rolling middle east 2013 thread

i was thinking about maybe starting a rolling middle east 2013 thread in january and moving all my syria/israel/gaza/west bank/egypt/iran/iraq/etc chat over there and i was wondering what ppl on this thread think. i know hurting has been asking for a new thread to talk about israel and i think having a more catchall rolling thread could help lead to more coherent discussion on the region as opposed to balkanized conversation over a dozen or so threads... idk, what do people think?

http://www.baghdadmuseum.org/maps/me2003.jpg

i keep trying to convince myself to buy a haaretz digital subscription but a) it's expensive and b) haaretz makes me so angry sometimes that i really don't want to give them money. anyway, in addition to haaretz, for middle east news i'm reading a bunch of al-jazeera these days, a little economist (doesn't get updated often enough), listening to the BBC, reading NYT and sub'ing to elder of ziyon's blog which is explicitly pro-israel but also a really good source of news since the author reads and summarizes a lot of arabic + hebrew press that doesn't always make it to english.

regarding syria

Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, gave a dire warning Sunday on the rapidly deteriorating situation in Syria.
"If nearly 50,000 people have been killed in about two years, do not expect just 25,000 people to die next year -- maybe 100,000 will die," he told reporters in Cairo.
"The pace is increasing," he said.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-txz4VCoikbU/UKpkcjK2PHI/AAAAAAAAGKw/esADD4Qj-QU/s320/Tayyip+Erdogan.jpg

NAME recep tayyip erdogan
TITLE turkish pm
INTERESTS supressing restive minorities, european integration, containing syria, sinister sub rosa manipulations
SPECIAL POWERS n/a
ZIONIST RATING b-

Good luck with Iran America and whoever wants to join in, you'll need it.

i think after assad falls (i assume sometime early this year) we'll see iran come down shortly after. iranian economy is in such a huge mess already.

but Iran's history of failed revolutions which already caused an endless amount of deaths may prevent such a scenario.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/02/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8AJ1FK20130102

At least 30 civilians were killed on Wednesday when Syrian warplanes bombed a petrol station in a rebellious suburb on the eastern edge of Damascus, two opposition campaigners on the scene said.

Also, rebels shut down the airport in Aleppo, and the UN human rights commissioner says that the death toll is up to 60,000. Obviously this is going to get much worse before it gets better. Something I missed over the holidays was that third party observers are denying rebel reports that chemical weapons have been used. Something else we haven't really discussed are the clandestine Israel meeting with Jordan over intervention to secure the chemical weapon storehouses. (I think the more major concern for Turkey, Israel, Jordan, etc is not Assad firing chemical weapons into their countries, but rather after Assad falls those weapons falling into rebel hands. Some of those rebels are Al-Qaeda members.)

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/02/saudi_religious_leader_calls_for_gang_rape_of_syrian_women/

A prominent Saudi cleric has issued a fatwa (a religious ordinance) that calls for the gang rape of Syrian women. Expressing frustration that the “warriors of Islam” fighting in Syria may be getting weary for the lack of sexual pleasure, the religious leader issued a decree that promotes hours-long “intercourse marriages.”

The cleric, Muhammed al-Arifi, who is a leading jihadist religious figure, made it clear that his edict called for the gang rape of Syrian women and girls. He specified that the “intercourse marriages” last only a few hours “in order to give each fighter a turn.” As to who is an eligible bride, the cleric approves any girls or women over the age of 14 who are widowed or divorced. Yes, you read that right. Any girls over the age of 14.

Jesus fuck.

"ps i'm wanking as i issue this"

Fwiw, it is being written up as legitimising prostitution elsewhere. Difficult to tell without quotes.

Temporary marriage has long been a thing in Islam. This guy is just taking it to its batshit conclusion.

There was an article in my danish newspaper about an egyptian bellydancer, who filed for divorce against one of the leaders of the muslim brotherhood, as she'd found out he was already married. The implication, of course, was that he'd paid her for a 'temporary marriage'. She later admitted it was fabrication, but still he's career went down the drain, and she's apparantly seen as somewhat a hero. He was apparantly a scumbag anyway.

Fwiw, it is being written up as legitimising prostitution elsewhere. Difficult to tell without quotes.

There are so many things wrong with this interpretation but I'll start with the obvious which is that the fatwa is concerning fourteen year olds (and older).

Saudis can marry at 14. It's perfectly possible Salon's interpretation is correct but to not present it as an interpretation seems a little misleading.

the arabic ilx WTM thread must be fun

Even if prostitution is the intended meaning of the fatwa, I doubt Syrian women are able to participate with full agency in those sexual transactions.

are the degenerates benefitting from this edict the friends of liberal democracy or the assad crowd or both

The fatwa is intended for the rebels, not for Assad.

Probably not. On the other hand, he probably thinks Syrian women would be throwing themselves at the liberators if they weren't so darned modest. He suggested that women who agreed to marry them would be blessed in the afterlife so some degree of agency seems to be implied. He's clearly bonkers but idk if the story really required Salon's embellishment unless they are fairly certain what was intended. Xxp

as a patron of progressive liberal democracy i encourage all syrians to do what is necessary in the cause of progressive values, inshallah

naftali bennett's habayit hayehudi party pushes likkud to the right on annexing the west bank (tho not bibi yet), and wapo house op-ed says the settlements complicate peace but are being over-exaggerated as a barrier to it.

Iranian authorities have advised the one and a half million people who live in Isfahan to leave the city if they can because pollution has now reached emergency levels. The same thing happened in the capital Tehran earlier this week. Kasra Naji works for the BBC's Persian TV service in London.

There's some speculation that it may be a nuclear leak incident.

the salon/alternet "gang rape" story is a weird hoax

http://www.alternet.org/world/exhibit-how-easily-islamophobic-meme-can-spread-wildfire-across-internet

Lol at "inadvertantly picked it up from" the site they linked to in the original fucking article.

it's nice that alternet is running a breakdown of how the 'hoax' happened, but would be nicer if they had verified the story before running it - new media i guess :/

But one would imagine that if a similar story emerged about a Christian cleric or a Rabbi, someone, somewhere would have paused before posting it. Sadly, in the case of stories about Muslim clerics or Islamists the same red flags don't seem to apply.

Also this is so disingenuous since Alternet was surely the most major propagator of this story into reputable media outlets.

Salon doesn't appear to have retracted it yet.

Salon was just running it from Alternet tho, unedited. Really Alternet needs to write a serious mea culpa, or if they're going to talk about Islamophobia do so in the context of their own writers and editors.

Absolutely right.

My experience with Alternet and Salon are that they are fairly skeptical left-wing media outlets so I assumed that if they were running the story they probably had good sources for it. I tried to follow up with the original sources (and found I guess the original youtube video in Arabic w/ translations of the story) but couldn't get anything from a different 'reputable' source. But I figured there's no way Alternet would run the story without being sure of it.

Looks like Al-Jazeera is buying Current TV!

Brotherhood official urges Egypt's Jews to return

Jews ordered back to Egypt for pyramid duty.

Egyptians slamming MB leader for offering to allow Jews to return to Egypt

In response, Hafez Abu Saada, head of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, called Erian's remarks "catastrophic" because it would allow Egyptian Jews to sue for the properties that were stolen from them when they were forced out of Egypt.

And Morsi's backing away from Erian's "personal opinions".

Were they forced or did they, like most Sephardim, sell out and leave?

Btw, Mordy, did you read that article (where?) about Israel's medical marijuana lab?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Egyptian_Jews_(1956)

lol yes, I did. I posted it to Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israeli-library-unveils-ancient-afghan-manuscripts-18123987#.UOYANaWmDzK

one of the complications in israeli politics is that left-right axis most often refers to a stance on the peace process and not to socialism/capitalism*. for example, the lone kibbutz member of the new knesset is likely to be zvulun kalfa, a member of naftali bennett's right-wing nationalist religious habayit hayehudi party:

"There are many members of neighboring kibbutzim who say they'll vote for Habayit Hayehudi this time, some of them due to our personal acquaintance, and others because they share the same views on settlement issues," he says.

*although Labour famously was very involved in the peace process. as another example tho how the two don't necessarily align - labour has moved sharply away from the peace process during this election and focused exclusively on social justice issues. on a related note, under Bibi the number of Palestinians from the West Bank working in Israel has doubled and he partially campaigned last election on economic, though not nationalist, justice for the West Bank.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-racism-of-leftist-nationalism.premium-1.492109

at least gideon levy is making it explicit - he's ready to sell out the jewish state to combat the right.

So it looks like Obama's nominating Hagel for Defense. I wonder if there's any element of payback there for Netanyahu's dalliance with Romney during the campaign.

It's a weird thing. I assume Obama can get Hagel - between Republicans burning their 'veto' on Rice and Hagel being an R I think he can push it through. But why push through a Republican that the Republicans don't like? It's not like his opinions are unique and he'll be taking policy from Obama anyway. Plus there are ppl on the left (like Barney Frank) who don't like him either. I can't figure out what Obama stands to gain from either a) pushing Hagel through or b) pushing Hagel hard and then ultimately backing down and picking someone else. Both seem like high risk low reward moves.

A friend suggested that he wants to force Republicans to oppose a Republican - maybe start to delineate a 'centrist republican' position that he can try to corral the party into. Seems too multidimensional chess to me. Maybe he just likes the guy.

There's always that last possibility. I guess they were friendly when Obama was in the Senate.

Hagel was/is known as a foreign policy realist and a no-nonsense guy. This bolsters Obama on the FP front, shows he's bi-partisan, and puts the Senate Republicans in a bind.

Senate Republicans may not be in a bind if some of the Senate Dems who don't like him for various reasons also oppose him (but the Senate Dems may choose when it comes time to vote, to say that Hagel regrets past statements, and then vote for him )

Obama hardly needs to be bolstered on the FP front!

jeff goldberg (who i find i have less + less time for every day) writes:

Discussions inside [AIPAC] -- and what the group is hearing from its friends on the Hill, and in the Administration -- is that the President very much wants Hagel at Defense, and would be very upset if a group whose agenda he has more-or-less supported (a strong no to containment of Iran, maintaining Israel's qualitative military edge, siding with Israel at the United nations) tries to deny him the defense secretary he wants, and who is a personal friend.

if the cw that obama trusts next to nobody in his life is true, that would explain quite a lot of it.

what hagel and brennan as picks 'say' to the rest of the world is important too

That's the weirdest part to me. I don't think Obama needs to rush out and bomb, bomb Iran but he should definitely be signaling aggression and willingness to intervene militarily. Hagel undermines that to some extent.

yeah but doesn't brennan indicate that while we may not start any new wars, we sure will kill anyone anywhere if we want to i.e what everyone already knows?

he should definitely be signaling aggression and willingness to intervene militarily.

why do this if nobody believes it.

The way you get ppl to believe it is by signaling it.

yeah idk man

it's a meme now: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/120807/the-new-one-state-solution

Essam el-Erian, a top advisor to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, has resigned from his position, Egyptian media reported Sunday. "Although the report said that el-Arian had willingly made the decision because he was “occupied with other work,” analysts said that there was no doubt that he was pressure to quit – after inviting back to Egypt the descendants of Jews who were thrown out of the country, or who fled due to anti-Semitic violence."

Some 5,000 Hezbollah fighters crossed from Lebanon into Syria last month to fight on the side of Bashar al-Assad’s forces the Al Watan newspaper reported on Monday. According to the paper, nearly 300 of those fighters have been killed in the last several days.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/05/david-frum-where-is-the-palestinian-state-in-embryo/

From that Tablemag article:

...concluded that the Jews, as the indigenous people of the biblical land of Israel, have clear historical rights there...

This argument has always amused me since it kinda fails to take the Canaanites into account

The way you get ppl to believe it is by signaling it.

Empty threats are especially pernicious

That's silly. It's not self-evidently empty.

I don't think Obama needs to really signal any more than he already has. He has clearly stated that he does not believe in Iranian nuclear containment and will intervene before Iran gets nuclear weapons. He has also facilitated a huge military buildup in the gulf and the strait of hormuz. So I don't see it as an empty threat - but I think picking Hagel might suggest that it's an empty threat.

The biblical story of the biblical exodus & conquest of the Canaanites is pretty suspect, as well. The archaeological evidence, as I understand it, is that with the invasion of the Sea Peoples, coastal Caananites were displaced to agriculturally poor central highlands, where there were a few hundred hilltop villages of Habiru, herders & raiders that had practiced a kosher diet excluding pork for centuries. Myths were adapted from Canaanite/Ugarit predecessors, a merged pantheon of El, Yahweh, Asherah, and Ba'al emerged, which was whittled down during temple/dynastic disputes from 1100-600 BCE, and we're left with a fragmentary record of the polemic.

Genetic markers generally show that while there is evidence of Y-chromosome/patrilineal continuity of Ashkenazim, there's no evidence of a geneic purity/isolation in matrilineal mitochondrial DNA or the rest of the genome - ie, through the centuries Jewish men married and converted enough shiksas that there's no "genetically" Jewish people aside from the patrilineal Y chromosome. And the population of Jewish Y-chromosomes are indistinguishable from those of Palestinian Arabs. So, in a sense, the population of biblical Israel has remained in Palestine for thousands of years, its only in the last century they've been displaced off their land by miscegenated populations that are fractionally similar to the original biblical population.

lol sea peoples are everywhere these days

there are no valid historical claims to land imo

^^^

It's odd that a ppl w/matrilineal self-identity has more genetic coherence on the patrilineal side...

Also, wasn't Canaan a pretty broad area comprised of quite a few ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, inlcuding the Israelites, the Moabites, etc...? Canaan and Phonecia were interchangeable for some ancients, iIrc,

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/world/middleeast/chemical-weapons-showdown-with-syria-led-to-rare-accord.html

WASHINGTON — In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes... What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.

Canaan is the geographical area, Canaanites usually referring to the pre-Israelite city-states subject to Egypt. Phoenicians were the richer coastal city states, invaded in the 13th century BCE by Sea Peoples but retaining Canaanite language and culture. "Canaan" is analogous to the geographical extent of England, with its several regional kingdoms, and "Phoenecia" with England's eastern extent controlled by 9th century Danish/Viking invaders, and known by the the 11th century as the Danelaw.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/israel-vows-to-use-veto-power-if-chuck-hagel-confi,30824/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/technology/online-banking-attacks-were-work-of-iran-us-officials-say.html

The skill required to carry out attacks on this scale has convinced United States government officials and security researchers that they are the work of Iran, most likely in retaliation for economic sanctions and online attacks by the United States.

“There is no doubt within the U.S. government that Iran is behind these attacks,” said James A. Lewis, a former official in the State and Commerce Departments and a computer security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Mr. Lewis said the amount of traffic flooding American banking sites was “multiple times” the amount that Russia directed at Estonia in a monthlong online assault in 2007 that nearly crippled the Baltic nation.

So here it is, the early days of the Cyber Wars.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's pick for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, is meeting with senior Pentagon staff to try to set the record straight about his stand on Iran, saying he backs strong international sanctions against Tehran and believes all options, including military action, should be on the table, defense officials said Wednesday.

Following a meeting with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Abbas said that he had appealed to the UN to intercede on behalf of Palestinian refugees living in Syria and demand that Israel allow them to enter the West Bank and Gaza.

Abbas said Ban was told Israel “agreed to the return of those refugees to Gaza and the West Bank, but on condition that each refugee ... sign a statement that he doesn’t have the right of return (to Israel).”

“So we rejected that and said it’s better they die in Syria than give up their right of return,” Abbas told the group.

Just like the Palestinians to outdo the Israelis in callous political idiocy. You have to wonder if the Israelis were even serious about letting the refugees in, knowing that the PA would gladly rush to trip over themselves to make themselves look utterly unserious.

You know it's okay to condemn Abbas without explaining how terrible the Israelis also are. It was a generous offer on their part imo, especially since everyone claims 'right of return' is just a bargaining chip that will never actually happen. You might get a bad reputation for wanting to nuke Gaza, but false equivalencies are intellectual cowardice.

Mordy, I am not always pleased with Israeli policy and I often think it callous and wrong-headed. I imagine the Israelis would have been forced to honor their offer if Abbas had gone along with the ceding of the right to return but I also imagine they knew he would never allow that and would prefer to see his people dead than politically disenfranchised. It's akin to perfering your daughter dead than seeing her honor besmirched. Fat load of good her honor is going to do for a dead girl.

It's an interesting (tho unfavorable) theory that Israel knew that Abbas would never allow the Syrian Palestinian refuges to enter the West Bank, but ultimately unsubstantiated conjecture that, in my eyes, tries to draw an equivalency between Abbas allowing refugees to suffer and die and Israel making a disingenuous offer. Until there is evidence otherwise, why not take them at their word?

prefering, ffs

Just like the Palestinians to outdo the Israelis in callous political idiocy.

My comparison wasn't to (my admittedly cynical take on) the offer but to recent developments in East Jerusalem planning, etc...

I'd save that particular outrage for when Israel almost certainty annexes area C in the next few years.

Abbas' actions are consistent with what political leaders in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza have been doing to Palestinian refugees for years -- denying them quality of life, safety, and real political representation to exploit their existence as a cudgel to use against the state of Israel.

Yeah, that area C annexation and the popularity of Bennett make me think the Palestinans may have mis-managed their diplomacy to the worst point possible save for maybe being forcibly resettled in Antarctica or something.

as a cudgel to use against the state of Israel.

Not to mention a distraction to their own populations from more immediate local problems.

The ouster of Egypt’s interior minister earlier this week was due to his opposition to a secret meeting between an adviser to President Mohammed Morsi and a high-ranking commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Wednesday.

That is sinister as heck. What the hell do a Sunni Arab politician and a Persian Shia military officer have in common that must be said in secret?

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/tehran-wants-get-closer-cairo-says-iran-foreign-minister

been in Morocco for a few weeks meeting with people about "social issues" & it's been eye-opening...everyone reminds me that Morocco was the First Nation to acknowledge the independence of the USA as if that should matter today

also it's interesting to see Moroccan license plates that feature a map of the nation including the Western Sahara. Apparently locals believe that a GOP presidency might have helped Morocco finally win that battle with the UN

Hundreds of Egyptians demonstrated on Wednesday Jan. 2 in Safenex Square in Cairo to commemorate the 521st anniversary of the fall of Granada.

The demonstration was called by The Free Movement (Harakat Ahrar).

The protesters organized a human chain around the square and held signs that said: "Obligatory return","We have not forgotten Al Andalus" and "Of course we will return" ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/world/middleeast/as-academy-snubs-affleck-for-argo-iran-plans-own-movie.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20986428

To many, this is a historic moment, the closest Saudi women have ever come to public participation in politics. But to critics of the Saudi system, appointing women to the Shura Council is a largely symbolic measure.

The council can advise the king and question ministers, but it has no power to make or veto legislation and its members are appointed by the king.

Yet even this move will have entailed lengthy debate between the Royal Court and the "ulama", the country's ultra-conservative clergy, who once opposed female education and even television.

To allay their fears, special gates are being incorporated into the Shura Council building so that women can enter and leave by a different entrance from the men. There will be a separate seating area for them and an earlier announcement spoke of screens and internal communications to prevent any mingling of the sexes, which is forbidden by the country's strict interpretation of Islamic law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/africa/a-trail-of-bullet-casings-leads-from-africas-wars-to-iran.html

i guess this is a thing now, i keep seeing coverage of it:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2013/01/11/news-flash-jews-are-apes-and-pigs-so-why-is-egypts-morsi-the-elephant-in-americas-newsrooms/

genuinely curious -- is "apes and pigs" a standard trope of anti-semitism?

i have to admit i didn't know about this from morsi. but i did kind of figure most the ikhwan was basically anti-semitic even if the upper echelon tried to finesse it on camera, as it were.

however:

Commentary magazine, American Thinker and Breitbart thoughtfully weighed in on the subject. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Jewish Talk Radio, and the Christian Broadcasting Network also saw value in covering it. So did – of all things — a prominent national stock-picking and finance newspaper, Investor’s Business Daily. Fox News entertainer Sean Hannity has been pouncing on it — no surprise there. (Do I really have to tune in to that unpleasant loudmouth if I want to be sure not to miss such newsworthy information?)

i really don't like when writers play dumb like this. "thoughtfully weighed in on the subject"? yeah i'll bet

there is no group of humans less pig like than the jews

didn't art spiegelman get some grief for portraying the Poles as pigs in MAUS?

this might actually convince me to buy a haaretz sub:

Plant a tree in Israel
Purchase a Haaretz digital subscription and we will plant a tree in your honor to help rehabilitate the Carmel forests

genuinely curious -- is "apes and pigs" a standard trope of anti-semitism?

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=786

In three instances (Surahs 2, 5, and 7), the Quran tells of Muhammad turning Jews into apes and/or pigs. For instance, Surah 5:60 states, “Those (Jews) who incurred the curse of Allah and his Wrath, and those of whom (some) He transformed into apes and swine.” Another section of the Quran compares the Jews to donkeys. There are two differing traditions in Islam regarding what happened to the Jews who were turned into pigs. One view maintains that all pigs alive today are descendants of the Jews who were turned into pigs by Allah. The other view holds that all the Jews who were turned into pigs by Allah died out without reproducing, and therefore there is no relationship between today’s pigs and Jews:

“There are two opinions among the Ulama [Islamic scholars] in this regard: The first is that the Jews, whom Allah transformed and turned into pigs, remained in that state until they died, without producing descendants. The other opinion is that the Jews who turned into pigs multiplied and produced descendants, and their line continues to this day.
Sheikh Othman [Ahmed Ali Othman, supervisor of the Da'awa (Islamic Indoctrination) of the Egyptian Waqf Islamic Holy places]: "I personally tend towards the view that the pigs that exist now have their origins with the Jews, and therefore their consumption is forbidden in the words of Allah: 'A carcass, and blood, and the flesh of a pig are forbidden to you....' Moreover, our master Jesus, peace be unto him - one of the tasks that he will fulfill when he descends to earth is the killing of the pigs, and this is proof that their source is Jewish. Sheikh Othman said that whoever eats pig, it's as if he ate meat of an impure person…
Sheikh Ali Abu Al-Hassan, head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar [Sunni Islamic university], said that the first view is accurate, because when Allah punishes a group of people he punishes only them. When Allah grew angry with the nation of Moses, He turned them into pigs and apes as an extraordinary punishment... but they died out without leaving descendants."
[Al-Moheet Arab News Network, May 10, 2009, Al-Hakika al-Dawliya, May 9, 2009]

PA religious representatives on numerous occasions have used this tradition to malign Jews, calling them “apes and pigs” in sermons and programs broadcast on Palestinian Authority television.

http://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/IRCReportMidEast20130114.pdf

Should the flow of refugees continue at its current pace, the u.n. estimates that the syrian refugee population could grow to one million in the next six months. The refugee influx is straining the already limited resources of the neighboring countries. In particular, the health, water, education and sanitation systems of host communities are increasingly struggling to cope and the cost of rent and commodities is rising. as tensions grow, the welcome mat is beginning to wear thin.

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family have been living on a warship, with security provided by Russia, intelligence sources told a Saudi newspaper.

An Al-Watan report Monday says the family and Assad aides are residing on the ship in the Mediterranean Sea and that he travels to Syria by helicopter to attend official meetings and receptions.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/01/14/Report-says-Assad-residing-on-warship/UPI-95401358162184/#ixzz2HyDhdzsJ

I guess Russian abandonment of Assad has been overstated.

Give Russia another client state in the Mediterranean to replace their naval base at Tartus, and they'd drop Syria fairly promptly. They have enough problems with enraged Sunnis (like the FSA) as it is.

You have one in mind?

Curiously, none of the warships of the Syrian Navy have a helicopter deck, so if Al-Watan isn't propagandizing here, that would mean he's likely on a Russian vessel.

A different theory for why Russia supports Assad:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/why-russia-supports-assad.html

xp Mordy - it would have to be Lebanon, as pretty much every other Mediterranean country has strong military ties with the West, either NATO members, Bosnia (NATO protected since 1995), or non-aligned North Africans that get most of their arms from the West. Russia's been trying not to get bottled up in the Black Sea for centuries, they lost that geopolitical battle after the Cold War.

I suspect the Tartus naval base is overstated as Russia's reason for supporting Assad.

I should've called this rolling greater middle east 2013 so I could chat about Mali here.

It's minor, yes, but Russia has a dwindling number of "client" states. Only Belarus, Bolivia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Ecuador, Iran, Nicaragua, Russian, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe voted against the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Syria. Even Sri Lanka (which faced its own bloody revolt), Vietnam and Myanmar (both had pretty strong ties with Syria) abstained. I can see where a retaining some foothold in the Levant would be seen as pretty vital to Moscow's longer-term geopolitical game. Probably will blowback against them, but geopolitical games have that tendency.

re: Mali

Music, long at the center of Malian culture (it also happens to be very good), is now banned.

Oops, maybe not. Their vocalist was just arrested by the Ansar Dine.

If the casual brutality in Paul Bowles books are anything to go by, the Malian Islamists would likely be the cruelest Islamists worldwide.

That's terrible... almost everything I know about Mali I know from their music scene. There was an article a little bit ago about fatoumata diawara (iirc) being threatened with death if she returned to Mali. It's really tragic. I couldn't help but be a little heartened by some French intervention, tho at this point it's probably more about containing the mess than actually putting the fires out.

It was Khaïra Arby -- and they threatened to cut her tongue out.

Like the Taliban, the Ansar Dine have already started destroying UNESCO sites, not sure if this is the tomb of a Sufi saint ransacked by them, or just stock photography of a Timbuktu site used (repeatedly) for illustration.

http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/thumbs/site_0119_0001-500-375-20120701081522.jpg

A useful map for the Malian conflict, somewhat dated:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G0TJ7yvZWZY/UEiBZCQKMtI/AAAAAAAAAuc/5LpXB1BzQ0w/s1600/mali_rebellion_2012-9-6.png

In the past days a Malian outpost in Dibaly (177km roughly due-North of Segou) was overrun by the Ansar Dine, and the French Embassy in Bamako ordered the evacuation of all French nationals from Segou, so things are going pretty poorly for the government.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/bennett-will-be-key-partner-in-government-say-top-likud-officials-1.494006

nyt covers morsi video, says "his previous statements has now trapped him in a political bind"

i don't know if i'd take paul bowles novels into consideration re: malian islamists

Not so much Islamists per se, but the Touareg and other semi-nomads of the deep Sahara have historically been the local caravan raiders and slave traders, feared for their cruelty (& and subsequently oppressed) by both "local" and colonial regimes. Michael Asher wrote a great travelogue of his camel trek across the Sahara in the early 80s, and there were some groups like the black turbaned Touareg that he feared encountering with very good reason. I seem to recall them also featuring as the local boogiemen in Isabelle Eberhardt's missives from the turn of the last century. And now, Salafists largely drawn from the Touareg are getting home-rule over an area the size of France, and they have a lot of good reasons for resenting both the Bamako government and Western ways.

Just saying, if the Taliban were desert raiders united by an Islamist ideology rather than isolationist mountain valley farmers united by an Islamist ideology, things might be even worse.

And that should be indigo turbans, not black...

French commit more troops to Mali:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/world/africa/france-mali-intervention.html

x-post -The Tuaregs have gotten pushed out of the way in the North by the fundamentalist Ansar Dine and AQUIM

My understanding is that while the MLNA is the nationalist Tuareg movement fighting for an independent Azawad, the victorious Islamist Ansar Dine is a multi-racial coalition led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, leader of the 1990s Tuareg rebellions. So it isn't exactly true that the Tuaregs as a whole have lost, just that the nationalist Tuaregs lost out to the Islamist Tuaregs.

Pigs-&-Apes-gate update:

The White House on Tuesday strongly condemned comments that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was reported to have made in 2010 when he was a Muslim Brotherhood leader and which were widely regarded as anti-Semitic in nature.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that the language Morsi had used was "deeply offensive" and that US officials raised concerns with the Egyptian government on the matter.

Syria update:

A series of devastating explosions struck the Aleppo University campus in Syria on Tuesday, antigovernment activists and Syrian state television reported, in what appeared to be a major expansion of the violent struggle for control of the largest city in the nearly two-year-old Syrian conflict. Each side blamed the other for the blasts, and the activists said more than 50 people were killed.

xp:

And its also worth noting that the multi-racial makeup of the Ansar Dine has been a problem for Bamako government troops. There was an attack reported in the past few days in which a civilian bus of black/Sahelian Ansar Dine fighters was waved through an initial checkpoint only to wipe out a second checkpoint, so clearly the government troops thought they were fighting a Berber/Tuareg rebellion until just a few days ago.

Ghaly is a Tuareg true, but it is my understanding that the longtime nationalist Tuareg movement wanted independence for north Mali but not fundamentalist Islam; and it is not clear to me how many members of Ghaly's Ansar Dine are Tuareg (and how many are Algerian or from elsewhere). Many north Malian musicians were identified as Tuareg over the years, yet the Ansar Dine have been outlawing music. There has not been as far as I know a long tradition of fundamentalist Islam in Mali which is why music and Sufi Islam art and culture has existed for quite some time in north Mali, and historic items have only been destroyed now.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/06/20126295148565734.html

The Tuareg have demanded a secular independent state, but have increasingly been pushed aside by the Islamist fighters.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/mass-grave-found-in-aleppo-amid-fierce-fighting/

I wonder to what extent anxiety about how they are perceived as a world power played into france's decision to intercede in mali. i feel like they need to prove to the world that they're a global player, not just another greece.

According to report in Foreign Policy, a secret American investigation reveals Assad forces used a poisonous gas against his own people in Homs on December 23, 2012.

Stumbled across the U.S. State Department's Arabic YouTube propaganda channel while looking for videos of Ansar Dine. Some (a lot) of it is laughably poor compared to some jihadist videos I've seen in music and editing. Definitely no Goebbels on the payroll. Worth sampling for those curious about their tax dollars at work.

xp: having viewed a couple videos taken in ERs after the Dec 23 Homs gas attack, my guess is low dose phosgene which is odorless, no skin blistering, no convulsions, mostly causing difficulty breathing, and in higher concentrations, suffocation. Responsible for 80% of WWI gas deaths, mostly because of the slow onset of symptoms from a colorless/odorless gas.

It's interesting how little Obama wants to get involved in Syria. Partially I'm sure it's because of Russia but if he really wanted to go in he could play up the 12/23 gas attack.

Non-interventionists fished their wish on Syria but I can't help but think the Syrians would prefer they hadn't.

French bodies are now on the ground:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/world/africa/france-mali-intervention.html

Israeli occupation gets an unwelcome spotlight from two Oscar-nominated documentaries

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/16/israel_confronts_its_image_problem/

i want to see the gatekeepers

the foreboding music is a little OTT imo but pretty compelling stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZepXBymtkUQ

id guess the french troops are probably foreign legion

kinda feel that french air support and peacekeeping troops from other african nations supported by french special forces as necessary has better ~optics~ than french commandos in an ex-colony

Mali's in the Middle East?

I should've called this rolling greater middle east 2013 so I could chat about Mali here.

― Mordy, Monday, January 14, 2013 3:40 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/01/16/world/africa/16reuters-algeria-kidnap.html

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas production field in southern Algeria on Wednesday, kidnapping at least nine foreigners and killing two people including a French national during a dawn raid, local and company officials said.

The raid, claimed by an al Qaeda affiliate, came after Islamists had vowed to retaliate for France's military intervention in Mali, where its forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.

Mali's in the Greater Middle East?

close enough. one of the points of the thread was to talk about events in the middle east from a more aerial view - instead of balkanizing conversation over a dozen threads or so. obv what happens in mali is very relevant to what happens in libya, algeria, etc.

Amusing interview on Channel 4 news about the French intervention, Malian guy was asked if he wasn't uncomfortable with a former colonial power getting involved with his country and he said, "No, in fact I'd like them to colonise us again"

if you want to start a new thread on mali tho i certainly won't protest.

Nah, carry on

i feel like they need to prove to the world that they're a global player, not just another greece.

This is true to some extent but there are other greater factors:

Hollande wants to be seen as decisive and improve his standing in the polls;

There are thirty thousand French citizens in Wset Africa, many thousands of whom are in Mali, including eight hostages in Mali - whose plight has been page one in the French press for some time;

The whole Libyan situation and its perceived success in France is now clouded by the collapse of Malian govmt authority in the North, though the threat does not appear to be only from Touaregs. Libya and Algeria (where Hollande recently visited) are very important to France and Italy also as oil providers.

it's interesting how no matter who the french put in office, they still find themselves in northern africa

"With the current intervention of the French, we are, of course, very afraid that the humanitarian situation will worsen very quickly," said Salvatore Saguès, West Africa researcher at Amnesty International.

He said civilian casualties were virtually unavoidable - despite France's best efforts to target rebel fighters in its bombing campaign - because rebels were living among civilians.

"It is simply impossible to really separate the armed groups and the population because the armed groups (are) in towns, in civilian buildings," Saguès told AlertNet in a phone interview.

they still find themselves in northern africa (and Western Africa)

And vice-versa

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-france-intervened-unilaterally-in-mali-by-zaki-laidi#Ebf683ZPuIWzH5cS.99

So, with the security of Europe as a whole at stake, why is France the only country involved?

One explanation is to view the intervention as a neo-colonial bid to protect a French preserve. This is a profound error. France has no interest in protecting a Malian regime that it knows to be corrupt and incompetent; indeed, France recently refused to support a request from President François Bozizé’s regime in the neighboring Central African Republic for aid in dealing with rebels.

France’s motivations are broader. In particular, France has always considered Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world to be natural spheres of political and strategic influence that are necessary to maintaining its position as a global power.

I meant to quote the next paragraph too: "The second explanation is more credible: France, aside from Great Britain, is Europe’s only true military power. It believes that operational military capability is a condition of power – a view that is not shared by the overwhelming majority of European states, which continue to display a collective aversion to war."

Europe is reluctant to develop a substantial military force, because the European project was created in opposition to the idea of power. Yet this stance has become untenable. Europe faces real threats, which France alone cannot contain. Moreover, the international system is increasingly coalescing around national powers that consider military force to be an essential prerequisite of influence. Europe does not face a choice between soft and hard power. It must combine both if it is to survive.

to write this whole article and not mention economics even once is pretty crazy

Europe as a whole currently devotes only 1.6% of its GDP to defense, compared to 4.8% for the US. It is the only world region where military expenditures are decreasing.

it's one of the only areas of the world where GDPs are decreasing! wtf man

why is France the only country involved?

Germany has lent some transport planes I believe.

41 ppl taken and 400 ppl retained at BP site in Algeria by AQIM in retaliation for Algeria allowing France to use its airspace for Mali.

if economics were such a substantial role france would not be in mali atm. i'm pretty sure they can't afford it.

wait what

what?

he's wondering why "europe as a whole" has such low military expenditure. the better-off countries (germany, france, GB) have acted outside their borders (with some reluctance) but those closer to the problems (spain, italy) have done almost nothing. both of those countries are basket cases right now! to not acknowledge that is dumb.

it's not just economics, the basic democratic appetite for military action is very low in europe. this is a surfacey reading, but conservative/militarist constituencies in europe seem more interested in an anti-muslim form of isolationism, not in liberal-internationalist interventions

it's one thing to argue that europe should beef up, but another to dimly wonder why they haven't. it's pretty obvious imo.

might as well ask why greece hasn't intervened in syria. i mean, they're right there...

maybe not individual countries but surely the EU could put something together collectively

At the height of the cold war European NATO countries spent 2% vs the 4-7% (depending on whether there was a war on) of the U.S. Europe just got the peace dividend, while the U.S. kept its system of Keynesian militarism, regardless of whether there were worthy state foe nails for all the hammers we built.

France does 5% of her trade with Africa. There's a similar paternalism as with the U.S. in Latin America, for better and worse. 47+ military interventions in post-colonial Africa by France, which exceeds the U.S. record in Latin America (over the sme time period). One reason we should have paid more attention when France opposed our Iraq fiasco in 2003., experience still counts.

Who is the outlier? It's not Europe.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Military_expenditure_percent_of_GDP.svg/500px-Military_expenditure_percent_of_GDP.svg.png

in Morocco last week locals told me they were *pissed* that Hollande chose to visit Algeria rather than Morocco as his first North Africa trip. evidently it's standard for French presidents to visit Morocco before Algeria. don't really get the relationship between Morocco & France, as former colonizers.

Islamist militants seized a foreign-operated gas field in Algeria early Wednesday and took at least 20 foreign hostages, including Americans, according to an Algerian government official and the country’s state-run news agency, in what the attackers called a retaliation for the French-led military intervention in neighboring Mali.

The Algerian agency said at least at least two people had been killed in the gas-field seizure, including one British national, and that the hostages included American, British, French, Norwegian and Japanese citizens.

YOU AINT SEEN NO INTERVENTION YET!

as usual i am deeply impressed by your incisive analysis

none required for perpetual war for perpetual peace

Morsi told a delegation of U.S. senators visiting Cairo on Wednesday that the remarks needed to be put "in the context in which they were said", his spokesman said in a statement.

The context being that they weren't intended for the West to hear, I guess.

http://www.alwasatnews.com/3784/news/read/730955/1.html

Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdul Rahman bin Nasser Al-Barrak has forbidden democracy.

He said "the system of elections is a corrupt system that is not legitimate for Muslims... It is an exotic idea from the enemies of Islam because of their occupation of their land."

don't really get the relationship between Morocco & France, as former colonizers.

'56 was way less stresful than '62

this is pretty good i thought

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/01/21/130121fa_fact_remnick

made me think of this thread b/c remnick brings up the morsi apes comment

i think it's a really good piece. the morsi bit is pretty minor - i would read the article to get an idea of what is going on in israeli politics, not to get any insight into the israeli-egyptian relationship.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/world/africa/algeria-militants-hostages.html

four hostages escaped

no im not saying that its a good read on that, just that its the first mainstream american outlet to mention the comment i think? it came out before the nyt article at any rate

oh, okay. i didn't realize. i think it's a very good piece in any case. worth reading.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138764/noam-sheizaf/israels-left-in-the-dark

Haven't read it yet

the left in israel is about as ideologically incoherent and intellectually bankrupt as the right in the united states

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-moderate-pa-also-routinely-calls.html

The apes + pigs thing is also prevalent in the PA.

Where does that even come from, seeing as it appears to be a common phrase used by anti-semitic Arabs? Are those just culturally offensive animals and so they pop into the mind readily (like calling people rats or cockroaches in the Western world) or is there some big history to this?

It's from the Koran

oic

it is not an explicit reference to jews though

What do you mean? The surahs were Allah turns people into apes and pigs are referring to Jews.

where*

which surah are you talking about? 5:60?

2:65? 7:166?

7:166, 2:65, and 5:60

ok but 2:62 says

Indeed, those who believed and those who were Jews or Christians or Sabeans [before Prophet Muhammad] - those [among them] who believed in Allah and the Last Day and did righteousness - will have their reward with their Lord, and no fear will there be concerning them, nor will they grieve.

from what I understand the Koran on isn't talking about *all* Jews being turned into pigs / apes, but only the disobedient ones. isn't that going to depend on whether Jews believe that Allah is their God? I dunno what the state of the art is on that question. (the Catholic priest with whom I studied Islamic philosophy thought that the Christian God = Allah fwiw)

but what the books say isn't really the point, it's how people today take the book to mean that Allah turned the Jews into pigs

euler otm

7:159 says

And of Moses' folk there is a community who lead with truth and establish justice therewith.

allah is the god of the people of the book, god of christians, jews, moslems and of the pre-abrahmic prophets too

from what I understand the Koran on isn't talking about *all* Jews being turned into pigs / apes, but only the disobedient ones. isn't that going to depend on whether Jews believe that Allah is their God? I dunno what the state of the art is on that question. (the Catholic priest with whom I studied Islamic philosophy thought that the Christian God = Allah fwiw)

but what the books say isn't really the point, it's how people today take the book to mean that Allah turned the Jews into pigs

Yeah, that's fair. I obviously know that the Koran doesn't say that he turned all Jews into pigs/apes. Just some of them. And like you said, what matters more is how it's used/interpreted. Ancient documents say all kinds of hideous shit.

yeah it is just too easy for people to conflate "people who received the scripture but disrespected islam" with "zionists" or "jews"

I find people who try to discredit contemporary Islamic movements by deriding the Koran, or indicating how the perniciousness is found in original holy scripture, to be pretty misguided. If you want to attack Morsi, there's plenty of fodder without waging a war against the theology of the Koran. Still, if you want to know why he calls Jews apes and pigs, the obvious antecedent is koranic.

LONDON — Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed smuggler-jihadist said to be behind the seizure of foreign hostages at a gas plant in Algeria, has been a notorious kingpin of the Sahara for more than a decade.

As a successful kidnapper, cigarette smuggler — he is nicknamed “Mr. Marlboro” — and go-between for Al Qaeda, Mr. Belmokhtar has been a wanted man in his native Algeria after returning from training with jihadists in Afghanistan in 1993.

Cigarette smuggler! And I thought Robert Levinson's "researching a cigarette-smuggling case" was just a ridiculously bad cover story!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/opinion/global/ayaan-hirsi-ali-morsis-comments-on-jews.html

lol mordy was that you in the fr3ddi3 d3b03r comment section yesterday?

mmaybe

haha. i was going to jump in myself but you took care of it pretty handily

from last election:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXC5tT3T7Qs&feature=youtu.be

my youtube embeds never work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXC5tT3T7Qs

jeezus, wtf is going on in algeria?

what are the militants demanding in return for the hostages?

mali spillover, right? apparently algeria loves the counter-terrorism stuff.

from the same article:

Dozens of hostages may still be held by militants at a remote gas field facility in the Algerian desert on Friday, according to Algeria’s state-run news agency, a day after the nation’s military launched an intense assault that freed captives, killed kidnappers but also left some hostages dead.

The agency said that the country’s special forces were seeking to reach a “peaceful solution” with a “terrorist group” that was still holding hostages at the gas field.

"“Those who think we will negotiate with terrorists are delusional,” the communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said in an announcement about the assault on the facility near In Amenas, in eastern Algeria."

so they're pursuing a peaceful solution...without negotiating?

The chief United Nations nuclear inspector says no deal has been reached with Iran to investigate that nation's controversial nuclear program, but that a meeting will take place next month on the issue.

International Atomic Energy Agency team leader Herman Nackaerts said Friday that two days of "intensive discussions" in Tehran failed to produce an agreement on access to Iranian nuclear facilities.

Citing unspecified "differences," Nackaerts said the two sides could not agree on a structured approach to resolve outstanding issues. He said another round of talks will take place February 12 in Tehran.

The IAEA had hoped to gain access to the Parchin military site, which Western nations suspect is related to nuclear weapons development. Iran says it is a conventional military site and that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes.

Jpost interview with Bibi: http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=299991

I wish interviews with American politicians were this candid.

The Tuareg (both nationalist and Islamist) are on the move.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Tuareg_area.png

The borders invented by France for its African colonies were pretty arbitrary. They certainly don't follow tribal boundaries.

A useful map (a bit large) for historians and african music fans:

http://www.african-tribes.org/map-of-african-tribes-2502x2984.jpg

Some nationalistic Tuareg had previously been less on the move due to changing lifestyles driven by weather, jobs, etc., with some living only in Niger, others living only in Mali, etc.

I recently read that Iyad Ag Ghaly, the Tuareg who became head of the Islamic fundamentalist Ansar Dine, became wedded to Sharia law and fundamentalist Islam when he was serving as a Malian diplomat in Saudia Arabia

Seems such a short step from Saudi Wahhabi Islam and full-on Salafist militancy. Pretty much anywhere where the Sauds have funded their exclusively Wahhabi mosques (1500+, stretching from California to Indonesia, and most likely Mali) there's been an uptick of puritanical condemnation of other more permissive strains of Islam...

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/partys-over-perry-farrell-lollapalooza-israel-collapses-artists-said-stay-away

who knew lollapalooza was still a thing

xp: And yes, the largest mosque in 90% Muslim Mali is the Bamako Grand Mosque, built with Saudi money in the late 70s.

11 people were killed, including seven children and three women, on Thursday in an air strike that targeted a Palestinian refugee camp near Husseiniya of Sayeda Zeinab south of Damascus.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the warplanes targeted the camp with three missiles.

a friend wrote on fb (super dark, but otm i think): "I hope my fellow Jews can find it in their hearts to kill 5 or 6 Syrians so people will start to care about what's going on there."

another Mali map:

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/graphic-mali-conflict-area-615.jpg

Wake me when either rebellion rises to the death tolls of the Second Congo War, you know the one that caused 2.7–5.4 million deaths from 1998–2003. I don't think it ever penetrated further than the occasional column in international spread of the NYT. Post Somalia/Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Israel-Palestine, there's not a lot of appetite for new interventions in brown peoples' civil wars...

Lack of Western intervention in the Rwanda genocide and aftermath is a huge lapse in judgement and common humanity that I can only understand as an expression of racism. I don't think we should wait for either of these rebellions to read Second Congo War numbers before we try to stop them.

to reach*

Azawad, like Kurdistan, looks like a colonial opportunity missed.

Only 14.5 million total inhabitants

http://i50.tinypic.com/f2ing8.png

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/17/261017.html

Salafist leaders in Morocco have condemned the French military intervention in Mali, calling it a “Zionist crusade” and labelling all Muslims who participate in it “ungodly.”

“No Islamic state should provide facilities, such as the use of airspace, to non-Muslims against a Muslim state. It is forbidden by Islam,” wrote Omar Haddouchi, a well-known Salafist, on his Facebook page late on Wednesday.

“Whoever has given support to non-Muslims (in the conflict) is considered ungodly,” Haddouchi added.

Another radical Islamist, Abderrazak Ajah, said Moroccans must “choose between supporting the Islamist fighters as best we can or the Zionist crusade and its agents,” also posting his comments on social media.

ethnolinguistic map of africa is awesome

xxp I don't know about 'pig-like', since pigs aren't well known for extortionary politics or holding the nutsacks of legislatures in the palms of their hands.... I would say that both have really bad PR issues as of late and are out of step with current American political consensus.

NRA for sure. AIPAC seems within American political consensus imo.

fwiw http://www.gallup.com/poll/153092/americans-continue-tilt-pro-israel.aspx

"“No Islamic state should provide facilities, such as the use of airspace, to non-Muslims against a Muslim state. It is forbidden by Islam,” wrote Omar Haddouchi, a well-known Salafist, on his Facebook page late on Wednesday."

can't lie: lolling at the facebook detail. how many friends or likes does it take to be a "well-known" Salafist?

Every time I see 'salafist' I get a yen for salsify.

fb search for Omar Haddouchi not working out, was thinking about friending him!

I'd like to think that Haddouchi established his credibility in conjunction w/ the 2003 Casablanca bombings and not just from being a savvy social media dude. But I'm sure that if it hasn't happened already, there will soon be radicals that came up using linkedin.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/how-did-algeria-screw-up-its-hostage-crisis-so-badly/267335/

imho the world has gotten spoiled watching first rate militaries fight in these asymmetrical conflicts.

The United States said for the first time that Americans were among the remaining captives and confirmed the first known death of an American hostage, Frederick Buttaccio, 58, of Katy, Tex.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/world/africa/algeria-militants-hostages.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxiu6oGvD8g

Max Pink - Elections Song (lyrics from one israeli song a week)

Elections are soon, nothing is going to change anyways
So what do you care, give me your vote
Don't give it to them, give me your vote
Don't give it to them, that way without votes they won't be able to exist
So what do you care, give me your vote

I don't promise to lower taxes, the prices of appartments will stay skyscrapers
I don't promise to bring peace, it'll be sad if there won't be anythng to dream about
So pick me, pick me
Pick me...

Iran is soon, if you haven't been convinced yet then now the fear is here
Well, what do you care, give me everything
I dont promise to lower taxes, the prices of appartments will stay skyscrapers
I don't promise to bring peace, it'll be sad if there won't be anything to dream about
So pick me, pick me
Pick me...

"It’s an open-air prison." - Noam Chomsky

http://paltimes.net/new/ar/gallery/showalbum/31759/صور-جولة-في-الجامعة-الإسلامية.html

http://paltimes.net/new/images/uploads/012013/view_1358432033.jpg

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-elections-2013/israeli-elections-opinion-analysis/in-search-of-israel-s-nate-silver.premium-1.490722

French city Lyon briefly evacuates metro on bomb alert

NYT

Among those figures, two names stand out: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the warlord who led the attack on the Algerian gas field, and Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, a leader of Al Qaeda’s North African branch.

“The driving force behind jihadism in the Sahara region is the competition between Abu Zeid and Belmokhtar,” said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a Middle East analyst at the Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris.

Mr. Belmokhtar has generated millions of dollars for the Qaeda group through the kidnapping of Westerners and the smuggling of tobacco, which earned him one of his nicknames, “Mr. Marlboro.” But Mr. Belmokhtar bridles under authority, and last year his rival forced him out of the organization, Mr. Filiu said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/world/middleeast/iran-resorts-to-hangings-in-public-to-cut-crime.html

iran invented hanging

mordy I can't keep up with your posts in this thread

sorry hurting :(

i just heard a short interview w/ bennett on the BBC.

http://i46.tinypic.com/2mp0q51.png

No one mines for uranium in Mali. There are three sizable gold mines (Sadiola Hill, Yatela, Morila) and a few active development projects, all of which are in the government controlled Southeast, and none of which are run by French companies. Anglogold Ashanti (S Af), Iamgold (Can), and Randgold (S Af) are the major players in country.

That said, the French concern Areva does have a couple of uranium mines in northern Niger, which have suffered the same sorts of kidnappings/ransom issues that Algerians have dealt with from AQIM etc.

Shocking the Al Qassam Brigades are not trustworthy analysts of geopolitics.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/01/18/South-Sudan-signs-oil-deal-with-Israel/UPI-91351358531460/

South Sudan says it has signed an agreement with several Israeli oil companies, a potentially significant strategic move that will consolidate the Jewish state's relations with the fledgling, oil-rich East African state.

It will also bolster Israeli moves to counter Iranian inroads into the Red Sea and a major gunrunning route from the Revolutionary Guards base at Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to the Gaza Strip via Sudan.

South Sudan, which became independent of Arab-ruled Sudan in July 2011 after a decades-long civil war, is locked in a frequently violent confrontation over its oil reserves with the military-run Khartoum regime, an ally of Iran, under President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudan has become a battleground in the mostly clandestine war between Israel and the Islamic Republic, which funnels missiles and other arms for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip through the Red Sea.

South Sudan's petroleum and mining minister, Dhieu Dau, announced the oil deal last week after he returned from a visit to Israel.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/18/remaking-martin-luther-king-as-anti-zionist.html

Useful 'reading list' on the mali/algeria crisis:

http://qz.com/45448/algerias-four-day-hostage-crisis-is-over-heres-a-reading-list-and-a-timeline/

I thought this was good, and seems to debunk a lot of the boilerplate responses you get from both left and right in a foreign conflict:

http://bridgesfrombamako.com/2013/01/16/behind-mali-conflict/

This would make sense if most of the US-trained officers in Mali’s armed forces had defected to the rebels. But that’s not the case: Pentagon-sponsored training was provided to a broad cross-section of officers and NCOs in the Malian military, of which the defectors (most of them Tuareg) made up a minority. US-trained personnel fought on both sides of the conflict: at best the effects of their training were canceled out, at worst they were negligible. The problem with the US military’s training program wasn’t that it benefited the wrong people, it’s that it didn’t work. Following exercises in 2009, detailed in Wikileaks, even one of the Malian army’s most elite units got poor evaluations despite lengthy collaboration with US trainers. Whatever “advantage” such collaboration may have provided, it was the last thing the Tuareg — experienced desert fighters — needed to defeat Malian government forces.

whitehouse seems pretty otm to me about all the debunked reasons, and he gives an excellent reason at the end: state failure. i've been reading him a lot re mali and he really seems to know his stuff. he recommended 'a history of race in muslim west africa,' which i've been reading (very slowly, it's - surprise - really dry). one of the major arguments of the book is that race/racism predated colonialism in western africa which i guess is obvious but i didn't have a lot of knowledge about.

The War Nerd, as usual, brings plainspoken clarity to the Mali situation.

that intro is a little unfair. it's also one of the most (maybe the most?) important music scenes in the world

apparently vote in israel is up from last election

http://i48.tinypic.com/242wp69.png

hmmm, little enthusiasm

http://i50.tinypic.com/5lo51d.png

wat? record turnout???

5.41 P.M. Yesh Atid sources say that Channel 10 pollsters informed them that they're set to be the second-largest party.

My understanding is that Yesh Atid is the anti-orthodox privilege party (their platform calls for universal draft and equal primary education for orthodox Jews).

1. Changing the priorities State priorities, with an emphasis on civil life – education, housing, health, transportation and police, as well as improving the condition of the middle class.
2. Changing the system of government.
3. Equality in education and the draft: all school students must be taught essential classes (the 3 Rs, if you will), everybody will be drafted into the Army, and all the citizens will be encouraged to seek work, including the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs.
4. War against corruption, including corruption in government in the form of institutions like "minister without portfolio," opting for a government of 18 ministers at most, fortifying the rule of law and protecting the status of the High Court.
5. Growth and economic efficiency – creating growth engines as a way to fight poverty, combating red tape, removing barriers, improving the transportation system, reducing the cost of living and housing costs, and improving social mobility through assistance to small businesses.
6. Education legislation in cooperation with teachers' unions, eliminating most of the matriculation exams, raising the differential education index, increasing school autonomy.
7. Enact a constitution to regulate tense relations between population groups in Israel.
8. Strive for peace according to an outline of "two states for two peoples," while maintaining the large settlement blocs and ensuring the safety of Israel.

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/politics/new-party-12-seats-projected-in-polls-includes-chairman-lapids-makeup-artist-karate-trainer/2012/05/04/0/?print

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/395550_523949214293418_1024587035_n.jpg

Isn't that Bennett?

yes

What are frumies?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frum

6.00 P.M. Voter tunrout stands at record 55.5 percent. The electoral threshold is likely to rise to 80,000 votes, as opposed to 67,000 in 2009.

the really large tweet embeds & screengrabs itt make me feel like i am an old guy reading haaretz with a magnifying glass

it looks like israel is going to have a higher % turnout than the us did last year.

anti-Orthodox privilege party? I have a feeling I'm never gonna understand Israeli politics unless I take some online history of Judaism course...

http://prospect.org/article/tribal-warfare

some charedi Jews get dispensations from serving in the military - that's the major privilege being fought over

Can't imagine Bennett actually has the rights to Bert for that ad.

anti-Orthodox privilege party? I have a feeling I'm never gonna understand Israeli politics unless I take some online history of Judaism course...

― Frobisher the (Viceroy), Tuesday, January 22, 2013 12:52 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The combination of parliamentary politics and intra-Jewish disputes (a culture of "two rabbis, three opinions") has some pretty batshit results.

8.06 P.M. Netanyahu calls on supporters: "The Likud government is in danger, go vote for us for the sake of the country's future."

what was the polling consensus on this race going into today? or does the small-ish size and multiparty nature of the contest render israeli elections essentially unpollable?

(if you can't tell i haven't been following this v closely)

going into the race likud was expected to win + form new government w/ some combo of labor, yesh atid, and bayit yehudi coming after.

it's always struck me as kind of unique how quickly and how often parties are founded and fielded in israeli politics (even if the constituencies stay relatively stable (right?). a whole new political party showing up and winning significantly would be extraordinary news in just about any other democracy, i think.

stray parens there

france is a bit like that

i don't think it's mathematically possible that new government isn't bibi led - no matter how dramatic he might get before polls close

in non-israel news:

Russia sends two aircraft to evacuate its citizens and refugees from Syria. As expected, Emergencies Ministry aircraft IL-76 and Yak-42 will evacuate those who wish to leave Syria on January 22nd. The people will be evacuated from the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

The aircraft will take about 100 people, while the number of refugees is estimated at about 150 people.

polls closed i think. should get exit polling soon, i think. probably results around 7EST

x-post-Guardian article says Russia is not evacuating every Russian from Syria and

the regime's grip on Damascus does not yet apear under threat. It maintains air supremacy and has made regular use of air force jets to bomb rebel positions and the communities that support them.

LIVE BLOG: Exit polls give right-wing 61 seats, left-wing 59
Of the more than 5.65 million Israelis eligible to vote, some 3.6 million cast their ballots, with a turnout of 4 percent more than in the 2009 elections.

Exit Polls: Likud - 31, Yesh Atid - 19, Labor - 17, Shas - 12, Habayit Hayehudi - 12

Netanyahu's attacks on Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett boomeranged as did the Likud's on the Bayit Yehudi's list. The strange Hebrew equivalent of the phrase “those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones” is “those with butter on their heads shouldn't go out in the sunshine.”

danlacey_netanyahu_pancake.jpg

http://forward.com/articles/169760/what-are-benjamin-netanyahus-coalition-options-aft/

too early to make any conclusions, but if you hear anyone in the media say that yesh atid's victory will act as a moderating influence on likud read this. already tho i saw nyt + npr declare that this was a huge blow to pro-settlement bloc of israel, i guess bc they still haven't figured out that right/left doesn't map the same way in israel as it does in other countries. i do think bibi is probably going to have to make some kind of agreement w/ shas (aka compromise on orthodox benefits) if he wants the hard right on iran + palestine coalition that i think he does.

80% vote counted - it's a 60-60 split between Left and Right blocs. Arab parties with 11. this is exciting.

where are you watching returns?

times of israel are livebloggin it.

israel pretty much voted left on economics and right on settlements.

great analysis on their frontpage re bibi + yesh atid

With the stunning entrance of an empowered Yesh Atid onto the political stage, Netanyahu could be pulled into the center-right where he is more comfortable. His domestic views and agenda will find ideological fellow travelers in Yesh Atid, while the centrist party’s sheer size will blunt pressure from the right wing of his party and from Jewish Home, which is home to large parts of the ideologically minded settler movement.

Tzipi Livni, leader of the underperforming Hatnua, has already suggested she would join Lapid in entering a Netanyahu-led government. Such a center-right coalition, together with the revitalized Jewish Home, which is desperate to sit in the coalition, would give Netanyahu close to 70 seats, depending on the final count — more than enough to maintain a stable government.

Even if Netanyahu prefers a right-haredi bloc, Yesh Atid’s success is an advantage. Netanyahu’s current list, together with Jewish Home and the haredi parties, have what looks like a slim majority between them.

But unlike the centrist Yesh Atid and Hatnua, Jewish Home and the haredim have fewer options for being in government. Yesh Atid’s ascendance means Netanyahu has other options, strengthening his negotiating position and the stability of even a narrow majority.

The strengthening of Yesh Atid may have solidified Netanyahu as master of the right, while opening the option for a right-centrist government that would look better internationally and could stabilize his political situation in any confrontation with Iran — his top policy priority for the past decade.

sometimes i think bibi is legit the most talented politician alive

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/world/middleeast/iran-currency-falls-further-on-concerns-over-bank.html?ref=middleeast

lol xp

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100198227/france-marches-on-mali-and-the-lefts-anti-war-fervour-falls-silent-is-liberal-interventionism-back-on-the-agenda/

maybe the left just has a soft spot for french colonialism

Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs, said the fall of al-Assad will damage the resistance front against Israel.

“The main reason behind our focus on the Syrian issue is to prevent the fall of the resistance line against Israel. If Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, falls the resistance line against Israel will break up,” Velayati stated.

[Velyati] described his fate as a “red line” for the Islamic Republic.

Pnina Tamano-Shata, number 14 on the Yesh Atid list, will be the first ever female MK from Ethiopia.

"Pnina Tamano-Shata, number 14 on the Yesh Atid list, made aliyah from Ethiopia at the age of three. She is a lawyer who in the past worked as a reporter on Channel 1 News. Now, she will be making history as an MK. Previous MKs from Ethiopia have all been male."

super cool imo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel

cool, strange history

i tried to find the right thread to turn this into maximum clusterfuck but i'm too tired to worry about it so i'll just stick this link here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/you-say-pakistanis-all-hate-the-drone-war-prove-it/267447/

still working my way through it, but:

To get a more complete understanding of Pakistani public opinion, we studied the full range of answers related to drones from the 2010 Pew Global Attitudes Project survey, looking at the respondent-level data. Public commentary has been based upon selective stories about misleading tabulations. For example, a large majority of Pakistanis indicated that the drone strikes killed too many innocents. Drone opponents use this and other questions to link collateral damage to their claim that drone strikes are unpopular. In fact, most Pakistanis were either unaware of the drone program or declined to answer questions about them in 2010. Only 35 percent of the sample professed knowledge of the drone program -- compared to 43 percent who said they knew nothing. The difference is comprised of persons who chose not to answer the question for whatever reason. Most of the drone-critical commentary based upon these 2010 data does not acknowledge that conclusions are being drawn from a minority of all respondents.

this seems to be the author's main argument, or at least one of them, and it's not convincing to me. in 2010, the majority of respondents to the survey indicated that they knew "nothing at all" about the drone program. of those that did know about it, they hated the program. i suppose one could try to make an argument about drones not being that bad if 43% of respondents hadn't heard about it, but isn't it possible that they have other things on their minds, such as, uh, widespread poverty? on top of that, if you look at pew's results for other years (http://www.pewglobal.org/question-search/?qid=428&cntIDs=&stdIDs=), the recognition of the drone program has increased dramatically in the last two years; in 2010 43% "knew nothing". in spring 2011 only 23% knew nothing, and in spring 2012 21% knew nothing.

so the sum of that reads to me like this: the great majority of pakistanis who know about the program hate it, and more and more people are hearing about it as the program continues. i'll keep reading, but this doesn't sound like breaking news

and fuck me for referring to it as "the program" when i should be saying institutionalized extrajudicial murder instead

in general it seems silly to try to argue that ppl prefer to be killed one way or another; i do think there are benefits to the drone "program" but positive responses shouldn't really come into the picture imo

it's final:

http://i47.tinypic.com/2e1ahps.png

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/23/exclusive_morsy_implies_jews_control_the_american_media

oh morsi-paws

don't read the comments unless you want the scoop that foreignpolicy commenters also believe jews control the american media

center-left >> kadima >> 2

man

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/01/europe_may_have_no_choice_but_to_become_more_involved_in_the_world_s_hot.html

Reminds me of something Robert Kagan wrote:

Most Europeans do not see the great paradox: that their passage into post-history has depended on the United States not making the same passage. Because Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its own paradise and keep it from being overrun, spiritually as well as physically, by a world that has yet to accept the rule of “moral consciousness,” it has become dependent on America’s willingness to use its military might to deter or defeat those around the world who still believe in power politics.

Some Europeans do understand the conundrum. Some Britons, not surprisingly, understand it best. Thus Robert Cooper writes of the need to address the hard truth that although “within the postmodern world [i.e., the Europe of today], there are no security threats in the traditional sense,” nevertheless, throughout the rest of the world — what Cooper calls the “modern and pre-modern zones” — threats abound. If the postmodern world does not protect itself, it can be destroyed. But how does Europe protect itself without discarding the very ideals and principles that undergird its pacific system?

“The challenge to the postmodern world,” Cooper argues, “is to get used to the idea of double standards.” Among themselves, Europeans may “operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security.” But when dealing with the world outside Europe, “we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era — force, preemptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary.” This is Cooper’s principle for safeguarding society: “Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle.”

I should really read his new book.

Because Europe has neither the will nor the ability to guard its own paradise and keep it from being overrun, spiritually as well as physically, by a world that has yet to accept the rule of “moral consciousness,”

this is pretty gross language

gross, but it nails the current French/Mali situation - if the US isn't going to drop bombs on african countries europe is going to do it themselves

(of course the US is helping: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/france-says-1000-african-troops-now-in-mali-to-take-part-in-french-led-mission/2013/01/22/ed3a1a50-6461-11e2-889b-f23c246aa446_story.html)

googling "Robert Kagan wrong" brings up a number of folks who disagree strongly with his take on Iraq and more. Here's a few

The Reality of American Power: Why Robert Kagan Is Wrong

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../the-reality-of-american-p_b_1293836.html

http://www.salon.com/2007/03/11/kagan_11/

"Why Would any rational person listen to Robert Kagan"

yeah, i wouldn't take him as an authority on anything. i just think this particular idea (US military compensating for EU post-historicism) seems resonant atm.

For 150 years, Europe has been the hegemon/policeman in Africa, US in Latin America, and after 1945 Southwest and East Asia. The Mali situation is nothing new.

“Among ourselves, we keep the law but when we are operating in the jungle, we must also use the laws of the jungle.”

Urgh

gross, but it nails the current French/Mali situation - if the US isn't going to drop bombs on african countries europe is going to do it themselves

― Mordy, Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:48 AM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dont think it really nails that situation at all -- in fact im not sure what it has to do with it. its just first class xenophobia/islamophobia about as well-disguised as mori's antisemitism.

xp You're not denying tho that over the last 20 years the US has been at the forefront of most of these police-efforts - and that France's return to Africa (Libya + Mali) does indicate a shifting of balance away from US and back to EU, right?

No, the US has never had much to do with Africa

For 150 years, Europe has been the hegemon/policeman in Africa, US in Latin America, and after 1945 Southwest and East Asia. The Mali situation is nothing new.

The British Army in Sierra Leone for instance or maybe Robert Kagan never heard about that

France has kept about 4000 troops in Africa for quite a long while, permanently stationed in Gabon (West) and Djibouti (East). The UK maintains useful basing out of Ascension, Diego Garcia, and Gibraltar. The US African Command was only created in 2008, and maintains just an old French airbase in Djibouti, mostly aimed at the Yemen and Somali insurgencies.

Big British army presence in Kenya too

Man for man, European forces have a higher tooth to tail (combat to logistics) ratio, so they have a problem sustaining forces in distant places for long, which has made them dependent on US airlift and tankers. The ratio in U.S. army forces above brigade level is something like 1:3, and you have things like aircraft carrier battle groups where 7000 sailors are providing a base and protection for 48 F-18 fighter/bombers pilots.

Kinda amused by the choice of colors in that Knesset seating chart. Brown Arabs, Pink lefties, the Orthodox sharing the color of Hamas, and only the Right bearing the color of the flag.

At least the red state/blue state terminology in the U.S. reverses the historical convention...

when was the last time there were so few likud mps?

hmm not that long, forgot that they took such a dive in '06

lol yeah, this is probably going to be the most right-wing government in a while. american media totally dropping the ball.

Americans don't understand parliamentary systems, and searching for a tipping balance point doesn't make much sense when so many parties are single-issue concerns.

Thought this was a good blogpost (its from a leftist/pro-Palestinian standpoint, I think):

This is the way the results (*) of the elections are being presented in the Israeli press:

Centre Left Bloc Right Bloc

http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/left-bloc-right-bloc-1.png

Other, perhaps more accurate ways to present the election results:

Left Bloc Right Bloc

http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/left-bloc-right-bloc-2.png

Non-Jews Jews

http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/non-jews-jews-corrected.png

Women Men

http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/women-men.png

Willing to take the necessary steps for a two-state solution?

Willing Unwilling

http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/two-state-solution.png

My perhaps naive interpretation is that the election results force Netanyahu to really get in bed with the Ultra-Orthodox/settler parties to form a Right government.

I don't think he does. I think he can sign up w/ lapid, bennett, not pick up shas, and continue settlement building AND end military exemptions for charedim.

Those graphs are otm, tho. The press has done a woeful job explaining this election imo.

Hamas arresting Fatah members (google translate link to PalPress)

The amount of GDP Europe spends on defense means I have to buy more guns and get less 'butter'.

The comments in that link make me think writers of Arabic are just as semi-literate as the commenters in English and French

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/24/us-mali-rebels-idUSBRE90M16T20130124

One of the leaders of the Islamist Ansar Dine group has now split from that group and formed his own group that wants to negotiate re control of the north.

most otm analysis of the israeli election i've seen: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138773/michael-j-koplow/no-israel-did-not-just-vote-for-the-center?page=show

i've been finding a lot of people who discuss ways europe has ceded military power to the us since ww2, particularly regarding the ussr and nato

West Europeans were meanwhile convincing themselves that they had little to lose from living within an American sphere of influence. The idea of a European "third force" soon disappeared, not because Washington officials lost interest in it, but because the Europeans themselves rejected it. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which came into existence in April 1949, had been a European initiative from the beginning: it was as explicit an invation as has ever been extended from smaller powers to a great power to construct an empire and include them within it. When Kennan, worried that NATO would divide Europe permanently, put forward a plan later that spring looking toward an eventual reunification and neutralization of Germany as a way of ending both the Soviet and American presence on the continent, British and French opposition quickly shot it down. The self-confidence he and other American officials had set out to restore in Western Europe could now manifest itself, or so it appeared, only from within a framwork of reassurance that only the United States could provide.

-Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, page 49

Gaddis cites "Empire by Invitation," by Geir Lundestad which i found very interesting in general re ideas of american empire building. he mostly discusses economic investments in europe after the war/the marshall plan and military bases in europe to resist ussr (esp re troops in germany) - but draws a line to the korean war intervention:

As the report of the [NATO] Council states with regard to the Northern, Western, and Southern European groups, "The United States had been requested and has agreed to participate actively in the defense planning as appropriate' (FRUS, 1949:4, pp. 329-37; Kaplan & Tamnes in Riste 1985)

at the end Lundestad is skeptical about the future of the american empire (post Vietnam, resurgent Europe, economic failures at home under reagan, failures to influence iran!!!!!!!, etc) which is kinda prophetic and i think fits nicely into this idea that the last few years have been death gasps of american empire - iraq + afghanistan dramatizing this and suddenly we see in libya and mali a reengagement from france. obv this is more complicated than i'm laying out - i'm not really dealing w/ any history of, europe in africa between 1948-2000 bc it's not really a strength of mine (something i'm trying to fill in) but i don't think kagan is totally off-point that post-history europe relies on an american empire (tbh i first saw the kagan idea quoted in zizek lol), and that as a lot of ppl are pointing out - america is withdrawing from that kind of public role. even tho us is still clearly involved in mali/algeria but certainly more hands off than would be imaginable in maybe 70 years?

not that i want to overstate american empire dying - i don't think we're seeing a collapse just a reshuffling of power, more players than this brief ahistorical hegemonic period

I have read some say that Clinton's testimony to Congress was, in part, a message to Obama that he needs to get more involved in North Africa

Hamas is founding a military academy. I'm sure this will only lead to good things in the future.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=300848

Actually military professionalism and drawing militant factions into the hierarchy of a disciplined force will probably make Gaza and its environs a bit safer. To my knowledge the likely divided Hamas leadership had a pretty hard time stopping militants (either undisciplined Hamas, splinter groups or smaller factions) from lobbing homemade rockets at Sderot. I think Hamas wants to emulate Hizbollah here - strong internal discipline, a deterrent against Israeli incursions, but also clearly distinguishing its military actions as reprisals for specific Israeli actions rather than endless tokens of street gang resentment.

Kerry was mentioning the other day that we need to 'compete' with China in Africa. It's funny how our Kenyan socialist President has a worse record in Africa than even Shrub.

No rockets since Operation Pillar of Defense ended -- maybe Hamas has more internal discipline than they've claimed. xp

China isn't competing militarily. Its individual corporations are making deals trading engineering of infrastructure (roads/water etc) in return for access to natural resources. The Chicoms are liberally funding the initiative(s) through loans (their central bank is awash with U.S. dollars), but the Chinese military presence is basically 1 frigate serving with the Combined Maritime Force policing Somali piracy.

I wasn't implying that they were so much a military presence as an economic one, though.

I think Obama has made it relatively clear that he believes our biggest foreign security concerns are in the Far East and that Europe should take the inititive in Africa and Syria. I don't think he thinks there's much use in provoking Russia much anymore.

off topic but they were talking about russia passing laws against homosexual propaganda today on the radio and i couldn't help but think - along w/ stopping adoptions, poisoning journalists, giving weapons to assad, chechnya - russian government is just the fucking worst

They've made that lovely transition from communist to fascist

They've democratically elected a clutch of former KGB operatives, repeatedly, as the memory of Perestroika times is so dismal.

I suspect Russia actually needed a reaction something like the Putin crowd, as privatization was so poorly handled that the country was being ruled by a billionaire kleptocracy and mafia.

I am curious whether there's a urban/exurban thing going on with the social issues, or whether its just the Orthodox patriarchs flexing some electoral muscle.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/18/once_upon_a_time_in_la_francafrique_france_mali_africa

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_images/130118_2.jpg

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that global inaction on the bloodbath in Syria is a warning to many countries that they cannot count on outsiders' help - no matter how dire the circumstances.

He suggested that this applied to Israel itself, discouraging its people from backing risks for peace, such as the return of strategic Palestinian territories in exchange for various assurances.

"Many of our best friends are telling us ... 'Don't worry, if worst comes to worst the world will inevitably (help),'" Barak said at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. "It cannot be taken for granted."

The Syrian civil war was a major topic at Davos this year. This was evidenced by the startling vehemence displayed by even Barak and President Shimon Peres - whose country is technically in a state of war with Syria - as they lamented the killing of Syrian innocents.

"It's on the screens all around the world," Barak said, tens of thousands of people "slaughtered by their own leader and the world doesn't move."

His conclusion: Even "unspeakable atrocities ... taking place in front of the eyes of the whole world" cannot guarantee "that there will be enough sense of purpose, sense of direction, unity of political will, readiness to translate it into action ... in a way that will put an end to it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/world/africa/us-weighing-how-much-help-to-give-frances-military-operation-in-mali.html

Mr. Obama’s aides say that the model under way in Mali now — with the French taking the lead, and a force from the region backing them up — is exactly what they want to encourage. But some officials say they believe the French went into Mali hastily, in the words of one official “before they understood exactly what they were biting off.”

White House officials say they want to understand the broader political and strategic plan to end the conflict before they get more involved.

lolirony

ha well live and learn eh

this seems very, very unlikely to be true:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4337253,00.html

dude their source is w0rldnetd41ly

that's why it's so unlikely to be true!

French and Malian forces pushed toward the fabled desert town of Timbuktu on Sunday, as the two-week-long French mission gathered momentum against the Islamist extremists who have ruled the north for more than nine months.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57566059/french-mali-forces-head-toward-timbuktu/

― curmudgeon, Sunday, January 27, 2013 11:09

Egypt’s Leader Declares State of Emergency in Three Cities
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK 8:52 PM ET
President Mohamed Morsi resorted to the authoritarian weapon of his deposed predecessor as escalating violence in the streets threatened his government and Egypt’s democracy.

Sketchy confirmation of Fordo story:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3670109.ece

Iran has successfully launched a live monkey into space, the state news agency IRNA said on Monday

Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of ancient manuscripts
Fleeing Islamist insurgents burnt two buildings containing priceless books as French-led troops approached, says mayor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu-library-ancient-manuscripts?CMP=twt_gu

Secularist Touareg independentists say that Kidal is no longer under Islamist control.

More Fordow confirmations: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/01/fordow-blast-gets-more-confirmation.html

Good summation of various denials + sources re Fordow: http://www.businessinsider.com/massive-explosion-reported-at-irans-fordow-nuclear-facility-2013-1

How crazy would it be if this is real and WND broke the story?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/world/middleeast/iranian-journalists-arrested-accused-of-ties-to-foreign-media.html

So the French have totally locked out reporters from reporting on Malian conflict:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013127154355125483.html

The article says the Malian troops who are with the French now, have done the same. Meanwhile the NY Times reports from liberated areas:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/world/africa/france-mali-conflict.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130128&_r=0

Residents of Gao, who had been under occupation for nearly a year by Islamist fighters, celebrated the arrival of Malian and French troops.

Fatou Cissé, a Gao resident reached by telephone, said crowds were chanting “Vive la France!” and singing the Malian national anthem.

Israel set to become first country to boycott UNHRC review

Something dramatic for tomorrow.

http://world.time.com/2013/01/28/mali-timbuktu-locals-saved-some-of-their-citys-ancient-manuscripts-from-islamists/#ixzz2JN4IyEpr

http://forward.com/articles/170120/israel-boycotts-united-nations-review-of-human-rig/

preview of ICC maybe

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iran/130129/israel-iran-blast-explosion-fordow-nuclear-plant - Israel denies Fordow story

Egypt state collapsed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/world/middleeast/egypt-protest-updates.html

mordy i thought you hated misleading headlines

watch the video. i wouldn't be surprised if military took over by tonight.

another mass grave found in syria: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013129133917989266.html

i watched the video. the egyptian state has not collapsed.

In Port Said on Monday, street battles reached a bloody new peak with a death toll over three days of at least 45, with at least five more protesters killed by bullet wounds, hospital officials said.

The state of emergency imposed by Mr. Morsi virtually eliminates due process protections against abuse by the police.

Angry crowds burned tires and hurled rocks at the police. And the police, with little training and less credibility, hunkered down behind barrages of tear gas, birdshot and occasional bullets.

The sense that the state was unraveling may have been strongest in Port Said, where demonstrators have proclaimed their city an independent nation. But in recent days, the unrest has risen in towns across the country and in Cairo as well. In the capital on Monday, a mob of protesters managed to steal an armored police vehicle, drive it to Tahrir Square and make it a bonfire.

i mean, morsi hasn't been dragged out into the streets and killed yet...

"There is no law to speak of in Port Said."

The Syrian link might be misleading too. Grave implies burial. So not quite a mass grave.

ok, you win, the state has collapsed, the military will take over by tonight

At least 30 people have died in Port Said, officials say, in clashes sparked by the sentencing to death of 21 local people over football riots in Egypt.

Supporters of the defendants tried to storm the prison holding them and attacked police stations.

The 21 were sentenced over riots which killed 74 people after a football game at Port Said stadium last February.

If the Egyptian government does collapse, I guess it will be one of the shortest-lived democratic governments on record, though it won't come close to topping the record held by the Russian Democratic Federative Republic.

that was three days ago

no word on how many died in clashes sparked by the 30 who died in the riots sparked by the sentencing to death of 21 local people over football riots sparked by something or other

gov't will only collapse if the army turns on Morsi, no...?

dunno how likely that is

xp

Well, I guess we'll find out tomorrow...

don't get me wrong, the army saying that publicly is clearly a not-too-thinly-veiled threat to Morsi, but I'm not sure what they expect him to do.

I'm not sure it's a threat to Morsi; probably more of a threat of martial law to the people?

Like I never got the impression (esp during the Gaza negotiations) that Morsi had any say beyond what the military let him do anyway.

army declaring martial law on its own is a threat to Morsi's legitimacy/power

but maybe we're splitting hairs here

yeah, for sure. i'm not saying that this isn't a threat to morsi - more that the army has held all the cards from the beginning. if they call the democracy thing off morsi isn't going to have any recourse.

i mean i don't think they expect him to do anything, he probably doesn't really factor into their decision atm.

'Regretful' UNHRC postpones Israel's review over boycott

I'm becoming less and less convinced that the UN can successfully complete its "storm troopers in black helicopters take over every US home" plan.

Delegates then took the floor, with Egypt's representative declaring that the council faced "a moment of truth".

He cautioned that taking a "soft" approach towards Israel would create a dangerous precedent and leave "a wide-open door for more cases of non-cooperation."

Egypt's representative!

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/under-attack-cairo-hotel-sends-twitter-sos/

asma is preggers apparently

ESPN background on the football/soccer riot in Egypt:

Underlining the distrust that lingers between much of the public and the police, survivors and witnesses say Mubarak loyalists had a hand in instigating last year's attack, which began after Port Said's home team won the match, 3-1, and that the police at the very least were responsible for gross negligence.

Al-Masry fans stormed the pitch after the game ended, attacking Cairo's Al-Ahly fans. Authorities shut off the stadium lights, plunging it into darkness. In the exit corridor, the fleeing crowd pressed against a chained gate until it broke open. Many were crushed under the crowd of people trying to flee.

Other survivors said it was simply bloodthirsty Al-Masry fans and lack of enough security that led to the deaths of their colleagues, although there has long been bad blood between the two rival teams, both sides blame police for failing to perform usual searches for weapons at the stadium.

Anger is boiling in Port Said, where residents say they have been unfairly scapegoated.

A lawyer of one of the defendants given a death sentence said the verdict was political.

"There is nothing to say these people did anything and we don't understand what this verdict is based on," Mohammed al-Daw told The Associated Press by telephone.

"Our situation in Port Said is very grave because kids were taken from their homes for wearing green T-shirts," he said, referring to the Al-Masry team color.

Nine security officials who also were on trial Saturday were acquitted, lawyers and security officials say.

Al-Daw and other defense attorneys said all those sentenced were Al-Masry fans. As is customary in Egypt, the death sentences will be sent to the nation's top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for approval, though the court has final say on the matter

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1314071/judge-sentences-21-egyptian-soccer-fans-to-death;-riots-ensue?cc=5901

fp asks the mali/middle east question: http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/29/should_we_cover_mali

Port Said voted for Ahmed Shafik in the presidential election and Morsi's Islamic Brotherhood/FJP only took 2 of its 6 parliamentary seats. Aside from the Western Desert, where the Salafist Nour party dominates, its one of the districts with the weakest support for FJP.

Until we see the Port Said protests spread to Cairo/Giza, the delta, or up the Nile, I think its a bit early to anticipate a state collapse. Now on the other hand, a sharp signal by the military across Morsi's bow? That's pretty likely.

In the capital on Monday, a mob of protesters managed to steal an armored police vehicle, drive it to Tahrir Square and make it a bonfire.

Not quite declaring independence but this is a pretty dramatic gesture.

It's all highjinks til all the police stations are under siege, as in Port Said.

I wonder if Mubarak is nervous.

IIRC, Mubarek suffered a severe enough stroke last year that finding his chamber pot taxes his faculties (okay, he keeps falling in his bathroom). I think political/trial outcome anxieties are the least of his daily concerns.

Brahimi says Syria 'horror unprecedented' (AL-J)

Oh shit, just saw this:

Israel attacks weapons convoy on Syria-Lebanon border, sources say
Western diplomat confirms strike in border area; according to foreign reports, 12 Israeli fighter jets penetrated Lebanese airspace for nearly 16 hours; Israeli officials have repeatedly warned this week that Syrian chemical weapons could be falling into the wrong hands.

Haaretz is liveblogging it.

Another Haaretz scoop: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-meshal-says-hamas-accepts-a-two-state-solution.premium-1.500390

I guess it is possible Meshaal changed his mind from a month ago:

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal vowed Gaza's rulers would never give up "an inch of the land" to Israel in an uncompromising speech before tens of thousands of cheering supporters at a triumphalist "victory" rally in Gaza City.

"Palestine is ours, from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land," he told the crowd on his first visit to Gaza. "We will never recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take."

also, you've gotta ask - do you want NATO handling it now or Turkey and Israel handling it?

― Mordy, Wednesday, December 5, 2012 7:46 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

BREAKING NEWS3:02 PM ET
Syrian TV Says Israel Warplanes Conducted Airstrikes

Tuareg band Tinariwen's former British manager (and writer) Andy Morgan weighs in with an opinion piece on Mali

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/201313094034781783.html

Haaretz: Literally the shittiest newspaper in the world

Leader of the Hamas movement Yahya Moussa said, "Some international parties want to confuse the ranks of Hamas by spreading news of their agreement to the principle of accepting a two-state solution". Moussa asserted that his movement does not accept two-state solution in any case.

The Saudi Arabia newspaper al-Sharq published a story on Wednesday saying Jordanian King Abdullah II received the authority of the President of the Political Bureau of Hamas Khaled Mashaal that the movement accepts the principle of a "two-state solution ", ahead of an initiative of U.S. President Barack Obama planned for February.
Moussa explained to "Palestine Online", that this solution is rejected categorically. "We do not accept the Israeli occupation on any atom of the soil of Palestine,", he said. Moussa stressed that historical Palestine stretches from the river to the sea. he pointed out that to accept the state of Palestine in areas occupied in 1967 does not mean to ever recognize the legitimacy of the occupation of historic Palestine.

Hamas Press Release denying Haaretz's foul allegations that they accept 2 state solution here: http://www.hamasinfo.net/ar/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2BcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2Bi1s7R8EOg3UsLehjIKz0x9Dz%2BDlF72RRPOvRQCI1JwXIaKZj86XEfmTodG9xjG4UFNoJ3NJpu8USZcffH34wQAJMXd93RfgEsLajpsO77Qp2QHI%3D

NYT: The American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel had notified the United States about the attack, which the Syrian government condemned as an act of “arrogance and aggression.”

obviously not super credible, but Israel energy independence (thru fracking) is a story I've been following for a bit and Fox News ran a piece about it today:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/31/why-israel-will-rule-new-middle-east/#ixzz2JZ2CRMfW

Obama leaving Israel to die but it's cool because they've got fracking now. Sigh.

these are longterm uncertain processes - i just like to feel ahead of the curve

Dubious process IMO.

http://www.juancole.com/2013/01/backs-emergency-decree.html

Part of Juan Cole's take on Egypt:

Protesters in the three cities refused to observe the curfew the president put in place on Monday and Tuesday nights, mounting demonstrations and playing soccer in front of government buildings. As Mr. Wedeman reported, the police seem uninterested in intervening.

Although most Egyptians are indignant at being compared to Algeria, it should be a cautionary tale for Dr. Morsi, as it is for Tunisian Muslim leader Rashid Ghanoushi. In 1992-2002, some 150,000 Algerians died in a vicious civil war between secularists and fundamentalists. The same division is emerging in Egypt, and the secular and moderate-religious forces are increasingly rejecting the legitimacy of Morsi’s rule. Two competing claims to sovereignty are what make for a civil war.

Morsi created this polarization by pushing through a fundamentalist-tinged constitution and by forming a Muslim Brotherhood government that excludes his opposition, even though he did not win the presidency by a very large margin. His tendency to issue sweeping decrees and to favor his Muslim Brotherhood cadres has created a fear that he just wants to be a fundamentalist Hosni Mubarak and does not really have the instincts of a democrat.

I can't believe the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't have an instinct for Democracy. Shocking.

not sure how likely the Algerian scenario is here (Robert Fisk's account of which is one of the more depressing pieces I've read in recent years) given the strength and stature of the Egyptian military... but who knows at this point. The army coming down on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood seems unlikely, and I don't have the impression that the Muslim Brotherhood has recourse to the necessary firepower that would engender something similar to the Algerian civil war...?

Later on Thursday, Syria complained to the UN over the Israeli strike.

Although Israel and Syria are technically still at war, the ministry's official complaint evoked a 1974 disengagement agreement between the neighbours, state news agency SANA said.

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned Iqbal Singha, commander of the UN Observer Disengagement Observer Force... and informed him of an official protest over the Israeli violation of the disengagement agreement of 1974," the ministry said.

The ministry said Israel "and the states that protect it at the UN Security Council" are responsible for the air strike, and "affirms Syria's right to defend itself and its territory and sovereignty".

The ministry called on "all the competent UN bodies to take the necessary steps given this grave Israeli violation, and to guarantee that it will not happen again."

The ministry denounced "the failure of the Security Council to take responsibility to prevent this grave Israeli attack, which poses serious threats to stability in the Middle East and security in the world".

plz UN censor Israel for breaching the disengagement agreement

oh plz

censure

thx

this is super interesting article about television watching habits in lebanon:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/31/boob_tube_lebanon_hezbollah

boob_tube_lebanon_hezbollah

Some good quotes:

"Oh, look," laughed Hassan. "There's Obama, the president of the world!"
"Do you really think he runs the world?" asked my friend.
"Remove Iran, Hezbollah, China, and Russia, and he's the president of the world," remarked Hassan. "Outside of those four, America de facto controls the world with its policies because America has agents working in every Arab country."

"Bashar al-Assad has never been more comfortable, and the Syrian army has yet to deploy more than 10 to 20 percent of its troops against the rebels," he lectured. "The FSA does an operation with 100 men and 99 are killed. One comes back and goes on Al Jazeera and calls it a massacre [of civilians]. Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera are playing the biggest role in this war by playing to everyone's sensibilities."

"If Bashar promised to turn his back on Hezbollah and Iran and let Israel keep the Golan Heights, this war would be over in a day," Hassan continued. "I think you will see big changes this year as Syria, America, Russia, and Israel come together to fight the rebels because they're al Qaeda terrorists. Syria will end up the most powerful country in the Arab world, and Bashar will stay in power."

I asked Hassan whether he trusted the Syrian regime.

"Now I do," Hassan admitted. "But before the revolution I did not. [Bashar al-Assad] made many mistakes at first -- he was oppressive and handled it badly -- but he fixed these mistakes. Now he's OK with opposition; he just wants a clean opposition. And now everyone in Syria is talking about reconciliation between the rebels and the regime. This war is almost over."

I assume the last point is a reference to Moaz al-Khatib calling for talks w/ the regime, tho apparently his coalition disagrees:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-30/syria-opposition-leader-calls-for-meeting-after-rift-over-talks.html

Crazy story from Azzaman (summary from JPost):

Iraqi daily Azzaman quoted a Western diplomatic source as saying Thursday that the alleged Israeli attack on Syria reported on Wednesday caused heavy casualties among special Iranian Guards stationed at the Syrian facility. The source also said that the attack took place more than 48 hours before it was reported, eventually being leaked by Israel.

The source for the story, who was interviewed by the paper in London, said that the report about a strike on a convoy to Lebanon was probably meant to divert attention away from the main objective of the operation, which used F-16 aircraft to fire at least eight guided missiles at the facility.

The source also said that the base was heavily fortified and contained experts from Russia and at least three thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who have been guarding the site for years. Many of these Iranian Guards suffered casualties.

Israel most likely got its intelligence, said the source, from penetrating deep inside Iran and from other operations meant to penetrate Hezbollah.

Not sure you should replace your Haaretz subscription:

In 2005, Azzaman lost a libel lawsuit, and issued strong retractions of its previous allegations against Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned. It emerged during the trial that the paper had accepted money from Saudi authorities to do propaganda and intelligence work for the Saudi government.

lol

I figure one middle east newspaper w/ a's and z's is as good at making up what's going on as the next.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/world/europe/2-dead-in-suicide-bombing-at-us-embassy-in-turkey.html

The identity and motives of the bomber were not immediately clear, but Turkish news media said preliminary investigations by security officials said the bomber may have panicked while going through security controls at the embassy entrance and detonated a suicide belt. Mr. Yuksel said the other fatality in the blast was a security employee.

I wonder if it's spillover from Syria....

WSJ says:

Kurdish separatists, Islamist militants—including al Qaeda—and groups on the far left and right have carried out bomb attacks in Turkey, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. Suspicions, however, are likely to fall on ethnic Kurdish militants, who recently have come under pressure from the Turkish military.

"Apparently there were two suicide-bomber militants inside the vehicle. Of course, they are now in pieces, as is the vehicle," Mr. Sahin said. told reporters in the western Turkish city of Izmir. "We saw that the terrorist organization has not stopped, that it is continuing to conduct unexpected, crazy incidents."

Worthwhile resource: Washington think-tank The Institute for the Study of War is chock full of 3 star generals and future NYT journalists, and puts out some very detailed backgrounders summarizing the situation on the ground in the Middle East. Can't discern their political slant, aside from a technical arguments about proper manpower levels for an Afghanistan assistance force (its > 0).

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-protesters-police-clash-morsis-palace-18376370

Thousands of protesters denouncing Egypt's Islamist president marched on his palace in Cairo on Friday, clashing with security forces firing tear gas and water cannons in the eighth day of the country's wave of political violence.

Protests were held in cities around the country on Friday after a call for rallies by opponents of President Mohammed Morsi. But some cracks appeared in the ranks of the opposition as some sharply criticized its political leaders for holding their first meeting with the rival Muslim Brotherhood a day earlier.

Around 60 people have been killed in protests, rioting and clashes that engulfed the country the past week in country's worst crisis since the 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-mali-rebels-idUSBRE9100OS20130201

Reuters) - A French-led offensive against Islamists in Mali has led to civilian deaths from air strikes and ethnic reprisals by Malian troops, human rights groups said on Friday, a day before President Francois Hollande was due to visit the country.

I was reading that there were accusations against the Malian army for waterboarding

Meet the new boss same as the etc etc

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/video_morsi_police_strip_beat_drag_protester/

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2013/02/A/48744

It's a teaser and in French about the effects of the drug trade on Mali's military

oh shit time magazine broke a story:

Israeli warplanes struck several targets inside Syria overnight Tuesday, including a biological weapons research center that was reportedly flattened out of concern that it might fall into the hands of Islamist extremists fighting to topple the government of Syrian president Bashar Assad, Western intelligence officials tell TIME.

So far only two airstrikes have been publicly reported, amid a flurry of conflicting initial reports. Syria officially complained of the destruction of the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Jamarya northwest of Damascus. And a variety of news organizations reported that Israeli jets hit a convoy carrying advanced anti-aircraft defense systems toward Lebanon’s Bakaa Valley, presumably for delivery to Hizballah, the militant Shi’ite group closely allied with the Assad regime. If they had been deployed, those SA-17 ground-to-air missiles would intimidated Israeli pilots who now operate over Lebanese airspace with impunity, forcing them to higher altitudes and other operational precautions.

A Western intelligence official indicated to TIME that at least one to two additional targets were hit the same night, without offering details. Officials also said that Israel had a “green light” from Washington to launch yet more such strikes.

Does anyone know if the DHKP/C has organizational/political ties to other Marxist groups/countries (eg. China, Cuba, CPI(M)), and what its relationship is to TKP/ML? Surely Sanpaku has some further reading.

During the previous month, Turkish police made more than 80 arrests in raids targeting the group.

Among those detained were students, lawyers, reporters and even members of a pop group who were thought to have links with the DHKP-C.

I want to listen to this pop group.

Oh cool, they're on spotify: http://open.spotify.com/artist/4FjxqqOXKI1eGLrYn3GUq4

I know next to nothing about the DHKP. Sounds a bit like one of many, many communist splinter parties in Iran, some of which are self-styled Shining Path like Maoist guerillas, some likely recipients of CIA regime change funding (enemy of my enemy etc.). I do remember the two Iranian communist militias in this 1987 paper wargame being the weakest units (out of 1000+) in the series.

The game situation is that the Iranian army revolt has occured with the IRG committed to the Pact & the Army to Nato. Saudi's have committed to Nato also but that is largely meaningless at the mo. The RDF has not yet been alerted but the Israeli Intervention force has been recieved. According to my understanding of the rules the Israeli paras can't appear as they arrive either via air or naval transport & NATO can't use these pre-RDF alert. However the Israeli Air unit is available for use & can be used in Iran - is this the case & if not could you tell me the rules section which prohibits this.

I never played a complete game of the Third World War series, but started one with my best HS buddy that occupied 3 4x6 folding tables and got through the first few weeks of the main Warsaw Pact/NATO confrontation. Like all post Avalon Hill wargames, 90% of the time is spent deciphering the rules and sorting cardboard counters, 10% is actually rolling dice and looking up the results on multiple tables. Today we live in a better world.

Surfing has yielded the Family Tree of the Turkish Radical Left 1918-2001. According to it, branch that became the DHKP/C last shared a common leadership with the branch that became the TKP/ML in mid-1970, when the Devrimci Genclik splintered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE

Wow, look at that graph.

http://api.ning.com/files/l5yj-b5kCsesoIJgTetl9HI2QLe2tXFeofZ-Xx*FthC6w9inaJFvAv1bR*lUjJo*efqeE3IJGo6f26pwXF*PnK70H9E5A*zk/FuldaGap.jpg

Rial hits all time low.

sing the security zone maintained by Israel in Southern Lebanon during 1985-2000 as an example, the IDF has recommended to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to establish a 16km (10 mile) wide security zone between Syria and Israel to keep the civil war away from Israel’s northern border. During those years, IDF troops along with the Israel allied Southern Lebanese Army patrolled the security zone.

The daily Maariv quotes “a source close to the plan’s architects” as saying “We recommended this comprehensive plan to protect Israel’s border to the prime minister, to be implemented after or perhaps prior to the collapse of the Assad administration.”

The source explains the heart of the plan calls for the establishment of the security zone in cooperation with villagers in area communities inside Syria. “If Syria remains unstable, perhaps we will be compelled to remain there for years”, the source is quoted as adding.

also fyi http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/04/264225.html

The security zone in Southern Lebanon also resulted in the birth of Hezbollah and the area becoming inhospitable to the Maronite and other Christians that manned the SLA.

Syria really is a redux of the 15 year Lebanese Civil War in many ways. The world will keep Robert Fisk busy til the day he dies.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline//2013/02/irans-new-qaher-313-stealth-fi.html

lol assad-washing: http://electronicintifada.net/content/pointing-syria-divert-attention-israels-crimes/11192

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2013/02/ahmadinejad-show-video-cairo/61826/

The trip has not been a good look for Morsi, either, who picked an odd time to play to host to Ahmadinejad and Iran. As Max Fisher at The Washington Post points out, secularists and liberals are already furious with Morsi for allowing his religious Muslim Brotherhood party to take over the revolution, while the mostly Sunni and Salafist parties are appalled at the idea of buddying up to Iran. With protesters spending most of the last two weeks camped outside his house with Molotov cocktails, inviting the most hated guy in the neighborhood to stop by may not have been Morsi's best political move.

If you're in a conspiratorial mood Morsi's reasons for bringing Ahmadinejad in are more comprehensible.

profile of hasbara/media watch dogs:
http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Arts/Article.aspx?id=302316

The 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference, the largest Muslim organization in the world, should have a seat on the UN Security Council, said Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, its secretary-general.

“One of the important objectives for which I have been exerting a lot of efforts was to have a seat for OIC in the Security Council to represent 1.5 billion Muslims in the world,” Ihsanoglu told reporters in Cairo.

Speaking about the challenges facing the Islamic Ummah, he said they include poverty, lack of economic integration, Jewish settlement in occupied Arab territories, and Judaization of Jerusalem (Al-Quds).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/europe/bulgaria-implicates-hezbollah-in-deadly-israeli-bus-blast.html

There’s the overall fear if we’re too noisy about this, Hezbollah might strike again, and it might not be Israeli tourists this time,” said Sylke Tempel, editor in chief of the German foreign affairs magazine Internationale Politik.

Not political, but pretty amazing.

The Burj Khalifa Pinnacle Panorama (2.8 GIGApixels!)

UAE / Dubai based ALPA photographer Gerald Donovan created this stunning 360 degree panoramic view from the very top of the tallest building on earth, Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

Gerald was equipped with the ALPA 12 FPS camera and shutter module, the Rodenstock/ALPA HR Alpagon 4.0/50 mm SB34 Lens with a high end digital back, mounted on the Seitz / Roundshot VR Drive.

The image is composed from over 70 individual photos, a series of 48 panoramic images, each shot at a resolution of 80 megapixels. These were then stitched together with manually shot images to 'fill-in' gaps caused by equipment installed at the top of the tower such as the lightning conductor and aircraft beacons. The result is an image that can be zoomed, tilted and rotated, giving viewers a sense of how it must feel to sit atop the world's highest building.

The image has been released to celebrate the second Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Photography Award (HIPA), which will take place in Dubai in March.

wow! that is amazing

it barely looks real

http://i47.tinypic.com/33l06dz.png

amid a lot of mostly useless writing about hezbollah and the EU, this is probably the most comprehensive piece i've read:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/06/europe_s_hezbollah_problem_bulgaria_bombing

new iran sanctions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/middleeast/us-ratchets-up-an-economic-war-against-tehran.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-leaders-said-they-favored-arming-syrian-rebels/2013/02/07/aff3e10c-715a-11e2-b5f8-9a5465abcc30_story.html

shafer on iran sanctions (tbh i think he's a better media critic than a foreign policy critic): http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/02/08/the-theater-of-economic-sanctions

i thought about buying this shirt down in nola but cooler heads prevailed:

http://www.dirtycoast.com/uploads/large/Westbank-Design-1347384824.jpg

wow! that is amazing

^^^^

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/06/malala-officially-nominated-for-nobel-peace-prize-youngest-nominee-in-history-videos/

eh I can nominate anyone I want for the peace prize, re. "University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes"

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/nomination/

should I nominate an ilxor?

nominate yourself obv

Her name was put forward by three members of the Norwegian parliament from the ruling Labor Party on their website Friday, which was the deadline for nominations.

Malala’s name was put forward because of “her courageous commitment to the right of girls to education. A commitment that seemed so threatening to the extremists that they chose to try and kill her,” said parliamentarian Freddy de Ruiter on the Labor party web site. […]

The Norwegian MPs said they believed that Malala was “a worthy winner for many reasons. She has become an important symbol in the fight against destructive forces that want to prevent democracy, equality and human rights.”

She was also reportedly nominated by members of parliament in France, Spain and Canada.

Mordy's name was put forward by one member of www.ilxor.com on its website Friday, which was the deadline for nominations.

Mordy's name was put forward because of “his courageous commitment to the right of posters to zings. A commitment that seemed so threatening to the extremists that they chose to try and kill her,” said poster […]

I am honored.

Damascus on Edge as War Seeps into Syrian Capital
By an employee of THE NEW YORK TIMES in DAMASCUS SYRIA and ANNE BARNARD

Not political, but pretty amazing.

The Burj Khalifa Pinnacle Panorama (2.8 GIGApixels!)

― Please avoid exposing bare fleshy under curves of the buttock crack (Sanpaku), Thursday, February 7, 2013 12:36 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is somehow nicest just to look at the sky in this imo

xp: The war has rended Damascus neighborhoods for several months now. This presentation, reportedly based on SAA reports captured by the FSA, maps the areas of Damascus controlled by SAA and FSA in early December.

i'm wondering who's the unnamed employee of the NYT in damascus

barnard has been reporting from beirut so it makes sense that they'd try to put someone on the ground in damascus. this makes me think they recruited someone local tho who needed their identity protected? i tried to figure out who contributed what in the story but i got distracted midway through.

good article about big Qatari investment in new Palestinian neighborhood designed for middle class residency:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/a-middle-class-paradise-in-palestine/273004/

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/12/3119401/jerusalem-goes-on-high-alert-due-to-terror-warning

i thought that was good:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/12/on_military_wing_prayer_hezbollah_europe_bulgaria

esp the part breaking down the hierarchy + leadership of hezbollah in detail

A good indicator of how committed a government is to upholding peace with its neighbors is its commitment to protecting the human rights of its own citizens.  Nations that disregard the freedoms of their own people are not likely to care much about maintaining peace with their historic enemies. Palestinian human rights, in other words, are key to the peace process.

Very unusual sentiment to see in the NYT! http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/opinion/palestines-democratic-deficit.html

Author is a Natan Sharansky disciple.

this story's really sad: http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/02/08/israeli-soccer-teams-office-set-on-fire-as-tensions-rise-after-signing-of-muslim-players/

this is getting posted a lot on my fb feed. she's not as cool + restrained as i'd like, but essentially she's right re non-existence of demographic time bomb and unimportance of settlements to either peace process or future of israel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxfWZqfVEys

WRT demographics, she's absolutely right. Palestinian Arabs are midway through their demographic transition towards birthrates near those of secular Israelis (3-ish), while ultraorthodox Jews have 6+ children per woman. Stand on Zanzibar here we come. Extrapolate only a couple generations and the growth will result in enormous strains on water and land that I suspect will make Israelis seriously question their open-arms policy towards Jewish immigration.

As an aside, there are a lot of nations in the Mideast that are racing towards resource cliffs with their population policies. There's only so much fossil water to mine, and in the long run, only so much fossil energy to desalinize water. Yemen's aquifers are running dry and its lower classes going hungry already - quite the tinderbox that'll be in a couple years (Gaza x 15).

I find her other argument re: settlements to be weak sauce. Israel didn't have any settlements in the Egyptian Sinai, nor east of the Jordan, prior to those peace agreements. Jordan has viable internal communications without its former West Bank, and had extremely strong inducements from U.S. aid to come to the negotiating table.

Were there a democratic state comprising all territories seized by Israel in the Six Day war tomorrow, it would be on pretty solid legal ground (4th Geneva Art. 49) in annulling occupation-era eminent domain land seizures and property title grants to settlements. Lastly, the use of the term "ethic cleansing" is pretty galling to anyone familiar with the '48 Nakba or post-'67 land seizures.

So, more jawboning while facts on the ground are being created by bulldozer and construction crew. Its worked for 45 years, why stop.

NASA Satellites Find Freshwater Losses in Middle East
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/earth/grace/20130212/grace20130212-640.jpg

"GRACE data show an alarming rate of decrease in total water storage in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins, which currently have the second fastest rate of groundwater storage loss on Earth, after India," said Jay Famiglietti, principal investigator of the study and a hydrologist and professor at UC Irvine. "The rate was especially striking after the 2007 drought. Meanwhile, demand for freshwater continues to rise, and the region does not coordinate its water management because of different interpretations of international laws."

Off topic, but the Grace gravity anomaly data viewer is totally fascinating. You can watch as the southern half of Greenland loses 50 cm of water due to glacial melt from 2007 to 2011. The Tigris-Euphrates basin by comparison has lost 12-16 cm of water during the same interval and India's Gangetic plain swings wildly from -22 cm (compared to 03-07 avg) to +16 cm with the annual monsoon.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/02/counting-the-dead-in-syria/273199/

i keep seeing rumors that 1,000 hezbollah troops are on the ground in syria

also israel doing business w/ turkey again for the first time since the flotilla incident:
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=303650

Chance for possible change in Bahrain?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-bahrains-chance-for-compromise/2013/02/17/44a02ff6-76cc-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_story.html?hpid=z6

NPR had a big bit about Bahrain on Thursday morning but I checked into it in the middle and didn't immediately realize they were talking about Bahrain. They were interviewing protestors and discussing the possible collapse of the government and for about 15 minutes (until they mentioned that the current regime has been in power for over 10 years) I was positive I was listening to a report on Egypt.

what is the lobby that keeps wanting to revive this question? it's gotta primarily be arms dealers that want a new market right? surely no one else thinks arming rebels is a good idea: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/world/middleeast/as-assad-holds-firm-obama-could-revisit-arms-policy.html

The debate over Syria is not limited to the United States. On Monday, European Union foreign ministers decided against easing an arms moratorium despite objections by Britain. In what appeared to be a compromise, the ministers agreed to “provide greater nonlethal support and technical assistance for the protection of civilians,” according to the European Union’s Web site.

oh englandpaws

“The odds are very high that, for better or worse, armed men will determine Syria’s course for the foreseeable future,” said Frederic C. Hof, a former senior State Department official and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “For the U.S. not to have close, supportive relationships with armed elements, carefully vetted, is very risky.”

this is the too clever by half bullshit that always blows up in U.S. faces

probably the only important line in the article:

Secretary of State John Kerry has said that he plans to advance ideas on how to change the situation on his first trip later this month, ideas that appear to include eliciting more cooperation from the Kremlin.

policy is staying the same

hillary, panetta, and petraeus were the heavy pushers for more direct involvement in syria right? even if their replacements felt the same (obv not w/ hagel, probably not w/ kerry based on that pullquote, and lol at brennan being that guy) it's hard to imagine obama suddenly being swayed.

"I am assured he was not Mossad, but he knew stuff, he mixed with the wrong people," said the Australian source. "It was a fuck up. He was not posing any threat to the state of Israel."

The Israeli source concurred, saying Zygier was "a little cog in the system, if at all."

"The guy is a victim of his own fault," he said. "[Zygier] convinced everyone he was working for Mossad. It’s all a creation; he didn’t stop speaking."

He added, "Israel does not recruit someone who says he’s in Mossad. If someone says he’s Mossad he’d be fired."

holy shit haaretz's source is burn after reading

good jpg: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/congressional-travel/index.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/al-jazeera-criticized-for-lack-of-independence-after-arab-spring-a-883343.html

One and a half years ago, Suliman, 42, re-set his watch to German time, having become disenchanted with Al-Jazeera. And it wasn't just because the broadcaster seemed less interested in reports from Europe. Rather, Suliman had the feeling that he was no longer being allowed to work as an independent journalist.

Last August, he quit his job. "Before the beginning of the Arab Spring, we were a voice for change," he says, "a platform for critics and political activists throughout the region. Now, Al-Jazeera has become a propaganda broadcaster."

Suliman is not the only one who feels bitterly disappointed. The Arab TV network has recently suffered an exodus of prominent staff members. Reporters and anchors in cities like Paris, London, Moscow, Beirut and Cairo have left Al-Jazeera, despite what are seen as luxurious working conditions in centrally located offices. And despite the fact that the network is investing an estimated $500 million (€375 million) in the US, so as to reach even more viewers on the world's largest television market -- one in which its biggest competitor, CNN, is at home.

Al-Jazeera has over 3,000 staff members and 65 correspondent offices worldwide -- and viewers in some 50 million households throughout the Arab world. But it also has a problem: More than ever before, critics contend that the broadcaster is following a clear political agenda, and not adhering to the principles of journalistic independence.

it's gotta primarily be arms dealers that want a new market right? surely no one else thinks arming rebels is a good idea

Some people (from multiple spots on the political spectrum) do think its a chance worth taking in Syria

imho giving al-qaeada american-made weapons is a mistake we should've already learned to avoid

Some folks only want to give weapons to the non-Al Queda rebels there and believe it is possible to give it to them alone. Not having done so early also just allowed the Al Queda ones to get a bigger foothold

With little international aid reaching Syria's besieged population, Islamist militants such as the Al Qaeda-linked group Jabhat Al Nusra are building support by providing food and other items in scant supply after two years of civil war

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/syrias-al-qaeda-linked-militants-win-hearts-by-providing-food

The international community afaik has been diverting non-weapon aid into Syria. If that aid isn't reaching the population I imagine it's not for lack of effort. And I don't know how you can possibly give weapons to only the non-Al Qaeada rebels and guarantee that they don't get passed around.

Given that more secular militias of the FSA and Al Nusra have been murdering each other for months now, I'm pretty sure that someone with good ground-level intelligence on the factions (ie, not the CIA) could direct aid somewhat wisely. Problem is Al Nusra fighters, given a wealth of experience from Chechnya and Iraq, are far more effective than most FSA militias. Perusing liveleak or apacheclips one gets the impression that most FSA militias are suicidally inept. Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia had its share of those, but most were killed before joining Al Nusra, leaving a cadre that's gotten pretty good at insurgency.

A few small arms (the US could conceivably offer AKs, RPGs, and most importantly secure communications devices) won't change that equation between a children's crusade and some wizened old-hands much.

Mordy I'm disappointed you didn't post about Bibi's ice cream scandal

I also don't think there's any reason to believe that toppling Assad quicker would resolve the crisis. I have read a lot of compelling arguments that Syria is not in a transition phase but a dissolution phase and the next step after Assad's removal might be fracturing along traditional tribal/religious/ethnic grounds and potentially far more violence and displacement than we've already seen. I can't figure out what the United States stands to gain from promoting the rebels - except maybe to try to earn points w/ SA + Qatar?

There is a theory that toppling Assad will isolate Hezbollah even further and remove one of Iran's last friends. I'm just not sure that giving the rebels free reign over Syria is necessarily worth the little strategic benefit you may get w/ Iran.

Alawi genocide would be on the cards.

cant hate on bibi for liking a good pistachio ice cream

IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that he could scrap this year's presidential election, threatening to drag the Islamic Republic into a constitutional crisis as he attempts to retain power.

With months to go until Iranians vote for his successor in June, Mr Ahmadinejad has reignited his bitter power struggle with Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.

Reconnaissance soldiers from the the IDF’s Engineering Corps recently completed an intensive series of subterranean warfare drills to prepare them for a potential clash with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah has placed its command and control centers in underground bunkers, and dug a maze of tunnels where commanders, fighters and weaponry can be placed out of sight of the Israel Air Force.

Soldiers from the reconnaissance platoon of the Assaf Engineering Brigade underwent month-long exercises simulating complex terrain fighting, much of which involved dense forests. A week of training was dedicated to combat in tunnels.

tunnel warfare seems particularly terrifying to imagine - maybe bc i'm a little claustrophobic. i can't imagine anything scarier than going into hezbollah tunnels.

crazy stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_rat

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/world/europe/in-cyprus-trial-man-says-hezbollah-scouted-israeli-targets-in-europe.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-20/nigeria-arrests-iran-linked-suspects-planning-attacks.html

Berende admitted in his interrogation to traveling to Iran on several occasions, in order to meet with Iranians known for their involvement in a worldwide terror network.

The last time he met with his Iranian handlers was in Dubai in April of 2012. In that meeting, he was requested to collect information on ZIM offices and on the Chabad house in Lagos.

The Iranian handlers directed Berende to use code names in all his communications with them. He was requested to use the word "uncle" to denote Israeli targets and the word "aunt" for American ones. He was also directed to establish a small business in Lagos that he would use as a front for the operations.

Accounts of tunnel warfare from Vietnam will surprise the reader. One expects there to be a short range ambush around every corner, but in reality by the time Americans got to the tunnel complexes the NVA main forces generally had retreated leaving behind the wounded and camp hangars-on. And there is a strange sort of advantage to the side playing offence in tunnel warfare (as in mopping up trenches and room to room fighting). The side playing offence knows the moment of its charge and always tosses a grenade to stun anyone waiting behind blind corners - the side playing defense doesn't know the timing and doesn't have a standoff distance to get in shots. Or you can just pump in gas. Gasoline will work fine too. Suffocating the enemy in flames is fair play, these days.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/22/267633.html

Free Syria rebels threaten to attack Lebanon if Hezbollah keeps sticking their nose in the war.

this week's NYer piece on Hezbollah (behind paywall, sorry) is A+: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/02/25/130225fa_fact_filkins

According to the report on the Sawt Beirut International website, Nasrallah’s condition recently deteriorated and he was evacuated to Tehran by an airplane sent on behalf of the Islamic Republic and which took off from the Rafiq al-Hariri International Airport in Beirut.

The report, however, has not been confirmed by any other source and its reliability is unclear.

UN: Staffer to peacekeeping force in Golan missing
A staff member of UN peacekeeping force in demilitarized Golan Heights between Syria, Israel "not accounted for."

It remarkable how many Nasrallah GIS results have him with an index finger skyward.

Thought this was cute:

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2009/12/24/hassan_nasrallah_lebanon.jpg

But as we all know, beards were invented to hide double chins and bad diets.

front page NYT article about SA diverting Croatian weapons into Syria

"Swiss made hand-grenades"

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/1489/smfragmentationtechnolonj0.jpg
The HG 85, probably photographed between Hublot and Girard-Perregaux watch sessions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/world/middleeast/rocket-from-gaza-hits-israel-breaking-cease-fire.html

that was nice while it lasted

talking about nigeria here would be serious thread creep however due to current situations in libya/mali, new US base in nigeria, four hezbollah terrorists arrested last week planning attack on chabad in lagos and now this, i think this is a good place to report:

FRENCH GOVERNMENT SAYS SEVEN OF ITS NATIONALS, INCLUDING FOUR CHILDREN, ARE BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY NIGERIAN GROUP BOKO HARAM

There's a new US base in Niger; is there also a new one in Nigeria?

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114443:us-may-deploy-drones-spy-planes-in-nigeria-over-boko-haram&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

oh, you're right. my bad.

Western NGOs' safeguards, while understandable, also place them at a disadvantage in winning the hearts and minds of Syrians. Mahmoud agreed with recent reports that the al Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra is gaining support through its aid work.

"I am completely against Jabhat al-Nusra, but I have to tell the truth about what is going on," Mahmoud said. "If you go now to any village that is under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra you can find the bread there very cheap. If you go to any village that is close to the one under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra, the bread is very expensive."

"I think this is what makes people sympathize with [Jabhat al-Nusra] or at least respect them. How does al Qaeda have all this money, tell me?" he said.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/26/give_me_shelter_aid_syria

The CIA drone base in Niger (likely just off the tarmac in Agadez and sort of a twin to the basing in Djibouti. US Special Forces (probably 3rd Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg) have been sent to Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo and Ghana. Probably spread thin as covert air controllers ready to assist locals. While Predators and Reapers can loiter over Yemen from Djibouti, Nigeria from Agadez is a bit of a reach.

Oops, I'm wrong there. Agadez is just perfect for drone ops against either Mali or Nigeria.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lULMLM087D4/US4QyH3hJvI/AAAAAAAAWR4/_ikHq5uC84Q/s1600/arak1.jpg

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-arab-revolutions--dangerous-turn-by-joschka-fischer

Mordy, you're highlighting the zeppelin? Those have been used for persistent wide-area surveillance of Somalian piracy for a few years.

that's not a zeppelin! it's steam from heavy-water production at arak!

Because they do not require uranium enrichment, heavy water reactors are of concern in regards to nuclear proliferation. The breeding and extraction of plutonium can be a relatively rapid and cheap route to building a nuclear weapon, as chemical separation of plutonium from fuel is easier than isotopic separation of U-235 from natural uranium.

...Due to its potential for use in nuclear weapons programs, the possession or import/export of large industrial quantities of heavy water are subject to government control in several countries. Suppliers of heavy water and heavy water production technology typically apply IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) administered safeguards and material accounting to heavy water.

Sorry, thought that was an update on US Africa basing.

Hmm. That's not a lot of steam. A 40 ft column judging by the shadow. A ton of steam for every liter of heavy water. Guess they're going the CANDU route.

WASHINGTON — The United States is significantly stepping up its support for the Syrian opposition, senior administration officials said on Wednesday, helping to train rebels at a base in the region and for the first time offering armed groups nonlethal assistance and equipment that could help their military campaign.

The training mission, already under way, represents the deepest American involvement yet in the Syrian conflict, though the size and scope of the mission is not clear, nor is its host country. The offer of nonlethal assistance is expected to come from Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting on Thursday in Rome with opposition leaders. Mr. Kerry is also expected to raise the prospect of direct financial aid, though officials cautioned that the White House still had to sign off on all the elements.

Before arriving in Rome on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry declared in Paris that the Syrian opposition needed additional assistance and indicated that the United States and its partners planned to provide some.

Under a broad definition of “nonlethal,” assistance to the opposition could include items like vehicles, communications equipment and night vision gear. The Obama administration has said it will not — at least for now — provide arms to the opposition.

"The training mission, already under way, represents the deepest American involvement yet in the Syrian conflict, though the size and scope of the mission is not clear, nor is its host country."

Probably not in Syria. Iraq maybe? Turkey or Jordan?

Maybe not Iraq...

"If the world does not agree to support a peaceful solution through dialogue ... then I see no light at the end of the tunnel,'' [Iraq PM Nouri] al-Maliki said.

"Neither the opposition nor the regime can finish each other off," he continued. "The most dangerous thing in this process is that if the opposition is victorious, there will be a civil war in Lebanon, divisions in Jordan and a sectarian war in Iraq."

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/27/3120671/ethiopian-israeli-wins-miss-israel-pageant-for-first-time

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2137429,00.html

credit to Time Magazine for what seems like a pretty good process story on the white house developing policy on nuclear iran. lots of stuff i didn't know - about gates writing the memo that galvanized the WH into discussing the feasibility of containment (and suggests that clinton was against containment but gates wanted military action off the table - a gates' aide denies that). also they source anonymous independent analysts who claim that stuxnet was an american-israeli collaboration.

Secretary of State John Kerry, on his first trip abroad, warned that the failure of diplomacy could have "terrible consequences."

He, like every current and former official interviewed for this story, believes Obama will resort to war if necessary to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-quietly-sends-migrants-sudan-18600955

excerpt from article. NPR also had a story on this

Israel has quietly repatriated hundreds of Sudanese migrants in recent months, drawing accusations from rights groups that it has coerced the Africans into potentially life-threatening situations and possibly violated international norms for treating refugees.

Israel says the departures have been voluntary, but they follow mass arrests of migrants and vows by Israeli leaders to halt the influx.

Over the past eight years, as many as 60,000 African migrants, mostly Sudanese and Eritrean, have sneaked across Israel's border with Egypt's lawless Sinai desert, some fleeing repressive regimes and others looking for work and better conditions.

Israel initially tolerated their arrival but has since grown jittery as their numbers swelled, turning some neighborhoods into immigrant slums.

Leaders warn the migrants are a burden and threaten the country's Jewish character.

Obama is repatriating far larger numbers of Mexican immigrants to an equally (or more) dangerous country.

"Quietly."

so, of course, that completely excuses any misconduct on Israel's part. keep on trollin'.

since this issue is so important to you I imagine you've already discussed this elsewhere on ilx and you're not just an idiot knee-jerk Israel hater? http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/25/obamas-unprecedented-number-of-deportations/

400,000 is a significantly larger number of immigrants to deport than "hundreds" after all.

Sudan's dictator and Mexico's president are not equivalent, and I am not sure I buy your argument that Mexico is more dangerous than Sudan.

You have also ignored the fact that some Israelis are very uncomfortable with sending back the Sudanese.

http://www.assaf.org.il/en/

This Israeli organization, cited in that link, is opposed to that current policy.

If it's not worse it's comparable in terms of crime/violence. And I'm not supporting the policy, just pointing out that when Israel does something every single country in the world does (deport undocumented immigrants to dangerous third world countries) it gets unusually robust coverage.

Glad to hear you are not supporting the policy. Sudan's status:

The warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against President al-Bashir have not limited his movements, the sheikh said. Instead, he added, al-Bashir signed partial agreements that bought him time to continue atrocities against civilians in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

The human rights violations committed by Sudan's President make it more than just another "dangerous third world country"

You may be underestimating the violence and human rights violations in Mexico. I'm on Zing so it's hard to do research but iirc intentional homicide rates are close between the two countries.

The murder rates in Mexico and Sudan are slightly less than that of Puerto Rico. About half that of New Orleans. Where I chose to live.

Meanwhile an interesting map:

http://mondediplo.com/IMG/arton6402.gif

If I give equal time to how shit America is, can I bash Israel?

What do we make of this story?:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-introduces-palestinian-only-bus-lines-following-complaints-from-jewish-settlers-1.506869

It sounds bad but important context is that it's only happening because Bibi greatly increased workers' permits to West Bank residents over the last four or so years. Considering the birth pangs of the Third Intifada going on right now, it's probably the better alternative to rescinding all those workers' permits (which will surely happen if Intifada 1 + 2 style violence becomes the norm). If people from the West Bank (as in pre-Bibi days) weren't allowed to enter Israel, there wouldn't be any 'apartheid' buses. Still, seems like terrible PR to me and the better choice would be increasing the already existing fleet + just beefing up security imo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/world/middleeast/seized-arms-off-yemen-raise-alarm-over-iran.html

http://io9.com/5988403/tehran-suffering-plague-of-hyper+evolved-mutant-rats

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18ggu7puae2iqjpg/original.jpg

"They seem to have had a genetic mutation, probably as a result of radiations and the chemical used on them," Ismail Kahram, Teheran city council environment adviser and university professor Ismail Kahram told Qudsonline.ir.

"They are now bigger and look different. These are changes that normally take millions of years of evolution. They have jumped from 60 grams to five kilos, and cats are now smaller than them." . . .

"We use chemical poisons to kill the rats during the day and the snipers at night, so it has become a 24/7 war," the head of the environment agency, Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh, said . . . So far 2,205 rats have been shot dead.

http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/03/26/bigrat-jpg_223315.jpg
Unless some growth hormone factory for Iranian agribusiness is leaking, it could just be invasive giant Gambian rat, which are presently invading the Florida Keys

oh fuck, iraq:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/world/middleeast/fighting-escalates-in-syrian-city-opposition-says.htm

I don't know why I trust any stories that Haaretz breaks anymore. From Jeff Goldblog:

Aaron Sagui, the spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington, e-mailed me this response to my previous blog post:

Right now, Palestinians wishing to cross legally into Israel (with a working permit) have no direct line to the border crossing. So they either take unauthorized taxis (at expensive fares, since the service is uncontrolled by transportation authorities), or they have to walk or travel to an Israeli city or village (Ariel, for instance) and there take a bus into Israel. The relevant bus company opened two lines that will serve Palestinians, going from their place of residence into Israel, saving them the trouble of going to Ariel first, or taking those taxis. The bus company made it clear, in an official announcement, that no Palestinian shall be shunned or rejected if they choose to travel on the Ariel line.

Interesting segment on Syria today on WHYY NPR:
http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2013/03/06/the-civil-war-in-syria-the-conflict-u-s-policy-and-how-might-it-end/

Worth listening to, imo. Tho they're a bit more gung ho about increasing US support of rebels than I think is wise.

http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2013/03/blogs/graphic-detail/20130309_gdc205.png

NYT: Syria’s civil war entangled the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the disputed Golan Heights between Syria and Israel on Wednesday, when 30 armed fighters for the insurgency seized a group of 20 peacekeepers investigating a damaged observation post and threatened to treat them as enemy prisoners if Syrian forces remained in the area.

The UN Disengagement Force (UNDOF) peacekeepers are reportedly from Austria, Croatia, India and the Philippines, Al Jazeera's James Bays said from the UN headquarters in New York.

I thought that Croatia withdrew all their troops from the Golan peacekeeping mission after it turned out the rebels were armed w/ Croatian weapons? Why are they still there, and why are the rebels kidnapping UN representatives when that will certainly strain the international community's will to arm them further?

Haaretz on its provocative depo-provera story today:

This article, which was updated on March 6, 2013, reported on Health Ministry director-general Prof. Roni Gamzu's instruction to gynecologists not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera if there is any doubt that recipients did not understand the implications of the treatment. The original version failed to state that this instruction was issued "without taking a stand or determining facts about allegations that had been made," and referred to all women and not just women of Ethiopian origin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-egypt-slides-toward-financial-ruin/2013/03/06/85974478-85e4-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html

The economic facts are stark: Egypt’s official foreign-currency reserves in February were $13.5 billion, which would cover a little less than three months of imports. But U.S. officials say that accessible, liquid reserves total only $6 billion to $7 billion. Already, imports are harder to find, including the raw materials needed by Egyptian manufacturers. The Egyptian stock market tumbled 5 percent early this week, sensing danger ahead.

And what is the government of President Mohamed Morsi doing to halt the economic decline? Not a lot. Morsi has been dithering for a year in negotiating a roughly $5 billion rescue package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Egypt desperately needs. He is delaying because he is wary of public anger at the reforms the IMF demands, including reductions in subsidies, which take 25 percent of Egypt’s budget. (Debt service and public-sector employment account for another 50 percent.)

...

So what are U.S. policy options as Egypt nears the brink? Some of Morsi’s critics argue that the United States should let him fail. That’s certainly the view of Egypt’s secular opposition, along with conservative Persian Gulf regimes. They hope Egyptians will reject Morsi and his party in parliamentary elections that begin in late April but might be delayed because of legal challenges.

What do you think Morsi should do?