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Meet the 'Friends of Jihad'

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online
Wed, 05 Jun 2013 13:10 UTC
Rebel Forces
© SANAForces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad carry their national flag as they walk along a street in Qusair, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA.
Western politicos love to shed swamps of crocodile tears about "the Syrian people" and congratulate themselves within the "Friends of Syria" framework for defending them from "tyranny".

Well, the "Syrian people" have spoken. Roughly 70% support the government of Bashar al-Assad. Another 20% are neutral. And only 10% are aligned with the Western-supported "rebels", including those of the kidnapping, lung-eating, beheading jihadi kind.

The data was provided mostly by independent relief organizations working in Syria. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) received a detailed report in late May - but, predictably, was not too keen on releasing it.

As Asia Times Online has been stressing for months, the Sunni business classes in Damascus and Aleppo are either neutral or pro-Assad. And most Sunnis now regard the gangs of foreign mercenaries weaponized by Qatar and the House of Saud as way more repellent than Assad.

Meanwhile, in Britain - where David of Arabia Cameron remains gung ho on a no-fly zone to protect the "Syrian people" - only 24% of Britons are in favor of further weaponizing the "rebels" (although 58% support humanitarian aid).

And at a rally in Doha, perennial al-Jazeera star and Muslim Brotherhood icon Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi - now pontificating at Al-Azhar in Cairo - has called for a jihad of all Sunni Muslims against Damascus. As he also branded Hezbollah as "the party of Satan" and condemned Iran for "pushing forward arms and men to back the Syrian regime". He has in fact condoned a jihad of Muslims against Muslims, even though he insisted his call to fight Hezbollah is "not against all Shi'ites".
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Alarm Clock

Supreme Court ruling: police can take DNA without a warrant

Sarah Rae Fruchtnicht
Opposingviews.com
Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:33 UTC
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It is now legal for police to take a DNA sample from anyone they arrest, regardless of whether they have been convicted of a crime or gone to trial. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Monday to uphold the practice of DNA swabbing arrestees.

Investigators believe the practice, used in 26 states, will help them close unsolved cases.

Justice Samuel Alito called the case "the most important criminal procedure case that this court has heard in decades."

"DNA identification of arrestees is a reasonable search that can be considered part of a routine booking procedure," said Justice Anthony Kennedy. "Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is - like fingerprinting and photographing - a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment."
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Bad Guys

Wisconsin GOP wants to spy on bank accounts of the unemployed

Sarah Rae Fruchtnicht
Opposingviews.com
Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:15 UTC
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Republicans in Wisconsin are pushing legislation that would allow the government to view the bank accounts of anyone seeking unemployment and freeze those accounts if it believes the person has been overpaid on benefits.

"This is to protect the workers and lessen the burden on employers who are paying all the bills," said co-author of the bill, Rep. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown.

The bill was introduced in the assembly and senate on Friday. It is scheduled for committee hearings on Wednesday in both houses.
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Bad Guys

Court-martial for Pfc. Bradley Manning shrouded in secrecy, security


The Washington Post
Tue, 04 Jun 2013 22:33 UTC
Bradley Manning
© Associated Press
Fort Meade, Maryland - The court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the central figure in a massive leak of government documents, is focused on secrecy and government security. Yet his trial has become a secretive drama that allows the public little insight into what's going on in the military courtroom.

One of the pretrial hearings was closed to the public. Many court documents have been withheld or heavily redacted. Photographers were blocked from getting a good shot of the soldier and even some of Manning's supporters had to turn their T-shirts inside out.

Military law experts say some of it is common for a court-martial, while other restrictions appear tailored to the extraordinary nature of the case. Manning has garnered an outpouring of support from whistleblowers, activists and others around the world.

"I think the judge is very concerned about not turning this trial into a theater, into a spectacle," said David J.R. Frakt, a military law expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a former military prosecutor and defense lawyer. "I cannot remember a situation where there was such a high degree of civilian interest, people not affiliated with the military, having intense and passionate interest in the outcome of the case."

Manning is charged under federal espionage and computer fraud laws, but the most serious offense the military has accused him of is aiding the enemy, which carries a life sentence. His supporters call him a hero; opponents say he is a traitor for leaking the material the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The trial for the soldier from Crescent, Okla., began Monday under a barrage of heavy restrictions.
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Eye 1

Lawlessness, blackouts roil Egypt as U.S. warns against pyramids tourism


The Tower
Fri, 31 May 2013 16:23 UTC
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Lawlessness has become so endemic in Egypt that the U.S. Embassy this week warned Americans away from visiting the country's famed pyramids. A academic teaching at the American University in Cairo received an email from the embassy warning of "aggressiveness [that] in some cases is closer to criminal conduct... with angry groups of individuals surrounding and pounding on [vehicles]... and in some cases attempting to open the vehicle's doors." The warning lined up with the professor's observations:
So, it's not like I'm easily scared by anything that happens at the Pyramids, that repository for all of Egypt's most villainous swindlers (every nation has some). But in recent months it has become almost unbearable. It feels almost like an openly criminal environment now. The problem is not only "lack of visible security," but in some cases the security are either working with the vendors on their scams, or are sexually harassing female foreigners quite openly, even those who are obviously accompanied by their husbands. In short, if you visit Egypt in the near future, don't even think of going to the Pyramids unless you're on a large organized bus tour. Anything else is a big risk, for now.
The warning, emailed out over the embassy's mailing list, was published the same day as a report documenting hundreds of attacks on journalists in Egypt. Most of the attacks, according to human rights adovactes, are being conducted by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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Dollars

IRS fails to meet Senate Finance's deadline for documents on targeting

Bernie Becker
The Hill
Fri, 31 May 2013 16:20 UTC
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The IRS will not deliver documents requested by top Senate Finance Committee members on the agency's targeting of conservative groups by Friday, committee aides said.

Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the panel's ranking member, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), had asked the IRS for a wide range of information in a May 20 letter - 41 questions in all.

The senators' requests included details of any communication between the IRS and White House officials about the singling out of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status. In the letter, Baucus and Hatch asked for the agency to answer by Friday.
"It's disappointing that the IRS failed to produce any of the documents requested by the committee," the press offices for Baucus and Hatch said in a joint statement. "This is an agency that revolves around making the American taxpayer meet hard deadlines each and every year when they file their taxes, oftentimes penalizing those that are late."

"The IRS needs to do much better," the statement added.
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Sherlock

Former IRS chief's wife works for leftist-leaning Public Campaign group


Catholic Online
Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:16 UTC
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It was learned late last week that former IRS chief Doug Shulman's wife, Susan L. Anderson works with a leftist-leaning lobbying group, Public Campaign, where she is the senior program advisor.
For some, this comes as little surprise. The stated aim of Public Campaign is to target political groups like the conservative non-profits at issue in the IRS scandal. The Campaign says it "is laying the foundation for reform by working with a broad range of organizations, including local community groups, around the country that are fighting for change and national organizations whose members are not fairly represented under the current campaign finance system."

In light of the reported undue harassment of conservative and Tea Party groups, who were asked inappropriate questions when they applied for tax exemption status, a statement made from CEO of Public Campaign Nick Nyhart carries weight. "There are legitimate questions to be asked about political groups that are hiding behind a 501(c)4 status. It's unfortunate a few bad apples at the IRS will make it harder for those questions to be asked without claims of bias."
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Target

IRS may have targeted conservatives more broadly

David Lightman and Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy
Thu, 30 May 2013 16:11 UTC
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© Liz Martin/MCTSusan Martinek, right, and Mary Cherion pray as they walk the block around the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Planned Parenthood, on Wednesday, May 29, 2013. Martinek is the president and Cherion serves on the board of Coalition for Life of Iowa, which faced scrutiny from the IRS before being granted 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 2009.
A group of anti-abortion activists in Iowa had to promise the Internal Revenue Service it wouldn't picket in front of Planned Parenthood.

Catherine Engelbrecht's family and business in Texas were audited by the government after her voting-rights group sought tax-exempt status from the IRS.

Retired military veteran Mark Drabik of Nebraska became active in and donated to conservative causes, then found the IRS challenging his church donations.

While the developing scandal over the targeting of conservatives by the tax agency has largely focused to date on its scrutiny of groups with words such as "tea party" or "patriot" in their names, these examples suggest the government was looking at a broader array of conservative groups and perhaps individuals. Their collective experiences at a minimum could spread skepticism about the fairness of a powerful agency that should be above reproach and at worst could point to a secret political vendetta within the government against conservatives.

The emerging stories from real people raise questions about whether the IRS scrutiny extended beyond applicants for tax-exempt status and whether individuals who donated to these tax-exempt organizations or to conservative causes also were targeted.
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Star of David

U.S. builds $25 million military base for Israel's anti missile system

Richard Silverstein
richardsilverstein.com
Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:07 UTC
Israeli missile base
© JaneJane’s article reveals Sdot Micha as new Arrow 3 base
Last December, Walter Pincus reported in the Washington Post that the U.S. government was building a new base for the IDF. A highly-placed Israeli source informed me that the location of the secret base was Sdot Micha (also known as Tal Shahar), which already houses Israel's Jericho 3 nuclear missiles. It is located near Beit Shemesh, 15 miles from Jerusalem. The source also informed me that the new facility was to be hardened and underground to withstand a nuclear attack. This means that Israel expects the site to be attacked by Iranian missiles once that country has nuclear capability.

Now, the defense publication Jane's Defense Weekly says that the new base will house Israeli's most advanced anti-missile system, the Arrow 3, which has a 1,500 mile range. It is an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) which is designed to intercept any Iranian missiles that might attack Israel. The article notes there will be four new launchers each containing six "interceptors." Meaning Israel could launch up to 24 Arrow 3′s and use its Arrow 2 arsenal to hit any targets that were missed.
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Stop

Syrian "Opposition" Armed to block Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline construction

Dmitry Minin
Global Research
Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:02 UTC
gas pipeline
© n/a
What has one of the most democratic countries of the Middle East, Syria, done to tick off some of its neighbors in the West, the fierce fighters for democracy? The irrationality and unscrupulousness of the approaches Western countries have taken to the Syrian crisis, when the same people who in Europe are considered terrorists are declared «freedom fighters» when it comes to Syria, becomes clearer in light of the economic dimension of the Syrian tragedy. There is every reason to think that by helping destroy its own cultural and historical roots in Syria, Europe is first and foremost fighting for energy resources. And a special role is played by natural gas, which is emerging as the main fuel of the 21st century. The geopolitical problems connected with its production, transportation and use are perhaps more than any other topic on the radar of Western strategists.
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