Tag Archives: pro-democracy

The Latest Bombing Possibility: The False Flag Operation–Always a Show of Contempt for Constituents

14 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Russia, Turkey

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Ambitious men with nothing to offer and old ones with even less may take an interest in designing and exploiting the political value of an explosion guaranteed to make them look strong — or strong again.

November 14, 2022.

Erdogan Rounds Up His Usual Suspects

Nothing could be more dumb or predictable than the rounding up of PKK suspects in the near immediate aftermath of yesterday’s explosion in Istanbul.

ISTANBUL, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Turkey blamed Kurdish militants on Monday for an explosion that killed six people in Istanbul and police detained 47 people including a Syrian woman suspected of planting the bomb.

No group has claimed responsibility so far for Sunday’s blast on the busy pedestrian Istiklal Avenue, and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied involvement in it.

Spicer, Jonathan, Ali Kucokgocmen, Ece Toksabay. “Turkey blames deadly bomb on Kurdish militants; PKK denies involvement.” Reuters, November 14, 2022.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been waging against the Kurdish community for many years but with periodic sustained ceasefire arrangements with the PKK. However, on July 20, 2015, a suicide attack against Turkish leftists had Erdogan’s government blaming the Kurds while the Islamic State was claiming responsibility. Erdogan’s own Sunni extremism appeared to have surfaced in the authoritarian’s somewhat twisted stance toward ISIL. The sense of confused politics may be gotten through this paragraph in Wikipedia–

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack the following day.[15] ISIL had allegedly made the decision to pursue more active operations in Turkey just days before the attack.[16][17] The attacker, Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz (20), a Kurd from Adıyaman, reportedly had links to Islamic State militants.[18] Both the Turkish government and police were accused of turning a blind eye to ISIL activities as part of their collaboration with ISIL and failing to give leftist and Kurdish gatherings the proper law enforcement protection given to other gatherings.[19] Two Turkish police officers were subsequently prosecuted over the bombing.[20] It was possibly the first planned attack by ISIL in Turkey, although previous incidents such as the 2013 Reyhanlı bombings, the 2015 Istanbul suicide bombing, and the 2015 Diyarbakır rally bombings have also been blamed by some on ISIL. Soon after, the Turkish government launched Operation Martyr Yalçın, a series of airstrikes against mostly Kurdish militant positions in Northern Iraq and Syria. Large-scale operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but including some ISIL targets, began on 24 July; however, most arrests were of PKK members.[21] This led to the resumption of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict (2015-present).

Wikipedia. “Suruç bombing”.

Apparent evidence for picking up a suspect: “Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told Turkish media a woman had sat on a bench in the area for more than 40 minutes, leaving just minutes before the blast took place” (BBC, “Istanbul: Six dead, dozens wounded in Turkey explosion, Nov. 14, 2022).

Among the dead (and quoting from the previous cited article)–“…a government ministry employee and his young daughter….”

Of course, anything’s possible, and with autocratic ambition and power in place, politics as theater engineered for power is possible too. With an election taking place in 2023 and a quaking bog of a collapsing economy associated with him, the autocratic Erdogan may not have been without motivation for the once unheard of practice in the top echelon of both secretly setting the fire and publicly putting it out.

One would not bring up even the notion of a “False Flag Operation” with any liberal humanist leader of any open democracy anywhere, but for more than 20 years, Erdogan has displayed himself as another “populist” autocrat merely propping the very much nominal “democratic” of a Turkish state that has repeatedly proven anti-democratic, illiberal, and deeply repressive, and not exactly unlike what Putin has had going in Russia.

As of publishing, no trustworthy investigation of Sunday’s bombing at a popular shopping mall has been conducted (given the overnight spread of associated arrests or detentions), and given the autocratic and feudal-medieval character of Erdogan and his regime, none may be expected.

And on the other hand, “According to Istanbul police, 1,200 security cameras have been checked near the site of the explosion. Police have conducted raids at 21 different addresses the female suspect has been identified to have links with” (Al Jazeera. “Turkish police arrest 46 people over Istanbul explosion.” November 14, 2022).

It’s possible as well that given the chaos attending radical enterprises in their configurations, numbers, and relationships that one or more in the dragnet “done it” and leadership(s) elsewhere may not known of related plans for “action”.

Call the attitude here “Epistemological Ambivalence”, the possibility remains that the leader who has displayed contempt for his society’s journalists and others has indeed put on a bloody little play–and if not, who among Turkey’s journalists and publishers are left to believe him out of independent reason rather than fear?

Related Online

Al Jazeera. “Turkish police arrest 46 people over Istanbul explosion.” November 14, 2022.

Askew, Joshua. “Soaring inflation and a collapsing currency: Why is Turkey’s economy in such a mess?” EuroNews, October 11, 2022.More than two-thirds of people in Turkey are struggling to pay for food and cover their rent, according to a survey by Yöneylem Social Research Centre, fuelling a surge in mental illness and debt.

Butler, Daren and Birsen Altayli. “Turkey’s kingmaker party keeps options open ahead of Erdogan’s election test.” Reuters, September 8, 2022: “ISTANBUL, Sept 8 (Reuters) – A pro-Kurdish party set to play a key role in Turkish elections next year said it is open to talks with other opposition parties on finding a joint candidate who could end President Tayyip Erdogan’s two decades in power.”

Daou, Marc. “With an eye on re-election, Turkey’s Erdogan risks the ire of Western partners.” France24, June 22, 2022.

Erlanger, Steven. “Election Approaching, Erdogan Raises the Heat Again With Greece: Turkey’s president suggested that troops “may suddenly arrive one night” in Greece. With inflation rampant and the lira sinking, a manufactured crisis might be just the thing he needs.” The New York Times, October 16, 2022.

Genc, Kaya. “Erdogan’s Way: The Rise and Rule of Turkey’s Islamist Shapeshifter.” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019.

Hacaoglu, Selcan. “Inflation Hits 86%, But Erdogan’s Vital Heartland Stays Loyal.” Bloomberg, November 13, 2022.

Hubbard, Ben and Safak Timur. “Blast in Central Istanbul Kills at Least 6 and Wounds Dozens.” The New York Times, November 13, 2022.

Hubbard, Ben and Safak Timur. “Turkey Accuses U.S. of Complicity in Istanbul Attack That Killed 6.” The New York Times, November 14, 2022.

Mansoor, Peter R. “False-Flag Operations.” Hoover Institution, February 23, 2022.

Phillips, David and Kelly Berkell. “The Case for Delisting the PKK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Lawfare, February 11, 2016.

Satter, David. “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror That Brought Putin to Power.” National Review, August 17, 2016.

Turak, Natasha. “Erdogan says Turkey will keep cutting interest rates, mocks British pound.” CNBC, September 29, 2022.

U.S. Department of State. “Executive Order 13224.” Bureau of Counterterrorism.

Wikiepedia. “Suruç bombing”.

Erdogan has converted his popular mandate into power and used that power to remake Turkey’s relations with the rest of the world. He has expanded Turkish influence in Syria and northern Iraq and tilted Turkey—a NATO member—toward China, Iran, and Russia. His use of power has also generated dissent among feminists, leftists, and the secular middle class. Under Erdogan’s watch, Turkey has become the world’s largest prison for journalists. Filmmakers, novelists, photographers, and scholars are also among the imprisoned. Turkey has banned gay and transgender pride marches since 2015; Wikipedia has been blocked since 2017.

Genc, Kaya. “Erdogan’s Way: The Rise and Rule of Turkey’s Islamist Shapeshifter.” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2019.

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Erdogan’s Security Assaults American Protesters and Involves Local and Federal Officers

18 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs

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VOA – 5/17/2017

VOA – 5/17/2017

Turkish President Erdogan lies to his loyal subjects in Turkey — why should his subalterns not do the same here?

CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s melee notes Turkish embassy claims that groups affiliated with the PKK, a once militant organization much changed from its Soviet communist aligned heyday in the late 1970s, provoked Turkish Americans eager to greet President Erdogan, but then it goes on to state, ” . . . that account differs greatly from the sequence of events described by protesters and video captured by the Voice of America Turkish service . . . .”

Among those assaulted were two American Secret Service agents and a Washington, D.C. Metropolitan police officers, who was injured.

From Mother Jones‘s coverage:

As the violence broke out, videos from the confrontation quickly emerged on social media appearing to show Erdogan’s security detail using force on protesters, even kicking multiple people in the face, while DC police officials attempted to intervene. NBC confirmed on Wednesday that Erdogan’s bodyguards were the ones beating protesters.

The Turkish embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/bodyguards-turkish-president-violently-clash-protesters-dc

The thugs in suits retreated to Turkish Embassy grounds, which by convention and law is treated as sovereign and therefore safe from invasive pursuit.

A State Department official said the Turkish security that was involved appears to be a mix of Embassy and President Erdogan’s security.

vvvvhttp://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/turkey-erdogan-incident/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/bodyguards-turkish-president-violently-clash-protesters-dc – 5/17/2017

Casting aside his predecessor’s concerns about human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech in another nation, Donald Trump lavished praise on another autocratic foreign leader on Tuesday, calling it “a great honor to welcome the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the White House.”

Just hours after Trump focused his remarks on “the exemplary valor of the Turkish soldier,” however, Erdogan’s presidential bodyguards were caught on video punching and kicking protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/17/trump-praises-erdogan-whose-bodyguards-assault-protesters-washington/ – 5/17/2017.

The footage shows local police shoving not only demonstrators but several men in suits. One of the men in suits can be seen kicking a woman who had already been knocked to the ground. Witnesses reportedly said that the protesters were demanding that a pro-Kurdish lawmaker, Selahattin Demirtas, be released from prison in Turkey.

http://www.snopes.com/2017/05/17/protesters-attacked-erdogan/ – 5/17/2017.  Link added by BackChannels.

Posted to YouTube 5/16/2017

U.S. officials strongly criticized the Turkish government Wednesday as video appeared to show its president’s security forces pushing past police and violently breaking up a protest outside their diplomatic residence in Washington.

Attacking the small group of protesters with their fists and feet, men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she lay curled on a sidewalk. Another wrenches a woman’s neck and throws her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn is repeatedly kicked in the face. In all, nine people were hurt.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hurt-arrested-altercation-turkish-embassy-dc-47460260 – 5/17/2017.

The jihadist dictator Erdoğan is bent on expanding his powers both inside and outside Turkey. Erdoğan’s temper recently flared against Europe when several European governments refused “to allow his ministers to rally Turkish expatriates.” He also declared that “Europe is collapsing…Europe will pay for what they have done in humiliating and oppressing Turks”; and in response to a European headscarf ban in the workplace, he accused Europe of starting “a clash between the cross and the crescent.”

Now he is so bold as to allow his thugs to behave violently on American soil.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/05/nine-injured-as-erdogans-bodyguards-violently-attack-kurdish-protesters-in-dc – 5/18/2017.

Updates: Related Links

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/20170803/calling-erdogan-to-account – 8/3/2017

http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/14/breaking-us-marshals-arrest-two-in-turkish-embassy-brawl/ – 6/14/2017.

http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-39979879/erdogan-watches-as-turkish-security-guards-attack-protesters – 5/19/2017.

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/39979879/erdogan-watches-as-turkish-security-guards-attack-protesters – 5/19/2017.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/on-air/Protester-Says-Turkish-President_s-Bodyguard-Choked-Her_Washington-DC-423266384.html – 5/19-20/2017.

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PSA: Ukrainian Freedom Marches, May 20, 2017

15 Monday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Ukraine

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It’s been 3 years and over 10,000 people dead, 23,000 wounded and over 1.5 million displaced people in Donbas region. We all know that this bloody conflict is a covert Russian war against Ukraine, and its objective is to destabilize Ukraine and to prevent it from ever having a chance to be a part of Europe and exist independently from Russian influence.

But many Americans don’t realize that the war in Eastern Ukraine is far from being over.

This is why we will march and rally on May 20th to raise the awareness about an on going Russian aggression and to ask the US for support.

We demand that the Russian assisted militia immediately vacate the Donbas region and that Crimea be returned to Ukraine ASAP.

If these demands are not met, we insist on the American government sticking to its promise made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which is to provide the full and immediate defense of Ukraine by all means necessary, in order to restore territorial integrity of the Ukrainian nation. American Government needs to be tough on Russia.

Above: BackChannels edited (re-paragraphed) excerpt from the San Francisco promotion for the May 20, 2017 march.

Primary Sources

http://zvamy.org/ (Calendar Section)
&
https://www.facebook.com/pg/ukrainianfreedommarch/events/

Individual Pages

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/ukrainian-freedom-march-in-naples-fl/?instance_id=12776301

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/ukrainian-freedom-march-washington-dc-may-20th/?instance_id=12776296 – https://www.facebook.com/events/1772468566416946/ –

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/ukrainian-freedom-march-phoenix/?instance_id=12776291

http://zvamy.org/ai1ec_event/may-20th-san-diego-ukrainian-rally-in-solidarity-with-dc/?instance_id=12776294

https://www.facebook.com/events/293951561048912/ (San Francisco)

“Hot Russian Aggression”

Field Documentary, RFE/RL, 2/7/2017

For democracy, for classical liberalism, for dignity and freedom, for rule of law (as opposed to the rule of thugs), fight back.  Attend or publicize the above-listed marches.

BackChannels finds its unbelievable how so active a war as that taking place in Ukraine — and brought to Ukraine by invading Russian forces — has been so off the headlines in major media.  To catch up with events, BackChannels has a portal page, “Ukraine Conflict Resources – Short List“.

Choose your Ukrainian conflict reporting or news outlet and get acquainted.

Russia has launched an unprecedented active measures / disinformation campaign across the web in association with its feudal aggression in Ukraine, and if you have been well informed, you may take measure of that yourself by having a look at the “alternative media” and “alternative news” outlets or the propaganda listings appearing to the right of the videos displayed here.  You will find plenty evidence of “reflection in the mirror” or what BackChannels refers to as the “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” in Moscow / Moscow-Tehran’s portion of the “information warfare space”.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994, providing security assurances by its signatories relating to Belarus’s, Kazakhstan’s and Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.[1]

The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances

 

Russia has deployed as many as 10,000 troops in eastern Ukraine for more than a year and has actively sought to hide the deaths of its soldiers, according to a new report that provides a comprehensive assessment of the Kremlin’s invasion of its neighbor.

The report was published Thursday by the Interpreter, a daily online journal that translates Russian media and reports on Russian affairs, also detailed the Kremlin’s provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry and vehicles to separatists in Ukraine. Nearly 8,000 people have been killed in the Ukrainian conflict since April 2014.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/how-russia-invaded-ukraine/ – 9/18/2015.

As Ukraine marked Armed Forces Day today, Poroshenko said that more than 2,500 Ukrainian servicemen and 7,500 civilians had been killed since the outbreak of the war in the spring of 2014.

In an interview with Holos Ukrainy, the official journal of the Ukrainian parliament, the defense minister, Viktor Muzhenko, specified today that 3,064 members of the security forces had been killed in the east since the start of what the Ukrainian government calls the “anti-terrorism operation” (ATO) in April, 2014.

Of this number, Muzhenko said, 2,636 were soldiers in the Ukrainian armed forces (VSU), the others presumably being volunteer fighters or servicemen in the National Guard, police or State Border Service. 2,148 of the VSU casualties were combat losses.

http://www.interpretermag.com/day-1023/ – 12/6/2016.

Related from 2015:

http://www.interpretermag.com/an-invasion-by-any-other-name-the-kremlins-dirty-war-in-ukraine/

8 December 2016 – A new United Nations report out today has confirmed that Ukrainians living close to the “contact line” – the area between Government-controlled and armed group-controlled territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – not only suffer due to fighting near their homes but also face the threat of landmines and unexploded ordinance as well as have to contend with severe restrictions on movement.

According to the Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine launched today by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), between mid-August and mid-November, at least 32 civilians were killed in conflict-related incidents and another 132 injured. Between mid-April 2014 and 1 December this year, more than 2,000 civilians are estimated to have dined while an additional 298 were killed in the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17.

Conflict-related civilian injures are estimated between 6,000 and 7,000.

“It is of deep concern that Government forces and armed groups operating in civilian areas do not take all feasible precautions against the effects of fighting, resulting in damage to schools, kindergartens, and medical facilities,” noted the report.

It added that it was worrying that Ukrainian military forces and armed groups continued to be positioned in civilian homes and buildings in villages and towns adjacent to the contact line.

The report also raised concern that armed groups in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk people’s republic” and “Luhansk people’s republic” continue to deprive people of their fundamental rights as well as of effective mechanism for redress.

Hundreds of individuals also remain missing.

Excerpt – http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55750#.WRngwtQrJlY – 12/8/2016

Highlights

  • The total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Crimea and eastern Ukraine is 1,590,056 as of 3 April 2017, according to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.
  • IOM assisted over 137,000 vulnerable IDPs and conflict affected people in 24 regions of Ukraine.
  • Lack of funds made 40% of vulnerable IDPs IOM assisted with cash in Ukraine refuse medical treatment, according to the post-distribution monitoring of IOM’s project in 13 regions of Ukraine.

http://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/iom-s-assistance-conflict-afflicted-people-ukraine-march-2017 – 3/31/2017

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BackChannels News Day, March 4, 2017

04 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by in BCND - BackChannels News Day, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Today’s compilation may be light – what am I even doing here at the computer, and so early?  Still, my eyes see a lot of political coverage from around the world having to do with the support of democracy and its liberal humanist values.

This kind of post has had its own category on BackChannels for years, but has not been a staple for the blog.  The writing by others and the reading is so good an spot-on it would be a shame not to share on one sheet.

The links may be dated variously but close to the day encountered (or not — I’ll have to make up my mind about that).

http://hotair.com/archives/2017/03/03/sen-coons-fbi-has-transcripts-showing-collusion-between-putin-trump-campaign/ – 3/3/2017.

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/melik-kaylan/mysterious-circumstances-surrounding-russian-murders-deaths – 3/17/2017.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/04/gop-media-strategist-reminds-trump-fbi-granted-fisa-warrant-covering-ties-russia.html – 3/4/2017.

Georgetown Prof: “Is Islam an Enemy of the West? It Does Seem Like Such a Ridiculous Question, Doesn’t It?”

MARCH 3, 2017 6:39 PM BY 48 COMMENTS

“Is Islam an enemy of the West? It does seem like such a ridiculous question, doesn’t it?” asked Georgetown University professor Tamara Sonn on February 22 at its Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). What seemed manifestly obvious to this Qatar-funded Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor in the History of Islam at the ACMCU presentation of her new, eponymously-titled book, is not clear at all to skeptical observers. Thus, her work resembles that of many of her Middle East studies colleagues, who long ago replaced rigorous scholarship of Islam with a fawning approach that blames the West for the region’s systemic problems.

Sonn presented her “little, airport-size book” to an ACMCU conference room filled with about fifty listeners, included like-minded Georgetown colleagues Jonathan Brown, Jordan Denari Duffner, and Father Drew Christianson.

For the whole story:

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/03/georgetown-prof-is-islam-an-enemy-of-the-west-it-does-seem-like-such-a-ridiculous-question-doesnt-it – 3/3/2017

 

Earlier, on Friday, February 24, Head of the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) Natalia Korchak says her agency has received a request from Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk to probe into the finances of Ukrainian State Fiscal Service chief Roman Nasirov`s trip to attend the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

http://uaposition.com/latest-news/ukrainian-tax-services-head-detained-suspected-inflicting-uah-2-bln-damage-budget-including-money-trip-trump-oath/

Ukrainian state agencies sought to detain the head of the tax and customs service on Friday over the alleged embezzlement of around $75 million – a potentially landmark case after patchy anti-graft efforts from the Western-backed authorities.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-corruption-idUSKBN16A0NW

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/322330-the-memo-white-house-fails-to-fend-off-russia-questions – 3/4/2017

https://www.wsj.com/articles/western-feminists-snub-an-iranian-heroine-1488413022 – 3/1/2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/buried-history-of-ukrainian-famine-finally-told-in-film-bitterharvest/article34183392/ – 3/2/2017

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/trumps-ties-to-russia-amount-to-treachery-to-the-republic.html – 3/3/2017

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Also in Media – PSA – “NORTH AMERICANS SUPPORT UKRAINE – ONCE IN A GENERATION FREEDOM MARCH” – May 20, 2017 – Link to Sign-Up

25 Saturday Feb 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Ukraine

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1 million people around the world in support of Ukraine’s fight for freedom

Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans come together from all corners of the continent to show their support for one common cause – support of the good people of Ukraine in their struggle for true independence and freedom from Russia’s all-too-long shadowy grasp.

We demand that Crimea be returned to Ukraine and that the Russian army immediately vacate the Donbas region.

If these demands are not met, we insist on the Canadian and American governments sticking to their promises made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which is to provide for the full and immediate defense of Ukraine by all means necessary, in order to restore the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian nation.

Appeasement is not the answer.

Now Ukraine is fighting for itself and for Europe, in the future this breach of international law may come even closer to our doorstep if not resolved.

Date: Sat., 05/20/2017
Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm EST
Location: Washington, DC

Slava Ukraine!

Please sign up below we are looking for 10,000 plus marchers!

Source: SignUpGenius – Mobile –

Syria – A Note on the Cast of Fighters in the Theater

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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But unfortunately for those who want to use the evils of the rebels as an excuse to walk away from the evils of the regime, a new study published by the respected Arab Reform Initiative in Paris makes a detailed and often compelling argument that, despite the odds, many “pro-democracy” forces remain in the field.

Pro-Democracy Forces Still Among Rebels Fighting Assad, Study Finds – The Daily Beast 9/9/2013

In his article, Christopher Dickey will go on to note that, “the Assad regime sought to portray all its opponents as crazed terrorists. It set about systematically eliminating moderate and secular opponents. French scholar Gilles Kepel, author of numerous books on radical jihad and revolution, believes the Syrians may also have taken a page from the Russians, who encouraged radicalism to divide the opposition and set the factions against each other in Chechnya.”

How’s that for dirty tricks?

Again, the three true wars evident in Syria and contributing to each conflict zone within the Islamic Small Wars are 1) a war about integrity borne out in truth telling as opposed to cant, deception, dogma, and propaganda; 2) a war about dictatorship, extremism, and malignant narcissism — i.e., death and suffering en masse because somebody, or many, lost their personal sense of boundary, containment, empathy, and ethics in the heady sway of grandiose and delusional ambitions or assumptions (as Hitler asked famously, “Who says I am not under the special protection of God?”); 3) a war about absent or decayed center-moderate forces in culture and politics, and with that disappeared or disappearing middle, a war in which death comes as ambush out of the shadows, whether involving state forces launching Sarin-laden warheads in the still of the night or guerrillas descending to subdue a Christian village.

So contested:

  1. Integrity
  2. Intensity and reach of a pathological egotism and vanity (malignant narcissism) apparently beyond channeling, checking, and modification.
  3. Center-moderate political ideas, processes, values, and virtues.

Additional Reference

YALLA SOURIYA | Syria Live Update News @YallaSouriya WordPress blog featuring rolling updates and statements from an anti-Assad group.

______

BBC News – Guide to the Syrian opposition 7/12/2013

Deciphering the Jihadist Presence in Syria: An Analysis of Martyrdom Notices | Combating Terrorism Center at West Point 2/20/2013.  Excerpt:

Similar to the Iraqi jihad at its zenith, users on al-Qa`ida’s official and unofficial web forums began to post unofficial yet authentic martyrdom notices for individuals—both Syrian and foreign—who they perceived to have fought on behalf of the jihadist cause.[2]

This article looks quantitatively and qualitatively at these notices.[3] The data and biographical information collected is based on threads from jihadist web forums[4] dating from the start of the uprising through January 31, 2013. It is likely that some notices have been missed, but it is still useful to piece together each individual’s identity, from where they are from, with whom they fought, and where they died.

Empowering the democratic resistance in Syria | Arab Reform Initiative 9/2013. Excerpt from Executive Summary:

This paper examines the circumstances and conditions that shaped the Syrian armed opposition and surveys the groups that remain committed to a democratic political system and a pluralistic society in Syria. It describes the extreme fluidity within the armed resistance which reflects primarily the diverse but most often unstable, and therefore, unreliable sources of funding for the rebels. It suggests ways to empower the pro-democracy groups as the best means to reach the dual objective of ending the dictatorship of Assad and achieving a democratic outcome in Syria and argues that the former objective has no chance of succeeding if the latter is not pursued simultaneously.

With jihadists threatening to seize Syrian revolution, rebels beg West for more firepower | National Post 8/7/2013

National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Excerpt:

The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Arabic:الائتلاف الوطني لقوى الثورة والمعارضة السورية‎, French: Coalition nationale des forces de l’opposition et de la révolution), commonly named the Syrian National Coalition(Arabic: الائتلاف الوطني السوري‎, French: Coalition nationale syrienne) is a coalition ofopposition groups in the Syrian civil war that was founded in Doha, Qatar, in November 2012. Former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Moaz al-Khatib, considered a moderate, was elected the president of the coalition, and resigned on 21 April 2013.[3] Riad Seif and Suheir Atassi, both prominent democracy activists and the latter a secular feminist, were elected vice presidents. The post of a third vice president will remain vacant for a Kurdish figure to be elected.[4] Mustafa Sabbagh was elected as the coalition’s secretary-general.[5] The coalition has a council of 114 seats, though not all of them are filled.[2]

Syria: A Wicked Problem for All | Combating Terrorism Center at West Point 8/27/2013

Syrian opposition – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On Christopher Dickey

Christopher Dickey

Christopher Dickey – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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