Decapitazioni: perchè? Cosa prescrive il Corano? Perchè Obama non attacca via terra?

“Quando, sul campo di battaglia, incontrerai i miscredenti, taglia loro via la testa fino a quando non li avrai completamente annientati. Dopo di che lega (i sopravvissuti) strettamente. In seguito liberateli graziosamente o in cambio di un riscatto, finché la guerra non abbia fine”. (Corano – Sura 47)

Questo è il versetto del Corano al quale si ispirano i combattenti islamici che – finora – hanno decapitato nemici, prigionieri e ostaggi.

Una norma che fa inorridire oggi gli occidentali, ma che all’epoca costituiva una ordinaria regola bellica:

1. il nemico resistente veniva giustiziato
2. il nemico in resa veniva imprigionato fino a fine della guerra
3. il nemico con compiti di comando veniva liberato in cambio di un riscatto.

Una regola ‘integralista’ e ‘barbara’ che anche noi occidentali abbiamo osservato fino 150 anni fa nella Guerra di Secessione o Guerre Indiane, come fino a duecento anni fa se parliamo delle esecuzioni di piazza.

Il punto – in termini di interpetazione coranica – è che gli jihadisti stanno decapitando non solo i ‘soldati irakeni’ o le ‘spie del Mossad’. Perchè? Su cosa fondano tale ‘legittimità’ di esecuzione capitale contro civili inermi?

La risposta è semplice: ritengono che almeno una parte del nostro sistema culturale e di ‘diritti’ sia in realtà un’arma psichica di massa volta a manipolare le coscienze. Per loro – ma non per noi – le organizzazioni umanitarie, le agenzie d’informazione, alcuni diritti civili e, persino, le onlus di soccorso sanitario non sono altro che elementi di propaganda e di infiltrazione.

“I miscredenti seguono il falso, mentre i credenti seguono la verità [proveniente] dal loro Signore. Così Allah propone il loro esempio agli uomini“. (Corano – Sura 47)

Un reporter ‘pacifista’ o la testata che sbatte in prima pagina le condizioni in cui sono tenute le donne è un nemico, come lo è il volontario che si afferma come elemento carismatico di esempio laico o cristiano: lupi vestiti da agnelli, secondo l’Islam integrale.
Un punto di vista che – senza decapitazioni e spesso senza violenza alcuna – vediamo condiviso anche da una parte degli antagonisti o dei neonazisti se i reporter descrivono lo squadrismo o se i volontari predicanoo contro l’odio.

Ma non è solo questo il motivo di queste incalzanti decapitazioni.

Ve ne è uno ben peggiore: sgozzano per superare con l’orrore il silenzio cui erano stati finora relegati per nascondere gli errori di Obama in Medio Oriente oggi alla luce del sole e, anche, nel timore che potessero far proseliti o innescare le azioni di terrorismo.

L’intento del ‘sangue e orrore in prima pagina’ è chiaro: costringere gli USA ad accettare il ‘guanto di sfida’, inviando un enorme contingente di terra (non meno di 3-400.000 uomini) a combattere una guerra che si prevede sanguinosa e brutale come e più di tante precedenti.
Tanti ne serviranno, solo per parte statunitense, di soldati se nel 2004 gli USA – che potevano contare sull’appoggio della popolazione contro Saddam – inviarono un contingente di poco superiore ai 130.000 fanti in Irak e circa 60.000 ‘mercenari’ contractors che si rivelò dell tutto insufficiente: al 15 febbraio 2010 i morti in combatttimento erano oltre 5.000, circa 50.000 i feriti, almeno diecimila i suicidi.
Non è un caso che gli unici a combattere sul terreno contro IS siano i Peshmerga curdi, parola che indica letteralmente un combattente guerrigliero che intende battersi fino alla morte.

IS tutto questo lo sa bene e pian piano alza il tiro, mentre le sue milizie cercano di arrivare alle autostrade dell’oro nero che partono dall’Arabia e dal Mar Caspio e arrivano al Mediterraneo, ma questa è un’altra storia.

originale postato su demata

 

Stato Islamico: perché gli USA di nuovo impreparati?

La gestione di Obama delle politiche verso i paesi islamici e Israele trova origine in una chiara incapacità nell’interpretare  motivazioni, strategie e fenomeni. Molto più che durante la gestione di G.W. Bush.

L’elenco è lungo: la fuga dall’Iraq, il congedo dall’Afghanistan e dall’Asia centrale, le rivolte “secolari” (Day of Rage) in Nord Africa, il uprise islamica in Egitto e Libia (mentre nelle ‘francesi’ Algeria e Tunisia le cose andarono diversamente), la sconfitta della ambasciata a Bengasi, l’indebolimento di Assad in Siria con i cattivi risultati che conosciamo, l’ostracismo ingiustificato verso l’Iran (che come al solito si comporta in modo responsabile), la mano libera di Israele nei Territori palestinesi, la tardiva e insufficiente decisione di utilizzare i droni solo quando è stato alle porte di Baghdad e dopo aver lasciato loro di saccheggiare arsenali e le riserve auree delle banche, così come prendere il controllo delle miniere e pozzi di petrolio e oleodotti.
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Oil fields into action area of ISIS

Non è possibile che una tale serie di errori non sia dovuta solo all’incompetenza (affermata persino da Bill Clinton e Gore Vidal) e dobbiamo capire quale sia la fonte di tale ostinazione a ‘non fare nulla’, o quello che potrebbe essere il punto di vista di Barak Obama sulla religione e più in generale sul comportamento umano.

La formazione religiosa di Barack Obama è variegata: sua madre viene da una famiglia di cristiani non praticanti; suo padre era un musulmano, ma era ateo al momento della sua nascita, il suo patrigno era musulmano, ma animista aperto e le credenze indù.

Da bambino, Obama studiò per due anni in una scuola musulmana e poi altri due in una scuola cattolica.
Come scrive nel suo libro ‘The Audacity of Hope’: “Per mia madre, la religione organizzata troppo spesso nasconde una chiusura mentale nelle vesti di pietà, crudeltà e oppressione sotto il mantello della giustizia. Tuttavia, nella sua mente, una conoscenza pratica delle grandi religioni del mondo era una parte necessaria di qualsiasi formazione. Nella nostra famiglia la Bibbia, il Corano e la Bhagavad Gita stavano sullo scaffale accanto a libri di mitologia greca, nordica e africana.
Insomma, mia madre vedeva la religione attraverso gli occhi dell’antropologo: era un fenomeno da trattare con un rispetto adeguato, ma anche con un certo distacco. “

Secondo Barack Obama, la fede religiosa deve essere utilizzata per “affrontare i problemi morali”, ma non deve “dividere la nazione” e troppo spesso i leader religiosi usano la fede per “sfruttare ciò che ci divide”, dicendo che le uniche questioni che contano sono l’aborto, il matrimonio gay , le scuole di preghiera e il ‘disegno intelligente’.
Ma – aggiungerebbe qualcuno – di cosa mai le religioni dovrebbero occuparsi se non del matrimonio, della preghiera, dell’educazione e degli stili di vita?

Così, quando Barack Obama ha abbandonato questo scetticismo per essere battezzato da adulto, ha preferito la Trinity United Church of Christ, una piccola organizzazione religiosa che come i Battisti enfatizza la libertà della coscienza individuale rispetto all’autorità gerarchica e il libero rapporto personale con il testo biblico.
Questa “libertà individuale” sull’ adesione a dottrina e teologia – per Barak Obama – è ben chiarita in un discorso del 2007 per le United Church of Iowa: “…  i cosiddetti leader della destra cristiana sono fin troppo ansiosi di sfruttare ciò che ci divide. Io … non so che Bibbia che stanno leggendo. Ma non coincide con la mia versione. ”
Obama ha creato una sua versione della Bibbia? Esiste una parte che gli piace ed un’altra no? E come superare le divisioni, come lui chiede e afferma, se non si è disposti a confrontare diverse versioni?

La questione non è (solo) religiosa, ma politica: è molto difficile capire il contesto del Medio Oriente e in Europa, se si è stati educati a credere che la religione ‘troppo spesso rappresenta una chiusura mentale’ e si segue un Gesù personale.

 

Non è un approccio – un metodo di interpretazione della realtà – esclusivo di Barak Obama e il Partito Democratico: lo troviamo anche in Europa sulla riva sinistra della Senna a Parigi o del Tevere a Roma.

L’idea (sbagliata) che l’evoluzione umana e il progresso possano essere sinonimi o che le guerre di liberazione sono sempre ‘sante’ o che una fase di caos sociale deve inevitabilmente portare ad un ordine ‘migliore’ di quella precedente. Oppure che il motore delle relazioni umane è il profitto ed i consumi e non gli affetti personali / privati, come anche che possiamo proteggere i bambini senza prima proteggere la famiglia e la genitorialità ed intervenire sui nostri media.

Purtroppo, il Progresso non ha nulla a che vedere con altro che l’aumento della propaganda e dei consumi, del lavoro quotidiano, dell’inquinamento ambientale e … dell’aspettativa in vita e conseguente crescita demografica incontrollata, che a sua volta comporta inevitabilmente tensioni sociali, epidemie, guerre.

Negli Stati Uniti d’America, due anni fa, Eastwood ha criticato Obama (“un corpo con un sorriso dietro”) per la sua gestione del conflitto in Iraq, la guerra in Afghanistan, la chiusura del carcere militare di Guantanamo Bay.
Mitt Romney  – durante la Campagn presidenziale nel 2012 – ha ricordato agli americani che: “Barack Obama aveva promesso di salvare il pianeta, io prometto di aiutare voi e le vostre famiglie?”
Aiutare voi e le vostre famiglie, come partiti di destra europei come l’Islam … e come un corretto rapporto tra istituzioni e cittadini dovrebbe implicare ab origine.

E anche in questo – oggi possiamo dire – Obama ha fallito: niente nuovi posti di lavoro e, se non fosse stato per la Fiat a Detroit, neanche quelli che di oggi. Lo spionaggio domestico dei cittadini è aumentato, così come lo sono le tasse imposte sulla classe media. Nel frattempo, Californa e Nevada sono quasi a maggioranza ispanica, mentre i cittadini degli Stati del Middle West e del Sud – che è la ‘vera’ America – hanno quasi nessuna influenza sulla elezione del Presidente e sulle politiche federali.

Oggi, a due mesi dalle mid term del Senato – che andranno prevedibilmente ai Repubblicani come lo fu il Congresso già 4 anni fa – Barak Obama decide di inviare un battaglione di consiglieri militari in Irak e annucia una campagna intensiva di bombardamenti su un territorio dove ribelli e popolazione civile si integrano ..  come Kennedy in Vietnam.

Originally posted on Demata

Obama e l’ultima Guerra Mondiale

Molti credono, in Italia, che Barak Obama sia stato l’artefice del ritiro USA dall’Irak, che abbia lavorato per la pace e che sia amato dai suoi elettori. In realtà,  il ritiro e i tempi furono fissati da George W. Bush, l’islamismo integrale si è notevolmente rafforzato militarmente e territorialmente, gli statunitensi hanno ormai voltato le spalle a Mr. President e le prossime mid-term al Senato si preannunciano una debacle, come quelle della Camera dove i Repubblicani sono in maggioranza già da quattro anni.

Un vero e proprio disastro che adesso prende forma tra Irak e Siria, dove l’Islamic State ha radunato una vera e propria armata d’altri tempi – dai venti ai trenta battaglioni almeno con oltre 50.000 effettivi, armamento Nato e difesa antiaerea – che è già pervenuta al controllo dei campi minerari e petroliferi di Mosul, Kirkuk e Samarra e che da due mesi sta tentando di occupare stabilmente la diga di Haditha e di lì controllare l’oleodotto che va dal Golfo Persico al Mediterraneo.

Qualcosa che si sarebbe potuto evitare se, ad esempio, Obama non avesse messo in libertà centinaia di terroristi detenuti a Gauntanamo che hanno operato da reclutatori e strateghi per la nuova Jihad. Oppure il ritiro  inopportuno della ‘forza di transizione’ USA nel 2011 (40.000 effettivi) mentre corruzione e nepotismi estromettevano dall’esercito irakeno i migliori ufficiali, oggi operativi con Islamic State.

Sempre ad Obama fanno ascritti i black out, i tentennamenti e la manifesta incapacità che portarono all’odissea egiziana (dove i movimenti laici sono stati facilmente sopraffatti da quelli islamisti) o quella libica, dove ancora oggi si combatte asparamente e dove non è affatto chiaro quale sia la presenza integralista, certamente forte. O Boko Haram in Nigeria che può permettersi di rapire migliaia di ragazze senza che accada praticamente nulla.

Per non parlare del maldestro tentativo di sostituire in Siria il presidente Assad – filorusso – con un ‘moderato’, filoamericano e vicino alla potente famiglia Hazzim, che ha creato il vuoto necessario ai Jihadisti irakeni e arabi di creare una prima retrovia.
O dell’agghiacciante silenzio USA quando Israele ha scatenando l’inferno a Gaza, paralizzando e rinviando di almeno due mesi qualsiasi ipotesi di intervento internazionale in Irak, di cui si è approfittato Islamic State con l’offensiva di Mossul.

Oppure la buffa idea di Mr. President di una crociata internazionale in Siria – lo scorso anno – per aiutare i ‘ribelli’ contro il ‘criminale di guerra’ Assad – con tanto di prove false – che diede avvio alle tensioni con Putin (i russi hanno una base navale in Siria) e da cui fu dissuaso solo dopo un appello del Papa.
Le disastrose ingerenze in Ucraina che hanno fatto da pretesto per un utilitaristico embargo antirusso e da scintilla per l’apertura di un fronte bellico in Europa, oltre a causare la frattura di un fronte occidentale contro l’espansione jihadista sulle rive del Mar Caspio e del Mediterraneo.

Tanti anni fa, era la Gran Bretagna – con il suo esercito e il suo Commonwealth – a dominare il mondo e fu un indeciso e incapace Lord Chamberlain a consentire l’ascesa di Hitler e di Stalin, che cosparsero l’Europa di odio, tombe e macerie.  All’epoca gli USA erano isolazionisti come oggi la Cina Popolare e, accumulate sufficienti risorse, intervennero quando i vari contendenti erano sfiniti, riarmarono i russi trasformandoli in una potenza militare per evitare troppi morti americani, cancellarono intere città tedesche con bombardamenti a tappeto e assunsero il controllo del mondo.

Oggi, ingenuamente, Mr. President vuole annientare una vera e propria armata di terra con bombardamenti intensivi persino in Siria, senza considerare che domani o dopodomani, inevitabilmente, le bombe colpiranno donne e bambini, portando acqua al mulino della Jihad ed aggravando la frattura con Putin, mentre gli unici avalli arrivano dai burned Cameron e Hollande.

E, come tutti sanno, la Storia spesso si ripete.

Originally posted on Demata

Islamic State: why USA were (again) caught unprepared?

Obama’s management of policies towards the Islamic countries and Israel – if might seem like a new American isolationism, until last year – could be affected by a very clear inability to understand the motivations, strategies and phenomena. Much more than during the management of G. W. Bush.

The list is long: the Escape from Iraq, the leave from Afghanistan and Central Asia, the ‘secular’ uprisings  (Day of Rage) in North Africa, the Islamic uprise in Egypt and Libya (as in ‘French’ Algeria and Tunisia things are different), the defeat of the embassy in Benghazi, the weakening of Assad in Syria with the bad results that we know, the unjustified ostracism toward Iran (which as usual is behaving responsibly), the free hand of Israel in the Palestinian Territories and, today, the decision to use drones only when IS was at the gates of Baghdad and after having left them to pillage arsenals and gold reserves of the banks, as well as take control of mines and oil wells or pipelines.

It is not possible that such a series of errors is due to incompetence, we have to understand what the source of that stubbornness to ‘do nothing’, or what could be the point of view of Barak Obama on religion and more generally what do our decision maker study and /or mind on human behaviour.

We all remeber that Barack Obama’s religious background is variegated: his mother was raised by non-practicing Christians; his father was raised a Muslim but was an atheist at the time he was born, his step-father was also Muslim, but open animist and Hindu beliefs.

As a child, Obama studied for two years at one Muslim school and then two years at a Catholic school.
As he writes in his book ‘The Audacity of Hope’: “For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness. However, in her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology.
In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well.”

According to Barack Obama, religious faith must be used to “tackle moral problems” but not “divide the nation” and too often religious leaders use faith to “exploit what divides us” by saying that the only issues that matter are abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, and intelligent design.
Of what religions should deal if not with marriage, prayer, education and lifestyles?

So, when Barack Obama abandoned this skepticism to be baptized as an adult, he preferred the Trinity United Church of Christ, a little ‘like Baptist’ religious organization that emphasizes the freedom of the individual conscience over adherence to creeds of hierarchical authority.
Where this “individual freedom” over adherence to creeds of theologists – for Barak Obama – is well cleared in a 2007 speech to United Church of Christ’s Iowa conference: “...somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it is because the so-called leaders of the Christian right are all too eager to exploit what divides us. … I don’t know what Bible they’re reading. But it didn’t jibe with my version.”
Has Obama created an his own version of the Bible, according to what agrees with what is written there?  Have a true believer to trust in the whole ‘Book of God’ (Bible, Gospel, Qur’an, Sutras, Bagavagita etc) or just in the part that he likes? And how to overcome divisions if you are not willing to jibe and to compare different versions?

The question is not (only) religious, but politic (that is more general than the one Mr. President): it is very difficult to understand the context of the Middle East and Europe, if you’ve been brought up to believe that organized religion ‘too often dressed up closed-mindedness’ and you follow a personal Jesus, without even being available to jibe your (own) version.
It is not an approach – a method of interpretation of reality – exclusive of Barak Obama and the Democratic Party: we find it also in Europe on the left bank of the Seine in Paris or of the Tiber in Rome.

The idea (wrong) that evolution and progress can be synonyms or that the wars of liberation are ‘holy’ or that a phase of social chaos must inevitably lead to an order ‘better’ than the previous one, or that the engine of human relations is profit and not the personal /private affections. That we can protect children without first protecting the family and the parenting.

What is wrong?

Certainly not the idea that men can join into a unique human project, regardless of the religion or the moral and social ideas that they have.
What does not work is – as mentioned – is the very nineteenth century approach to ‘what is the Man’ and how it can be managed at best.

As example, the idea that a peaceful and ‘wealthy’ society can put in place a “natural selection” of a progressive human race, as any organisms interacting with their environment.

This, in a nutshell, the ‘analogic’ idea that came to life in the many last century theories about the social causes of crime trends. Today, even for years, we know that – in reality – a part of us have genes that make them intolerant of the rhythms and lifestyles of our industrial-commercial society, as we know that our media – saturated with sex and violence – and the ‘education in the family – often distracted or inadequate – are the primary causes far more the social /economic status of individuals.

Disappointing hypothesis  – that have raged for nearly two centuries – if we can not pay pensions without imperialism, and if at least two generations Muslims give birth three times as many children as we ‘Caucasians’ do. Islam developes a social system more adaptive than ours, if we have to stay on those last century theories

What to do, then, if you believe that the ‘equal opportunities’ are the key requirement to create a social habitat that allows the best men (peaceful, syncretic and collaborative) to evolve preferentially on the ‘worst’ (violent, integralist and macho)?
Isolate the ‘infected’ area and wait for each other’s throats … is an old political practice.
It was – for example – the choice of Reagan, not shared by George Bush senior, to prefer the demagogue Yeltsin to the political Gorbachev , when the USSR fell apart. Well lucky for a decade, embarrassing – having regard to expolit mafia-business – for another ten, and, today, here again the fearsome Russian fleet and here again the ancestral relationship between the people and the soldiers.

Same story for Obama in Irak or Lybia or Afghanistan … and we can see the results: the heads of so many innocent people sent through social networks to our decision-makers look like too much at the head of pig or horse mobsters everywhere left on the doorstep of those who wish to intimidate.

Oil fields into action area of ISIS

About the primary causes of crime trends, what is the role of religion and where are ‘civilization and education’, if USA and Europe fail to ensure to their families a society where children are not exposed to violence, sex and familiar abuses as in ours?
Who of us can mind the seeds of a citizen coming from a state where family, old people and children are preserved? Or about movidas, just a river of alcool and – not infrequently – public sex … or corruption, which we exported before and now returns to us magnified by revolving doors and narco-mafia-terror recycled funds. Or  the maze of enormous public agencies created to ‘facilitate’ the democratic participation  and … not rarely do not facilitate anything than corruption and expenses.

In Europe, where these ideas were born and applyed, many citizens are going to vote extreme right parties, in name of the ‘people’ (volk) and of the ‘territory’ (sippe) … as the Indoeuropeans did until a pair of hundred years, maybe minus …   in name of some ‘equal opportunities’ and of an ‘inner but cooperative’ system.

In USA, it is not much time from the success of Clin Eastwood film ‘Gran Torino’ and the debats on the desirability of  ‘old school’ education for our young people. As, two years ago, when Eastwood criticized Obama (“a body with a grin behind”) for his handling of the conflict in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, from which a lot of tenacious Jihadist punctually re-come in fight as  in Syria-Irak.
A very ironic speech, in which Eastwood for about a quarter of an hour has “exchanged” words with an empty chair, pretending that there was a sitting President Obama. A return response to Obama via Twitter: “This seat’s taken” …
But can a seat be considered taken if the person who is sitting is also reluctant to make decisions? Or  withdraws its troops and leave prisoners then allows its allies to arm them?

Was just demagogy if Mitt Romney said – during the Presidential Campagn in 2012: “Barack Obama had promised to save the planet, I promise to help you and your families‘? Or is this the real need of the common people in a ‘equal opportunities machine’ where richs become richest and middle class poorest?
‘I promise to help you and your families‘, as European Right Parties as Islam … as a correct relationship between institutions and citizens should be.

And in this – today we can say – Obama has failed: nothing new jobs and, if it was not for Fiat in Detroit, not even those. The domestic spying of citizens has increased, as are the taxes imposed on the middle class. Meanwhile, the Californa and Nevada are almost a Hispanic majority, while the citizens of the states of the Middle West and South – that is the ‘real’ Americans – have almost no influence on the election of the President and federal policies. Last years he started a collision route with Putin, because the White House was firmly oriented to support rebels against the Syrian government …

Not only welfare, entertainment and subsidies or renevues: people needs to have education and job opportunities in the place where they were born and according to own talent. Stay home and make yourself useful to your people, what better?

A weak military strategy and absent (or fool) foreign policy now will force the United States to put in place more men and resources, while the relationships with Saudi e Israel have to change because of what is happening in Syria and Iraq.
By the way Obama is due not necessarily intervene until IS was about to take possession of the dam that feeds Baghdad and … in the vicinity of the pipeline that starts from Saudi Arabia and to the Mediterranean.

If, after years of low-profile foreign, was just the first African-American president and the pacifist to trigger World War III – as Pope Francis announced in Korea days ago – not merely a historical nemesis, like Arthur Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister known for the so-called strategy of appeasement towards Hitler and the intervent in France with a crushing defeat in 1940.

Meanwhile, the stock market rises and the dollar too, Germany talks with Putin, Britain is tired of the mess done by the United States in ‘her own’ Commonwealth, France and Italy – in tow to Obama’s party –  fail again to recover, within a few years there will be elections for Obama, Hollande or Renzi and … I would go very well with the Barak’s mom ideas, but international politics can not afford prejudices or amnesias.

Originally posted on Demata

Fake evidences against Syria?

The anti -Assad propaganda uses big names, powerful televisions , accredited journalists. And when the credited newspapers are popular not even need the sensationalism so demonized by the readers and/or if  propaganda news are fed on sensationalism, it does not matter. The average man filters it and recognizes it as ‘reliable information’.

That ‘s what happened to the BBC , British television followed all over the world. (Source Coscienzeinrete)

In fact , the BBC – became by months in a sort of anti -Assad propaganda tool – published ashock-photo, presenting it as taken in the Syrian city of Hula and sent by some activists in Syria to witness the massacres implemented by Assad’s forces.

But it is a fake, as the author, a freelance photographer, reported on Facebook by over one year.
“It ‘s an Italian and his name is Marco Di Lauro . When he took the photo was March 27, 2003 in Al Musayyib , an Iraqi city 40 km south of Baghdad. ” (source ECPlanet )

Marco Di Lauro Photographer – Reportage by Getty Images

‘Somebody is using illegaly one of my images for anti syrian propaganda on the BBC web site front page.
Today – Sunday May 27 at 0700 am London time – the attached image which I took in Al Mussayyib in Iraq on March 27, 2003 was front page on BBC web site illustrating the massacre that happen in Houla, a Syrian town, and the caption and the web site was stating that the images was showing the bodies of all the people that have been killed in the massacre and that the image was received by the BBC by an unknown activist. Somebody is using my images as a propaganda against the Syrian government to prove the massacre.’

This is the post on 27 May 2012 (link) where it is also stated that the report by Marco Di Lauro was ‘by Getty Images’, one of the largest photo agencies in the world.

How the BBC has been able to sink in the mud of war propaganda is really a mystery.

“Houla carnage” news showed by BBC

On the other side, we hope that – today better than tomorrow – Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron will notice that Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the person of Emma Bonino, and the Holy See seem to have different and a lot more accurate informations on Syrian ‘state of art’ than those bandied by United States or United Kingdom.

originale postato su demata

The Obama’s Syrian War. What do we need to know?

The United States and the United Kingdom are ‘ready to attack within ten days’, but Moscow warns on a ‘new Iraqi adventure’ and that “the consequences would be very serious”.” Assad, the Syrian president, promises: “They expect failure.” According to the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, the decision will be taken “within 48 hours” after the  yesterday’s lengthy consultation meeting between Barack Obama and David Cameron.
The White House denies, but the French president, Hollande, indirectly confirms ‘it will be decided within the next week’  and the BBC reported that the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, believes that a response to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would be possible without the unanimous support of the Security Council of the United Nations.
Meanwhile, the UN inspectors are looking for traces of nerve gas used against the insurgents in the oasis of Ghouta in Syria, while tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds and Palestinian refugees are joining those who seek to leave the country by all means.

The locations of military forces in the area is high and the risk of escalation is substantial.

HMS Illustriuos – photo by maritimequest.com

The Royal Navy provides a massive naval presence including a nuclear-powered submarine, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustriuos, the helicopter carrier HMS Bulwark and at least 4 frigates, as well as air cover is guaranteed by the RAF base at Akrotiri in Cyprus.

In addition to the presence of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and the rapid intervention force deployed in Sicily and some squadrons in the  Incirilik air base in Izmir -Turkey, to which we could add the F-16 fighters deployed in Jordan, the U.S. has placed near Syrian coasts at least four of Arleigh Burke class destroyers.

The dashboard of a system AEGIS – from Wikipedia

These destroyers are armed with 96 Tomahawk cruise missiles, effective for targets up to 2,500 km away, but, above all, with AEGIS systems, an electronic warfare, capable of integrating the various subsystems, reacting the ship in the presence of surface, aerial and underwater threats.

Italy has in Lebanon the Cavalry Brigade “Pozzuolo del Friuli”, deployed for Operation Leonte, commissioned by the Prodi government in 2006. France has a substantial terrestrial presence (including 16 Leclerc heavy tanks and ALAT, a light aviation support) and in 2006 had moved Siroco and Mistral amphibious ships and  the frigates Jean Bart and Jean de Vienne. Germany has about 200 men, mostly workers in logistics and intelligence, and two patrol ships.

Russia has sent in its historic naval base of Tartus, toward the Syrian border with Lebanon and in the face of Cyprus,  a dozen vessels at least, according to the Wall Street Journal, while Russian civilians in Syria are estimated at 30,000 people according to the Financial Times, but it is supposed they are more than 50.000.

Admiral Kuznetsov – from naval-technology.com

Among these ships, there is the team led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which carries the multirole advanced fighters Su-33 and  Ka-27, Ka-28, Ka-29, Ka-32 attack helicopters. It is equipped with the Granit anti-ship system, an ultra-modern electronic warfare technology and  Kortik Klinok anti-aircraft systems, plus UDAV that offers protection against submarines. In Tartus facilities it was dispatched also the presence of Ropucha class amphibious assault ships – the Aleksandr Otrakovskiy, the Georgiy Pobedonosets and the Kondopoga – with hundreds of Marines on board, and a task force that includes the anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Panteleyev, the frigate Yaroslav Mudry, other huge amphibious assault ships – the Peresvet, the Kaliningrad, the Alexander Shablinaltre and the Admiral Nevelskoi, plus several vessels equipped for electronic warfare as Slava class missile cruisers, as Tango and Kilo classes submarines, as Grisha or Dergach classes corvettes.
Not far there is also the entire Black Sea Fleet, stationed in the Black Sea and, in particular, as rapid response, the 25th Regiment equipped with at least twenty Ka-27 and Mi-14 helicopters, the 917th Airborne Regiment and the 43rd Squadron with  Su-24M and Su-24MR 4 aircrafts.

Russian Marines in Tartus – from Globalpost.com

The Russian Defense Minister, on Pravda, said recently that Russia does not intend to withdraw one man from the base of Tartus, which is its only option in the Mediterranean and this explains Moscow’s position regarding Syria and reveals the fear of being undermined by its outpost, in case of a fall of Assad.
Considering also that Russia has invested heavily in recent years on its fleet and tools for electronic warfare, motivation seems not just obvious, but broadly plausible, in view of the delicate international balance.

The Izvetzia today published a lengthy interview with Syrian President Assad (link), which has denied the use of chemical weapons and accused Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabis to encourage and finance the insurgents. In addition, “all the contracts concluded with Russia are have been fulfilled. And neither the crisis, nor pressure from the U.S., Europe and the Gulf states have prevented their implementation. Russia supplies Syria what what it requires for its defense, and for the defense of its people.

Several states who oppose the Syrian people have inflicted serious damage upon our economy, primarily due to the economic blockade, because of which we now suffer. Russia acted quite differently.
The current economic sanctions are preventing Syrian citizens from receiving food, medicine and fuel. These are basic products needed for living. And, accordingly, what the Syrian government is doing now by signing agreements with Russia and other friendly countries allows us to establish guarantees for these products.

When national security is weakened, this results in a weakening of the economic position. And it goes without saying that the fact that Russia supplies Syria’s military contracts will lead to an improvement of the economic situation in Syria.

Russia’s support for our right to assert our own independence right from the start has helped our economy. Several states who oppose the Syrian people have inflicted serious damage upon our economy, primarily due to the economic blockade, because of which we now suffer. Russia acted quite differently.

And specifically addressing the economy – any line of credit from a friendly country such as Russia, is beneficial for both sides. For Russia that may mean expanding markets and new opportunities for Russian companies, while for Syria it is an opportunity to raise funds to develop its own economy.‘

If this is the opininion of ‘the other side’, the announcement of the White House to ‘stay studying the Kosovo model’ leaves really perplexed, because we are talking – today – of the ‘black hole’ of all black trades located in the middle of the Balkans, as well the ethnic massacres were perpetrated even by the ‘goods’.

Among other things, Syria has an army of around 300,000 soldiers, over 350 different MIG fighters, even recently updated, and 70 Sukoi for ground attack, hundreds of attack helicopters, a dozen Osa class missile patrol boats, at least 2,000 anti-aircraft vehicles and over 4,000 anti-aircraft shoulder-missiles, fifty rockets and tactical ballistic missiles  (Frog, Scud and OTR-21 Tochka classes), thousands of pieces of artillery and multiple rocket launchers, nearly five thousand T54/55, T62 and T72 class tanks of Russian production.

The risk of a new Iraqi disaster is obvious. And this time, it could happens on the outskirts of Jerusalem and in the face of Cyprus.

In Syria the problem triggering the conflict is given by the onset of the Sunni classes against the  Alawite minority who has always supported the Assad family. But … we know ‘how’ certain moralizing movements goes as prove in Egypt with the white coup of Morsi and Brothers Muslims and  the subseguent militar reaction.

Syria is bordered by Iraq, not yet at peace, by Lebanon, which shows a large presence of UNIFIL ‘interim’ armies, by Israel, which does not look kindly on “the crusaders in the Holy Land ‘, by Turkey, where Erdogan is pushing for a confessional state, by Jordan, where the impact of refugees and the Palestinian tensions are already alarming and where in the last months European Union has sent a team of the European Civil Protection Mechanism.

The war in Iraq against the dictator Saddam Hussein turned out to be a disaster for the Iraqi people, a good deal for the U.S. and British oil companies, a rich take over for a some of the many billionaires sheikhs that Saudi Arabia gives birth, an oxygen tank for Wall Street and the Western occupation during a decade.

Syria had in 2010 a GDP of about $ 60 billion, has an oil production of 522,700 b / d, compared with a consumption of 265,000 b / d, a good industrial presence. Economic development has been hindered by the  ‘non-aligned’ placement of Syria on the Iraqi question, which affects trade with Western countries. The increase of commodity prices in global markets have led to a sharp increase in the rate of inflation and unemployment.

After the disaster of Iraq, the endless war in Afghanistan, the chaos of Libya, the military dictatorship in Egypt, the paralysis of Lebanon and Jordan, the risk is of another mess realized by Britain and the United States, because they fail to understand (and correctly manage) those territories and cultures – as it is now evident – since the days of Lawrence of Arabia and the failed Anglo-Afghan Wars, after the heavy conseguences of disjointing Otoman Turkey, Italian Two Sicilies and Spanish Catalonia in the Mediterranean Sea.

A Mediterranean area on which darken dark clouds are coming, not only for the North African instability or for the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but also for the interference of Saudi Arabia and its ability to make pressure on Wall Street and London.
And, maybe, for the old habit of the United States Presidents to wage war somewhere else when things do not go well in homeland for the faction they belong.

Meanwhile, China People’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi reminds Barack Obama can not afford to wage war on the basis of false accusations, as it happened with G. W. Bush, stating that “all nations should handle the issue of chemical weapons with caution, to avoid interfering in the general effort to solve the Syrian issue through a political solution.”

originale postato su demata