al-Assad’s favour. Attacks on Palestinian camps by Syrian forces loyal to him – most recently last week against the Yarmouk camp – have resulted in killings, injuries, and the displacement of thousands. This has angered Palestinian refugees, many of whom are now openly supporting the revolution, as well as taking in Syrian refugees.
This is particularly damaging for the Assad regime because it has long regarded itself as a guardian of the Palestinian cause.
In an obvious reference to Palestinians, Jihad Makdissi, the Syrian foreign ministry spokesman, wrote on Facebook that “guests” in Syria “have to respect the rules of hospitality” or “depart to the oases of democracy in Arab countries”. He later removed his comments following an outcry.
The regime’s supporters often cite the fact that Palestinian refugees in Syria are treated far better than in other Arab countries. What they overlook, though, is that the law enshrining the rights of these refugees was enacted well before the Ba’ath party took power.
While several Palestinian leaders have now broken their silence about Syria, attitudes vary. Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO’s secretary-general, described an attack by Assad’s forces on a Palestinian camp in Latakia as “a crime against humanity.” On the other hand, Nour Abdulhadi, the PLO’s director in Syria for political affairs, later said Palestinian refugees “will remain as supporters of the Syrian government” – a claim seemingly out of step with the facts.
One major blow to Assad has been Hamas’s stance. Not only did it refuse a request to hold pro-regime rallies in refugee camps in Syria, but it also allowed residents of Gaza to stage protests against him.
Its senior leaders left Damascus earlier this year, with political leader Khaled Meshaal – who reportedly twice turned down requests to meet Assad – now living in Qatar.
Several statements from Hamas’s top echelons have unequivocally supported Syria’s revolution. In the Washington Post, Karin Brulliard described this as a stark break between the former allies – one which, according to Fares Akram in the New York Times, strips the regime “of what little credibility it may have retained with the Arab street.”
“The policy shift [of Hamas] deprives Assad of one of his few remaining Sunni Muslim supporters in the Arab world and deepens his international isolation,” a Reuters report noted.
Hamas is the only member of the “axis of resistance” (grouping the Palestinian movement, Hezbollah, and the Iranian and Syrian regimes) to denounce Assad’s crackdown. Although Hamas’s decision is in line with polls indicating that Palestinians support the Arab spring, it has come at a significant price. A subsequent drop in Iranian aid to Hamas – which has been a lifeline for the movement in recent years – has yet to be filled by other sources. [Continue reading…]
Secret Turkish nerve center leads aid to Syria rebels
Reuters reports: Turkey has set up a secret base with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct vital military and communications aid to Syria’s rebels from a city near the border, Gulf sources have told Reuters.
News of the clandestine Middle East-run “nerve centre” working to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad underlines the extent to which Western powers – who played a key role in unseating Muammar Gaddafi in Libya – have avoided military involvement so far in Syria.
“It’s the Turks who are militarily controlling it. Turkey is the main co-ordinator/facilitator. Think of a triangle, with Turkey at the top and Saudi Arabia and Qatar at the bottom,” said a Doha-based source.
“The Americans are very hands-off on this. U.S. intel(ligence) are working through middlemen. Middlemen are controlling access to weapons and routes.”
The centre in Adana, a city in southern Turkey about 100 km (60 miles) from the Syrian border, was set up after Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Saud visited Turkey and requested it, a source in the Gulf said. The Turks liked the idea of having the base in Adana so that they could supervise its operations, he added.
A Saudi foreign ministry official was not immediately available to comment on the operation.
Adana is home to Incirlik, a large Turkish/U.S. air force base which Washington has used in the past for reconnaissance and military logistics operations. It was not clear from the sources whether the anti-Syrian “nerve centre” was located inside Incirlik base or in the city of Adana.
Qatar, the tiny gas-rich Gulf state which played a leading part in supplying weapons to Libyan rebels, has a key role in directing operations at the Adana base, the sources said. Qatari military intelligence and state security officials are involved.
“Three governments are supplying weapons: Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia,” said a Doha-based source.
Ankara has officially denied supplying weapons.
“All weaponry is Russian. The obvious reason is that these guys (the Syrian rebels) are trained to use Russian weapons, also because the Americans don’t want their hands on it. All weapons are from the black market. The other way they get weapons is to steal them from the Syrian army. They raid weapons stores.”
The source added: “The Turks have been desperate to improve their weak surveillance, and have been begging Washington for drones and surveillance.” The pleas appear to have failed. “So they have hired some private guys come do the job.”
President Barack Obama has so far preferred to use diplomatic means to try to oust Assad, although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled this week that Washington plans to step up help to the rebels.
Reuters has established that Obama’s aides have drafted a resolution which would authorize greater covert assistance to the rebels but still stop short of arming them.
The White House’s wariness is shared by other Western powers. It reflects concerns about what might follow Assad in Syria and about the substantial presence of anti-Western Islamists and jihadi fighters among the rebels. [Continue reading…]
Turkey urges steps as shelling of Aleppo continues
Reuters reports: President Bashar al-Assad’s artillery continued to pound rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo in preparation for an onslaught on Syria’s biggest city, while neigbouring Turkey called for international steps to deal with the military build-up.
Opposition sources said the shelling was an attempt to drive fighters inside Aleppo from their strongholds and to stop their comrades outside the city from resupplying them.
“They are shelling at random to instil a state of terror,” said Anwar Abu Ahed, a rebel commander outside the city.
The battle for Aleppo, a major power centre that is home to 2.5 million people, is being seen as a potential turning point in the 16-month uprising against Assad that could give one side an edge in a conflict where both the rebels and the government have struggled to gain the upper hand.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan said late on Friday that international institutions needed to work together to address the military assault on Aleppo and Assad’s threat to use chemical weapons against external threats.
“There is a build-up in Aleppo, and the recent statements with respect to the use of weapons of mass destruction are actions that we cannot remain an observer or spectator to,” he said at a joint news conference in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
“Steps need to be taken jointly within the United Nations Security Council, the Organisation of Islamic Countries, the Arab League, and we must work together to try to overcome the situation,” he said.
Cameron said Britain and Turkey were concerned that Assad’s government was about to carry out some “some truly appalling acts around and in the city of Aleppo”.
Turkey, a former ally of Assad and now one of his fiercest critics, cheered on the rebels in Aleppo.
“In Aleppo itself the regime is preparing for an attack with its tanks and helicopters … My hope is that they’ll get the necessary answer from the real sons of Syria,” Erdogan said earlier in remarks broadcast on Turkish TV channels.
Millions of Americans now fall within government’s digital dragnet
Ars Technica reports: Will government surveillance finally become a political issue for middle-class Americans?
Until recently, average Americans could convince themselves they were safe from government snooping. Yes, the government engaged in warrantless wiretaps, but those were directed at terrorists. Yes, movies and TV shows featured impressive technology, with someone’s location highlighted in real time on a computer screen, but such capabilities were used only to track drug dealers and kidnappers.
Figures released earlier this month should dispel that complacency. It’s now clear that government surveillance is so widespread that the chances of the average, innocent person being swept up in an electronic dragnet are much higher than previously appreciated. The revelation should lead to long overdue legal reforms.
The new figures, resulting from a Congressional inquiry, indicate that cell phone companies responded last year to at least 1.3 million government requests for customer data — ranging from subscriber identifying information to call detail records (who is calling whom), geolocation tracking, text messages, and full-blown wiretaps.
Almost certainly, the 1.3 million figure understates the scope of government surveillance. One carrier provided no data. And the inquiry only concerned cell phone companies. Not included were ISPs and e-mail service providers such as Google, which we know have also seen a growing tide of government requests for user data. The data released this month was also limited to law enforcement investigations—it does not encompass the government demands made in the name of national security, which are probably as numerous, if not more. And what was counted as a single request could have covered multiple customers. For example, an increasingly favorite technique of government agents is to request information identifying all persons whose cell phones were near a particular cell tower during a specific time period — this sweeps in data on hundreds of people, most or all of them entirely innocent.
How did we get to a point where communications service providers are processing millions of government demands for customer data every year? The answer is two-fold. The digital technologies we all rely on generate and store huge amounts of data about our communications, our whereabouts and our relationships. And since it’s digital, that information is easier than ever to copy, disclose, and analyze. Meanwhile, the privacy laws that are supposed to prevent government overreach have failed to keep pace. The combination of powerful technology and weak standards has produced a perfect storm of privacy erosion. [Continue reading…]