Tag Archives: political

Syria – Putin’s New Job

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Regions, Russia, Syria

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Putin is a master at having it both ways. Without acknowledging that more Syrians have been killed with Russian-supplied weapons than with poison gas, he could with a straight face insist that all countries stop feeding the flames in Syria so that his Geneva II peace process can flourish.

Putin Needs a Less Cynical Syria Policy – Sonni Efron – The Atlantic 9/14/2013

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“The diplomatic duel” between the Moscow and Washington over what to do with Syria’s chemical weapons had ended in “the great victory of Russia,” Kiselyov declared, while the Obama Administration had seen its “geopolitical amateurishness swept away, leaving only the ruins of narcissism.”

Russia Celebrates a Triumph for Putin After Clinching Syria Deal | TIME.com 9/16/2013

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Image isn’t everything.

However, now that our ironically lovely term “narcissism” has crept into the greater political conversation — soon, I expect to see “malignant narcissism” elsewhere (than here) plus, perhaps, an empty variant in “political narcissism” — we may be treated to the spectacle of the image hypersensitive vigorously denying interest in the management of their image while, in effect, desperately trying to maintain and improve their image.

🙂

It may be difficult leaving the center of one’s own universe and one’s own uniquely valued place in it, but the demand associated with Syria, Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere along the contours of the Islamic Small Wars is exactly that in immediate service to ameliorating suffering brought about by political chaos, conflict, decay, excessive ambition, and the monstrous attitudes held by some with regard to the life and the lives of others.

Oh superpower leaders, whether or not image matters, act as if it doesn’t and — I am having a Kumbayah moment — show the love.

Selflessly.

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To understand Moscow’s policy toward Syria, it is important to understand that Russia sees Syria as part of its Mediterranean policy and not a part of the Middle East. The Arab Middle East has been a relatively low priority in Russia’s foreign policy. The Mediterranean, however, and especially the Eastern Mediterranean region, is a policy priority for Moscow.

For Russia, Syria is not in the Middle East | The Great Debate 5/20/2013

The “Arab Spring” (more like the “Arab Springboard” and pretty much out of control at that), Mubarak’s fall from grace in Egypt, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia’s pique with these suddenly shifting political sands, and Russia’s neglect of a post-Soviet Syria long due for an overhaul would seem to have made way for this Sumo match that has pitted Anglo-Sunni interests against Russo-Baathist ones in Damascus and overshadowed a nascent developing Russo-Saudi oil rivalry.

Plainly, Syria remains in Russia’s sphere of influence as a critical asset — more than a buffer, a block to political Islam in relation to the seventh dimension 😉 in which the Kavkaz Center worldview would apply; more than a client state and trading partner, the host of a strategic port; and more than an inconvenience, a base for New Russian Influence in the Region: how Putin has eluded taking public responsibility for all of this (not to mention returning Maher al-Assad to business in the battle space), I do not know.

Fix it, Mr. President.

Additional Reference

The New Russian Sphere of Influence: Does Russia’s Eurasian Union Threaten U.S. Interests? 6/27/2013

The Syria crisis is keeping Jordan’s King Abdullah on his toes – Middle East Israel News | Haaretz 9/17/2013

The Jewish Press » » The Saudis are Trembling – Quietly 9/15/2013:

The Saudis were on the brink of victory, and Asad’s use of gas took it away from them. That’s why they are so angry with Asad, and with the West as well, which did not take the necessary steps immediately, to act without discussions, without votes, without Congress and without Parliament.

Related Heritage Foundation Video Published June 27, 2013

▶ The New Russian Sphere of Influence: Does Russia’s Eurasian Union Threaten U.S. Interests? – YouTube

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Russia – Syria — Prelude To The End of Lies

13 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Politics, Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Will the report by the UN inspectors, the conclusion of whose work Russia, at a minimum, proposes waiting for, help to resolve the dispute between Putin and that portion of the international community that supports him, on the one hand, and, on the other, the leaders of a number of Western countries, including several regional powers, who have been certain from the outset that the use of chemical weapons was the work of the Syrian president and that he therefore needs to be dealt a retaliatory strike?

The Alchemy of Syria’s Conflict For US, Russia – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/12/2013

The whole world is watching, also judging, thinking, weighing, and a greater percentage of its citizens, from Riyadh to Islamabad, have today the intellectual tools for separating substance from bullshit.

In the above cited piece, Vitaly Naumkin pitches the Putin line — no surprise there — even while knowing that view also may be subject to dissection.

From whence came this:

Who held the camera, edited the recording, produced the music?

Who manufactured the projectile, the rocket engine, the launch platform?

If the production represented a rebel false flag, why is the launch team not in Syrian uniforms?

Would that not have been more authentic?

Or would it have been too much?

Also, who has the reputation for lying baldly?

How did that come about?

When is it going to stop?

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“We don’t know if Syria will accept the offer, but if imposing international control over chemical weapons stored in the country can help to avoid military strikes, we are immediately going to start working with Damascus,” explained Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday.

Russian Diplomacy Transforms Debate on Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/10/2012

So far, with the Russian navy at least temporarily absent from Tartus and several hundred Russian civilians evacuated from Syria, Bashar al-Assad appears to be driving for advantage with this latest (no pun intended) breathing space formed by the gap between the American and Russian ways of doing business.

American discredit in the region seems to relate primarily to Bush’s dumb lie over Iraq WMDs, but the removal of one of the world’s most vicious dictators and his army plus the restoration of the Marsh Arabs and the securing of the Kurdish Community against Saddam Hussein’s depredations, which  included gassing, would seem to make for a bright side.  Add in the possibility of modern open democracy (MOD, lol), access to international news, and modern education, global in breadth and concerns — perhaps those are worth something too.

While remnants of the still leftward Arab finger in Iraq often points to America for subsequent bloodletting, it really has to point back to itself for the internecine and sectarian bloodshed that continues by way of its own hands.

Russian discredit starts with the accusing and contemptuous language of the old propaganda and drifts off into the cesspool of known banditry, corruption, dictatorship, and culture-permeating mafia technique.

Even so, Russia has become a modern state.

Perhaps it faces a primarily medieval post-modern question: if “information is power” how much power may one (man, organization) have over information and its effects in influence, intimidation, and perception?

It’s the question of the day.

The post-KGB KGB-infused (at minimum by Putin) FSB and post-Soviet new oligarch Russia has still in place old business, intellectual, and state political architecture, and while it has demonstrated its power to transfer wealth to its own, perhaps, and drive a Far Out Left propaganda press, perhaps, Syria continues to come down, day by day, hour by hour, and within miles of Bashar al-Assad’s own feet, and there is no one, including Russia,  who wants to fiddle with it other than to let it burn a little more safely — without chemical weapons, if Putin is sincere in this matter — and toward a secular path, as no one between NATO and Russia wants Al Qaeda or Chechnya II either, and the cultural results of apparent if superficial convergent evolution by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar toward the west — neither of those official Al Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood buddies either — remain to be seen.

Assorted Reference

Direct link between Assad and gas attack elusive for U.S. | Reuters 9/7/2013

‘IDF intercepted Syrian regime chatter on chemical attack’ | The Times of Israel 8/26/2013

Listing Demands, Assad Uses Crisis to His Advantage – NYTimes.com 9/12/2013

Russian Diplomacy Transforms Debate on Syria – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East 9/10/2013

Bouthaina Shaaban, Senior Assad Spokeswoman, Blames Al Qaeda For Syria Chemical Attack (VIDEO) 9/4/2013

mafia state luke harding | Mafia State by Luke Harding | The Guardian

Why Saying No to Syria Matters (It’s Not About Syria) | Alternet 9/1/2/2013

And Recently Encountered

13 Objectively True Statements From The Vladimir Putin Op-Ed – Business Insider 9/13/2013

Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed, annotated and fact-checked 9/12/2013. Excerpt:

But what rankles many analysts about this paragraph is that it ignores Putin’s own role in enabling the already quite awful violence, as well as the extremism it’s inspired. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime has killed so freely and so wantonly in part because it knows Putin will protect it from international action. Putin has also been supplying Assad with heavy weapons. It’s a bit rich for him to decry violence or outside involvement at this point.

Conversations with John le Carré – FT.com 9/6/2013

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Syria – Ain’t No Iraq

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Psychology, Syria, United States of America

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Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence community was united in believing Assad was responsible.

John Kerry gives Syria week to hand over chemical weapons or face attack | World news | theguardian.com 9/9/2013

John Kerry calls Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad “a man without credibility”

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Syria: Syrian President Bashar al Assad Charlie Rose Interview September 9, 2013

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In state-level affairs, the sovereign or government-in-power may be held accountable for what takes place within its purview.  So right off the bat this week, the nit of The Guardian headline, “Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press” has a disingenuous cant to it.

If not Bashar, what about Maher?

If not Maher, what about an officer in charge under his command?

Note Simon Tisdall and Josie Le Blond in Berlin in writing for The Guardian:

The German intelligence findings concerning Assad’s personal role may complicate US-led efforts to persuade the international community that punitive military action is justified. They could also strengthen suspicions that Assad no longer fully controls the country’s security apparatus.

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I’m not making the call, but the single case for pointing to a rebel false flags seems to stand on an accident involving the mishandling of chemical weapons stocks.

Or a recording — edited, underscored, produced, disseminated — showing a successful launch of a “blue bonnet” style rocket (using what looks like a launch vehicle matched to the purpose).

One case: two stories . . . .

That leaves the public with a spy story in a world waiting for the journalists to get into what I’m going to call “Political Spychology” — the massive, multinational industry devoted to capturing, listening, sniffing, stealing, interpreting signal for military as well as industrial purposes.

By vicinity x chatter x who x impact:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/israeli-intelligence-intercepted-syria-chemical-talk

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I am of the mind that the Syrian Civil War has degraded the central power of the Assad regime but neither installed nor shifted the same toward any coherent and responsible party: instead, it has drawn the state toward gross political anarchy and with a look in many places not dissimilar to Mogadishu’s: hard destruction around and through which shifting tides of suffering humanity amid armed gangs, loosely aligned at best, state or rebel, make their way.

Their situation will worsen as the lack of honesty and integrity across the field and the presence of grandiose ambitions in some ensures greater anarchy, brutality, and political dissolution.

To get the chemical weapons off the field is not to solve the war: it’s to make it a little more discerning (at least between combatant and noncombatant targets), humane, and secure because while other weapons projectiles explode or hit something with finite effect, poisonous gasses drift and are indiscriminate even on the gentlest of their lethal breezes.

To solve the war is to address the poetry of the mind of the warrior romantics involved in imagining themselves “God’s darlings” — Haider Mobarak’s phrase related to the narcissism involved — and striving to prove as much so through the intimidation, murder, and subjugation of all presumably less admirable and beloved-by-God others.

Fast Reference

Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press | World news | The Guardian 9/9/2013

Obama, his team sharpen Syria pitch as Congress prepares to vote | Fox News 9/9/2013

Obama’s Syrian chemical attack “proof” relies solely on Israeli intelligence | Intrepid Report.com 9/3/2013

Syria chemical attack analysis — CNN 9/7/2013

Syria | The White House (viewed: 9/9/2013)

Live today at 12:30 PM ET, White House National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice. Ambassador Rice will discuss the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians, the longstanding international norm against the use of chemical weapons, and the need for action to deter the Assad regime from future use of chemical weapons.

Time isn’t on the White House’s side on Syria resolution 9/9/2013

What if Syria’s Assad didn’t personally order the chemical weapons attack? – The Week 9/9/2013

White House Intensifies Efforts to Make the Case for Syria Military Strikes – ABC News 9/8/2013

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Updated: Iran’s Chemical Weapons Double-Bind

08 Sunday Sep 2013

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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/09/06/irans-chemical-weapons-double-bind-and-the-effects-of-american-poor-judgment/

Scroll down if you go there:

German manufacturing of lethal chemicals  –> via U.S. subsidiaries –> middle east countries with Reagan and Bush era Department of Defense aid and consent.

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Syria – Owned by Old Relationships, Old Ideas, Old Menace

06 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Syria

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One says, “Lean forward.”

The other may be saying, “Push back.”

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Perhaps the two boys are playing an old game with old cards and broken chips.

“I see you lost some states there,” says one.

“The cause lost some states, but, you know, people don’t change much.  They’re still ours, and I see there’s more like them on the table.”

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It’s an evil old game cooked by one party with crude assumptions: the other cannot walk away; the other cannot win; the other is there for beating and controlling; the stakes will be useful, pleasing, but of themselves are not important.

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For one player, Syria may seem to afford payback for Afghanistan, February 15, 1989 and for an evening at the Kremlin, December 25, 1991.

It’s personal.

And why not?

Others fight old battles over and over, and the origins or their legends and myths are even farther back in time.

Banners, causes, flags: shields.

Methods, outlooks, visions: those are more to the point.

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Winning empathetically, ethically, rightly: satisfying.

Winning by force of will alone: delicious!

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Iran: U.S. will ‘definitely suffer’ if it leads strike on Syria – CNN.com (9/6/2013):

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday the United States — which, in addition to being one of his country’s chief adversaries, has led the push to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government over chemical weapons — has no right to make “humanitarian claims (given) their track record” in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Obama, Putin in battle over purported Syria chemical weapons evidence at G-20 summit in Russia – CBS News (9/6/2013):

Putin said this week that any one-sided action would be rash. But he said he doesn’t exclude supporting U.N. action if it’s proven that the Syrian government used poison gas on its own people.

Putin Fights War of Images and Propaganda with Russia Today Channel – SPIEGEL ONLINE (8/13/2013):

Russia releases key findings on chemical attack near Aleppo indicating similarity with rebel-made weapons — RT News (9/4/2013)

Rumsfeld’s War – Newsweek and The Daily Beast (9/15/2002):

“Leaning forward” is one of Donald Rumsfeld’s favorite expressions. An old cold-war term, familiar to soldiers and spies, it means the willingness to be aggressive, to take risks. “I want every one of you to know how forward-leaning we are,” the secretary of Defense told a room full of Marine generals and Navy admirals at the North Island Naval Air Station, near San Diego, last month.

Syria crisis: War of words between Russia, U.S. heats up – CNN.com (9/6/2013):

The Cold War is over, though given the increasingly heated exchanges of late, it’s hard to tell.

What’s the evidence of Syrian chemical weapons attack? – CNN.com (9/4/2013)

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FNS – AP Relays Putin’s Voice of Reason

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Syria

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“We should all be aware of the fact that when revolutionary – not evolutionary – changes come, things can get even worse. The intelligentsia should be aware of this. And it is the intelligentsia specifically that should keep this in mind and prevent society from radical steps and revolutions of all kind. We’ve had enough of it. We’ve seen so many revolutions and wars. We need decades of calm and harmonious development.”

AP.  “10 interesting things Russia’s Putin told the AP.”  September 4, 2013.

Yes, sir!  Says I, but, say, didn’t you put Maher al-Assad back in the fray?

We’re not going to get away from Syria’s chief challenge and problem, i.e., that of an absent middle or moderating political base that has left much of the the conflict “on the ground” to tyrants and extremists.

The AP interview covers, among a few other items, Putin’s views on CWs, S-300s, Obama, Snowden, gays, and terrorists.

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Lebanon – Cruelty Arrives With Two Bombs

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Lebanon, Middle East, Regions

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One of the bombs exploded near the Taqwa mosque as worshippers spilled out of the religious center following Friday prayers. Minutes later a second explosion struck the Salam mosque in the Mina area near the waterfront.

Al Akhbar.  “Twin bombing hits Lebanon’s Tripoli.”  August 23, 2013.

Address it, air it, channel it, deal with it, work with it: the “passions” — the underlying programming in social grammar — that surfaces in the sadism implied in the above-quoted description arrives without conscience or humanity.  Throughout the range of the Islamic Small Wars, the same would seem to serve as its most familiar motif.

What could be more cruel, more of the devil, more evil, and more inhuman than to deploy a weapon among innocents away from the field of battle and close by the sanctuary afforded by a space built and sustained on faith in God and the human relationship with the All?  Casualties of a war alive inside the hearts of killers — truly, the “warfare” of interest leaks from poisoned minds obsessed alternatively with power and hiding — today’s dead and injured in Tripoli had gone into their mosques for prayers and been made to come out at the Gates of Hell.

Additional Reference

AFP/Reuters.  “Tripoli bomb blasts ‘kill at least 27 and injure hundreds more’.”  ABC News, August 23, 2013.

AP and Times of Israel Staff.  “Twin blasts kill 27 in Lebanese city of Tripoli.”  The Times of Israel, August 23, 2013.

Charara, Nasser.  “From Tripoli to Saida, a Map of Lebanon’s Battlegrounds.”  Al Akhbar, June 24, 2013.

From earlier this year:

Jawad, Rana.  “Tripoli: French embassy in Libya hit by car bomb.”  BBC News, April 23, 2013.

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Syria – Gaslighting

22 Thursday Aug 2013

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

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“There are, within some of the videos, examples which seem a little hyper-real, and almost as if they’ve been set up . . . .”

Forensics specialist Stephen Johnson quoted in Euronews, “Expert casts doubt on Syria chemical weapons footage,” August 21, 2013.

The rebels blamed the government, the government denied involvement and Russia accused the rebels of staging the attack to implicate President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Hubbard, Ben and Hwaida Saad.  “Images of Death in Syria, but No Proof of Chemical Attack.”  The New York Times, August 21, 2013.

No responsible nation-state actor would want to go off to war half cocked, but there are those who want to manipulate the look of their conflict to either inveigle foreign military or, alternatively, keep the same at bay — and they believe they can do it by controlling information.

Now you see it.  It’s obvious.  Look.

Now you don’t.  It didn’t happen.

This behavior goes well with the idea of dictators and their mirrors in power as “malignant narcissists” — they’re not about being helpful to others but rather out to help themselves in the cause of their own aggrandizement.

If “Allah favors those who restrain themselves,” these are those who have lost their brakes, their self-containment, their ability to keep themselves from becoming the cause of evil.  Beyond the bubbles in which those live are those still able to take one step back before going in, if they can get in with some degrees of freedom, with the methods and tools of empirical investigation.

Syria is not necessarily about two sides lying for their respective causes.

It is about darkness and the truth being in it and crying for light.

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Something happened.

Something exceeded limits and took the lives of innocents and did so without conscience.

I’m uncertain about having seen in the news an end-to-end false flag on the rebel side.

On state television, a Syrian military spokesman rejected claims that the Bashar al-Assad regime used chemical weapons.

“The media channels of sedition and misinformation who shed Syrian blood have lied as usual that the Syrian Arab Army used chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus today,” the spokesman said.

RFE/RL.  “U.S. Demands UN Access to Alleged syria Chemical-Attack Site.”  August 22, 2013.

I’m equally uncertain about the Assad regime’s ability to tell the truth.

About anything.

Additional Reference

Rubin, Alissa J. and Alan Cowell.  “France Urges ‘Force’ in Syria if Chemical Attacks are Confirmed.”  The New York Times, August 22, 2013.

Wikipedia.  “Gaslighting”.

Zirulnick, Ariel.  “Chemical weapons in Syria: Latest suspicions revive ‘red line’ debate.”  The Christian Science Monitor (via Yahoo), August 22, 2013.

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