The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[AVFCforever1991]

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/22/319951/syria-chem-claims-as-false-flag-as-911/

[Cliffy Biro]

 

Nope, its pretty clear.

There is no reference to US officials emailing each other. You seem to have introduced that from nowhere. Since that's the reason you give for disbelieving the story, ie you don't think US officials would send such e-mails, it makes it even stranger that it's something you appear to have misread, and still don't see.

The cached article is here.

I'd be interested if anyone things it's a fake, and if so, on what basis.

 

Who else would he be sending such a message too? Either way its a nothing story unless they back it up with something instead of just saying "sources" or "allegedly".

 

I wouldn't put it past america nor do i doubt they have and will do such things but still, back up what you're saying. I dont even think the west wants to be involved in syria to be perfectly honest.

[peterms]

Who else would he be sending such a message too?

I assume this is just a wind-up, and no-one could be unable to understand the phrase "an e-mail exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britram Defence" after three readings and two prompts.  I suppose the misspelling of a two-letter word must be a further clue, so I'm baling out. Byeee!

[Risso]

 

Nope, its pretty clear.

There is no reference to US officials emailing each other. You seem to have introduced that from nowhere. Since that's the reason you give for disbelieving the story, ie you don't think US officials would send such e-mails, it makes it even stranger that it's something you appear to have misread, and still don't see.

The cached article is here.

I'd be interested if anyone things it's a fake, and if so, on what basis.

 

 

From reading the comments on that article, it was posted on infowars.com, which apparently is the website of a nut job consiparcy theorist, Alex Jones, who was that idiot shouting at Piers Morgan about gun in America after one of the recent mass shootings over there.

[Cliffy Biro]

 

Who else would he be sending such a message too?

I assume this is just a wind-up, and no-one could be unable to understand the phrase "an e-mail exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britram Defence" after three readings and two prompts.  I suppose the misspelling of a two-letter word must be a further clue, so I'm baling out. Byeee!

 

You assume wrong and bye, will be sadly missed.

[peterms]

 

 

Nope, its pretty clear.

There is no reference to US officials emailing each other. You seem to have introduced that from nowhere. Since that's the reason you give for disbelieving the story, ie you don't think US officials would send such e-mails, it makes it even stranger that it's something you appear to have misread, and still don't see.

The cached article is here.

I'd be interested if anyone things it's a fake, and if so, on what basis.

 

 

From reading the comments on that article, it was posted on infowars.com, which apparently is the website of a nut job consiparcy theorist, Alex Jones, who was that idiot shouting at Piers Morgan about gun in America after one of the recent mass shootings over there.

 

 

If you deduced that from the comments, you may not have read the article very closely.  It was attributed in the fourth para of the main article.

 

Would it be unfair to assume you are thinking "info has passed through a website of which I disapprove, therefore can safely be ignored"?  Please assure me you're more sensible than that.

[peterms]

 

 

Who else would he be sending such a message too?

I assume this is just a wind-up, and no-one could be unable to understand the phrase "an e-mail exchange between two senior officials at British-based contractor Britram Defence" after three readings and two prompts.  I suppose the misspelling of a two-letter word must be a further clue, so I'm baling out. Byeee!

 

You assume wrong and bye, will be sadly missed.

 

 

No, baling out of trying to explain simple sentences to you, not leaving the discussion.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

In a truly shocking twist, things are kicking off in the newly formed South Sudan.

[snowychap]

In a truly shocking twist, things are kicking off in the newly formed South Sudan.

Indeed.

Sad account if true (longish and grim read):

 

South Sudan: the state that fell apart in a week

The first western journalist into South Sudan reports from Juba on the brutal and sudden descent into civil war

 

A week ago, Simon K, a 20-year-old student living in the capital of South Sudan, was arrested by men in military uniforms. He was asked a question that has taken on deadly importance in the world's newest country in the past seven days: incholdi – "What is your name?" in Dinka, the language of the country's president and its largest ethnic group.

Those who, like Simon, were unable to answer, risked being identified as Nuer, the ethnic group of the former vice-president now leading the armed opposition and facing the brunt of what insiders are describing as the world's newest civil war.

Simon K was taken to a police station in the Gudele market district of Juba, where he was marched past several dead bodies and locked in a room with other young men, all Nuer. "We counted ourselves and found we were 252," he told the Guardian. "Then they put guns in through the windows and started to shoot us."

The massacre continued for two days with soldiers returning at intervals to shoot again if they saw any sign of life. Simon was one of 12 men to survive the assault by covering themselves in the bodies of the dead and dying.

Simon spoke from inside the UN compound that has become an emergency sanctuary to the remaining Nuer in the capital. Sitting on a filthy mattress by the side of a dirt road, with bandages covering bullet wounds in his stomach and legs, he recalled: "It was horrible, because to survive I had to cover myself with the bodies of dead people, and during the two days, the bodies started to smell really bad."

In the space of seven desperate days, the UN base has been transformed from a logistics hub for an aid operation into a squalid sanctuary for more than 10,000 people. Amid the confusion of bodies and belongings, a handmade sign hangs from the rolls of razor wire. "The lord is our best defender," it reads.

But there is no sign here of the lord's defence, as the country that gained independence in 2011 with huge international fanfare and support has come apart in the space of a week.

The latest violence began after a fight between Dinka and Nuer soldiers in the presidential guard on 15 December, igniting a simmering political power struggle in South Sudan's ruling party and sparking widespread ethnic killings.

Juba resident Gatluak Kual, who has bullet wounds in both arms and a prosthetic foot from the 20-year battle that split Sudan and created an independent south two years ago under President Salva Kiir, says the country is once more at war.

"Everyone here has lost someone [in the last week]," he said, gesturing out over the multitude with the finger he broke five days ago disarming a Dinka militiaman who was trying to kill him. "We have seen our daughters, our brothers, our mothers killed simply because they are Nuer. To me this is already a civil war."

The reverberations of the wave of targeted killings that began in the fledgling capital are being felt throughout the country, where they have sparked revenge attacks and copycat atrocities. Generals who have mutinied have seized the capital of South Sudan's largest state, Jonglei, and its main oil-producing area, Unity State. Former vice-president Riek Machar threw his support behind the armed opposition and is now its de facto leader. On Sunday a full-scale tank battle was being fought between opposing factions in the South's army in the far western reaches of oil-rich, swampy Upper Nile.

"It would have been difficult one week ago to imagine that things would unravel to this extent," said the UN's head of humanitarian affairs in South Sudan, Toby Lanzer.

The fighting has already claimed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of civilian lives. Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have fled into the bush or returned to home villages, according to the UN. The official death toll of 500, which corresponds with the number of dead in a single Juba hospital six days ago, is being dismissed by experts. A veteran aid worker, who has been assessing the scale and nature of the killings from sources nationwide, said the real figure was "in the tens of thousands".

On Monday, Machar claimed his forces had gained control of all the major oil fields in Unity and Upper Nile states. The information minister, Michael Makuei, told Reuters this was "wishful thinking".

In Juba, Gatwech T remembers how, last Tuesday, he ran for his life when soldiers attacked his home area of Hai Referendum. Some of the men outran the younger ones, who were caught by men in uniform. "They caught the boys and I stopped to watch. They counted them and there were 21 boys, as young as him," he said, pointing at a 15-year-old. "They tied their hands behind their backs and killed them."

Yien K, 28, was at home last Monday evening at around 10pm in the Jabarona area on the outskirts of the capital when he heard shooting. As it came closer he decided to hide at his brother's home. There were five of them inside the simple structure: his brother, his brother's wife, one-year-old niece and another six-year-old girl, a cousin. Yien recalls the moment just after midnight when the tracks of a tank ripped through the walls and crushed the one-year-old. "The tanks came and ran over the house," he said. "The men escaped but the woman and girls were killed."

Unlike some of Juba's neighbourhoods, which have divided along ethnic lines, Jabarona is a mixed area and Yien believes the tank operators had guides showing them where Nuer people were living.

In neighbourhoods such as Mangaten, Hai Referendum, Area 107 and Eden City, it is now easy to tell where the Nuer community lived. Halfway down the main market street of Mangaten, a dust-blown complex of tin-shack shops and rickety stalls, the bustle and activity stops. Most businesses have been ransacked, their rough shelves stripped of everything; stalls have been burned to the ground. Crossing into Hai Referendum, one of the highest density settlements in Juba, is now a ghost town of abandoned houses.

On Saturday, a few laid-back looters could be seen loading a meagre haul of plastic chairs, pots and foam mattresses on to three-wheelers. In some houses nearby plates of food were left behind, clothes have been scattered where people fled. Only broken plastic chairs, empty tubs of milk powder and smashed fans lie in the dirt.

Crossing the boundary into Eden City, the atmosphere changed. Plainclothes soldiers, one of them with a plastic-handled kitchen knife in the pocket of his shorts and a machete visible under his football shirt stopped and questioned any outsiders. Only 20 metres away was the charred corpse of a man lying with his legs splayed outside the looted Eden Sports bar.

Nearby, a nervous family had returned to their mud hut home, known as a tukul, to visit Moses' aged mother who is too ill to make the journey to the UN base less than a mile away. He was determined to leave before nightfall, when a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed by the government begins. "The army is coming at night," he said. "You hear the guns going tuk-tuk-tuk."

Rose, who emerged from the tukul where Moses' mother is bed-ridden, said: "Everybody has been running because of war. We're also running."

South Sudan's government, which has received billions of dollars in foreign aid and is home to the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world outside the Democratic Republic of Congo, continues to insist that massacres in Juba have not happened. The president, whose guards sparked the first fighting on 15 December, has assured the South Sudanese that his forces will protect civilians.

Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the civil war guerrilla force that is now the national army, denied any orchestrated attacks had taken place. He said he was unaware of the slaughter at Mangaten police station and blamed any deaths on "criminal elements" who had exploited the chance to loot and kill afforded by the crisis. "Even though some of these criminals are wearing army uniforms does not necessarily mean they are part of the army," he said. He denied any national army soldiers were involved: "No SPLA soldiers are involved in this criminal activity."

With regard to those carrying out the atrocities, he added: "We are ready to arrest them and take them to court."

But this description of rogue elements does not tally with the account of Riek W, who was until Saturday a serving member of the presidential guard, known to Jubans as the "Tigers".

A three-year veteran of the multi-ethnic unit that was meant to bind the diverse communities of what had been southern Sudan, he was not openly known as a Nuer to many of his colleagues and does not bear the traditional "Gaar" scarring that many Nuer men have on their faces.

Now in hiding in the UN base, he described how fighting between Dinka and Nuer members of the Tigers last Sunday night had spilled over into attacks on civilian Nuers all over the city.

"They took people who were not soldiers and tied their hands and shot them. I saw this with my own eyes, I was there wearing the same uniform as them."

Young men from the Dinka community, many of them with no military training, were given uniforms and guns from various armouries around the capital, including one located at President Kiir's own compound, known as J1, he says.

"It is soldiers who are doing this and militia from Dinka boys who have been given guns from the Tigers," he said.

Riek W said that his Dinka colleagues could not act without the authority of their commander and that they were "the same soldiers that are killing people at night".

Riek W, who decided to abandon his post in the president's compound at the weekend as he feared for his life and was horrified at the murder of civilians, said that the scale of the killings was being covered up. " They… are using the curfew to remove the bodies," he said.

He described how he had seen "large trucks" full of bodies, some of which were taken to grave sites dug with bulldozers, while others had been dumped in the river Nile at two points: one near the Bilpam barracks and one at Juba bridge. These reports have been corroborated by fishermen who have seen the bodies up on the river bank. "The numbers they are saying are completely wrong, people have been killed everywhere," Riek W said.

The Nuer who have survived in Juba, numbering 20,000, are now crammed into the city's two UN bases. Their fate is matched by another 14,000 civilians from other ethnic groups sheltering with the UN in South Sudan's other main towns.

Many of the Nuer crowded into the main UN mission base in Juba said they were sure the peacekeepers would protect them despite the evacuation over the weekend of all non-critical UN staff.

Not everyone feels safe, though. Wearing a dusty pinstriped suit jacket and apologising for not having showered in six days, 51-year-old Peter Bey was unsure. He has watched in recent days as one evacuation flight after another has taken foreign nationals to safety from the airport on the other side of the fence. "We see from history that the UN has left people behind before in Rwanda," he said. "They put their own people on helicopters and left the people who died."

[Awol]

In a truly shocking twist, things are kicking off in the newly formed South Sudan.

Just to point out South Sudan isn't an Arab country and these dudes are killing each other for traditional African inter-tribal, rather than religious reasons. 

 

Still not very good though..

[LondonLax]

The reasons are the same whether it's labeled as a religious dispute, or inter-tribal or whatever.

It's always about controlling resources.

[Glarmorgan]

I have to disagree. While the South Sudan issue revolves around resources and tribal issues, most of the fighting in Syria (for instance) includes religious beliefs which have nothing to do with oil, gas or water. When religion gets into the mayhem - it's all about forcing your beliefs, regardless of any resources you might find along the way.

[Genie]

Simon K was taken to a police station in the Gudele market district of Juba, where he was marched past several dead bodies and locked in a room with other young men, all Nuer. "We counted ourselves and found we were 252," he told the Guardian. "Then they put guns in through the windows and started to shoot us."
The massacre continued for two days with soldiers returning at intervals to shoot again if they saw any sign of life. Simon was one of 12 men to survive the assault by covering themselves in the bodies of the dead and dying.

Horrific.

[LondonLax]

 

 

 

The fighting in Syria is also about control of the countires resources. Whilst power is currently controlled by a minority family group the majority of the population is missing out and are angry about it.

 

The religion isn't the cause, if it was then different religous groups would never be able to get on anywhere but there are plenty of places where the different groups get on fine. The cause is the power imbalance.  

Edited January 2, 2014 by blandy

[Awol]

 

 

 

In a truly shocking twist, things are kicking off in the newly formed South Sudan.

Just to point out South Sudan isn't an Arab country and these dudes are killing each other for traditional African inter-tribal, rather than religious reasons. 

 

Still not very good though..

 

 

The reasons are the same whether it's labeled as a religious dispute, or inter-tribal or whatever.

 

It's always about controlling resources.

 

I have to disagree. While the South Sudan issue revolves around resources and tribal issues, most of the fighting in Syria (for instance) includes religious beliefs which have nothing to do with oil, gas or water. When religion gets into the mayhem - it's all about forcing your beliefs, regardless of any resources you might find along the way.

 

Spot on. AQ (or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) are fighting to impose a very narrow doctrinal interpretation of their religion over everyone else in an attempt to build a new ultra Islamic Caliphate.  Their fight has literally nothing to do with controlling resources it is about controlling territory and the people within it to carve out a new state. That many have gone on camera to say that once this is achieved they will then march on Jerusalem would suggest that to them and their followers this isn't about oil, or water, or anything other than a fantical, religiously inspired quest for power.

[Awol]

Seems AQ (ISIS chapter) have had a major success and taken the city of Fallujah in western Iraq again.  Suspect Ramadi will be the next to fall, but this time the Baghdad government doesn't have the USMC on hand to drive them out.  Put this together with their successes across the border in Syria and things are looking up for AQ in 2014, a far cry from "the path to defeat" trumpeted by Obama after Bin Laden was killed.

[maqroll]

It just shows how profound the ignorance of American foreign policy is regarding the Middle East in particular, and the rest of the world in general. No real depth of understanding of cultures, their history, their relationships with one another. No meaningful measure of historical self-reflection as to why some of these countries might dislike us. No real long term strategy. We just shoot from the hip and literally make things up as we stumble along. It's a total embarrassment.

[Awol]

It just shows how profound the ignorance of American foreign policy is regarding the Middle East in particular, and the rest of the world in general. No real depth of understanding of cultures, their history, their relationships with one another. No meaningful measure of historical self-reflection as to why some of these countries might dislike us. No real long term strategy. We just shoot from the hip and literally make things up as we stumble along. It's a total embarrassment.

The US left a long time ago now, the only direct responsibility they have for the current situation was removing a dictator who kept a lid on the sectarian rivalry/hatred that became apparent the night Baghdad fell. However wrong the Iraq invasion was in hindsight, the intent of removing Saddam was not to cause anarchy - although I can't argue that the lack of institutional insight into 'what lies beneath' was a shocking failure, of which the British government was equally guilty. 

 

This particular mess is made in Iraq, by Iraqis, the big question is what happens next when they can't control it on their own..

[snowychap]

'I Am Peter Greste'

 

 

I appreciate that it's not always easy to love journalists, but that should not detract from an eternal truth: it is always essential to value journalism.

Especially in places where governments want to restrict free access to information. Places like Egypt, for example, where the generals are cracking down hard on journalists and accusing some of them of being terrorists. Among the dozens who have been rounded up are 20 from the al-Jazeera TV network, including their award-winning and much-respected correspondent Peter Greste, a former colleague of mine at the BBC.

He has managed, with great courage, to smuggle two letters out of prison since he was detained more than a month ago, and I would urge you to read them - they are here and here. Just as a taste, here's an extract from the second letter, in which he describes the "new normal" of an Egypt ruled, once again, by an unelected military junta.

"The state here seems to see itself in an existential struggle that pits the forces of good, open, free society against the Islamist 'terrorists' still struggling to seize control. In that environment, 'normal' has shifted so far from the more widely accepted 'middle' that our work suddenly appeared to be threatening. We were not alone in our reporting, but our arrest has served as a chilling warning to others of where the middle is here."

This, alas, is where the heady days of the Arab Spring three years ago have led. And yet, disgracefully, the considered view from Western governments seems to amount to not much more than "Oh dear, but at least they're better than the other lot ..." By which they mean, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood, of whom they were deeply suspicious. (Just to be clear, I'm not a huge fan of the Brotherhood either - but that's not the same as backing their violent overthrow.)

Tony Blair, former prime minister, and now a would-be global statesman, went out of his way to offer his support to the generals when he was in Cairo a few days ago - they overthrew the elected government, he said, "at the will of the people ... to take the country to the next stage of its development, which should be democratic". Which frankly leaves me lost for words ...

Journalists around the world have mounted a campaign to press for the release of their colleagues imprisoned in Egypt -- if you're on Facebook, you might like to add your support to the Free Peter Greste page. (On Twitter, use #freeAJStaff.) Because this is something that should concern not just journalists, and not just those who care about Egypt and the future shape of the Middle East.

We live in an era when it is easier than ever before for more people to have more access to more information more quickly. Thanks to the internet, mobile phones and social network sites, information can flow across the globe at unprecedented speed and with unprecedented freedom. It empowers popular movements and terrifies governments.

So the crackdown on journalists in Egypt is part of a much bigger picture. Whether it's the Turkish government introducing tough new internet access controls in the midst of a major corruption scandal, or the kidnapping and murder of journalists in Syria, or UK intelligence agents insisting that The Guardian smashes up its computers to destroy leaked security material from Edward Snowden - governments are desperate to control the flow of information.

There's nothing new about this, of course. In the 1990s, it was illegal in Britain to broadcast even the voice of any member of the Republican Sinn Fein movement. The ban was a total farce, and succeeded only in creating regular work for Irish actors who were hired to impersonate Sinn Fein leaders like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

A free press is an essential part of a functioning democracy. Locking up journalists for trying to do their job is an affront to anyone who cares about the world we live in and believes that we have a right to be properly informed about what's going on in some its darkest corners. (There'll be other opportunities to reflect on phone-hacking and other journalistic misdeeds - because even I wouldn't dream of trying to persuade you that all journalists, everywhere, are saints.)

In Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film Spartacus, when captured Roman slaves are asked to identify which of them is the rebel leader Spartacus, each of them leaps to his feet and replies: "I am Spartacus."

So in that same spirit, and with no disrespect to the many other imprisoned journalists in Egypt and elsewhere: I am Peter Greste.

 

First off, I'd like to hope that Mr Greste somehow finds his way out of where he finds himself.

It should be no surprise to anyone that I stand up as 'not a fan of' Mr T.Blair but shove his comments above next to his email(s) to Brooks and you can see just where this dispicable person stands.

Edited February 21, 2014 by snowychap

[peterms]

I have to disagree. While the South Sudan issue revolves around resources and tribal issues, most of the fighting in Syria (for instance) includes religious beliefs which have nothing to do with oil, gas or water. When religion gets into the mayhem - it's all about forcing your beliefs, regardless of any resources you might find along the way.

The fighting in Syria is encouraged, resourced, and prolonged by other countries who hope to gain from it.

In some cases the gain is political influence, in others it is access to resources. In some cases it is both.

As an example, look at the actions of two desperately corrupt and oppressive states in the region: Saudi Arabia, whose machinations via the vile Bandar and others have been mentioned before; and Israel, whose naked landgrabbing knows no bounds, one example of which is this.

The idea that it's just about religion is a simple lie, produced by those who would deceive us, and repeated by those who are so naive as to believe it, or who repeat it for political motives, knowing it to be untrue.