Posted tagged ‘Islamic State’

Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

November 6, 2015

Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

Friday, 06 November 2015

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Source: Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies

Photo of President Obama: AP Images

Outrage and criticism are growing across the political spectrum after Obama, contradicting his repeated past pledges not to put U.S. troops in Syria, decided without congressional or constitutional authority to deploy some 50 Special Forces operatives to aid Syrian jihadists. At least one U.S. soldier has already been killed, dying last month in what Obama officials claimed was a raid to free prisoners held by the Islamic State (ISIS). More deaths are likely, as are more troop deployments, according to lawmakers and analysts, potentially setting up a broader war in which the United States could become further ensnared in Syria and beyond. Thanks in large part to the administration’s deceit and machinations in recent years, the whole region is likely to end up in flames — a kind of post-Obama Libya on a much larger scale. And Obama’s Republican and Democrat enablers in Congress, despite voicing some complaints and concerns, have done practically nothing to stop it.

The official excuse for sending American forces to Syria is to help various jihadist “rebels” battle ISIS. Yet, based on the statements of Obama’s own top officials, including Vice President Joe Biden and Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, members of Obama’s “anti-ISIS” coalition have been arming, funding, and training ISIS from the start. In fact, in a public speech at Harvard, Biden said the anti-ISIS coalition had essentially created ISIS in the first place — on purpose. Official U.S. intelligence documents later confirmed that. The notion that Obama is sending U.S. troops to battle the Frankenstein creation of its own “anti-ISIS” coalition, then, sounds far-fetched at best. Far more likely is that the real agenda is not being publicly discussed, with ISIS merely serving as the excuse du jour to wage more illegal war.

The administration, of course, also claims that the U.S. military deployment will remain small, supposedly in a mostly advisory capacity along the lines of what got the U.S. government embroiled in Vietnam. Chief White House mouthpiece Josh Earnest even claimed Obama would “not allow the U.S. to be drawn into a sectarian quagmire in Syria.” As he was speaking, though, Obama was in the process of sinking America deeper into the sectarian quagmire that Obama himself helped create and fuel in Syria. “The president believes that by committing a relatively small number of forces, fewer than 50, that they can serve as a force multiplier and further enhance the efforts of these local forces on the ground,” Earnest continued. The “force” that would be “multiplied” by U.S. forces, of course, is a jihadist force, as Obama’s own top officials have already acknowledged publicly and as U.S. military documents show conclusively.

Either way, there is no reason to believe anything Earnest or anyone else in the administration has to say about the deployment, the purpose of it, or anything else, really — and there are plenty of reasons not to believe it. As The New American reported this week, Obama decided to lawlessly commit U.S. troops into Syria’s civil war after years of repeated promises to not deploy U.S. troops in Syria. Indeed, reporter C. Mitchell Shaw compiled a list of 18 separate instances in which the Obama administration publicly pledged not to deploy U.S. troops in Syria. Instead of keeping its promise and U.S. boots off the ground in Syria, though, the administration announced last week that a contingent of American Special Forces personnel were on the way to help various jihadist groups battle other jihadist groups.

It appears, however, that the administration and its war-mongering allies are having trouble keeping their lies straight on all fronts. For instance, the White House claims it has the authority to deploy U.S. forces in Syria based on an “Authorization for Use of Military Force” (AUMF) passed by Congress in 2001 authorizing military strikes on “al Qaeda and associated forces.” Yet, the Obama administration and various warmongers demanding military action in Syria also claim that al-Qaeda and ISIS are at odds with each other. Indeed, disgraced former General David Petraeus, who oversaw the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even called for a U.S. government alliance with al-Qaeda to fight ISIS. Seriously. Official U.S. documents also show that Washington, D.C., has known from the beginning that the Syrian “opposition” was being led by al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist organizations.

Meanwhile, Obama’s unconstitutional “regime-change” plot against Libya also discredits the administration’s false claim that the AUMF against al-Qaeda authorizes U.S. government support for jihad in Syria. In Libya, retired U.S. military generals and others even concluded that Obama had “switched sides” in the terror war when he backed self-declared al-Qaeda leaders against former U.S. terror-war ally Moammar Gadhafi. In that war, which turned what remains of war-torn Libya into a jihadist paradise mired in ongoing civil war, Obama did not cite the AUMF, instead pointing to an illegitimate United Nations Security Council “resolution” as the source of authority. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even promised to ignore Congress if it tried to stop the illegal war. The U.S. Constitution, of course, requires a declaration of war before the president is authorized to wage war.

Even some congressional Democrats, though, are speaking out against Obama. “It’s hard not to be concerned when the president very clearly ruled out putting troops on the ground in Syria and now they’re on their way into the battle,” explained U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), adding that he expected Obama to deploy even more U.S. troops in Syria going forward. “We’ve crossed a line here that’s hard to understand.” Another Senate Democrat, Tim Kaine of Virginia, echoed those concerns, saying lawmakers were not convinced. The White House’s efforts “to say, ‘Don’t worry, this is not ground troops,’ people don’t think that’s credible,” he said. Various Republicans have also slammed Obama’s decision. The public, too, is catching on, with a recent Associated Press poll showing that more than 6 in 10 Americans reject Obama’s “anti-ISIS” machinations in Syria.

Unsurprisingly, the warmongering Republican neoconservatives in Congress who supported the disastrous U.S. government invasion, “regime change,” and occupation of Iraq were standing fully behind Obama. Some even demanded that Obama deepen his involvement in Syria’s civil war even further. “Democrats and a few Republicans have absolutely no clue as to the threat we face,” complained Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports sending even more U.S. troops to the region. “We’re going to get attacked from Syria. That is where the next 9/11 is coming from.” He may be right.

What Graham and his fellow warmongers in Congress failed to mention, though, is that creating a fundamentalist Islamist principality in Syria — known today as ISIS — was official U.S. government policy as far back as 2012, according to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report. Top U.S. officials said they warned against such an absurd and deadly policy, but were overruled by Obama and his cohorts desperate for more war. Graham and his neocon sidekick Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), though, have been cheerleading for Obama’s military support to Middle Eastern jihadists for years. McCain even posed for pictures with them. So if it is true that the next terror attack on U.S. soil comes from Syria, the Republican neocon enablers in Congress and the Obama administration will bear a major part of the blame.

But what is the real purpose of Obama’s latest scheming in Syria? According to Kremlin-backed media voices, it is about using U.S. troops as “human shields” to protect Obama’s anti-government jihadist “rebels” from Vladimir Putin’s air power. “The troop dispatch signals that the U.S. [is] trying to forestall Russian successes in wiping out Washington’s regime-change assets in Syria,” wrote analyst Finian Cunningham in a piece published by the Moscow-controlled RT. “In short, the US Special Forces are being used as ‘human shields’ to curb Russian air strikes against anti-government mercenaries, many of whom are instrumental in Washington’s regime-change objective in Syria.”

Despite Moscow’s ostensible support for Assad, however, it appears that the globalist goals in Syria still include deposing the autocratic dictator, eventually — but not before the nation is reduced to rubble, Libya-style, and the genocide of Syria’s ancient Christian communities by Western-backed jihadist “rebels” is complete. Also apparently on the globalist agenda: exploiting the Syrian war to flood the West with millions of refugees, empowering the UN and its kangaroo “court,” and imposing a European Union-style “Middle-East Union” pushed by the global-government-promoting Council on Foreign Relations.

Hundreds of thousands of innocents are now dead. More are dying every single day. Christians are  where they have lived continuously for almost 2000 years. Millions of Syrians have been forced to flee their homes. And much of the responsibility for the tragedy can be traced straight back to the deadly machinations of Obama and his allies.

Congress must take immediate action to rein in the White House, or the growing rivers of blood drenching the Middle East will be on their hands, too.

Putin halts flights to Egypt until “true causes” known for Metrojet crash

November 6, 2015

Putin halts flights to Egypt until “true causes” known for Metrojet crash, DEBKAfile, November 6, 2015

(Please see also, Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear. — DM)

Bomb_evidence_B_5.11.15

They discovered holes made by iron balls planted inside a bomb and scattered through all parts of the plane (see attached photos), as well as large tears in the outer walls that were caused by a powerful explosion.

****************************

President Vladi­mir Putin halted all Russian flights to Egypt Friday, Nov. 6, “until we know the true causes of the incident” .i.e. the cause of the Russian Metrojet flight crash over Sinai Saturday which killed all 224 people aboard. Several European and Gulf Arab governments suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, but Russia was the first to halt all outbound flights to Egypt. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin acted on the recommendation of the Russian security service chief Alexander Bortnikov.

The language of the statement – “true causes of the incident” – indicates that the Russians have lost patience with President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi and don’t trust the Egyptian investigation into the causes of the disaster. For most of the week, the Russians played along with Egypt’s obstinate resistance to any suggestion of terrorism and insisted on waiting for the official investigations before making any determinations. Thursday, Moscow sharply criticized British prime minister for presuming on the strength of intelligence that the plane was most likely downed by a bomb.

Putin abruptly changed course Friday following four developments:

1. Russian investigators collecting samples at the crash scene in Sinai found residue and other evidence of an explosion emanating from inside the plane or externally from a missile. They discovered holes made by iron balls planted inside a bomb and scattered through all parts of the plane (see attached photos), as well as large tears in the outer walls that were caused by a powerful explosion. Samples from the airplane’s wreckage were collected and presented to a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee Thursday.

Mourners_memory_5.11.15

2.  Forensic examination of victims’ remains left no doubt that they died as a result of an explosive blast.

These findings spread like wildfire in Moscow and in St. Petersburg among the grieving families. The Russian leader saw he could no longer afford to line up with Cairo’s playdown of the terrorist factor.

3. Moscow received intelligence that the Islamic State plans to follow up on its first “success” with further terrorist attacks on Russian and European passenger jets.

By downing the Russian airliner over Sinai, the Islamist terror group delivered a huge blow to Egypt’s tourism industry. Russia tops Egypt’s tourist market. Last year, 3.1 million Russians visited Egypt, yielding $2.5bn out of the total national tourism income of $7.3bn in 2014.

Sharm el-Sheikh was the scene of havoc Friday, as Russian and British tourists mobbed the airport in an attempt to fly home after the Egyptian authorities limited the number of outbound flights.

Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear

November 6, 2015

Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear

Published time: 6 Nov, 2015 13:32 Edited time: 6 Nov, 2015 15:04

Source: Russia to suspend flights to Egypt until causes of Sinai crash are clear — RT News

© Maksim Blinov
President Vladimir Putin has agreed with the Federal Security Service to halt all Russian flights to Egypt following an October 31 passenger plane crash in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board.

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As long as we haven’t established the causes of the incident, I consider it appropriate to suspend the flights of Russian aircraft to Egypt. This primarily applies to the tourist flow,” FSB director Aleksandr Bortnikov told a meeting of the Russian Anti-Terror Committee on Friday.

Egypt has provided Russian investigators with access to all the fragments of the crashed plane as well as the baggage, he said. There is need for “absolute objectivity” and “confirmed data” to establish the causes of the disaster, he added.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin agreed with the recommendations of the Federal Security Service (FSB). He added that Putin had instructed the government to ensure the safe return of Russian citizens from Egypt and to cooperate with the Egyptian authorities on establishing air traffic security.

Peskov said that the decision to suspend flights was “solely connected with security” reasons, and doesn’t suggest that Moscow considers the A321 crash to be a terrorist attack.

Russia’s civil aviation regulator has started drawing up plans to suspend flights between Russia and Egypt, the agency’s chief, Alexander Neradko, said Friday.

Around 45,000 Russians are currently on holiday in Egypt, TASS cited figures provided by Russia’s tourism agency.

Swabs and scrapings from all fragments of the [crashed] plane, baggage and soil have been taken by Russian experts,” said the head of the Russian Emergencies Service, Vladimir Puchkov, during the meeting.

I underline once more that the necessary samples have been taken from all the elements that can contain traces of explosives,” he added. “If there were explosives on the plane, we will be able to determine it.”

READ MORE: Cherry-picking facts may lead Sinai crash probe down MH17 lane – Russian aviation agency chief

The Airbus A321 belonging to Russian Kogalymavia, which uses the brand name Metrojet, crashed in Egypt 20 minutes after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh airport on October 31. All 217 passengers and seven crewmembers on board died in the disaster, making it the deadliest incident of this kind in Russian aviation history. There was no distress call prior to the crash.

Following the disaster, the head of Russian aviation agency Rosaviatsia, Aleksandr Neradko, said that all the signs suggested that the destruction of the plane occurred “in the air and at a great altitude.” The evidence for that was the remains of the plane and the bodies, which have been scattered over an area measuring about 8 km by 4 km, he said.

The airline of the ill-fated passenger jet said on Monday that the plane must have been damaged by a force in flight and couldn’t have just broken apart.

On Tuesday, US media cited sources in the intelligence community saying that that a US infrared satellite had detected a heat flash in the same vicinity, indicating that an explosion may have occurred on board.

On Thursday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced that it was “more likely than not” that a bomb caused the crash. His comments were met with doubts from Moscow. During a telephone conversation between Cameron and Putin on Thursday, the PM was accused of “acting before he knows the facts,” according to tabloid paper the Sun.

On Wednesday, Britain halted flights from and to the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh over concerns that the Russian passenger jet was downed by a bomb on board.

Earlier in the week, a militant group associated with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) claimed to have shot down the Russian plane, but this claim has been deemed unreliable.

Dear Fellow Americans: Do You Have Any Idea What’s Being Done In Your Name In Syria?

November 6, 2015

Dear Fellow Americans: Do You Have Any Idea What’s Being Done In Your Name In Syria?

Posted on November 5, 2015

by WashingtonsBlog

Source: Dear Fellow Americans: Do You Have Any Idea What’s Being Done In Your Name In Syria? Washington’s Blog

Americans have some vague understanding that the U.S. wants Syria’s Assad to go, while Russia wants him to stay.

And Americans know that the U.S. “war against ISIS” hasn’t done much, while the Russians have been pounding Syrian targets with jets.

But Americans have no idea that the U.S. is deploying fighter jets designed solely to engage in plane-to-plane dogfighting … in order to counter the Russians.

And we don’t understand that the U.S. is arming the Syrian “rebels” with should-fired anti-aircraft weapons. As the Wall Street Journal  reports:

The U.S. and its regional allies agreed to increase shipments of weapons and other supplies to help moderate Syrian rebels hold their ground and challenge the intervention of Russia and Iran on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials and their counterparts in the region said.

The deliveries from the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Arabia and other allied spy services deepen the fight between the forces battling in Syria, despite President Barack Obama’s public pledge to not let the conflict become a U.S.-Russia proxy war.

Saudi officials not only pushed for the White House to keep the arms pipeline open, but also warned the administration against backing away from a longstanding demand that Mr. Assad must leave office.

In the past month of intensifying Russian airstrikes, the CIA and its partners have increased the flow of military supplies to rebels in northern Syria, including of U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles, these officials said. Those supplies will continue to increase in coming weeks, replenishing stocks depleted by the regime’s expanded military offensive.

An Obama administration official said the military pressure is needed to push Mr. Assad from power. 

“Assad is not going to feel any pressure to make concessions if there is no viable opposition that has the capacity, through the support of its partners, to put pressure on his regime,” the official said.

In addition to the arms the U.S. has agreed to provide, Saudi and Turkish officials have renewed talks with their American counterparts about allowing limited supplies of shoulder-fire man-portable air-defense systems, or Manpads, to select rebels. Those weapons could help target regime aircraft, in particular those responsible for dropping barrel bombs, and could also help keep Russian air power at bay, the officials said.

Mr. Obama has long rebuffed such proposals, citing the risk to civilian aircraft and fears they could end up in the hands of terrorists. To reduce those dangers, U.S. allies have proposed retrofitting the equipment to add so-called kill switches and specialized software that would prevent the operator from using the weapon outside a designated area, said officials in the region briefed on the option.

U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned that a few older Manpads may already have been smuggled into Syria through supply channels the CIA doesn’t control.

(This comes a week after ISIS may have used a Manpad to shoot down a Russian civilian airliner.)

Americans don’t know that sending Manpads into Syria and trying to establish a no-fly zone is what Al Qaeda leaders have been hoping for, and that ISIS and Al Qaeda will end up with all of the weapons which the U.S. sends to Syria.

Americans don’t know the history of American regime change in Syria:

Americans don’t know that it was the “rebels” – not the Syrian government – who carried out the chemical weapons massacre in Syria.

Americans don’t know that U.S. backed rebels told Christians, “Either you convert to Islam or you will be beheaded.”   Syrian rebels slit the throat of a Christian man who refused to convert to Islam, taunting his fiance by yelling: “Jesus didn’t come to save him!”  A former Syrian Jihadi says the rebels have a “9/11 ideology”.  Indeed, they’re literally singing Bin Laden’s praises and celebrating the 9/11 attack.

Americans don’t know that the U.S. and its allies are largely responsible for creating ISIS, that U.S., Turkey and Israel have all been acting as ISIS’ air force, and that influential American figures are calling for openly arming Al Qaeda … and perhaps even ISIS.

Americans don’t know that Russia and China are catching up to the U.S. military, and that this isn’t a mere proxy war … but is “one step closer” to all out war between the U.S. and Russia.

And Americans don’t know that  history shows that empires collapse when they overextend themselves militarily … and fight one too many wars.

Postscript.  Americans also don’t know how close we’ve come to the worst-case scenario:

  • We came very close to nuclear war with Russia numerous times in the past … and only the courage of a handful of men to disobey the commands of their superiors saved the world
  • In 1962, the head of the U.S. Air Force – General Curtis LeMay – pushed president Kennedy to use the “opportunity” to launch a nuclear war against Russia, and was bitterly disappointed that Kennedy instead opted for peace.  As highly-regarded reporter David Talbot said recently:

The military in this country and the CIA thought that we could take, you know, Castro out. During the Cuban missile crisis, they were prepared to go to a nuclear war to do that. President Kennedy thought people like Curtis LeMay, who was head of the Air Force, General Curtis LeMay, was half-mad. He said, “I don’t even see this man in my—you know, in my sight,” because he was pushing for a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. And even years later, Curtis LeMay, after years after Kennedy is dead, in an interview that I quote from in the book, bitterly complains that Kennedy didn’t take this opportunity to go nuclear over Cuba. So, President Kennedy basically, I think, saved my life—I was 12 years old at the time—saved a lot of our lives, because he did stand his ground. He took a hard line against the national security people and said, “No, we’re going to peacefully resolve the Cuban missile crisis.”

  • One of the world’s leading physicists (Michio Kaku) revealed declassified plans for the U.S. to launch a first-strike nuclear war against Russia in the 1987 book To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans.  The forward was written by the former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clarke
  • American, Russian and other experts warn that U.S. and Russian conflicts elsewhere could lead to nuclear war

CIA, Saudis To Give “Select” Syrian Militants Weapons Capable Of Downing Commercial Airliners

November 6, 2015

CIA, Saudis To Give “Select” Syrian Militants Weapons Capable Of Downing Commercial Airliners

by Tyler Durden on 11/05/2015 19:49 -0500

Source: CIA, Saudis To Give “Select” Syrian Militants Weapons Capable Of Downing Commercial Airliners | Zero Hedge

Here we go again , are you getting  a déjà vu now ?

Wednesday brought a veritable smorgasbord of “new” information about the Russian passenger jet which fell out of the sky above the Sinai Peninsula last weekend.

First there was an audio recording from ISIS’ Egyptian affiliate reiterating that they did indeed “down” the plane. Next, the ISIS home office in Raqqa (or Langley or Hollywood) released a video of five guys sitting in the front yard congratulating their Egyptian “brothers” on the accomplishment.

Then the UK grounded air traffic from Sharm el-Sheikh noting that the plane “may well” have had an “explosive device” on board.

Finally, US media lit up with reports that according to American “intelligence” sources, ISIS was probably responsible for the crash.

Over the course of the investigation, one question that’s continually come up is whether militants could have shot the plane down. Generally speaking, the contention that ISIS (or at least IS Sinai) has the technology and/or the expertise to shoot down a passenger jet flying at 31,000 feet has been discredited by “experts” and infrared satellite imagery.

But that’s nothing the CIA can’t fix.

With the Pentagon now set to deploy US ground troops to Syria (and indeed they may already be there, operating near Latakia no less), Washington is reportedly bolstering the supply lines to “moderate” anti-regime forces at the urging of (guess who) the Saudis and Erdogan.

Incredibly, some of the weapons being passed out may be shoulder-fire man-portable air-defense systems, or Manpads, capable of hitting civilian aircraft. 

But don’t worry, those will only be given to “select rebels.” Here’s more from WSJ:

 The U.S. and its regional allies agreed to increase shipments of weapons and other supplies to help moderate Syrian rebels hold their ground and challenge the intervention of Russia and Iran on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials and their counterparts in the region said.

The deliveries from the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Arabia and other allied spy services deepen the fight between the forces battling in Syria, despite President Barack Obama’s public pledge to not let the conflict become a U.S.-Russia proxy war.

Saudi officials not only pushed for the White House to keep the arms pipeline open, but also warned the administration against backing away from a longstanding demand that Mr. Assad must leave office.

In the past month of intensifying Russian airstrikes, the CIA and its partners have increased the flow of military supplies to rebels in northern Syria, including of U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles, these officials said. Those supplies will continue to increase in coming weeks, replenishing stocks depleted by the regime’s expanded military offensive.

An Obama administration official said the military pressure is needed to push Mr. Assad from power. 

“Assad is not going to feel any pressure to make concessions if there is no viable opposition that has the capacity, through the support of its partners, to put pressure on his regime,” the official said.

In addition to the arms the U.S. has agreed to provide, Saudi and Turkish officials have renewed talks with their American counterparts about allowing limited supplies of shoulder-fire man-portable air-defense systems, or Manpads, to select rebels. Those weapons could help target regime aircraft, in particular those responsible for dropping barrel bombs, and could also help keep Russian air power at bay, the officials said.

Mr. Obama has long rebuffed such proposals, citing the risk to civilian aircraft and fears they could end up in the hands of terrorists. To reduce those dangers, U.S. allies have proposed retrofitting the equipment to add so-called kill switches and specialized software that would prevent the operator from using the weapon outside a designated area, said officials in the region briefed on the option.

U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned that a few older Manpads may already have been smuggled into Syria through supply channels the CIA doesn’t control.

If that sounds insane to you, that’s because it is. Even as US intelligence (which we can only assume emanates from the CIA) indicates that IS Sinai likely brought down a Russian passenger jet with 224 people on board, the same CIA is working with the Saudis to supply “select rebels” with weapons capable of shooting down commercial airliners.

In order to make sure no one ends up blowing a 747 out of the sky, Washington will “retrofit” the weapons with “special” software that makes sure they can only be used in certain areas.

Make no mistake, this has gone beyond absurd and is now bordering on the bizarre. It’s apparently not enough that the US is supplying anti-tank missiles to rebels shooting at the very same Iran-backed militias that the US implicitly supports across the border in Iraq so now, the CIA and Saudi Arabia will give these rebels the firepower to shoot down planes, meaning that in the “best” case scenario they’ll be firing at Russian fighter jets, and in the worst case scenario these weapons will end up in the “wrong” hands and be used to down commercial flights. 

It’s difficult to see how John Kerry can attend “peace” talks in Vienna and keep a straight face while chatting with Sergei Lavrov. That’s not to say that Russia bears no responsibility for its role in the conflict (sure, Moscow is supporting a “legitimate” government in Syria but they’re still dropping bombs on populated areas), but the US and the Saudis are arming Sunni extremist groups and encouraging them to shoot at Russian and Iranian forces. For Obama to suggest this isn’t a proxy war is absurd.

Putting this all together, it now appears possible that the US is, i) sending anti-tank weapons to rebels who are shooting at Iranian soldiers, ii) embedding ground troops near Latakia which means they’ll almost certainly be engaging Hezbollah directly, and iii) passing weapons capable of downing a commercial airliner to “select” militants days after a Russian passenger jet exploded in the skies above the Sinai Peninsula.

This is all in conjunction with the Saudis and Erodgan, who just rigged an election in Turkey on the way to rewriting his country’s constitution.

And the Western media reports this with a straight face as though it all makes some measure of sense…

UK Resumes Flights From Sharm el-Sheikh But Adds Security at Airport

November 6, 2015

Britain agrees to resume flights from Sharm el-Sheikh, with new security measures and additional staff at the airport.

By: Hana Levi Julian

Published: November 6th, 2015

Source: The Jewish Press » » UK Resumes Flights From Sharm el-Sheikh But Adds Security at Airport

An airplane over Eilat near the southern Israeli border, close to Jordan and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

An airplane over Eilat near the southern Israeli border, close to Jordan and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Photo Credit: Moshe Shai / Flash 90

Britain has decided to allow flights to resume from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh as the probe into Saturday’s crash of a Russian MetroJet continues.

At present there are 20,000 UK citizens stranded in the area, most of them tourists.

The UK prime minister’s office had suspended flights after the Russian airliner apparently exploded above the Sinai Peninsula while en route to St. Petersburg from Sharm el-Sheikh.

According to the latest intelligence, Da’esh (ISIS) may indeed have succeeded in planting a barometric pressure bomb aboard the aircraft prior to its departure from the airport.

“Following further discussions with the airlines and the Egyptians, we have agreed on a package of additional security measures that is being put in place rapidly,” Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said in a statement. “Consequently the government has decided, in consultation with the airlines that flights from Sharm to the UK will resume tomorrow.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met with Cameron at his office in London on Thursday.

Cameron told journalists that “more likely than not” it was a terrorist bomb that brought down the aircraft – a view shared by UK and U.S. intelligence personnel, as well as other intelligence operatives in the Middle East.

“I think there is a possibility that there was a bomb on board,” agreed President Barack Obama in a radio interview late Thursday, “and we’re taking that very seriously.”

The UK has sent extra security personnel to the airport in Sharm el-Sheikh to carry out special measures.

Checked bags are being sent back to the UK separately, passengers are being body-searched and carry-on luggage only is being allowed on all return flights. Investigators are checking for explosive residue, as are the bodies of the victims of the doomed flight.

OPCW finds chemical weapons use during rebels vs ISIS fighting in Syria

November 6, 2015

OPCW finds chemical weapons use during rebels vs ISIS fighting in Syria

Reuters Published time: 6 Nov, 2015 04:37 Edited time: 6 Nov, 2015 04:38

Source: OPCW finds chemical weapons use during rebels vs ISIS fighting in Syria – Reuters — RT News

 

© Bassam Khabieh
A new report reveals that mustard gas was used during fighting between Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL) and other militant groups in a Syrian town, Reuters has reported, citing an undisclosed paper by the international chemical arms watchdog.

READ MORE: US begins training ‘moderate rebels’ on Syrian territory – report

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released a confidential report on October 29, revealing the latest use of chemical weapons in Syria.

The summary of the report seen by Reuters concluded “with the utmost confidence that at least two people were exposed to sulfur mustard [on August 21]” in the town of Marea, located north of Aleppo.

“It is very likely that the effects of sulfur mustard resulted in the death of a baby,” the report added.

Notably, it is unclear which militant group used the mustard gas, as the OPCW is not tasked with identifying who used the chemical weapon.

Sulfur mustard is known to lead to severe delayed burns to the eyes, skin and lungs.

View image on Twitter

‘ISIS used chemical weapons in Iraq in August’: Kurds cite blood tests http://on.rt.com/6tbq 

The Regional Storm Hits Israel

November 5, 2015

The Regional Storm Hits Israel, Israel DefenseAmir Rapaport, November 5, 2015

bomb in SyriaAn aerial view of a bomb explosion in Syria (Photo: AP/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service)

1. High Tide/Low Tide. When the “Second Intifada” broke out in October 2000, IDF used to refer to the riots and terrorist attacks in the Judea and Samaria area, as well is inside the territory of the State of Israel as “High Tide/Low Tide”, as each wave of riots was followed by a period of relative quiet, and then a new trigger emerged, leading to a wave of renewed violence, and so on.

Eventually, the “High Tide/Low Tide” incidents assumed a pattern of a murderous terrorist offensive, which took the lives of more than a thousand Israelis through suicide attacks, until the Intifada finally subsided in 2004.

The wave of riots and terrorist attacks that erupted about 15 years later, in the fall of 2015, appears to be connected, in some way or another, to the state of instability that characterizes many areas throughout the Middle East. For the last few years, the lion’s share of the fighting takes place in Syria, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions more became refugees.

The major question that arose within the Israeli defense establishment in the fall of 2015 was whether this latest wave of terrorist attacks marks the outset of a “Third Intifada”. Although outwardly the Israeli interest is to announce “This is not a new Intifada,” in effect, there is talk about a “new situation” and no one knows how it will evolve.

Analyses performed within the defense establishment point to a number of reasons that suggest that this is a significant wave of terrorism which could turn out to be prolonged, as well as to reasons that justify the claim “This is not a new Intifada”.

One of the reasons that this wave of attacks is serious and could be prolonged is the religious motive: the Israeli media does not speak about it too often, but the Arab world is raging around rumors or reports that Israel actually intends to change the status quo on Temple Mount.

Even when one attempts to fish only “comfortable” data out of the statistics of the latest terrorist attacks, it is impossible to ignore the increase, by tens of percent, in the number of violent incidents throughout the Judea and Samaria area as well as within the “Green Line” during the last few weeks.

On the other hand, one significant difference between October 2015 and “Black October” (following the outbreak of the Second Intifada 15 years ago), is that the Israeli security forces are currently operating freely throughout the Judea and Samaria area. Consequently, entering the hospital in Nablus did not call for tactical support by tanks and aircraft. During the Second Intifada, on the other hand, it took the IDF and ISA quite a long time before they succeeded in regaining control over the centers of the Palestinian cities, pursuant to Operation Defensive Shield, and even then, the control achieved was only partial.

The recent events erupted despite the fact that IDF and ISA operate continuously against terrorist detachments. In each of the last few years, 2,000-3,000 Palestinian inhabitants were arrested. 80% of them were sentenced by the courts to prison terms of several months minimum.

It is still difficult to predict how the events will evolve over the next few months, but in any case, it seems that we have “a new security situation” on our hands.

2. Vladimir Putin. Many people regard the regional instability as the direct result of the American strategy of minimizing US involvement in the region, due to separatism processes and shifting the focus of world attention to Eastern Asia and the Pacific region (among other things, owing to the reduced dependence on Arab oil).

The party that stepped very effectively into the vacuum left by the USA was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who currently positions himself as the regional “Sheriff”.

No one can overestimate the importance of the moves made by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who deployed military forces to Syria this fall and continues to position himself as the strong man of the Middle East who never abandons his allies, while the USA has “transmitted” that her allies cannot rely on US support (as the USA had abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011).

This fall, the Russians deployed to Syria fighter aircraft that attack targets of the rebels opposing the military of President Bashar al-Assad. These moves were carefully coordinated with Iran, which, for her part, deployed hundreds of troopers (who are currently helping Hezbollah withdraw some of its forces back to Lebanon).

The Russian-Iranian move may have been intended to exert pressure on Saudi Arabia that supports the rebels, as well as to raise the price of oil, which is important to the economies of both countries.

Complicated? Even if there is no connection between the moves in Syria and the energy market, there is a definite connection between the fighting in Syria and the war raging in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. A solution in Syria may project on the war over there, as in both regions Iran and Saudi Arabia support opposing sides, with the conflict between the Shi’ite and Sunni factions of Islam as the backdrop.

Behind the scenes of the latest developments in Syria there has always been a Russian plan to bring about the end of the civil war in Syria by dividing it into areas of influence, with about 30% of the territory, in the Tartus and Lattakia area, remaining under control of the Alawite community of the current President, Bashar al-Assad.

Russia is interested in the sea ports in this area, and much less in maintaining Assad in control over a part of the disintegrated country. The Russians will not yield to the American demand to remove Assad from power until they have guaranteed their important interests. The party expected to pay the price is Israel, which may find itself, within a few months, facing a de-facto Iranian and Hezbollah domination on the other side of the border with Syria on the Golan Heights.

This situation could evolve despite the fact that Israel and Russia coordinate some of their respective moves, as indicated by the trip made by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s to Moscow last September, accompanied by the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, and Head of the IDF Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Hertzi Halevi, during which they met with “Sheriff” Putin.

3. Meanwhile, in the South. The good news come from the south, where Egypt under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is determined to defeat the forces of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State that operate throughout the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt, Israel and the USA cooperate closely in the context of this effort, owing to their shared interests.

El-Sisi regards Hamas in the Gaza Strip as an enemy, owing to the cooperation between Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is engaged in an on-going conflict with his regime.

Hamas itself is under tremendous pressure from different directions: from Egypt, which cuts off the underground tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip with the Egyptian territory, as well as from al-Qaeda and elements identifying with the Islamic State, who urge the leaders of Hamas to renew the fighting against Israel and occasionally even launch a rocket into Israeli territory in order to motivate Israel (which regards Hamas as the party responsible for such launches) to attack Hamas.

The reality that emerged in the Gaza Strip is yet another example of the complexity in our region. Iran, encouraged by the signing of the nuclear agreement with the superpowers, has renewed its support for Hamas, both financially and militarily (despite the fact that Hamas identifies with the rebels fighting against Bashar al-Assad in Syria and in Iran itself).

The positive bottom line is that Hamas, owing to its own considerations, does its best to maintain the ceasefire agreement reached with Israel following Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. That state of affairs remained in effect until the fall of 2015 but reality, as everyone knows only too well, is highly dynamic.

4. A Small Military. One of the most significant moves expected within IDF in November is the endorsement of the long-term plan for the coming five-year period, and the conversion thereof into an effective order for execution.

“Gideon” is the name of the new multi-year plan led by IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot. The plan is intended to rely on the long-term budget allocated to the IDF according to the recommendations of the Locker Committee, and will come into effect in 2016, after five years during which IDF have operated without a long-term plan, as the previous plan had ended as far back as during the tenure of Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi as Chief of Staff. The Gideon plan is intended to convert the IDF into a technological, cyber-based military organization, possessing fast maneuvering elements equipped with accurate, lethal weapons and enhanced sea and air branches. Above everything else, the most substantial investment will be made in intelligence.

The greatest concern among quite a few elements within the defense establishment pertains to the size of the military, as the new plan calls for the demobilization of quite a few units. One of the principles of Israel’s national security concept since the days of David Ben-Gurion is the need to maintain a strong, substantial military force, based on hundreds of thousands of reservists. The principle is still valid, but in effect, the emphasis is placed on intelligence, air power and commando operations. The substantial ground army, along with its massive tank OrBat, is reduced dramatically – which is inconsistent with the aforesaid principle.

5. Defense Exports. Nearing the end of 2015, the Israel Ministry of Defense and the Israeli defense industries embarked upon a massive sales effort. Between October and December, they will take part in not less than five major defense exhibitions in the USA, South Korea, Japan, Colombia and Thailand.

Even if that effort proves successful, the statistics for 2015 will indicate that Israeli defense exports still follow the downward trend that began in 2014. At best, the defense exports for 2015 will amount to US$ 5 billion, as opposed to US$ 7 billion in 2013.

The main reason for this decrease is the end of the global campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Several major deals that are still on the agenda, mainly in India, can still change the picture before the end of 2015 and lead to a positive trend in terms of the scope of exports. In any case, the contribution made by the defense exports, which amounts to billions of dollars, to the Israeli economy and to the Israeli security resilience is immense. The massive proceeds enable the Israeli defense industries to continue to invest funds in research in order to develop products at the cutting edge of technology.

Anti-air missiles in ISIS hands also imperil Saudi, Jordanian and Israeli skies

November 5, 2015

Anti-air missiles in ISIS hands also imperil Saudi, Jordanian and Israeli skies, DEBKAfile, November 5, 2015

Shut_up

The Ansar al Sharia terrorist organization in Libya, which attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and murdered the American ambassador in 2012, has the very missiles capable of shooting down large airliners flying at high altitudes: Russian-made ground-to-air Buk missiles, which have a range of between three and 42 kilometers. This ultra-violent Islamist terror group has very close operational ties with ISIS-Sinai, and very possibly smuggled the missile system into Sinai from Libya.

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The British Cobra (emergency cabinet) decision of Wednesday, Nov. 4, not to send airliners to or from Sharm El-Sheikh, where 20,000 British tourists are stranded, further strengthens the assumption that the Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 was downed over Sinai Saturday by a terrorist missile. It confirms that air traffic over Sinai and landings at Sharm are under threat from the ground – else why leave a large group of Britons under virtual siege in the Egyptian Red Sea resort? London said that the suspension of flights to Sharm was “indefinite.”

Moscow early Thursday accused London of being moved to this action out of hostility to Russia rather than security concerns.

Downing Street released a statement Wednesday saying: “As more information has come to light, we have become concerned that the plane may well have been brought down by an explosive device.” This statement was criticized by Egypt as “premature” – not a good omen for the conversation Prime Minister David Cameron is due to hold with his visitor, Egyptian president Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, later Thursday.

The British government has therefore stubbed toes in Moscow and Cairo without coming up with an emergency plan for evacuating its citizens from Egypt, whether overland to Cairo by bus or by sea aboard ships picking them up at the Red Sea resort and sailing through the Suez Canal.

This lack of initiative is a sign of confusion and uncertainty.

So far, the drawn-out deliberations and prevarications by officials in several countries regarding the crash of the Russian plane are meant for one purpose: to gain time for doing nothing about ISIS in Sinai. Neither the US, Russia or Britain is ready to send forces to the peninsula to confront the terrorists head-on.

The Ansar al Sharia terrorist organization in Libya, which attacked the US consulate in Benghazi and murdered the American ambassador in 2012, has the very missiles capable of shooting down large airliners flying at high altitudes: Russian-made ground-to-air Buk missiles, which have a range of between three and 42 kilometers. This ultra-violent Islamist terror group has very close operational ties with ISIS-Sinai, and very possibly smuggled the missile system into Sinai from Libya.

A number of intelligence agencies are aware of this and so a flock of leading European and Persian Gulf airlines lost no time in rerouting their flights to avoid Sinai straight after the Russian air disaster.

By causing this disaster, the Islamist terrorists coolly aimed for four goals:

1.  Retaliation for Russian intervention in Syria

2.  An attempt to destabilize the regime of Egyptian President Fattah Al-Sisi

3.  To show up the inadequacies of the 63-member coalition that the US formed in its effort to fight ISIS

4. To parade before the world the Islamic State’s operational prowess, its ability to shoot down the large passenger planes of the world’s biggest powers.

For five days, intelligence and flight safety experts dismissed the claim of responsibility that ISIS issued on the evening of October 31, maintaining that it was not to be taken seriously because no proof had been provided to support the claim – as if the charred fragments of the plane spread across tens of kilometers of desert were deniable.

In the second of its three messages, ISIS repeated its claim Wednesday, Nov. 4, promising details of how it downed the plane at a later date.

While more and more Western governments are coming around to accepting that the Russian airliner’s crash was caused by an explosive device, DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism sources repeat that they cannot rule out the possibility of a missile. The argument made on Wednesday in Washington and London that terrorist organizations do not have missiles capable of downing such planes is are simply incorrect.

ISIS-Sinai’s possession of an advanced ground-air missile system does not only endanger planes in the peninsula’s airspace, but also those aircraft flying over the Suez Canal as well as parts of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. One of the Egyptian president’s main purposes in his London visit was to try and persuade Prime Minister Cameron to join an Egyptian military operation against Ansar al Sharia in Libya and so eliminate a major prop and arms supplier for ISIS-Sinai. He does not hold out much hope of success.

Satire | Obama can defeat violent extremism with hugs and other treats for terrorists

November 4, 2015

Obama can defeat violent extremism with hugs and other treats for terrorists, Dan Miller’s Blog, November 3, 2015

(The views expressed by the imaginary Senator Librul may be his, but are not likely held by any sane individual. They do not necessarily reflect my views, those of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors. — DM)

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by my (imaginary) friend, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of Confusion Utopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of green unicorns, for which his Save the Unicorns Foundation has received substantial Federal grants. We are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. Without further delay, beyond noting that I added a few words which I then struck out like this to provide greater clarity to Senator Librul’s article, here it is. 

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Jimmy-Carter-3

Islamic terrorists Violent extremists are simply misguided youth who are underprivileged, mistreated and haven’t yet developed refined social skills. Therefore, they should be treated like their peers in American cities.

Obama’s task force on 21st century policing has suggested new and better ways to encourage misguided youth to become productive members of society. One suggestion is to “build relationships through nonenforcement interactions between officers, youth, and other community members.” An example of this splendid innovation is provided at page 23 of the study:

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans says, “I think we’re the only police department in the country with an ice cream truck and I can’t say enough good things about it. When the truck shows up, the kids love it and our officers love it too because it gives them a platform and an opportunity to engage and interact with our city’s young people in a positive, friendly, productive way.”

Surely, that will work equally well with poor, misguided youth abroad who, through no fault of their own, have failed to develop suitably refined social skills and therefore engage in Islamic terrorism violent extremism, Islamic white supremacy and other socially undesirable pursuits. Minor modifications will, however, be necessary. Here are a few suggestions:

Khat vs. ice cream

There has never been a scientific, multiculturally correct and therefore statistically valid survey of the quantum of pleasure violent extremists derive from ice cream or, indeed, whether they even like it.

Moreover, it has been claimed that “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” Liquor is also quicker than ice cream. However, Islam prohibits the ingestion of alcoholic beverages and, unless that wise proscription is revoked, offering Islamic terrorists violent extremists and Islamic white supremacists liquor would be culturally insensitive. On the other hand, offering khat would be culturally sensitive and, therefore, a good thing.

Catha edulis (khat, qat) is a flowering plant native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Among communities from these areas, khat chewing has a history as a social custom dating back thousands of years.

Khat contains a monoamine alkaloid called cathinone, an amphetamine-like stimulant, which is said to cause excitement, loss of appetite and euphoria. [footnotes omitted.]

Clearly, loss of appetite would be helpful to violent extremists who suffer from dietary insufficiencies and behave violently because of it. In similar fashion, euphoria would also diminish their perceived needs to engage in violent extremism and help them to transfer their excitement to productive, rather than destructive, activities. Offering khat would, therefore, be an excellent alternative to offering alcohol.

While some may favor providing marijuana instead of khat, the former has become increasingly lawful in many parts of Obama’s domain and doing so would deprive our own disadvantaged youth of one of their very few lawful pleasures, leading to their increased consumption of cocaine. That would, in turn, deprive many in Hollywood — America’s intellectual and cultural capitol — of a major source of inspiration for their production of splendid motion pictures which illuminate the foolish insensitivity of what most “conservatives” consider “thought.”

Weapons

It is sometimes claimed that Obama wants to deprive “law abiding” citizens of the firearms to which they cling bitterly, along with their Bibles. This understanding is, of course, wrong: it should be obvious, even to those dolts, that when civilians are prohibited from having firearms, those who still have them will, ipso facto, cease to be “law abiding.”

Something has to be done with confiscated firearms, and Commander in Chief Obama has demonstrated the historic success of His efforts to eliminate violent extremism by overtly giving weapons of all sorts to violent extremists or simply — but cleverly — allowing them to fall into their hands. This strategy has been proven quite successful in defeating the Non-Islamic Islamic State (NIIS) and other non-Islamic organizations promoting violent extremism.

Education

Many misguided youth who engage in socially undesirable conduct suffer, through no fault of their own, from lack of a suitable education. Great leaps forward need to be made in educating those who engage in violent extremism due to their sad misunderstandings of Islam, the religion of peace.

President Obama has proven Himself, countless times, to have a far clearer understanding of the true nature of Islam than any other person, living or dead — including Mohamed and countless so-called Islamic imams and other scholars. I therefore hope that He will soon find a way to visit as many Islamic lands as possible to provide personal instruction on the true nature of Islam to misguided youth, as well as to their misguided elders. Spreading the true nature of Islam in Islamic lands, particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran and thereby putting “Islamic” terrorism behind us forever, will be the greatest of President Obama’s many historic accomplishments. As a true Man of Peace and Understanding, President Obama will put Himself in no danger of violence by doing so: the truth and beauty of everything He says are always immediately obvious to all who hear him.

Although President Obama will be in no danger of personal harm, because Islam is the true religion of peace, precautions should be taken against the extremely remote chance that He might be murdered by someone who unreasonably rejects His godly message. To that end, Vice President Biden should be asked to resign for the good of the country and, indeed, of the entire world. President Obama should issue an executive order making Hillary Clinton His vice president. By doing so, He will ensure that, even if the worst imaginable should happen, His wonderful legacy will be carried forward without interruption.

Editor’s comments

Giving up the office of vice president will be a tremendous sacrifice for Joe Biden and for Imam Obama as well, since selecting him is the best decision Obama ever made. Perhaps Obama will be able to provide some small compensation by asking the King of Saudi Arabia to make him (Biden, not Obama) a sheik and his foreign minister – oil minister. In those capacities, Sheik Biden will reduce the flow of oil, raise oil prices and help to end the evil of clime change while simultaneously helping to bring true peace to the entire world.