Category Archives: Asia

FTAC – Burma – Royhinga – Persecution – No Response

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Burma, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics

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Burma is fascist more than Buddhist — it’s an odd twist but due in light of the crushing of the “Orange Revolution” led by Buddhist monks — and as such remains, despite dog-and-pony-show elections, an unconscionable dictatorship. The persecution of minority Muslims than fits the familiar pattern of nationalism in poor states: minorities are on the outs, no less than Roma or Jews in eastern Europe, and only the expression and scale of the hate differ.

The Rohingya have been left to fight or flee.

“Dark Space” would be sweeter in science fiction, but around the world it refers to informationally secluded areas — could be a mafia back room or a valley remote from a capital and difficult to police — and they are in all effects wild and ruled largely by fear in the face of ruthless force.

As regards political rhetoric, it hasn’t helped Islam to have credit for the destruction of Buddhas of Bamiyan. That criminal act may be ascribed to the Taliban, of course, but it reflects on Muslims in general where the discourse is pursued on general terms. To get anywhere with any of this, we have to dive beneath whatever impressions have been made by our separable ethnic, national, and religious labels and then approach each troubled region x area x population x political themes as an interesting challenge. While the UN may provide a platform for as much, it / we have no common experience, much less way, of coordinating force beyond “peace keepers” that would seem to work only in well organized situations, e.g., the defense of the airport at Mogadishu, the watch for border activity in southern Lebanon. The world has no police and Uncle Sam, who has done his share, wants to work of some war-related debt (and get back to watching television, I suppose).

Peeve of the moment: how come Buddhists are committing genocide against Muslims in Burma and no one says a thing?

It’s not true that no one says a thing: Rohingya may face another wave of genocide | Islam | World Bulletin – 1/23/2014.

However, as suggested, the UN plus China, Russia, and the United States, plus the Ummah in its largest aspect, and whoever’s left share no common conscience and few common humanitarian interests to the extent than any may care to band to depose the junta and impose contemporary open democratic civilization and harmonious relations or any vertical of power in Burma.

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The situation is little different within Syria where the caring outside world has proven itself at providing food and tents and assorted other humanitarian aid outside the combat arena.

Within: you’re on your own!

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It’s odds-even as to whether Iraqis will wake up this week and back the government regardless of clan, family, or sectarian allegiances to ensure the ejection of ISIS from Fallujah.  There it’s open war.  State forces have ringed the city.  Supplies have been moved in.  But Kerry says its not America’s fight — it’s Iraq’s.

Fallujah Has Fallen to Al-Qaeda | Video – ABC News – 1/23/2014.

Ditto, I’d say, for the Royhinga of Burma.

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Pakistan – Drones Down, Jets Up!

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Pakistani jets started to bomb the militant hideouts on Monday, January 20.

Is Pakistan finally going after the Taliban? | Asia | DW.DE | 23.01.2014

Islamabad’s share of Washington’s anti-al-Qaeda-type-organization drone program seems to have been premised on the idea that it was the least the west could do in its efforts to diminish the plans of its deeply anti-western and devolutional old enemy.

While drone strikes would take innocents along with targets, they impact would be much, much less than that of any other war fighting method beyond the unfeasible one of sending out a Frontier Corps posse to collect a villain.

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The purpose of this database is to provide as much information as possible about the covert U.S. drone program in Pakistan in the absence of any such transparency on the part of the American government. This data was collected from credible news reports and is presented here with the relevant sources. It was updated with information from the latest Pakistan strike, which occurred on December 25, 2013.

Drone Wars Pakistan: Analysis | The National Security Program – updated to 12/25/2013.

The above cited New America Foundation report notes a steep decline in drone strikes in Pakistan over the past four years, with about 125 operations launched in 2010 and fewer than about 30 in 2013.

The Top Story piece, with which this blog post has started, notes a part of the run-up to Pakistan’s deployment of air power in North Waziristan: “Pakistani officials say that some of those killed were involved in a January 19 attack on the country’s paramilitary troops in the northwestern city of Bannu, and a double suicide bombing on a Peshawar church in September last year, which killed more than 80 people.”

As such, the emerging war would seem to contain two dimensions of interest to most Pakistanis: reprisal for the deaths of innocents; defense and suppression of a force that would commit similar crimes repeatedly until it exclusively held the nation in subjugation.

Compared to this week’s developments, Washington’s drone war — a war vociferously criticized from the Far Left, and claimed it contribute to the growth in ranks of terrorists — starts to look in conflict terms like “lowest intensity conflict” (probably, mafia activity goes lower, but, bear with me, here are some headers from this week’s war in Pakistan):

 Blast kills 20 soldiers in Pakistan, military says – World News – NBC – 1/19/2014;  At least 13 killed, 24 hurt in bomb blast near Pakistan army HQ – World News – 1/19-20/2014 (the event appears to have taken place Monday morning in Pakistan but the story published in the west Sunday evening); More than 20 dead in Shi’ite pilgrim bus bomb in Pakistan | euronews, world news – 1/21/2014; Pakistan bombing is latest in wave of attacks on polio workers – latimes.com – 1/22/2014; Six Pakistani police officers are shot dead protecting Spanish cyclist | World news | theguardian.com – 1/22/2014.

What sovereign government charged with defending its people and the guests of its people would not rise to the occasion?

So: Pakistan bombs militant hideouts in North Waziristan for first time in years – World News – 1/21/2014.

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Since May, F-16 multirole fighter jets have flown more than 300 combat missions against militants in the Swat Valley and more than 100 missions in South Waziristan, attacking mountain hide-outs, training centers and ammunition depots, Pakistani military officials said.

Pakistan Injects Precision Into Air War on Taliban – NYTimes.com – 7/29/2009!

Déjà vu.

Pakistan has a problem even as its military prowess improves: it may dampen the brush fires set by the Taliban, but it would seem constitutionally incapable of removing either the motivating variables, however we may parse them, or the intellectual component and cover from which the Taliban design their strategy and tactics.

Instead of solving a security problem, flying jets against caves merely cycles it down to where it may simmer, bubble, and boil over again.  Mix metaphors and call that a Sysiphean Hell.  The Taliban roll out their program; the state rolls it back; the Taliban regroup, revive, and the state has to fuel its jets again for strikes within its own writ.

Top Taliban leader Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, who briefly headed the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud last November, 33 Uzbek nationals and three Germans, were among those killed in the night- long air strikes in North Waziristan Agency since Monday.

Pakistan air strikes kill top Taliban leaders, 33 Uzbek fighters – The Hindu – 1/23/2014.

Islamabad will have to do more than remove immediate radical targets from the field as it seeks to secure the safety of the state’s woefully victimized and terrorized constituents.

Additional Reference

Drones: The West’s Best Ethical Response to Terrorism | Diane Weber Bederman – 10/31/2013.

Drones propel hate in Pakistan for the U.S. Israel News | Haaretz – 12/11/2012.

Voice of a native son: Drones may be a necessary evil – 10/15/2012.

BBC News – Drones in Pakistan traumatise civilians, US report says – 9/25/2012.

Articles: Understanding the Taliban Insurgency: The Cause, Motivation, and Culture of Resistance – 6/19/2011.

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FTAC – Pakistan – Synopsis – Two Countries

17 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Dear _____,

You are living today in two Pakistans.

One country has joined the world with sufficient affluence or capital for accessing the Internet, developing relationships, participating in global media, and enjoying, for better or worse, the world in English, good and bad, and expanded worlds in other languages. The people living in that country have climbed a great mountain that somewhere started with work or power and developed enough infrastructure and technology to do what it now does online.

The other country has found itself clinging to what it knows and believes, including what it believes it knows about itself and its civilizational and national mission. That world too has accessed the web but it has taken positions opposite the enthusiasms and values that produced its modern capabilities. That world wants to continue living in a perpetuated yesterday.

The two countries in tentative formation are skirmishing with one another in every way imaginable, from the bureaucracies of the state’s military down to deadly activity — assassins on motorbikes, suicide bombers, etc. — in remote precincts.

My correspondent had asked for help on a piece probably appearing soon in the Daily Times (Pakistan).

So I wrote the above and said, “quote me.”

That should make his endeavor a little easier.

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We use the nation-state as our unit of interest in international politics, but in the real politics tying together across any region its host of leaders in business and investment, culture and religion, and then politics, it’s really quite weak in the areas in which Islamic Small War conflict has a presence.  Clan, family, and tribal relations prove more powerful than state presence in many locales — and that’s true in remote areas or “dark space” outside of Islam as well.

Basically, the world just isn’t as organized and tidy as seemingly advanced, organized, and tidy states might prefer.

In the more anarchic regions, confusion and conflict travel together, and the process of reaching agreements and accommodations through other than fear and force seems a long process.  However, it’s an unavoidable process where better functioning states and their values have an interface with more troubled regions.

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Zoom Zoom Zuma! Hail the Presence of Another African “Aristocommicrat”

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Africa, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, South Africa, Zimbabwe

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Zuma is an economic leftist, who has described himself as a socialist.[32] He has received support from trade unions and from the South African Communist Party as well as the Women’s League and the Youth League of the ANC.[32] According to The Guardian and The New York Times, Zuma supports redistribution of wealth and has allied himself with socialists and communists that seek to redistribute wealth.[32][33] However, The Guardian (UK) has also reported that Zuma has tried “to reassure foreign investors their interests will be protected.”

Jacob Zuma – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 12/9/2013.

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It is a nation racked by poverty, where 13 million people survive on less than £1 a day, and two million have no access to a toilet.

Yet as his people struggle in squalor, South African president Jacob Zuma has sparked outrage by spending £17.5 million to upgrade his rural family home.

Lavish works – which include the construction of 31 new houses, an underground bunker accessed by lifts and a helipad – will cost almost as much as the £19 million British taxpayers send to South Africa in annual aid.

UK gives £19million aid to South Africa – its president spends £17.5million on his palace | Mail Online – 11/24/2012

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When Jacob Zuma was facing corruption charges while still deputy president of the country, he scaled the length and breadth of the country to tell all and sundry that he wanted his day in court. The implication, was that he was a victim of a political conspiracy. When his bluff was called, and moves were made to satisfy his urge to grace the country’s courts with his morally upright presence, he did everything in the book to ensure that he didn’t appear in court. It was at that time that we first heard of the existence of the so-called spy tapes which would prove that the corruption case against him was politically motivated and manipulated.

After some nifty footwork by his legal team, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped the charges against Zuma. The public was assured that excerpts from these supposed spy tapes were then in the possession of the NPA. This cleared the path for Zuma to sing his way to the office of the president without having to answer to the charges of corruption. Now, Zuma is not only fighting attempts to have the tapes released to the DA, he is now on record as having said that he has never listened to the tapes, and therefore was not aware what the tapes contained. Fell me down with a feather already! If Zuma, the supposed victim of a political conspiracy who used these tapes as his weapon against the NPA, has not heard the contents of the tapes on what basis did he engage his lawyers to work on the so-called excerpts from the tapes?

A new trademark for the rainbow nation – hypocrisy | eNCA – 9/11/2013.

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As regards criticism, much less examination by an independent court, our beloved and charming malignant narcissists enjoy (by dealing it unto themselves) a free pass.

They will do the investigations, the scrutinizing, the nitpicking, the moralizing, and the talking — oh my, how Qaddafi use to talk — but grant them immunity.

Or else!

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These former communist cum autocratic aristocrats — coin: aristocommicrats — flow down from the big mamma of sweet talking while thieving states: Mother Russia in her Soviet phase: to work goes the worker; to the gulag the dissenting intelligentsia; and to the palatial dacha on the Black Sea go the ruling party elite . . . not unlike China’s elites, come to think of it, purchasing mansions in Melbourne.  On that:

A new global breed of private investors has emerged as competitors to institutional investors for prime real estate priced at US$500 million and above.

The trend is being felt in Australia, where ultra-high net worth individuals (defined as those with a personal wealth of over $30 million) or family groups are successfully outbidding institutional investors for property.

Property provides rich pickings for Asia’s elite | Business Spectator – 12/4/2013.

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A cousin of Robert Mugabe accumulated assets worth an estimated 180 million ($360 million), according to a divorce case in Zimbabwe that has thrown a spotlight on the vast wealth acquired by the regime’s inner circle.

Details of Phillip Chiyangwa’s assets were placed before the Harare high court by his wife, Elizabeth, who is seeking 85 per cent of her husband’s assets and maintenance of 53,000 a month for 10 years.

‘God’s Gift’ on the block in divorce – World – NZ Herald News – 12/6/2013.

Mugabe’s regime has been systematically nationalizing enterprises and redistributing them to his supporters. The more nationalization and redistribution Mugabe’s regime does, the more Zimbabwe’s economy disintegrates.

Blog: Mugabe Regime Demands More Socialism – 9/10/2011.

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Ah, family!

May we imagine that Jacob Zuma is today no Nelson Mandela?

“They Only Care About Power, Not People”

All of this became painfully obvious in August last year when militarized police forces violently cracked down on a wildcat miners’ strike in the platinum town of Marikana. In the ensuing bloodbath, the most serious bout of state violence since the Sharpville massacre of 1960 and the end of apartheid in 1994, 34 workers were killed after being peppered with machine gun fire at close range. Needless to say, the Marikana massacre brought back painful memories of police brutality under white minoritarian rule. This time, however, the policemen and politicians responsible for the massacre were mostly black and represented the same party that had once led the struggle against racial oppression: the ruling ANC of President Jacob Zuma and the iconic freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. The Marikana massacre was the most powerful expression yet that little had changed below the surface. The violence of the state simply reasserted itself anew under the ANC.

Jacob Zuma | Notes toward an International Libertarian Eco-Socialism – 12/8/2013.

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South Africa’s press have defied warnings from the country’s president and printed pictures of his lavish home revamped with some $18 million of taxpayers money.

The media had been warned not to use the images of Jacob Zuma’s private rural home — complete with swimming pool, helipad and even a soccer field — claiming it would contravene the country’s security laws, South African press reported.

South Africa press defies warnings: Shows photos of President Jacob Zuma’s $18M mansion – NY Daily News – 11/24/2013.

Anyone want to see the house?

This might work: https://www.google.com/search?q=Jacob+Zuma’s+mansion&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS523US523&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=x-WlUqvLJIS7kQeLk4DQBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=1084

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FTAC – A Note on the Death of a Migrating Soul Detained

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Afghanistan, Australia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Politics

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I’m all set up and am having real issues navigating next steps in one of the most modern societies in the world: I may only imagine what it’s like to be anonymous on the streets of a passive and teaming nation like Pakistan or a somewhat bureaucratized and Orwellian culture that erupts at the interface of person and government in the west. Without family or stable and helpful community-based networks, we have and sometimes number among a legion of nearly unaccounted and uncomfortably roaming persons. Some part of that may contribute to freedom and “rugged individualism” and some part, plainly, to horror.

The inspiration for the above thought: Eulogy for Ahmad Ali Jafari | Overland literary journal – 8/13/2013.

With a soul like Jafarai, the person may be less lost than the state of origin and so many unwittingly receiving and subsequent and temporarily hosting nations as compelled migration — especially migration compelled by famine or war — and illegal immigration are a matched pair.

There’s plenty of trending news for cyberchat and cybergossip, but as I do here and others do in the various communities and forums that comprise the still emerging “Facebook civilization”, people reach back to make or suggest points or draw parallels between discrete or separated but analogous circumstances.

Community detention centers, tent camps, semi-permanent refugee camps correspond to reactions to disasters.  We see so many of them each year — earthquakes and tsnunami, hurricanes and typhoons, sometimes volcanoes, sometimes, these days, damaged nuclear reactors, and then ever present conflict as well as community- or state-wide financial stress and disaster — that one wonders how far ahead of a bad circumstance the world less affected by a given emergency may make itself.

With the World Wide Web well established and robust, the suffering of distant people are no longer that distant in either common perception or space.

Ahmad Ali Jafari needed a place to land, or even if returned to Afghanistan, some program in which he was accounted and helpfully reoriented, integrated, and included.

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Reference Pakistani Political Attitudes, Taliban, Arab Influence, Heroin, Cash, UAE, and The Marines

11 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Pakistan, Politics

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Ours is a culture of guilty eschatology: hereafter is real, and here is fake, but we are more here-bound than hereafter-bound; we are not genuine Muslims because we are not Arab. We live in Pakistan, but we belong to the holy lands in the Middle East. Our political-economy is borrowed, stolen, and fake.

Refuge of failures – Abbas Zaidi – 11/7/2013 – ViewPoint.

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We gave those camels [a derogatory Afghan term for Arabs] free run of our country, and they brought us face to face with disaster. We knew the Americans would attack us in revenge.

Haqqani as quoted by Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau – The Taliban’s Oral History of the Afghanistan War – Newsweek – 9/25/2009.

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Their base of operations logically became FATA, and they began to establish (or re-establish keeping in mind the 1980s) training camps in Pakistan. These camps included not only Afghans, but also constituted many new Pakistani recruits, and the Pakistani militant groups were actively involved, especially in South Waziristan. The organizing effort also brought an influx of money to the region, coming from various international sources hoping to help the resistance (Yousafzai & Moreau, 2009). Fighting against the foreign troops in Afghanistan and re-establishing Taliban rule served as the primary motivations, as well as profiting from control of drug routes out of Afghanistan (Acharya, 2009)

(30) Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan: Reaction or Revolution? | Muneeb Ansari – Academia.edu – Pp. 5-6 – 5/2/2011.

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The reading, whether for background, retrospective analysis, or, frankly, pleasure proves illuminating.

If you are a BackChannels irregular, 20/20 hindsight rehashes of the Lal Masjid tragedy (2007) and more recent battles in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theaters may summon old memories, directly experienced or mediated.

Web searched first-page reference  to data on the Taliban’s narcotics trafficking seems to trail off for 2013, but relayed at the bottom of this post, there’s combat footage from early 2013 posted just six days ago.

Afghanistan supplies 90% of the opium and heroin global markets.

The Afghan farmer who grows opium poppies could earn as much as $230 for a kilo to opium. Processing the opium into heroin turns it into one of the world’s most profitable commodities, fetching between $175,000 and $850,000 wholesale depending on the level of purity and availability.

The Illicit Drug Economy & The Case Against Cornflakes – 6/7/2013.

Cornflakes?

The authors, Rachel Ehrenfeld and Walton Cook, discuss western attitudes toward “war on terror” countermeasures and high-tech agronomy.

Related Reference

International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.  “The Taliban’s Assets in the UAE”.  (WikiLeaks Project, 2012).  Related: US embassy cables: Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network using United Arab Emirates as funding base | World news | theguardian.com – 12/5/2010: “Mendelsohn praised the UAE for its contribution to building a stable and moderate Afghanistan. He thanked the SSD and GDSS for its commitment, per the directive of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, to disrupt any Taliban-related financial activity that can be identified in the UAE.”  The upshot from the IICT piece: organized crime — drugs, extortion, kidnapping, etc. — provides Taliban funding with cash (!) assembled and carried by courier out of the UAE.

Middle East Policy Council | Protecting Jihad: The Sharia Council of the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad – 2013.  “This article analyses al-Maqdisi’s efforts to protect jihad by looking at his actual criticism of certain jihadi militants and, conversely, at his attempts to support and praise “good” jihadis in several countries. The article then focuses on the successful attempt by al-Maqdisi to set up a council of like-minded scholars in order to provide guidance and advice to youngsters dealing with religious questions about a host of issues, including jihad, and what advice this council has actually given. Using mostly Arabic primary sources taken from the internet,11 including the collections of fatwas published by the council, this article argues that these radical scholars may well have an important impact on the future of jihad and as such are worthy of both scholars’ and policy makers’ attention.”

Malhot, Aditi.  “Understanding the Ghazi Force.” Center for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), November 15, 2012: “Pakistan’s once feared terrorist group, the Ghazi Force is back in the limelight. This time for the reported revival of their funding sources and its resurrection to inflict greater damage on the Pakistani state. a recent report from the Pakistani intelligence agency obtained by BBC urdu states that banned jihadi groups are reviving their local and international funding sources, after their affiliates started opening local and foreign currency accounts under pseudonyms.”

TTP— from Deobandi link to Salafi influence – DAWN.COM – 9/7/2013.

WikiLeaks Project — Afghanistan: A Haven for Low-Budget Terrorists.  Related: British troops seize £50m of Taliban narcotics | World news | The Guardian – 2/17/2009.  Related: How Opium Profits the Taliban – United States Institute of Peace – August 2009.  Related: US adds Taliban shadow governor of Helmand to narcotics kingpin list – The Long War Journal – 11/16/2012.  Related: Narco-Terrorism in Afghanistan: Counternarcotics and Counterinsurgency | International Affairs Review – n.d. but 2008 or later (A World Bank paper cited dates to March 2008: “Responding to Afghanistan’s Opium Economy Challenge: Lessons and Policy Implications from a Development Perspective.”

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▶ Marines Storm Taliban Opium Factory In Helicopter Raid | Part 1 – YouTube – Posted 11/5/2013 (from Helmand Province, Afghanistan, early 2013).

Related: ▶ Narcotics and Corruption in Afghanistan – YouTube – video (40:56), Posted by U.S. Army War College, posted 6/24/2012.  Col. Lou Jordan asks, “What is the relationship between the poppy and the money?”

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Cannabis was found to be the most commonly used drug in Pakistan, with by 3.6 per cent of the adult population, or four million people, listed as users. Opiates, namely opium and heroin, are used by almost one per cent of overall drugs users, and the highest levels of use are seen in the provinces which border principal poppy-cultivating areas in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Drug Use in Pakistan 2013 Summary Report reveals high levels of drug use and dependency.

The Whole Business Romanticized

Posted to YouTube by MI5MI6GCHQ February 21, 2015.

 

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Update: Israel, Turkey, and the Attack on Targets Near Latakia, Syria

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Journalism, Middle East, Political Spychology, Politics, Regions, Syria, Turkey

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Perhaps Israel is keeping mum, neither claiming nor denying responsibility for the destruction of a Syrian air base between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning this week.

As suggested on this blog, there are so few (to none) of objective observers in the battle space that those following the war news in mainstream media and the more seasoned defense journals online needs must accept that the perception of events may be a part of the province of intelligence interests.

‘Turkey behind strike on Latakia airbase in Syria’ | The Times of Israel – 11/1/2013.

In the deeply paranoid and suspicious atmosphere attending the fighting in Syria, which has been overrun by spies and riven by the separate interests of small cabals, throwing a little more “not knowing” into the mix adds to the bloody mischief already in full swing.

—The Israeli government and military establishment have declined to comment on the reports, although one Israeli official told Reuters he thought Israel had carried out the strike, but wasn’t certain.—

It appears that not even general Israeli military staff know what happened.

Very hush hush.

I’m sure the spy novelists are having a field day with every facet of Syria’s continuing meltdown.

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Syrian Air Base Whodunit — Bouncing Off the Surface of Today’s Big Blast

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Journalism, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

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Channel 2 News reported that the attack’s target was a S-125 surface-to-air missiles battery.

Satellite images of the area obtained by Channel 2 show the Russian-made Neva missiles, as well as a SA-3 missile battery, that also includes a command center with a radar to track the missiles’ targets and broadcasting anthenas to track the missiles as they are launched. The missiles have a range of 35km. and a 70k. warhead.

Reports: Syrian air base destroyed in missile attack from sea | JPost | Israel News – 10/31/2013.

The casual reader Syrian war news may be subject to many impressions from the media but can no longer “see” or sort the chaos involved in Syria’s agony.

RT and the alternative press of which it has become a part will probably get in its digs as it did back in July by accusing Turkey of enabling an Israeli-borne attack on a shipment of Russian Yakhont anti-ship missiles.

Reference: INTERNATIONAL – Turkish FM denies Israel used Turkish base in Syria attack – 7/15/2013

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has made no secret of his contempt for Israel or his intentions to target the Jewish state with the intent of deflecting attention from his own failings.  A little more than a month again in the latest of rants, he had said, “We have weapons that could blindside Israel.”  Indeed, it’s possible, but it’s possible too that he will find himself with fewer of them this afternoon, which is not to say Israel is the only party that could have or would have done it.

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In the murky period associated with Assad’s chemical weapons deployment, the British seem to have alternately prepared for a strike on Syria and reversed tracks on the same.

Reference: SAS hunting Syrian missiles as Allies prepare for bombing blitz – Mirror Online – 8/28/2013; Cameron forced to rule out British attack on Syria after MPs reject motion | World news | The Guardian – 8/29/2013.

How far did that reversal go?

Did intelligence stand down?  Were agents retrieved?

Back in July, MI6 seems to have been worried about Assad’s chemical weapons stocks finding their way to the Al Qaeda affiliates operating in Syria and with Chinese and Russian meddling on the high tech side of the stew.

Reference: MI6 boss – ‘UK could face Syrian rebel gas attack’ – The Scotsman – 7/11/2013.

I would think it doubtful that British military and security operations have backed off the theater at all but rather gone about their missions more quietly than during the potential run-up to a punitive strike in relation to the chemical weapons imbroglio.

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces a dilemma. He is invested in a peace process at home with the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, and its imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan. And Turkey has a flourishing relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan, whose oil and natural gas it needs desperately. Yet the permissive attitude of the Turkish state toward the jihadists battling the Syrian Kurds has been a source of trouble for Erdogan. He has gone a long way toward keeping the jihadists at arm’s length.

The Kurds Get a Second Chance in Syria – Bloomberg – 10/30/2013.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had to navigate the slim channel between NATO’s interests and those of the Muslim Brotherhood, on whose behalf he appears to be struggling in the Egyptian quarter of the middle east mess, and outright affiliation with the Al Qaeda affiliates that have apparently slipped across his borders to badger Christians and Kurds in Syria’s northern regions.

Who is cooperating with whom in Syria?

Whatever the true state of affairs may be as regards each aspect of the fighting in Syria, one probably will not find it on the front pages of newspapers.

The desk analysts consigned to perusing clippings may have cause to believe they’ve been left with looking over the shell of a very rotten egg.

Reference: The Spies Inside Damascus – By Ronen Bergman | Foreign Policy – 9/19/2013.

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I’d rather turn “data” into “information” than turn out lists, but data for lists comes fast and quick and paints its own picture.  This insert, another brief melange, might suggest how hot the spy games are getting around the mixed motivation fighting inside Syria.

German citizen charged with spying for Syria – 10/29/2013.

Top Syrian intelligence officer killed by rebels – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page – 10/17/2013.

Spies Against Armageddon by Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman – 10/16/2013; Jihadists flooding into northern Syria put Turkey on edge | Fox News – 10/15/2013.

German spies say Syria jets in Iran | Sky News Australia – 10/6/2013.

Australian spies confirmed chemical use on civilians by Syrian regime | News.com.au – 10/5/2013.

Networks of Spies Aid Syria Gas-Attack Probe – WSJ.com – 8/23/2013.

Sir John Sawers: Poor pay and conditions making Britain’s spies ‘unwilling to go the extra mile’ | Mail Online – 7/22/2013.

Nest of Spies: Syria detects ‘spy rocks’ lodged by Israel – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page – 4/1/2013.

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For more than four decades, Syria’s ruling family — President Bashar Assad and his late father, Hafez — has depended on informants — or the fear of them — to help keep the population in line.

“It was a regime of informants,” Aqidi said.

In Syria, fear of spies pervades rebel and government ranks alike – latimes.com – 10/24/2013.

In America’s entertainment culture, the statement “Trust no one” has developed a life all its own, but also one largely in jest; of course, with the post-9/11 domestic black operations elephant of a budget, that good humored acceptance of some potential invasive probing may change; however, for war torn Syria, there’s no humor or good natured winks to be found: the spies would seem to have swarmed one another’s offices and outposts.

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Mr. Obama delivered what U.S. officials describe as an unusually blunt message: The U.S. believed Turkey was letting arms and fighters flow into Syria indiscriminately and sometimes to the wrong rebels, including anti-Western jihadists.

Seated at Mr. Erdogan’s side was the man at the center of what caused the U.S.’s unease, Hakan Fidan, Turkey’s powerful spymaster and a driving force behind its efforts to supply the rebels and topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey’s Spymaster Plots Own Course on Syria – WSJ.com – 10/10/2013.

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In unusually blunt public remarks, Prince Turki al-Faisal called Obama’s policies in Syria “lamentable” and ridiculed a U.S.-Russian deal to eliminate Assad’s chemical weapons. He suggested it was a ruse to let Obama avoid military action in Syria.

“The current charade of international control over Bashar’s chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly perfidious. And designed not only to give Mr. Obama an opportunity to back down (from military strikes), but also to help Assad to butcher his people,” said Prince Turki, a member of the Saudi royal family and former director of Saudi intelligence.

Saudi Arabia warns of shift away from U.S. over Syria, Iran | Reuters – 10/22/2013.

Stop with the posturing, please.

Let the truth out.

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Today’s alternative and blithely anti-Semitic Far Gone and Leftward Press seems to be conflating today’s explosion 30 minutes south of Latakia with Israel and the old “Davy Crocket” tactical nuclear weapon.

I’m not waiting on the radiation reports.

The one thing certain about today’s blast is the real journalists are absent, the politically venal are present and active, and whatever pictures and news reports make into the still news vetting mainstream media tell very little about what has happened or what is happening in combat inside Syria.

Additional and Cited Reference In Loosely Reversed Chronological Order

Reports huge blast ‘destroys Syrian air defence base’ at Latakia; Israel blamed | Herald Sun – 10/31/2013.

“A Syrian Missile Base was Attacked” – 10/31/2013.

Massive Explosion at Syrian Base, Israel Blamed – Middle East – News – Israel National News – 10/31/2013.

Articles: British Progressives Join the Sunni-Shia War in Syria – 10/31/2013.

The Kurds Get a Second Chance in Syria – Bloomberg – 10/30/2013.

Kuwaiti paper: Israel bombed Syrian missile shipment to Hizballah – 10/23/2013.

Assad: We have weapons that could blindside Israel | The Times of Israel – 9/26/2013.

SAS hunting Syrian missiles as Allies prepare for bombing blitz – Mirror Online – 8/28/2013

US officials claim Israeli strike in Latakia missed some Yakhont missiles – Threat Matrix – 7/31/2013.

INTERNATIONAL – Turkish FM denies Israel used Turkish base in Syria attack – 7/15/2013: ““Turkey will neither be a part nor a partner of such ‘attacks.’ The ones who claim this want to damage Turkey’s power and reputation,” he said. “It is out of the question that Turkey and Israel are part of a joint military operation.”

MI6 boss – ‘UK could face Syrian rebel gas attack’ – The Scotsman – 7/11/2013.

Israel Air Force Targets SA-17 SAM sent to Hezbollah – Defense Update – Military Technology & Defense News – 1/31/2013.