Facebook "Is Truly A Dream Come True For The CIA"

http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2012/01/social-networking-spies-cia-sifts-social-media-sites

http://theintelhub.com/2011/07/09/facebook-now-helping-governments-spy-on-and-arrest-peaceful-activists/


http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/12/22/wall-street-the-media-the-cia-and-facebook/

Facebook "Is Truly A Dream Come True For The CIA"....


http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/


CIA has made a deal with the MBs....just wait....you little skunk Bashar ASssad the assassin in Chief....

كل جنودهم وأمنهم وجميع فروع المخابرات التي لم تستنفر ولو لمرة واحدة منذ أكثر من 42 عاماً رغم احتلال إسرائيل لهضبة الجولان ورغم الإستفزازات الإسرائيلية المتواصلة وخرقها للهدنة بين البلدين مراراً وتكراراً فلم يحرك هذا النظام ساكناً ولم يستنفر أي من جنوده يوماً

Rami Makhlouf is just a front man for the Assad Trio, SyriaTel the mobile phone company is owned by Bashar the assassin, Maher the Butcher the brother and the Whore Bushra the sister....who is married to the assassin in Chief Asef Shawkat, an agent for CIA/MOSSAD and the infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant...., Rami Makhlouf, gets 5 % commission on running these operations and other companies.......including Syria's biggest pharmaceutical company in Aleppo... According to SyriaTel, last year it made a net profit of one billion USD.....into their pockets.....and mobile calls rates in Syria are among the highest in the world.... imagine the export of oil, which used to be big in Syria....but is declining does not go into the national budget, but directly controlled but Assad the Dictator himself...... just like the report with the new York times a few years ago, that reporter described Syria as a farm and is run by Assad and his inner circle, Assad Jr. did not like that question but this is after all the Assad farm....

Wall Street, the Media, the CIA and Facebook (Part 3)

Beware the fox in sheep clothing just as much as the dictator who suddenly puts on the mantle of reform and democracy...., like Syria's little dictator and chief assassin of the infamous White House Murder INC,....

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134666365/a-new-tool-for-u-s-intelligence-google

Someone should point to Bashar Assad that Mubarak agreed with the demonstrators and offered to meet their demands and so did Saleh of Yemen. One is out and the other is on his way. How can the same regime who was arguing a few days ago that they were immune from demonstrations and instability because they and the people are one suddenly decide that protestors are right and that there is no need for the emergency laws. Doesn’t anyone in the Syrian regime recognize the clear contradictions of pretending to be advocates for change and democracy? What a bunch of imbeciles. There is only one thing that dictators and oppressors can do and that is to admit their mistakes and leave instead of pretending to be part of the solution to a problem that they have created. Change is coming to Syria and the best that Bashar Assad can do is to move out of the way, before he ends up like Ceausescu....

As for Syria, can anyone tell us why the Syrian army will stand by the regime? Okay, I’ll do it.... Syria is run by the Alawite minority Dictatorship of the Assad Mafia in Damascus who simply aren’t real Muslims but pretend to be Shia when that suits them..., but at heart they are Crypto-Zionists wall to wall for decades..... The Alawites know that a revolution would almost certainly produce an Islamist takeover and certainly a Sunni Muslim one. And such a regime would line a lot of the Alawites up against a wall and…bang, bang, bang.

That’s a good incentive for shooting down unarmed demonstrators.... Kill or be killed...

http://video.pbs.org/video/1858079994

إن قوات الأمن في النظام السوري

"أطلقت النار عشوائيا على المصابين

"الإخوان المسلمون" علاقتهم المعروفة اليوم بالبريطانيين والاميركيين..... ؟

.....لقد سقطت وسطية القرضاوي كما سقطت سلفية بن لادن، كلاكما وجهان لعملة واحدة، يتداولها الغرب

"حرية.. حرية" و"يا بثينة يا شعبان شعب درعا مش جوعان"

LOL...

http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=a04531c2c24a79addd3abbe4f6d2555f&eu=lTgjmUaNtaMKP9_DgHHb-w#!/Syrian.Revolution

شاهد صور مقاتلي جند الشام بعد الهجوم على مقربة من الحدود الاسرائيلية السورية

ما سيحصل عليه المنتفضون هو دويلة سنية في دمشق وحمص يتنازعها عبد الحليم خدام مع الاخوان المسلمين ودولة أخرى في حلب يتنازعها السلفيون مع الاكراد... اهالي حلب ودمشق اللتان ستغرقان بالدماء التي ستجري بين طالبان معتدلين وطالبان متزمتين


Qui est derrière FACEBOOK ?


Petit tour d'horizon sur l'environnement (investisseurs etc) :



James W Breyer. associé aussi au fond de capital Accel Partners, membre
des directions des géants comme Wal-Mart et Marvel Entertainment et en
plus ex-président de National Venture Capital Association (NVCA),
caractérisée dans l’investissement sur des jeunes talents.


Le Directeur Général de Accel est James W Breyer.

James Breyer siégeait au conseil de "National Ventures Capital
Association", thinktank situé à Washington et son associé était
Gilman Louie.

Gilman Louie est le fondateur et Directeur Général de....In-Q-TEL, la
vitrine technologique de la CIA

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

Retour sur James Breyer.

Il a également été membre du conseil d'administration de Bolt, Beranak
et des technologies de Newman (BBN)

BBN est un entrepreneur de la défense, qui porte principalement sur le
développement de haute technologie.
BBN Technologies est le créateur de l'ARPANET, le premier réseau
internet géré par la DARPA.

En 2004 (la même année que la fondation de Facebook) Gilman Louie, le
PDG de In-Q-TEL, est passé chez BBN Technologies avec le "Doctor" Anita
Jones

Dr Anita Jones était une ancienne du conseil d'administration de
In-Q-TEL, et a été l'ancien directeur du labo de recherches à la
"Defense Research and Engineering" et "United States Department of Defense".

Sa position l'a placée en tant que conseiller du secrétaire à la
Défense, ainsi que superviseur à la Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, ou DARPA

En tant que superviseur de la DARPA, elle a participé au système de
collecte d'informations à risques, lorsque la DARPA a lancé en
association avec le département américain de la Défense
"L'Information Awareness Office' en Janvier 2002.(IAO)


L'IAO, était une combinaison de différents programmes de recherche de la
DARPA, tous basés sur la collecte d'informations,qui ont été tous combinés.
La mission de l'IAO était d'imaginer, développer, appliquer, intégrer,
de démontrer que les technologies de l'information pouvaient servir
contre "les menaces asymétriques"

Un des nombreux projets IAO était ce qu'on appelle le "Scalable Social
Network Analysis projet. "

Il s'agit d'un projet impliquant le développement de techniques basées
sur l'analyse des réseaux sociaux pour "les principales caractéristiques
des groupes terroristes" et de discriminer ces groupes à partir d'autres
types de groupes de la société.
Le but de ce programme est également de constituer une base de données
géante alimentée par l’ensemble des bases informatiques afin d’exercer
un parfait contrôle de l’information.

Suite à la pression de l’opinion publique, ce programme a cessé
officiellement ses activités en 2003.
Cependant, pour beaucoup, l’IAO continue ses activités de manière moins
officielle en se greffant sur des systèmes existants tel Facebook.

Dans les CGU de Facebook, on s’aperçoit que le réseau social se réserve
le droit de communiquer nos données à des tiers "may share your
information with third parties, including responsible companies with
which we have a relationship". De plus, Facebook indique clairement la
possibilité de transférer les données à des agences gouvernementales :
"this may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers,
agents or government agencies".

Enfin, en utilisant Facebook, vous consentez à transférer vos données
personnelles aux Etats-Unis : "By using Facebook, you are consenting to
have your personal data transferred to, and processed in, the United
States."

Le plus récent tour de financement de Facebook fut conduite par une
compagnie financière appelée Greylock Venture Capital, qui a mis 27,5
millions de dollars ” a écrit Hodgkinson. “ Un des plus grands associés
de Greylock s’appelle Howard Cox, qui est un autre ex-président de NVCA
qui est aussi dans le conseil de direction de In-Q-Tel ”.

Peter Thiel, l’ex-CEO de Paypal investit 500 000 dollars dans la société.
Peter Thiel a des liens importants avec le think tank néoconservateur
Vanguard PAC. Peter Thiel a travaillé aux côtés de Rod Martin, président
de ce think tank et proche de l’administration Bush.
Rod Martin préside, entre autres, le puissant lobby des armes : la
National Rifle Association.



Le journaliste espagnol Pascual Serrano a décrit comment il fut utilisé
par le gouvernement de Colombie pour coordonner la journée mondiale
contre les FARC qui en 2008 marqua le commencement de l’offensive
propagandiste contre la guérilla et qui continue encore. Et il est très
évident que Facebook a été instrumentalisé par la CIA. Pour Walter
Goobar, de MiradasAlSur.com, “ c’est en réalité une expérience de
manipulation globale : [...] c’est un outil sophistiqué financé par
l’Agence Centrale d’Intelligence, CIA, qui non seulement l’utilise pour
le recrutement d’agents et la compilation d’informations de long en
large de la planète, mais aussi pour monter des opérations sous couvert ”.

Le système Beacon de Facebook fait des suivis des utilisateurs et
associés, incluant ceux qui ne se sont jamais inscrits ou ceux qui ont
désactivés leur enregistrement. Facebook s’avère être plus pratique et
rapide que les InfraGard, qui sont 23.000 micro communautés ou “
cellules ” de petits commerçants-informateurs organisées par le FBI afin
de connaître les profils psycho-politiques de sa clientèle.


Source : les travaux d'enquete du journaliste
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tomhodgkinson

Le journaliste britannique Tom Hodgkinson a lancé un très fondé signal
d’alerte sur la propriété CIA de Facebook, dans l’article documenté “
With friends like these… ” publié dans le journal londonien The Guardian
le 14 janvier 2008.....

Bashar Assad, the assassin in Chief....it is coming.

............................................لا خوف على الأمة بسقوط فاشي كبشار في آيار

آل اسد المسلح بسلاح الجيش السوري تتمرجل على شعب أعزل

كل جنودهم وأمنهم وجميع فروع المخابرات التي لم تستنفر ولو لمرة واحدة منذ أكثر من 42 عاماً رغم احتلال إسرائيل لهضبة الجولان ورغم الإستفزازات الإسرائيلية المتواصلة وخرقها للهدنة بين البلدين مراراً وتكراراً فلم يحرك هذا النظام ساكناً ولم يستنفر أي من جنوده يوماً

Bashar Assad, the assassin in Chief of the odious White House Murder INC, in the Levant....since January 24th 2002.........it is coming fast....

Rami Makhlouf is just a front man for the Assad Trio, SyriaTel the mobile phone company is owned by Bashar the assassin, Maher the Butcher the brother and the Whore Bushra the sister....who is married to the assassin in Chief Asef Shawkat, an agent for CIA/MOSSAD and the infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant...., Rami Makhlouf, gets 5 % commission on running these operations and other companies.......including Syria's biggest pharmaceutical company in Aleppo... According to SyriaTel, last year it made a net profit of one billion USD.....into their pockets.....and mobile calls rates in Syria are among the highest in the world.... imagine the export of oil, which used to be big in Syria....but is declining does not go into the national budget, but directly controlled but Assad the Dictator himself...... just like the report with the new York times a few years ago, that reporter described Syria as a farm and is run by Assad and his inner circle, Assad Jr. did not like that question but this is after all the Assad farm....

Daraa is a dusty small town in the Southeastern corner of Syria. Until very recently, its only claim to fame was it being mentioned in the diaries of the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. In the last few days the derelict town has become the center of the anti-Assad demonstrations in Syria. Some people, the exact number of which is not known, were killed; many others were jailed. The rioters destroyed the statue of former President Hafiz Assad and the office of Syria's cell phone company, owned by Rami Makhlouf, Bashar Assad's maternal cousin. The regime counter-attack is led by elements of the Presidential Guard, commanded by Maher Assad, the younger brother of Bashar.

While all this happening, the town and the region of the Houran, of which it is the capital, suffer from a severe shortage of water. Little wonder, that the poverty-stricken Houranis finally raised the banner of rebellion, reacting to a situation which is common throughout Syria, and not only in their own region.

Let's start with water. Syria is on the verge of a catastrophic water crisis, caused by years of drought and total neglect by the government of the water sources. Over a million starving and thirsty peasants, mainly Kurds from the North-east of Syria, but also Sunnis from the Houran and Druze from the neighboring Jabal region were forced to abandon their traditional way of life and migrated to the metropolitan areas, particularly the Capital, Damascus. This is a time-bomb that is waiting to explode, and the Houran riots are just the beginning. The traditionally belligerent Kurdish population of the Jazeera region are next in line, and possibly also the urban Kurdish population of Damascus, Aleppo and Hamah.

For years the Syrian regime was warned that the water problem is potentially explosive, but the pride and ineptitude of the government prevented any serious effort to deal with the situation. Overall the Syrian economy has taken a free fall for many years, the inevitable result of failed Socialist policies, as well as rampant corruption. Corruption in Syria is endemic and closely-related to the ruling Assad clan, as well as to a group of other families which have played a leading role in the regimes of both Assad presidents. The Tlas family is a case in mind. Mustafa Tlas was the Minister of Defense for almost 40 years. His family is rumored to accumulate many millions of dollars in a country as poor as Syria. On top of all, the Assad family controls enormous amount of wealth, and Rami Makhlouf mentioned above, is the businessman-in-chief of the family, much the same as Gamal Mubarak was under his disgraced father.

The Assad clan has been plagued for many years by internal dissent, the details of which could provide for more than one soap opera, that will overshadow a series like Dynasty and Dallas. Bashar's uncle, Rifa't Assad was the executioner-in-chief of the regime, until he fell out with Hafiz and was exiled. His lifestyle in Europe proves that he was never too far from the state coffers. Maher Assad, a cowardly murderer and an assassin who is entrusted with the task of putting down the current rebellion, is reputed to have a short fuse. In one famous incident, he shot and injured his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat who is married to his sister bitch Bushra, and himself one of the regime's assassins....and the CEO of the odious White House Murder INC, in the Levant....since January 24th 2002.....

Still, in an emergency, the clan closes ranks and acts together to defend the power and the wealth. It is a typical reaction of regimes like that. The Kaddafi clan in Libya and the Saddam Hussein in Iraq, are other notable examples. The history of the Assad Presidents clearly indicates that the Libyan carnage will be dwarfed by what will unfold in Syria , when the regime will be pushed with its back to the wall.

That is going to happen rather sooner than later, as the combination of economic deprivation, the ever-existing confessional hatreds and the resentment to the Assad clan will push many more desperate Syrians to the streets and with it to the inevitable blood-letting. According to reliable sources, the military already used choppers against the protesters In Daraa.

And the longer Gaddafi clings to power there, the more committed the regime here becomes to following the Libyan model, sources in Damascus said.

“The problem is that the regime has been committing crimes for decades, so they can’t reform and open up — it is impossible,” said the student, referring to the combined five decades of rule by father and son Hafez and Bashar al-Assad. “If they do, then everyone will see their crimes — the disappearances, the theft, all of it. So they’ll fight to the end.”

He added: “Bashar is much worse than Gaddafi — and crazier. Don’t be fooled by the doctor thing (the president is a former eye doctor). He’s willing to do anything.”

So, what about a no-fly zone in Syria?

I, for one, do not hold my breath. Syria, as we know, is just a marginal oil producer....and a founding partner of the infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant dating back to the 1970s.....

Beware the fox in sheep clothing just as much as the dictator who suddenly puts on the mantle of reform and democracy...., like Syria's little dictator and chief assassin of the infamous White House Murder INC,....

Someone should point to Bashar Assad that Mubarak agreed with the demonstrators and offered to meet their demands and so did Saleh of Yemen. One is out and the other is on his way. How can the same regime who was arguing a few days ago that they were immune from demonstrations and instability because they and the people are one suddenly decide that protestors are right and that there is no need for the emergency laws. Doesn’t anyone in the Syrian regime recognize the clear contradictions of pretending to be advocates for change and democracy? What a bunch of imbeciles. There is only one thing that dictators and oppressors can do and that is to admit their mistakes and leave instead of pretending to be part of the solution to a problem that they have created. Change is coming to Syria and the best that Bashar Assad can do is to move out of the way, before he ends up like Ceausescu.....

Why hasn’t Bashar Assad, the pussycat, given a speech yet?

** It’s been a week, baby! **

Because he is a pussycat, a figure head, a fig leaf and a puppet. His only claim to fame are the barbaric assassinations between January 24th 2002 and Feb. 12th 2008, through the odious White House Murder INC,… together with Asef Shawkat’s goons.
Hence, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Arlen Specter, Netanyahou, Sarkozy and the stupid Europeans will offer an umbrella of protection to this criminal gang in Damascus. Pathetic hypocrites rule the day, and CIA/MOSSAD/MI6/DGSE/BND/GIDs are their favorite tools of oppression, and extra-judicial cowardly assassinations in the Levant and the World over....

Look at this GEM from Israeli media today….

Washington, Israel, Turkey and Iran all have great reasons to want Bashar Assad to remain at the helm – he’s seen as a safety valve…. and a prime mover and shaker in the Infamous White House Murder Machinations INC,…in the Levant since 2000.

That says it all…Birds of the same feather flock together…Pathetic hypocrites despite ALL the daily rhetoric about Freedom and Democracy and other crap....

More from the Israeli Media today:

Washington is, therefore, willing to agree to Bashar Assad’s continued rule in exchange for some compromises with the protesters, or even their suppression with a “reasonable” amount of force….That is the GEM and the Consensus of the Israeli Media today….Pathetic indeed.

Assad’s most trusted allies are in Israel…. Time and again it’s been proven whenever the Assad regime is in trouble the Israeli government rushes to its rescue… A regime with history of supporting CIA/MOSSAD renditions and the infamous White House Murder INC, in the Levant….inside and outside Syria and frustrating the efforts of a credible peace in the region should not be considered a potential partner for peace… For Israelis who enjoy the fruits of democracy yet continue to defy logic by counting on ruthless dictators rather than the side of rising democracies for true partners of peace is a pitiful situation indeed…. Israel helped Iran during the Iran-Iraq war by selling arms to Iran when everyone was helping Iraq… Destroying Iraq’s nuclear reactor ensured that Iraq could not use nukes against Iran… Israel also helped Hamas develop as a counter to Fatah and the PA…
Divide and Conquer is still the strategy…and the outcome will be hundreds of Tribes with Flags from MENA To Africa to China…. Is this the strategy to stop the (Oumma) Nation preached by many Muslim scholars…with the new Egypt from Morocco to China a new alliance is needed between Hezbollah , IRAN, Israel, Assad and Washington … They might agree with the Kissinger strategy but a sure war is likely to be the outcome between Sunni and Shia…

Syria is the kind of place that makes Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt look like a benevolent dictatorship… Nothing speaks of this as much as the story of Tal Al Malouhi, then a 17-year-old girl arrested in December 2009 in relation to prose and poetry about local affairs. After 14 months (during which she wasn’t allowed to take her high school graduation tests) of persistent demands from family and human rights groups for her release, Tal was put on private trial in the Higher State Security Court where she was convicted of espionage and leaking state sensitive information and sentenced to five years… Such is the ruthlessness and paranoia of the Syrian criminal system. Many believe that in addition to the regional unrest and Syria’s deteriorating economic conditions, it was Tal’s sentencing, which took place in mid- February that ignited protests there….

Knowledgeable people in Syria say the regime is now divided between the coward Bashar Assad , who would prefer to conciliate and co-opt, and his brother Maher al-Assad, commander of the Republican Guard, and brother-in-law Asef Shawkat, head of military intelligence, who want to keep firing….killing, maiming, assassinating people, exactly as they did through the prism of the Infamous White House Murder INC, since 2002. They are doing both: releasing political prisoners and promising an end to the emergency law under which the Ba’ath party has ruled Syria since 1963; and shooting demonstrators….
Hence, a Palace Coup D’état in Damascus is not to be excluded….

After Republican Guards entered Deraa last week, demonstrators taunted Maher al-Assad, their commander: “Maher, you coward, send your troops to liberate the Golan….”

Many Syrians have seen through the hollow rhetoric of their Crypto-Zionist Assad, and the spider’s web of crony capitalism and utter corruption…. They have been burning down not only Ba’ath party offices but local outlets of businesses owned by Rami Makhlouf, cousin to the Assads and billionaire beneficiary of their infamous rule.

Inspired by their Arab cousins, and inflamed by the insolence of the regime’s repression, they are losing their fear…

Good luck to the Syrian people.

رائحة الفاتيكان تفوح من موقف موارنة لبنان
موارنة لبنان! لا مسيحييه

انا كمسيحي ارفض مساندة اي نظام مجرم قاتل
خصوصاً اذا كان هذا النظام يرئسه سفاح ابن
سفاح٠ فأنا لن انسى ابداً ما فعله السفاح حافظ
الاسد عندما حاصر المناطق المسيحية سنة ١٩٧٨
خصوصاً الاشرفية قصفها و حاصرها لمدة ٩٠ يوم
و رفض اسقبال رئيس الجمهورية انذاك الياس
سركيس٠
اذاً انا و عائلتي المؤلفة من 300شخص
نكره بشار و كل عائلته و نتمنى له الاعدام و
نؤيد الشعب السوري بتحرير وطنه من الرجس
الآسدي٠ في هذا الموضوع اغلب المسيحيين ضد
النظام السوري و مع الشعب السوري و نرفض ان
ينوب عنا اي زعيم مسيحي يخالف توجهاتنا

لماذا لم تتحرك المجنزرات والدبابات والمدرعات لضرب إسرائيل عندما حلّقت طائراتها فوق قصر الرئاسة في اللاذقية؟ لماذا لم يتحرك الجيش باتجاه إسرائيل عندما دمّرت طائراتها مواقع عسكرية قرب دير الزور؟ كيف يمكن توصيف هذا التناقض «المريب»؟

كيف يمكن تصديق من يتهيّب تحرير جبهة الجولان المحتلة منذ خمسين عاماً، ولا يطلق على إسرائيل رصاصة واحدة؟ هل يمكن الدفاع عن ممارسات هكذا نظام أو تبرير سوء أفعاله إلا من أبواق مأجورة ومأمورة؟

من عدّل الدستور السوري في أقل من ربع ساعة واحدة، لتوريث الحكم؟ لماذا تأخر النظام عشر سنين عن رفع قانون الطوارئ، ورفع الظلم عن المظلومين، ثم لا يزال يستخدم أسطوانة «المؤامرة» و»المندسّين»، ليبرّر أفعاله ضد شعبه، ثم يخرج الشبيحة والقناصة لقمع الشعب وقتله علناً؟

محمد ناصيف علي مملوك رامي مخلوف حافظ مخلوف
اصف شوكت منذر الاسد هارون الاسد عدنان الاسد
جميل الاسد عاطف نجيب رستم غزالة...و القائمة
تطول...سيقوم الشعب باعدامكم شنقاً و بالعلن

.

جدار الصمت يتداعى والشعب السوري سيُشعل الثورة

كل جنودهم وأمنهم وجميع فروع المخابرات التي لم تستنفر ولو لمرة واحدة منذ أكثر من 42 عاماً رغم احتلال إسرائيل لهضبة الجولان ورغم الإستفزازات الإسرائيلية المتواصلة وخرقها للهدنة بين البلدين مراراً وتكراراً فلم يحرك هذا النظام ساكناً ولم يستنفر أي من جنوده يوماً

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1fR3aYV4dQ?rel=0&w=480&h=390

جدار الصمت يتداعى والشعب السوري سيُشعل الثورة

لا شك ان مشهد خروج مئات والاف المتظاهرين هاتفين بالتغيير والاصلاح والديمقراطية كان اشبه بتاسع المستحيلات

وضرب من ضروب الجنون قبل اشهر في سوريا.

اليوم ومع سقوط حواجز الخوف في كل ارجاء العالم العربي، خرج اهل الشام عن صمتهم. واسقطوا كل الاقنعة بوجه جبروت النظام الحديدي الممسك بزمام الامور منذ عقود. ليفتحوا بأيديهم بوابة سجن اوصد بالاغلال، وليساهموا بانتفاضتهم الناشئة بقدوم ربيع سياسي الى مؤسساتهم وشوارعهم وبيوتهم ومدارسهم واجيالهم، انه ربيع الياسمين التي بدأت براعمه الصغيرة بالازهار.

بشار الاسد يبدو مربكاً في هذه الاثناء. يراقب المشهد الداخلي المتفجّر في بلاده. يحاول قدر المستطاع التعتيم على حجم الحدث. يصارع التغيير بدم بارد. يراقب ما يجري في العالم العربي ويسأل نفسه: "هل حان دوري؟".

خمس عقود من حالة الطوارىء, بطالة ومعاناة اقتصادية, قمع وظلم, ومشاركة ممنوعة, وانتخابات معلّبة, واعتقالات بالجملة... اليوم حان وقت الخروج عن الصمت والانتفاض على الاستبداد.

الاعلام السوري الخشبي تغاضى بشكل تام عما يجري من تظاهرات وتحركات في ارجاء البلاد، اذ خرجت صحيفة "البعث" التابعة للادارة السورية البعثية يوم الجمعة الماضي بخبر رئيسي على صفحتها الاولى تحت عنوان: "استغلوا تجمع المواطنين قرب المسجد العمري، مندسّون يلحقون اضراراً في الممتلكات العامة والخاصة في درعا".

التعامي عن حقيقة ما يجري يثير الغثيان ويكشف تعاطي النظام مع هذه الاحداث من خلال الشائعات ومحاولة التخدير الجماعي لذر الرماد في العيون، اذ يتم تسويق مقولة ان "عملية الإصلاح في البلاد ماضية وتسير بخطا منتظمة يرافقها حملة كبيرة لمكافحة كل أشكال الفساد، وأن كل ما يقلق السوريين أو ما يمكن أن يقلقهم يتم بحثه علناً وفي بعض الحالات مباشرة مع بشار الأسد الذي يتابع شؤون المواطنين وهمومهم بشكل دائم". انها بالفعل اعلى درجات النفاق والكذب على الشعوب.

والمضحك في الامر، فقد رأت صحف النظام ان الأفلام التي يتم تصويرها من الهواتف وبثها على موقع «يو تيوب» هي عبارة عن مجموعة اكاذيب لا ترقى الى الحقيقة، اذ اعتبرت ان اغلبيتها مزيف وتستخدم صور قديمة لتجمعات في «سوق الحميدية» وأمام سفارتي مصر وليبيا لدمجها مع صور أخرى وإخراج فيلم على أنه من تظاهرات الاحتجاج. كما تم تجنيد فضائيات لبث الأخبار الكاذبة وأخرى لبث الفتنة والطائفية في مجتمع كان ولا يزال وسيبقى رافضاً لأي خطاب طائفي ولأي فتنة يمكن أن يراهن عليها من يبث كل هذه السموم على قنواته.

اصابع الاتهام لم توفر روّاد الانترنت، اذ اتهمت "بعض المجموعات المتطرفة من خارج سوريا، والقريبة من عبد الحليم خدام وبعض السفارات الاجنبية بأنها تساهم في تأجيج الحملة والزام الدول الغربية باصدار مواقف تدين سوريا، واثارة الشك في نفوس السوريين انفسهم بأن ما يحصل له ابعاد خطيرة جداً".

نظرية المؤامرة على الدولة الحامية لشعبها وقائدها استمرت في اوساط النظام التي هاجمت موقعي "تويتر" و"الفايسبوك"، زاعمةً ان بعض الجهات المنظمة تبث اخباراً كاذبة لتحريض الناس على التظاهر و«مناصرة إخوانهم المهددين». حيث اتهمت مواقع الانترنت ببث اخبار كاذبة عن محاصرة درعا من قبل الجيش، وعن عمليات إنزال وترهيب للمواطنين "سرعان ما أثبت عقلاء درعا أن لا أساس لها من الصحة".

"أن كل ما ينشر لا يمت للحقيقة بصلة مصممين على ألا يخرب حياتهم وأمنهم أي مجموعة مهما كانت مطالبها لأنهم على ثقة بأن أي مطلب يمكن الحصول عليه من خلال الحوار وإيصال الصوت إلى أعلى المستويات"... هكذا اراد التلفزيون السوري ان يطئمن شعبه الذي لم يعد يصدّق اكاذيب النظام بعد اليوم.

وقد وصلت حدود الوقاحة الى القول انه " تم استقبال المتظاهرون في بأحذية المصلين في الأموي قبل أن يخرجوا وتفرقهم قوات الأمن وكذلك الأمر في حمص أما في بانياس فأخذت التظاهرة الطابع السلمي ولم يقترب منها أحد".

وفي تهديد واضح لمن يطالب بالتغيير، يختم احد "كتبة" المقالات" في احدى الصحف السورية: "ليتذكر الجميع أننا نتعامل هنا مع مجموعات مهنية للغاية تدرك جيداً ما تقوم به من خطوات وهي بحاجة إلى مواجهة شاملة من كل المجتمع السوري".

ان مسيرة التغيير يا بشار اسد بدأت بالفعل، ولا عودة الى الوراء. ولا يفيدكم ارسال الوفود الحكومية، وانقضاض الاجهزة الامنية بلباس مدني على الناس. لان زمن الصمت انتهى، ونظرية المؤامرة والتخويف والترهيب والتعتيم لم تعد تجدي نفعاً... لقد حان دور سوريا

NO COMMENT ON WHAT FOLLOWS....ONLY TIME WILL TELL!!!

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- قطر عرضت على سوريا تسليم نصف السلطة للاخوان المسلمين.
- جسر الشغور سينظّف وبيد من حديد سيُضرب التكفيريين

إعتبر الكاتب والباحث غسان الشامي أنّ حادثة جسر الشغور في سوريا من قبل الزمر الأمنية الطائفية لم تكن متوقعة بهذا الوجه المقيت "الحقد الذي حصل بعد صدور عفو رئاسي وفشل مؤتمر "انطاليا" في تركيا من قبل المتآمرين على سوريا مشهد مريه يجب ضربه بيد من حديد. أهالي حماه طالبوا بالعفو وحصلوا عليه ولكنّ التظاهرة في حماه بربط وتعليق أحد رجال الأمنيين على الأعمدة وبكلام طائفي امر غير مقبول".

لبعض المعارضة السورية "احد الجهابذة منكم قال أنّه لا يحقّ لمن سكت عن مائة شهيد ان يفتعل الصدمة، وكأنّ هناك موت جميل وآخر بشع. وصور قتل المحتجين لرجل أمني في جسر الشغور وجرّ القتلى بالسيارات ورميهم في مياه نهر العاصي هو نفسه النموذج الذي حصل في لبنان في مخيم نهر البارد".

"جملة أمور حصلت بالأمس أولها هجوم على مقرات حزبية والذي قتل باحداها 62 شخصاً، ومع اتصال الأهالي بالجيش بغية التدخّل حصل كميناً لهم، والقتلى الذين استشهدوا تمّ التمثيل بجثثهم".

سئل الشامي عن مصدر قوة الإرهابيين وسبب استرخاء الجيش السوري في منطقة استراتجية بالقرب من الحدود التركية أجاب: "هذه المنطقة التي تقع بين منطقة حلب واللاذقية هي بؤرة تاريخية للأخوان المسلمين في سوريا وهي على مقربة من تركيا ولا يتواجد بقربها الجيش على إعتبار أنّ الحالة بين الدولتين هي مريحة حتى اللحظة الراهنة، والدليل على ذلك هو ذهاب 35 جريحاً من الإرهابيين تجاه تركيا".

يضيف الشامي "نعم هناك تهريب اسلحة من داخل الحدود التركية والأهمّ من ذلك هو تدريبهم على استخدامه وعلى تنفيذ الكمائن. وبالتالي التلطّي وراء شعار "سليمة" – "سلمية" بات مكشوفاًُ. يجب التمييز بين المطالب الإصلاحية المحقّة وبين من يركب موجة الإصلاح لتنفيذ "اجندة" تبدأ بالقتل وتنتهي بتفتيت سوريا".

ثعلبة الأخوان المسليمن
وإعتبر الشامي انّ "الأخوان المسلمين" يكذبون في ادعاءاتهم "الكذب يبدأ من مصر وينتهي في سوريا. في مصر يدعون أنّهم لا يريدون السلطة وهم لاهثون وراءها. في مصر كانوا يختبئون وراء مقولة الصراع العربي الإسرائيلي وهم ساكتون وصامتون على ما يحدث في غزة وعن ثروة الغاز المصري. في سوريا مع بداية الأحداث أشاروا الى أنّهم وراء الإحتجاجات.

هناك "ثعلبة" من قبلهم. في مؤتمر انطاليا معظم المتواجدين لا يمثلون أحداً داخل سوريا فقط هناك تواجد لجماعة الأخوان المسلمين وأحد ممثلي العشائر العربية. وثعلبة الأخوان المسلمين في "انطاليا" كانت فعالة حتى مع صدور بيان علماني وإدعائهم أنهم ليسوا معنيين بذلك. ماذا يمثّل عبد الرزاق عيد في سوريا وماذا يمثّل عمّار عبد الحميد في الشارع الدمشقي طالما لا يؤثر على والدته الممثلّة "منى واصف"؟ ماذا يمثّل انس العبدي أو غيرهم؟ لا شيء على الإطلاق الذين يمثلون شيئاً ما، هم الأخوان المسلمون فقط. وانحرافهم الى العمل المسلّح جاء بعد فشلهم الشعبي وهذا ما يضرّ سلباً بعمل المعارضة الحقيقية المتجّهة نحو الحوار في سوريا امثال ميشال كيلو وحسين عداد وعارف دليلة وبرهان غليون".

ادونيس وميشال كيلو يشتمان!
يتابع الشامي حديثه "تصوروّا ان "ادونيس" المتواجد خارج سوريا منذ العام 1955 غير مقبول من قبلهم ويُشتم لأنّه رفض إنطلاق الثورات من الجوامع! المؤرخ الكبير فراس سواح والمعارض النبيل ميشال كيلو شتما من قبلهما. في المحصلة النهائية الوقت نفذ امام سوريا تجاه من يحمل السلاح لأنّه لا يجوز السماح لهذا النموذج العصاباتي من الإستمرار. ومن يحمل سلاحاً ضدّ شعبه وجيشه يجب قطع يده بقوة رغم سير قانون الطوارئ والعفو والأحزاب والإعلام مجراهم الطبيعي. مسلك هؤلاء العصابة المتخفية هي الثعلبة. والقيادة السورية لم تكن لتؤمن بالحلول الأمنية في بادئ المر لأنها تعتقد أنّ الدم يجرّ دماً، ولكن ماذا تفعل امام افعال هذه العصابات التكفيرية؟".

وإعتبر الشامي انّ الصراع في سوريا ليس صراعاً مذهبياً "السنّة في منطقة جبلة اقلية ولم يتعرضوا لحادثة طائفية واحدة. الناس في بانياس واللاذقية كما في مختلف المناطق والمحافظات السورية موحدّة ضدّ الإرهاب وهم أخذوا خيارهم الى جانب الدولة والدفاع عن النظام. هناك مساعي لأخذ الشعب السوري الى المنحى الطائفي ولكن وعي القياة السورية عطّل تلك الألغام، وأوراق التكفيريين استنفدت في سوريا ولم يتجاوب معها الشعب السوري".

اردوغان يدافع عن الأرمن!
وعن مواقف تركيا تجاه سوريا هزأ الشامي بكلام اردوغان الحريص على الأرمن في وسوريا والأكراد والشركس. "تصرّف الأتراك أشبه بالمهزلة ينسجم مع الضخّ التحريضي لقناة الجزيرة والقرضاوي والسعودية، ورغم ذلك لم ينجرّ السوريون للفتنة فبقيت القلائل محصورة في مناطق الحدودية، ومنطقة جسر الشغور سيتمّ تنظيفها من هؤلاء الإرهابيين كما نُظفّت بؤر امنية أخرى".
وحول موضوع تورّط تركيا في احداث سوريا رأى الشامي أنّ الأولى استطاعت من خلال البوابة السورية التحوّل من دولة عثمانية الى دولة صديقة وشقيقة "تركيا مارست سياسة "الثعلب" مع سوريا وتأكيدي على "الواوي" وليس الذئب مرده أنّه في الحالة الثانية بامكانك توقّع الأفعال أمّا في الأولى فهناك إستخدام للمكر والرياء. الذي لا يقرأ تاريخ لا يمكن توقّع المستقبل.

حزب العدالة والتنمية غيّر اسمه اكثر من مرّة للحفاظ على الحكم ويمارس الديماغوجية في الحياة السياسية في تركيا واكثر من يمثلّ هذه السياسة هو رجب الطيّب اردوغان. عام 1998 يقول اردوغان "مساجيننا ثكناتنا. قبضنا خوذاتنا. مآذننا حرابنا. والمصلوّن جنودنا. وهذا الجيش المقدّس يحرس ديننا".

يعقّب الشامي "نحن أمام حالة تتلطّى بالإسلام وتلبس الكرافات وهم في حقيقتهم جماعة من الأخوان المسلمين. وعندما حاول امير قطر بالإتفاق مع تركيا مفاوضة الرئيس الأسد في بداية الأحداث على إعطاء نصف السلطة للأخوان المسلمين ثبت لنا أنّ تركيا ما يهمّها من الشأن الإصلاحي هو فقط المتعلّق بالأخوان المسلمين. وهمّ اردوغان فقط شتم رئيس الحزب الجمهوري في تركيا وريث كمال اتتورك لأنه علوي فقط. اردوغان يشير بسوء الى حوالي 18 مليون علوياً في تركيا نتيجة تعصبّه".

يفسّر الشامي التركيبة الديمغرافية داخل تركيا: "علويون لواء اسكندرون يتبعون نفس تقاليد علويي سوريا. العلويون المسماة "كازاباش" أو "الرؤوس الحمر" هم من عماد الحركة الاتتوركية في تركيا ويشكلون نسبة كبيرة من ضباط الجيش التركي ولهم شعائر الى حدٍّ ما مغايرة عن علوية سوريا. دون ان ننسى تواجد حوالي 3 ملايين كردي علوي في تركيا من بينهم رئيس حزب العمال الكردستاني عبدالله اوجلان. لهذا السبب الكلام الذي يخرج من حزب التنمية والعدالة واردوغان ودووود اوغلو في ظاهره نصحٌ لسوريا في باطنه سمٌ لسوريا، والاّ لماذا لا يطبقّون الديمقراطية داخل تركيا مع الأكراد والأرمن؟ لماذا لم يستنكروا قتل السوريين في الجولان من قبل الجيش الإسرائيلي؟ لماذا التذكير بمذهب الرئيس السوري ومذهب زوجته؟ وكلّ هذا الإسهاب في تصاريح الأتراك يكشف تورطهّم الكبير في احداث سوريا".

الأحد المقبل
وعن الاكراد في سوريا رأى الشامي انّ العلاقة السائدة بينهم وبين النظام هي ايجابية وما قدمّه الرئيس الأسد لهم لم يقدمّه رجب الطيّب اردوغان. "المعركة الفاصلة بوجود سوريا او عدم وجودها في الحالة السياسية التركية هي يوم الأحد المقبل في "ديار بكر" حيث يتواجد الثقل الكردي داخل تركيا. هذه المدينة الذي ارتكب الأتراك المجازر الضخمة بحقّ الأكراد والأرمن والأشوريين والسريان والكلدان... مجازر 1915 العثمانية لم تطل الأرمن فقط بل معظم شعوب الحضارة السريانية في تلك المناطق الواسعة. معركة كسر العضم في 12 الشهر الحالي ما بين حزب العدالة والتنمية والأكراد ستبدأ في مدينة "ديار بكر" لأنّه كثيرون من الأكراد يعتبرون أنّ اردوغان قد كذب عليهم في موضوع الإصالحات وهم لن يقبلوا بلدغهم من الجحر مرتين وتاجيل مطالبهم الى ما بعد الإنتخابات، وفي الحقيقة التجنيس الأخير للأكراد داخل سوريا هم من اصول تركية لأنّ مجيئهم حصل في مطلع الستينات... في النهاية تركيا ستدفع ثمن تدخلها في دول الجوار لأنّ اردوغان ليس السلطان سليم الأول ولا مجال لمعركة مرج دابق ثانية في التاريخ ولا الرئيس الأسد هو سلطان المماليك عام 1516. هذه الأحداث طويت منذ حوالي 500 عام".

اضاف الشامي "ولا يمكن لجنبلاط ان يكون فخر الدين الأول لينتظر نتيجة أحداث معركة "مرج دابق"... وما يمثل حالياً لدى شعوب المنطقة وذهنهم العام هو جمال باشا السفاح. فمن يظنّ في تركيا أنّ ايام الولايات أو "الإيالة" ستعود اظنّه أبلهاً".

ميقاتي "جيكوندا"
وحول تشكيل الحكومة رأّى الشامي أنّ رمي المسؤولية على العماد عون إنكشف لأنّ الموضوع ليس على علاقة بالداخل "اعتقد أنّ الرئيس ميقاتي منذ بداية تشكيل الحكومة يريد ان يكون "جيكوندا" عند كلّ الأطراف ولايوجد الاّ "جيكوندا" واحدة وابتسامة مواربة واحدة على اعتبار أنّ هذا الغموض بناء لكنّه في الحقيقة غموض هدّام. إمّا ميقاتي يستطيع تشكيل الحكومة دون ارادة مكلفيه وإمّا عليه الإستماع لهم. فليضع ورقة "الطرنيبط التي لديه ويشكّل حكومته".

وكشف الشامي في حديثه الى الـ"OTV" انّ شقيق رئيس المكلّف "طه ميفاتي" كان في دمشق وحصل تدخلاً من كثيرين لطلب تدخّلاً سورياً في الشأن الحكومي ولم يحصل "ما يحصل الآن هو إنتظار للمشهد السوري. فيلتمن أقنعهم بالإنتظار بعض الشيء. وميقاتي يتقن الإنتظار. ولا يمكن لأي حكومة قادمة ان يسيطر فريق الأقلية النيابية على وزارة الداخلية ولا على وزارة الدفاع ولا على وزارة العدل. هذا الكلام هو نهائي وموجّه الى ميقاتي إن أردت تشكيل الحكومة بهذه الأغلبية عليك تشكيلها وفي حال انقلبت الأكثرية لن تكون رئيساً عليها، وجنبلاط اشبه بصحن "جيلو" يميل الى حيث الثقل وجنبلاط يبني مواقفه على الخوف وأقرب طريق للوصول الى الهدف هو الذهاب تجاهه".

وختم الشامي حديثه بالقول: "الإسرائيليون يهربون الى الامام ويسعون الى خلق القلائل والفتن لإراحة أزمتهم الوجودية، ما حصل في الجولان حراك شعبي طبيعي وخوف اللبنانيين من الأميركيين خوفاً خلبياً صوتياً لا أكثر لأنّه لا يُصرف في ايّ مكان سيما وانّ الجيش الأميركي سيخرج من العراق وافغانستان. سوريا ليست بحاجة لتوجيه رسالة من جولان لإسرائيل، وسوريا تملك من الآدوات العسكرية لإزالة اسرائيل من الوجود ضمن مفهوم حرب شاملة ولا يحتاج الرئيس الأسد بارسال فتية مقاومين الى الجولان".

Taking the War Out of Air War: What US Air Power Actually Does, from agent Orange to Shock and awe...

Taking the War Out of Air War: What US Air Power Actually Does, from agent Orange to Shock and awe...and from Drones to the X37B....

Wednesday 16 March 2011

by: Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch | Op-Ed

When men first made war in the air, the imagery that accompanied them was of knights jousting in the sky. Just check out movies like Wings, which won the first Oscar for Best Picture in 1927 (or any Peanuts cartoon in which Snoopy takes on the Red Baron in a literal “dogfight”). As late as 1986, five years after two American F-14s shot down two Soviet jets flown by Libyan pilots over the Mediterranean’s Gulf of Sidra, it was still possible to make the movie Top Gun. In it, Tom Cruise played “Maverick,” a U.S. Naval aviator triumphantly involved in a similar incident. (He shoots down three MiGs.)

Admittedly, by then American air-power films had long been in decline. In Vietnam, the U.S. had used its air superiority to devastating effect, bombing the north and blasting the south, but go to American Vietnam films and, while that U.S. patrol walks endlessly into a South Vietnamese village with mayhem to come, the air is largely devoid of planes.

Consider Top Gun an anomaly. Anyway, it’s been 25 years since that film topped the box-office -- and don’t hold your breath for a repeat at your local multiplex. After all, there’s nothing left to base such a film on.

To put it simply, it’s time for Americans to take the “war” out of “air war.” These days, we need a new set of terms to explain what U.S. air power actually does.

Start this way: American “air superiority” in any war the U.S. now fights is total. In fact, the last time American jets met enemy planes of any sort in any skies was in the First Gulf War in 1991, and since Saddam Hussein’s once powerful air force didn’t offer much opposition -- most of its planes fled to Iran -- that was brief. The last time U.S. pilots faced anything like a serious challenge in the skies was in North Vietnam in the early 1970s. Before that, you have to go back to the Korean War in the early 1950s.

This, in fact, is something American military types take great pride in. Addressing the cadets of the Air Force Academy in early March, for example, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated: “There hasn’t been a U.S. Air Force airplane lost in air combat in nearly 40 years, or an American soldier attacked by enemy aircraft since Korea.”

And he’s probably right, though it’s also possible that the last American plane shot down in aerial combat was U.S. Navy pilot Michael Scott Speiker’s jet in the First Gulf War. (The Navy continues to claim that the plane was felled by a surface-to-air missile.) As an F-117A Stealth fighter was downed by a surface-to-air missile over Serbia in 1999, it’s been more than 11 years since such a plane was lost due to anything but mechanical malfunction. Yet in those years, the U.S. has remained almost continuously at war somewhere and has used air power extensively, as in its “shock and awe” launch to the invasion of Iraq, which was meant to “decapitate” Saddam Hussein and the rest of the Iraqi leadership. (No plane was lost, nor was an Iraqi leader of any sort taken out in those 50 decapitation attacks, but “dozens” of Iraqi civilians died.) You might even say that air power, now ramping up again in Afghanistan, has continued to be the American way of war.

From a military point of view, this is something worth bragging about. It’s just that the obvious conclusions are never drawn from it.

The Valor of Pilots

Let’s begin with this: to be a “Top Gun” in the U.S. military today is to be in staggeringly less danger than any American who gets into a car and heads just about anywhere, given this country’s annual toll of about 34,000 fatal car crashes. In addition, there is far less difference than you might imagine between piloting a drone aircraft from a base thousands of miles away and being inside the cockpit of a fighter jet.

Articles are now regularly written about drone aircraft “piloted” by teams sitting at consoles in places like Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Meanwhile, their planes are loosing Hellfire missiles thousands of miles away in Afghanistan (or, in the case of CIA “pilots,” in the Pakistani tribal borderlands). Such news accounts often focus on the eerie safety of those pilots in “wartime” and their strange detachment from the actual dangers of war -- as, for instance, in the sign those leaving Creech pass that warns them to "drive carefully" as this is “the most dangerous part of your day."

When it comes to pilots in planes flying over Afghanistan, we imagine something quite different -- and yet we shouldn’t. Based on the record, those pilots might as well be in Nevada, since there is no enemy that can touch them. They are inviolate unless their own machines betray them and, with the rarest of imaginable exceptions, will remain so.

Nor does anyone here consider it an irony that the worst charge lodged by U.S. military spokespeople against their guerrilla enemies, whose recruits obviously can’t take to the skies, is that they use “human shields” as a defense. This transgression against “the law of war” is typical of any outgunned guerrilla force which, in Mao Zedong’s dictum, sees immense benefit in “swimming” in a “sea” of civilians. (If they didn’t do so and fought like members of a regular army, they would, of course, be slaughtered.)

This is considered, however implicitly, a sign of ultimate cowardice. On the other hand, while a drone pilot cannot (yet) get a combat award citation for “valor,” a jet fighter pilot can and no one -- here at least -- sees anything strange or cowardly about a form of warfare which guarantees the American side quite literal, godlike invulnerability.

War by its nature is often asymmetrical, as in Libya today, and sometimes hideously one-sided. The retreat that turns into a rout that turns into a slaughter is a relative commonplace of battle. But it cannot be war, as anyone has ever understood the word, if one side is never in danger. And yet that is American air war as it has developed since World War II.

It’s a long path from knightly aerial jousting to air war as... well, what? We have no language for it, because accurate labels would prove deflating, pejorative, and exceedingly uncomfortable. You would perhaps need to speak of cadets at the Air Force Academy being prepared for “air slaughter” or “air assassination,” depending on the circumstances.

From those cadets to Secretary of Defense Gates to reporters covering our wars, no one here is likely to accept the taking of “war” out of air war. And because of that, it is -- conveniently -- almost impossible for Americans to imagine how American-style war must seem to those in the lands where we fight.

Apologies All Around

Consider for a moment one form of war-related naming where our language changes all the time. That’s the naming of our new generations of weaponry. In the case of those drones, the two main ones in U.S. battle zones at the moment are the Predator (as in the sci-fi film) and the Reaper (as in Grim). In both cases, the names imply an urge for slaughter and a sense of superiority verging on immortality.

And yet we don’t take such names seriously. Though we’ve seen the movies (and most Afghans haven’t), we don’t imagine our form of warfare as like that of the Predator, that alien hunter of human prey, or a Terminator, that machine version of the same. If we did, we would have quite a different picture of ourselves, which would mean quite a different way of thinking about how we make war.

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From the point of view of Afghans, Pakistanis, or other potential target peoples, those drones buzzing in the sky must seem very much like real-life versions of Predators or Terminators. They must, that is, seem alien and implacable like so many malign gods. After all, the weaponry from those planes is loosed without recourse; no one on the ground can do a thing to prevent it and little to defend themselves; and often enough the missiles and bombs kill the innocent along with those our warriors consider the guilty.

Take a recent event on a distant hillside in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province where 10 boys, including two sets of brothers, were collecting wood for their families on a winter’s day when the predators -- this time American helicopters evidently looking for insurgents who had rocketed a nearby American base -- arrived. Only one of the boys survived (with wounds) and he evidently described the experience as one of being “hunted” -- as the Predator hunts humans or human hunters stalk animals. They “hovered over us,” he said, “scanned us, and we saw a green flash,” then the helicopters rose and began firing.

For this particular nightmare, war commander General David Petraeus apologized directly to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has for years fruitlessly denounced U.S. and NATO air operations that have killed Afghan civilians. When an angered Karzai refused to accept his apology, Secretary of Defense Gates, on a surprise visit to the country, apologized as well, as did President Obama. And that was that -- for the Americans.

Forget for a moment what this incident tells us about a form of warfare in which helicopter pilots, reasonably close to the ground (and modestly more vulnerable than pilots in planes), can’t tell boys with sticks from insurgents with guns. The crucial thing to keep in mind is that, no matter how many apologies may be offered afterwards, this can’t stop. According to the Wall Street Journal, death by helicopter is, in fact, on the rise. It’s in the nature of this kind of warfare. In fact, Afghan civilians have repeatedly, even repetitiously, been blown away from the air, with or without apologies, since 2001. Over these years, Afghan participants at wedding parties, funerals, and other rites have, for example, been wiped out with relative regularity, only sometimes with apologies to follow.

In the weeks that preceded the killing of those boys, for instance, a “NATO” -- these are usually American -- air attack took out four Afghan security guards protecting the work of a road construction firm and wounded a fifth, according to the police chief of Helmand Province; a similar “deeply regrettable incident” took out an Afghan army soldier, his wife, and his four children in Nangarhar Province; and a third, also in Kunar Province, wiped out 65 civilians, including women and children, according to Afghan government officials. Karzai recently visited a hospital and wept as he held a child wounded in the attack whose leg had been amputated.

The U.S. military did not weep. Instead, it rejected this claim of civilian deaths, insisting as it often does that the dead were “insurgents.” It is now -- and this is typical -- “investigating” the incident. General Petraeus managed to further offend Afghan officials when he visited the presidential palace in Kabul and reportedly claimed that some of the wounded children might have suffered burns not in an air attack but from their parents as punishment for bad behavior and were being counted in the casualty figures only to make them look worse.

Over the years, Afghan civilian casualties from the air have waxed and waned, depending on how much air power American commanders were willing to call in, but they have never ceased. As history tells us, air power and civilian deaths are inextricably bound together. They can’t be separated, no matter how much anyone talks about “surgical” strikes and precision bombing. It’s simply the barbaric essence, the very nature of this kind of war, to kill noncombatants.

One question sometimes raised about such casualties in Afghanistan is this: according to U.N. statistics, the Taliban (via roadside bombs and suicide bombers) kills far more civilians, including women and children, than do NATO forces, so why do the U.S.-caused deaths stick so in Afghan craws when we periodically investigate, apologize, and even pay survivors for their losses?

New York Times reporter Alissa J. Rubin puzzled over this in a recent piece and offered the following answer: “[T]hose that are caused by NATO troops appear to reverberate more deeply because of underlying animosity about foreigners in the country.” This seems reasonable as far as it goes, but don’t discount what air power adds to the foreignness of the situation.

Consider what the 20-year-old brother of two of the dead boys from the Kunar helicopter attack told the Wall Street Journal in a phone interview: "The only option I have is to pick up a Kalashnikov, RPG [rocket-propelled grenade], or a suicide vest to fight."

Whatever the Taliban may be, they remain part of Afghan society. They are there on the ground. They kill and they commit barbarities, but they suffer, too. In our version of air “war,” however, the killing and the dying are perfectly and precisely, even surgically, separated. We kill, they die. It’s that simple. Sometimes the ones we target to die do so; sometimes others stand in their stead. But no matter. We then deny, argue, investigate, apologize, and continue. We are, in that sense, implacable.

And one more thing: since we are incapable of thinking of ourselves as either predators or Predators, no less emotionless Terminators, it becomes impossible for us to see that our air “war” on terror is, in reality, a machine for creating what we then call “terrorists.” It is part of an American Global War for Terror.

In other words, although air power has long been held up as part of the solution to terrorism, and though the American military now regularly boasts about the enemy body counts it produces, and the precision with which it does so, all of that, even when accurate, is also a kind of delusion -- and worse yet, one that transforms us into Predators and Terminators. It’s not a pretty sight.

So count on this: there will be no more Top Guns. No knights of the air. No dogfights and sky-jousts. No valor. Just one-sided slaughter and targeted assassinations. That is where air power has ended up. Live with it.

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books).

Jesus de Nazareth, a enseigné à ses disciples comment prier, Le Notre PÈRE

POURQUOI DIRE : NOTRE PÈRE ?

Jesus de Nazareth, a enseigné à ses disciples comment prier... Il a rassemblé des phrases riches de sens et tirées de la tradition Juive (qu’on retrouve quasiment semblables dans le kaddish).... et il a composé cette prière qui est devenue au fil du temps celle de tous les chrétiens : catholiques, orthodoxes, protestants, évangéliques. Mais on n’est pas toujours conscient du fait que des demandes à Dieu impliquent simultanément une mise en mouvement en nous-mêmes....

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Pourquoi dire Père

Si tu ne désires pas renaître de Dieu ?

Pourquoi dire Notre Père

Si tu ne t’intéresses pas aux autres ?

Pourquoi dire Qui es aux cieux

Si tu ne donnes de valeur qu’aux choses matérielles ?

Pourquoi dire Que ton nom soit sanctifié

Si tu n’as aucune idée du visage de Dieu ?

Pourquoi dire Que ton règne vienne

Si tu n’espères aucun avenir meilleur pour l’humanité ?

Pourquoi dire Que ta volonté soit faite

Si tu ne cherches même pas à la connaître ?

Pourquoi dire Donne-nous aujourd’hui

Si tu ne vois pas que la vie est un cadeau ?

Pourquoi dire Notre pain de ce jour Si tu n’alimentes pas ta foi ?

Pourquoi dire Pardonne-nous nos offenses

Si tu ne te remets jamais en question ?

Pourquoi dire Comme nous pardonnons à ceux qui nous ont offensés

Si tu n’es pas bienveillant envers les autres ?

Pourquoi dire Mais délivre-nous du mal

Si tu n’agis pas au service du bien ?

Pourquoi dire A toi le règne, la puissance et la gloire

Si tu donnes de la valeur à ce qui ne le mérite pas ?

Pourquoi dire Pour les siècles des siècles

Si tu ne crois pas que l’histoire ait un sens ?

Pourquoi dire Amen !

Si la Parole de Dieu reste en dehors de tes préoccupations ?

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A.R.A...

Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks

Since the topic of the technological aspects of what I call "surviving in a world of zombies", I have decided to post some links to the audio recording of a recent presentation by Richard Stallman on the issue of Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks. In this absolutely fascinating talk, Richard (who often is known as "RMS") begins by a short introduction on the issue of free software, but rapidly switches to his main topic, the history and misuse of the idea of copyright. RMS discusses the topic of copyright as applied not only to books, but also to music and even art in general. I strongly recommend that you listen to this most interesting presentation and the Q&A which follows it.

Click on these links to download/listen to the recordings in ogg format:

• Richard Stallman: Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks - application/ogg 121M
• Questions and Answers - application/ogg 55M

Click on these links to download/listen to the recordings in mp3 format:

• Richard Stallman: Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks - mp3 104M
• Questions and Answers - mp3 49M

I really urge you all to take the time to listen to RMS and think through his arguments. Most of us do instinctively realize that there is something wrong with copyrights, the RIAA, the MPAA, DRMs, the DMCA and all the rest of the corporate imposed world of thought control, but I promise you that listening to RMS will show you how bad things truly are and will show you how to resist....

BI (or Before Internet) and After Internet, the Alawite Mafia of Syria remains the butchers of the 20th-21st Centuries.....

BI (or Before Internet) and After Internet, the Alawite Mafia of Syria remains the butchers of the 20th-21st Centuries.....

Published: March. 8, 2011

By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE,

WASHINGTON, March 8 (UPI) -- The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist factions staged hit-and-run attacks against government buildings and officials in the early 1980s and almost succeeded in killing the president of a country that has remained eerily quiet during the geopolitical tsunami that is still sweeping the Arab world. You're supposed to guess which country.

The president was on an official state visit to Mali when he ducked a burst of AK-47 fire and then kicked a hand grenade to one side before hurling himself under a table -- and survived with a few metal fragments in his legs.

Revenge was swift. Hours later, almost 1,000 Islamist prisoners killed in their cells by units loyal to the president's brother, Rifaat.

No sooner did word of the massacre reach Umar Jawwad (aka Abu Bakr), a local guerrilla commander, than messages went out by radio to roof-top snipers to kill government soldiers.

Next Abu Bakr radioed the code for a general uprising in the city. From the minarets the call to prayer became the call to jihad against the government, everything from torching the homes of government officials to attacking police posts and ransacking armories.

The Arab head of state, a former air force chief, decided the time was at hand for massive retaliation, the likes of which the Middle East hadn't seen since the Crusades.

In the first week of February 1982, the president mobilized 12,000 troops, including 200 tanks, all the army's special forces and other elite units and Mukhabarat agents. Through loudspeakers that ringed the city, the government warned that anyone who didn't leave immediately would be considered an insurgent and killed with no further questions.

Syria's President Hafez al-Assad and his brother Rifaat, in command of all Special Forces, decided to level the city of Hama, a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, by carpet bombing it first. The air bombardment lasted three days. The narrow streets that hampered armored movements were flattened. But when there was still resistance after the blitzkrieg, the Assad brothers ringed Hama with artillery and shelled it until there was very little left.

The few survivors were lined up against walls and executed. Later Rifaat bragged to friends they had killed at least 38,000. It was genocide by any definition.

In 2003, 20 years later, Syrian journalist Subhi Hadidi wrote that the siege of Hama, under the command of Gen. Ali Haydar, lasted 27 days under constant artillery and tank fire before invading it and that up to 40,000 of the city's inhabitants were killed in the siege. Some 15,000 are still missing. And the city was leveled to the ground and rebuilt.

Before Assad staged his 1970 coup, Syria had experienced 21 coups since the end of the French mandate in 1945. Assad clung to power for almost 30 years, including the 1973 defeat by Israel. But his rule was bloody. Both before and after Hama, some 70,000 are estimated to have been killed in dozens of punitive raids against Islamist militants.

On Oct. 23, 1983, a Syrian intelligence service was the prime suspect in the truck bomb attack that killed 242 U.S. Marines in their Beirut barracks and of 58 French soldiers. U.S. President Ronald Reagan immediately decided to evacuate remaining U.S. troops -- and two days later he ordered the invasion of Grenada.

Hafez Assad's son Bashar, a former ophthalmologist trainee living in London, inherited the presidential mantle at 34 after his father died of a heart ailment in 2000. Today life appears to be almost normal. But 14 different intelligence and security organizations and the Infamous White House Murder INC's machinations..... keep a tight lid on society in Syria and some parts of the Levant...courtesy of CIA/MOSSAD Bonhomie with the Assad Mafia in Damsacus since 1973. The Alawites remain a crypto-zionist society spanning decades......

The assassination of Lebanese President Rafik Hariri in 2005 was blamed on one of the Syrian intelligence services but never proved. The international outcry led to the withdrawal of Syria's de facto occupation troops that had originally moved in to protect the Christians against the Muslims in Lebanon's civil war (1975-90).

The civil war lasted 15 years, killed 250,000, wounded 1 million, half of them with lifetime disabilities.

Today, Iran's surrogate Hezbollah rules the Lebanese roost and managed to maneuver its own candidate into the prime minister's job.

How Syria has escaped the current Arab upheaval is probably a function of a tightly run police state. But maybe not much longer.

Messages on an Internet social networking site called for nationwide demonstrations in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad in "a time to be set within days." Some 25,000 people joined the group that brands itself, "The Syrian revolution against Bashar al-Assad 2011."

The organizers called for "peaceful protests" across Syria and other Arab nations to demand the fall of the regime. Now 45, Assad has carefully cultivated his image as a resistance fighter against U.S. imperialism and its Israeli colony.

Syria's constitution allows only Baath Party rule..... But the revolutionary mythology rings hollow and has petered out.....