[CanadaFreePress] It was last August when Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan visited Putin in Moscow in his capacity as the "Prince of the Mujahideen" in Syria, including those who hail from Chechnya, Dagestan ...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca... , and the Caucasus in Russia's backyard, according to FARS News Agency. You might recall Bandar bin Sultan as the infamous "Bandar Bush" in earlier times, but that's another column.
Last August, Bandar was in Moscow to specifically discuss the Syrian issue. At that time, Bandar tried to bribe Putin into changing his policy on Syria by promising him "a safe and secure winter Olympics in Sochi" if he would stop the material support of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... . He offered Russia other incentives in exchange for withdrawing his support for Assad, "including a major arms deal and a pledge not to challenge Russian gas sales if Moscow scales back support for the Syrian government," as noted by the FARS News Agency.
The future of Syria, in the eyes of Putin, is not negotiable. I have written many times that Syria is Putin's red line in the sand and that Syria, not Iran, will be the tripwire for World War III. Yet, the U.S., Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , Israel and others are hell-bent on toppling Assad by all available means, which leads back to the September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi.
The Saudis fund and support the various terrorist groups in Syria and elsewhere. Bandar is personally in charge of all matters related to Syria and the initiatives to oust Assad in favor of a Moslem Brüderbund leadership. He also openly states that he can control terrorist actions in Sochi, meaning that he can either give them an operational green or a red light. His reach is also said to include the Chechen terrorists, which should cause a number of pundits on both sides of the theoretical political divide to rethink what we were told about the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and the Saudi national, visited by Mrs. Obama, who quietly disappeared into the night. That, however, is reserved for another column.
From Benghazi to Sochi, perhaps via Boston, it's all about a larger global realignment of power where the Moslem Brüderbund is installed in countries across the Middle East to destabilize the region. Whether it's Sochi, Benghazi or even Boston, the lie is bigger, the stakes are higher, the agenda is much deeper than most can imagine. Terrorism is a nation-state proxy war by other means.
#2
Israel and others are hell-bent on toppling Assad
You know how the Juice are - all perfidious and stuff.
However, given that anyone replacing Pencilneck will be at least an order of magnitude worse, I can imagine the Israelis simply watching from the sidelines while both sides chew each other up.
If you'll excuse me now, I'm going off to fantasize how the Russians, having brought the hammer down on the Chechnya/Dagestan miscreants, turn their attentions to the Saudis.
[DAWN] FOR many political observers, the news of Maulana Samiul Haq ...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time... 's 'quitting' the grinding of the peace processor designed to bring religious turbans to the bargaining table with the state must have been greeted with mirth. After all, when did the maulana-led process ever begin? An ostensibly hurt Samiul Haq released a statement on Wednesday in which he blamed Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... 's "lack of seriousness" for the failure of his grand push for peace. However, women are made to be loved, not understood... Prime Minister House retorted with a sharply worded statement on Thursday that Mr Sharif had never actually tasked the maulana with "any specific mission". Who to believe? Our politicians have mastered the art of spin and are known to dismiss statements on record as 'siyasi bayan'. But most people familiar with the hurly-burly of Pak politics had regarded Samiul Haq's original claims of opening dialogue channels with the turbans with scepticism. After all, reports indicated the prime minister had never explicitly assigned the holy man the role of go-between and gave him the vaguest of go-aheads to attempt mediation. The maulana, never media shy, made it appear as if he had been officially anointed the state's peace emissary to the Taliban. Samiul Haq has backed out because, according to him, despite getting positive feelers from the Talibs all he got from PM House was silence. He added that the recent air strikes in North Wazoo also scuttled the 'grinding of the peace processor'. PM House disagreed, saying they had not heard anything from the maulana in weeks.
Even if Samiul Haq had not abandoned his peace mission, his efforts were hardly likely to have succeeded. It is debatable how much actual influence the 'Father of the Taliban' retains over his wayward progeny. After all, as any parent will tell you, disciplining kids is not easy. And if those kids grow up into turbans out to conquer the country, things really get difficult. These errant children of 'jihad' are hardly likely to listen to their elders.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] ... Another big challenge for those planning and executing the operational plans will be the media. The last full-fledged military operation in Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... as well as South Wazoo Agency was also carried out in the glare of the media but there was by and large a consensus about its need and legitimacy.
All journalists will need to be constantly briefed and specifically the prime time news show 'anchors' will need to be mollycoddled as they like, possibly by the military leadership to keep them onside. This is imperative because the blowback from any action could be serious and the whole thing could last months, even a couple of years.
Also, unlike the Swat and South Waziristan operations which followed a broad-based political consensus, in the run-up to the last elections, and the government formation since, a lot of politics has been played around the issue of how to deal with this threat and what is causing it.
When national leaders, even with utmost sincerity, express such diverse opinions on an existential threat to the country, public confusion is not surprising. Once any action starts, all the national leaders will have to be on the same page. Those who fall fighting the forces of darkness will have to be owned by one and all.
The government will also need to factor in the inherent conservatism of some of our media stars. On cannot but recall their performance before and after the Lal Masjid operation. Many of them demanded that the state act to enforce its writ. The operation over, a significant number changed their tune. I recall one 'star' with considerable following saying he could smell attar-like scent from the charred corpses of the bully boyz killed in Lal Masjid.
This isn't to sing the virtues of the operation, which could have been better executed, but just to point out the critical importance of the 'propaganda' war. The sort of speculation, wild stories that followed in the media were not only very destructive to the anti-terror effort but could actually have served as an impetus to terrorism.
For example, it took so many years and a judicial commission of inquiry to establish that 92 'civilians' (some, many of them armed?) and 11 armed forces personnel were killed in the operation. And not a single female student died. I recall a chance conversation with a manager, a local Rawalpindi man, working for a media organization who complained: "Musharraf is very cruel. He has mercilessly killed 1,000 children of the poor including a large number of girls studying there."
This view, as I realised to my horror on that trip, was widely held and the media did nothing to present all the facts to the public. Whether it was their conservative beliefs which pushed into the background the demands of their profession or simply that they tilted towards the one they perceived as the underdog, the result was the same.
It isn't apparent if the government and the army are aware and taking care of this element. But, anticipating a crackdown, the TTP appears mindful of it. The recent TTP-owned murders of technical media personnel and threats to the media are aimed at intimidating their way to sympathetic headlines and coverage once the conflict goes full steam.
Recent pronouncements by the krazed killers' ideological allies/sympathisers expressing opposition to any action demonstrate that there is a coordinated effort on the part of the right to mould favourable public opinion. The challenge for all those opposed to the TTP and its allies' toxic, hate-filled ideology would be to speak in unison and forget even legitimate grievances against each other for now. It's going to be a long haul. Everyone hoping for peace and sanity will have to keep their nerve.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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In Washington, journalism is founded on diversity. This is a good thing, the dangers of a homogeneous press corps being obvious. Thus in the newsroom of the Washington Post, for example, you find white reporters who all think the same things, black reporters who all think the same things as the white reporters, Jewish, Asian, gay, lesbian, Hispanic, and undecided reporters, who all think the same things. Diversity is their strength.
In fact all across America you see journalistic diversity. We have a wide diversity of newspapers, television stations, radio outlets, all owned by the same few corporations, which all have the same interests. Diversity is their strength too.
The principle characteristic of the media is that they don't cover much of anything. They do cover themselves (which doesn't contradict the foregoing statement). If some bubble-headed babble-blonde--I think there is one called Katie Couric--moves from one indistinguishable network to another, we hear about it for weeks. I once saw on television someone called Peers, or maybe Piers, Morgan, who displayed the incisive intelligence of a platypus. His ratings were said to be falling: maybe there is hope for the US public after all. Anyway, for some reason this was news, that and how Bill O'Reilly and several helmet-haired Republican women at Fox News are doing. The media are the story.
Reporters cover each other like Spandex pants, but--I'm serious, think about this-- they barely glance at most of the government. When did you last see coverage of HUD? The Bureau of Indian Affairs? The Department of Transportation? FAA? EPA? We get the occasional press release from these, but little else. No one knows what lurks in the bureaucratic shadows, but I promise it costs a lot.
Actually there is very little coverage of things that get a lot of coverage: the White House, DoD, and State. At the White House everything is tightly stage-managed, and a reporter who asks awkward questions never gets called on again.
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The actual president is incidental. In fact, he is actually viewed as an impediment by his handlers, who think that the less known about him, the better. Note that the first thing they do is hide his scholastic record and SATs.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Nawaz Sharif
Wazoo
