Tag Archives: political

FTAC – RANT – Pakistan – Bleating Hearts

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, foreign aid, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Pakistan, Political Psychology, United States of America

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Americans are not victims of America.

We own America.

We work for America as Americans and whether in private industry or government, we and every neighbor is in one or the other, Main Street to Wall Street, police station to military barracks in the far reaches of the world.

Hate America, undermine America, blame America — look in the mirror.

When aid to Pakistan, domestic and military, reaches Pakistan, it’s in Pakistani hands to spend. If much of that spending gets lost, goes without audit, does not make it to The People of Pakistan, does not improve security or domestic qualities in living, we didn’t spend it: we gave it.

Secrets-keeping governments naturally inspire conspiracy thinking and paranoia. Knowing this, in the U.S., we divulge our secrets, many, most, and all across time. Some decades may pass between act and acknowledgement but the truth (here) always surfaces. Our real armies don’t wear uniforms. Sometimes they don’t even get out of their jeans and sweatshirts, but they’re up to their elbows in historical research that may be and will be examined by peers and third parties and very possibly by God Almighty himself. That knowledge tends to make everyone responsible.

Such as ISIS love ambivalence, doubt, and weakness in targets, and the degree to which the same will sacrifice others not for God but for plunder and the merciless dominance of others is breathtaking.

If you think Iraq was a mistake, look over Saddam’s palaces built on the backs of his people. Ask the Marsh Arabs about the destruction of their timeless way of life. Ask the Kurdish people about what it’s like to be gassed en masse by an implacable tyrant. Speak to the Shiite about serving the Baathist “cause”.

Really hate the west: stop taking our money, time, resources, ingenuity, and available spending. The “west” for its part could and should do better to encourage better ecological and labor practices in its trading partners plus greater insistence on democracy and human rights. Beyond that, we give — Pakistan spends. If the state has problems with itself, swap out the politicians in the next round of elections.

Whether through the sewage pumped out by the solidarity movements are loose souls wandering in the shadows of one fascist past or another, there are global “Hate America First” crowds.

When cozy, they talk, inventing words that never existed, but it makes some feel good to have a central fixture for pelting with verbal stones.

Sound like something of which you may be aware?

Well, that’s language for you.  It has echoes, ghosts, mirage, murmurs, and reminders, and while it may be easy to go with so many programs that create ideas and relationships in our heads, we sometimes stop to think a moment about Iraqi poverty in the age in which Saddam Hussein maintained his palaces, and then we say “wait a minute — let’s have a closer look at how that works.”

That’s all it takes sometimes: a closer look at gross inequality, injustice, implacable will, and the numbing cruelty that accompanies them.

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Rayhaneh Jabbari – Uncertainty and State Sadism

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Middle East

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Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime had granted Reyhaneh Jabbari a stay on execution to October 8, 2014.

As I type, it is about 9 p.m. in Tehran.

The known facts of her case are clear and simple: a male boss plied her with a date rape drug, took her to a deserted space, and attempted to rape her.  Rayhaneh Jabbari fought back.  Whether she only injured him (with a small knife) or killed him has not been discerned: given the ethical and procedural issues attending the case, the pack of human rights groups who tally the most egregious miscarriages of justice have been following the Jabbari’s story for years.

Facebook pages, petitions, blog posts (like this one), attention across the global press have been to little avail other than to have delayed Jabbari’s execution to about this hour.

With more than 700 executions during his tenure, Rouhani has even surpassed Ahmadinejad’s statistics, and has virtually doubled the rate of executions. Dozens of public executions, mass hangings in prison courtyards, and clandestine and undocumented murders of prisoners are what define Rouhani’s notion of human rights improvement.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/19/Over-700-Executions-in-Rouhani-s-First-Year-As-Human-Rights-in-Decline-in-Iran – 6/19/2014.

The combined Khamenei-Rouhani “charm offensive” should by now have now transformed into an “offensive charm”, i.e., a charm offending a greater world, including a greater Persian world within the state, a world still in possession of conscience and heart and still sensitive to and outraged by theft.

Fox News journalist Lisa Daftari has maintained a page on Rayhaneh Jabbari.

Reuters has had online great coverage of the (often stolen) “Assets of the Ayatollah”.

After a while, one must ask: where does this ayatollah-thing live where it cannot see its own true image?

From the “Chain Murders of Iran” to the horrors of Evin Prison, the regime would appear to sweat evil:

“To many Iranians, the concept of Evin prison is synonymous with political repression and torture,”Gissou Nia, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, told FoxNews.com. “Today, anyone who is perceived to be a threat to the Iranian regime, including human rights defenders … is kept within the confines of Evin and other notorious prisons in Iran.”

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/28/inside-evin-look-at-world-most-notorious-political-prison/ – 1/23/2013.

From a recent Daftari interview with Rayhaneh’s mother:

“The countdown has begun. It’s hell. It’s the worst feeling. I can’t be awake facing this reality and I can’t go to sleep,” she said. “When people see that someone (is) drowning, some rush to rescue and some who are indifferent stay away and say that ‘let’s not get involved because if we do we will get our pants or feet soaked in water.’ I can shout and shout that my daughter is in danger, but everybody knows what the right thing is to do for my daughter in this situation.”

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/02/execution-iranian-woman-accused-killing-attacker-back-on-says-mom/ – 10/2/1013.

A note of hope has appeared today in the L.A. Times:

Authorities were seeking consent from the family of the victim to vacate the capital judgment against Reyhaneh Jabbari, according to an Iranian judiciary spokesman, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, who made the comments at his weekly news conference.

Meanwhile, the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency quoted Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi as saying that the hanging of Jabbari would be put off for at least a month.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iranian-woman-death-penalty-20141006-story.html – 10/7/2014.

Is there really hope in that story?

Why were things discussed today not undertaken months or years ago?

To hold over someone’s head the power of life and death — to hold over the world’s head the power of life and death — one might wonder how that feels?

For an answer, ask the sociopath and sadist — the one or the two — best positioned to know the answer to that question but don’t hope for a conversation: next to killing innocents, lying, smiling, and thieving (from those who trust them most) would seem their next best and most proven talents.

Update: Wednesday, October 8, 2014

In order to save her daughter’s life, Pakravan published the contents of this call on social media and asked the public for help. In fact, the execution was postponed, in Pakravan’s opinion, because of the public pressure, she told DW.
Now only one thing can save her daughter: if the slain man’s family pardons Jabbari. But Sarbandi’s family of refuses to do this on the grounds that Jabbari dragged his good name through the mud with allegations of rape.

http://www.dw.de/the-last-word-in-iranian-justice-revenge/a-17982603 – 8/3/2014.

IF Sarbandi is but an alleged rapist, how can Rayaneh Jabbari be other than an alleged murderess?

There is no justice Ayatollah Khamenei’s Iran, only darkness and capricious and sadistic raw power.

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FTAC – Syria – A Note on Beyond the Burning

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Middle East, Syria

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The foundations of the invisible wall surrounding Assad start about here:

“In a gloomy interrogation room the children were beaten and bloodied, burned and had their fingernails pulled out by grown men working for a regime whose unchecked brutality appears increasingly to be sowing the seeds of its undoing.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/110423/syria-assad-protests-daraa

And then it builds to about here:

“But there is something legitimately scary about the weapon’s do-it-yourself ethos and its new systematic deployment against the neighborhoods of Aleppo. It speaks to the regime’s single-minded focus on finding new ways to kill, its narrow and obsessive pursuit of mayhem and destruction as seemingly official strategy in the conflict that has run for nearly three years now.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/12/24/what-makes-syrias-barrel-bombs-so-scary/

Being a merely “bloody dictator” in a conflict cauldron that has in it argument over despotism, democracy, egotism, goodness, God, morality, and narcissism (finally) is not merely a bad position.

The condemnation backed by astounding imagery and numbers to match may not be overcome with exigent maneuvering.

I know: faced with Hitler, one might be eager to bargain with Stalin.

Call that yesterday.

This day with Assad having produced a war that has brought al-Qaeda affiliates and such to his doorstep and that has incubated and loosed ISIS on the world, may be different.

How happy should one be to be led by Assad today?

That’s not my question to answer.  It’s a question for Syrians to answer for themselves in whatever condition and place the war now finds them.

If “Assad or Burn It” was the slogan, it has been working a long time, and once burned — in whatever portion — what then?

What now?

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A Note Indicating Interest in Russian Post-Soviet Soviet Influence

01 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Regions

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Khamenei –> Putin –> Assad

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Putin (-Yanukovych : Ukraine | +Orban : Hungary)

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For a long time now, I have quipped about “the dictator Putin-Assad-Khamenei: together they are defending political absolutism.”

With the Russian foray into Ukraine, it appears that intuition may have steered me straight; however, taking that same intuition a step further, I wonder if the top theokleptocrat in Iran may not be holding the greater hand in global sway.

BackChannels may try to tease out of vast global web soup more of the state-driven meddling promoting the cultivation of socialist-nationalist movements such as that of Hungary’s Orban, but I’m not certain the web will yield to such a line of inquiry.

 Additional Reference

http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america#y01zgl – 6/2/2014.

(5/27/2014)

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http://geopoli.info/?p=596 – “Ukraine – Terrorist recruitment, marketing & geopolitics.”  6/25/2014.

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

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Ukraine – A “Different Kind of War” – Reporting On a Scroll

30 Saturday Aug 2014

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

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Scrolling news for Donetsk at ostro.org, 8/30/2014/1833 NY.

Scrolling news for Donetsk at ostro.org, 8/30/2014/1833 ET.

“The mindset of war must change,” Mr Bush said on Wednesday. “It is a different type of battlefield. It is a different type of war.” The battles, he said, “will be fought visibly sometimes, and sometimes we’ll never see what may be taking place”.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/afghanistan.september1113 – 9/21/2001.

Thirteen years and less than 11 months later, it is turning out that the full suite of contemporary wars are “a different type of war”.

Syria’s frustrated revolt cum civil war has turned out a battle between autocratic personalities, or a frankly whacked out dictator against equally savage Islamists, in large part, and the country and its people be damned, which they have been.

Ukraine’s revolt against Russomafia don Yanukovych played to the script but — this as infant governments often do — invited obvious nibbling by the colonel president emperor chief in Moscow, who also appears to have programmatically returned the once modern RT to old Pravda days (while also creating an FSB internal security service more populated per Russian than the old KGB), and today we’re almost back to “conventional war”, except that learning about the Severtsky Donets River, which first entailed learning about its existence, I have well out in the provinces outside of Washington, D.C., broadband, Google Maps, some kind of translator, and instant access to Russian language publications online.

This “different type of war” has created a different type of war tourism, also commentary, and reportage.

Where are we going?

More toward the despotic than democratic, I would say given that there are simply more governments internally operating along feudal rather than modern democratic lines, and these may have recognized in one another — as with the dictator Putin-Assad-Khamenei, an axis in conflict if ever there was — mutual interest in the defense of political absolutism.

Last week, in what strikes me as an echo of Putin-Medvedev, former Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan became President Erdogan in the presence of a cooperating Prime Minister Davutoglu.  Such personalities would seem other than get-along, compromise, facilitate, and cooperate kind of guys.  They’re more “or else!” in the way of malignant narcissists elsewhere and, unfortunately, everywhere.

The shades and shadows of the former Soviet Union may be living on in Russia’s assault on Ukraine.  The deception and lying on the part of the Kremlin, which denied a military presence in Ukraine up to the moment (and beyond) in which the same became implausible, and since I have read that “Novosvitlivka”, about an hour west of the Severtsky Donets River that serves as a border between Russia and Ukraine, has been flattened by tanks — every house shot at — I should hope the “implausible denial” stage has been passed and Russia’s Putin may admit plainly, but with his customary charm, to playing at war — and not just war as usual, but his own “different kind of war”.

While that different kind of war takes shape, this perhaps different kind of writer will be watching it with you . . . on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ (perhaps), the World Wide Web (where else?), and across numerous foreign publications either in English or roughly translated to it.

We’re getting close to real-time reportage too, i.e., from battlefield to me to you inside of 30 minutes.  The big guys get to do that.  We little guys still get to figure it out.

Other Reference

http://www.ostro.org/donetsk/culture/articles/221448/ – 7/28/2011: “Seversky Donets, Ukraine and Russia will clean together.”

Novosvitlivka, Luhanski Oblast, Ukraine, and Russian Border:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Novosvitlivka,+Luhans’ka+oblast,+Ukraine/@48.585913,39.690678,26314m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x411fcd791782ddab:0x49c247870b0ed2bc

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/29/turkey-new-prime-minister-davutoglu-announces-government/ – 8/29/2014.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/afghanistan.september1113 – 9/21/2001.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-27/how-team-ukrainian-journalists-rescued-documents-yanukovych-s-house – 2/27/2014.

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A Comment on Anti-Semitic Reportage

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism

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Their example?

….in 2009 a Swedish report came out exposing some Israeli troops of selling organs of Palestinians who died in their custody.

(Around the 1:15 mark of the video.)

The reference is to a completely made up tabloid style article in an obscure Swedish paper, that even the author admitted was not based on any evidence.

http://honestreporting.com/time-magazine-accuses-idf-of-stealing-palestinian-organs/ 8/24/2014.

Time Magazine excised the truth-offending portion of its video, which continues to play at the bottom of the Honest Reporting piece cited.

How did that error in judgment occur in the first place?

It may be too soon to suggest that Prince al-Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holdings investment in Time-Warner has gravitational pull down in the news room, but we may be getting to the point where the public will want to know more about how journalists write the news and with what level of balance, introspection, and integrity.

Related: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/08/25/bias-blood-libels-and-the-medias-race-to-the-bottom/ 8-25/2014.

There has been much discussion recently of Hamas attempts to intimidate reporters. Any veteran of the press corps here knows the intimidation is real, and I saw it in action myself as an editor on the AP news desk. During the 2008-2009 Gaza fighting I personally erased a key detail—that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and being counted as civilians in the death toll—because of a threat to our reporter in Gaza. (The policy was then, and remains, not to inform readers that the story is censored unless the censorship is Israeli. Earlier this month, the AP’s Jerusalem news editor reported and submitted a story on Hamas intimidation; the story was shunted into deep freeze by his superiors and has not been published.)

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183033/israel-insider-guide?all=1 – 8/26/2014.

Matti Friedman’s story for Tablet has been getting around the web this morning. Breathtaking in scope, Friedman’s tell-all turns media policy in the Gaza-based Hamas-driven conflict inside-out. A recent Cif Watch article relayed here played up the highlights.

Journalism ethics professors and historians take note: You are bearing witness, with few exceptions, to some of the most abysmal overseas reporting since Hearst’s New York Journal in 1898 got us into the Spanish-American War and Walter Duranty of the New York Times was ignoring Stalin’s crimes in the 1930s. “We’re not just talking bad journalism,” says Weiss. “We’re talking about journalism that functions as a tool of a terrorist organization, Hamas: breathlessly pushing its narrative, whether cowed by its threats, sympathetic to its cause, or simply ignorant.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2014/08/21/the-media-intifada-bad-math-ugly-truths-about-new-york-times-in-israel-hamas-war/ – 8/21/2014.

Fareed Zakaria: “Hezbollah’s view on the renovation goes like this. “We respect divine religions, including the Jewish religion. The problem is with Israel’s occupation of Arab lands … not with the Jews.” Food for thought.” (http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2010/08/22/gps.last.look.synagogue.cnn.html – 8/22/2010).

CAMERA: “Zakaria’s indirect main point may have been about the NYC mosque. But his more immediate point — that Hezbollah respects the Jews and is merely opposed to Israel’s “occupation of Arab lands” — dramatically misinformed viewers about the radical and anti-Semitic nature of the Lebanese terror group. Hezbollah has repeatedly made clear not only its opposition to Israel’s very existence, but also its contempt for Jews.” (http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=14&x_article=1912 – 8/26/2010).

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Abu Omar al-Shishani: (6:50) “Christians are welcome to khilafa.  They only pay protection money.” (Interview dated: 8/18/2014).

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Hezbollah mouthpiece or ISIS commander, it appears such Jihad Muslims must have always the upper hand, ownership of the universe, and, back on earth, the plundering and subjugation of all others.

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Despite Zakaria’s defense of Hezbollah’s alleged decency as regards freedom of religion, “contempt for Jews” would seem matched elsewhere along the same Islamist seam by contempt for Christians.  Of course, the matter of “dhimmitude” is well known in association with “Islamic Jihad” whether Shiite- or Sunni-based.  Why a western writer should wish to diminish its import and promote Hezbollah as the soul of a generous humanity begs for answers.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) has an archive of incidents involving Fareed Zakaria’s journalism.  The latest involves Zakaria asserting that Israel has interfered with the latest scheduled elections on the “West Bank”, as direct an act of misdirection through language as is possible.  The Washington Post filed a straightforward correction on the matter.  CAMERA noted that Zakaria could not bring himself to state the same plainly but preferred to send yet another arrow at Israel.

Fast blogging merely marks a note on the day’s passing news.

Beneath the pain and smoke of conflict, it takes investigation along audit lines to ferret out relationships between state-level adversaries and their activities — direct propaganda, influence on general reportage, ownership and sponsorship of academic assets — campuses, institutions, departments and their research funding — and that may be beyond both my pocketbook and purview.  Whether it’s noodling around the Internet on “Iran, Zakaria” or outlining the contours of the International Solidarity Movement, as much demands focused time on a system that moves at light speed.

All of which may be my way of complaining, “Ain’t no low hanging fruit no more”.

🙂

Whether with Time Magazine publishing in a video an updated anti-Semitic “blood libel” or Fareed Zakariah praising the love and moderation toward Jews exhibited by Hezbollah (oy vey!), I would like to know what has compelled or influenced that gaslighting happy faced lunacy.

Related Reference

http://www.camera.org/

http://honestreporting.com/

ADL. “Iran’s Press TV: Broadcasting Anti-Semitism To English Speaking World” – 10/17/2013.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-front-of-cnn-hundreds-protest-anti-israel-media-bias/ – 8/8/2014.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2014/08/21/the-media-intifada-bad-math-ugly-truths-about-new-york-times-in-israel-hamas-war/ – 8/21/2014.

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Qatar – Accusations Denied – Region Opaque

24 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Last week, possibly after reading posts like this one on BackChannels — and as each BackChannels post suggests, there are many sources for aggregating data, Germany’s minister for development aid accused Qatar of aiding in the funding of Abu Bakr al-Baghdaddi’s Islamic State, albeit possibly without a shred of independent state-obtained (and held) evidence or intelligence.

This week: oh, what an embarrassment!

And that any should even think such a thing!  Perhaps somebody’s feelings have been hurt.

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/08/24/qatar-denies-funding-extremist-islamic-state-group – 8/24/2014.

And yet . . .

How may any one state or defense organization of states audit another except by accepting declarations up front — while operating agents, perhaps, and again, “behind the curtains”, the same so convenient to the making of private agreements best kept private?

While often referring to the Islamic Small Wars as “wars for detectives and poets” — for intelligence sleuths and language experts — I’ve noted the same also pit the despotic against the democratic and the mendacious against those with great integrity — and at the end of a human day, not an ISIS day, integrity secures trust where power merely secures a vacuous obedience.

Qater’s royalty may well have taken a position looking westward and in the direction of peaceful cultural polyphony, but Qatar, no different than any other state featuring great wealth, may have also its outlaw elements: “Reports show that Qatar most recently seized nearly 75 percent of narcotics that traffickers were trying to smuggle here from South America” (reference published 9/17/2013).

Good for Qatar as regards that interdiction, but it brings up the question of how much criminal activity benefiting the terrorist fronts of Islam(ism) passes through the state, and, being presumably innocent of so many charges, how is it so much unwanted focus has come to rest on its name?

This post started not with Doha’s refuting Minister Mueller’s remarks but with alternative press agitprop in the form of a video.  Reference to proofs of terrorist funding from West Point, the CIA, The Washington Post?

Call them “poofs” — thin air.

Vanished.

Searching up “Qatar” via the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point: I found no specific report.

From The Washington Post three days ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/some-see-qatars-hand-in-collapse-of-gaza-talks/2014/08/21/7febabac-28f6-11e4-8b10-7db129976abb_story.html – 8/21/2014.

Today, the Post ran the AP’s article relaying the refutation by Qatar of any alleged Qatar-and-terrorism-funding connection.

Veteran journalist Christopher Dickey played the matter this way back in June:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been publicly accusing Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding ISIS for months. Several reports have detailed how private Gulf funding to various Syrian rebel groups has splintered the Syrian opposition and paved the way for the rise of groups like ISIS and others.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html – 6/14/2014.

Accusations are not evidence, of course.

However, there remains with Qatar a certain discomfort borne of privilege, privacy, and the possession of serious money that may be getting loose  — shall I add the 😉 😉 ? — from known controls.

A Congressional Research Service report that showed up in search conveyed this note similar to the bank charge of 2009:

The U.S. State Department has characterized Qatar’s counterterrorism support since September 11, 2001, as “significant,”16 but noted in its August 2011 report on terrorism issues that U.S. officials “continued to seek improved cooperation and information sharing” with their Qatari counterparts.

The 2012 State Department report (released in May 2013) stated that “Qatar’s monitoring of private individuals’ and charitable associations’ contributions to foreign entities remained inconsistent,” (see below) and noted that the Qatari government “maintained public ties to Hamas political leaders.”17

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31718.pdf – 1/30/2014.

So somebody’s holding out — ” . . . U.S. officials “continued to seek improved cooperation and information sharing” with their Qatari counterparts” — or is at least lazy about transparency involving security-related intelligence.

In light of the 2009 indictment of the Doha Bank for flubbing the record on billions of dollars of business in New York City, the fact that in 2012 Qatar’s monitoring of ” . . . contributions to foreign entities remained inconsistent” seems also telling.

We’re approaching the end of 2014 — the start of the 4th quarter is today less than a month away — and perhaps it’s time for Federal and independent research updates on Qatar’s sincerity or vigor as regards anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering policy and performance.

The Gulf state is home to exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and is a key financial patron for the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls.

Qatar denies financially backing Hamas, however, and has sought to play a role in brokering a truce to end fighting between the group and Israel.

http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/qatar-denies-backing-islamic-extremists-despite-hosting-hamas-leader/ – 8/24/2014.

Doha denies supporting the hardline ISIS insurgents who have overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq and who this week sparked global outrage with the release of a video showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley.

A spokeswoman for Mueller’s ministry said he had merely “referenced press reports” and had made “no concrete allegations”.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/22/Germany-regrets-minister-s-claim-on-Qatar-ISIS-funding-.html – 8/22/2014.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to distance herself from the allegation too on Sunday.

“The IS militias are very, very well-equipped financially without, as far as I know, being directly supported by any state,” she said in an interview with ARD television.

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/08/24/qatar-denies-funding-extremist-islamic-state-group – 8/24/2014.

Four days ago:

“This kind of conflict, this kind of a crisis always has a history … The ISIS troops, the weapons – these are lost sons, with some of them from Iraq,” Mueller told German public broadcaster ZDF.

“You have to ask who is arming, who is financing ISIS troops. The keyword there is Qatar – and how do we deal with these people and states politically?” said Mueller, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the center-right Bavarian sister party of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

Mueller did not elaborate and presented no evidence of a Qatari link to Islamic State.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/20/us-iraq-security-germany-qatar-idUSKBN0GK1I720140820 – 8/20/2014.

This abomination of a country has been ruled by the Al Thani family for almost 200 years (according to the CIA Worldbook). Among other things, the family owns and controls the Al Jazeera Media Network. In size it is the world’s 166th country. It has a nominal population of slightly over two million, of which 75% are between 25 to 54 years of age. In other words, it is an aging population with fertility significantly below replacement.

This is the banker to the world of terror – Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram and more. They tend to pay more attention to Sunni organisations than to Shia. I say “more attention” but they have no problem funding Hezbollah and Syria, as well, just more quietly.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/20/the-bankers-to-the-terrorists/#ixzz3BKiuqMvB

“Hamas has been able to get away from its crimes thanks to support and sponsorship it receives from Qatar,” Prosor said on Monday as he spoke with reporters in New York outside a UN Security Council meeting on the Gaza conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Prosor-Qatar-will-soon-be-second-largest-sponsor-of-terror-371475 – 8/19/2014.

Additional Reference

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/22/weapons-banking-drugs-and-slavery-financing-terrorism-creatively/ – 8/22/2014.

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http://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/ex-mi6-chief-cites-isiss-saudi-qatari-donors/ – 8/5/2014.

Related:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/former-british-intelligence-chief-speaks-substantial-and-sustained-saudi-funding-isis – 7/9/2014.

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Saudi Arabia is furious at Qatar for its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and reportedly wants Qatar to expel two prestigious think tanks – Brookings Doha Center (BDC) and the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute (RQPI) – from the country.

http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2014/03/threats-to-close-brookings-rand-in-qatar.html – 3/20/2014.

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To date, only a handful of Qatari nationals have been found to participate in
extremist-inspired activities in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and the State Department evaluates the threat of indigenous terrorism as low in Qatar. The Embassy is aware of pockets of dissatisfied elements with extremist tendencies among Qataris and some expatriates here, but these elements do not appear linked or organized in ways that constitute a serious threat.

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/05DOHA1657_a.html – 9/29/2005.

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The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have fined Qatar’s Doha Bank – New York branch a $5m civil money penalty. According to FinCEN and the OCC, the bank’s branch in Manhattan – USA was engaged in high-risk services accompanied by lack of adequate anti-money laundering controls which led to the failure to report $7.4bn-worth of suspicious transactions in a timely manner. The OCC penalty order (PDF) states that the enforcement action was based on AML “deficiencies and violations” that occurred at the branch during the period between May 2004 and January 2007.

http://www.acc-co.com/content.asp?ContentId=598 – 4/23/2009.

Related:

Money laundering in Qatar is not a major issue. The financial sector is strictly monitored by the Central bank. In order to best protect itself from money laundering, Qatar signed the Anti Money Laundering Law on September 11, 2002.

http://www.bankersacademy.com/resources/free-tutorials/347-aml-qatar – n.d.

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Related on this blog:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/08/21/qatar-terrorist-refuge-and-financial-platform/ – 8/21/2014

Update November 25, 2014

Apart from cash advances to terrorist entities, the Qatari government seems to be directly involved in other activities, notably the shipping of planeloads of arms to Libyan jihadists. These shipments include a C-17 cargo plane carrying weaponry to a militia loyal to a warlord who had fought alongside Osama bin Laden; arms supplies to the jihadist coalition that now controls Tripoli after the launch of Operation Libya Dawn, and some $3 billion and 70 planeloads of arms to rebel forces in Syria.

Private fundraisers who coordinate donations from individual or corporate donors in Qatar are never detained or subjected to restrictions in Qatar, a privilege that means the transfer of considerable sums to al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Hamas, Jabhat al-Nusra and other Syrian Islamist groups.

The U.S. Treasury has given details of terrorist financiers operating in Qatar.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4898/qatar-terrorism – 11/22/2014.

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Qatar – Terrorist Refuge and Financial Platform

21 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal lives in Qatar, and today Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas is to meet him in Doha.

Is it even news?

What follows is about an hour’s worth of “scraping” across various searches containing the terms “Doha”, “Qatar”, “banking”, “financing”, “terror”, “terrorism”, “Hamas”, “Mashaal” – like Adolph, he’s achieved last name status — “funding”, etc.

The reportage underscores the idea that the Middle East Conflict has been sustained by an anti-Semitism that has its end the supersession of Islam, the same story that paved the way for Hitler’s adaptation of German Christian eschatology into the construction of the Nazi program of genocide that became the Holocaust.

Different talk?

Same walk.

Perhaps the question for Washington and the American public at large should be, “How did all this money and confusion get into our America the beautiful?”

Although Saudi Arabia has pledged $100 million to anti-terrorism activity, the sectarian Sunni vs Shiite competition nonetheless plays through the politics.  There’s simply an awful lot of cash in the pool, and the pool would seem as dirty as it can be.

For the day, perhaps for its long history of shady banking and association with well known promoters of Islamic terrorism, Qatar perhaps deserves greater focus and increased scrutiny as a state-sponsor of terrorism, and if not for direct financing then for allowing or enabling indirect financing of the same criminality under its (therefore incompetent) auspices.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have fined Qatar’s Doha Bank – New York branch a $5m civil money penalty. According to FinCEN and the OCC, the bank’s branch in Manhattan – USA was engaged in high-risk services accompanied by lack of adequate anti-money laundering controls which led to the failure to report $7.4bn-worth of suspicious transactions in a timely manner.

http://www.acc-co.com/content.asp?ContentId=598 – 4/23/2009

Related four years later:

“The core disconnect between Washington and these two countries on the issue of terrorist financing stems from their unique political dynamics and security calculations, which drive them both to allow some local fundraising channels for foreign extremist and other groups. These dynamics also determine the extent of Kuwaiti and Qatari cooperation with America’s counter-terrorist financing agenda. Accordingly, Washington should not expect substantive changes in their approach to terrorist financing unless a shift occurs in some aspect of these basic calculations.”

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-terrorist-funding-disconnect-with-qatar-and-kuwait – 5/2/2014.

Though you wouldn’t know it from visiting Qatar Islamic Bank’s web site, because they choose not to disclose their Shariah advisory board there, the chairman of the bank’s Shariah Advisory Board is none other than Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a man we have referred to in the past as “Creepy Qaradawi.”

http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2010/10/04/qatar-islamic-bank-wins-bank-of-the-year-award-at-the-arabian-business-awards/ – 10/4/2010.

Related, four year later:

“Responding to reports that the Egyptian-born Qatari cleric had been sent to Tunisia or Yemen, Al Qaradawi said on his official Twitter and Facebook accounts that he has spent over 53 years in Qatar preaching, calling and writing about Islam “without anyone telling me before what to say, what not to say or why are you saying that.”

http://dohanews.co/al-qaradawi-debunks-rumors-deported-qatar/ – 4/20/2014.

Recently, a group called the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) raised about $6.5 million in Qatar. The group is led by Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a top Muslim Brotherhood cleric who calls himself the “Mufti of Martyrdom Operations.” He never shies from supporting Hamas and suicide bombings and got into a bit of hot water in 2009 when he said that the Holocaust was a judgment upon the Jews from Allah. He prays that the Muslims will deliver the next judgment. In November, the IUMS declared that Muslims must “revive the duty of jihad in all its forms” and prepare for the destruction of Israel.

http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/americas-friend-terror-funding-qatar – 5/20/2014.

In the 1990s, Doha was among the most active “financiers” behind the separatist rebellion in Chechnya. It sent money to local militants and trained Arab terrorists who participated in attacks on the Russian Army in the North Caucasus. When the rebellion was put down and peace began returning to Chechnya and the Arab “mujahedin” were almost completely destroyed, Qatar’s Emir provided a refuge for Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, “president” of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria and his many supporters, providing them with benefits and even government jobs.

http://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/qatar-state-sponsor-of-terrorism/ – 6/4/2013.

Cited Source:

http://orientalreview.org/2013/05/23/qatar-is-funding-international-terrorism/comment-page-1/ – 5/23/2013.

Most notably, Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas, a group that continues to undermine regional stability. Press reports indicate that the Qatari government is also supporting extremist groups operating in Syria. To say the least, this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner.

With new leadership in Doha, we remain hopeful that Qatar – a country that in other respects has been a constructive partner in countering terrorism – will continue to work closely with us to oppose and combat those who adhere to the warped and murderous ideology of Hamas and al-Qa’ida.

http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2308.aspx – 3/4/2014.

Qatar, no less than any other person or state, cannot have it both ways, and the remarks by the Treasury Department’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David Cohen, do little to inspire confidence in change.  In fact the excerpt from his speech fits well within this collection of cited material in that even a subjective researcher’s haul actually reflects what is immediately available through the search engines: the headlines are simply NOT screaming, “Qatar cleans up banking, expels Khaled Mashaal, exiles Quaradawi” or some such.  The drift appears quite opposite of that.

While Hamas tactics directly orchestrate the murder of children in Gaza and in Israel (it’s certainly attempted by the hour), the bankers and royals of Qatar comfortably keep company with fellow billionaire Mashaal.  They’re living large, and Gazans have been made to live very small because of them.

The Clinton Foundation and the terror group Hamas share a key donor: The government of Qatar, a leading backer of terror groups that has emerged in recent years as Hamas’ chief financial lifeline.

Qatar, which has been designated by the State Department as a “significant terrorist financing risk,” has pledged more than $400 million to Hamas since 2012 and has long harbored one of the terror group’s senior leaders, Khaled Mashaal.

At the same time, Qatar has sought to curry favor with elite Westerners, donating between $1 million and $5 million through 2013 to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-foundation-hamas-share-major-donor/ – 7/11/2014.

Apaches and Javelin defense systems are heading off to Qatar as part of our wonderful relationship with the terror-sponsoring nation that also happens to share close ties with Hamas and Al Qaeda. The weapons are valued at $11 billion.

http://www.independentsentinel.com/obamas-11-billion-arms-deal-with-terror-sponsoring-nation-of-qatar/ – 7/22/2014.

“Qatar is a very strange place. They rely on the U.S. for protection and invest heavily in the U.S.,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), noting that the U.S. has its largest Mideast airbase—Al-Udeid Air Base—in Qatar.

“[But] at the same time, just miles away from [the airbase], you can find the head of Hamas (Khaled Mashal), and there was even a Taliban embassy there for a while too. All of these things make for a foreign-policy anomaly,” Schanzer told JNS.org.

http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2014/7/25/gaza-conflict-spotlights-role-of-qatar-the-hamas-funding-us-ally#.U_XzEsVdV8E= – 7/25/2014.

It’s getting harder and harder to deny that Doha and Ankara, two long-standing allies of the United States, are full Hamas partners.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/04/hamas_s_bffs_turkey_qatar_israel_gaza – 8/4/2014.

HAIFA, Israel – The latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended Friday morning when Hamas resumed its costly campaign of rocket attacks on Israel even as its 2 million constituents suffer from wrenching poverty.

Although the millions of Palestinians packed into the small strip suffer from chronic unemployment, and lack of electricity and running water, Hamas and its backers such as Qatar have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on tunnels and rockets with one goal in mind: killing Israelis.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/08/08/hamas-backers-spend-fortunes-on-rockets-and-tunnels-while-gazans-live-in-misery/ – 8/8/2014.

“Qatar has three Knesset seats for terrorism,” Kariv said, according to Israel Hayom.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/08/18/israeli-arab-knesset-members-visit-hamas-funding-qatar/ – 8/18/2014.

“There will be no return to negotiations in Cairo before we have ensured favorable circumstances that will force the enemy to meet the demands of the Palestinians.”

Mashaal said that the Palestinians’ top demand was the lifting of the blockade on Gaza

http://www.timesofisrael.com/mashaal-hamas-defiant-after-assassinations/#ixzz3B2DFDgVG – 8/21/2014.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and the emir of Qatar, in Doha Thursday, according to sources in Ramallah.

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Abbas-to-meet-Mashaal-Qatar-emir-in-Doha-371720 – 8/21/2014.

Related Reference

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/20/German-minister-accuses-Qatar-of-financing-ISIS-.html – 8/20/2014.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html – 6/14/2014.

http://cnsnews.com/video/cnsnews/former-british-intelligence-chief-speaks-substantial-and-sustained-saudi-funding-isis – 7/9/2014.

Dickinson, Elizabeth.  Playing with Fire: Why Private Gulf Financing for Syria’s Extremist Rebels Risks Igniting Sectarian Conflict at Home. Saban Center, Brookings, December 2013.

Addendum – 8/24/2014.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2014/08/24/qatar-accusations-denied-region-opaque/

Either the state has been maligned, the state is lying in some part, or the state hasn’t control of its wealth or revenue throughput.

Every time out on this perilous blog brings insight into the fast mediated conflict environment.  How would one report news from the “left” without compromising with the demands of an Hamas or PLO/PA  . . . or an ISIS?  Is there time to ask a question when a camera hog tells you, more or less, that “proof is irrefutable” and the news has been reported already by the CIA, West Point, The Washington Post?  Do you says “Wait a minute” at the first assertion or do you give the talker his rope?

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