Middle East: Discussion

[Guest]

BREAKING NEWS: State media say Egypt has agreed to let 2 Iran navy ships through Suez Canal

[Guest]

[url="http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=58633"]Enterprise Strike Group Transits Suez Canal, Enters US 5th Fleet[/url]

By Enterprise Strike Group Public Affairs



USS ENTERPRISE, Red Sea (NNS) -- Enterprise Carrier Strike Group (CSG) transited the Suez Canal and entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR), Feb. 15.



Enterprise transited the canal along with guided missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf (CG 55) and fast combat support ship USNS Arctic (T-AOE 8).



"Our ability to use the Suez Canal in a routine manner and according to long-standing plans demonstrates the ongoing stability of this important waterway," said Rear Adm. Terry B. Kraft, commander, Enterprise CSG

[Guest]

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Libya-s-ambassador-to-India-resigns-in-protest-against-violence-BBC/H1-Article1-664980.aspx"]Libya's ambassador to India resigns in protest against violence: BBC[/url]

Libya's ambassador to India has resigned in protest at his government's violent crackdown on demonstrators calling for the ouster of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on Monday.



The BBC, on its Arabic service website, said Ambassador Ali al-Essawi also accused the government of deploying foreign mercenaries against the protesters. The BBC confirmed to Reuters it had spoken to Essawi.



There was no immediate comment from the Libyan embassy in New Delhi.

[Guest]

[url="http://www.kforcegov.com/Services/IS/NightWatch/NightWatch_11000039.aspx"]NightWatch[/url]

Libya: Security, administrative and judicial buildings, including those of the Revolutionary Committees, in Benghazi in eastern Libya, as well as two police stations in al-Baraka and al-Fuwayhat were torched, Libyan newspaper Quryna reported. The newspaper said more than 1,000 inmates escaped the Benghazi al-Kuwayfiayaa correctional facility. About 150 of the inmates were recaptured.



The Libyan Army's elite Khamis Brigade used snipers to harass protesters in Benghazi. Also, a pro-government militia was in close combat with protesters using knives and automatic weapons, according to news service accounts from eyewitnesses.



The Khamis Brigade, led by Qadhafi's son Khamis Qadhafi, plus militias of foreign soldiers moved into several cities, residents said. Witnesses reported what they believed to be sub-Saharan Africans or Tunisian soldiers who were speaking French and wearing blue uniforms.



Comment: The worst unrest appears to be occurring in Benghazi, in eastern Libya. Benghazi is far from Tripoli, across the Gulf of Sidra. The unrest looks serious, but as long as it stays in Benghazi, it poses no threat to the Qadhafi regime whose center of power is Tripoli.

[Guest]

[url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110221/ap_on_re_eu/eu_malta_libya"]Libya air force jets in Malta, pilots seek asylum[/url]

VALLETTA, Malta – Two Libyan air force jets landed in Malta on Monday and their pilots asked for political asylum amid a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters in Libya, a military source said.

The two Mirage jets landed at Malta International Airport shortly after two civilian helicopters landed carrying seven people who said they were French. A military source familiar with the situation said the passengers had left in such a hurry that only one had a passport.

The source, who insisted he not be identified further, said the jet pilots — both Libyan air force colonels — had communicated from the air that they wanted political asylum. They had left from a base near Tripoli and had flown low over Libyan airspace to avoid detection, the source said.

[Guest]

Libyan Jets Fire on Protesters

[Guest]

Libya's UN ambassadors call for Gadhafi to quit

Two Libyan envoys resign (Amb/China, Arab League)



[url="http://www.cnbc.com/id/41705466"]Libya Warplanes Bombing Tripoli-Resident[/url]



[url="http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/21/138515.html"]Gaddafi's son warns of 'rivers of blood'...[/url]

[Guest]

1 min of the terror we had for 12 hours, gunfire, cars with speakers, they..

http://www.twitvid.com/DLSXL



Twit from Tripoli

http://twitter.com/AliTweel



wearing blue camuflags, africans, driving cars with antiaircraft machineguns

[Guest]

[url="http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/muslim-cleric-issues-fatwa-on-gaddafi/story-e6frfkui-1226009852322?from=public_rss"]Muslim cleric issues fatwa on Gaddafi[/url]

INFLUENTIAL Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi has issued a fatwa that any Libyan soldier who can shoot dead embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi should do so "to rid Libya of him."



"Whoever in the Libyan army is able to shoot a bullet at Mr Gaddafi should do so," Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born cleric who is usually based in Qatar, told Al-Jazeera television

[Guest]

[url="http://www.dailypioneer.com/319361/What-has-triggered-Arab-unrest.html"]What has triggered Arab unrest?[/url]

February 22, 2011 4:20:04 AM

Gwynne Dyer

The revolution of 1989 was the outcome of people’s realisation that the Soviet Union would no longer intervene militarily to preserve the Communist regimes in eastern Europe. Now the Arabs know that the US will not intervene militarily to protect the regimes that rule them



Why now? Why revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt this year, rather than last year, or 10 years ago, or never? The protestors now taking to the street daily in Jordan, Yemen, Bahrein, Libya and Algeria are obviously inspired by the success of those revolutions, but what got the process started? What changed the Middle East?



Yes, of course the Arab world is largely ruled by the autocratic regimes that suppress all opposition and dissent, sometimes with great cruelty. Yes, of course many of those regimes are corrupt, and some of them are effectively in the service of foreigners. Of course, most Arabs are poor and getting poorer. But that has all been true for decades. It never led to revolutions before.



Maybe the frustration and resentment that have been building up for so long just needed a spark. Maybe the self-immolation of a single young man set Tunisia alight, and from there the flames spread quickly to half -a-dozen other Arab countries. But you cannot find anybody who really believes that this could just as easily have happened five years ago, or 10, or 20.



Yet, there is no reason to suppose that the level of popular anger has gone up substantially in the past two or five or 10 years. It’s high all the time, but in normal times most people are very cautious about expressing it openly. You can get hurt that way.



Now they are expressing their anger very loudly indeed, and long-established Arab regimes are starting to panic. The fall of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, by far the largest Arab country, makes it possible that many other autocratic regimes in the Arab world could fall like dominoes. The rapid collapse of the Communist regimes in Europe in 1989 is a frightening precedent for them. But, once again, why is this happening now?



‘Social media’ is one widely touted explanation, and the Al Jazeera network’s wall-to-wall coverage of the events in Tunisia and Egypt is another. Both are plausible parts of the explanation, for the availability of means of communication that are beyond the reach of state censorship clearly makes mass mobilisation much easier.



If people are ready to come out on the street and protest, these media make it easier for them to organise and easier for the example of the protestors to spread. But this really does not explain why they are ready to come out at last.



The one thing that is really different in the Middle East, just in the last year or two, is the self-evident fact that the US is starting to withdraw from the region. From Lebanon in 1958 to Iraq in 2003, the US was willing to intervene militarily to defend Arab regimes it liked and overthrow those that it did not like. That’s over now.



This great change is partly driven by the thinly disguised American defeat in Iraq. The last US troops are leaving that country this year, and after that grim experience US public opinion will not countenance another major American military intervention in the region. The safety net for Arab regimes allied to the US is being removed, and their people know it.



There is also a major strategic reassessment going on in Washington, and it will almost certainly end by downgrading the importance of the Middle East in US policy. The Arab masses do not know that, but the regimes certainly do, and it undermines their confidence.



The traditional motives for American strategic involvement in the Middle East were oil and Israel. American oil supplies had to be protected, and the Cold War was a zero-sum game in which any regime that the US did not control was seen to be at risk of falling into the hands of the Soviet Union. And quite apart from sentimental considerations, Israel had to be protected because it was an important military asset.



But the Cold War is long over, and so is the zero-sum game in the Middle East. The Arab oil exporters choose their customers on a purely commercial basis, and they have to sell their oil to support their growing populations. You don’t need to control them or threaten them to get oil from them; just send them a cheque. Besides, less than a fifth of America’s oil imports now come from the Arab world.



As for Israel, its military value to the US has gone into a steep decline since the end of the Cold War. Nor does it need American protection: It is a dwarf superpower that towers over its Arab neighbours militarily. So, remind me again: Why, exactly, should the US see ‘stability’ in the Middle East as a vital national interest?



The revolutions of 1989 became possible when people in the Eastern European countries realised that the Soviet Union would no longer intervene militarily to preserve the Communist regimes that ruled them. Is another 1989 possible in the Arab world? Well, the Arabs now know that the US will not intervene militarily to protect the regimes that rule them.



-- Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

[dhu]

[url="http://www.activistpost.com/2011/02/george-soros-egypts-new-constitution.html"]George Soros and Egypt's New Constitution[/url]



Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer

The United States and its allies are still feigning surprise at the unfolding revolutionary conflagration consuming the Middle East. However, those aware of the West's decades old network of NGOs and how their sole purpose is reordering the world to align to Western imperial interests can clearly see their meddling hands involved in the current "uprisings" sweeping North Africa, Arabia, and now Iran.



While Movements.org coordinates their army of youthful cannon fodder in the streets of foreign nations from Bahrain to Libya, their corporate sponsors and their partners in the US State Department put on a convincing act of carefully portrayed confusion in the mainstream media.



MSNBC recently republished a New York Times piece titled "U.S. scrambles to size up ElBaradei," suggesting somehow Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei may pose an obstacle to American and Israeli interests in the region. The utter contempt for their readers' intelligence is revealed when considering ElBaradei is a trustee of a prominent US think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG) along side George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Armitage, and Kenneth Aldelman.



Zbigniew Brzezinski of course is the father of MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, who daily feigns ignorance over the true nature of the protests and that her father is openly involved in orchestrating them. MSNBC itself is a corporate sponsor of Movements.org.



Furthermore, it should be noted that ICG members such as Richard Armitage and Kenneth Adelman are also signatories of the extreme right-winged Project for a New American Century, the literal architects of the extremely fake "War on Terror," and now some of the most vocal fear mongers regarding the unrest they themselves have not only planned by have funded and organized as well via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Freedom House.



Though many pundits see the Egyptian military's dissolving of parliament and the suspension of the nation's constitution as a step backwards for the protesters, it was exactly these steps that were demanded by ElBaradei's mobs according to the Nation Endowment for Democracy (NED) funded Project on Middle East Democracy. The fact that George Soros, a fellow ICG trustee along side protest leader Mohamed ElBaradei, is funding organizations that have submitted drafts for Egypt's new constitution adds insult to injury to the evisceration of Egypt's national sovereignty.



It turns out that the new Egyptian Constitution has already been drafted, not by the Egyptian people, but by the very US-backed protesters who brought about regime change in the first place. A Reuters report quoted an opposition judge, who had been hiding-out in Kuwait until Mubarak's ousting, as having said civil society groups had already produced several drafts and a new constitution could be ready in a month.



These "civil society" groups include the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information openly funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Neo-Con lined NED funded Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. It appears that while the International Crisis Group may be turning out the strategy, and their trustee ElBaradei leading the mobs into the streets,[color="#FF0000"] it is the vast array of NGOs their membership, including Soros, fund that are working out and implementing the details on the ground.[/color]



Coupled with the US's recent pledge to openly fund Egyptian opposition groups ahead of elections, it is hard to see how anything but a globalist-backed tyranny will result from the coming "transition." The boldness and size of the globalists' activities in the Middle East, North Africa, and now Iran is of such scale, it suggests the beginning of what may be the largest, attempted premeditated reordering of the world since the World Wars.



The public's inability to wrap their minds around the reality of what is now transpiring in Egypt will only embolden the globalists to pursue the next stage of their world domineering agenda. It is essential for the people to make the connections and expose this charade for what it really is; neo-colonialism that has replaced invading armies with hordes of duped US-backed activists. It is equally important for people to recognize that "Neo-Cons" and the likes of George Soros are working in expertly synchronized concert to implement their new global order.



Tony Cartalucci's articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at Land Destroyer.

[Guest]

George Soros = Funding unrest everywhere

Zbigniew Brzezinski = created Afghanistan Jihadi mess,

Richard Armitage = Encourage Paki mess

[Guest]

[url="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2052961,00.html"]Gaddafi's Next Move: Sabotage Oil and Sow Chaos? [/url]

[color="#FF0000"]Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya's rebellious tribes: It's either me or chaos.[/color]

....



The source went on and told me that Gaddafi's desperation has a lot to with the fact that he now can only count on the loyalty of his tribe, the Qadhadhfa. And as for the army, as of Monday he only has the loyalty of approximately 5,000 troops. They are his elite forces, the officers all handpicked. Among them is the unit commanded by his second youngest son Khamis, the 32nd Brigade. (The total strength of the regular Libyan army is 45,000.)



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0...z1Eiq3MDYN

[Guest]

[url="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=209407"]Iranian warships cross Suez, enter Mediterranean[/url]

[ramana]

A few things.



A FOX News National Security Correspondent was shell shocked today saying how is it that all the US supported/friendly Arab regimes are collapsing? The ones standing are the regimes opposed by US.



I think there is something to Gwen Dyer's thesis that this collpase of Arab regimes is a fallout of the US quagmire in Iraq and the 2008 finanical meltdown.



To that I add its Obama as the US President. He is playing the same role that Gorbhchev played when the Warsaw pact regimes which were also dictatorships were collapsing. The forces underway are bigger than nations and individuals to control. One has to stept aside if one wants to survive the tide. Further he could not have intervened without imperial over reach.



Another as Acharya pointed out all these regimes are stalwarts of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) which was setup after the 1965 war and most took anti-India stance in every instance and supported TSP. Yes there is sympathy for Mubarak regime due to Nasser's goodwill for India, but Mubarak was also bad for his people.



Libya in particular funded TSP nuke programs. So I see no sympathy for the regimes being swept away. Qaddafi in particular is a bad person. He was brutal dictator and terrorised his neighbors like Chad and funded Paki nukes. He now has killed his own people. No tears for this thug.



So all in all for India these changes are good eventually.

[Guest]

Obama is Cater version 2.0. His advisers are same players who created Iran and Paki mess.

Current turmoil is combination of opening of society and environmentalist craziness on rest of the world. Food crisis is a major factor. Greed of OPEC is another factor. As I wrote before Iraq war was started , Iraq war will create new middle east with in decade and we will see new countries and new boundaries. And it is happening.

[Guest]

[url="http://www.businessinsider.com/aisha-qadaffi-2011-2"]Aisha Qadaffi Flees The Country But Her Plane Is Denied Entry Into Malta [/url]

Word is she's left the country, but having a hard time finding a country that will take her. A plane she was on just got denied entry into Malta, says Al-Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese wife of Qaddai son Hanibal was denied entry into Lebanon last night





Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/aisha-qad...z1EnnSVFq7

When women start running it means situation is very grim in Libya.

[dhu]

[quote name='Mudy' date='22 February 2011 - 10:33 AM' timestamp='1298350506' post='110882']

George Soros = Funding unrest everywhere

Zbigniew Brzezinski = created Afghanistan Jihadi mess,

Richard Armitage = Encourage Paki mess

[/quote]



Zbigniew is an anti-Semite. Plus he has some type of rivalry with Kissinger.



On a forum, Indian Christists appear to be supporting the ME developments; without fail, these same people supported "democracy" in Sri Lanka (LTTE), Burma, Nepal, and Sudan, and going further back, in East Timor. Plus they have logged support for nuke deal, integration of India's Development drive with the Western interests, as well as, more recently, rabid opposition to the flag-raising in Kashmir. They are an unfailing barometer of western interests.



In one fell swoop, Saddams throughout the ME have been removed..

[Guest]

For Indian Christie, its all about new sheep and they this West are their true Mai Bap.

[Guest]

Mercenaries captured in Libya with passports

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2gKQ9TxS7A[/media]