Catherina
Catherina's JournalDC Protest (Pennsylvania Ave now) livestream
I'm broadcasting '#NoWarWithSyria #Syria #RM' live on @Ustream. Come watch and chat! - http://ustre.am/EXPs (12:19pm)
Tell Congress, #NoWarwithSyria. MIlitary strikes will spiral into another US war. Only diplomacy can end the crisis. https://www.thunderclap.it/tipped/3819/twitter
Jihad in Syria
the Saudi Kingdom negotiated with a total of 1239 inmates, offering them a full pardon and a monthly salary for their families, who were to remain in the Kingdom, in exchange for "...their training in order to send them to Jihad in Syria."
The memo was signed by Abdullah bin Ali al-Rmezan, the "Director of follow up in Ministry of Interior."
...
According to the former Iraqi MP, the Russians threatened to bring this issue to the United Nations if the Saudis continued working against President Bashar al-Assad. The Saudis agreed to stop their clandestine activities and work towards finding a political solution on condition that knowledge of this program would not be made public.
Here is the translation of the memo:
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ministry of Interior
Follow-up LOGO Number: 71466/J/H
Attachments:
Date: 25/5/1433 H. [April /17/2012 AD]
(Top Secret)
His Excellency General Suood Al-Thnayyan
The Classified [Secret] Office at the Ministry of Interior May Allah protect him
Peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings
In reference to the Royal Court telegram No. 112, dated on 04/19/1433 H [March 3, 2012], referring to those held in the Kingdom jails accused with crimes to which Islamic Sharia law of execution by sword [decapitation] applies, we inform you that we are in dialogue with the accused criminals who have been convicted with smuggling drugs, murder, rape, from the following nationalities: 110 Yemenis, 21 Palestinians, 212 Saudis, 96 Sudanese, 254 Syrians, 82 Jordanians, 68 Somalis, 32 Afghanis, 94 Egyptians, 203 Pakistanis, 23 Iraqis, and 44 Kuwaitis.
We have reached an agreement with them that they will be exempted from the death sentence and given a monthly salary to their families and loved ones, who will be prevented from traveling outside Saudi Arabia in return for rehabilitation of the accused and their training in order to send them to Jihad in Syria.
Please accept my greetings.
[Signed]
Director of follow up in Ministry of Interior
Abdullah bin Ali al-Rmezan
CC:
Authority of enforcement of the common good and prevention of forbidden
Copy for general intelligence
Here is the original memo in Arabic:
http://www.aina.org/news/20130120160624.htm
This thing has been in the making for 15 years now. Syria amped up in 2006 pre-Obama
By Craig Whitlock,April 17, 2011
The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.
...
Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.
The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.
The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Damascus at risk.
Syrian authorities “would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change,” read an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Damascus at the time. “A reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive,” the cable said.
...
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-04-17/world/35262231_1_syrian-opposition-diplomatic-cables-syrian-authorities
The files show that up to $6.3 million US was funnelled to the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based dissident organization that operates the Barada TV satellite channel, which broadcasts anti-government news into Syria. Another $6 million went to support a variety of initiatives, including training for journalists and activists, between 2006 and 2010.
Asked point-blank by reporters whether the United States is funding Syrian opposition groups, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news conference Monday, "We are — we're working with a variety of civil society actors in Syria with the goal here of strengthening freedom of expression."
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Toner insisted the financing is not aimed at overthrowing Assad's rule. "We are not working to undermine that government."
...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/04/18/syria-united-states-backing-wikileaks.html
Like any corporation, the US has 10-year, 15-year plans. Obama didn't put this into play but if he willingly plays the part, he's assuming responsibility as per his job description.
We need to change the system, not the figureheads.
Here's what our little neocon friend Farid Ghadry, leader of the opposition Reform Party of Syria & known as the Syrian Chalabi, said in 2007. Same script over and over again.
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/farid-ghadry-syrias-chalabi-from-washington-to-damascus-by-salim-abraham/
Ammar Abdulhamid, a Washington representative for the Front who attended the meetings, said the White House had become more receptive to the Syrian branch of the Brotherhood because the group recast itself as a moderate movement that focuses on human rights and accepts Israel's right to exist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/world/africa/26iht-syria.3674073.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Here's that despicable Farid Ghadry briefing a rightwing think tank last year. It's the same Chalabi script.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/07/982846/-Reform-Party-of-Syria-is-neo-con-astroturf
Man owed $134 in property taxes. The District sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed
This man owed $134 in property taxes. The District sold the lien to an investor who foreclosed on his $197,000 house and sold it. He and many others homeowners like him were
Left with nothing.
On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb.
Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next came the things that were closest to his heart: his Marine Corps medals and photographs of his dead wife, Martha. The duplex in Northeast Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied and shuttered. By sundown, he had nowhere to go.
All because he didn’t pay a $134 property tax bill.
...
For decades, the District placed liens on properties when homeowners failed to pay their bills, then sold those liens at public auctions to mom-and-pop investors who drew a profit by charging owners interest on top of the tax debt until the money was repaid.
But under the watch of local leaders, the program has morphed into a predatory system of debt collection for well-financed, out-of-town companies that turned $500 delinquencies into $5,000 debts — then foreclosed on homes when families couldn’t pay, a Washington Post investigation found.
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More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/09/08/left-with-nothing/
7 Saudis Set to Be Executed by Crucifixion and Firing Squad for Juvenile Jewelry Heist
7 Saudis Set to Be Executed by Crucifixion and Firing Squad for Juvenile Jewelry Heist
(TheBlaze/AP) — Speaking over a smuggled cellphone from his prison cell, one of seven Saudis set to be put to death Tuesday by crucifixion and firing squad for armed robbery appealed for help to stop the executions.
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“I killed no one. I didn’t have weapons while robbing the store, but the police tortured me, beat me up and threatened to assault my mother to extract confessions that I had a weapon with me while I was only 15,” he said. “We don’t deserve death.”
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Last Saturday, he said, Saudi King Abdullah ratified the death sentences and sent them to Abha. Authorities set Tuesday for the executions. They also determined the methods.
The main defendant, Sarhan al-Mashayeh, is to be crucified for three days. The others are to face firing squads.
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Several people were reported crucified in Saudi Arabia last year. Human rights groups have condemned crucifixions in the past, including cases in which people are beheaded and then crucified. In 2009, Amnesty International condemned such an execution as “the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”
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Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, concluded: “It will be outrageous if the Saudi authorities go ahead with these executions…It is high time for the Saudis to stop executing child offenders and start observing their obligations under international human rights law.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/04/shock-7-saudis-set-to-be-executed-by-crucifixion-and-firing-squad-for-juvenile-jewelry-heist/
Edit: Same AP story, slightly different wording at the end, is posted at the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/05/saudi-seven-crucifixion-armed-robbery Unfortunately, the link to TheBlaze is the one that's going around twitter now so I used that. My apologies.
From one Nobel Peace Laureate to another (from Adolfo Pérez Esquivel to Barack Obama)
Open letter to President Barack Obama
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Hear the outcry of the peoples!
The situation in Syria is an object of serious preoccupation and once more the United States, assuming the role of the world's policeman, proposes to invade Syria in the name of "Freedom" and "Human Rights".
Your predecessor George W. Bush, in his messianic madness, invoked religious fundamentalism to launch his messianic wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When he declared that he talked with God, and God told him that he had to attack Iraq, he did so claiming it was the message of God to export "freedom" to the world.
You have spoken, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Reverend Martin Luther King, also a Nobel Peace Laureate, of the need to complete the "Dream" of a shared table, of he who was the most significant expression of the struggle for civil rights against racism in the first slave-holding democracy in the world. Martin Luther King was a man who gave his life to give life, and because of this he is a martyr in our own time. They killed him after the March on Washington because he threatened civil disobedience rather than complicity with the imperialist war against the people of Vietnam. Can you really believe that a military invasion of another people can realize this dream?
Arming rebels in order to authorize the intervention of NATO is nothing new for your country and your allies. Nor is it new for the United States to propose to invade countries accusing them of possessing weapons of mass destruction, which in the case of Iraq turned out to be untrue. Your country supported the regime of Saddam Hussein when he deployed chemical weapons to annihilate the Kurdish people and against the Iranian Revolution, and there was no talk of sanctions, since at that time they (Saddam and Iraq) were your allies. But now you propose to invade Syria without knowing the results of the investigations being realized by the United Nations with the authorization of the Syrian government. There is no doubt that the use of chemical arms is immoral and to be condemned, but your government has no moral authority whatsoever to justify an intervention.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, has stated that a military attack on Syria could make matters worse.
My own country, Argentina, which is now exercising the Presidency of the Security Council of the United Nations, has made public its stance against a foreign military intervention in the Republic of Syria, refusing to be "an accomplice in new deaths."
Pope Francis has also called for a globalization of the movement for Peace and decreed a day of prayer and fasting against the war for September 7, and we ourselves will observe this call.
Even your historical ally, the United Kingdom, has refused (at least for the moment) to be part of this invasion.
Your country is transforming the "Arab Spring" into a NATO inferno, provoking wars in the Middle East and unleashing the pillage of international corporations. The invasion that you propose will only lead to more violence and more death, as well as the destabilization of Syria and of the whole region. To what end? The lucid analyst, Robert Fisk, has noted that the objective is Iran and the postponement of the establishment of a Palestinian state; it is not indignation at the death of hundreds of Syrian children that moves you to intervene militarily. And this at the moment when a moderate government has been democratically elected in Iran, under which it is possible to undertake negotiations and peaceful solutions to existing conflicts. The policy put forward by you and your country could be suicidal.
Syria needs a political rather than a military solution. The international community should support those social organizations that work for peace. The Syrian people, as any other, have a right to self-determination and to define their own democratic process and we should help them to achieve this where they need us.
Obama, your country does not have the moral authority, the legitimacy, nor the legal base to invade Syria or any other country. Much less considering you have assassinated 220,000 persons in Japan by using bombs of massive destruction.
No Congressperson of the United States can legitimize what cannot be legitimate, nor legalize what cannot be legal. This is especially true if we take into account the statement, a few days ago, of the former U.S. President James Carter: "The United States does not have a functioning democracy."
The illegal wiretapping done by your government against the people of the United States is hardly efficient, since according to a public survey done by Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-usa-poll-idUSBRE97O00E20130825), 60% of U.S. citizens oppose the invasion that you want to undertake.
This is why I ask you, Mister Obama, to whom do you obey?
Your government has become a danger for international equilibrium as well as for the people of the United States. It has become a country that cannot resist exporting death to maintain its power and its economy. We will not cease to try to impede this.
I was in Iraq after the bombing campaign that the United States undertook in the 1990s, before the invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein. I saw a refuge full of women and children assassinated by guided missiles. You call these "collateral damage."
Peoples are saying ENOUGH! to wars. Humanity calls for Peace and the right to live in freedom. The people want to turn swords into ploughshares, and the way to achieve this is to "DISARM THE ARMED CONCIENCES."
Mister Obama, you must not forget that we always reap the fruit that we sow. Any human being should be sowing humanity and peace, especially one who has a Nobel Peace Prize. I hope that you will not end up converting the "dream of brotherhood" that Martin Luther King hoped for into a nightmare for peoples and humanity.
Please accept my greetings for Peace and Good Will
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Noble Peace Laureate
September 4 2013
http://warisacrime.org/content/one-nobel-peace-laureate-another
http://www.adolfoperezesquivel.org/?p=3324
Italian version here: http://www3.varesenews.it/blog/labottegadelpittore/?p=13183
French version here: http://alireagenevesuissemonde.blog.tdg.ch/archive/2013/09/07/correspondance-latina-adolfo-perez-esquivel-a-barack-obama-2.html
Spanish original here: http://www.adolfoperezesquivel.org/?p=3324
U.S. Lawmakers Say Constituents Opposed To Syria Intervention, Cite Record Opposition
U.S. Lawmakers Say Constituents Opposed To Syria Intervention, Cite Record Opposition
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Congressional lawmakers echoed much of the same Thursday as they left a classified briefing on Capitol Hill, with some saying they have yet to hear from a single constituent who supports military involvement in Syria.
"What I'm hearing back home is about 100 percent no," Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) told reporters while explaining her opposition to Obama's call for action. The congresswoman added that the chances of getting the House of Representatives to approve the use of military force looked increasingly slim.
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Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), who said he has consistently opposed military intervention in Syria, told reporters he's received more responses on the issue than on any other in his 12 years in Congress.
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Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) acknowledged overwhelming opposition from California residents, but argued that she knew more than they did based on her role as chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"They don’t know what I know. They haven’t heard what I have heard," Feinstein said. "I like to believe after 20 years, I have some skill at separating the wheat from the chaff."
...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/constituents-syria-intervention_n_3876766.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
FUCK YOU FEINSTEIN. I guess in your mind you fucked it up so bad last time that you're now an expert?
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights “shocked” by White House count
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights “shocked” by White House count http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-casualties-20130904,0,681916.story …
Britain, France and a key opposition group cite lower numbers of dead in the alleged chemical attack.
WASHINGTON — ....
In pressing Congress to authorize a military strike against Syria, the administration has asserted that the government of President Bashar Assad killed 1,429 people, including at least 426 children, in an Aug. 21 attack on the suburbs of Damascus.
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U.S. officials say they can't disclose how they derived their figure without compromising intelligence, but they say it is based on a variety of sources and they stand by it.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, generally regarded as one of the most reliable sources of information on casualty figures in Syria, says it has confirmed 502 deaths, including 80 children and 137 women. Rami Abdul-Rahman, a Syrian expatriate who runs the organization from his home in Britain, said he was shocked by the White House's count.
"I don't know where this number came from," Abdul-Rahman said in a phone interview.
He said some Syrian opposition groups disseminate propaganda and exaggerated death tolls in an attempt to sway American politicians.
"The U.S. took this high number from one part of the Syrian opposition that is supported by the U.S. government," Abdul-Rahman said. "We don't trust them."
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http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-syria-casualties-20130904,0,681916.story
Syria: western activists volunteer to become 'human shields'
Syria: western activists volunteer to become 'human shields'
Hundreds of western peace activists, including from Britain and from the US, have volunteered to become "human shields" in government-held parts of Syria, the Daily Telegraph has learned.
Many of those volunteering to go to Syria also took part in the 'Human Shields' movement that travelled to Baghdad. Photo: OLEG NIKISHIN/GETTY IMAGES
By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut
6:29PM BST 06 Sep 2013
The 'International Human Shields' movement, started by a group of activists in Britain and the US, plans to bring to Syria civilians from countries around the globe, who will try to deter US strikes on the country by staking out potential military targets.
Franklin Lamb, a lawyer recently appointed as the legal adviser for the group said he had been "inundated" with requests from activists including from Canada, France, Italy, the US, and Britain.
The Syrian regime has not yet indicated whether it will allow the group to enter the country, but it raises the prospect of hundreds of pacifists descending on Damascus, as happened in Baghdad before the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Many of those volunteering to go to Syria also took part in the 'Human Shields' movement that travelled to Baghdad, initially to protect hospitals and schools, and later, key government infrastructure sites.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10292367/Syria-western-activists-volunteer-to-become-human-shields.html
Saudi King lavishes Hillary Clinton with $500K worth of jewels
Gawd.
7 days ago
Saudi King Abdullah kicked it extremely old school in terms of diplomatic glamour by lavishing then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with $500,000 in white gold jewelry encrusted with rubies and diamonds last year, according to the Federal Register. While the president and many other ambassadors and politicians received gifts from foreign contacts in 2012, most are valued under $5,000. Half a million in ice? That’s pretty cool. The Constitution specifically prohibits U.S. government employees from accepting presents from kings, princes or foreign heads of state, and all gifts should technically be turned over to the General Services Administration for donation or public use. ...
http://now.msn.com/hillary-clinton-got-500k-gift-of-jewelry-from-saudi-king#scpshrtu
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Name: CatherinaGender: Female
Member since: Mon Mar 3, 2008, 03:08 PM
Number of posts: 35,568
