Armas quimicas , punição a Síria .

Armas quimicas , punição a Síria .

Secretário de Estado John Forbes Kerry , que chamou duas vezes a América Latina de "quintal" durante a sabatina no Senado americano , que o confirmou no cargo, continua o mesmo , insidioso e maledicente , nada produz para a paz .

O relatório da inteligência americana , que conclui que há "um alto nível de certeza" , revela , o presidente Bashar Al Assad usou armas químicas , a ação deixou 1.429 mortos, sendo 426 crianças.

A inteligência britânica informa que o número de mortos ultrapassaria os 350, número similar aos 355 apontados pelos Médicos Sem Fronteiras , enquanto a França calcula 281 mortos.

Na Alemanha , informa o Bundesnachrichtendienst , Serviço de Inteligência Federal , que também acredita que o presidente Bashar Al Assad estava por trás dos ataques.

O chefe do Bundesnachrichtendienst Gerhard Schindler recentemente falou a autoridades do governo em uma reunião secreta que a evidência não foi absolutamente conclusiva, uma "análise de plausibilidade" apoia a ideia de que o governo sírio usou agentes químicos.

O Bundesnachrichtendienst no tempo do major-general Reinhard Gehlen , certamente produzia relatórios , digamos mais românticos que estes hoje apresentados , certamente porque talento não é algo hereditário , não é mesmo.

Como podem observar Vossas Senhorias , eles não chegaram a um numero , e tiraram o da Al-Qaeda da reta , sim os ATIVISTAS TAKFIRE'S defendidos por muitos continuarão sua limpeza étnica e religiosa , estão matando cristãos como galinhas , a tiros , obama não falou e não fala nada a respeito , o porque cabe a quem o desejar , auferir .

No entanto querem ir matar na Síria , querem bombas , misseis etc sendo lançados sobre o povo sírio .

Tudo que escrevi portanto não passou de um mero exaurimento , em resumo vão praticar mortes , vão matar alguém , que nem sabem quem , que certamente não tem culpa alguma .

Damascus on Wednesday, August 21.

            Probably like you, I have spent many hours this last week trying to put together the scraps of information reported in the media on the horrible attack with chemical weapons on a suburb of Damascus on Wednesday, August 21.  Despite the jump to conclusions by reporters, commentators and government officials, I find as of this writing that  the events are still unclear. Worse, the bits and pieces we have been told are often out of context and usually have not been subjected either to verification or logical analysis.  So I ask you to join me in thinking them through to try to get a complete picture on what has happened, is now happening and about to happen.  I apologize for both the length of this analysis and its detail, but the issue is so important to all of us that it must be approached with care.
            Because, as you will see, this is germane in examining the evidence, I should tell you that during my years as a member of the Policy Planning Council, I was “cleared” for all the information the US Government had on weapons of mass destruction, including poison gas, and for what was then called “Special Intelligence,”  that is, telecommunications interception and code breaking.
            [JF note: This is the list of questions around which the rest of the essay is structured.] I will try to put in context 1) what actually happened;  2) what has been reported; 3) who has told us what we think we know; 4) who are the possible culprits and what would be their motivations; 5)  who are the insurgents?  6)  what is the context in which the attack took place;  7) what are chemical weapons and who has used them; 8)  what the law on the use of chemical weapons holds; 9) pro and con on attack;  10)  the role of the UN; 11) what is likely to happen now;  12) what would be the probable consequences of an attack and (13) what could we possibly gain from an attack.

1:         What Actually Happened

            On Wednesday, August 21 canisters of gas opened in several suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus and within a short time approximately a thousand people were dead.  That is the only indisputable fact we know.

2:         What Has Been Reported

            Drawing primarily on Western government and Israeli sources, the media has reported that canisters of what is believed to be the lethal nerve gas Sarin were delivered by surface-to-surface rockets to a number of locations in territory disputed by the Syrian government and insurgents.  The locations were first reported to be to the southwest, about 10 miles from the center of Damascus,   and later reported also to be to the east of the city in other suburbs.  The following Voice of America map shows the sites  where bodies were found.

3:         Who Told Us What We Think We Know

A UN inspection team that visited the site of the massacre on Monday, August 26, almost 5 days after the event.
            Why was the inspection so late? As a spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pointed out (Gareth Porter in IPS, August 27), the request to the Syrian government to authorize an inspection was not made until August 24 and was granted the next day. In any event, according to the spokesman, the delay was not of fundamental importance because “Sarin can be detected for up to months after its use.”
            What was the American government position on inspection? Secretary of State John Kerry initially demanded that the Syrian government make access to the suspected site or sites possible.  Then it charged that the Syrian government purposefully delayed permission so that such evidence as existed might be “corrupted”  or destroyed.   On the basis of this charge, he reversed his position and urged UN Secretary General Ban to stop the inquiry.  According to The Wall Street Journal of August 26, Secretary Kerry told Mr. Ban that  “the inspection mission was pointless and no longer safe…”  To emphasize the American position, according to the same Wall Street Journal report,“Administration officials made clear Mr. Obama would make his decision based on the U.S. assessment and not the findings brought back by the U.N. inspectors.”
     IPS’s Gareth Porter concluded after talks with chemical weapons experts and government officials that “The administration’s effort to discredit the investigation recalls the George W. Bush administration’s rejection of the position of U.N. inspectors in 2002 after they found no evidence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the administration’s refusal to give inspectors more time to fully rule out the existence of an active Iraqi WMD programme.  In both cases, the administration had made up its mind to go to war and wanted no information that could contradict that policy to arise.”  Is this a fair assessment?
            Why was the first UN inspection so limited?   The only publicly known reason is that it came under sniper fire while on the way to the first identified site.  Who fired on it or for what reason are, as of this writing, unknown.  The area was contested by one or more rebel groups and under only limited or sporadic control by the Syrian government. Indeed, as photographs published by The New York Times on August 29, show the UN inspectors in one area (Zamaka) guarded by armed men identified as “rebel fighters.”  So the sniper could have been almost anyone.
            How limited was the first phase of inspection? According to a report in The Guardian (Monday, August 26, 2013), the small team of UN Inspectors investigating the poison gas attack in Syria spent only an hour and a half at the site.  So far, we have not been given any report by the UN team, but the doctor in charge of the local hospital was apparently surprised by how brief and limited was their investigation.  According toThe Guardian reporter, he said,
"The committee did not visit any house in the district. We asked the committee to exhume the bodies for checking them. But they refused. They say that there was no need to do that.
    'We had prepared samples for the committee from some bodies and video documentation. There were urine and blood samples as well as clothes. But they refused to take them.
    'After an hour and a half, they got an order from the regime to leave ASAP. The security force told the committee if they did not leave now, they could not guarantee their security. They could not visit the main six sites where the chemical rockets had fallen and lots of people were killed.' "
Why did the investigators not do a more thorough job?  The doctor at the site told the Guardian reporter that the Assad regime warned the investigators that they should leave because it could not guarantee their safety   but the newspaper’s headline says that the Syrian government authorities  ordered them out.  Which is true? Is there another explanation?   And why did the inspection team not have the means to retrieve parts of the delivery equipment, presumably rockets?   Were they told by the UN or other authorities not to retrieve them or were they refused permission by the Syrian government?  We simply do not know.
To say the least, the inspection was incomplete. The best that the State Department spokesman could say about such evidence as was gathered is that there is “’little doubt’ [Vice President Biden later raised the certainty from the same limited evidence to “no doubt”] that forces loyal to Mr. Assad were responsible for using the chemical weapons.” (“’Little Doubt’ Syria Gassed Opposition,” The Wall Street Journal,August 26, 2013).
Much was made of the belief that the gas had been delivered by rocket.  However, as The New York Times correspondent Ben Hubbard reported (April 27, 2013) “”Near the attack sites, activists found spent rockets that appeared to have been homemade and suspected that they delivered the gas.”    Would the regular army’s chemical warfare command have used “homemade” rockets?  That report seemed to point to some faction within the opposition rather than to the government.
Several days into the crisis, we have been given a different source of information.  This is from Israel.  For many years, Israel is known to have directed a major communications effort against Syria.  Its program, known as Unit 8200 is Mossad’s equivalent of NSA. It chose to share what it claimed was a key intercept with outsiders.   First, a former officer told the German news magazine Focus (according to The Guardian,August 28, 2013) that Israel had intercepted a conversation between Syrian officers discussing the attack.  The same Information was given to Israeli press (see “American Operation, Israeli Intelligence” in the August 27 Yediot Ahronoth,)   It also shared this information with the American government. Three Israeli senior officers were reported to have been sent to Washington to brief NSC Director Susan Rice.  What was said was picked up by some observers.  Foreign Policy magazine reported (August 28, “Intercepted Calls Prove Syrian Army Used Nerve Gas, U.S. Spies Say”) that “in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Minister of Defense exchanged what Israeli intelligence described as “panicked phone calls” with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answer for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people.”
But, as more information emerged, doubts began to be expressed. As Matt Apuzzo reported (AP, August 29, “AP sources: Intelligence on weapons no ‘slam dunk.’”), according to a senior US intelligence official, the intercept “discussing the strike was among low level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack to an Assad insider or even a senior commander.” Reminding his readers of the famous saying by the then head of the CIA, George Tenet, in 2002 that the intelligence against Saddam Husain was “slam dunk,” when in fact it was completely erroneous, the AP correspondent  warned that the Syrian attack of last week “could be tied to al-Qaida-backed rebels later.”
Two things should be borne in mind on these reports: the first is that Israel has had a long-standing goal of the break-up or weakening of Syria which is the last remaining firmly anti-Israeli Arab state. (the rationale behind this policy was laid out by Edward Luttwak in the OpEd section of the August 24, 2013 New York Times).  It also explains why Israel  actively had sought “regime change” in Iraq.  The second consideration is that Israeli intelligence has also been known to fabricate intercepts as, for example, it did during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
So, unless or until more conclusive evidence is available, the request by Mr. Ban (“U.N. seeks more time for its inspectors,”International Herald Tribune, August 29, 2013) for more time appears to be prudent.   Despite what Messrs Biden and Kerry have said, I believe a court would conclude that the case  against the Syrian government was “not proven.”

4:         Who Are the Possible Culprits and What Would be Their Motivations?

            Since such information as we have is sketchy and questionable, we should seek to understand motives.  As a historian, dealing as one always does, with incomplete information, I have made it a rule when trying to get at the “truth” in any contentious issue to ask a series of questions among which are who benefits from a given action and what would I have done in a given situation?   Look briefly at what we think we now know in light of these questions:
           First, who gains by the action.  I do not see what Assad could have gained from this gas attack.  It is evident that while the area in which it took place is generally held to be "disputed" territory, the government was able to arrange for the UN inspection team to visit it but not, apparently, to guarantee their safety there. If Assad were to initiate an attack, it would be more logical for him to pick a target under the control of the rebels.
Second, to have taken the enormous risk of retaliation or at least loss of support by some of his allies (notably the Russians) by using this horrible weapon, he must have thought of it either as a last ditch stand or as a knockout blow to the insurgents.  Neither appears to have been the case.  Reports in recent weeks suggest that the Syrian government was making significant gains against the rebels.  No observer has suggested that its forces were losing.   All indications are that the government’s command and control system not only remains intact but that it still includes among its senior commanders and private soldiers a high proportion of Sunni Muslims. Were the regime in decline, it would presumably have purged those whose loyalties were becoming suspect (i.e. the Sunni Muslims) or they would have bolted for cover.  Neither happened.
Moreover, if it decided to make such an attack, I should have thought that it would have aimed at storage facilities, communications links, arms depots or places where commanders congregated.  The suburbs of Damascus offered none of these opportunities for a significant, much less a knockout, blow.
Third, as students of guerrilla warfare have learned guerrillas are dispersed but civilians are concentrated.  So weapons of mass destruction are more likely to create hostility to the user than harm to the opponent. The chronology of the Syrian civil war shows that the government must be aware of this lesson as it has generally held back its regular troops (which were trained and armed to fight foreign invasion) and fought its opponents with relatively small paramilitary groups backed up by air bombardment. Thus, a review of the fighting over the last two years suggests that its military commanders would not have seen a massive gas attack either as a “game changer” or an option valuable enough to outweigh the likely costs.
So, what about the enemies of the Assad regime?   How might such an attack have been to their advantage?
First, a terrorizing attack might have been thought advantageous because of the effect on people who are either supporting the regime or are passive.  There are indications, for example, that large numbers of the pathetic Palestinian refugees are pouring out their camps in yet another "displacement."  The number of Syrian refugees is also increasing.  Terror is a powerful weapon and historically and everywhere was often used. Whoever initiated the attack might have thought, like those who initiated the attack on Guernica, the bombing of Rotterdam and the Blitz of London, that the population would be so terrorized that they might give up or at least cower.  Then as food shortages and disease spread, the economy would falter.  Thus the regime might collapse.
That is speculative, but the second benefit to the rebels of an attack is precisely what has happened: given the propensity to believe everything evil about the Assad regime,  daily emphasized by the foreign media, a consensus, at least in America, has been achieved  is that it must have been complicit.  This consensus should make it possible for outside powers to  take action against the regime and join in giving the insurgents the money, arms and training.
We know that the conservative Arab states, the United States, other Western powers and perhaps Israel have given assistance to the rebels for the last two years, but the outside aid has not been on a scale sufficient to enable them to defeat the government. They would need much more and probably would also need foreign military intervention as happened in Libya in April 2011 to overthrow Muamar Qaddafi.  The rebels must have pondered that situation.  We know that foreign military planners have. (See “Military Intervention in Syria” Wikileaks reprinted on August 25, 2013, memorandum of a meeting in the Pentagon in 2011.) Chillingly, the just cited Wikileaks memorandum notes that the assembled military and intelligence officers “don’t believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi [sic] move against Benghazi.” (See Time, March 17, 2011.)  As in Libya,  evidence of an ugly suppression of inhabitants might justify and lead to foreign military intervention.
Clearly, Assad had much to lose and his enemies had much to gain.  That conclusion does not prove who did it, but it should give us pause to find conclusive evidence which we do not now have.

5:         Who are the insurgents?

        We know little about them, but what we do know is that they are divided into hundreds – some say as many as 1,200 -- of small, largely independent,  groups.  And we know that the groups range across the spectrum from those who think of themselves as members of the dispersed, not-centrally-governed but ideologically-driven association we call al-Qaida, through a variety of more conservative Muslims, to gatherings of angry, frightened or dissatisfied young men who are out of work and hungry,  to blackmarketeers who are trading in the tools of war, to what we have learned to call in Afghanistan and elsewhere "warlords."
Each group marches to its own drumbeat and many are as much opposed to other insurgents as to the government; some are secular while others are jihadists; some are devout while others are opportunists; many are Syrians but several thousand are foreigners from all over the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Asia.   Recognition of the range of motivations, loyalties and aims is what, allegedly, has caused President Obama to hold back overt lethal-weapons assistance although it did not stop him from having the CIA and contractors covertly arm and train insurgents in Jordan and other places.
The main rebel armed force is known as the Free Syrian Army.  It was formed in the summer of 2011 by deserters from the regular army. Similar to other rebel armies (for example the “external” army of the Provisional Algerian Government in its campaign against the French and various “armies” that fought the Russians in Afghanistan) its commanders and logistical cadres are outside of Syria.  Its influence over the actual combatants inside of Syria derives from its ability to allocate money and arms and shared objectives; it does not command them.  So far as is known, the combatants are autonomous.  Some of these groups have become successful guerrillas and have not only killed several thousand government soldiers and paramilitaries but have seized large parts of the country and disrupted activities or destroyed property in others.
In competition with the Free Syrian Army is an Islamicist group known as Jabhat an-Nusra (roughly “sources of aid”) which is considered to be a terrorist organization by the United States.  It is much more active and violent than groups associated with the Free Syrian Army.  It is determined to convert Syria totally into an Islamic state under Sharia law. Public statements attributed to some of its leaders threaten a blood bath of Alawis and Christians after it achieves the fall of the Assad regime.   Unlike the Free Syrian Army it is a highly centralized force and its 5-10 thousand guerrillas have been able to  engage in large-scale and coordinated operations.
Of uncertain and apparently shifting relations with Jabhat an-Nusra, are groups that seem to be increasing in size who think of themselves as members of al-Qaida.  They seem to be playing an increasing role in the underground and vie for influence and power with the Muslim Brotherhood and the dozens of other opposition groups.
Illustrating the complexity of the line-up of rebel forces, Kurdish separatists are seeking to use the war to promote their desire either to unite with other Kurdish groups in Turkey and/or Iraq or to achieve a larger degree of autonomy.  (See Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa, “The Civil War Within Syria’s Civil War,” Foreign Policy, August 28, 2013).  They are struggling against both the other opposition groups and against the government, and they too would presumably welcome a collapse of the government that would lead to the division of the country into ethnic-religious mini-states.
It seems reasonable to imagine that at least some and perhaps all of these diverse groups must be looking for action (such as a dramatic strike against the regime) that would tip the scale of military capacity. Listening to the world media and to the intelligence agents who circulate among them, they must hope that an ugly and large-scale event caused by or identified with the government might accomplish what they have so far been unable to do.

6:         What Is the Context in Which the Attack Took Place?

            Syria is and has always been a complex society, composed of clusters of ancient colonies.  Generally speaking, throughout history they have lived adjacent to one another rather than mixing in shared locations as the following map suggests.

[Syrian ethnic and/or religious communities. The large white area is little-inhabited desert. Courtesy of Wikipedia]
The population before the outbreak of the war was roughly (in rounded numbers)   6 in 10 were Sunni Muslim, 1 in 7 Christian, 1 in 8 Alawi (an ethnic off-shoot of Shia Islam), 1 in 10 Kurdish Muslim, smaller groups of Druze and Ismailis (both off-shoots of Shia Islam) and a scattering of others.
            Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance. Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011.  Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming. Desperate for water, farmers began to tap aquifers with tens of thousands of new well.  But, as they did, the water table quickly dropped to a level below which their pumps could lift it.

[USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Commodity Intelligence Report, May 9, 2008]
In some areas, all agriculture ceased.  In others crop failures reached 75%.  And generally as much as 85% of livestock died of thirst or hunger.  Hundreds of thousands  of Syria’s farmers gave up, abandoned their farms and fled to the cities and towns in search of almost non-existent jobs and severely short food supplies.  Outside observers including UN experts estimated that between 2 and 3  million of Syria’s 10 million rural inhabitants were reduced to “extreme poverty.”
The domestic Syrian refugees immediately found that they had to compete not only with one another for scarce food, water and jobs, but also with the already existing foreign refugee population.  Syria already was a refuge for quarter of a million Palestinians and about a hundred thousand people who had fled the war and occupation of Iraq.  Formerly prosperous farmers were lucky to get jobs as hawkers or street sweepers.  And in the desperation of the times, hostilities erupted among groups that were competing just to survive.
            Survival was the key issue.  The senior UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Syria turned to the USAID program for help. Terming the situation “a perfect storm,” in November 2008, he warned  that Syria faced “social destruction.” He noted that the Syrian Minister of Agriculture had “stated publicly that [the]  economic and social fallout from the drought was ‘beyond our capacity as a country to deal with.’”  But, his appeal fell on deaf ears:  the USAID director commented that “we question whether limited USG resources should be directed toward this appeal at this time.”  (reported on November 26, 2008 in cable 08DAMASCUS847_a to Washington and “leaked” to Wikileaks )
            Whether or not this was a wise decision, we now know that the Syrian government made the situation much worse by its next action. Lured by the high price of wheat on the world market, it sold its reserves. In 2006, according to the US Department of Agriculture, it sold 1,500,000 metric tons or twice as much as in the previous year.  The next year it had little left to export; in 2008 and for the rest of the drought years it had to import enough wheat to keep its citizens alive.
            So tens of thousands of frightened, angry, hungry and impoverished former farmers flooded constituted a “tinder” that was ready to catch fire.  The spark was struck on March 15, 2011  when a relatively small group gathered in the town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them.  Instead of meeting with the protestors and at least hearing their complaints, the government cracked down on them as subversives.  The Assads, who had ruled the country since 1971,  were not known for political openness or popular sensitivity.   And their action backfired.  Riots broke out all over the country,  As they did, the Assads attempted to quell them with military force.  They failed to do so and, as outside help – money from the Gulf states and Muslim “freedom fighters” from  the rest of the world – poured into the country, the government lost control over 30% of the country’s rural areas and perhaps half of its population.  By the spring of 2013, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), upwards of 100,000 people had been killed in the fighting, perhaps 2 million have lost their homes and upwards of 2 million have fled abroad.  Additionally, vast amounts of infrastructure, virtually whole cities like Aleppo, have been destroyed.
Despite these tragic losses, the war is now thought to be stalemated: the government cannot be destroyed and the rebels cannot be defeated.  The reasons are not only military: they are partly economic-- there is little to which the rebels could return;  partly political – the government has managed to retain the loyalty of a large part of the majority Muslim community which comprises the bulk of its army and civil service whereas the rebels, as I have mentioned, are fractured into many mutually hostile groups;  and partly administrative  -- by and large the government’s  structure has held together and functions satisfactorily whereas the rebels have no single government.

7:         What are Chemical Weapons and Who Has Used Them?

            When I was a member of the Policy Planning Council and  was “cleared” for all information on weapons of mass destruction, I was given a detailed briefing at Fort Meade on the American poison gas program.  I was so revolted by what I learned that I wrote President Kennedy a memorandum arguing that we must absolutely end the program and agree never to use it.   Subsequently, the United States is said to have destroyed 90% of its chemical weapons.
            My feelings aside, use of chemical weapons has been common. As the former head of the US Congress’s committee on foreign affairs and later president of the Woodrow Wilson Center, Lee Hamilton, told me, his experience was that when a weapon was available, the temptation to use it was almost irresistible.  History bears him out.  While most people were horror-stricken by the use of gas, governments continued to use it. In times of severe stress, it became acceptable.  As Winston Churchill wrote, use “was simply a question of fashion changing as it does between long and short skirts for women.”  Well, perhaps not quite, but having begun to use gas in the First World War, when about 100,000 people were killed by it, use continued.
After the war, the British, strongly urged by Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, used combinations of mustard gas, chlorine and other gases against tribesmen in Iraq in the 1920s.  As he said, “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.” In the same spirit, the Spaniards used gas against the Moroccan Rif Berbers in the late 1920s;  the Italians used it against Ethiopians in the 1930s; and  the Japanese used it against the Chinese in the 1940s.   Churchill again: during the Second World War, he wrote that if the Blitz threatened to work against England, he “may certainly have to ask you [his senior military staff] to support me in using poison gas.  We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many  other cities in Germany…”  More recently in 1962, I was told by the then chief of the CIA's Middle Eastern covert action office, James Critichfield that the Egyptians had used lethal concentrations of tear gas in their campaign against royalist guerrillas in Yemen.
America used various chemical agents including white phosphorus in Vietnam (where it was known as “Willie Pete”) and in Fallujah (Iraq) in 2005.  We encouraged or at least did not object to the use of chemical agents, although we later blamed him for so doing, by Saddam Husain. Just revealed documents show that the Reagan administration knew of the Iraqi use in the Iraq-Iran war of the same poison gas (Sarin) as was used a few days ago in Syria  and Tabun (also a nerve gas).  According to the US military attaché working with the Iraqi army  at the time, the US government either turned a blind eye or  approved its use (see the summary of the documents in Shane Harris and Matthew Aid, "Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran," Foreign Policy, August 26, 2013)   We were horrified when Saddam Husain used poison gas against the Kurdish villagers of Halabja in 1988 (killing perhaps 4-5 thousand people) but by that time we had dropped our support for the Iraqi government.   Finally,  Israel is believed to have used poison gas in Lebanon and certainly used white phosphorus in Gaza in 2008.
I cite this history not to justify the use of gas – I agree with Secretary Kerry that use of gas is a “moral obscenity” --  but to show that its use is by no means uncommon.  It is stockpiled by most states in huge quantities and is constantly being produced in special factories almost everywhere despite having been legally banned since the Geneva Protocol of June 17, 1925.

8:         What Is Current Law on the Use of Chemical Weapons?

            Use, production and storage of such weapons was again banned in the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (to which Syria it not a party). But nearly all the signatories to that convention reserved the right   legally to use such weapons if the weapons had been used against them (i.e. no first strike).  The Convention, unfortunately, contains no provision banning the use of weapons, as Saddam certainly did and as Assad is accused of doing, in civil war.   My understanding of the current law, as set out in the 1993 Convention, is that the United States and the other NATO members are legally entitled to take military action only when we – not their citizens -- are actually threatened by overt military attack with chemical weapons.

9:         Pro and Con on Attack

Putting the legal issue aside, there is precedent.  A part of the rationale for the 2003 U.S. attack on Iraq was the charge that it had or was developing weapons of mass destruction including poison gas which it planned to use against us.  This was the essence of Secretary of State Collin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.
            Powell then realized that there was no evidence to back up his charge (and it was later shown to be false), but that did not stop or even delay the attack.  The determination to attack had already been made, regardless of evidence.  An attack was undoubtedly then generally approved by the American public and its elected representatives.  They, and our NATO allies, concluded on the basis of what the second Bush administration told them that there was a threat and, therefore, that action was not only necessary for defense but also legal.  It is the memory of this grave misleading of the public that haunts at least some government officials and elected representatives today.
Memory of the Iraqi deception and the subsequent disaster is apparently responsible for the Parliamentary rejection  of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s announced plan to take military action against the Syrian government.  “The vote was also a set back for Mr. Obama, who, having given up hope of getting United Nations Security Council authorization for the strike, is struggling to assemble a coalition of allies against Syria…
But administration officials made clear that eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama  in deciding to go ahead with a strike.”  (“Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No,”  The New York Times, August 29, 2013)
            The New York Times editorial board essentially joined with the British Parliament in arguing that “Despite the pumped-up threats and quickening military preparations, President Obama has yet to make a convincing legal or strategic case for military action against Syria.”  (Editorial of August 28, 2013)
"As he often so eloquently does, President Obama said on August 23, '…what I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of, what is in our long-term national interests?…Sometimes what we’ve seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region.' "
However, as I point out below, his actions, as unfortunately also is typical of him, do not seem to mesh with his words.
            Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Secretary General Ban urged the European heads of state and President Obama to “Give peace a chance…give diplomacy a chance.”
            There has been a steady outpouring of informed non-governmental opposition to an attack.  Sir Andrew Green, the former British ambassador called it “poor foolishness…It beggars belief that we appear to be considering an armed attack on Syria with no clear purpose and no achievable objective.”  (Blundering into war in Syria would be pure foolishness.” The English Conservative Party  daily, Conservative Home, August 26, 2013).  This was from a member of the Prime Minister’s Conservative party; the Labour opposition was even more opposed to the adventure.
            The Russian government was outspoken in opposition.  Many Western commentators regarded their opposition as a sort of echo of the  Cold War, but the Russians were acutely aware of the danger that their own large (16% of their population) and growing Muslim population might be affected by the “forces of extremism in country after country in the Middle East by [the US] forcing or advocating a change in leadership – from Iraq to Libya, Egypt to Syria.”  (Steven Lee Myers, “Putin stays quiet as his aides assail the West,”International Herald Tribune, August 29, 2013)  As I have mentioned, President Obama believed that the Russians would veto the resolution the British had submitted to the Security Council before the English Parliament voted down the Prime Minister’s plan to intervene.

  10):     What is the role of the United Nations?
            Perhaps the most important role of the United Nations has not been in the highly publicized meetings and decisions of the Security Council, but in its specialized agencies, particularly the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in the attempt to mobilized food aid and the High Commission for Refugees (HCR) in attempting to ameliorate the conditions of the millions of people displaced by the fighting.  They have had little to work with.
But it is the UN in its more peace seeking role that is now in the forefront.  Weapons experts from the UN are conducting the investigation of the sites where the victims were killed.  There has been, as I mentioned above, an effort to end their work after their initial visit, but the UN Secretary General insisted that they continue for at least two more days.  The British, French and American governments have attempted also to limit the role of the UN to give them more latitude for whatever action they wish to take.  Indeed, the US State Department spokesman was quoted as saying  that whatever the inspectors reported would make no difference to the decisions of the Western powers.  Of course, the Western powers are concerned that whatever might be laid before the UN Security Council might be vetoed by Russia and perhaps also by China.

  11:      What is Likely to Happen Now
[This section written just before the president's surprise announcement that he would go to Congress.]
             While President Obama has spoken of caution and taking time to form a coalition, the gossip around the White House (The Wall Street Journal,August 26 and later accounts cited above) suggests that he is moving toward a cruise missile strike to “deter and degrade” the Syrian government even if this has to be a unilateral action.  (Paul Lewis and Spencer Ackerman, “White House forced to consider unilateral strikes against Assad after British PM unexpectedly loses key motion on intervention,” The Guardian, August 30, 2013)  The US Navy has moved 5 cruise missile armed destroyers into the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast and “all indications suggest that a strike could occur soon after United nations investigators charged with scrutinizing the Aug. 21 attack leave the country.   They are scheduled to depart Damascus on Saturday [August 31, 2013].”  (Mark Lander et al, “Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No,”  The New York Times, August 29, 2013)

12:      What Would Be  the Probable Consequences of an Attack?

            Retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, who was head of the Central Command when missiles were launched against Iraqi and Afghan targets warned (Ernesto Londoño and Ed O’Keefe, “imminent U.S. strike on Syria could draw nation into civil war,” The Washington Post, August 28, 2013) that “The one thing we should learn is that you can’t get a little bit pregnant.”  Taking that first step would almost surely lead to other steps that in due course would put American troops on the ground in Syria as a similar process did in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Stopping at the first step would be almost impossible as it was in those campaigns.  As the former American ambassador to Syria commented “A couple of cruise missiles are not going to change their way of thinking.”  And, Zinni put it in more pointed terms, “You’ll knee-jerk into the first option, blowing something up, without thinking through what this could lead to.”
            Why is this?  It is called "mission creep."  When a powerful government takes a step in any direction, the step is almost certain to have long-term consequences.  But, it seldom that leaders consider the eventual consequences. What happens?  Inevitably,  having taken step "A," it narrows its options.  It is embarked upon one  path and not another one.  At that point, step "B" often seems the logical thing to do whereas some other, quite different sort of action on a different path, seems inappropriate in the  context that step "A" has created.  At the same time, in our highly visual age with the forces of television coming to bear, governments, particularly in societies where public opinion or representation exist, come under pressure to do something as President Obama said in the remarks I have just quoted.  Where lobbies represent sectors of the economy and society with vested interests, the pressure to do something become immense.  We have often seen this in American history.  One political party stands ready to blame the other for failure to act.  And fear of that blame is often persuasive.  Thus, step "C" takes on a life of its own quite apart from what is suggested by a calm analysis of national interest, law or other considerations.  And with increasing speed further steps are apt to become almost inevitable and even automatic.  If you apply this model to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, you can see how modest first steps led to eventual massive involvement.
             During this time, it is likely that the victims of the attacks or their allies would attempt to strike back.  Many observers believe that the Syrian government would be prepared to “absorb” a modest level of attack that stopped after a short period.  However, if the attacks were massive and continued, it might be impossible for that government or its close allies, the Iranian and Iraqi governments and the Hizbulllah partisans in Lebanon, to keep quiet.  Thus, both American installations, of which there are scores within missile or aircraft range, might be hit.  Israel also might be targeted and if it were,  it would surely respond.  So the consequences of a spreading, destabilizing war throughout the Middle East and perhaps into South Asia (where Pakistan is furious over American drone attacks) would be a clear and present danger.
             Even if this scenario were not played out, it would be almost certain that affected groups or their allies would seek to carry the war back to America in the form of terrorist attacks.

  13:      So what could we possibly gain from an attack on Syria?
             Even if he wanted to, could Assad meet our demands?  He could, of course, abdicate, but this would probably not stop the war both because his likely successor would be someone in the inner circle of his regime and because the rebels form no cohesive group.  The likely result would be something like what happened after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a vicious civil war among competing factions.
             No one, of course, can know what would happen then.  My hunch is that Syria, like Afghanistan, would be torn apart not only into large chunks such as the Kurds in the northeast but even neighborhood by neighborhood as in the Iraqi cities.  Muslims would take revenge on Alawis and Christians who would be fighting for their lives.  More millions would be driven out of their homes.  Food would be desperately short, and disease probably rampant.  If we are worried about a haven for terrorists or drug traffickers, Syria would be hard to beat.  And if we are concerned about a sinkhole for American treasure, Syria would compete well with Iraq and Afghanistan.  It would probably be difficult or even impossible to avoid “boots on the ground” there.  So we are talking about casualties, wounded people, and perhaps wastage of another several trillion dollars which we don’t have to spend and which, if we had, we need to use in our own country for better heath, education, creation of jobs and rebuilding of our infrastructure. 
             Finally, if the missile attacks do succeed in “degrading” the Syrian government,  it may read the signs as indicating that fighting the war is acceptable so long as chemical weapons are not employed. They may regard it as a sort of license to go ahead in this wasting war.   Thus, the action will have accomplished little.  Thus,  as General Zinni points out, America will likely find itself saddled with another long-term, very expensive and perhaps unwinnable war.   We need to remind ourselves what Afghanistan did – bankrupting the Soviet Union  - and what Iraq cost us -- about 4,500 American dead, over 100,000 wounded, many of whom will never recover, and perhaps $6 trillion. 
  Can we afford to repeat those mistakes?

Qual a moral ianque sobre armas quimicas. ?

A Convenção de Armas Químicas (CWC) é conseqüência do Protocolo de Genebra de 1925, que proibiu a utilização, durante a guerra, de gases asfixiantes ou tóxicos, bem como de armas bacteriológicas para fins bélicos.

Apesar de proscritas pelas Convenções de Genebra , armas químicas foram fartamente usadas pelos EUA, durante a Guerra do Vietnã ,  utilizando  brechas  na Convenção .

A mais conhecida delas foi o Napalm, uma mistura de gasolina com uma resina espessa da palmeira que lhe deu o nome e que, em combustão, gera temperaturas a 1.000 °C.

Se adere à pele, queima músculos e funde os ossos, além de libertar monóxido de carbono, fazendo vítimas por asfixia.

Além do Napalm, o exército norte-americano despejou sobre o Vietnã, desde 1961 (com a aprovação do presidente John Kennedy) até 1971, cerca de 80 milhões de litros de herbicidas.

 Entre eles, o mais utilizado, devido à sua terrível eficácia, foi o Agente laranja, que é uma combinação de dois herbicidas: o 2,4-D e o 2,4,5-T, sendo que a síntese deste último gera um subproduto cancerígeno, a Dioxina tetraclorodibenzodioxina, considerada uma das substâncias mais perigosas do mundo .

 O impacto ecológico do uso dessas armas químicas foi catastrófico para a cobertura vegetal e para a população que habitava a região.

Mais de 40 anos depois da guerra, a dioxina produzida pelo Agente Laranja continuava biologicamente ativa.

E, atualmente, as concentrações encontradas em várias regiões do Vietnã superam em 400 vezes o limiar de toxicidade, conforme evidenciado pela Canada Hatfield Consultants.

A dioxina foi culpada pela alta incidência de doenças de pele, malformações genéticas, câncer, incapacidades mentais e outros problemas que afetam a população vietnamita (e ex-militares dos EUA).

Milhares de crianças nasceram com problemas de pais que não foram expostos ao herbicida durante a guerra, mas que comeram alimentos contaminados por ele.

Como de praxe, a maioria das vítimas pertence às famílias mais pobres .


 Amparado por evidências questionáveis reveladas ao mundo por seu secretário de Estado, diante de uma nação dividida e passando deliberadamente por cima da ONU, o presidente norte-americano surpreende a todos e avisa que vai atacar um país do Oriente Médio.

Foi o que George W. Bush fez em 17 de março de 2003, dias antes de invadir o Iraque, depois de Colin Powell anunciar que os EUA haviam comprovado que o governo de Saddam Hussein tinha capacidade de produzir armas de destruição em massa (o que se mostraria uma inverdade).

É o que Barack Obama faz agora, dez anos depois, ao dizer na tarde de sábado que os EUA devem agir militarmente contra alvos do regime sírio, após John Kerry afirmar que está claro que Bashar al-Assad usou armas químicas (o que ainda não foi 100% comprovado).

Mudam os atores, o filme é o mesmo? Mais ou menos.

Bush quis esticar o crédito de boa vontade mundial conseguido após o ataque da Al-Qaeda ao World Trade Center (2001), que resultou na Guerra do Afeganistão, com ação militar autorizada pelo Congresso e avalizada pelas principais potências mundiais.

Perdeu-se porque, no Iraque, cumpria uma agenda pessoal, quase uma vendeta de faroeste. No anúncio, feito solitariamente num corredor interno da Casa Branca, o republicano mencionava Saddam e seus filhos e dava um ultimato a eles: saiam do poder ou encarem as consequências.

Ontem, Obama seguiu outro roteiro. Acompanhado do vice-presidente, Joe Biden, sob o sol do jardim da residência presidencial, disse que, embora não precise, o líder da "democracia constitucional mais antiga do mundo" pedirá autorização ao Congresso para agir.

Bush se isolou antes mesmo de o primeiro míssil ser disparado. Obama divide o peso da decisão com senadores e deputados. Além disso, diferentemente de seu antecessor, que no auge do conflito enviou dezenas de milhares de soldados para o front, o presidente do "drone", que intensificou o uso dos aviões não tripulados, só fará ataques pontuais por ar.

É uma grande diferença. Quando ele atacar --já parece ser uma questão de "quando", não de "se"--, fará sem baixas do lado norte-americano e com o Legislativo ao seu lado. O resto do mundo continua sendo ignorado, mas o público interno tenderá a estar mais unido.

Atentado terrorista

O grupo terrorista desconhecido que se autodenomina a "Brigada de Aisha, a Mãe dos Fiéis"   que  é  o  nome  da  esposa  favorita  do profeta árabe Abulqasim Mohamed ibn Abdala ibn Abd Al-Mutalib Hashim  (A S ) .,   reivindicou a responsabilidade pelo ato terrorista. ,

leia-se traidores da Izz al-Din al-Qassam ,  que  é  o  braço  armado  do  Hamas ,  treinado  e  estruturado  pelo  Hezbollah.  Originalmente  destinado  a  luta  da  Resistencia  Palestina  contra  a  ilegal  ocupação  sionista.

Hamas  sunita  e  com  rabo  preso  ao  Qatar  e  Irmandade  muçulmana  egipcia ,  a  algum  tempo  os  iranianos  solicitaram  ao  Hezbollah  que  os  treina-se  ,  haja  visto  que  existia  a  possibilidade  de  uma  invasão  sionista    a  Gaza .  Assim  foi  feito.

Sem  adentrar  muito   a  certos  fatos ,  durante  a  investida  do  Hezbollah  contra  a  cidade  Síria  de    Al-Qusayr  apareceram  relatos  de  certas  taticas  dos  defensores  vagabundos  takfiri  que  simplesmente  éram  as  mesmas  da  cartilha  do  Hezbollah ,   relatos  dos  irmãos  citavam  eventos  que  não  deixaram  duvidas .

Como  sabem  Vóssas  Senhorias  ,  logo  no  inicio  da  tragédia  Síria  certas  lideranças   do  Hamas   ,   quando  convocadas  por  Bashar  a  colaborar  ,  estes  mesmos  viraram  as  costas  a  Bashar  ,  e  deram  linha  na  pipa  em  direção  ao  novo  patrocinador  deles  ,  o  Qatar .

Khaled Meshal, que vivia exilado em Damasco ,  Ismail Haniye, e ,   como  muitos  acharam  que  Bashar  não  iria  durar  mais  que  algumas  semanas ,  e  em  interesse  própio  o  traíram .  E  puseram  a  Izz al-Din al-Qassam  a  disposição  dos  ATIVISTAS  takfiris ,  onde  eles  alem  de  participar  da  guerra  contra  a República Árabe Síria , (al-jumhūriyyaħ al-ʕarabiyyaħ) ,   passaram  a  treinar  os  vagabundos  tambem .

Após  algum  tempo  certos  lideres  do  Hamas  foram  a  Beiruth   e disseram  a  um  certo  Clérigo ,  que  éra  tudo  mentira ,   que  jamais  fariam  isto ,  mas  não  convenceram ,  foi  feito  um  comunicado  onde  o  Hezbollah  e  Hamas  reafirmavam  seus  laços  de  amizade ,  mas  o  Hezbollah  passou  a  monitorar  o  Hamas  ,   em  Sabra e Chatila ,  com  mais  intensidade , descobriu  e  a  tempo  avisou  o  Exercito  Líbanes  que  membros  do  Hamas  lançariam  foguetes  contra  os  sionistas ,  de  tal  lugar ,  mas  o  Exercito  chegou  instantes  atrasados ,  os  vagabundos  lançaram  os  foguetes  e  fugiram  largando  ali  as  bases  de  lançamento . Não  se  preocupem ,  não  estão  mais  por  ai .

Utilizando-se  de  uma  mulher ,  elegante  ,   em   trajes árabes ,  esta  levou  o  veiculo  que  explodiu  no  atentado  anterior ,  valendo-se  do  costume  de  não  abordar  mulheres  ,  eles  foram  bem  sucedidos ,  mas  já    existia   cameras  ,  e  as  imagem  deram  conta  da  vagabunda ,  ai  esqueceram  os  costumes  e  meteram  a  mão  nela  e  ela  entregou  os  vagabundos .

E  por  ai  vai .    Ruwais  nada  tem  de  sionistas  no  meio ,  é  assunto  com  origem  nas  monarquias  feudais  do  golfo  contra  Irã e  atinge  Síria  e  Hezbollah.  Tem  sim  envolvimento  da  Irmandade  Muçulmana  vendida  ao  Qatar ,  o  Hamas  precisa  de   muito  dinheiro ,  ele  é  o  maior  empregador  em  Gaza ,  seu  prestigio  se  deve  a  isto  e  a  obras  de  assistencia  social..






 "Ó meu povo, sede justos na medida e no peso e em nada lesai os outros, e não corrompais a terra". "Deus não muda o destino de um povo até que o povo mude o que tem na alma".

Gmail não respeita a privacidade

 Os usuários do Gmail não têm "expectativa razoável" de que suas mensagens sejam confidenciais, afirmou o Google em documentos judiciais. O grupo de defesa do consumidor Consumer Watchdog, que descobriu o documento, classificou a revelação como "uma admissão chocante".

O documento veio à luz em um momento no qual o Google e as demais companhias de tecnologia sofrem pressão para explicar o papel que desempenham na vigilância em massa praticada pela Agência Nacional de Segurança (NSA) sobre cidadãos dos Estados Unidos e estrangeiros.

"O Google enfim admitiu que não respeita a privacidade", disse John Simpson, diretor do projeto de privacidade da Consumer Watchdog. "As pessoas deveriam aceitar a palavra deles. Se você se incomoda com a privacidade de sua correspondência via e-mail, não use o Gmail".

O Google expôs seus argumentos no mês passado como parte de um esforço para conseguir o encerramento de um processo coletivo contra a companhia na qual ela é acusada de violar as leis de escuta ao vasculhar o conteúdo de e-mail a fim de direcionar anúncios aos usuários do Gmail.

O processo, aberto em maio, alega que o Google "abre, lê e adquire ilegalmente o conteúdo de mensagens privadas de e-mail de seus usuários". A petição cita Eric Schmidt, presidente do conselho da empresa: "A política do Google é chegar bem perto da linha do inadmissível sem cruzá-la".

"Sem que milhões de pessoas o saibam, em base cotidiana e há anos, o Google vem sistemática e intencionalmente 'cruzando a linha do inadmissível' e lendo mensagens de e-mail que contêm informações que os usuários não desejam que ninguém conheça, para adquirir, coletar ou minerar informações valiosas contidas no e-mails", o processo alega.

Em uma petição pelo encerramento do caso, o Google afirmou que os queixosos estavam "fazendo uma tentativa de criminalizar práticas comuns de negócios" que são parte do serviço Gmail desde sua introdução. O Google afirmou que "todos os usuários de e-mail devem necessariamente esperar que seus e-mails sejam sujeitos a processamento automático".

De acordo com o Google, "da mesma forma que o remetente de uma carta a um colega de negócios não pode se surpreender caso a secretária deste abre a carta, as pessoas que usam e-mail baseado na Web não podem se surpreender se suas comunicações forem processadas pelo ECS (serviço de comunicações eletrônicas) do destinatário, no curso da entrega".

Mencionando outro processo sobre privacidade, os advogados do Google disseram que "não se afirma o suficiente na queixa sobre o relacionamento específico entre as partes e as circunstâncias específicas [da comunicação em questão], e portanto não se pode extrair uma conclusão plausível de que essa forma de comunicação gera expectativa objetivamente razoável de confidencialidade".

Simpson, crítico veterano do Google, diz que "a argumentação do Google emprega uma analogia tacanha, a de que enviar um e-mail é como confiar uma carta aos correios. Minha expectativa é de que o correio entregue a carta no endereço que consta do envelope, e não a de que o carteiro a abra e leia".

"De forma semelhante, quando envio um e-mail, espero que seja entregue ao destinatário pretendido, com uma conta do Gmail baseada em um endereço de e-mail. Minha expectativa deveria ser a de que o conteúdo será interceptado e lido pelo Google", ele disse.

Obama esta envolvido até o pescoço na questão Síria

 Obama esta  envolvido  até  o  pescoço  na  questão  Síria ,  fazendo  de  tudo  para  atender  aos  desejos  de  seus  amos  e  senhores   do  Qatar  e  Arábia Saudita.

A  algum  tempo , ao  anunciar  a  ajuda  aos  terroristas  da  Al-Qaeda  que  ele  chama de  "ATIVISTAS"  do  FSA ele  tornou  apenas  o  que  éra  oficioso  em  oficial ,  basta  lembrar   as  armas  da   Croácia ,  embarcadas  no Aeroporto internacional de Zagreb , via Royal Jordanian Airlines ,  al-Malakiyah al-Orduniyah  ,  em  voos diários  ,   para  serem  usadas  pelos  ATIVISTAS ,  que  foram  levadas  para  a  Jordania  pela  CIA.

Não  se  faz  mister  lembrá-los  que  existem  inumeros  campos  de  treinamento  para  terroristas  operados  pela  CIA  e  empresas  terceirizadas  na  Jordania ,  com  proteção  e  envolvimento  pessoal  do  traste  hachemita .

Os  Iranianos  repassaram  a  quem  se  interessa-se  o  seguinte  informe  :

"Somos informados por fontes do exército dos Estados Unidos que a  entidade  sionista  está envolvida em reconhecimento armado no Líbano  , planejando uma ofensiva contra o Hezbollah .,

Combinado com milhares de tropas frescas que ela está trazendo das milícias sunitas da  Al-Qaeda  e  Taliban  paquistanes , dragadas nas ruas em todo o mundo islâmico.

Esta ofensiva está programada para começar muito em  breve.

  Seu primeiro alvo é destruir o Hezbollah, a sua segunda meta é a destruição do Iraque, a sua terceira meta é a destruição da Síria. Sua quarta-alvo do curso é Iran.

Eles planejam amarrar o exército sírio no norte com  ofensivas  (realizadas  pelos  ATIVISTAS Takfiris  Al-Qaeda  e  Taliban  paquistanes  ) a  partir  da  fronteira da Turquia .

Sionistas  planejam mover milhares de soldados no meio do Jordão;. E pegar Hezbollah a partir do interior sul da Síria e do Líbano simultaneamente  ."

Parece  aos  Senhores  "Improvável"??? .

Mas  não  é.   Vejamos...  Alguns  dias  depois  ...

"LABBOUNEH, Líbano: Vários soldados Sionistas  ficaram feridos no início da manhã quarta-feira por uma explosão depois que eles cruzaram a fronteira com o sul do Líbano.

"Uma patrulha a pé Sionista cruzou a Linha Azul,  400 metros em território libanês na cidade fronteiriça de al-Labbouneh",  a explosão que ocorreu às 00:24.
"Durante a infiltração ocorreu uma explosão, deixando um número de soldados Sionistas  feridos" .
Funcionários da UNIFIL disseram que eles foram informados do incidente pelo Exército libanês e estão investigando a suposta violação da Resolução 1701 do Conselho de Segurança da ONU.

"Nosso esforço é para verificar se todos os vestígios de uma possível explosão ou outra atividade que  possa  ser identificada . A área é um terreno montanhoso íngreme com vegetação densa",  Andrea Tenenti , porta-voz da Unifil  .


O ministro da Defesa de sionista, Moshe Yaalon disse quarta-feira que os soldados ficaram feridos durante uma "atividade operacional destinada a preservar a calma para as comunidades do norte, em particular  para os moradores da  entidade sionista como um  todo "   .
O primeiro-ministro sionista, Benjamin Netanyahu, desejou aos soldados uma rápida recuperação durante uma visita a uma base militar no sul do país .
A  infiltração,  constitui uma flagrante agressão à soberania do Líbano e uma flagrante violação da resolução 1701 " .


OUTRA...
 " O exército do regime sionista tem realizado   exercícios de paraquedismo noturno no deserto de Negev, no sul do território ilegalmente ocupado.

Há relatos de que cerca de 1.000 pára-quedistas participaram do exercício militar quarta-feira, mas apenas dois terços deles conseguiram saltar de aviões de transporte Hércules.

Pelo menos 18 soldados sionistas sofreram ferimentos e cinco deles foram levados para o hospital para tratamento.

O Exército sionista lançou por  pára-quedas pequenos tratores e metralhadoras pesadas, assim como munições durante exercícios. "

Não  se  trata  de  simples  exercicio com  as  tropas  de  opressão  sionistas ,   pois  observem que  tinha  o  objetivo  especifico ,  basta  desejar  saber  onde  seriam  utilizados  estes  tratores . 

Simples  ,   para  derrubar  alambrados  e  mover  campos  minados  do  Hezbollah  no  Sul do  Líbano.

OUTRA ...  Os  vagabundos  ATIVISTAS Takfiris  lançaram  uma  mini  versão  da  Ofensiva do Tet  de  1968 , operações  terroristas  ainda  em  curso  acontecem  em  toda  a  Síria ,   carros  bombas com  otários  suicidas    explodem  diariamente ,  estes  imbecis  que  se  dizem  mártires  ,  devotos  da  Jihad são  em  sua  maioria  trazidos  da  Europa  e  Norte  da  Africa ,  e  como  são   descartáveis  são  utilizados  nestas  bestialidades  contra  o  povo  sírio ,  observe  que  os  "gatões "  da  Al-Qaeda  e  Taliban  paquistanes nunca  são  utilizados ,  presume-se  que  sejam  mais   úteis  em  outras  ações .
 Como  massacres     ,  assassinatos  de  inocentes  etc.

Bem  vamos  ver  o  que  ira  acontecer  nos  proximos  dias  ,  mas  os  sionistas  estão  enganados  se  acreditam  que  o  Hezb  esteja  todo  envolvido  e  retido  na  Síria  ,  apenas  o  704  e  parte  do  901   ali  se  encontram ,  convém lembrá-los  que  quase  toda  familia  Xiita  libanêsa tem  um  ou  mais  de  seus  membros  nas  fileiras  do  Hezbollah.

liberty for Cuban heroes.

Dear comrades!
 

You are welcomed by Leninst Komsomol of the Russian 
Federation.

At the present time we manage to provide protests for support Five Cuban Patriots Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez jailed in the US prisons for 15 years.

 We call for socialistic forces all over the world to be unite and solidary in the Cuban Five problem solving. We call you to make video messages in this month to support them.
 

We think that only with wide cooperation and international interaction we can reach a liberty for Cuban heroes. Only our cooperation will help us in the struggle against the world imperialism!

COLEGA DE MARIGHELLA

A imagem correu o mundo ontem: um senhor de verde e amarelo, bigode e óculos, alguns quilos a mais, encara a tropa de choque da PM do Ceará durante protesto nos arredores do estádio Castelão, em Fortaleza.

A foto de Silvio Mota, 68, peito colado aos escudos dos policiais do choque, pouco antes de confronto que terminou com 92 presos e ao menos sete feridos, se espalhou pela internet e foi parar na capa de jornais como a Folha e o "New York Times".

Juiz do Trabalho aposentado, Mota é um ex-guerrilheiro que participou da luta armada contra a ditadura militar. Hoje ele é coordenador de um comitê no Estado que apura crimes cometidos naquele período.



Ex-colega de Carlos Marighella (1911-1969) na ALN (Ação Libertadora Nacional), Mota comparou a ação da PM durante o protesto à repressão que ocorria quando o país era uma ditadura.

"Ainda há resquícios daquele tempo: a doutrina de segurança nacional e a polícia avançando contra o povo como se fosse um inimigo", afirma ele, que cita Marighella ao defender que ninguém faça "luta armada em condições de legalidade, porque há outras formas de luta".


Mota decidiu encarar a PM após bombas de gás estourarem perto dele e da mulher.

Vestindo uma camiseta de repúdio à PEC 37, derrubada nesta semana no Congresso, caminhou em direção à barreira policial, cantando "Eu sou brasileiro, com muito orgulho, com muito amor". Enquanto isso, voavam pedras e paus que eram atirados pelos manifestantes.

"Não posso mais correr, então o jeito foi enfrentá-los. Tinha o dever de proteger minha esposa e os manifestantes", diz o ex-guerrilheiro.

Mota discutiu com os policiais, que ameaçaram prendê-lo. Citou então sua condição de juiz e disse que não cometia nenhum crime naquele momento.

Só deixou o tête-à-tête quando os equipados policiais quiseram prender um militante do MST que também avançava em direção ao bloqueio. Ambos recuaram.

Mota deixou o local pouco depois --é diabético e precisava almoçar, disse. Após sua saída, o confronto se acirrou.

Para ele, os ataques dos manifestantes --que deixaram cinco PMs feridos-- são "legítima defesa", mas a onda de protestos pode virar "confusão generalizada" pela multiplicidade de pautas.

Filiado ao PT na década de 1980, ele deixou o partido ao se tornar juiz, e acha que a sigla "saiu dos trilhos".

REFORMA POLÍTICA

A proposta de reforma política feita pela presidente Dilma Rousseff recebe elogios do juiz, mas a avaliação é que os protestos irão continuar ocorrendo no país.

"Quando partimos para uma luta, nunca temos certeza da vitória. Mas não é por isso que devemos parar de lutar", reflete.

Há três anos, ele ostenta, tatuada no braço, uma epígrafe de sua vida: "Quando ouvires o trovão sem chuva chegando, não te assustes, são só os búfalos galopando".

Syria is like riding a rollercoaster of hilarity, absurdity and downright lies.

Listening to Western “governments” - otherwise known as criminal regimes led by war criminals - pontificating and pronouncing on Syria is like riding a rollercoaster of hilarity, absurdity and downright lies.


A selection of the “best”, that is, the worst, of these Western talking points has been compiled below into a top 10 Western ‘hits’.

This list is by no means complete or in order of importance. Press TV readers are invited to add more in the comments section below this column.

It has to be said, however, that this is no laughing matter; more a heart-crying shame, given the massive unnecessary human suffering that these criminal Western regimes are inflicting on a sovereign people and country over the past two years, with a total death toll of nearly 80,000 and counting - most of them civilians, men, women and children.

The rollercoaster of depravity seems to be gathering dizzying speed as the so-called international peace conference in Geneva looms sometime over the next few weeks. This is the political confabulation allegedly aimed at finding a negotiated peace settlement between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and members of the Syrian so-called “opposition”.

Supported by Iran, Russia and China, these aforementioned governments can be appraised as honest brokers in trying to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis. This is because their collective position is eminently reasonable, making no preconditions on the outcome and promoting a genuine dialogue between the Syrian people.

However, the same cannot be said for that other sponsor of the Geneva event, the United States, and its NATO allies, Britain and France, along with their regional Turk, Arab and Israeli puppets.

Here follows a recent selection of their dubious credentials and duplicities - a top 10 - which taken together does not augur well for a successful peace settlement to end Syria’s torment.

1. US, Britain and France arming up for peace

All three rogue states are now openly saying that they will escalate the supply of weapons to their proxy mercenary army of “rebels” in Syria if the Syrian government does not “get serious” about negotiating a “peaceful settlement”. The more relevant question is: are these Western regimes “serious about peace”?

It rather sounds like the Western powers are trying to hold a gun to Damascus’ head and demanding that it sign up to Western terms for “political transition”, that is, regime change. Note that US Secretary of State John Kerry is now backing Britain and France in their attempt to scrap the European Union’s embargo on weapons sales to Syria.

That embargo is, of course, a ridiculous charade anyway, as all of the three above Western regimes have been funneling “non-lethal” weapons and other military support to their proxy mercenaries via the conduits of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. But what the latest thinly veiled threat of aggression from the US, Britain and France portends is that if the Geneva summit does not go according to their geopolitical objectives of regime change in Damascus, they will then flood Syria with even more killing power. Perhaps also “no-fly zones” and Western boots on the ground.

The British Guardian newspaper quotes UK foreign minister William Hague’s spellbinding cynicism: “We have to be open to every way of strengthening moderates and saving lives.” So, in Hague’s warped world, giving anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the Western-backed terrorists running amok in Syria will lead to peace and save lives.

Hague, Kerry and their French counterpart Laurent Fabius should be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against peace, indicted on their own words, instead of being indulged as statesmen.

2. Western unelected minions make demands on sovereign Syrian government

As it turns out, Syria’s government has quickly responded to declare its willing participation in the Geneva peace summit next month. The Assad administration has even nominated possible negotiators, including the Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi. Meanwhile, the Western and Arab patronized exile group, the so-called Syrian National Coalition, with their American-educated accents and predilection for luxurious Qatari hotel suites, are pooh-poohing whether to even attend the Geneva conference. The SNC leader Ghassan Hitto, a Texan-based Syrian businessman, is being groomed as “premier-in-waiting”, but like many of his exile cronies, he has no popular base or mandate from the Syrian people. This is the same offshore foreign party that is demanding that President Assad abandons his office forthwith and takes refuge in some overseas land.

This Western political excrescence imposed on Syria is distinct from the genuine internal political opposition within Syria. There are legitimate voices for political reforms within Syria, whom the Damascus government has recognized as necessary for a national dialogue to advance Syrian society. But this legitimate opposition is ignored by the Western regimes. Wonder why?

3. EU funds al­-Qaeda

This shocker follows the news that the European 27-nation bloc is to end its embargo on the sale of oil from Syria that is under the control of the mercenaries. It is a deliberate and stated EU policy to help boost the war chest for the militants. So who are these “deserving rebels”?

More than 100 militant groups are believed to be operating in Syria, which have come from nearly 30 countries, including Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the Russian Caucus, Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, as well as Britain and France. Most of these groups are self-styled Jihadists who claim to be Muslim, but in reality are nothing more than psychopathic terrorists, cutthroats, rapists and opportunistic bandits. The name “Free Syrian Army”, supposedly led by the tin-pot Brigadier General Salim Idriss, is in fact a baseless hologram that the Western sponsors of these proxy terrorists use to create the illusion that the Western, Turk and Arab regimes are supporting “moderates” with a “good cause”. That’s why these “moderates” set off no-warning car bombs to kill and maim “fellow Syrians” or mutilate and cannibalize corpses.

The West’s proxy terrorists have gloated in the most unspeakable cruelties against Syrian civilians and consistent with this vile conduct is their proclaimed affiliation with the Wahhabi al-Qaeda network. This is the clandestine network created and trained by Western military intelligence, funded by Saudi oil money, to carry out global operations of terrorism and destabilization, most notoriously the 9/11 attacks in the US.

Thus while instigating a fake global “war on terror” cover for ruling elites to hijack and ransack democracies, including their own, the US taxpayers have been saddled with $6 trillion in debts from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - just those two criminal genocidal wars alone - according to a recent Harvard University study.

After all this expenditure to “defeat” terrorism, the European Union is proposing to pay these same terrorists for the oil that they can loot from the fields and people of Syria. Meanwhile, the EU maintains economic sanctions on the Syrian government, depriving citizens of badly needed welfare and services. Whoops, the rollercoaster just did a loop-the-loop.

4. Israel provides air force for al-Qaeda

When the Israeli air force hit Damascus earlier this month, the al-Qaeda extremists on the ground were reportedly ecstatic over the attack on an Arab country by the Arab-land-thieving Zionist regime.

The strikes were also in part timed and designed to provide air support for these same mercenaries trying to make military headway against Damascus. This has got to be the apogee of absurdity in the Syrian conflict. The Zionist regime has been telling the world ever since its criminal inception in 1948 that it is living under an existential threat from Arab revenge. Yet this same self-pitying genocidal regime teams up with the most extreme and deformed Arab Wahhabi ideologues and throat-slitters. That really shows that the Western-backed Zionist and Wahhabi despots are one and the same.

5. West goes to war in Africa, but supports same terrorists in Syria

France, supported by the US and Britain, is still conducting a war of conquest in the West African country of Mali. This was justified by President Francois Hollande as an intervention to wrest control of northern Mali from “Islamist extremists”. The French media helped in this duplicity by reporting on “floggings, amputations and prohibitions on civil freedoms” under “Sharia law” imposed by militants in northern Mali before the French invasion. But when reports and video footage emerged this week of similar barbarities being imposed in the self-styled “emirates” of northern Syria by Western-backed Al-Qaeda groups, Hollande and his Western allies had nothing to say about that. Indeed, the Western regimes want to impose “no-fly zones” in those Syrian areas “liberated” by extremists, so that they are more free to extend their reign of terror on Syrian civilians.

6. West accuses Russia of “destabilizing” Syria and the region

Washington’s John Kerry this week castigated Moscow for going ahead with the supply to Syria of the Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft defense system. This followed the same protest from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Russian President Vladimir Putin. These statements have surely got to qualify Western politicians as certifiable for a mental hospital. The destabilization of Syria and the entire region is a verifiable result of institutionalized violence emanating from Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv. Only a few weeks ago, the Zionist regime perpetrated yet another war crime by launching its third air strike on Damascus since January - acts of aggression countenanced by Washington. The Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov displayed charitable patience when he explained to the Western imbeciles the probity, and indeed necessity, of the S-300 batteries. “The system is sent to countries that need to defend themselves from air strikes,” said Lavrov. Don’t count on the Western imbeciles comprehending that simple truth.

Meanwhile, the Americans, British and French are flogging billions-of-dollars-worth of fighter-bombers, tanks and missiles to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf dictatorships. Much of this offensive capability is directed at Iran. Talk about Western doublethink and duplicity about who or what is destabilizing the region.

7. Blame it all on Iran and Hezbollah

Similar to the Western perverse logic about Russia “destabilizing” the region, US President Barack Obama and others have denounced Iran and Hezbollah for supporting Syria - a country that is besieged by a covert war of aggression instigated by these same Western powers. In a saner world, Iran and Hezbollah should be lauded for their international solidarity and neighborly compassion. And let’s remember that Hezbollah was incited to intervene against the foreign-backed terrorists in Syria after the latter began firing missiles and rockets into Shia villages along the Syrian-Lebanese border in recent months. Under international law of self-defense, Hezbollah is entitled to join forces with the Syrian army to rout these criminals from their havens, as they have done this past week in Qusayr in Homs Province.

John Kerry said: “Active military support to the Assad regime simply exacerbates the sectarian tensions and perpetuates the regime’s campaign of terror against its own people.” Make-believe stuff from the Kerry fairy.

Kerry should be asked about illegal Western active military support for renegade killers attacking a sovereign country? How is that for sectarian tensions?

William Hague added this mental somersault: “It is very clear that Syrian regime is receiving a great deal of support… from outside Syria from Hezbollah and Iran. This is a regime that is increasingly dependent on external support,” added Hague, who apparently cannot see the glaring irony that it is the terrorist mercenaries who are increasingly dependent on external support, that is, American, British, French, Turk, Israeli and the despotic Arab dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Jordan.

8. Invisible American, British and Israeli troops

While Western politicians make unfounded allegations against Iran over military assistance to Syria, these same politicians appear to be blind when it comes to the well-founded knowledge that American and British troops are running training camps in terror techniques for the extremists ripping Syrian society apart. These NATO troops have set up camps in neighboring Jordan and Turkey from which the operatives launch into Syria. Video evidence has also emerged of Israeli commandos operating within Syrian territory, as well as violating the ceasefire demarcation line in the Golan Heights. Western mainstream news media have added to this absurdity by reporting that the “Syrian army has fired into Israel” - meaning that Syrian troops have responded to Israeli violations in the territory of Syria that Israel illegally annexed in 1967 and continues to illegally occupy in contravention of international law.

9. Turkey and Jordan appeal for help over refugee crisis… that they themselves created

Up to five million Syrians - 20 per cent of the population - have been burned out or turned out of their formerly safe and comfortable homes to eke a miserable living under tents. Some 1.5 million of these refugees are subsisting in campsites in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. The humanitarian crisis is costing the Turk government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan some $50 million a month, or a total of $1.5 billion over the past two years. That bill is set to skyrocket as the number of Syrian refugees fleeing to Turkey is projected to double to more than 900,000 by the end of this year. Thus Turkey and Jordan are pleading for financial help from the international community. Yet, these countries would not have this refugee and financial problem if Turkey and Jordan did not allow mercenary armies to operate from their territories to maraud, pillage and terrorize Syrian people from their homes. Turkey and Jordan have taken an active part in creating a humanitarian crisis and now they want to the rest of the world to stump the bill. Indeed, so do the US, British and French rogue regimes.

10. Violence ‘spills over from Syria into Iraq’

This is how the Western media report it, but the truth is that violence and mayhem is spilling over from Iraq and Afghanistan into Syria and into many other countries across the region and the world. When the US-led NATO powers embarked on their criminal wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, the world has been living ever since under a Western reign of imperialist terror. The genocidal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost more than 1.5 million lives. Those huge crimes have paved the way for a lawless world where Western regimes feel emboldened to attack and ransack any country they deem. Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali are some of the present sites of Western imperialist warmongering. Libya was previously. Iran is probably next. The US-led war on Syria has therefore necessarily to be understood as part of a criminal continuum for global dominance in the service of global capital. And the Western regimes and their leaders should be seen as criminals working hand-in-glove who should be arraigned in a democratic court of justice.

All of the above is but a shortlist of Western regime crimes and duplicity that is most saliently exposed in the terrible conflict being imposed on Syria.

The Syrian people deserve peace and all good people around the world no doubt wish them success in future negotiations. But, given the litany of crimes, lies and deception attributable to the US, Britain and France in particular, the omens leading up to the Geneva summit do not bode well.

That raises the question: should Syria and its allies in Iran, Russia and China even attend this so-called conference in Geneva? Perhaps Iran could convene an alternative summit dedicated solely to the internal Syrian parties, and deliberately excluding the enemies of Syria from the US, Britain, France and their myriad puppets. That alternative peace summit in Tehran could be held under the auspices of the Non-Aligned Movement, of which Iran is currently the presiding chairman.