Ben Carson has a "Sarah Palin moment" and can't name a single US ally - More at the NY Times
Showing posts with label middle east. Show all posts
Showing posts with label middle east. Show all posts
28 Nov 2015
2 Nov 2015
Promises and Betrayals in the Middle East
Documentary on how British double-dealing during the First World War ignited the conflict between Arab and Jew in the Middle East.
This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the Middle East.
26 Jun 2014
A line in the sand that caused the Middle East
The Sykes-Picot agreement was an initially informal deal between Britain and France, signed in 1916, which divided up the Middle East during World War One. This agreement has, in many ways, led to much of the trouble in the area today. A look at a line in the sand that threw a region into turmoil for decades
29 Dec 2012
Hidden US-Israeli Military Agenda: “Break Syria into Pieces”
The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy.
Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.
Syrian Partition.
US bases around Iran.
6 Dec 2011
Virgin Megastore Put Mein Kampf On 'Recommended Reading List'
Virgin Megastores has been embroiled in a controversy after one of its shops in the Middle East put Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf on its recommended reading list.
The photo was taken in the Landmark Shopping Centre in Doha.
12 Oct 2011
Iran Plotted With Mexican Drug Cartel to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador to U.S.
The United States has accused Iran of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington, according to the embattled U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Holder and the Justice Department claim the plot was hatched in Mexico last May. Two Iranians, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, were accused of the attack in court documents, according to the New York Times.
The Justice Department claims Iran and Mexican drug cartels worked together on the plot. Holder said there is “no basis to believe that any other co-conspirators are present in the U.S.” He said the two men are connected to Quds Force, a division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. (Infowars)
Is an attack on Iran in the works? - Victor Kotsev (Jun 7, 2011)
2 Oct 2011
Anwar Al Awlaki Terrorist or Pentagon / CIA Asset?
Surely, you've heard the 'news' that Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American born Al-CIA-DUH cleric, was killed in Yemen by a U.S. drone strike. But while the networks are jumping all over themselves to proclaim how truly awesome unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) are, they might forget to mention the part where Al-Awlaki was rubbing elbows with the big brass at the Pentagon immediately following 9/11.
11 Sept 2011
9/11 Fairytales Hit Schools
Official 9/11 Fable To Become Part Of School Curriculum Government-supported effort to 'encourage critical thinking' actually encourages obedient regurgitation of lies
10 Sept 2011
Egyptians protest against military rule
Protesters have held a mass rally at Cairo's Tahrir Square calling for reforms, after the ruling military council said it would respond harshly to any violence by activists. By evening, demonstrators had partially destroyed a wall recently built outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo to protect the building.
The protesters also ripped down the Israeli flag during the unrest, and the Egyptian ministry of health has said 88 people were injured in clashes around the embassy. Friday's gathering the Egyptian capital was supposed to branch out into a march to the nearby cabinet offices, to press the military rulers to keep their promises of reform after the February revolution that ended Hosni Mubarak's rule.
All through the morning, protesters gathered under a scorching sun and filled a section of the public square to listen to the weekly Muslim prayer sermon. "It would be shame on the Egyptian people if they forget their revolution," the preacher said
8 Sept 2011
Baha Mousa report criticises 'cowardly and violent' British soldiers
British soldiers inflicted "violent and cowardly" assaults on Iraqi civilians, subjecting them to "gratuitous" kickings and beatings, an inquiry into the death of the detainee Baha Mousa has found.
In a devastating indictment of military culture, the retired appeal court judge Sir William Gage ruled that there was widespread ignorance of what was permitted in handling prisoners of war. The events that led to the death of Mousa were "deplorable, shocking and shameful", the defence secretary, Liam Fox, told the Commons.
Although Gage did not suggest there had been a policy of systematic abuse towards Iraqi suspects, he deplored the absence of any "proper MoD doctrine on interrogation". The report at the end of the two-year inquiry contains savage criticisms of individual soldiers and officers as well as damning descriptions of poor internal communications, "loss of discipline and a lack of moral courage
2 Sept 2011
Turkey expels Israel's ambassador over Gaza flotilla row
Turkey says it is expelling the Israeli ambassador and cutting military ties with Israel over the country's refusal to apologise for last year's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. The foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Turkey was downgrading diplomatic ties to the level of second secretary and the ambassador would leave Turkey by Wednesday.
Davutoglu also said Turkey was suspending all military agreements signed between the former allies, saying "it is time Israel pays a price". The long-awaited UN report on the raid, made public on Thursday, declared that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, but that the Jewish state used unreasonable force. Davutoglu said some of the report's findings were unacceptable. Turkey had earlier demanded an apology from Israel by the time the report was published. Guardian.co.uk
Also see: MK Zoabi: Try Israel's leaders over flotilla raid - Arab politician unimpressed by UN report on flotilla incident, insists Gaza blockade illegal (ynetnews.com)
23 Aug 2011
Some journalists covering events in Libya are “not real journalists”
Global Research journalist Mahdi Nazemroaya says he fears for his life and is being threatened for “not going by what NATO is presenting” as news out of Libya. He says he believes that some of the journalists covering events are “not real journalists”, but are instead working for security services.
4 Jul 2011
German tanks serve Saudi crackdowns
Germany has abandoned self-restraint in offering heavy weapons to autocratic regimes, choosing to sell scores of battle tanks to Saudi Arabia.
The decision for the sale of 200 Leopard tanks worth billions of dollars was revealed by the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. The plan was enabled by Berlin's removal of a decades-long ban on the sale of heavy weaponry to Riyadh.
The latest generation of the Leopard 2A7+ tank is the upgraded version of the German battle tank first presented in 2010. In a promotional video, the tank is described as being able to create fear in protesters and remove obstacles.
Der Spiegel wrote that the sales take place while Saudi King Abdullah has not had a peaceful presence in the region over the past several months and has suppressed the revolution in Bahrain, using his military forces.
26 Mar 2011
General Wesley Clark
Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007, U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.), explains that the Bush Administration planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran (2007 upto 2012)
securingamerica.com
General Wesley Clark, U.S. Army (ret) -- Former Commanding General of U.S. European Command, which included all American military activities in the 89 countries and territories of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Additionally, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), which granted him overall command of NATO military forces in Europe 1997 - 2001. Awarded Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart for his service in Viet Nam and numerous subsequent medals and citations. Graduated valedictorian of his class at West Point. "
Bio on Wikipedia
7 Mar 2011
Brit held with SAS in Libya was spy
The British "diplomat" captured in Libya along with seven special forces soldiers was a Bond-style MI6 spy, The Sun can reveal.
He and his SAS team were released last night, 72 hours after a secret mission to make contact with rebel leaders went badly wrong. Angry questions were being asked about alleged intelligence failures that forced them to surrender when surrounded and "suicidally outnumbered" by militia.
Despite Government claims it sent a "small diplomatic team", The Sun can reveal it was an MI6 secret agent and his special forces minders. Their job was to contact opponents of Libyan tyrant Colonel Gaddafi after intelligence reports that the rebels were open to talks.
21 Feb 2011
Pakistan hit by deadly drone strike
A US drone strike has killed at least seven people in a tribal region along Pakistan's western border, Pakistani officials have said, the first such attack in a month. The attack is likely to further test diplomatic ties between Washington and Islamabad, following the shooting last month by a US official of two men he says were trying to rob him in Lahore.
At least four missiles were fired on Monday from the unmanned aircraft at a suspected training centre for fighters in Azam Warsak, just west of Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal agency, intelligence officials in South Waziristan said.
"According to initial reports there were foreigners among the dead," one of the officials said. A second official said the foreign nationals killed included three people from Turkmenistan and two Arab nationals.
It is the first time since January 23 that intelligence officials have reported a US drone attack, marking a resumption of a campaign that has become the centrepiece of Washington's efforts to halt fighter launching attacks on its soldiers in Afghanistan.
While the drone strikes have killed al-Qaeda and Taliban figures, many of the senior fighters are living in cities like
Quetta or Karachi that Pakistan has made off-limits to strikes.
The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time.
Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January.
Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity.
16 Feb 2011
24 Jan 2011
Secret papers reveal slow death of Middle East peace process
The biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the Middle East conflict has revealed that Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept Israel's annexation of all but one of the settlements built illegally in occupied East Jerusalem. This unprecedented proposal was one of a string of concessions that will cause shockwaves among Palestinians and in the wider Arab world.
A cache of thousands of pages of confidential Palestinian records covering more than a decade of negotiations with Israel and the US has been obtained by al-Jazeera TV and shared exclusively with the Guardian. The papers provide an extraordinary and vivid insight into the disintegration of the 20-year peace process, which is now regarded as all but dead.
The documents – many of which will be published by the Guardian over the coming days – also reveal:
• The scale of confidential concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators, including on the highly sensitive issue of the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
• How Israeli leaders privately asked for some Arab citizens to be transferred to a new Palestinian state.
• The intimate level of covert co-operation between Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority.
• The central role of British intelligence in drawing up a secret plan to crush Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
• How Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders were privately tipped off about Israel's 2008-9 war in Gaza.
As well as the annexation of all East Jerusalem settlements except Har Homa, the Palestine papers show PLO leaders privately suggested swapping part of the flashpoint East Jerusalem Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for land elsewhere.
Most controversially, they also proposed a joint committee to take over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City – the neuralgic issue that helped sink the Camp David talks in 2000 after Yasser Arafat refused to concede sovereignty around the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.
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