Syria condemns Turkey for requesting missile deployment by NATO. – AlJazeera
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A tense situation is unfolding between Turkey and Syria after the latter shot down a fighter jet belonging to the former. According to Turkish officials, one of their aircrafts was shot down while in international space. Authorities are now convening with NATO allies to decide what kind of measures should be taken in response. Syria claims that the jet crossed over to its airspace, which is a violation of its sovereignty.
Members of NATO will be gathering for a conference in Brussels to discuss the issue. No military action is expected at this point.
Jihad Makdissi, Syria’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, said that Syria was merely acting out of self-defense and dismissed claims that the aircraft was in international space. It was also reported in the Syrian media that the jet may have been on an espionage mission and flew over the area to spy on the country’s radar system located in Latakia.
Turkey has said that no actions will be taken until it has discussed the matter with NATO, but has warned that the incident will not go unpunished. The matter may escalate even further after a claim that a second plane was fired at while on the search for wreckage of the downed jet.
Taner Yildiz, Turkey’s Energy Minister, said that a possible response may be to cut off Syria’s electricity supplies, since Turkey currently supplies Syria with about 10 percent of its power.
Turkey has also leaked news that several high ranking military members from Syria have defected due to souring relations between the two nations. Syria, in the meantime, has vowed that it will not stand idly by if NATO responds in an aggressive nature.
From the start of the Syrian crisis, Turkey has taken a firm stance against Syria’s government and has provided a refuge for defectors. About 33,000 Syrians have crossed over to Turkey for shelter.
NATO is considering a no-fly zone in Syria after Bashar al-Assad, warned that any western intervention would cause an “earthquake” which would “burn the whole region…” reported the guardian.
Some Syrian anti-government groups have called on the west to defend them as fighting between security forces and armed protesters continues to escalate – however a war like the one that will end in Libya on Monday is doubtful.
The UN security council would have to approve any operation in Syria – a step which would be unlikely given Chinese and Russian opposition. “We would need a clear mandate from the international community, as well as support from the Arab League and Syria’s neighbours,” a NATO official said, adding that so far “no-one had asked” for NATO’s help.
NATO’s reluctance to get embroiled in Syria’s internal conflict came as Assad warned that outside intervention in his country’s affairs could lead to “another Afghanistan.”
On Sunday, a Syrian delegation met in Doha with an Arab League ministerial committee. On 16 October the league gave Damascus a 15-day deadline to put in place a ceasefire, that is over on Sunday. Since then 343 people have been killed, including 40 last Friday, one of the worst days of bloodshed since the uprising began.
Protests have intensified amidst events in the Arab world: the brutal death of Muammar Gaddafi, and Tunisia’s successful democratic elections last week. In a show of support for Assad’s regime on Sunday thousands of Syrians carrying the national flag rallied in Sweida, a city 70 miles south of Damascus.
The situation in Syria is at the top of the international agenda. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, said the latest civilian killings were alarming and called for Assad to carry out “far-reaching reforms, not repression and violence.”
Beyond the Pale
According to a survey taken last month by Ben Gurion University pollsters, 60 percent of Israelis say they would be in favor of seeing NATO troops deployed in both the West Bank and Gaza. According to the “Israeli Positions on the European Union” survey, 64 percent of Israeli Jews and 63 percent of Israeli Arabs citizens are in favor of seeing peacekeeping forces, (aside from the United Nations) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Back in 2009, 54 percent of Israeli Jews and Arabs supported the idea.
In the poll that was compiled by Sharon Pardo of the Department of Politics and Government, 68 percent of Israelis are in favor of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Roughly 81 percent of Israelis want the Jewish Country to join the European Union (EU). These figures are up from 69 percent in 2009, and 43 percent would like to see Israel have better relations with the EU, this is in comparison with 20 percent who would like to see the Jewish Country get along better with the United Nations and just seven percent with NATO.
Paro says:
“the message is quite clear, Israelis are not for isolationism, they want cooperation…Israelis are really into strengthening and deepening the cooperation between Israel and the EU…Israelis understand the importance of the EU for the future of Israel and they want to strengthen the relations.”
The poll surveyed 1,000 Israelis from all different walks of life in mid-June and had a 3.3 percent margin of error…
Iran to build nuclear war head?
On Monday, the head of the United Nations Nuclear Agency announced their plans to publish new information serving as supporting evidence that Iran could be working on a nuclear warhead.
The comments by International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Yukiya Amano were the first time he revealed plans to release some of the recent knowledge available to the IAEA that is causing concerns.
A Syrias Situation on the Jewish Country’s Border?
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has ordered his military chiefs to launch another operation on the Golan Heights.
DebkaFile reports:
Assad’s preparations entail three additional steps:
1. He has filled the vacant position of deputy chief of staff with Gen. Ali Ayub, commander of the 1st Formation made up of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th Divisions, deployed until now on the Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon borders with Israel. Its personnel have been left out of Assad’s military campaign against the opposition until now.
2. Those divisions, made up mainly or Sunni conscripts, have begun pulling back from their positions on the Syrian-Israeli border and are heading north. For the first time, therefore, Assad feels he can safely send Sunni troops into battle against protesters and is not afraid to leave his borders undefended against an Israeli attack.
3. The Syrian president holds Erdogan responsible for authorizing the Turkish army and his National Intelligence Organization-MIT to set up a state-of-the-art command center for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at Jabal al-Zawiya in the Syrian province of Idlib near the Turkey border. He believes it is working with a parallel command center on the Turkish side which directs the steps of Syrian protest tacticians against the Assad regime.
Will Iran be stumbling back on to world stage soon? According to a popular American news network, Israel has created a military cyber command to launch a computer war against Iran as the thought of a conventional attack on Tehran’s nuclear sites could end in failure.
The new cyber command will directly report to the Israeli Prime Minister who has placed the program at the heart of Israel’s defense capability.
The center already has conducted some 8200 “soft†espionage missions, including hacking into Iran’s version of Facebook as well as other social networking sites.
While the Stuxnet malware virus, which severely affected Iran’s nuclear program in 2009 by sabotaging the delicate centrifuges needed for enriching uranium, is widely held to have been developed by Israeli technicians in concert with American technicians, the true source of the malware offense is unknown. The Stuxnet virus did not only infect Iran. Actually, in Indonesia 18.22% of the virus was spread, in India 8.31%, 2.57% in Azerbaijan. In the United States 1.56%, Pakistan 1.28% and Iran 58.85%.
Last April, Iranian government offices came under attack from another malware virus to which Tehran officials gave the name Stars.
They said the damage had been contained but admitted it was the second mysterious virus found since the Stuxnet attack.
Last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Syria’s Assad that he faced a “sad fate” if he failed to introduce reforms.
Moscow’s envoy to Dmitry Rogozin accused the organization of planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the Assad regime “with the long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran.”
In an in Izvestia article on Friday, Aug. 5, Rogozin said:
“This statement means that the planning [of the military campaign] is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa.”
Rogozin says he thinks Syria and later Yemen will be NATO’s last steps on the way to launching an attack on Iran:
“The noose around Iran is tightening…Military planning against Iran is underway. And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region.”
The Russian envoy made a point of citing NATO and not mentioning the United States once during the interview.
According to DebkaFile: The Libyan campaign taught NATO that without US military strength, alliance members were incapable of defeating even a small army on the scale of Muammar Qaddafi’s six brigades, much less muster the ground, air and sea forces for striking Syria and Iran. The only power with the requisite military strength is the United States, which was therefore the unspoken address of Rogozin’s warning…Russian diplomats have repeatedly cautioned Tehran that it incurs the danger of American attack on its nuclear facilities. Now Syria has been included. Rogozin remarked that having “learned the Libyan lesson, Russia will continue to oppose a forcible resolution of the situation in Syria.”
The combined military spending of all NATO members comes to over 70% of the world’s defence spending. The United States on its own accounts for 43% of the total military spending of the world with France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy making up 15%.
Mr. Qadaffi the megalomaniacal trickster of old Libya is threatening Europe. European “homes, offices, families,†that is, unless old NATO ceases airstrikes on his regime – airstrikes that have also inadvertently claimed the lives of civilians of the rebellion.
His life sought by the International Criminal Court, Mr. Qadaffi, delivered the warning in an audio message played to thousands of supporters gathered in central Green Square of Tripoli.
Impressively, Señor Qadaffi can still pack the crowds into the square for a reassuring show of solidarity with the Machavellian tyrant.
The Libyan lord said:
“These people (the Libyans) are able to one day take this battle … to Europe, to target your homes, offices, families, which would become legitimate military targets, like you have targeted our homes…We can decide to treat you in a similar way…If we decide to, we are able to move to Europe like locusts, like bees. We advise you to retreat before you are dealt a disaster.”
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Qadaffi, his son Seif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi for crimes against humanity.
On Friday during his Green Square rant Qadaffi said Libyans who fled to neighboring Tunisia are “working as maids for the Tunisians…What brought you to this stage? The traitors…â€
He urged supporters to “march on the western mountains” clearing the region of weapons the French government delivered to the rebels there several days ago.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers filed a federal lawsuit against President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, requesting a court to bar the administration from using U.S. funds for military action in Libya.
The lead plaintiffs, Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, and Walter Jones, a Republican from North Carolina filed the lawsuit at U.S. District Court in Washington Wednesday afternoon, as the White House prepared to deliver an address to Congress.
Along with Kucinich and Jones, the plaintiffs are Democratic Representatives, Michael Capuano of Massachusetts and John Conyers of Michigan; and Republicans Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Dan Burton of Indiana, Howard Coble of North Carolina, John Duncan of Tennessee, Tim Johnson of Illinois, and Ron Paul of Texas.
Jones told National Journal:
“For too long, the Constitution has been put on the back shelf for so long when it comes to the issue of war…I’m sure the drafters of the Constitution would be with us. For too long the Congress has stood in the stands and not been on the field when it comes to the issue of the war.”
In the 36-page lawsuit, the lawmakers claim the president violated the law by going to war in Libya sans any declaration of war from Congress as required by the War Powers Resolution. They also contend the administration is violating the North Atlantic Treaty, which “allows only for military actions in defense of a member state†and requires that any U.S. involvement in a NATO action occur only in “accordance with [the] respective constitutional processes†of the United States.
This is something you don’t see everyday.
This is the testimony of Col. Richard Kemp. He disagrees with Goldstone Report that claims that IDF committed war crimes in Operation Cast Lead.
His resume includes (his words): former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, service in NATO and the United Nations, commander in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia, and participation in the Gulf War. He also spent time in Iraq since 2003, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
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