At least 53 people have been killed and over 200 wounded in a massive car bomb blast that’s hit the … Read More
Obama misleads about an end to war
In his inauguration address Monday, President Obama proclaimed that a “decade of war is now ending.” Mere hours earlier, a U.S. drone dropped missiles over Yemen, killing two al-Qaida militants as part of an intensified airstrike campaign which began last month.It has been well-established in reports (like those from the Washington Post’s Greg Miller) that the Obama administration has set up a national security apparatus ensuring, contra the president’s words Monday, a perpetual war. Obama’s speech may have been referring to the withdrawal of troops form Iraq or the winding down of U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan, but an increasingly militarized CIA and the perpetuation of shadow wars in Yemen and Somalia, to name just two, let alone the U.S. funds and arms sent around the world to bolster or undermine regimes as U.S. interests dictate, make talk of ending war a semantic gamble at best.Continue Reading… … Read More
White House weighing full withdrawal from Afghanistan next year
U.S. soldiers prepare to board a C-130 plane in Afghanistan. (Reuters)White House officials said Tuesday that they were considering a full pull-out from Afghanistan once the NATO combat mission there finishes next year. It comes ahead of a Friday meeting between the two countries’ presidents. It was the first time Washington had publicly said it was weighing a zero-troop presence in Afghanistan any time in the near future, and goes against statements by Pentagon officials, who advocate leaving a thousands-strong American force in the country to train local army and law enforcement and keep Al-Qaeda under control. At different points in time, the Obama administration has made various estimates regarding what it might do following the end of the NATO mission in Afghanistan. One option was to leave a residual troop presence as small as 3,000, with another option leaving as many as 15,000 depending on various factors and military goals. “The US does not have an inherent objective of ‘X’ number of troops in Afghanistan,” said deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.There are currently 66,000 US troops in Afghanistan, down from the all-time high of roughly 100,000 in 2010. In
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response to a journalist’s question over whether zero troops would be an option, Rhodes said it was something the Obama administration “would consider.”The statement comes three days before Afghan President Hamid Karzai is set to visit the White House to meet with US President Barack Obama. The leaders are expected to discuss their partnership following troop withdrawals in 2014, but they are known to disagree over several other issues likely to come to the table. One is the American demand that US troops remaining in Afghanistan after combat comes to a close would be immune to prosecution there. With Karzai resisting this demand, the White House has been trying to trade troop immunity for a stabilizing post-2014 US presence.White House military advisor Doug Lute told reporters Tuesday that Kabul would have no choice but to allow US forces certain “authorities” if it wanted them to stay and help law enforcement. The comment was taken to be referring to the immunity issue.“As we know from our Iraq experience, if there are no authorities granted by the sovereign state, then there’s not room for a follow-on US military mission,” he continued, referring to Iraq’s 2011 refusal to grant US troops immunity from the law that resulted in a full American pull-out from that country. … Read More
RT correspondent injured in Damascus crossfire
RT correspondent injured in Damascus crossfire(47.9Mb)embed videoA group of international journalists – including members of RT’s Arabic team – have been caught in crossfire in Syria while covering the army’s operations outside the capital. RT’s correspondent suffered light injuries while trying to escape.Syrian government forces have been trying to clear the area of rebels occupying the Damascus suburb of Daraya. Several international journalists, including Russians, Iraninans and Syrians, joined the group to report on the early morning operation and found themselves caught in heavy gunfire.“We were moving from street to street, and when we reached the dock, my colleagues and I got caught in crossfire,” RT Arabic correspondent Kamel Saqer explained.“We tried to escape, running one after another fearing that armed rebels would notice us. A Syrian army soldier accompanied us the entire time – he constantly kept his eye on the situation and helped us to escape the gunfire.”It was unclear whether the rebels were deliberately targeting journalists, all of whom were wearing bulletproof vests with clearly visible word ‘press’ on them, Saqer said.The firing was very intense and it was difficult to find shelter, Saqer added. “I ran and fell down, I hurt my arms – but the Syrian army doctors gave me first aid on the scene. So I could continue to do my job.”One of the Syrian cameramen was also slightly wounded.‘There’s no way to be safe in wartime’According to recent studies, Syria was the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012, with over 50 correspondents killed while covering the conflict. “The reality is there is no way to be safe in wartime,” an award-winning war correspondent Russ Baker told RT. “It is just inherently dangerous.”A member of the Syrian Opposition Coalition previously said that Russians in Syria have become legitimate targets, claiming they are “cooperating with enemy forces”And Baker believes that the very fact that most journalists are perceived as somewhat biased increases the danger to them during the wartime.“The reality is that very few news organizations are seen as truly objective or open minded. And I suppose that just as people from RT may be seen as in some ways skeptical of the rebels, American journalists are going to face the opposite kind of thing.”“Unfortunately I now consider a lot of combat coverage to be sort of in the realm of entertainment,” he added. “And what I mean by that is that it doesn’t really provide people with any kind of great insight into what really is going on.”Many international journalists are reported missing or have been detained in Syria, one of them is Ukrainian Anhar Kochneva who is being held captive by the Free Syrian Army. Generally there i
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s no condemnation of such cases from the world powers which back the opposition, and Baker believes that is because such incidents do not fit the reality they are trying to present.“This is a general problem that all journalists have to be treated alike and we’ve got to have some kind of standardization of the criteria. But war is a game of propaganda and unfortunately there is very little context to any of this.” … Read More
‘Patriot missiles in Turkey will tighten rebel grip on Syrian north’
Patriot missile PAC-3 system (AFP Photo/Jung Yeon-Je)Placing the Patriot missiles in Turkey will create a de-facto no-fly zone over Syria’s north, making it easier for rebels to consolidate their forces there – and even establish their own government, Syrian political activist Yazan Abdallah told RT.Abdallah also shared with RT information that jihadist groups inside Syria might use chemical weapons to conduct “ethnic cleansing” against certain sectarian groups.RT:NATO is planning to deploy Patriot missiles on the Syrian border, saying Turkey may need protection against an attack from Damascus – how likely a scenario is that? YA: It sounds pretty preposterous to me that Turkey, in the current format of its army, needs protection from Syria. Syria is not going to attack Turkey. This is simple. Syria has got serious troubles going on, so why would Syria go and attack Turkey? The Patriot missiles will likely create a de-facto no-fly zone over the northern territory of Syria to consolidate the military presence of the rebels, and perhaps install the new Western-backed government in the northern part of Syria. It is very, very unlikely that these Patriots missiles are to defend against Syria’s intervention. Why would Syria interfere unnecessarily in Turkey?RT:Why would the West be interested in intervening in Syria? Is there a broader regional agenda? YA: My understanding is that I see two sides of the story, how the West sees it. First, Syria’s geopolitical alliance with Iran and Hezbollah – and perhaps with Russia. So it is not a Western-friendly country in its current form, and probably the West has realized that with negotiations – with the smooth negotiations with the current system in Syria – things aren’t going to change much. And probably they’ve realized that changing by [force] is the only way forward for them. The other dimension is the energy. Since 2009, Qatar and Turkey have been talking about a gas line that is to extend from Qatar through Syria through Turkey and feed the EU with gas resources. This is very important, because if this is to happen, it would bypass Russia and it would probably loosen the knot that Russia currently has over the EU in terms of supplying gas to Western countries.RT:Assad denies he would ever use chemical weapons against his own people – why do the US and UK insist such a threat exists? YA: This new, orchestrated hype of fear surrounding the possible use of chemical weapons perhaps says something about what is coming next in terms of some chemical weapons use in Syria. However, there is another side to the story. Recently, there have been some troubling videos that we have seen on YouTube and some other reports of the jihadist groups in northern Syria possessing some chemical materials with the name of a Turkish company on them. In the background, there was music playing with some jihadist chants. It’s worrying. They were conducting some experiments on rabbits, and judging on what we saw, if it is not a bluff, then it is very, very worrying because judging by the effect of this gas, it is convulsive, so it is a nerve agent and it is a dangerous development.Perhaps if you look at the fact that the United States has recently started blac
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klisting parts of the Syrian armed opposition as terrorist organizations, that says something – that they are probably aware that part of the armed opposition in Syria, and probably the most powerful opposition, who are the Nusra Front, probably are in the possession of such material and probably are planning to use them. That video reflects the dangerous ideology of such a group that clearly and explicitly threatens ethnic cleansing against certain sects in Syria. So the danger is that the West is aware of such materials in Syria, but at the same time, it is going to be used against the Syrian government as a pretext for intervention. This is the scenario that worries me. … Read More
True danger from Syrian chemical weapons is if militants acquire them – Russian FM
The biggest threat surrounding Syria’s chemical weapons is their “probable acquisition by militants,” Lavrov said.“According to our information, and this information we pass to our US colleagues, and European colleagues, [the Syrian] government does not have such intentions and cannot have, because this is all very serious,” the minister said on Sunday.Russia took seriously the rumors surrounding Syria’s chemical weapons and sought clarity from the Syrian government, and is passing on this information to other nations, Lavrov explained.“It is not the first time when reports, that can be called rumors or leak, suggesting Syrian government moves reserves of chemical weapon from places where it is being storage to different locations and prepares to use it, emerge,” he said. Lavrov’s statement came in response to recent allegations from the US Pentagon and State Department th
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at Syria is preparing to use chemical weapons. The rumors were quickly disseminated in Western media.This week, NBC quoted anonymous US officials’ accusations that the Syrian military loaded the deadly nerve gas Sarin into aerial bombs, which could then be dropped on rebels from Mig-23 or Sukhoi-24 aircraft.Another report by ABC News, also quoting unnamed American officials, suggested the bombs have not yet been loaded onto planes. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton commented on the reports, reiterating that the use of chemical weapons would be crossing “a red line.”On December 4, NATO foreign ministers approved Ankara’s request for Patriot missiles to be deployed on the Turkey-Syria border. The deployment was requested over fears that Syria could attack its neighbor with missiles and chemical weapons.Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile became a topic of international concern this past July. Syria is reportedly in possession of nerve agents, including mustard gas, as well as the Scud missiles needed to deliver them. The country is one of six states that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws their production.‘We are not talking Assad’s fate’On Sunday, Russia agreed to take part in resumed talks in Geneva on the Syria conflict with US diplomats and UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. However, Moscow refused to negotiate “on the fate of Assad.”Lavrov said the US was wrong to see Moscow as softening its position, adding that Russia will not back down from its position on the Syria conflict. “All attempts to portray things differently are unscrupulous, even for diplomats of those countries which are known to try to distort the facts in their favor,” Lavrov said. Earlier on Thursday, Lavrov held informal talks with Clinton and Brahimi.”);
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The biggest threat surrounding Syria’s chemical weapons is their “probable acquisition by militants,” Lavrov said.“According to our information, and this information we pass to our US colleagues, and European colleagues, [the Syrian] government does not have such intentions and cannot have, because this is all very serious,” the minister said on Sunday.Russia took seriously the rumors surrounding Syria’s chemical weapons and sought clarity from the Syrian government, and is passing on this information to other nations, Lavrov explained.“It is not the first time when reports, that can be called rumors or leak, suggesting Syrian government moves reserves of chemical weapon from places where it is being storage to different locations and prepares to use it, emerge,” he said. Lavrov’s statement came in response to recent allegations from the US Pentagon and State Department that Syria is preparing to use chemical weapons. The rumors were quickly disseminated in Western media.This week, NBC quoted anonymous US officials’ accusations that the Syrian military loaded the deadly nerve gas Sarin into aerial bombs, which could then be dropped on rebels from Mig-23 or Sukhoi-24 aircraft.Another report by ABC News, also quoting unnamed American officials, suggested the bombs have not yet been loaded onto planes. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton commented on the reports, reiterating that the use of chemical weapons would be crossing “a red line.”On December 4, NATO foreign ministers approved Ankara’s request for Patriot missiles to be deployed on the Turkey-Syria border.
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The deployment was requested over fears that Syria could attack its neighbor with missiles and chemical weapons.Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile became a topic of international concern this past July. Syria is reportedly in possession of nerve agents, including mustard gas, as well as the Scud missiles needed to deliver them. The country is one of six states that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, which outlaws their production.‘We are not talking Assad’s fate’On Sunday, Russia agreed to take part in resumed talks in Geneva on the Syria conflict with US diplomats and UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. However, Moscow refused to negotiate “on the fate of Assad.”Lavrov said the US was wrong to see Moscow as softening its position, adding that Russia will not back down from its position on the Syria conflict. “All attempts to portray things differently are unscrupulous, even for diplomats of those countries which are known to try to distort the facts in their favor,” Lavrov said. Earlier on Thursday, Lavrov held informal talks with Clinton and Brahimi. … Read More
UK claims to have evidence Assad may use chemical weapons
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United Kingdom Foreign secretary William Hague, attends the 8th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Regional Security Summit in the Bahraini capital, Manama on December 8, 2012 (AFP Photo / Mohammed Al-Shaikh) The UK has joined the US in claiming Syria’s government may soon use chemical weapons on its own people. The Syrian government has warned of the potential danger of these weapons falling into the hands of “terrorist groups.” Following the UK’s claims, Damascus declared it would never use chemical weapons against Syrians.British Foreign Secretary William Hague has warned that President Bashar Assad may use his stockpiles of chemical weapons against the country’s rebel forces.“We are extremely concerned about the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and we are also concerned about evidence during the last couple of weeks that the regime could use them,” Hague told reporters on the sidelines of a regional security conference in Manama, Bahrain. Hague warned that there were “dangerous scenarios” where the weapons could fall into “the hands of other people.”The foreign secretary was apparently referring to rebel forces within Syria. The Assad government shares Hague’s concerns – Al Arabiya reported late Saturday that Damascus warned that rebel “terrorist groups” may resort to using chemical weapons. The statement came a few hours after Syria reiterated to the UN that it would not use chemical weapons against its own people. Hague went on to say that Britain had not ruled out military intervention in Syria, and that the UK government would continue to give the rebels “strong practical assistance – communication equipment and humanitarian assistance.” On Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there were no confirmed reports that Assad is preparing to use chemical weapons. “Recently we have been receiving alarming news that the Syrian government may be preparing to use chemical weapons. We have no confirmed reports on this matter,” Ban said while visiting Syrian refugees in Turkey, Israeli daily Haaretz reported. There were numerous reports from US media this week that Syria was readying to use chemical weapons. NBC reported that the Syrian military had loaded Sarin into aerial bombs, which could then be dropped onto civilian areas by Mig-23 or Sukhoi-24 aircraft.Both Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton were quick to warn Assad that using chemical weapons would be crossing a ‘red line.’Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell and a retired US army colonel, told RT he was deeply skeptical of US intelligence on Syria, and believes it is being politicized in order to justify military intervention. “I would be highly skeptical of any of the intelligence rendered by the $140-billion-plus US intelligence community as to weapons of mass destruction in possession of another country,” he said. Wilkerson argued that it had “been known for years” that Syria possesses chemical weapons stockpiles, and he found it “preposterous” that Assad was preparing to use them “against his own citizens within his own territory.”The attack on Hama in 1982 by Assad’s father Hafez al-Assad, in which chemical weapons were allegedly used, is often cited as a reason why Bashar Assad would be likely to do the same. Robert Fisk, a senior journalist at the Independent who was in Hama covering the Sunni Muslim uprising in 1982,
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rejects these claims. “I happened to have got into Hama in February 1982 and while Hafez’s Syrian army was very definitely slaughtering his own people (who were, by the way, slaughtering regime officials and their families) no one ever used chemical weapons. And none of the civilian survivors I have interviewed in the 30 years since 1982 ever mentioned the use of gas,” Fisk wrote in an opinion piece on Saturday titled, ‘Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and the truth about chemical weapons and who may or may not have them.’Fisk concludes that while “Bashar probably does have some chemicals in rusting bins somewhere in Syria” and although he has committed “quite enough inequities, he is about to be accused of another crime he has not yet committed and which his father never did commit.” … Read More
