REMEMBER ALL THOSE DEAD MARINES? Justice for Hezbollah | The Weekly Standard

The Obama administration is heralding a conference later this month in Geneva where representatives of Bashar al-Assad’s regime will ostensibly sit down with the Syrian rebel forces opposing them. The effect will be to prop up Assad. Sen. John McCain, on the other hand, is committed to the Syrian people. We commend him for the courage he showed last week when he became the most senior American official to visit Syria since the shooting started, entering from the Turkish border. Meeting with rebel leaders, McCain could hardly have been surprised to learn that the last thing they want is an intra-Syrian peace process with the ruling clique that slaughtered peaceful demonstrators for a year before the opposition finally picked up arms in its own defense. What the rebels want from the United States, Free Syrian Army general Salim Idriss told McCain, is what they’ve been requesting for a year—weapons and the grounding of Assad’s air force with a no-fly zone. Idriss added one new item to the wish list: Bomb Hezbollah.


Funeral for a Hezbollah fighter, killed in Syria/Landov

This request comes as the Lebanese militia has fully entered the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad—fighting not just to keep its ally in Damascus in power, but also to be of service to the Iranian regime, the patron of both Assad and Hezbollah, and to keep open the conduit that allows Iran to ship armaments through Syria to Hezbollah’s strongholds in Lebanon..........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Justice for Hezbollah | The Weekly Standard

PUTIN THE HYPOCRITE: Russian manufacturer to sell 10 or more MiGs to bloody Syrian regime | The Times of Israel

Amid reports of a delay in delivery of advanced S-300 air-defense missiles to Assad, new fighter jets deal could prove deadly to rebels.

MOSCOW — A Russian arms manufacturer says it is signing a contract to deliver at least 10 fighter jets to Syria.

Sergei Korotkov, general director of the MiG company that makes the jets, told Russian news agencies Friday that a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss terms and deadlines of a new contract supplying MiG-29 M/M2 fighters to Syria.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Russian manufacturer to sell 10 MiGs to Syria | The Times of Israel

McCain: Syrian rebels need heavy weapons | The Times of Israel

US Sen. John McCain visits troops at a Patriot missile site in southern Turkey, Monday, May 27, 2013 (photo credit: AP Photo/John McCain via Twitter)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Syrian rebels battling the forces of President Bashar Assad must receive ammunition and heavy weapons to counter the regime’s tanks and aircraft or it will be impossible for them to prevail, Sen. John McCain said days after he quietly slipped into Syria to meet with the opposition.

“They just can’t fight tanks with AK-47s,” McCain said Friday in a telephone interview, referring to assault rifles.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: McCain: Syrian rebels need heavy weapons | The Times of Israel

Nigeria arrests Lebanese suspected of Hezbollah ties - Israel News, Ynetnews

Nigerian secret service discovered Hezbollah cell in northern Nigeria, where Lebanese citizens had concealed weapons to be used for attacks against 'Israeli, Western targets' in Nigeria.
 

Weapon cache (Photo: AFP)

A raid on the residence of one of the Lebanese had uncovered 11 60 mm anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank landmines, two rounds of ammunition for a 122 mm artillery gun, 21 rocket-propelled grenades, seventeen AK-47s with more than 11,000 bullets and dynamite...............

FULL ARTICLE: Nigeria arrests Lebanese suspected of Hezbollah ties - Israel News, Ynetnews

LEADING FROM NOWHERE: Obama's tepid response to Syrian conflict highlighted | Washington Free Beacon

Smoke and fire rises after explosives were dropped by a Syrian government warplane in Yabroud near Damascus, Syria / AP

The Obama administration’s tepid and ambivalent response to the Syrian revolution was under the microscope at a panel discussion of a potential no fly zone in Syria at the United States Institute of Peace on Wednesday morning.

The Obama administration is making a false comparison between the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, said Ambassador Frederic Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, who formerly worked in the State Department on Syria. As a result of that false comparison, it is very hesitant to get involved in Syria.

“Let’s consider what’s going on right now. Let’s consider what’s staring us in the face,” Hof said. “A country being utterly laid waste by a family regime well known for its corruption, its incompetence, and its brutality, fully supported by Iran and Hezbollah, fully enabled by Russia.”.........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Obama's tepid response to Syrian conflict highlighted | Washington Free Beacon

SUPINE BEFORE IRAN: Old video comes back to haunt Hezbollah chief Nasrallah - YouTube

From Alarabiya.net:

The video being circulated online reportedly dates back to 1988 and shows a younger Nasrallah saying: “Our plan, to which we, as faithful believers, have no alternative, is to establish an Islamic state under the rule of Islam.”

“Lebanon should not be an Islamic republic on its own, but rather, part of the Greater Islamic Republic, governed by the Master of Time [the Mahdi], and his rightful deputy, the Jurisprudent Ruler, Imam Khomeini,” he said................FULL ARTICLE HERE

VIDEO LINK: Old video comes back to haunt Hezbollah chief Nasrallah - YouTube

Iran accused of Latin America terror plot - Americas - Al Jazeera English

Nisman accused Iran's former cultural attache in Buenos Aires for developing an intelligence network in the region [EPA]

 
An Argentine prosecutor has accused Iran of establishing terrorist networks in Latin America dating back to the 1980s.

State prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who is investigating the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, accused Iran on Wednesday of "infiltrating" South America and setting up intelligence networks to carry out terrorist attacks in the region.

Nisman accused Mohsen Rabbani, Iran's former cultural attache in Buenos Aires and a suspect in the bombing, of working continually over the last two decades to develop an intelligence network in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Nisman said the attack that destroyed the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association building was no isolated incident, but "part of a much larger plot, in which the role of Rabbani was not limited to Argentina but extended as far as Guyana, as well as being responsible for coordinating these activities across all of South America."

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Iran accused of Latin America terror plot - Americas - Al Jazeera English

LIGNET's Fleitz: US Must Stop Iran's Mushrooming Nuke Threat

Iran's nuclear program is growing at an alarming rate and the Obama Administration must stand up to it with tough sanctions, says Fred Fleitz, chief analyst at the global forecasting and intelligence website LIGNET.

"Iran now has about 9,000 kilograms of reactor-grade uranium . . . that if it went to weapons grade — which would take a few weeks to a few months — could produce seven to eight nuclear weapons," Fleitz told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV...............


FULL ARTICLE W/VIDEO: LIGNET's Fleitz: US Must Stop Iran's Mushrooming Nuke Threat

BBC News - Hezbollah fighters 'invading' Syria - rebel chief

 
Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria have been buried in Lebanon

Syrian rebels, the Free Syrian Army, has accused Hezbollah fighters of "invading" Syria in a BBC interview.

Gen Selim Idriss said that more than 7,000 fighters of the Lebanese Shia movement were taking part in attacks on the rebel-held town of Qusair.

Gen Idriss made an urgent appeal for more weapons "to defend our citizens".

The UN Human Rights Council condemned government attacks on Qusair, and the involvement of foreign fighters..........

FULL ARTICLE: BBC News - Hezbollah fighters 'invading' Syria - rebel chief

STATE OF DENIAL: Obama Surrenders the War on Terror | FrontPage Magazine

 

“Don’t be afraid to see what you see,” President Reagan counseled in his farewell address. We would do well to heed his advice as President Obama attempts to lead America backwards, to September 10. Make no mistake: That was the not-so-subtle message he sent last week during his speech at the National Defense University—a speech that was so full of inaccuracies that one is left to conclude the president is either living in an alternate universe or willfully disregarding the facts. Just consider some of the statements he made:

1. “There have been no large-scale attacks on the United States, and our homeland is more secure.”

In fact, Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and injured 32 others during his shooting rampage at Ft. Hood in November 2009—an attack authorized by al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen (AQAP). Since the U.S. Army—no doubt following orders far up the chain of command—refuses to classify the Ft. Hood shooting as a terrorist attack, the survivors’ injuries and acts of bravery cannot be categorized as “combat related.”

FULL ARTICLE: Obama Surrenders the War on Terror | FrontPage Magazine

FSA gives 24-hour ultimatium to Hezbollah fighters in Syria - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

FSA official, Brigadier General Salim Idris, says if Hezbollah doesn’t end its involvement in the Syrian conflict, the opposition army will retaliate. (Al Arabiya)

A Free Syrian Army (FSA) official warned the Lebanese Shiite group, Hezbollah, to end its involvement in the Syrian conflict and stop backing government troops in an interview with Al Arabiya aired Tuesday.

Brigadier General Salim Idris, the current chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Council of the FSA, said: “If the attacks of Hezbollah [on] Syrian territory do not stop within 24 hours, we will take all measures to hunt Hezbollah, even in hell.”

“I will no longer be bound by any commitments I made if a decision to stop the attacks... is not taken and implemented,” he added.

He said “everyone” should “excuse FSA” for retaliating as “we are being subjected to genocide conducted by Hezbollah.”.........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: FSA gives 24-hour ultimatium to Hezbollah fighters in Syria - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

Libya: Seize Chance to Protect Women’s Rights | Human Rights Watch

 Amal Mohamed B’ayou, an independent candidate in Benghazi, handed out election pamphlets in front of the courthouse on July 6, 2012. “For 42 years men have ruled Libya,” B’ayou said. “Now it’s time for the women to rule.” © 2012 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch New Report: 

• 
  A Revolution for All
  Women’s Rights in the New Libya
  May 27, 2013
   Get the report:
  

  Download the full report
  Go to report home »

• 
  LIBYA: Seize Chance to Protect Women's Rights

(Tripoli) – Libyan authorities should seize a historic opportunity to promote and protect women’s rights as the country transitions from four decades of dictatorship, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The parliament, government, and other bodies should ensure that women can participate actively and equally in the drafting of the new constitution and the reform of legislation that affect their lives, Human Rights Watch said.

“Libyan women are at a pivotal moment in their country’s history with the drafting of a new constitution and the start of legislative reform,” said Liesl Gerntholtz, women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “If Libya misses this opportunity to lay the legal foundation for women’s rights, it could lead to serious violations for years to come.”

The 40-page report, “A Revolution for All: Women’s Rights in the New Libya,” highlights key steps that Libya should take to meet its international obligations by firmly rejecting gender-based discrimination in both law and practice...........

LINK TO ALL: Libya: Seize Chance to Protect Women’s Rights | Human Rights Watch

Exclusive: John McCain Slips Across Border Into Syria, Meets With Rebels - The Daily Beast

Sen. John McCain Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the bloody civil war there began more than two years ago, The Daily Beast has learned.

McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy, made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to see the U.S. senator. Inside those meetings, rebel leaders called on the United States to step up its support to the Syrian armed opposition and provide them with heavy weapons, a no-fly zone, and airstrikes on the Syrian regime and the forces of Hezbollah, which is increasingly active in Syria............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Exclusive: John McCain Slips Across Border Into Syria, Meets With Rebels - The Daily Beast

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION: EU lifts arms embargo on Syrian rebels - Europe - Al Jazeera English

[Reuters]

A failure by European Union governments to agree on extending an arms embargo on Syria effectively ends the EU's ban on supplying arms to Syrian rebels, British Foreign Secretary William Hague has said.

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday to bridge their differences over the issue, with Britain and France pushing to allow European governments to deliver arms. Austria and several other EU members oppose such moves.

"We have brought to an end the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition," Hague said after the inconclusive talks, adding that Britain had no immediate plans to send arms to Syria.

"This was the outcome that the United Kingdom wanted. It was a difficult decision for some countries, but it was necessary and right to reinforce international efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria," Hague said in a statement................

FULL ARTICLE: EU lifts arms embargo on Syrian rebels - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Le Monde: Chemical warfare in Syria (in English)

Reporters for Le Monde spent two months clandestinely in the Damascus area alongside Syrian rebels.  They describe the extent of the Syrian tragedy, the intensity of the fighting, the humanitarian drama. On the scene during chemical weapons attacks, they bear witness to the use of toxic arms by the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Jobar, Syria, by our special correspondent, Jean-Philippe Rémy

A chemical attack on the Jobar front, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, doesn't look like anything much at first. It's not spectacular. Above all, it's not detectable. And that's the aim: by the time the rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army who have penetrated furthest into Damascus understand that they've been exposed to chemical products by government forces, it's too late. No matter which type of gas is used, it has already produced its effects, only a few hundred meters from residential areas of the Syrian capital.

FULL ARTICLE, TRANSLATED: 
Chemical warfare in Syria

Syria : "Le Monde" Witnesses Chemical Attacks W/TRANSLATED VIDEO

Guerre chimique à Damas by lemondefr

ARTICLE AND VIDEO LINK: Syrie : "Le Monde" témoin d'attaques toxiques

SMOKING GUN: Report: First-hand accounts claim Syria chemical weapons used - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have repeatedly used chemical weapons against rebel fighters in Damascus, according to first-hand accounts in France’s Le Monde newspaper.
 
The newspaper, in a report issued on its website on Monday, said one of its photographers had suffered blurred vision and respiratory difficulties for four days after an attack on April 13 on the Jobar front, just inside central Damascus.
 
Assad’s government and the rebels fighting to oust him have accused each other of using chemical weapons. U.N. investigators have been ready for weeks, but diplomatic wrangling and safety concerns have delayed their entry into Syria.
 
Undercover in and around the Damascus area for two months alongside Syrian rebels, a Le Monde reporter and photographers aid they had witnessed battlefield chemical attacks and had also talked to doctors and other witnesses of their aftermath.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Report: First-hand accounts claim Syria chemical weapons used - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

‘The Most Tone-Deaf President I Could Ever Imagine’: Lindsey Graham Skewers Obama’s Terrorism Speech | Video | TheBlaze.com

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham today declared President Obama the “most tone-deaf president I could ever imagine” when it comes to hearing loud and clear the threat of terrorism around the world.

Speaking to Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday, Graham insisted that Obama’s speech on terrorism last Thursday is further evidence that he’s hampered America’s national security and has provided radical Islam an open door to ramp up violence by declaring the end of the War on Terror.

“At a time we need resolve the most, we’re sounding retreat,” Graham said.

(Credit: YouTube)

Here’s more of what the South Carolina senator said:
LINK: ‘The Most Tone-Deaf President I Could Ever Imagine’: Lindsey Graham Skewers Obama’s Terrorism Speech | Video | TheBlaze.com

Gingrich: Obama Terror Speech 'Breathtakingly Naive'

President Barack Obama's counterterrorism speech last was "stunningly, breathtakingly naive," former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich says.

"He says at one point, wars have to end," Gingrich said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union. "Well, (Leon) Trotsky said, 'You may not care about war, but war cares about you.'"

FULL ARTICLE: Gingrich: Obama Terror Speech 'Breathtakingly Naive'

'5,000 Hezbollah troops in Syria, with 5,000 more set to join them' | The Times of Israel

Hezbollah fighters hold party flags during a parade in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (photo credit: AP/Hussein Malla/File)

DEAD SEA, Jordan — Lebanon’s Hezbollah has 5,000 troops fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria, and another 5,000 are getting ready to join them, a World Economic Forum gathering heard Sunday.

Salman Shaikh, director of the Doha Center of the Brookings Institution think tank, said there were also 1,500-2,000 fighters from Iraq in the battlegrounds of Syria. He said that not only was Syria “on the abyss,” but that after two years of civil war, there was growing danger that the fighting could draw in “the entire region.”

FULL ARTICLE HERE: '5,000 Hezbollah troops in Syria, with 5,000 more set to join them' | The Times of Israel

McCain: Without American action, Assad could remain in power | The Times of Israel

Arizona and New Jersey senators voice bipartisan support for military backing for Syrian rebels, skeptical of diplomacy’s efficacy

By Elhanan Miller May 25, 2013, 11:06 pm 

US Republican Senator John McCain speaking in Jerusalem in February 2012 (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

DEAD SEA, JORDAN — Syrian President Bashar Assad will likely remain in power unless decisive American action is taken to remove him, US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said Saturday.

Speaking to the press at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa at the Jordanian Dead Sea, the former presidential candidate voiced skepticism ahead of a planned international conference on the Syrian civil war next month, popularly referred to as Geneva 2..................

FULL ARTICLE: McCain: Without American action, Assad could remain in power | The Times of Israel

MUST-READ: Iranian_Strategy_in_Syria.pdf

Inter Press Service News Agency

Iranian President Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah appear together on a poster in Damascus, Syria.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has conducted an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as long as possible while setting conditions to retain its ability to use Syrian territory and assets to pursue its regional interests should Assad fall.

The Iranian security and intelligence services are advising and assisting the Syrian military in order to preserve Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power. These efforts have evolved into an expeditionary training mission using Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces, Quds Force, intelligence services, and law enforcement forces.  The deployment of IRGC Ground Forces to conflict abroad is a notable expansion of Iran’s willingness and ability to project military force beyond its borders.

Iran has been providing essential military supplies to Assad, primarily by air.  Opposition gains in Syria have interdicted many ground resupply routes between Baghdad and Damascus, and the relative paucity of Iranian port-visits in Syria suggests that Iran’s sea-lanes to Syria are more symbolic than practical. The air line of communication between Iran and Syria is thus a key vulnerability for Iranian strategy in Syria.  Iran would not be able to maintain its current level of support to Assad if this air route were interdicted through a no-fly zone or rebel capture of Syrian airfields...........

FULL 43-PAGE PDF LINK: Iranian_Strategy_in_Syria.pdf

DUH MOMENT AS NASRALLAH PROPAGANDIZES: Hezbollah admits its troops fighting in Syria | The Times of Israel

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. (photo credit: image capture from Channel 2/Al Manar)

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah admitted for the first time Saturday that his Shiite terrorist group had deployed fighters to Syria, saying his group would not stand idly by while its chief ally Syria is under attack.

In a televised speech commemorating Resistance and Liberation Day, which marks Israel’s 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah members are fighting in Syria against Islamic extremists who pose a danger to Lebanon.................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Hezbollah admits its troops fighting in Syria | The Times of Israel

'Syria attempted to sabotage Haifa's water supply' | The Times of Israel

Illustrative photo of Israeli rowers cruise past a sign warning of polluted water outside Haifa on May 18, 2013. (photo credit: Shay Levy/Flash 90)

Syrian hackers attempted to sabotage Haifa’s water supply two weeks ago in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes on Damascus earlier this month, a senior Israeli cyberdefense expert said Saturday.

Speaking at a series of lectures in Beersheba, Professor Yitzhak Ben Yisrael, a reservist brigadier general who heads the Science Ministry’s National Council for Research and Development and former MK, said the Syrian Electronic Army’s hackers launched an unsuccessful cyberattack on the northern city’s water infrastructure.........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: 'Syria attempted to sabotage Haifa's water supply' | The Times of Israel

The Brezhnev Doctrine, Iran-style | The Weekly Standard

Grasping the realities of the Middle East is never easy. This is not primarily because they change quickly, but because so much time, effort, and money is spent to prevent reality from breaking through. Fifteen Saudis kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11, so the Saudis spend even more millions to persuade Americans they are friends and allies. Egypt under Hosni Mubarak presents itself as the very model of stability. There is a vast industry presenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as requiring only some tough American pressure for Israeli concessions before peace breaks out​—​not only for the Palestinians but the entire Middle East, whose central problem this is alleged to be.

Funeral in Lebanon for a Hezbollah member killed while fighting in Syria

 

Our own government has a hard time too. It took George W. Bush enormous effort to break through the false descriptions of the war in Iraq his own generals were giving him, and to insist on the surge so that we did not lose the war. When in 2007 Israel proved to us that North Korea was building a nuclear reactor in Syria, unconnected to any electric grid and obviously part of a nuclear weapons program, the CIA would only say officially that it had “low confidence” of this, because it had not only missed the reactor but could not find the other parts of that program. How many secretaries of state have seen Syria’s Assad as a potential “reformer,” spoken of their admiration for Mubarak, or seen an Israeli-Palestinian peace only “inches” away?

FULL ARTICLE: The Brezhnev Doctrine, Iran-style | The Weekly Standard

IRS' Lois Lerner Replaced, Now on Leave

A day after she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, Lois Lerner was replaced Thursday as director of the Internal Revenue Service division that oversaw agents who targeted tea party groups.  

 Danny Werfel, the agency's new acting commissioner, told IRS employees in an email that he had selected a new acting head of the division, staying within the IRS to find new leadership.  

 Ken Corbin, a 27-year IRS veteran, will be the new acting director of the agency's exempt organizations division. Corbin currently is a deputy director in the wage and investment division, where he oversees 17,000 workers responsible for processing 172 million individual and business tax returns, Werfel said......

FULL ARTICLE HERE: IRS' Lois Lerner Replaced, Now on Leave

Muslim leaders pray at Auschwitz during a Holocaust awareness visit | The Raw Story

Muslim leaders from across the globe knelt in prayer for the Holocaust dead at the Auschwitz’s notorious Wall of Death on Wednesday, in an emotional visit to the Nazi German death camp in southern Poland.

Imams from Bosnia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States offered traditional Muslim “salat” prayers facing south towards their holy city of Mecca, shoes removed, during a Holocaust awareness visit to the site.

Thousands of Auschwitz prisoners perished at the wall, which is grey and still riddled with bullet holes. It is a stone’s throw from the infamous wrought iron “Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free) gate at the camp’s entrance......

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Muslim leaders pray at Auschwitz during a Holocaust awareness visit | The Raw Story

BBC News - Hezbollah 'perpetuating Assad's campaign of terror'

 

Hezbollah has denied sending any fighters into Syria

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said the militant Lebanese Shia Islamist group Hezbollah and Iran are helping perpetuate President Bashar al-Assad's "campaign of terror" in Syria.

Mr Kerry said thousands of Hezbollah fighters were contributing significantly to the violence.

He added that Iran was actively supporting Hezbollah's involvement.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: BBC News - Hezbollah 'perpetuating Assad's campaign of terror'

Paris supports labeling Hezbollah over Assad ties | The Times of Israel

Hezbollah fighters in their military uniform, foreground, carry the coffin of Hezbollah fighter Hassan Faisal Shuker, 18, who was killed in a battle against Syrian rebels in the Syrian town of Qusair on Monday May 20 (photo credit: AP)

France’s foreign minister said Wednesday that Paris will join a number of other European countries in calling for Hezbollah to be blacklisted by the EU as a terror group. 

Israel has long pressed France to make the move, though Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the designation was in response to the Lebanese group’s backing of the Syrian regime............

FULL ARTICLE: Paris supports labeling Hezbollah over Assad ties | The Times of Israel

White House Reporter Chuck Todd: Obama Wants to 'Criminalize Journalism'

 

NBC’s chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd said on Wednesday that the Obama Administration’s seizure of reporters’ emails and phone records is evidence that “they want to criminalize journalism.” 

Todd, who made his comments on MSNBC's Morning Joe, said that if President George Bush and Dick Cheney had engaged in spying on and seizing journalists’ private emails and phone records, “candidate Obama would be unloading.”

Todd said individuals he now talks to are “quite uncomfortable having conversations on the phone. Maybe that’s the intent.”...........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Chuck Todd: Obama Wants to 'Criminalize Journalism'

Friends of Syria demands withdrawal of Hezbollah, Iran fighters - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

Diplomats pose after their Friends of Syria alliance meeting in Amman, May 22, 2013. (Reuters)

Nations gathering at the Friends of Syria meeting called for an immediate withdrawal of fighters belonging to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iran from Syria, the bloc said in a statement after a conference in Amman.

The alliance described their armed presence in the country as a threat to regional stability, Reuters said.

The bloc also said any transitional government in Syria being proposed as a core of a U.S. and Russian peace initiative must have authority over the army and the executive, which are now in President Bashar Assad's hands.

The meeting of 11 Western and Arab nations, as well as Turkey, which constitute the core group of the alliance, also warned of “severe consequences” if use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces is confirmed........


FULL ARTICLE: Friends of Syria demands withdrawal of Hezbollah, Iran fighters - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

NY TIMES HAMMERS OBAMA ADMIN: Another Chilling Leak Investigation - NYTimes.com

With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible “co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.

FULL EDITORIAL HERE: Another Chilling Leak Investigation - NYTimes.com

THE ASSAULT ON THE PRESS DEEPENS: The Justice Department and Fox News's Phone Records : The New Yorker

The Obama Justice Department has seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News reporters, according to a document filed in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, on October 13, 2011. Kim is a former State Department contractor accused of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information to James Rosen, a Fox News reporter. Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is prosecuting the case, has seized records associated with two phone numbers at the White House, at least five numbers associated with Fox News, and one that has the same area code and exchange as Rosen’s personal-cell-phone number (the last four numbers are redacted).

In all, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has seized records associated with over thirty different phone numbers. In the filing that included the new information, the last four digits of each telephone line targeted by the Obama Administration are redacted. Two of the numbers begin with area code 202 and the exchange 456, which, according to current and former Administration officials, are used exclusively by the White House. (The phone number for the White House switchboard is (202) 456-1414.)

At least five other numbers targeted by the government include the area code 202 and the exchange 824. The phone number for the Fox News Washington bureau, which is publicly available, is (202) 824-0001. Rosen’s work phone number at Fox News begins with the same area code and exchange..........

FULL ARTICLE: The Justice Department and Fox News's Phone Records : The New Yorker

A Bit of Churchill? Hague's arms warning to Syria: Foreign Secretary says Britain will arm rebels unless Assad comes to negotiating table | Mail Online

Foreign Secretary William Hague told MPs said he wanted to increase support to 'moderates' fighting to bring down President Assad

 
William Hague issued an ultimatum to Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad yesterday, warning Britain will arm the rebels seeking to oust him unless he comes to the negotiating table.

The Foreign Secretary said there’s a ‘compelling case’ for changing the European Union arms embargo on Syria next week to allow weapons to go to moderate rebel groups.
He said ‘no option’ would be off limits if the Assad regime refuses to co-operate with plans for a peace conference in Geneva.

Mr Hague said no decision has been made yet. But he argued the West has a ‘moral’ duty to help those friendly to the outside world while Russia and Iran arm the regime and Arab states funnel weapons to Al Qaeda supporters.

Mr Hague said: ‘People who are maybe described as rebels but are actually men, women and children sitting in their communities suffering virtually every kind of weapon that man has ever created being dropped on them while the world denies them the means to defend themselves.’ 

Mr Hague will join the French in an attempt  to loosen the embargo at a meeting in Brussels next Monday, but if other EU countries don’t agree it will lapse at the end of the month.

He said changing the embargo is ‘essential’ to force the Syrian regime to negotiate.

‘The United Kingdom and France are strongly of the view that changes to the embargo are not separate from the diplomatic work but essential to it,’ Mr Hague said............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Hague's arms warning to Syria: Foreign Secretary says Britain will arm rebels unless Assad comes to negotiating table | Mail Online

Syria 'Enforced Disappearances': Government Holding Thousands In Secret, Say Rights Groups

Syria 'Enforced Disappearances': Government Holding Thousands In Secret, Say Rights Groups

Inspector General Report: DOJ Leaked Docs to Smear Fast & Furious Whistleblower

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published a new report Monday that confirms former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson.

The DOJ IG said it found “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.”

“We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a member,” the IG wrote.

FULL ARTICLE: Report: DOJ Leaked Docs to Smear Fast & Furious Whistleblower, Says IG

Nasrallah ‘killer of Syrian people’ as tensions in Lebanon rise - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

The FSA says Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is "a killer of the Syrian people." (File photo: AFP)

The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) held Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah personally responsible for the situation in the Syrian border town of Qusayr, as sectarian tension was on the rise in neighboring Lebanon.

“We announced that Hassan Nasrallah will be held personally responsible for the current situation because he in person is meeting with all of [his fighters] before they head to Qusayr,” FSA spokesperson Louay Almokdad told Al Arabiya English. “We are today calling Nasrallah a killer of the Syrian people.”.......

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Nasrallah ‘killer of Syrian people’ as tensions in Lebanon rise - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

DEBUNKING ANTI-ISRAELI SLANDER: Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid | Anonymous | Op Eds | San Francisco Examiner

By: Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe

On my recent trip to San Francisco, I was deeply disturbed to learn about the posters in The City accusing Israel of apartheid. As a black South African who lived under apartheid, this system was implemented in South Africa to subjugate people of color and deny them a variety of their rights. In my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.

Apartheid was a legal system of segregation and oppression based on skin color, with a very small white minority dominating over the vast majority of people of color...........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid | Anonymous | Op Eds | San Francisco Examiner

Responding to the Washington Post on Benghazi | The Weekly Standard

The Washington Post editorial board is quite upset with “Republicans and conservative media obsessed” with the “phony” issue of the administration’s misleading public explanation of the nature of the attacks in Benghazi. In a lengthy editorial, the Post makes a haughtier and more condescending version of a complaint we’ve heard from others. So it’s worth a response.

The piece begins with a complaint that critics charged that “Susan E. Rice ‘willfully or incompetently misled the American public’ when she appeared on news programs Sept. 16 and described the attackers as having emerged from a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Muslim video.” That argument is wrong, the Post avers, because “it was established that Ms. Rice was simply repeating talking points prepared by the intelligence community.”

That’s incorrect, and for an editorial devoted to much harrumphing that “actual facts don’t seem to matter much to the scandal mongers,” it’s an inauspicious start...............

FULL ARTICLE: Responding to the Washington Post on Benghazi | The Weekly Standard

Syria: Visit Reveals Torture Chambers - YouTube

Government security branches in Raqqa city hold documents and potential physical evidence indicating that detainees were arbitrarily detained and tortured there while the city was under government control. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the State Security and Military Intelligence facilities in Raqqa, now under the de facto control of local armed opposition groups, in late April 2013. https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/16/s...

Local opposition leaders with the support of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and neutral international experts should safeguard potential evidence of torture and arbitrary detention in security forces centers in opposition-controlled areas, Human Rights Watch said.

LINK: Syria: Visit Reveals Torture Chambers - YouTube

LOSING TO ASSAD AND COMPANY: Muddled Israeli-US policies on Assad set stage for Golan offensive against Israel

Four days after a “senior Israeli official” warned Assad through The New York Times of Wednesday, May 15 that he risks forfeiting power if he retaliates for Israeli attacks on weapons supplies to terrorists, “Israeli officials” were telling the London Times of Saturday, May 18 something quite different: “An intact, but weakened, Assad regime would be preferable,” they said. “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if… extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there.”

The night before this report, Fox News aired footage appearing to show Israeli commandos inside Syria racing back on foot to Israeli territory.

Without going into whether the two sets of “Israeli officials” were one and the same, their utterances are clearly making Israel’s policy-makers and defense leaders look muddled and uncertain – or, worse, unable to think clearly – about how to cope with the menace building up on the Syrian Golan. This could take the form of a Syrian war of attrition and/or a Hizballah offensive against Upper and Western Galilee...........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Muddled Israeli-US policies on Assad set stage for Golan offensive against Israel

Syrian rebels: Dozens hurt in chemical weapons attack in Damascus | The Times of Israel

A victim of an alleged chemical attack in Jobar, Syria, in April. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons-laced mortars in a Damascus neighborhood Saturday, injuring dozens, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed.

Dozens of people were being treated for respiratory difficulties following the attack, according to reports carried by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV channel.

The channel also reiterated reports by the BBC Thursday that chemical weapons were used in Saraqib in Idlib province on April 29. Two helicopters dropped devices on the town, which is located southwest of Aleppo, as it came under bombardment from regime forces, the report said..........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Syrian rebels: Dozens hurt in chemical weapons attack in Damascus | The Times of Israel

GREAT SONG HONORING OUR TROOPS: When Freedom Rings by Perry Nunley- YouTube

Perry Nunley hits a home-run with this  song!

LINK: When Freedom Rings - YouTube

Jason Stearns' Congo Siasa: What next in Kampala?

Friday, May 17, 2013

What next in Kampala?

News in the Congo has been surprisingly M23-deficient in the past few days. A group of Mai-Mai attacked Beni yesterday, killing several Congolese army officers (although their commander Hilaire has links well- to the M23); Kinshasa prepares for the visit of the United Nations Secretary-General and the head of the World Bank next week; and the country awaits a new head of the election commission (Appollinaire Malu Malu is the favorite, but his Catholic church seems opposed)...............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Congo Siasa: What next in Kampala?

'Afghanistan: Worth the Cost' - Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen - YouTube

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen delivered a speech at the joint meeting of the North Atlantic Council and NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Luxembourg

LINK: 'Afghanistan: Worth the Cost' - Speech by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen - YouTube

Krauthammer on White House Wordplay | National Review Online

 Note to the GOP re Benghazi: Stop calling it Watergate, Iran Contra, bigger than both, etc. First, it might well be, but we don’t know. History will judge. Second, overhyping will only diminish the importance of the scandal if it doesn’t meet presidency-breaking standards. Third, focusing on the political effects simply plays into the hands of Democrats desperately claiming that this is nothing but partisan politics. 

Let the facts speak for themselves. They are damning enough. Let Gregory Hicks, the honorable, apolitical second-in-command that night in Libya, movingly and grippingly demolish the president’s Benghazi mantra that “what I have always tried to do is just get all the facts” and “every piece of information that we got, as we got it, we laid it out for the American people.”...............

FULL ARTICLE:  White House Wordplay | National Review Online

BBC News - Syria crisis: Refugee total now more than 1.5m - UNHCR

Agencies say they do not have the resources to cope with the number of refugees 

The UN's refugee agency has said that more than 1.5 million people have fled the conflict in Syria.

Most have fled to Jordan and Lebanon, but not have all been registered yet, meaning the true total is likely to be far higher, according to the UNHCR.

The situation inside Syria has deteriorated dramatically over the past four months, according to the agency.

The UN estimates that 80,000 people have died in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It says some 4.25 million have been displaced within the country.........

FULL ARTICLE: BBC News - Syria crisis: Refugee total now more than 1.5m - UNHCR

Syria: Visit Reveals Torture Chambers | Human Rights Watch

(New York) – Government security branches in Raqqa city hold documents and potential physical evidence indicating that detainees were arbitrarily detained and tortured there while the city was under government control. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the State Security and Military Intelligence facilities in Raqqa, now under the de facto control of local armed opposition groups, in late April 2013.

Local opposition leaders with the support of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and neutral international experts should safeguard potential evidence of torture and arbitrary detention in security forces centers in opposition-controlled areas, Human Rights Watch said.

“The documents, prison cells, interrogation rooms, and torture devices we saw in the government’s security facilities are consistent with the torture former detainees have described to us since the beginning of the uprising in Syria,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Those in control of Raqqa need to safeguard the materials in these facilities so the truth can be told and those responsible held accountable.”

In the State Security facility, Human Rights Watch researchers observed on the ground floor and in the basement, rooms that appeared to be detention cells.Among the documents were what appeared to be lists of security force members who had worked there. Human Rights Watch researchers also saw a “bsat al-reeh” torture device in the facility, which former detainees have said has been used to immobilize and severely stretch or bend limbs...................

FULL ARTICLE: Syria: Visit Reveals Torture Chambers | Human Rights Watch

Unmoved by Israel, Russia will send top air-defense system to Assad | The Times of Israel

Undeterred by pleas and warnings from Israel, Russia made clear on Thursday that it will go ahead with its planned delivery of a highly sophisticated air-defense system to Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in an emergency face-to-face meeting on Tuesday that Moscow’s sale of the S-300 missile defense system to Assad could push the Middle East into war.........................

FULL ARTICLE HERE: PUTIN SHAFTS ISRAEL: Unmoved by Israel, Russia will send top air-defense system to Assad | The Times of Israel

BBC News - Syria conflict: BBC shown 'signs of chemical attack'

The BBC has been shown evidence apparently corroborating reports of a chemical attack in Syria last month.

A BBC correspondent who visited the northern town of Saraqeb was told by eyewitnesses that government helicopters had dropped at least two devices containing poisonous gas...........

FULL ARTICLE W/VIDEO: BBC News - Syria conflict: BBC shown 'signs of chemical attack'

Russia building up missile defenses while seeking to limit U.S. defenses | Washington Free Beacon

Russia is engaged in a major buildup of both nuclear and conventional missile defense systems at the same time Moscow is seeking legal limits on U.S. missile defenses, according to U.S. officials.

The Russian military is developing and deploying an array of new and modernized anti-missile interceptors that are part of a strategic doctrine that calls for defending against what Moscow believes to be an increasing threat posed by offensive ballistic missiles, said U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports.

New systems monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies under development or in the deployment phase include an advanced S-500 missile defense system currently being built in addition to the already available, and very capable, S-400 and S-300 defenses........

FULL ARTICLE: Russia building up missile defenses while seeking to limit U.S. defenses | Washington Free Beacon

Scottish Universities Hotbeds of Anti-Jewish Sentiment :: Gatestone Institute

The greatest problem to tackling anti-Jewish incitement is the denial that there is any such problem. The facts, as we have seen, tell a rather different story.

A charity ball organized by the University of St. Andrew's Jewish Society, guarded by plain-clothes police officers, was held in secret last week after threats were made against staff at the original venue. The increasing security and secrecy surrounding this annual student event is an illustration of the sentiments aimed at Jewish students in Scotland.

The ball was originally supposed to be held at the Golf Hotel in St. Andrews, a small University town on the east coast of Scotland. After a campaign organized by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a number of threats were directed at the hotel's staff, and a number of violent comments were posted on social media, with one protester writing: "Friday we send them into hell."...........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: ANTI-SEMITISM ALIVE AND WELL IN SCOTLAND: Scottish Universities Hotbeds of Anti-Jewish Sentiment :: Gatestone Institute

Famous Pentagon Papers Lawyer: Obama Crosses Line on First Amendment Rights

James Goodale, third from left, and other lawyers representing The New York Times, arrive at the Supreme Court in Washington in 1971 to argue against Justice Department suits to stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing uncensored articles on the secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam War.

James Goodale, the man who successfully fought President Richard Nixon's attempts to stop The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers, says President Barack Obama has been even more aggressive in trying to stop journalists from reporting leaks.
 
Goodale, also known as the "father of reporters' privilege" and author of a new book titled "Fighting for the Press," says Obama is censoring the media by using an illegitimate justification of national security concerns, according to The New York Observer.
 
He noted the Obama administration has indicted six leakers compared to Nixon's one, showing an aggressiveness borne out this week by reports of the FBI seizing the office and home phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors in an effort to stop a leak.
 
The Observer also reported that Goodale believes a grand jury has already secretly indicted Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks and publisher of the Afghan War Logs. Goodale is working to convince journalists that regardless of their opinions about Assange, his situation sets a dangerous precedent which he is committed to resisting...........


FULL ARTICLE HERE: Pentagon Papers Lawyer: Obama Crosses Line on First Amendment Rights

INTERNATIONAL - UN condemns Syrian government, backs role of opposition in transition talks

Bashar Ja'afari, Syria's Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks before a vote on Syria at the UN General Assembly on May 15. AFP photo 

The UN General Assembly on May 15 condemned the Syrian government's "escalation" of the country's war and backed the role of the opposition coalition in transition talks.

But Russia, Syria's key diplomatic ally, fiercely opposed the resolution and branded it a potential obstacle to plans to hold peace negotiations in Geneva next month.

Only 107 countries in the 193 member assembly backed the text, down from 133 when the last Syria vote was held in August.

The United States, Britain and France joined Arab countries in supporting the resolution, drawn up by Qatar and other Arab states, which expressed "outrage at the rapidly increasing death toll." The number of Syrians estimated to have did in the conflict is now estimated at more than 80,000 by Syrian activists...........

FULL ARTICLE HERE: INTERNATIONAL - UN condemns Syrian government, backs role of opposition in transition talks