Puppet Masters
As the US Congress inches closer to a decision on a military strike on Syria, citing allegations that Assad forces used chemical weapons against the civilian population, activists in Damascus are stepping up their protest against possible attacks.
Damascene activists protesting possible US strikes on Syria set up a camp at the foot of Qasioun Mountain just outside the capital on Tuesday.
Qasioun Mountain, a symbol of Damascus and Syria, is home to many security and military buildings and institutions and thus is expected to be one of the targets for the airstrikes. Protesters rallying beside the place called themselves a "human shield" and hold banners featuring slogans such as "No more American bombing democracy" and "Hands off Syria".
"We are here to express our loyalty to our country in the face of American threats. We don't want what they did in Iraq over chemical weapons claims to be done in our country," one of the rally participants told RT.
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A protester proudly shows a poster depicting U.S. President Barack Obama as a terrorist during a pro-Assad demonstration in Stockholm during Obama's visit to the Swedish capital.
A protester proudly shows a poster depicting U.S. President Barack Obama as a terrorist during a pro-Assad demonstration in Stockholm during Obama's visit to the Swedish capital.
Angry demonstrators took to the streets of Stockholm on Wednesday to express opposition to calls by the Obama administration for a military strike on Syria.
The protesters carried banners that read, "No to Big Brother Obama," "No to war on Syria," and "Hands off Snowden," in a reference to American whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked two top secret spying programs run by the US government.
"Send Obama away. We don't want Obama to come to Sweden because we see him as a war criminal," a protester said.
© AFP Photo / Aref Karimi
"The Afghan security forces are suffering more casualties, no question about it," Lieutenant General Mark Milley said via video link from Afghanistan, according to AFP.
NATO's US-led forces assist Afghan army and police personnel to improve strategic maneuvers and avoid high casualties, said Milley, who serves as deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan. He added that casualties will decline as more helicopters, artillery, and mortars are introduced.
Nevertheless, the 350,000-member Afghan security force is taking "somewhere in the range of 50 to 100" deaths per week, Milley said.
"And that's not at all insignificant. That is significant. And we're paying attention to that," he added.
The highest casualty rate for American troops in the war occurred in 2010, when 500 US soldiers died.
Comment: America's own counter-insurgency forces are knocking of the Afghan security forces, thereby justifying the US presence there and also to justify increase military spending. Same picture in Iraq, where "suicide bombings" kill hundreds of people every week. All with the aim of divide and conquer.
See: Suicide Bombings - A Favourite US Counter-Insurgency Tactic
© Reuters / Asmaa Waguih
Top US national security aides have advised President Obama to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and military aid to Egypt because of remaining uncertainty after the Egyptian military forced the nation's president out of power.
Egypt currently receives $1.5 billion in US aid annually - $1.3 billion of which is designated for the military. US officials told the Associated Press that keeping the aid package intact after Mohamed Morsi - Egypt's first democratically elected president - was ousted from power could benefit Washington's future influence in the Middle East.
The Obama administration has carefully avoided calling Morsi's July 3 removal from power a "coup" - a designation that would legally require the US to immediately halt aid payments. However, it was previously reported that lawmakers are working under the assumption that the Egyptian military did, in fact, forcibly assume control.
President Obama has been considering the most recent recommendation for at least a week, but he is expected to wait until Congress votes on whether to launch a military strike against Syria before making the announcement, the sources told AP.
Obama will decide how much, if any, aid will be suspended, although officials are reportedly calling for a substantial amount to be withheld. Those payments would presumably resume after a new government was democratically elected.
While this display of military might may not be part of an immediate attack plan on Syria, it is creating an atmosphere of fear and panic within Syria.
The US Navy has deployed the USS San Antonio, an amphibious transport ship to the Eastern Mediterranean. The San Antonio is joining five US destroyers which "are already in place for possible missile strikes on Syria, a defense official said Sunday."
The USS San Antonio, with several helicopters and hundreds of Marines on board, is "on station in the Eastern Mediterranean" but "has received no specific tasking," said the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'US Navy deploys five warships, one amphibious ship to Mediterranean for Syria'While the USS San Antonio has amphibious landing equipment, which can be used to land some six thousand sailors and marines, "no boots on the ground", however, remains the official motto.
© (Reuters / Ahmed Jadallah)
Fighters from Islamist Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra
Fighters from Islamist Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra
The attack began at dawn when a Jabhat al-Nusra fighter blew himself up at a government checkpoint near the entrance to Maaloula - a village of 2,000 residents - according to a Syrian official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from anti-regime activists.
Following the suicide bombing, al-Nusra rebels and government forces traded fire, with the rebels eventually seizing the checkpoint and taking over a hotel on a mountain overlooking the village, according the Observatory and a local nun.
Rebels also disabled two tanks and an armored personnel carrier and killed eight regime soldiers during the fighting.
From the mountaintop hotel, rebels fired shells into the village, forcing around 80 people to take refuge in a convent, the nun said.
A Syrian government official has confirmed the attack, AP reported.
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Manuel Valls, the French Interior Minister, said that President Obama's shift had "created a new situation". He added: "France cannot go it alone. We need a coalition."
By backtracking on his agreement with Paris on an immediate offensive, Mr Obama has severely embarrassed the Socialist President. Already weakened by the defection of Britain, France now finds itself as the lone important ally and hostage to the US political tide. Some of the Hollande team voiced frustration over what they said was a letdown by Mr Obama which played into the hands of critics who accuse the French President of becoming a "poodle" to the United States.
© Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images
President Hollande went out of his way to insist that Britain’s defection would not shake France’s intent to “punish” President Assad
President Hollande went out of his way to insist that Britain’s defection would not shake France’s intent to “punish” President Assad
The left-wing President went out of his way to insist that Britain's defection would not shake France's intent to "punish" President Assad. "It is ready," he said of the French military, adding that action could start before Wednesday. "The decision of the British Parliament changes nothing for our determination to act," the Élysée Palace said.
The President, who commands dozens of French cruise missiles around the eastern Mediterranean, said that France was among the few nations capable of "inflicting a sanction by the appropriate means". He said: "The chemical massacre of Damascus cannot remain unpunished."
His staff said that strikes would be ordered only if UN inspectors confirmed Mr Assad's use of chemical weapons.
Abby Martin dissects the establishment propaganda about Syria's chemical weapons and questions the interests driving the call for war.
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"Wiggle room? Plenty of that," said Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project and former long-time expert for the Congressional Research Service on separation of powers issues.
Writing the actual language to empower and constrain Mr. Obama is proving to be a difficult task, with the key authors being pulled in various directions.
Some of the drafters' colleagues want to give the president broad latitude for ongoing strikes that not only target Syrian President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons, but also aids the rebels seeking to overthrow him. Other lawmakers, though, want the most limited of action - a strike designed only to make sure the Assad regime can't deploy its chemical weapons again.
The resolution drafted by Sens. Robert Menendez and Bob Corker, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, grants Mr. Obama power "to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in a limited and tailored manner against legitimate military targets in Syria" - but only in relation to that nation's weapons of mass destruction.
Comment: Nobel peace price laureate Obama will make sure he doesn't do anything that will hinder the US war industry aka the industrial military complex.