"The U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens in Syria to depart "immediately," and Turkey's foreign ministry urged Turkish pilgrims to opt for flights to return home from Saudi Arabia to avoid traveling through Syria."
For the first time in many months, [the aircraft carrier] CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked… right next to Syria.
***
Zero Hedge noted yesterday that a No-Fly zone over Syria the first concrete step towards war these days may be imminent.
The American People Don't War War … But a Syrian War Was Planned 10 Years Ago
Just 12% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the United States should get more directly involved in the Syrian crisis, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Sixty-six percent (66%) think the United States should leave the Syrian situation alone.
November 30th, 2011Via: Bikyamasr: CAIRO: The arrival of 7 and half tons of tear gas to Egypt's Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters. The shipment has been moved by the ministry of interior to its Cairo storage facility, amidst strick and secretive security measures. Local reports say the staff, initially under investigation, have been spared investigation after having a discussion over the matter with their superiors.
Local news sites published documents regarding the shipment shows that the cargo that arrived in 479 barrels from the United States was scheduled to be delivered to the ministry of interior.
The reports also mentioned in the documents that a second shipment of 14 tons of tear gas was expected, making the total 21 tons, in one week. The importing of tear gas comes after thousands of tear gas canisters were fired at Egyptian protesters last week as clashes raged in downtown Cairo, just off from the iconic Tahrir Square, where thousands of protesters had gathered. More:Ahram Online: Suez Port Employees Reveal 21-Ton U.S. Tear Gas Order for Interior Ministry Research Credit: Zuma Posted in Dictatorship
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
Before I post the article, let me say that it is clear that:
#1) The thread title or theater concept of battle is again clearly global;
#2) This and a dozen other topics suggest a new section for news that is relevant (titles and links only?);
#3) We ought to become -- as we are able and already are-- 'correspondents': we are spread across time zones, nations, influences, reading sources, etc.;
#4) Someone ought to convene a mini-think tank to set some rules, procedures and policies (it's serious business and must be balanced, un-connected, without agenda, etc.).
REPORT: RUSSIA DELIVERS SUPERSONIC CRUISE MISSILES TO SYRIA
[of which there was a giant picture]
Military source confirms delivery of missiles, according to an AFP report; second official says missiles will protect Syria from possible attack from the sea.'HaaretzRussia has delivered supersonic cruise missiles to Syria, AFP reported on Thursday.A military source told the Interfax news agency, "The Yakhont supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles have been delivered to Syria," although it was not made clear exactly when the shipment was made.A second Russian official speaking to Interfax said the missiles "will be able to protect Syria's entire coast against a possible attack from the sea."Russia signed a contract reportedly worth at least $300 million in 2007 to supply Syria with cruise missiles, and Russia intended to deliver a total of 72 of the missiles to Syria, AFP reported.It was not clear how many of the missiles have so far been delivered by Russia to Syria.The delivery was made amid the continuing violent crackdown of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime against the opposition, which according to a UN statement made on Thursday, has claimed 4,000 lives since March this year.While international pressure against the Assad regime has increased over the past month, Moscow has stood by its ally, criticizing further sanctions slapped on Syria by Western and Arab League states.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected calls at the United Nations for an arms embargo against Syria on Tuesday, saying that a similar move against Libya had proved one-sided, helping rebels to topple Gadhafi in August."We know how that worked in Libya when the arms embargo only applied to the Libyan army. The opposition received weapons, and countries like France and Qatar publicly spoke about it without shame," he told a news conference.Russia has close political and strategic relations with Assad's government and has been one if its main arms suppliers. Syria accounted for 7 percent of Russia's total of $10 billion in arms deliveries abroad in 2010, according to the Russian defense think-tank CAST.
Global Warfare: Where will Obama's Strike Next? "Preplanned Wars" will lead to "Preplanned "Results"
by Rev. Richard Skaff
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: left"]While promoting his book on October 3, 2007 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco California, former four star general, NATO Supreme commander, politician, hawk, and 2004 presidential candidate Wesley Clark stated in a surprisingly significant speech that the neocons had committed a "policy coup" and took over the direction of American policy but forgot to notify the rest of the country.
Clark went on to say that he met with Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon ten days after 9/11. He added that on that same day he also met with an officer from the joints staffs who discussed with him and attempted to show him a classified memo issued by the secretary of defense's office that called for invasion and destruction of governments in seven countries (besides Afghanistan) in the near East and Africa in a five year period. According to Clark, these countries listed in the memo were Sudan , Syria , Libya , Lebanon , Iraq , Somalia , and Iran .[1].
In addition, Clark connected this classified memo to another meeting he had with Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon in 1991, when Mr. Wolfowitz was the undersecretary of defense for policy (number 3 position in pentagon) and after the first invasion of Iraq by the US in Desert Storm. Clark edified that Mr. Wolfowitz wasn't satisfied with keeping Saddam in power at that time. However, he allegedly told General Clark that the US learned an important lesson during Desert Storm. The moral of the lesson was that the US can use their military power in the Middle East and the Russians won't intervene or stop them. In addition, Wolfowitz allegedly pontificated to Clark that they had about 10 years to clean up those old soviet client regimes like in Syria , Iraq , Iran , etc, before another great super power emerges and challenges them. [1].
Clark's 2007 speech was eerie in a sense that it clearly illustrated the plan to reshape the Middle East has been at work for many years. The vision of Oded Yinon is unraveling, and the Arab Spring is far from being a spring where life is rejuvenated, but instead it is a path to the underworld and to the total destruction of the entire region.
One of the nagging questions would be why has Russia never interfered or objected to the US military interventions in that region as claimed by Wolfowitz?
A possible answer would be is that post Soviet Russia became the ill and feeble patient of Eurasia who always was dependent on capitalist money, and has become satisfied with being a spectator who is rewarded with any bones or carcasses that the West will throw their way.
Ironically, The alleged Arab Spring widened beyond the seven countries mentioned in the Pentagon's 2001 classified memo, and apparently became more comprehensive to ensure that new boundaries for every country in the region are remolded. President Obama, Nobel peace prize winner seems committed to complete his predecessor's job, and to the cause of restructuring the Middle East and North Africa .
Subsequently, Mubarak of Egypt had to go just like the Shah of Iran did after years of loyalty to his Anglo-America bosses. The time is right for the old CIA allies "the Muslim Brothers" to be finally appointed as rulers of Egypt . I am certain that Mr. Obama's administration and the intelligence agencies will eventually facilitate a bogus election in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood will win in a landslide making Egypt the new extremist Sunni state that will empower the Sunnis all over the region. Backed by American-Saudi money Egypt will take a stand against the extremist Shiite state of Iran . Meanwhile, the Saudis will applaud once again the destruction of another secular Arab State that was the cradle of Arab Nationalism during the reign of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser who was also opposed by the Saudis as their competitor to the leadership of the region.
Pan Arabism is a thing of the past while Islamism will be the future for the region. Fundamentalism is essential for globalization and balkanization of nations. That is clearly why the US and their allies have worked hard for years to finance fundamentalism in the US and abroad, while providing opposite rhetoric against it in the media.
Meanwhile, the Saudi hyenas will howl in celebration of the Muslim brothers' victory, which will strongly renew their old pact with the US as their corrupt monarchs maintain their wealth and power. Ironically, on an official visit to Paris on May 18-20, 1998, the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declared the following in the Paris-Match: "You should be aware that, under the current conditions for international terrorism, the attack that took place at Luxor (referring to the November 17, 1997 Luxor attack in Upper Egypt ) could happen anywhere in the world. And we already know who fomented it: The residues of the war between the Afghans and the USSR , the alleged Mujaheddin that are financed by the CIA and the inexhaustible source of drug money." It is the first time that the leader so specifically pointed a finger at the America "Big Brother," who gives more than $2 billion in direct assistance to Egypt every year. [2]. Brief history:
The old pact between the US and the Saudis was sealed on board of the "Quincy" (Quincy was a 60 year-old pact 1945-2005, that granted the U.S. a monopoly on the exploitation of all the oil-bearing layered discovered in Saudi Arabia, and in return a protection of the kingdom's integrity and a long term economic, financial, and commercial partnership, non-interference in Saudi domestic politics) between president Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud was already an exchange of oil for security and political protection. From that point forward, the Americans and Saudis would play Islamism and all other forms of religious fanaticism against secular and progressivist forms of Arab nationalism. The end result would be the establishment of a pax Americana that feeds on a "Lebanization" of the world. This order has produced a mafia-like links between organized crime and the great business networks of global capitalism, where the unifying thread of Islamic terror is not religion but money. [2].
Absurdly, Islamists and Zionists are complementary enemies, who work toward the same ends. Per example, with Hamas always upping the ante, the Likud is all the freer to pursue its broad scale policy of establishing colonies using immigrants from The Soviet Union and other nations, and completing the encirclement and Judeification of Eastern Jerusalem. [2]. Conclusion:
Finally, don't be surprised and be ready to finance new and expensive sham wars that are actually military exercises due to the weakness and the insignificance of the alleged enemies. These new preplanned conflicts will only lead to their preplanned results. The current regime in Iran will definitely be changed in the near future, and British Petroleum with their global oil cohorts will be eagerly waiting to re-renter Iran and take over their oil resources, which will be privatized by a new puppet government possibly led by an American stooge like the oldest son of the late Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi.
As a conclusion, the fulfillment of the Yinon's covenant in the near east by the Obama administration will definitely guarantee Mr. Obama a second term as president of the United States . Notes 1. www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/80552/Libya_D 2. Richard Labeviere, (2000). Dollars for terror. Us and Islamism. Algora publishing, New York
Report: Foreign Troops Begin to Spread Near the Villages of Al-Mafraq
Update 1: Today at 12:00 P.M. we contacted DOD Press Office via two voicemail messages and one e-mail asking for comment(s) on this story. As of 6:00 P.M. EST we have not heard back. Update 2: Another journalist with a major mainstream media publication was told by his editors that there would be no coverage or follow up on these developments. According to first-hand accounts and reports provided to Boiling Frogs Post by several sources in Jordan, during the last few hours foreign military groups, estimated at hundreds of individuals, began to spread near the villages of the north-Jordan city of "Al-Mafraq", which is adjacent to the Jordanian and Syrian border. According to one Jordanian military officer who asked to remain anonymous, hundreds of soldiers who speak languages ​other than Arabic were seen during the past two days in those areas moving back and forth in military vehicles between the King Hussein Air Base of al-Mafraq (10 km from the Syrian border), and the vicinity of Jordanian villages adjacent to the Syrian border, such as village Albaej (5 km from the border), the area around the dam of Sarhan, the villages of Zubaydiah and al-Nahdah adjacent to the Syrian border. Another report received from our source in Amman identified an additional US-NATO Command Center in "al-Houshah,' a village near Mafraq. Our Iraqi journalist source in London provided us with the following related information:
"Some of the US forces that left the Ain al-Assad Air base in Iraq last Thursday, did not come back to the USA or its base in Germany, but were transferred to Jordan during the evening hours."
The above information was further corroborated by our correspondent and advisor Nizar Nayouf who interviewed an employee in the London-based office of Royal Jordanian Airlines:
"At least one US aircraft carrying military personnel landed in the Prince Hassan Air base located about 100 km to the east of the city of Al-Mafraq."
Earlier last week, Jordanian news websites disclosed that "Western officials have requested the King to allow establishing an electronic spy station in the north of Jordan (near the Syrian border) in order to access the Syrian army and contact Syrian high-rank officers for convincing them to make a military coup or (at least) rebel against the regime". Nizar Nayouf, BFP advisor and correspondent on Syria in London, had the following statement on Al-Mafraq:
"The al-Mafraq air base, which now includes Air Force Academy, was a starting point for "conspiratorial activities" by Jordan, The UK and Israel against Syria in the past, particularly in the 1960s. In September 1968, a Syrian commando Major, Salim Hatoom, who fled to Jordan with a number of officers after a failed coup attempt, established a camp from which he started a rebel military against the then left-wing government of Syria under president Nureddin al-Atassi and Salah Jadid. By the end of 1970s and early 1980s, the Syrian Islamic Brotherhood and their military wing "At-Taleeah al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah" (the Islamic Militant Vanguard) used the same base for its military struggle against president Hafez a-Assad regime, in which they were being trained by the Jordanian and Israeli intelligence agents, and cars were being bombed before they were sent to the streets of Syrian cities for the killing of innocents and undermining state facilities."
Mr. Nayouf went on to emphasize the irony of the situation:
"I guess history repeats itself but as farce…Last spring, that tens of Syrian soldiers, who fled to Jordan, were transferred to a camp west of the Jordanian city of "Salt", in which officers from Israeli military intelligence (AMAN) began the investigation with them under the supervision of the Jordanian military intelligence. This was to extract information from them on issues related to the development of the Syrian army, weapons and training, especially after 2006."
We contacted our expert sources on US media and intelligence-military and were told that the US media has been told not to report on this latest development until Tuesday, December 13. Boiling Frogs Post is the first news website to report on these latest developments. This story is developing and we await further details and confirmation from our sources in Turkey and Jordan. For additional Boiling Frogs Post Syria coverage see here and here. # # # #*Nizar Nayouf and James Corbett contributed to this exclusive Boiling Frogs Post report. http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/12/...ia-border/
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
December 12th, 2011Via: Reuters: A member of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee said on Monday that the military was set to practise its ability to close the Gulf to shipping at the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world, but there was no official confirmation. The legislator, Parviz Sarvari, told the student news agency ISNA: "Soon we will hold a military manoeuvre on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure."
Contacted by Reuters, a spokesman for the Iranian military declined to comment.
…
About a third of all sea-borne shipped oil passed through the Strait in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage. Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar must slip through a 4-mile (6.4 km) wide shipping channel between Oman and Iran. Posted in Economy, Energy, War
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
This map tells the whole story. Each star represents a U.S. military base. In the middle, in blue, is Iran. Iran has no military bases outside its borders. Just north of Iran is Georgia that has essentially become a U.S./NATO base. Turkey belongs to NATO. Iran has been checkmated. North of Georgia is Russia. Can there be any wonder why Russia is so alarmed about an attack on Iran?
Imagine if we saw a map of the U.S. with Russian or Chinese military bases throughout Canada and Mexico along with their warships just off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The American people would be going ballistic. But when we do it to others, no one even blinks an eye.
Following the recent spy drone fiasco over Iran the U.S. has been working hard to justify these flights. In an Associated Press story yesterday it was reported that the covert operations in play are "much bigger than people appreciate," said Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser under George W. Bush. "But the U.S. needs to be using everything it can." Hadley said that if Iran continues to defy U.N. resolutions and doesn't curb its nuclear ambitions, the quiet conflict "will only get nastier."
Hadley's statement "But the U.S. needs to be using everything it can" has the sound of immanent danger, of desperation. But after looking at this map where does the danger really lie? Iran is actually no danger to anyone. The real danger is that the U.S./NATO/Israel have their itchy fingers on the war trigger and could attack at any time.
One last thing is Mr. Hadley himself. Unknown to the public at large, Stephen Hadley carried on a quiet career in the shadow of Brent Scowcroft and Condoleeza Rice. A business lawyer convicted of fraud, he became the counselor for the largest arms manufacturer in the world, Lockheed Martin. He advised the candidate George W. Bush, helped write the U.S.'s new aggressive nuclear doctrine, helped create the Department of Homeland Security, supervised new entries into NATO, and helped sell the invasion of Iraq. Ever faithful, he protected Bush the father from the Irangate scandal and Bush the son from the lies of the Iraq war. He found himself rewarded by becoming George W. Bush's National Security Advisor.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Mr. Steven Hadley ran an insurance fraud of close to $1.1 million. He was discovered, found guilty by a court in Iowa, and forced to reimburse the money. To erase any trace to his crime, he changed his name to Stephen John Hadley.
When Ronald Reagan took the White House, Mr. Hadley stayed in the private sector. However, in 1986, the Irangate scandal broke. President Reagan appointed a commission of three wise men to "investigate". It was composed of the Texan Senator John Tower, Edmund Muskie, and Brent Scowcroft who called Stephen J. Hadley to his side. In spite of the evidence, the commission concluded that President Reagan and Vice-President Bush were innocent. They found that the financing of the Contras in Nicaragua through the trafficking of drugs and illegal weapons sales to Iran was a secret initiative of over-zealous members of the National Security Council, put into place without the knowledge of their superiors. No big heads rolled.
As lawyer for Lockheed Martin, Hadley worked with the directors of the firm, including Lyne Cheney (wife of Dick). He became close with Bruce P. Jackson, the vice-president of the firm in charge of creating new markets. Together they initiated the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO into which they brought Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. The Committee engineered the entry of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland into NATO in 1999. Then that of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Each time, the leaders of the new member states were solicited to bring their armies up to the scale (interoperability) with NATO, in other words, to purchase new military hardware from Lockheed Martin.
Global Network board member Karl Grossman reported 10 years ago that Hadley was also instrumental in helping Donald Rumsfeld write his report calling for U.S. control and domination of space. "Space is going to be important. It has a great future in the military," Hadley told the Air Force Association Convention in a 2001 speech. Introduced as an "adviser to Governor George W. Bush," Hadley said that Bush's "concern has been that the [Clinton] Administration...doesn't reflect a real commitment to missile defense." In 1998 Rumsfeld's commission reversed a 1995 finding by the nation's intelligence agencies that the country was not in imminent danger from ballistic missiles acquired by new powers, declaring that "rogue states" did pose such a threat. The answer? Missile defense.
It is obvious that Hadley has been at this game a very long time. His connections to Lockheed Martin, and even the Bush administration, have been long forgotten. So when he is quoted in a current news story few see the irony of him defending CIA spy drone flights over Iran. It is good that we take a moment though and remember the real "his-story" otherwise we are likely to repeat the terror and carnage of past U.S. snake oil invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
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