[Jpost] B.O. regime targets those who oppose, expose failure of president's policies.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has been sitting in a US federal prison in Texas since his photographed midnight arrest by half a dozen deputy sheriffs at his home in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, for violating the terms of his parole. As many news hounds have noted, the parole violation in question would not generally lead to anything more than a court hearing.
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United States Office of the Independent Counsel was an independent prosecutor distinct from the Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice that provided reports to the Congress under 28 U.S.C. § 595. It operated from 1978 until it was terminated in 1999 and replaced by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel.
Now only Holder has the authority to investigate the Executive branch, including himself. The original Independent Council law was established to provide more control over the Executive in the wake of Nixon and Watergate.
[Jpost] It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel.
Word is that both Israel and Turkey are seriously entertaining the notion of constructing an undersea pipeline to deliver Israeli natural gas to Turkey and, perhaps, hence to Europe.
The Turks reportedly have expressed willingness to foot part of the estimated $2 billion bill. Such pipelines exist elsewhere in the world, most notably from Russia and from Norway.
It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel. Turkey, it appears, hankers after Israeli gas. The perceived Turkish softening was fueled by Israel's offshore gas discoveries, a fact which nevertheless did not impel Ankara to forgo humiliating Israel.
Turkey grows increasingly dependent on Russia for its gas supplies. This hardly instills joy in Turkish hearts, especially considering the fact that Moscow and Ankara are at direct loggerheads over Syria. Israel, having repeatedly proven itself both reliable and exceedingly pliable, is now regarded as a safer bet for Turkish gas supplies -- certainly safer than such alternatives to Russia as Iran. Moreover, Israeli gas could be had at a significantly lower cost.
But this is not all as rosy as meets the eye. Whereas Israel is incontrovertibly a dependable business partner, can we can count on Turkey? Still searing are memories of our own gas purchases from Egypt. The Moslem Brüderbund takeover in Cairo abruptly terminated this mutually beneficial deal. There is no guarantee that Turkey would not go the same route, particularly given its about-turn against Israel a few years ago and the festering danger that it too might be a candidate for an even more extreme Islamic transformation than the one it has already undergone.
In other words, the mooted arrangement hinges almost entirely on Turkish goodwill, and that goodwill can by no stretch of the imagination be taken for granted.
Then, as was the case with Egypt, there is the matter of the pipeline's security. Israel's gas purchases from Egypt were doomed when the Sinai pipeline was serially sabotaged. Can a pipeline that runs parallel to the Lebanese and Syrian coasts be assumed to be invulnerable? Last, but hardly least, is Cyprus. A deal with Turkey would undermine cooperation already fostered with the Cypriot Greeks, whose own gas discoveries are anathema to Ankara which occupies the northern parts of the island. Do we really want to ditch Cyprus in favor of an unpredictable and hardly friendly business partner? Pipelines can also be built in the Cypriot direction and another possibility is liquefying the gas and transporting it to Europe by tankers. It may be more expensive but this would be offset by the removal of pipeline security concerns. Also, Cyprus has allocated land for a liquefaction plant, which would relieve Israel of another safety headache.
There is of course a wholly different alternative -- avoiding exports to Europe altogether and with them the undesirable competition with the ruthless Russians.
Israel can earmark its exports for the Far East, where it can net far greater revenue. This would mean a pipeline to Eilat, a gas liquefaction plant in the South and shipping therefrom in tankers.
In short, Israel is not without export alternatives.
Attractive as reinforced ties and renewed cooperation with Turkey might be, we need to resist temptation.
Turkey's rulers are closely allied to the Moslem Brüderbund and that bodes ill for Israel.
If approved, the gas pipeline could prove one of Israel's biggest-ever strategic errors.
We cannot entrust this prized export -- one that could overhaul our financial viability -- to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's hands. The thought that he would be granted an extortionist stranglehold over our economic future should send shivers down all our spines.
To this must be added the question of our national honor. We might belittle its importance, but this is not how national honor is viewed in the Islamic world, of which Turkey is a part.
We would do much better either by avoiding Europe as an export destination or by teaming up with non-Moslem partners who are not hostile and who need our business.
[Jpost] From the early stages of the conflict Assad has relied on his praetorian units.
The overall geostrategic characteristic of the Syrian military picture is a robust armed struggle for supply routes, lines of communication, major highways and key choke points that is somewhat similar to the initial phase of the first Arab-Israeli War in 1947 -- a battle for the roads.
As a component of the Battle for Aleppo in the north; the M4 highway, which connects the Latakia coast to Aleppo, and the M5 highway, which is the main connection between Damascus and Aleppo, are the two most important supply lines, and the fight has been unfolding through key choke points.
Milestones related to the Battle for Aleppo (i.e. seizure of the Taftanaz Base, seizure of the 46th Regiment's base in Atareb, the Battle of Ma'arat al-Nu'man, the Battle of Saraqeb, the Wadi al-Deif Siege) took place in key positions that rest along the major highways or their surroundings that reinforcements and military assistance can pass through.
Above all, the political context of the Battle for Aleppo, and of the northern front in a greater sense, is about securing this commercial hub and its surrounding provinces in order to establish a viable opposition governance and geostrategic enclave. Thus, the struggle for control of the lines of communication which run along northern parts of the country is pivotal.
MORE SUPPLY lines controlled by the opposition would bring about more regime air dependence for supplies and reinforcements. In this context, additional MANPADS and other air-defense assets obtained by the opposition will restrict the Ba'athist regime's air missions, especially Assad's rotary-winged assets.
The city of Homs and the town of Qusayr are also important geostrategic variables, especially due to their locations as hubs between the capital and the Alawite-populated coastal areas, as well as being Assad's and his Iranian allies' gate to the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Moreover, in case Homs falls to the opposition, scenarios concerning possible emergence of a micro-Alawite state in a divided Syria might probably be altered.
Due to the pivotal role of Homs and its surrounding hub region, Assad has allocated a significant number of his troops to this area, including the active operational participation of units from the elite 4th Armored Division. This force concentration has left some large swaths open for the opposition takeover.
The situation in the south, particularly along the Jordanian border, more or less resembles the military trend in the north with respect to the major highways and supply lines. On the other hand, the main goal in the north is securing Aleppo as a liberated capital for the opposition rather than marching to Damascus; while in the south, it is essentially about isolating Assad in Damascus and opening a gateway to the capital.
Should the opposition continue to progress, the probable finale for the Syrian civil war would be a siege on Damascus.
ALONG WITH its geostrategic characteristics, the prolonged Syrian civil war possesses other significant characteristics: it began as a "low-intensity conflict," and gradually evolved into the most recent example of what is known as hybrid warfare. Briefly, this means warfare in which meaningful operational integrity between regular and irregular capabilities is maintained.
The overall picture has gradually become complicated by the involvement of air force, MANPADS, armored units and paramilitary forces acting in coordination with regular military units. Assad's forces have had to depart from their traditional, centralized, Soviet- type military doctrine and adopt more flexible tactics to counter both geostrategic and tactical diversification by the opposition elements.
From the early stages of the conflict Assad has relied on his praetorian units (the 4th Armored Division, Elite Republican Guards, and special forces), all of which were designed for the dual missions of conventional warfare and regime security.
This strategy has prevented mass unit defections, defection of an armored division as a whole, for instance, but has also limited the Ba'athist dictatorship's combat power by approximately one-third.
An additional factor is that Assad's over-reliance on "politico-religious" trusted units has brought about the dissolution of the Syrian "nation," to the extent that even should the opposition successfully topple Assad's tyranny, it is unclear whether the new regime would be able to reunite the country.
Along with some other factors, the hybrid character of the conflict has prolonged it -- this type of armed conflict is more a "war of attrition" than mechanized warfare-type "war of annihilation."
In keeping with this, to make predictions regarding the outcome, one's focus should be on the gamechanging stamina factor. In the context of modern warfare, one of the key components of "military stamina" is foreign arms supplies.
Videos have appeared online depicting opposition fighters carrying weapons that were never a part of the Syrian inventory. Among these are the RPG-22 and M79 Osa rocket launchers, M60 recoilless rifles, Milkor MGL/RBG- 6 grenade launchers and FN-6 MANPADs.
The regime, on the other hand, is fed materiel aid by Russia and Iran, and manpower with the influx of Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Quds forces. These forces continue to train the now more than 50,000-strong Shabiha militia.
The materiel and personnel are believed to enter the country via the Lebanese and Iraqi borders and through airlifts.
IN SUMMARY, in analyzing the possible trajectories the Syrian conflict may follow, four major factors should be tracked: 1) Drastic changes in the opposition's air defense & MANPADS capabilities; 2) Attrition of Assad's air assets and praetorian units, along with robustness and consistency of foreign assistance by the Ba'athist regime's allies and friends; 3) Shifts in the prospects of a no-fly zone in Syria; and 4) Developments concerning the WMD issues.
This op-ed was adapted from the Istanbul- based think tank EDAM's monograph: The Syrian Civil War, penned by Dr. Can Kasapoglu and Doruk Ergun, who are working for EDAM as research fellow and research assistant, respectively.
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I think 'mercenary' must be the 'ex'-Soviet term of art for an involved foreigner who isn't an independently wealthy gentleman-of-means like Che Guevara.
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.
