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Ear to the Ground

Arab League Lands in Syria

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Posted on Dec 26, 2011
AP / Muzaffar Salman

Here’s what the rest of the world can see: Members of Syrian security chant slogans and raise their weapons at the site of a suicide bombing in Damascus on Dec. 23.

Delegates from the Arab League arrived in Syria on Monday in yet another attempt to resolve the crisis that’s only intensified since the Syrian government made the evidently hollow gesture last week of agreeing to stop military-enabled assaults on its own people and allow observation from outside its borders. The visiting monitors face a daunting task as civilian deaths have reportedly only increased in recent days and President Bashar al-Assad and his forces appear to be saying one thing and doing another when it comes to compliance with the Arab League’s terms thus far.  —KA

The Guardian:

Activists say government forces have killed several hundred civilians in the past week. At least 23 more deaths were reported on Monday from intense shelling in the centre of the country, just hours before the first 50 monitors arrived, along with 10 officials.

In Cairo, an Arab League official said this mission was the Syrian regime’s “last chance” to reverse course.

The Arab League plan requires the government to remove its security forces and heavy weapons from the streets, start talks with opposition leaders and allow human rights workers and journalists into Syria. The monitors are supposed to ensure compliance, but so far there is no sign Assad is implementing any of the terms. Opposition members say the regime’s agreement to the Arab plan is a farce.In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said the mission will begin work on Tuesday. Up to 500 monitors are to be eventually deployed and Syria has only agreed for them to stay one month.

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blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 27, 2011 at 10:46 pm Link to this comment

OWS in need of leadership… UN and NATO protection…

maybe Qatar and the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFGL should lead the charge -
Left/Lib/Progs (Democracy Now, The Nation, TD) are all over the Libyan Rebels
as the most successful ‘freedom fighters’ of the Arab Spring - now ready to
continue ‘blooming’ in Syria - After Damascus, they should be ready for the Big
Apple! Can’t wait to see Amy Goodman interviewing Abdel Hakim Belhadj… 

read all about ‘em: http://www.debka.com/article/21602/

Qatar builds Sunni intervention force of Libyan, Iraqi terrorists against
Assad

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 27, 2011, 12:00 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Qatar oil emirate, encouraged by its successful participation in the
campaign to overthrow Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, has established a Sunni Arab
intervention force to expedite the drive for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s
ouster, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. The new highly mobile force boosts
the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army, whose numbers have jumped to 20,000
fighters, armed and funded by Qatar and now forming into military battalions
and brigades at their bases in Turkey.

[...]

A force of 2,500 has been recruited up until now, our sources report. The hard
core is made up of 1,000 members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFGL,
which fought Qaddafi, and 1,000 operatives of the Ansar al-Sunna, the
Iraqi Islamists which carried out 15 coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad last
Thursday killing 72 people and injuring 200.

Qatar has just had them airlifted from Libya and Iraq to the southern Turkish
town of Antakya (Antioch) in the border province of Hatay. It is in this town of
quarter-of-a- million inhabitants that the new Sunni force has located its
command center and separate camps for the two main contingents to undergo
intensive training for combat missions in the embattled Syrian towns and
provinces of Idlib, Homs, Jabal al-Zawiya, scenes of the fiercest clashes
between Syrian troops and rebels.

DEBKAfile also reveals that the man appointed top commander of the Sunni
intervention force headquartered in Antioch is none other than Abdel Hakim
Belhaj,
whose militia last August seized control of Tripoli after it was
captured from Qaddafi by NATO and Qatari forces.

He has picked his deputies - Al-Mahdi Hatari, former head of the Tripoli
Brigade and loyal crony Kikli Adem.

[...]

Report this
PatrickHenry's avatar

By PatrickHenry, December 27, 2011 at 4:43 pm Link to this comment

We need the UN and NATO here in the US to overthrow the Congress and Oblabla and back the OWS movement against the true evil in the world.

Report this
blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 27, 2011 at 11:00 am Link to this comment

tic, your straw men don’t stand up, your red herrings smell up the polemic and your ad hominem is
feebly desperate - there must be a community college near by offering affordable courses in classical
rhetoric - recommendation: find one and enroll

lengthy report:

GUNS AND BUTTER with Bonnie Faulkner
NATO’s Assault On Syria — Webster Tarpley
Foreign journalists trip to Syria; religions and ethnicities; cities of Damascus, Qara, Homs and its Zahra
Neighborhood and Hospital, Baniyas, Tartus, and Beirut, Lebanon; Russian Naval Base; death
squads/snipers/ambushes and kidnapping; Syrian Army; foreign intervention.

http://noliesradio.org/archives/GB243_Tarpley_NATO_Assault_on_Syria_web.mp3

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 27, 2011 at 10:29 am Link to this comment

DB, yeah it must be fair,  because only brainlessness is fair…...

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 27, 2011 at 10:28 am Link to this comment

dog~~~ it’s true….. I not only approve of the ops to remove Assad, I HAVE to give
my approval of the ops don’t proceed…I’m the head of CIA/MI6/Mossad or
something, and dog, we’re counting every flea on your butt…and in your brain…so
watch it….

anyone who would like the Ba’athist fascists toppled   must be some awful, awful
war criminal and big old murderer…...and one less dog pissing stupidity on the
page ain’t gonna be a problem!!!!!!!


we’re all fiends and hate the Syrian Ba’athist fascists because their so nice and
cuddly and have hearts full of love for humanity… and cute little puppydogs….!

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 27, 2011 at 10:21 am Link to this comment

Blue~~~ it’s what I figured…and it has happened to me, meant the one and typed
the other.

Report this
DavidByron's avatar

By DavidByron, December 27, 2011 at 9:00 am Link to this comment

So judging by this article it is fair to say that TruthDig has become US imperialism PropagandaDig?

Report this
Blueokie's avatar

By Blueokie, December 27, 2011 at 8:18 am Link to this comment

Hetero - Oq my keyboard the n and q are qext to each other.

Report this
blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 26, 2011 at 10:07 pm Link to this comment

tic, nothing secret about it - NATO intelligence and running mates (CIA, MI6, MOSSAD, RAW)  is/has run destabilization black-ops/psy-ops from the Balkans to the Sahel, the Maghreb to the Punjab for decades

applauding these ops suggests you’re convinced they install better puppets (al qaeda in Libya? the Egyptian military?) - believe what you like, but don’t kid yourself that ME regime change coup d’etats are executed for any demotic altruism - they work in service to the their oligarchic task masters who do the targeting, essentially those states standing between their debt-service hegemony and regional populations

at day’s end, if they can’t be subjugated, just snuff ‘em - DU works wonders, a bit slow but sneaky and effective - e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg2NHfoC2pc&feature=related

NATO are the world’s premiere war criminals

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 26, 2011 at 9:40 pm Link to this comment

dog~~~ If NATO is secretly working toward the overthrow of Assad and the
Baathists in Syria, they deserve thanks for it.

Report this
blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 26, 2011 at 9:37 pm Link to this comment

tic: typical ad hominem insinuations… no ‘mistake’ - Blueokie knows the score -
NATO RULES: subordinate to the EMPIRE or sleep with the fishes… Capisce?

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 26, 2011 at 9:30 pm Link to this comment

dog~~~~ as per usual, you missed the point about the “8 years slow”  read the
sentence that preceded it, maybe you’ll catch it.

Report this
blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 26, 2011 at 9:30 pm Link to this comment

take your scatological whining back to the outhouse, tic -  NATO made damned
sure things weren’t going too well before R2P, just as they’re doing in Syria - a
carbon copy regime change coup d’etat in the works

Al-Qaeda Terrorists Airlifted From Libya to Aid Syrian Opposition
               
Weapons and fighters sent to support overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad
http://tinyurl.com/bwoqyf3
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com

Monday, November 28, 2011

The same Al-Qaeda terrorists who fought U.S. troops in Iraq and helped NATO
overthrow Colonel Gaddafi are now being airlifted into Syria to aid rebels there
topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Libya’s transitional ruling authority has agreed to send weapons and fighters
over to Syria to help the Free Syrian Army fight government forces.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to
Syria,” a Libyan source told the London Telegraph, speaking on condition of
anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you
will see.”

In a separate piece, the Telegraph also reports that terrorist commander
Abdulhakim Belhadj, now head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free
Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” after being sent
there by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the interim Libyan president.

A rival Libyan rebel brigade detained Belhadj at Tripoli airport for traveling on a
fake passport and threatened to jail him before Jalil stepped in to intervene.
“Members of the Free Syrian Army on the borders of Lebanon and Turkey
denied rumours circulating in Tripoli that “hundreds” of Libyans had tried to
cross into Syria,” states the article, amidst other reports that Libyans have
already been detained trying to infiltrate the country from the Turkish border.

As we previously documented, Abdulhakim Belhadj is the former front man for
the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), designated as a terrorist organization
by the US State Department. Belhadj was captured by the CIA in Malaysia in
2003 and extradited to Libya where Colonel Gaddafi had him imprisoned.
Belhadj is a committed jihadist who fought with the Taliban against U.S. troops
in Afghanistan. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi also admitted that
Belhadj’s LIFG fighters were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in
Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops.

A 2007 West Point report indicated that the Benghazi-Darnah-Tobruk area of
Libya is a world capital for Al-Qaeda or mujahideen suicide bomber
recruitment. Author Webster Tarpley details this intelligence in his excellent
analysis piece, The CIA’s Libya Rebels: The Same Terrorists who Killed US,
NATO Troops in Iraq. The West Point report detailed how the LIFG and Al-
Qaeda had formed an “increasingly co-operative relationship”.

Libyan rebels have gone on to impose a “reign of terror” across the country,
throwing blacks in concentration camps while torturing and murdering
thousands of others before imposing Sharia law. The official Al-Qaeda flag now
flies high and proud above Libyan cities as armed gangs roam the streets.

Report this
blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 26, 2011 at 9:20 pm Link to this comment

RE: ...8 years slow ? - up to speed from my lights…  e.g.

Bahrain: US Ally Kills Children… So When Is NATO Intervening?
Global Research, August 31, 2011
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26324
by Finian Cunningham

This is the face of state terror against civilians in the US and British-backed
Gulf oil kingdom of Bahrain – the latest victim a boy shot dead by police. But
there will be no call by Washington or London for a Libya-style NATO
intervention to protect human rights here. No call for regime change. No call
for an international crimes tribunal.

Fourteen-year-old Ali Jawad Ahmad was killed on 30 August when Saudi-
backed Bahraini riot police fired a tear gas canister at the youth from close
range. On the day that was supposed to be a celebratory end to Ramadan – Eid
al Fitr – people across Bahrain were shocked by yet another “brutal slaughter of
innocents” by the regime and the stoic silence of its Western backers.

The teenager was among a crowd of youths who had gathered in a peaceful
protest following morning prayers in the mainly Shia village of Sitra, calling for
the overthrow of the unelected Sunni monarchy.

The Bahraini protests against the US and British-backed autocratic rulers have
been continuing for nearly seven months despite the military intervention of
Saudi Arabia in the Gulf island to crush the pro-democracy movement. Nearly
40 civilians have been killed by state forces since the uprising began in mid-
February; thousands more have been injured, imprisoned, tortured or sacked
from jobs.

But the relentless repression – condemned by Amnesty International, Human
Rights Watch and several other rights groups – has failed to halt the pro-
democracy campaign. The resilience of the protesters is all the more
remarkable given that their cause has been met with cold indifference from
Washington and London, and from much of the mainstream media.

While Western governments have been quick to condemn the rulers of
Libya and Syria for alleged human rights violations – launching a full-scale
military onslaught on the former and mounting diplomatic sanctions against
the latter – these same governments have continued to give full backing to the
Al Khalifa dictatorship in Bahrain.

[...]

conclusion: NATO Rules!

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 26, 2011 at 9:09 pm Link to this comment

dog~~~~ I don’t think that things in Libya were going too well or too peacefully
before NATO got there, so it’s hard to take that shit you’re posting any too
seriously.

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 26, 2011 at 9:07 pm Link to this comment

Blue ~~~~~“All Assad need do is surrender Syria’s sovereignty to the Empire, and
agree to be a staging area for the war with Iraq.”~~~~~~~

is there some kind of mistake here…or are you just running about 8 years slow ?

Report this
Blueokie's avatar

By Blueokie, December 26, 2011 at 8:58 pm Link to this comment

All Assad need do is surrender Syria’s sovereignty to the Empire, and agree to be a staging area for the war with Iraq.  Overnight he would become a venerated ally, just as are Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan.  He would receive all the weapons he could use, get expert training and advice from the U.S. military and their associated mercenaries, and be the recipient of a corporate media propaganda make-over.  He would instantly become a beacon of wise leadership in the Middle East and all his civilian casualties would magically be transformed into dangerous al-Queada affiliated terrorist.

Report this
blogdog's avatar

By blogdog, December 26, 2011 at 6:22 pm Link to this comment

Syria is targeted for NATO failure, just as Libya was - Iran is next - agenda is clear…e.g.

NATO Brings Race War, Humanitarian Disaster, and the Haitianization of Libya

http://tinyurl.com/838zhnr

Two articles sum up NATO’s accomplishments in Libya. NATO has instigated race war, and
has so damaged the infrastructure of an independent economically successful developing
country that it has created a failed (or soon to fail) state for the profit of NATO countries:

NATO’s Glorious Race War in Libya by Glen Ford
and
NATO’s War on Libya is an Attack on African Development by Dan Glazebrook

From NATO’s Glorious Race War in Libya:

The western media find it more difficult to deny a pattern of murderous ethnic cleansing by
the racist Libyan rebels they have treated as saints and heroes for the past six months.
Thousands of black Libyans and sub-Saharan immigrants have been murdered by NATO-
financed, heavily Islamist fighters who, as African Union chairman Jean Ping says, seem to
“confuse black people with mercenaries.” In truth, the Libyan rebels are no more confused
about the identity of their victims than South Carolina lynch mobs or German Nazis; they’re
racist killers, pure and simple.

[...]

From NATO’s War on Libya is an Attack on African Development

African labour and resources- as any decent economic historian will tell you – has been key to
global economic growth for centuries.

When the Europeans discovered America five hundred years ago, their economic system went
viral. Increasingly, European powers realised that the balance of power at home would be
dictated by the strength they were able to draw from their colonies abroad. Imperialism (aka
capitalism) has been the fundamental hallmark of the world’s economic structure ever
since.

[...]

Report this

By heterochromatic, December 26, 2011 at 3:34 pm Link to this comment

It’s too left to reverse course. The Syrian government intends to persevere and
prevail by force.

They play by Hama rules.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/syria/f/hama-rules.htm

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