"friday-lunch-club"

"I had a CD on Islamic jihad. I brought it to the White House and told the chief of staff, ‘I would like the President to see this.’"

2012-01-28T01:29:00.001-05:00

"...Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam have transformed the Republican primary by pumping $10 million into a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC, thereby enabling his surge against Mitt Romney. So it’s surprising that comments Gingrich made last week about what the Adelsons expect in exchange for their money haven’t gotten more attention.

Ted Koppel asked Gingrich the key question: what do the Adelsons get if you win?
Gingrich, in response, suggested it all comes down to U.S. policy toward Israel.

Koppel: But there has to be a so-what at the end of it. So if you win, what does Adelson get out of it?
Gingrich. Well, he knows I’m very pro-Israel. And that’s the central value of his life. I mean, he’s very worried that Israel is going to not survive.
That’s in line with what we know about the Adelsons, who have supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank and once pulled their money out of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) because of that group’s putative softness on the concept of a peace deal with Palestinians.
ABC, meanwhile, reports that “a source close to” Adelson says he wants “nothing” in exchange for his contributions. That claim doesn’t amount to much, especially coming from an anonymous source.
The latest $5 million to the pro-Newt super PAC was donated by Miriam Adelson, who is reportedly a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. And here, as reported in the New Yorker, is a small but telling example of how Miriam previously interacted with the recipients of the Adelsons’ largesse:

The Adelsons seem not to take their power for granted. Recently, Miriam told an associate, “I had a CD on Islamic jihad. I brought it to the [Bush] White House and told the chief of staff, ‘I would like the President to see this.’ It really is amazing that we have this influence.”
And here is another episode from that New Yorker article in which Sheldon personally leaned on the president:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was organizing a major conference in the United States, in an effort to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and her initiative had provoked consternation among many rightward-leaning American Jews and their Christian evangelical allies. … A short, rotund man, with sparse reddish hair and a pale countenance that colors when he is angered, Adelson protested to Bush that Rice was thinking of her legacy, not the President’s, and that she would ruin him if she continued to pursue this disastrous course. Then, as Adelson later told an acquaintance, Bush put one arm around his shoulder and another around that of his wife, Miriam, who was born in Israel, and said to her, “You tell your Prime Minister that I need to know what’s right for your people—because at the end of the day it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s. But I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.”
So the idea that the Adelsons expect “nothing” from the recipients of their millions is belied by their previous behavior.
Gingirch himself seems to have gone through a transformation on the Israel-Palestine question. As Wayne Barrett recently documented, Gingrich was as recently as 2005 praising the Palestinians, referring to “their ancestral lands” in historic Palestine, and, amazingly, inveighing against “the desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land.”
That’s the type of language – Gingrich even used the phrase Israeli “land grab” in that 2005 essay – one wouldn’t hear even from alleged anti-Israel radical Barack Obama.
Fast forward to the current election cycle, of course, and Gingrich has veered way to the right, famously questioning the very peoplehood of the Palestinians and blasting calls to end Jewish settlements as a “suicidal step” for Israel. (Adelson, by the way, personally praised Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”) ..."

Selling arms to Bahrain, in sleeze, in the dark & under the table!

2012-01-28T01:02:00.001-05:00

Where is Ziocon Victoria Nuland when you need her!
"...Obama's administration has been delaying its planned $53 million arms sale to Bahrain due to human rights concerns and congressional opposition, but this week administration officials told several congressional offices that they will move forward with a new and different package of arms sales -- without any formal notification to the public.
The congressional offices that led the charge to oppose the original Bahrain arms sales package are upset that the State Department has decided to move forward with the new package....
The State Department has not released details of the new sale, and Congress has not been notified through the regular process, which requires posting the information on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) website. The State Department simply briefed a few congressional offices and is going ahead with the new sale, arguing it didn't meet the threshold that would require more formal notifications and a public explanation.
At today's State Department press briefing, The Cable asked spokeswoman Victoria Nuland about the new sale. She acknowledged the new package but didn't have any details handy.(she was busy with Syria & Russia!)
Our congressional sources said that State is using a legal loophole to avoid formally notifying Congress and the public about the new arms sale. The administration can sell anything to anyone without formal notification if the sale is under $1 million. If the total package is over $1 million, State can treat each item as an individual sale, creating multiple sales of less than $1 million and avoiding the burden of notification, which would allow Congress to object and possibly block the deal....
Regardless, congressional opponents to Bahrain arms sales are planning to fight back. Wyden is circulating a letter now to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating that Bahrain's government continues to commit human rights violations and should not be rewarded with U.S. arms sales...
"Supplying arms to a regime that continues to persecute its citizens is not in the best interest of the United States," Wyden said.... ... ...
"This message of ‘business as usual' will only strengthen the regime's belief that there will continue to be lack of consequences to their human rights violations internationally," she said. "At a time when the United States is already being criticized for practicing double standards when it comes to the so-called Arab spring, to the protesters in Bahrain, the U.S. selling any arms to the government of Bahrain is exactly like Russia selling arms to Syria. Bahrain has become the United States' test on how serious they are about standing against human rights violations, and they are failing miserably."

Just like that! UN to Bashar Assad: 'Leave in 15 days or else!'

2012-01-28T01:00:00.000-05:00

'The Cable has obtained a copy of the draft resolution on Syria currently being discussed inside the U.N. Security Council. It calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and says additional measures would be taken if he doesn't comply within 15 days.
U.N. Security Council diplomats are meeting behind closed doors on Friday to discuss what's being called the Arab-European draft resolution on Syria. The Moroccan ambassador is presenting the draft resolution, which is designed to implement the recommendations of the Arab League transition plan laid out on Jan. 22... ...
Importantly, the draft resolution requests that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon report on the implementation of the resolution every 15 days and also directs the Security Council "to review Syria's implementation of this resolution [in] 15 days and, in the event that Syria has not complied, to adopt further measures, in consultation with the League of Arab States."...
She indicated the United States was hopeful that Russia, which has been openly supporting Assad and sending him weapons, will work with the rest of the Security Council to produce a resolution that is strong and effective. Russia and China vetoed European resolution on Syria last fall and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday that Russia would veto any resolution that seeks to remove Assad from power..."

'Is there really a pro-Qaddafi uprising in Libya?'

2012-01-28T00:40:00.002-05:00

'The Wild West in the Sahara'
"... Contrary to many of the headlines, the battle in Bani Walid, which the pro-revolutionary forces now seem to have decided in their favor, was not part of a pro-Gaddafi uprising. Green flags did not, as was first reported, sprout from the rooftops. The issue was the arrest of war crimes suspects. Since the end of last year's fighting, Bani Walid has become a refuge for the waifs and strays of the former Gaddafi administration who are on the war crimes lists of other cities. A pro-government unit in the town had begun to arrest them when on Monday their base was attacked by a local clan. Four soldiers were killed, the rest fled, and the suspects were set free.
Now the National Guard wants them back. "We want to go home, we all want to go home," says National Guard fighter Osman El Hadi, himself from Beni Walid. "But first we need to finish this."
This minor uprising, in short, is less significant in itself than for what it says about the disarray of the post-revolutionary administration in Tripoli. Right now, power on the national level is exercised by the National Transitional Council (NTC). But this latest crisis has revealed once again that the NTC is, at best, a bit player.
The real power in Libya remains dispersed among the country's bewildering array of grassroots military formations. Most are grouped around town or city military councils; Tripoli is divided into 11 district militias. The last time anyone counted, Misrata had 172, ranging from ten-man outfits to the 500-strong Halbus Brigade, with a wartime strength of 17,000. That figure has since plummeted, with thousands returning to their jobs...."

"An Iran that returned to being a reliably pro-American regime, as under the shah, could continue with its program!"

2012-01-28T00:35:00.001-05:00

"... Some have argued that the spread of Western-style liberal democracy is the answer. After all, the international community trusts Japan not to abuse its nuclear status, in part because of its system of government. One of the options that has remained on the table in dealing with Iran has been to encourage domestic regime change: Some U.S. pundits and presidential candidates argue that a revolution in Tehran -- presumably by the opposition Green movement -- would bring to power a government willing to terminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, though this does not correspond to the broad consensus of support for the uranium-enrichment effort expressed across the Iranian political spectrum. Failing regime change, some have argued that an Iran that embraced liberal democracy -- or else one that returned to being a reliably pro-American regime, as under the shah -- could continue with its program to master the enrichment cycle. ..."

Syria: Voices calling for a military solution becoming deafening!

2012-01-26T20:26:00.000-05:00

Will Sarkozy ditch the Afghanistan mission to save himself?

2012-01-26T20:18:00.000-05:00

Swimming against the Tide - By Eric Pape | Foreign Policy

The Ziocons & 'shitting the proverbial pants'

2012-01-26T17:29:00.001-05:00

"...America is a country that has grown complacent in its assumptions about the Middle East and its politics, and too wedded to the idea of having an imperial role in the region (of which CENTCOM is the embodiment) and the world more generally. For several years I have advocated an American withdrawal from the Arab world (FLC believes that this is undergoing but ONLY in the Levant!) The Arab uprisings have made this all the more urgent, although it is a delicate, difficult, and potentially dangerous matter. But that's a debate for another day.
Let me focus now on a few pieces by people who have written very unwise things, and who are the other bigpart of the problem with American foreign policy in the region: those who primarily see US Middle East policy through the lens of Israel.
Robert Satloff, a leading hack of the Israel lobby think tank WINEP, and Eric Trager have a piece in the WSJ you can read here. A few years ago Satloff was all into pressuring Egypt on democracy issues, but now has buyer's remorse – confirming my long-held suspicion that people like him and Elliott Abrams (and many others) were only tactically interested in democracy promotion as a manner to wield greater influence over the Mubarak regime. Now that Islamists have won a majority in Egypt's parliament, they are shitting their proverbial pants...."

The big lie of Iran 'two-tracks policy!'

2012-01-26T17:22:00.000-05:00

"... There is a common conception of Western policy as based on a two-pronged, carrot and stick approach: one a diplomatic track and the other a military threat....But by all appearances, the Western approach is solely designed to achieve Iranian capitulation to Western demands that it dismantle its nuclear research program.... ... ...
So there is not a two-track policy regarding Iran. There is instead a one-track policy with two facets. On the one hand, there is a program of sanctions and covert war designed to intimidate and bloody Iran into capitulation. But if that doesn’t work (and it surely cannot), there is a military option designed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. It’s no surprise, then, that the Iranians see their enemies closing in on them like a vise. An enemy who believes he has no options left is very dangerous. He is likely to lash out in unforeseen ways. Such desperation is precisely what could fuel not just a bilateral military conflict, but a full-scale regional war.
There is another misconception about Western policy. The liberals among us talk about a “military strike” as an option of last resort. The more clear-eyed, like the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Riedel, talk of a potential war against Iran. Neither is precisely right. As Israeli journalists have pointed out, there already is a war under way against Iran. It is bought and paid for by a $400 million allocation by the Bush administration in 2007. It has funded all the tools in the Mossad arsenal that were used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program and foment general unrest inside the country...
Though the cable doesn’t mention the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), the Mossad clearly views it as a potent force with an extensive internal network within the country, whose muscle could be exploited to further Israeli interests.
Mark Perry recently published an expose of one particular Mossad project, a false flag operation in which it recruited the leader of Jundallah, a Sunni terrorist group operating in Iran, by posing as NATO and CIA agents. When the Bush administration discovered the nature of the program, it was furious. But ultimately it decided it had other fish to fry and would not make a major stink about the danger the duplicitous operation posed to U.S. agents in the region.
Such Israeli tactics suggest that Israel pursues its own interests with little or no regard for how its behavior will impact friend or foe. For example, it utilizes the MEK as a partner in many of its terror operations inside Iran, even though U.S. State Department officially designates the MEK as a terror group.
This, of course, doesn’t stop the MEK and its well-paid domestic allies in the United States from pursuing an aggressive campaign to delist it as a terror group. Millions of dollars have been spent to further this goal, including enlisting prominent figures on both the Democratic and Republican sides to shill for delisting. The MEK appears to believe that terrorist activities in which it may be engaged inside Iran will not have an impact on its delisting by the United States. This is all the more reason for journalists in Israel and outside to make known its cooperation with the Mossad, so that the U.S. government can make an informed judgment about whether or not the MEK has renounced terrorism as it claims.
Some analysts have called this a black ops campaign or covert war. Whatever we call it, it is war by another means. If the United States is serious about seeking a diplomatic solution with Iran, then why would it both encourage and fund such a powerful campaign of terror inside Iran?... ...
After following Iranian-Western relations for years, I believe the diplomatic track is a mirage and that the sanctions regime, which the West has pursued without success for 30 years, will not gain Iran’s capitulation. That leaves only two options: war, or Western impotence in the face of Iran’s implacable determination to pursue a nuclear option. Either option is bad, but the first is far worse than the second.
The fallout from a war with Iran has been widely discussed.......
Since the United States doesn’t appear prepared for a real negotiation with Iran regarding its nuclear program, there is only one real approach short of war: containment. The United States adopted this approach during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Though it was never optimal, considering the dysfunction in the relationship between the superpowers, containment worked reasonably well until the Soviet collapse in 1989.
As former Defense Department Undersecretary Colin Kahl argues in his latest Foreign Affairs article, the United States already has the assets in place in the region to pursue a policy of containment ... Containment still isn’t an optimal approach, but it’s the least bad one considering the current dysfunction characterizing relations between Iran and the West. In the future, Iran may turn to a reformist, more democratic government that might approach these issues differently. Or the climate in the West may change so that it would be willing to seriously engage with Iran on a similar basis to the Khatami 2003 proposals. But given the almost lunatic tone of the Republican presidential debates concerning Iran, and the fact that Barack Obama appears convinced that he must maintain impeccable national security credentials to protect his right flank, the United States is unlikely to adopt a more reasonable, pragmatic approach to Iran.
Under the circumstances, containment is the only remaining option that doesn’t lead to regional war, stalemate, and deeper dysfunction."

"The buzz of victory & the agony of defeat!"

2012-01-26T10:57:00.003-05:00

"Amid all this “respect” that the US has generated in the Arab world, we are rattling our sabres toward the Persians. Yeah, that’s going to help!"

2012-01-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

â€œMore Respected Around the Worldâ€? Really?

So, about that war with Iran, are the Europeans aware of the dynamics?

2012-01-26T10:09:00.000-05:00

"This week, the European Union went to war against Iran. There was no formal declaration, of course, nor even any undeclared use of military force.... effectively an act of war and may very well result in the military hostilities that sanctions are meant to forestall.
...Consequently, unless other customers neutralize E.U. actions by stepping up their own purchases from Iran — and indications from China, Japan and South Korea suggest that this is unlikely to be the case — the E.U. decision, coupled with existing American measures, will come close to imposing the “crippling sanctions” ...
If that turns out to be the case, then the Iranian regime, already coping with high inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency, will feel constrained to react. One possibility is that it will capitulate and essentially dismantle its nuclear weapons program...
But it is at least as likely that Iran, feeling trapped, will lash out in a desperate attempt to frighten the Europeans into backing down or at least introduce so much hysteria into the oil market that price spikes will allow it to earn the same revenue from a reduced volume of exports.
One form this might take would be an attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has already threatened to do. But that is probably beyond Iran’s capacity for very long and would in any case also shut down Iran’s own ability to export to whatever markets it manages to retain.
Far less complicated would be sabotage or rocket attacks on refineries, pipelines and other facilities in places like Abqaiq and Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia. These might be carried out as “false flag” operations by local Shiite insurgents concentrated in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, but nobody would be fooled and the risks of escalation to large-scale conflict with Iran would be significant.
In this scenario, the military confrontation that many Europeans have sought to avoid will become unavoidable, even if Iranian decision makers do not delude themselves into thinking that they would ultimately prevail.
Before such courses of action are discounted as unrealistic scare-mongering or dismissed on grounds that they would be self-defeating, it might be worth recalling that Imperial Japan did not attack the United States because it was physically attacked by the United States but rather because it was being economically squeezed (as Iran may well be squeezed now) to the point where it felt that war was preferable to slow-motion strangulation. And it made no difference that many Japanese military leaders, including Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, chief planner of the attack on Pearl Harbor, believed that Japan’s ultimate defeat was foreordained.
It is difficult to imagine that the E.U. members who adopted the decision on sanctions are unaware of this possible dynamic. Indeed, the very fact that British and French warships accompanied the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on its passage through the Straits and back into the Gulf — in brazen defiance of Iranian warnings — imply the opposite...
And that suggests that the European Union, notwithstanding its economic travails, is experiencing its own “spring” in foreign and defense policy and that those who tended in the past to dismiss it as a flaccid talking shop capable of little more than vacuous posturing now need to carry out a fundamental reassessment."

For Syria, Jeffrey Feltman & Erdogan fly to Moscow

2012-01-25T16:45:00.000-05:00

"... Jeff Feltman was in Moscow as part of an increasingly frantic international effort to intervene in the troubled Middle Eastern country, American officials said.
"Issue number one on [Feltman's] agenda there is Syria and our interest in being able to move forward in the UN Security Council and talking about how the situation looks after the Arab League report over the weekend," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told journalists at a press briefing Monday....
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also due to fly to Moscow Wednesday to urge Russia not to veto a UN Security Council Syria resolution, Turkey's Today Zaman reported Mahir Zeynalov reported.
American officials are also expected to ask Moscow about media reports that it has inked a deal to sell combat jets to the Assad regime, the State Department said..."

"Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012."

2012-01-25T16:35:00.000-05:00

FP Passport | FOREIGN POLICY

"The West is all but isolated in insisting that Iran must not enrich..."

2012-01-24T23:48:00.000-05:00

"...Now, the West is all but isolated in insisting that Iran must not enrich. Most non-Westerners would prefer to see Iran treated like other NPT parties: allowed to enrich uranium in return for intrusive monitoring by IAEA inspectors. My sympathies lie with the non-Westerners. My hunch is that this gathering crisis could be avoided by a deal along the following lines: Iran would accept top-notch IAEA safeguards in return for being allowed to continue enriching uranium. In addition, Iran would volunteer some confidence-building measures to show that it has no intention of making nuclear weapons.
This, essentially, is the deal that Iran offered the UK, France and Germany in 2005. With hindsight, that offer should have been snapped up. It wasn’t, because our objective was to put a stop to all enrichment in Iran. That has remained the West’s aim ever since, despite countless Iranian reminders that they are unwilling to be treated as a second-class party to the NPT – with fewer rights than other signatories – and despite all the evidence that the Iranian character is more inclined to defiance than buckling under pressure."

US marine, guilty of killing 24 Iraqi civilians, will serve no jail time!

2012-01-24T23:16:00.000-05:00

US marine to serve no time over Iraq killings - Americas - Al Jazeera English

Dubai Chief of Police: "Americans have no friends & their policies are the Gulf's greatest threat!"

2012-01-24T14:31:00.002-05:00

"... At the conference which ended on Wednesday he reportedly warned Gulf states not to let the US drive them into war with Iran. "The US has granted Iran many of its dreams in the region, including the toppling of Saddam [Hussein], active presence of Iran in Iraq and the exporting of the revolution into the Arab world."
But he added: "I was not solely targeting the US policies but was giving my reading to the security threats to the Gulf, and they included several factors. I talked about corruption and abuse of power, especially in law enforcement apparatus, on Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood as well."...
"If the US wants freedom for nations, there are the Palestinian people who want a state and freedom," he said. "The US's talk about wanting good for nations is not sincere."
Lt Gen Tamim also compared the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood with the Iranian threat, saying it was just as serious.
The US ambassador to Bahrain, Thomas Krajeski walked out during the police chief's speech, prompting speculation he had been angered by his remarks..."

Considering a U.S.-Iranian Deal

2012-01-24T14:25:00.001-05:00

"...The key point in this scenario is the future of U.S. relations with the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Any deal between Iran and the United States affects them two ways. First, the reduction of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf requires them to reach an accommodation with the Iranians, something difficult and potentially destabilizing for them. Second, the shift in the financial flow will hurt them and probably will not be the final deal. Over time, the Iranians will use their strengthened position in the region to continue pushing for additional concessions from them. ..."

Obama to Jewish donors: "Military & Security cooperation between the US & Israel have reached 'unprecedented' levels!"

2012-01-24T09:28:00.001-05:00

"The 100-person gathering on January 19 at high-end Upper East Side restaurant Daniel raised upwards of half a million dollars, according to an estimate by Alan Solow, a former chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and one of the event’s hosts.
“Since I’ve been in office, we have unequivocally said that Israel’s security is non-negotiable,” Obama told the audience, echoing remarks made at a November fundraiser with Jewish donors in New York. “Part of that has been to make sure that we’ve got the strongest military cooperation that we’ve ever had between our two nations. That’s not my opinion, by the way, that’s the Israeli government’s opinion.”
In an off-the-record question and answer session, Obama “made very clear that he’s serious about prohibiting Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,”...
The president “talked about the unprecedented levels of military and security cooperation between the United States and Israel and spoke very passionately and strongly about his commitment to Israel,”..."

'Netanyahu to Obama: 'I will not share details of Iran attack with you!'

2012-01-24T09:00:00.001-05:00

"Sunday Times reports that Israel told Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff it would give only twelve hours' warning, for fear that Obama would try to prevent [an attack].

Israel informed Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, during his visit over the weekend, that it would not request US authorisation for an attack on Iran, and that it would give only twelve hours warning before launching such an attack, according to this morning's Sunday Times.
According to the report, Netanyahu does not trust Obama and believes the President might do everything [in his power] to prevent an attack if informed in advance, for fear of rising oil prices in an election year.
Recently, Obama called Netanyahu asking for clarifications regarding [a possible] attack [against Iran]. According to the Sunday Times report, the conversation was strained, and the Prime Minister explained his position, insisting that he would refuse to share details with the White House, should such an attack be launched. According to the report, the differences between the two sides increased further in the wake of Dempsey's meeting with Defence Minister Ehud Barak at the weekend.
Times reporter Uzi Mahnaimi adds that outwardly, Israel and the United States are trying to downplay the crisis, but the two countries would appear to be on a collision course.
For example, Dempsey claimed that Israel and the United States had agreed to postpone the scheduled joint military exercise and that the postponement would serve [the interests of] both sides. The fact is however, a defence source told the Sunday Times, that this is false. "We were shocked", said the source. "The exercise had been planned for two years."

How the World Coud Intervene in Syria

2012-01-23T23:28:00.001-05:00

"...The second scenario is even worse. A full-fledged civil war in Syria could quickly become a proxy war between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and/or at least some NATO countries on one side against Iran, Russia, Hizbollah, and possibly Iraq and Hamas on the other. (what kind of lineupnis this? Qatar vs. Russia?...) That is a deeply dangerous and destabilizing prospect. Streams of refugees will burden and potentially disrupt local politics in Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Lebanon. The Kurds in Iraq and Turkey and the Druze in Lebanon might join in on the side of their respective Syrian cousins. The economy of the entire region would be badly disrupted, even independent of any impact on oil prices. And Syria itself would be devastated, inviting the same power struggles and sectarian violence we see in Iraq today.
Still, intervention makes sense... Injecting the possibility of armed intervention to protect opposition protesters into this mix, with the accompanying prospect of a much longer and much more destructive conflict in which more members of the military could defect to the Free Syrian Army, could tip this domestic political balance in favor of a negotiated deal and put real internal pressure on Assad..."

ً"I ask you: Who are you working for?"

2012-01-23T11:33:00.002-05:00

"... Gen. Mustafa al-Sheik, head of the chemistry department and security officer of Syria's northern region, defected from the army, along with his son, also an officer, and thus created a problem in the command hierarchy of the Free Syrian Army. Al-Sheikh demands the creation of a supreme military council, headed by himself, ... On the other side, al-Assad decided that, despite al-Sheik's senior rank, he, al-Assad, is the supreme commander of the Free Syrian Army,.. The argument between the senior officers is already causing a rift among the defectors, some of whom have already abandoned al-Assad's loyalists and joined al-Sheikh. All this after it became clear that al-Assad was not capable of paying his loyalists, as Turkey has decided to close his Turkish bank account.
Into the controversy stepped Burhan Ghalioun, head of the Syrian National Council, the umbrella group of the civilian protest movement. Ghalioun met with General al-Sheikh, angering the spokesperson of the Syrian Free Army, Lama al-Atasi. Last week al-Atasi published a Facebook status saying, "We heard that you are pushing division within the ranks of the Free Syrian Army. I ask you: Who are you working for?"..."

"Go away, go away!"

2012-01-22T14:51:00.005-05:00

'In the absence of these Two, he and his ilk are "roughed up, jostled" & have to be "pulled to safety!"'
"...When Abdul Jalil, NTC chairman, came out in an attempt to address the crowd, some protesters hurled empty plastic bottles at him, prompting security forces to fire tear gas.
"Go away, Go away," the protesters chanted as Abdul Jalil spoke. He then went back into the building but he is believed to have been pulled to safety from a back door when the crowd charged into the building.
Protesters threw stones and metal bars at the building, breaking its windows, before storming the headquarters. One protester left the building carrying a set of loudspeakers and screaming: "Spoils of war!" Angry protesters also damaged a Toyota Land Cruiser used by Abdul Jalil....
"People are not happy with the council because it has also given government posts to people who are known to have links with Gaddafi."(Abdel Jalil himself is a Qaddafi henchman, until he was adopted by Bernard Henry Levy!)...
The NTC is grappling with problems, including the disbanding of dozens of powerful militias that effectively control the country. Thursday, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the NTC, was roughed up by university students in Benghazi. He was surrounded by a crowd and jostled before he was pulled away to safety.."

French troop deaths spark worry over Afghan training mission

2012-01-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

French troop deaths spark worry over Afghan training mission | McClatchy

Muslim Brotherhood tops Egyptian poll result, just short of a majority ...

2012-01-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

Muslim Brotherhood tops Egyptian poll result - Middle East - Al Jazeera English