Middle East Thread

[bouncebrigade]

What are you yawning at? 

 

You asked to be enlightened. You were (with information that is hardly enlightening to anyone with a basic knowledge of the geopolitical history of Afghanistan).

 

Yes, exactly.  As you say, it is not very enlightening, hence why I yawned.  Seems like you are contradicting yourself.

 

It is a story I have heard 100s of times.  The CIA funded Bin Laden etc.

 

I thought Jairzinho had some new information regarding ISIS (possibly being funded by the West), which I was keen to hear.  Not the oft repeated story about Bin Laden.

[Stu Monty]

The error is in thinking that the people who drove the Iraq invasion would in any way see it as a failure.

 

They will be, on the whole, very pleased with their work.

[Red Phoenix]

bounce : ISIS was created from Al Qaeda, and the CIA created Al Qaeda. It's hard to believe that they just cut all links with them at some point in time.

 

The US, UK, France, etc, are still obsessed with Syria. UK, US and French agencies train and arm Syrian "rebels" in Jordan and Turkey. These so-called rebels are trained, given weapons, etc. Then they get ambushed, they end up in a fight somewhere, and Al Qaeda end up with the weapons. Does this even happen? Or are these stories just made up to explain how Al Qaeda ended up with the weapons? Are they training and arming people knowing they'll join Al Qaeda? Or are they training and arming people who are already Al Qaeda?

 

This is without even mentioning Saudi, Qatar, etc, involvement.

 

Obama recently requested half a billion dollars to train Syrian rebels, so if that's what they're putting in publically, how much money is going in behind the scenes? There's stuff covering some of this in these links anyway if you want to read more :

 

http://cir.ca/news/global-efforts-to-aid-syrian-rebels
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10283758/First-Syria-rebels-armed-and-trained-by-CIA-on-way-to-battlefield.html
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cia-arms-trains-syria-rebels-through-secret-jordan-programme-1445897

 

From the first link :

 

The U.S. has been supplying Syrian rebels with tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) armor-piercing anti-tank weapons systems since March, an April 18 Wall Street Journal report says. The White House would not comment. The report says the TOWs are a pilot program to send more sophisticated weaponry.

 

edit - more here as well :

 

 

Syria’s opposition fighters have been supplied with U.S.-made antitank missiles, the first time a major American weapons system has appeared in rebel hands.

 

It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wire-guided missiles, which are capable of penetrating heavy armor and fortifications and are standard in the U.S. military arsenal. The United States has sold them in the past to Turkey, among other countries, and the Pentagon approved the sale of 15,000 of the weapons to Saudi Arabia in December. Both countries aid Syrian opposition groups.

 

U.S. officials declined to discuss the origin of the weapons but did not dispute that the rebels have them.

 

Their appearance in Syria coincides with a U.S. commitment this year to escalate a CIA-run program to supply and train vetted “moderate” rebel groups and to improve coordination with other opposition backers.

 

...

 

 

Videos showing rebels using the weapons were first uploaded to YouTube between April 1 and 5 by Harakat Hazm, a moderate insurgent splinter group, according to Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center, who was among the first to identify the so-called TOW (“Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided”) antitank missiles.

 

In an article published last week by Jane’s Defense Weekly, Lister noted that any country that transferred U.S. weapons to third parties was required to notify the United States and receive its approval.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-opposition-fighters-obtain-us-made-tow-anti-tank-missiles/2014/04/16/62d1a6f6-c4e8-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html

[Anny Road]

Noone would give fuck about these places. God or whatever it is all about $

[Strontium]

 

I think that would be true of Islam as well. And what the Israeli's do in Gaza is hardly Christian.

I am no particular defender of Islam. I just don't think that Islam should be judged by the actions of a relatively small number of extremists who have exploited a situation that the West largely created in Iraq.

 

You're not reading what I'm writing.

 

MUHAMMAD WAS A VERY VIOLENT MAN

 

When Christians spread violence, they may well be following bits of the Bible, but they are being most unJesuslike.

 

When Muslims spread violence, they are doing exactly what Muhammad did.

 

This is not a hard distinction to grasp.

[Strontium]

bounce : ISIS was created from Al Qaeda, and the CIA created Al Qaeda. It's hard to believe that they just cut all links with them at some point in time.

 

 

Why is it remotely hard?

 

We all know the Americans armed the Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan, one of which was led by Bin Laden, in order to stop the Russian invasion. This is well documented.

 

Everything beyond that is pure conjecture, and not the informed kind.

[xerxes]

You're not reading what I'm writing.

 

MUHAMMAD WAS A VERY VIOLENT MAN

 

When Christians spread violence, they may well be following bits of the Bible, but they are being most unJesuslike.

 

When Muslims spread violence, they are doing exactly what Muhammad did.

 

This is not a hard distinction to grasp.

I am able to read what you write. I just don't agree with some of it, and some of it is just plain wrong.

 

The idea that Muslims are copying Muhammed when they are violent is a nonsense.

[dennis tooth]

 

 

 

You're not reading what I'm writing.

 

MUHAMMAD WAS A VERY VIOLENT MAN

 

When Christians spread violence, they may well be following bits of the Bible, but they are being most unJesuslike.

 

When Muslims spread violence, they are doing exactly what Muhammad did.

 

This is not a hard distinction to grasp.

 

 

Er, you have read the torah? Old testament? These are books of genocide and much bloodier than the koran.

 

Jesus I'll give you but the impression of the bible was that God was rather disappointed in his son's peaceful ways, sent his son so he didnt have to wipe us all out, he drowned the world and didnt even help noah build his boat, it would have been a bit like thanking the IRA for foning in a warning before blowing people up.

 

God is more violent than muhammed and has a higher kill score.

 

He raped abrahams son to death just to test abraham and then teabagged his sleeping wife.

 

Hes the most evil fictional character in history, he even spawned the devil from his sack.

 

But no you want to talk about muhammed and how he's distinct and james bond baddie hollywood  and it aint got nuffin to do with being jewish cline.

[dennis tooth]

Yes, exactly.  As you say, it is not very enlightening, hence why I yawned.  Seems like you are contradicting yourself.

 

It is a story I have heard 100s of times.  The CIA funded Bin Laden etc.

 

I thought Jairzinho had some new information regarding ISIS (possibly being funded by the West), which I was keen to hear.  Not the oft repeated story about Bin Laden.

 

 

Well you asked for proof it wasnt always muslims funding these groups so then to say you've heard that the CIA funded them lots of times kinds of defeats your earlier argument?

 

(But if you want more info on ISIS just ask, theres plenty of evidence that those M16 toting, humvee driving, USA army apparel wearing rebels from Syria where USA has made no secret it is arming rebels, and funds and arms ISIS as does it big ally Saudi arabia, you just have to have a cursory look.)

 

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/how-the-west-bankrolls-isis-millions-from-governments-and-ngos-funding-radical-islamic-terror-group-30438217.html

 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/08/08/374537/americas-biggest-allies-funding-isis/

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10588308/US-secretly-backs-rebels-to-fight-al-Qaeda-in-Syria.html

[Stu Monty]

Why is it remotely hard?

 

We all know the Americans armed the Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan, one of which was led by Bin Laden, in order to stop the Russian invasion. This is well documented.

 

Everything beyond that is pure conjecture, and not the informed kind.

 

Isn't presuming either way conjecture without definitive proof?

[Red Phoenix]

Everything beyond that is pure conjecture, and not the informed kind.

 

It's not pure conjecture, it's been known for years that something is wrong.

 

The use of Al Qaeda as a militant proxy against Syria is not an unpredictable and unfortunate result of the ongoing Syrian conflict, but instead a well documented Western plan exposed as early as 2007 by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh in his article, “The Redirection,” which stated (emphasis added):

 

“To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”

 

Clearly, the only thing NATO, Turkey, and the Western press have “lost control” of, is the narrative used to deceive the public.

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-and-cia-support-al-qaeda-terrorists-in-syria/5356391

 

 

Here's another extract, from The Redirection (that's linked in the previous extract.) This whole process has been going on for years :

 

 

Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.

 

A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee told me that he had heard about the new strategy, but felt that he and his colleagues had not been adequately briefed. “We haven’t got any of this,” he said. “We ask for anything going on, and they say there’s nothing. And when we ask specific questions they say, ‘We’re going to get back to you.’ It’s so frustrating.”

 

The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney. (Cheney’s office and the White House declined to comment for this story; the Pentagon did not respond to specific queries but said, “The United States is not planning to go to war with Iran.”)

 

The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

 

The new strategy “is a major shift in American policy—it’s a sea change,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. The Sunni states “were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,” he said. “We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it.”

 

“It seems there has been a debate inside the government over what’s the biggest danger—Iran or Sunni radicals,” Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has written widely on Shiites, Iran, and Iraq, told me. “The Saudis and some in the Administration have been arguing that the biggest threat is Iran and the Sunni radicals are the lesser enemies. This is a victory for the Saudi line.”

 

Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that “the Middle East is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War.” Indyk, who is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of the strategic implications of its new policy. “The White House is not just doubling the bet in Iraq,” he said. “It’s doubling the bet across the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is upside down.”

[Red Phoenix]

From January :

 

 

(Reuters) - Some of the al Qaeda militants going to fight in Syria have bases in neighboring Turkey and can easily access Europe from the NATO member state, Israel's military intelligence chief said on Wednesday.

 

Major-General Aviv Kochavi, presenting a map of the Middle East marked with areas of al Qaeda presence, told a security conference al Qaeda fighters from around the world entered Syria weekly, "but they do not stay" there.

 

The map showed three al Qaeda bases inside Turkey.

 

A spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment, but Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly denied Turkey is providing shelter or backing to al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria.

 

Kochavi declined a request by Reuters to give specific numbers, but his spokeswoman said the map showed the relative strength and location of al Qaeda bases, which appeared to be in the Karaman, Osmaniye and Sanliurfa provinces.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/29/us-syria-crisis-turkey-israel-idUSBREA0S18X20140129

[bouncebrigade]

As an aside, I always think of religion (in a historical context) as sort of symbolic and not something to be taken totally at face value. Seems daft to be arguing over the Bible and what not.

 

Night.

[bouncebrigade]

The error is in thinking that the people who drove the Iraq invasion would in any way see it as a failure.

 

They will be, on the whole, very pleased with their work.

[bouncebrigade]

I don't think even numb nuts Bush could count 1/2m+ people dead as a success.

[Jairzinho]

Doubt he gives a fuck either way.

[Stu Monty]

I don't think even numb nuts Bush could count 1/2m+ people dead as a success.

 

 

Doubt he gives a fuck either way.

 

 

Yup, he'll not give a shiny shit. 

 

He'll be well pleased and so will many of the people who were with him. 

 

You know when they add up how much a war costs, think about who they are actually paying that money to. Then think about how much of the restructuring (humanitarian) budget companies are going to get to rebuild the towns that have been razed. Lots of people will have been very, very satisfied with the effort.

[Hermes]

 The Middle East and Africa complain about Western intervention in their countries, yet when they start slaughtering each other the rest of those regions stand back and expect the West to restore order.

[Phoenix]

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

[Stu Monty]

 The Middle East and Africa complain about Western intervention in their countries, yet when they start slaughtering each other the rest of those regions stand back and expect the West to restore order.

 

Yeah, usually because the intervention is, you know, the bad sort. The bending you over and fucking you up the arse sort. So they complain about it. Just as you'd expect.

 

The people in "those regions" usually complain about intervention that is about stealing their resources, funding civil wars and unrest, or backing our puppet strongmen that we've taken a fancy to. Understandably.

 

Why you think that invalidates their right to not be dismissed when they ask for actual humanitarian help is something I'm sure we'd be interested to hear. The having your cake and eating it argument might be one that could be thrown at people if at any point they had ever had the option of having their cake or eating it, instead of, on the whole, being pawns fucked around with by the big boys.

[xerxes]

The Middle East and Africa complain about Western intervention in their countries, yet when they start slaughtering each other the rest of those regions stand back and expect the West to restore order.

Given that it was the US, backed by western allies, who dismantled the physical and administrative infrastructure of Iraq, causing even more destabilisation in the region than Saddam ( quite an achievement),I think we do have a responsibility to deal with the consequences of our actions.

 

However I agree that peace will only come about when the main players, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia sort things out without the West pulling their strings.

[Red Phoenix]

Was just reading something that linked to this, from 2005 :

 

 

 

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

From here :  http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2005/06/03/UPI-hears/UPI-64911117829623/#ixzz3AnEAeyVG

[Mustangt125]

Palestinians broke the cease-fire...again

[xerxes]

Palestinians broke the cease-fire...again

The status quo favours Israel.

[Dr Nowt]

There is a video circulating online which appears to be of photojournalist James Foley being beheaded by ISIS, in a "Message to America".