The plan is in the works with new one to deal with Russia & China...
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Regime change carried out by USA using NGO or mercenaries
This had been going on for a long, long time ...
Erdogan inching step closer to dictatorial rule ...
Turkish parliament passes bill to take away political immunity of opposition members...
‘Turkey in organic relationship with ISIS’ – pro-Kurdish HDP party
RT, 23 May, 2016
Erdogan wants to purge the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) from parliament. As Turkey’s main opposition it’s trying to call the government to account, says co-chair Figen Yuksekdag. Members are attacked, stripped of political immunity, and killed, she adds.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Ankara must fulfill all the EU's conditions - including revisions to anti-terror laws - to secure visa-free travel for its citizens, reported AP.
Speaking after a meeting with the Turkish leader in Istanbul, Merkel said she is concerned about Turkey’s decision to strip over a hundred of lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity. A controversial bill that enables Ankara to prosecute opposition politicians was passed by the parliament on Friday.
Before travelling to Turkey, Chancellor Merkel said recent developments in Turkey were a serious cause for concern; a view shared by a number of other high-profile Germans.
Kurdish MPs fear the proposal targets them - as President Erdogan has accused the HDP party of supporting Kurdish militants whom Ankara dubs terrorists. The majority of MPs facing investigation belong to the pro-Kurdish party.
The People's Democratic Party is an opposition left-wing party. It's also the third biggest in the Turkish parliament. The party supports the Kurds as well as other minorities whose members have angered President Erdogan.
Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party Figen Yuksekdag spoke to RT about Ankara's crackdown on the Kurds among other things.
“They want to kick us from the parliament because of the fact that we became the main opposition in Turkey. That’s the only reason for passing this law. The government and Erdogan prefer to ban democratic parties like HDP instead of having political discussions with them. Every time when he looks at us, he sees democratic legitimacy and resistance. And he wants to push us away from the parliament,” she said.
“The People’s Democratic Party is the only party charged and being investigated for saying something or engaging in politics. All the investigations are over our speeches, the things we said in the parliament or everywhere we go, because of all the political work we have done or our approach as a whole. That’s why the investigations against us have begun,” the party’s co-chair said.
However, Figen Yuksekdag said, HDP won’t leave the parliament.
“If they won’t to throw us out – we will resist and continue being the voice of our people,” she said.
‘Ankara can kill Kurdish civilians and no one has the courage to condemn it’
“The last three years the palace has pushed the militarization. Thousands of new police stations were built in the Kurdish cities, in the mountains and everywhere you can imagine. Military prisons were built. We went through this at a time of peace. During those three years a lot of civilians, innocent people were killed. There were a lot of operations against the people and all kind of democratic civil unrest,” Figen Yuksekdag said.
The HDP leader described the alleged atrocities in the town of Cizre in southeast Turkey as “a war crime.” Reportedly, more than 100 people were burned to death in Cizre while sheltering in basements surrounded by Turkish forces. RT appealed to the UN in March, starting a petition urging the organization to investigate the claims of mass killings of Kurdish civilians.
“It’s a war crime what happened in Cizre. There have been examples like this in other countries around the world and they were mostly condemned as war crimes. But in Turkey, a ruling power can easily commit such things and no one has the courage to condemn it,” she said.
‘Turkish govt and ISIS have an organic relationship’
Figen Yuksekdag said that for years her party has been claiming the ruling power in Turkey supports Islamic State.
“We said they have an organic relationship. We have been saying this for years but there is still no fair judgement mechanism in Turkey, no consistent and decisive mechanism of pressure. In general, we are the ones who try to call the government to account and in return we get attacked, massacred, stripped of our political immunity and thrown out of the parliament,” she told RT.
“We were isolated in a significant way for our assertions. The other opposition in Turkey stayed quiet; the international powers remained silent as well. They support Turkey’s actions by remaining silent. They have different relationships, collaborations and deals with Turkey. It would be appropriate to call on them to stop dealing with Ankara because all agreements made in a bloody political process are dirty and blooded ones,” Yuksekdag told RT.
‘Turkey in organic relationship with ISIS’ – pro-Kurdish HDP party
RT, 23 May, 2016
Erdogan wants to purge the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) from parliament. As Turkey’s main opposition it’s trying to call the government to account, says co-chair Figen Yuksekdag. Members are attacked, stripped of political immunity, and killed, she adds.
Speaking after a meeting with the Turkish leader in Istanbul, Merkel said she is concerned about Turkey’s decision to strip over a hundred of lawmakers of their parliamentary immunity. A controversial bill that enables Ankara to prosecute opposition politicians was passed by the parliament on Friday.
Before travelling to Turkey, Chancellor Merkel said recent developments in Turkey were a serious cause for concern; a view shared by a number of other high-profile Germans.
Kurdish MPs fear the proposal targets them - as President Erdogan has accused the HDP party of supporting Kurdish militants whom Ankara dubs terrorists. The majority of MPs facing investigation belong to the pro-Kurdish party.
The People's Democratic Party is an opposition left-wing party. It's also the third biggest in the Turkish parliament. The party supports the Kurds as well as other minorities whose members have angered President Erdogan.
Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party Figen Yuksekdag spoke to RT about Ankara's crackdown on the Kurds among other things.
“They want to kick us from the parliament because of the fact that we became the main opposition in Turkey. That’s the only reason for passing this law. The government and Erdogan prefer to ban democratic parties like HDP instead of having political discussions with them. Every time when he looks at us, he sees democratic legitimacy and resistance. And he wants to push us away from the parliament,” she said.
“The People’s Democratic Party is the only party charged and being investigated for saying something or engaging in politics. All the investigations are over our speeches, the things we said in the parliament or everywhere we go, because of all the political work we have done or our approach as a whole. That’s why the investigations against us have begun,” the party’s co-chair said.
However, Figen Yuksekdag said, HDP won’t leave the parliament.
“If they won’t to throw us out – we will resist and continue being the voice of our people,” she said.
‘Ankara can kill Kurdish civilians and no one has the courage to condemn it’
“The last three years the palace has pushed the militarization. Thousands of new police stations were built in the Kurdish cities, in the mountains and everywhere you can imagine. Military prisons were built. We went through this at a time of peace. During those three years a lot of civilians, innocent people were killed. There were a lot of operations against the people and all kind of democratic civil unrest,” Figen Yuksekdag said.
The HDP leader described the alleged atrocities in the town of Cizre in southeast Turkey as “a war crime.” Reportedly, more than 100 people were burned to death in Cizre while sheltering in basements surrounded by Turkish forces. RT appealed to the UN in March, starting a petition urging the organization to investigate the claims of mass killings of Kurdish civilians.
“It’s a war crime what happened in Cizre. There have been examples like this in other countries around the world and they were mostly condemned as war crimes. But in Turkey, a ruling power can easily commit such things and no one has the courage to condemn it,” she said.
‘Turkish govt and ISIS have an organic relationship’
Figen Yuksekdag said that for years her party has been claiming the ruling power in Turkey supports Islamic State.
“We said they have an organic relationship. We have been saying this for years but there is still no fair judgement mechanism in Turkey, no consistent and decisive mechanism of pressure. In general, we are the ones who try to call the government to account and in return we get attacked, massacred, stripped of our political immunity and thrown out of the parliament,” she told RT.
“We were isolated in a significant way for our assertions. The other opposition in Turkey stayed quiet; the international powers remained silent as well. They support Turkey’s actions by remaining silent. They have different relationships, collaborations and deals with Turkey. It would be appropriate to call on them to stop dealing with Ankara because all agreements made in a bloody political process are dirty and blooded ones,” Yuksekdag told RT.
Proof USA patronizes Syrian Al-Qaeda terrorists ...
While NSA was put to deep slumber ...
Syrian Al-Qaeda-linked leader freely visited the US, but State Dept. says it ‘didn’t know’
RT, 24 May, 2016
A Syrian militant group chief shielded from the UN terror list by the US despite its links to ISIS and Al-Qaeda reportedly had no trouble entering Washington on a European passport. The State Department refused to speak on “visa records.”
Labib al Nahhas, who calls himself “a chief of Foreign Political Relations at Ahrar al-Sham,” arrived in the US capital for a visit lasting a few days in December, according to McClatchy DC news. The report cites “four people with direct knowledge of the trip.”
As one of them told the network’s reporter, Nahhas arrived in the US to speak with “third parties” even though he would not elaborate further. The other speakers revealed a few more details about the visit, saying that Nahhas had been in Washington to meet with lobbyists and Middle East researchers.
Born in Madrid to a Syrian Muslim father and educated in the UK, Nahhas has been using his European roots to reach out to western officials on behalf of Ahrar al-Sham, a group which espouses a strict Salafist form of Sunni Islam and has fought in alliances with Al-Qaeda-linked fighters. In mid-May, Ahrar al-Sham admitted its involvement in a brutal raid at an Alawite Syrian village, reportedly alongside fighters from internationally-recognized terrorist group Al-Nusra Front.
Well-versed in social media and fluent in English, he has been spreading Ahrar al-Sham’s agenda on Twitter and via op-eds, including respected publications such as Britain’s The Daily Telegraph.
RT asked the State Department’s spokesperson Mark Toner whether US officials were aware of that visit in December. He suggested his office did not know about it at all.
“I’m not sure that we were aware of it,” Toner replied. “I don’t believe he had any meetings here, certainly, but – and I can’t speak to visa records. It’s a privacy consideration, so I don’t have much detail I can share with you regarding whether he received a visa to come here.”
While Nahhas’ visit still might seem curious given the US’s scrutiny when it comes to visitors with suspected terror links, the Syrian opposition did not consider this visit to be anything unusual. As one opposition official explained to McClatchy, Ahrar al-Sham was “not among US-designated terrorist groups.”
Yet, in Washington, Ahrar al-Sham’s links to recognized terrorists are well-known. In fact, the US shielded the group from the United Nations’ blacklist, which would officially exclude it from the Syrian ceasefire and allow it to be attacked along with Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
On May 11, Washington blocked a Russian proposal to the UN to delegitimize Ahrar al-Sham along with another group called Jaysh al-Islam over their regular violations of the Russia-US brokered ceasefire. The US’ decision was also shared by Britain, France and Ukraine.
“Russia is publicly attempting to designate groups that are parties to the cessation of hostilities,” the State Department said on that day. “Such actions, we continue to believe, would have damaging consequences to the cessation just as we are trying to de-escalate the situation on the ground.”
When asked about obvious similarities between groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and the sanctioned Al-Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda, the Department said that it was continuing “to have dialogue” with them, but still has not changed its position.
The next day after the statement, insurgents from Ahrar al-Sham together with Al-Nusra fighters captured an Alawite village Zara from government control in western Syria, brutally killing and kidnapping civilians.
Ahrar al-Sham admitted responsibility for the raid, but told Reuters that it did not touch those who did not resist.
“Civilians were not targeted. On the contrary factions made great effort to spare civilians and deal with prisoners humanely,” the groups spokesman said.
However, villagers who spoke with RT Arabic called the raid “a massacre,” saying that militants killed elders and “entire families,” kidnapped children and women.
On Monday, RT’s Gayane Chichakyan presented Toner with a graphic photo allegedly from the attacked Alawite village, showing militants standing on corpses.
When asked whether the US still believes that “this group cares much about the cessation of hostilities,” the State Department’s spokesperson said that he did not know about the “incident.”
“I don’t know about that particular incident. I can look into it,” he replied, reiterating America’s support to the members of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee (HNC).
Last week, another State Department spokesperson, John Kirby, tried to shift the blame onto the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) and “more than twenty nations.” He stressed that Russia was among those countries, which agreed that only Islamic State and Al-Nusra would be excluded from the ceasefire.
When asked by RT why the US was blocking Russia’s proposal at the UN to extend the UN blacklist, Kirby said he would not “get into internal deliberations.”
Instead, he went on to accuse Gayane Chichakyan of “trying to put everything on the United States” and referring her to “all the members of the ISSG.”
The question about the motives behind Washington’s decision at the UN was left unanswered.
Readers' Comments:
# Like I said earlier Terrorists and Terrorism are now recognized as bad terrorists and good terrorists. We categorize them as good terrorist and bad terrorist. Terrorism has become a tool in the hands of rich and resourceful countries whom they fund and support clandestine for their own political interest and if they don't carry out orders accordingly they become bad terrorists and get killed. It's a shame how rich countries politics evolved into killing humans and innocents under pretext of terrorism.
# So painful to see those innocent victims, and the perpetrators with such careless expression on their faces... Interestingly the US arbitrarily places people in those no flying list... and allow monsters such as this to be in the US and being able to collect funds to pursue his criminal agenda.
# He probably went to the White-House to meet the biggest terrorist (Abu Barack Al-Hussein Yankisthani) to talk about deepening bilateral relations between US and the Caliphate.
Syrian Al-Qaeda-linked leader freely visited the US, but State Dept. says it ‘didn’t know’
RT, 24 May, 2016
A Syrian militant group chief shielded from the UN terror list by the US despite its links to ISIS and Al-Qaeda reportedly had no trouble entering Washington on a European passport. The State Department refused to speak on “visa records.”
Labib al Nahhas, who calls himself “a chief of Foreign Political Relations at Ahrar al-Sham,” arrived in the US capital for a visit lasting a few days in December, according to McClatchy DC news. The report cites “four people with direct knowledge of the trip.”
As one of them told the network’s reporter, Nahhas arrived in the US to speak with “third parties” even though he would not elaborate further. The other speakers revealed a few more details about the visit, saying that Nahhas had been in Washington to meet with lobbyists and Middle East researchers.
Born in Madrid to a Syrian Muslim father and educated in the UK, Nahhas has been using his European roots to reach out to western officials on behalf of Ahrar al-Sham, a group which espouses a strict Salafist form of Sunni Islam and has fought in alliances with Al-Qaeda-linked fighters. In mid-May, Ahrar al-Sham admitted its involvement in a brutal raid at an Alawite Syrian village, reportedly alongside fighters from internationally-recognized terrorist group Al-Nusra Front.
Well-versed in social media and fluent in English, he has been spreading Ahrar al-Sham’s agenda on Twitter and via op-eds, including respected publications such as Britain’s The Daily Telegraph.
RT asked the State Department’s spokesperson Mark Toner whether US officials were aware of that visit in December. He suggested his office did not know about it at all.
“I’m not sure that we were aware of it,” Toner replied. “I don’t believe he had any meetings here, certainly, but – and I can’t speak to visa records. It’s a privacy consideration, so I don’t have much detail I can share with you regarding whether he received a visa to come here.”
While Nahhas’ visit still might seem curious given the US’s scrutiny when it comes to visitors with suspected terror links, the Syrian opposition did not consider this visit to be anything unusual. As one opposition official explained to McClatchy, Ahrar al-Sham was “not among US-designated terrorist groups.”
Yet, in Washington, Ahrar al-Sham’s links to recognized terrorists are well-known. In fact, the US shielded the group from the United Nations’ blacklist, which would officially exclude it from the Syrian ceasefire and allow it to be attacked along with Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
On May 11, Washington blocked a Russian proposal to the UN to delegitimize Ahrar al-Sham along with another group called Jaysh al-Islam over their regular violations of the Russia-US brokered ceasefire. The US’ decision was also shared by Britain, France and Ukraine.
“Russia is publicly attempting to designate groups that are parties to the cessation of hostilities,” the State Department said on that day. “Such actions, we continue to believe, would have damaging consequences to the cessation just as we are trying to de-escalate the situation on the ground.”
When asked about obvious similarities between groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and the sanctioned Al-Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda, the Department said that it was continuing “to have dialogue” with them, but still has not changed its position.
The next day after the statement, insurgents from Ahrar al-Sham together with Al-Nusra fighters captured an Alawite village Zara from government control in western Syria, brutally killing and kidnapping civilians.
Ahrar al-Sham admitted responsibility for the raid, but told Reuters that it did not touch those who did not resist.
“Civilians were not targeted. On the contrary factions made great effort to spare civilians and deal with prisoners humanely,” the groups spokesman said.
However, villagers who spoke with RT Arabic called the raid “a massacre,” saying that militants killed elders and “entire families,” kidnapped children and women.
On Monday, RT’s Gayane Chichakyan presented Toner with a graphic photo allegedly from the attacked Alawite village, showing militants standing on corpses.
When asked whether the US still believes that “this group cares much about the cessation of hostilities,” the State Department’s spokesperson said that he did not know about the “incident.”
“I don’t know about that particular incident. I can look into it,” he replied, reiterating America’s support to the members of the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee (HNC).
Last week, another State Department spokesperson, John Kirby, tried to shift the blame onto the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG) and “more than twenty nations.” He stressed that Russia was among those countries, which agreed that only Islamic State and Al-Nusra would be excluded from the ceasefire.
When asked by RT why the US was blocking Russia’s proposal at the UN to extend the UN blacklist, Kirby said he would not “get into internal deliberations.”
Instead, he went on to accuse Gayane Chichakyan of “trying to put everything on the United States” and referring her to “all the members of the ISSG.”
The question about the motives behind Washington’s decision at the UN was left unanswered.
Readers' Comments:
# Like I said earlier Terrorists and Terrorism are now recognized as bad terrorists and good terrorists. We categorize them as good terrorist and bad terrorist. Terrorism has become a tool in the hands of rich and resourceful countries whom they fund and support clandestine for their own political interest and if they don't carry out orders accordingly they become bad terrorists and get killed. It's a shame how rich countries politics evolved into killing humans and innocents under pretext of terrorism.
# So painful to see those innocent victims, and the perpetrators with such careless expression on their faces... Interestingly the US arbitrarily places people in those no flying list... and allow monsters such as this to be in the US and being able to collect funds to pursue his criminal agenda.
# He probably went to the White-House to meet the biggest terrorist (Abu Barack Al-Hussein Yankisthani) to talk about deepening bilateral relations between US and the Caliphate.
Saudis using UK-made cluster bombs in Yemen
Just like terrorist Abdul Wahhab, these barbaric pests are unleashing cluster bombs on civilians without any consideration...
Illegal UK-made cluster bombs found in Yemeni village attacked by Saudis
RT, 23 May, 2016
Banned UK-manufactured cluster bombs have been found in a Yemeni village targeted in Saudi-led coalition air strikes, leading to calls for the UK to come clean on its weapon sales and military support to Saudi Arabia.
The unexploded BL-755 cluster bomb is designed to be dropped from the UK-made Tornado aircraft used by the Saudi Air Force. It was found in a village in the north of the conflict-torn Gulf nation.
Human rights NGO Amnesty International found the unexploded munition during an inspection.
The bomb is said to have been manufactured as long ago as the 1970s by a Bedfordshire-based arms company called Hunting Engineering.
Cluster bombs contain bomblets which are meant to detonate on impact. Failure to detonate has the effect of sowing a minefield. This can present a deadly hazard for people in the affected areas for decades.
Amnesty has called for the UK government to account for its past arms sales and its current practice of embedding UK military personnel to train Saudi forces on how to conduct air strikes and artillery bombardments.
The NGO’s Head of Arms Control, Oliver Sprague, said in a statement that it would be an “absolute scandal” if UK personnel had been involved in the operation which dropped the cluster bomb.
Sprague said the munitions were “one of the nastiest weapons in the history of warfare, rightly banned by more than 100 countries, so it’s truly shocking that a British cluster munition has been dropped on a civilian area in Yemen.”
The Amnesty investigation indicates that the bombs have been dropped in sufficient density to present a daily risk to the lives and livelihoods of local people.
Civilians said they had resorted to removing the bombs themselves for fear that children or livestock could be killed or injured.
Hindi Ibrahim, a local father of two, said the bombs fell “late last July or August during the day and [some of] the bomblets exploded.”
The air strike was supported by US-made Apache attack helicopters which “shot at people as they ran away,” Ibrahim told inspectors.
He said there were as many as 500 bomblets strewn around his village and, when de-miners did not arrive as promised, the locals began clearing bombs themselves at considerable risk.
Cluster bombs have been banned worldwide since 2008. The UK was a high-profile signatory to the ban following a late U-turn by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Brown reportedly faced considerable resistance from sections of the UK government at the time, who felt the devastating munitions were of further use.
US cluster bombs
US-made cluster bombs have also reportedly been used in Yemen. While the country is not a signatory to the ban treaty, it claims to operate within the requirements of the agreement and be aware of the humanitarian implications of the weapon.
The presence of ‘blinds’ – unexploded munitions - in Yemen which have failed to deploy, detonate or self-destruct contradicts claims by the US Security Defense Cooperation Agency that these munitions do not result in more than one percent unexploded ordnance “across the range of intended operational environments.”
The US government prohibits the sale or transfer of cluster munitions with greater than a one percent fail rate.
The US appears to be failing to meet even this standard, which falls short of the complete ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that the 100 states parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions have committed to.
Readers' Comments:
# Western Hypocrisy at work , they will not talk about this but if a country they don't like does the same they act like it's the end of the world.
# This should be acted upon immediately :
At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that individuals can be held criminally responsible for the actions of a country or its soldiers.
War crimes and crimes against humanity are among the gravest crimes in international law. They are considered so serious that there is no period of limitation for such crimes - which means that those who commit them can be prosecuted and punished no matter how much time has elapsed since the crimes were committed.
# The West unable to manufacture product the are useful as China to profit. only product they can profit are weapon. So if there is peace the west goes bankrupt.
# All Yemeni refugees should be allowed to live in England since the Brits have made their country unliveable.
Illegal UK-made cluster bombs found in Yemeni village attacked by Saudis
RT, 23 May, 2016
Banned UK-manufactured cluster bombs have been found in a Yemeni village targeted in Saudi-led coalition air strikes, leading to calls for the UK to come clean on its weapon sales and military support to Saudi Arabia.
The unexploded BL-755 cluster bomb is designed to be dropped from the UK-made Tornado aircraft used by the Saudi Air Force. It was found in a village in the north of the conflict-torn Gulf nation.
Human rights NGO Amnesty International found the unexploded munition during an inspection.
The bomb is said to have been manufactured as long ago as the 1970s by a Bedfordshire-based arms company called Hunting Engineering.
Cluster bombs contain bomblets which are meant to detonate on impact. Failure to detonate has the effect of sowing a minefield. This can present a deadly hazard for people in the affected areas for decades.
Amnesty has called for the UK government to account for its past arms sales and its current practice of embedding UK military personnel to train Saudi forces on how to conduct air strikes and artillery bombardments.
The NGO’s Head of Arms Control, Oliver Sprague, said in a statement that it would be an “absolute scandal” if UK personnel had been involved in the operation which dropped the cluster bomb.
Sprague said the munitions were “one of the nastiest weapons in the history of warfare, rightly banned by more than 100 countries, so it’s truly shocking that a British cluster munition has been dropped on a civilian area in Yemen.”
The Amnesty investigation indicates that the bombs have been dropped in sufficient density to present a daily risk to the lives and livelihoods of local people.
Civilians said they had resorted to removing the bombs themselves for fear that children or livestock could be killed or injured.
Hindi Ibrahim, a local father of two, said the bombs fell “late last July or August during the day and [some of] the bomblets exploded.”
The air strike was supported by US-made Apache attack helicopters which “shot at people as they ran away,” Ibrahim told inspectors.
He said there were as many as 500 bomblets strewn around his village and, when de-miners did not arrive as promised, the locals began clearing bombs themselves at considerable risk.
Cluster bombs have been banned worldwide since 2008. The UK was a high-profile signatory to the ban following a late U-turn by then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Brown reportedly faced considerable resistance from sections of the UK government at the time, who felt the devastating munitions were of further use.
US cluster bombs
US-made cluster bombs have also reportedly been used in Yemen. While the country is not a signatory to the ban treaty, it claims to operate within the requirements of the agreement and be aware of the humanitarian implications of the weapon.
The presence of ‘blinds’ – unexploded munitions - in Yemen which have failed to deploy, detonate or self-destruct contradicts claims by the US Security Defense Cooperation Agency that these munitions do not result in more than one percent unexploded ordnance “across the range of intended operational environments.”
The US government prohibits the sale or transfer of cluster munitions with greater than a one percent fail rate.
The US appears to be failing to meet even this standard, which falls short of the complete ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that the 100 states parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions have committed to.
Readers' Comments:
# Western Hypocrisy at work , they will not talk about this but if a country they don't like does the same they act like it's the end of the world.
# This should be acted upon immediately :
At the heart of the concept of war crimes is the idea that individuals can be held criminally responsible for the actions of a country or its soldiers.
War crimes and crimes against humanity are among the gravest crimes in international law. They are considered so serious that there is no period of limitation for such crimes - which means that those who commit them can be prosecuted and punished no matter how much time has elapsed since the crimes were committed.
# The West unable to manufacture product the are useful as China to profit. only product they can profit are weapon. So if there is peace the west goes bankrupt.
# All Yemeni refugees should be allowed to live in England since the Brits have made their country unliveable.
Saudi wahhabis trying to rear its ugly [snake] head...
Wahhabi terrorism needs to be nipped in the bud; else the peace-loving humanity will have to suffer in the near future ...
Saudi Arabia asserting writ in region like mafia crime family
John Wight
RT, 23 May, 2016
What passes for a government in Saudi Arabia has just threatened that unless things change in Syria they will resort to ‘Plan B’, thus proving that the arrogance and impertinence of this medieval dictatorship knows no bounds.
Let us be clear: if the religious extremism that has engulfed the Arab world in recent years is a snake, responsible for the most heinous and wanton acts of brutality and barbarity it has ever experienced, the head of this snake lies in Riyadh.
This is not to argue that Saudi Arabia should be lined up for invasion and occupation – surely we’ve seen enough of such invasions and occupations to know they only make the situation worse rather than better. But it does require that countries such as the US, UK, and France reappraise foreign policies that have long placed an emphasis on maintaining close relations to a government that has done more to destabilize the region with the poison of religious sectarianism than any other.
This sectarianism is enshrined in the Wahhabi Sunni doctrine that provides the Saudis with the legitimacy they enjoy as ‘guardians of the true faith’, in other words a literalist interpretation of Sunni Islam incompatible with the modern world and all norms of human decency.
It is staggering to consider that a state in which human rights are considered an alien concept - which beheads as many if not more people than ISIS - has not only been allowed to flourish but has been aided in doing so by its friends in the West – and indeed to such an extent that it is in the business of issuing ultimatums and threats to secular and non-sectarian governments, such as the Syrian government in Damascus, in the manner of a New York mafia crime family asserting its writ over contested turf. In any other set of circumstances it would be laughable.
For the Syrian people, though, it is far from a laughing matter. Over the past five years they have seen their country ripped apart by thousands of crazed Salafist jihadists, hell-bent on turning the clock back to the seventh century while turning Syria into a mass grave of the numerous minority communities that have made Syrian society, regardless of its government, a culturally diverse and rich mosaic that offers hope in a region beset by the centrifugal forces of sectarianism.
The burning question that has occupied many of us throughout the conflict in Syria is not whether groups such as al-Nusra or ISIS have received support from Saudi Arabia, but whether said support has emanated from private individuals or from the state – or perhaps even from the state via private individuals.
As British journalist Patrick Cockburn writes in his book, The Rise of Islamic State, “The importance of Saudi Arabia in the rise and return of al-Qaeda is often misunderstood and understated.” He goes on to identify its role in the “propagating of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist, eighteenth-century version of Islam that imposes sharia law, relegates women to the status of second-class citizens, and regards Shia and Sufi Muslims as non-Muslims to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews.”
Cockburn goes as far as to claim that Wahhabism has “many similarities with European fascism in the 1930s.”
The efforts of the Saudis in propagating and spreading the influence of Wahhabism are not restricted to the Middle East. In a 2015 article titled ‘The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad’, which appeared at the US conservative website, World Affairs, authors Carl E B Chosky and Jamsheed K Chosky reveal that “80 percent of the 1,200 mosques operating in the US were constructed after 2001, more often than not with Saudi financing. As a result, Wahhabi influence over Islamic institutions in the US was considerable by 2003, according to testimony before the US Senate. Hundreds of publications, published by the Saudi government and its affiliates, and filled with intolerance toward Christians, Jews, and other Americans, had been disseminated across the country by 2006.”
This pernicious influence has spread throughout the world, where Saudi money bankrolls the construction of mosques and funds schools in which Wahhabi theology and ideology is promoted and indoctrinated at the expense of every other interpretation of the Koran.
In essence, we are describing a state which on the one hand is using its considerable oil-wealth to cement its indispensability to the West in the region as a major customer of its armaments industries, as well as an Arab ally willing to acquiesce in the West’s hegemonic geopolitical status in the region. On the other hand, it is using their “control of four-fifths of all Islamic publishing houses around the world to spread their fighting words into faraway places.”
The Saudis are dependent on Wahhabi-clerics for policing the kingdom to ensure that any and all internal dissent is labeled apostasy and dealt with harshly. In return, the said clerics gain the state support and funding that allows them to spew out their hate-filled garbage. It is the very definition of an unholy alliance.
When it comes to the conflict in Syria, the Choskys inform us how “More than 11,000 Wahhabi-radicalized foreigners had joined the Syrian jihad by September 2014, with French and British citizens predominating recruits from Europe. It costs on average only $2,500 to train each jihadi, fundraisers proudly inform potential donors when urging them to give more. After being bloodied in battle, many jihadis slip back into their native countries, just as one or both Kouachi brothers [responsible for the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris] did after time in Yemen.”
For too long there has been a marked reluctance on the part of Washington and its European allies to confront the main source of the chaos and mayhem that has engulfed the region in recent years. It is a reluctance, or failure, that ensures that the rhetoric they constantly espouse about confronting and defeating terrorism has not been backed up with the action required to do so.
The only ‘Plan B’ a world interested in ending the cancer of extremism and terrorism should be discussing is one that involves action to curb the power and influence of the Saudis in spreading and fomenting this poison. In fact, never mind ‘Plan B’, it should also constitute ‘Plan A’.
John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. He wrote a memoir of the five years he spent in Hollywood, where he worked in the movie industry prior to becoming a full time activist and organizer with the US antiwar movement post-9/11. The book is titled Dreams That Die and is published by Zero Books. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1
Readers' Comments:
# They both work in tandem the out house of saud is the financier with qatar and Uae, turkey and Jordan are the training grounds for terrorists and all terrorists are contrived by the nato and Israel to destroy middle east on behest of Israel.
# Britain is a morally rotten nation. The future head of the Church of England dances the Sword Dance, in Saudi uniform, with the Saudi Brutes, while they slaughter Christians in Syria. For the "sin" of being Christians.
England and Britain by now are Money-Worshippers. You believe in money and nothing but money. The Saudis have more than enough of that; so your elite sides with the Saudis.
Eventually money-worshipping will deal your nation the same fate as it did to Sodom and Gomorrea. And it is well deserved. Good Riddance !
# The first thing western countries and I mean all western countries need to do is stop the financing of mosques by Saudi arabia and expel all Wahhabi clerics from every country .Any cleric supporting extremism is part of the problem ,next all muslim schools need to have fixed agendas,teaching 6 and 7 year olds that jihadi is the law of the religion is wrong and needs to be stopped ,cutting off the head of the so called snake is not the answer when it comes to islam ,because in islam dieing is every mans goal,the only way to stop islam is through the children and stopping the Islamic doctrine in Islamic schools is the first step.
# It will be impossible to defeat ISIS or Al Queda until the Saudi Government stops the funding of wahabism.
# Saudi influence has very little to do with oil, other than the ca$h it gives them to procure expensive weapons systems. That's the real reason Western governments won't criticize them. That, and their funding for Ivy league colleges and think tanks, oh and political parties of course. And they're great customers for infrastructure, engineering, oil services companies. They employ vast numbers of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangledeshis while opening Wahibi/Deobandi mosques to spread their extremism in these countries.
# It is incredible that the west is still supporting Saudi Arabia. Not only its human rights record, the export of Wahabism around the world has done huge damage. The instability in Syria,Libya,Iraq,Yemen etc are blamed on a shia-sunni problmen. It is infact the way in which an unelected Kingdom rules the region.
# Wahhabis are Zionists. Wahhabi Muslims should be compared to American Evangelical Christians, not Italian Fascists, who were Catholics.
Wahhabi's are the recipients of British mandate to rule Arabia, just as Israelis were recipients of British mandate to rule Palestine. Both owe the British for their establishment.
Both are Zionists and like the Evangelical, they are lightweights with poor historical awareness. They pretend to comprehend their scripture as charlatans.
Saudi Arabia asserting writ in region like mafia crime family
John Wight
RT, 23 May, 2016
What passes for a government in Saudi Arabia has just threatened that unless things change in Syria they will resort to ‘Plan B’, thus proving that the arrogance and impertinence of this medieval dictatorship knows no bounds.
Let us be clear: if the religious extremism that has engulfed the Arab world in recent years is a snake, responsible for the most heinous and wanton acts of brutality and barbarity it has ever experienced, the head of this snake lies in Riyadh.
This is not to argue that Saudi Arabia should be lined up for invasion and occupation – surely we’ve seen enough of such invasions and occupations to know they only make the situation worse rather than better. But it does require that countries such as the US, UK, and France reappraise foreign policies that have long placed an emphasis on maintaining close relations to a government that has done more to destabilize the region with the poison of religious sectarianism than any other.This sectarianism is enshrined in the Wahhabi Sunni doctrine that provides the Saudis with the legitimacy they enjoy as ‘guardians of the true faith’, in other words a literalist interpretation of Sunni Islam incompatible with the modern world and all norms of human decency.
It is staggering to consider that a state in which human rights are considered an alien concept - which beheads as many if not more people than ISIS - has not only been allowed to flourish but has been aided in doing so by its friends in the West – and indeed to such an extent that it is in the business of issuing ultimatums and threats to secular and non-sectarian governments, such as the Syrian government in Damascus, in the manner of a New York mafia crime family asserting its writ over contested turf. In any other set of circumstances it would be laughable.
For the Syrian people, though, it is far from a laughing matter. Over the past five years they have seen their country ripped apart by thousands of crazed Salafist jihadists, hell-bent on turning the clock back to the seventh century while turning Syria into a mass grave of the numerous minority communities that have made Syrian society, regardless of its government, a culturally diverse and rich mosaic that offers hope in a region beset by the centrifugal forces of sectarianism.
The burning question that has occupied many of us throughout the conflict in Syria is not whether groups such as al-Nusra or ISIS have received support from Saudi Arabia, but whether said support has emanated from private individuals or from the state – or perhaps even from the state via private individuals.
As British journalist Patrick Cockburn writes in his book, The Rise of Islamic State, “The importance of Saudi Arabia in the rise and return of al-Qaeda is often misunderstood and understated.” He goes on to identify its role in the “propagating of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist, eighteenth-century version of Islam that imposes sharia law, relegates women to the status of second-class citizens, and regards Shia and Sufi Muslims as non-Muslims to be persecuted along with Christians and Jews.”
Cockburn goes as far as to claim that Wahhabism has “many similarities with European fascism in the 1930s.”
The efforts of the Saudis in propagating and spreading the influence of Wahhabism are not restricted to the Middle East. In a 2015 article titled ‘The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad’, which appeared at the US conservative website, World Affairs, authors Carl E B Chosky and Jamsheed K Chosky reveal that “80 percent of the 1,200 mosques operating in the US were constructed after 2001, more often than not with Saudi financing. As a result, Wahhabi influence over Islamic institutions in the US was considerable by 2003, according to testimony before the US Senate. Hundreds of publications, published by the Saudi government and its affiliates, and filled with intolerance toward Christians, Jews, and other Americans, had been disseminated across the country by 2006.”
This pernicious influence has spread throughout the world, where Saudi money bankrolls the construction of mosques and funds schools in which Wahhabi theology and ideology is promoted and indoctrinated at the expense of every other interpretation of the Koran.
In essence, we are describing a state which on the one hand is using its considerable oil-wealth to cement its indispensability to the West in the region as a major customer of its armaments industries, as well as an Arab ally willing to acquiesce in the West’s hegemonic geopolitical status in the region. On the other hand, it is using their “control of four-fifths of all Islamic publishing houses around the world to spread their fighting words into faraway places.”
The Saudis are dependent on Wahhabi-clerics for policing the kingdom to ensure that any and all internal dissent is labeled apostasy and dealt with harshly. In return, the said clerics gain the state support and funding that allows them to spew out their hate-filled garbage. It is the very definition of an unholy alliance.
When it comes to the conflict in Syria, the Choskys inform us how “More than 11,000 Wahhabi-radicalized foreigners had joined the Syrian jihad by September 2014, with French and British citizens predominating recruits from Europe. It costs on average only $2,500 to train each jihadi, fundraisers proudly inform potential donors when urging them to give more. After being bloodied in battle, many jihadis slip back into their native countries, just as one or both Kouachi brothers [responsible for the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris] did after time in Yemen.”
For too long there has been a marked reluctance on the part of Washington and its European allies to confront the main source of the chaos and mayhem that has engulfed the region in recent years. It is a reluctance, or failure, that ensures that the rhetoric they constantly espouse about confronting and defeating terrorism has not been backed up with the action required to do so.
The only ‘Plan B’ a world interested in ending the cancer of extremism and terrorism should be discussing is one that involves action to curb the power and influence of the Saudis in spreading and fomenting this poison. In fact, never mind ‘Plan B’, it should also constitute ‘Plan A’.
John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. He wrote a memoir of the five years he spent in Hollywood, where he worked in the movie industry prior to becoming a full time activist and organizer with the US antiwar movement post-9/11. The book is titled Dreams That Die and is published by Zero Books. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1
Readers' Comments:
# They both work in tandem the out house of saud is the financier with qatar and Uae, turkey and Jordan are the training grounds for terrorists and all terrorists are contrived by the nato and Israel to destroy middle east on behest of Israel.
# Britain is a morally rotten nation. The future head of the Church of England dances the Sword Dance, in Saudi uniform, with the Saudi Brutes, while they slaughter Christians in Syria. For the "sin" of being Christians.
England and Britain by now are Money-Worshippers. You believe in money and nothing but money. The Saudis have more than enough of that; so your elite sides with the Saudis.
Eventually money-worshipping will deal your nation the same fate as it did to Sodom and Gomorrea. And it is well deserved. Good Riddance !
# The first thing western countries and I mean all western countries need to do is stop the financing of mosques by Saudi arabia and expel all Wahhabi clerics from every country .Any cleric supporting extremism is part of the problem ,next all muslim schools need to have fixed agendas,teaching 6 and 7 year olds that jihadi is the law of the religion is wrong and needs to be stopped ,cutting off the head of the so called snake is not the answer when it comes to islam ,because in islam dieing is every mans goal,the only way to stop islam is through the children and stopping the Islamic doctrine in Islamic schools is the first step.
# It will be impossible to defeat ISIS or Al Queda until the Saudi Government stops the funding of wahabism.
# Saudi influence has very little to do with oil, other than the ca$h it gives them to procure expensive weapons systems. That's the real reason Western governments won't criticize them. That, and their funding for Ivy league colleges and think tanks, oh and political parties of course. And they're great customers for infrastructure, engineering, oil services companies. They employ vast numbers of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangledeshis while opening Wahibi/Deobandi mosques to spread their extremism in these countries.
# It is incredible that the west is still supporting Saudi Arabia. Not only its human rights record, the export of Wahabism around the world has done huge damage. The instability in Syria,Libya,Iraq,Yemen etc are blamed on a shia-sunni problmen. It is infact the way in which an unelected Kingdom rules the region.
# Wahhabis are Zionists. Wahhabi Muslims should be compared to American Evangelical Christians, not Italian Fascists, who were Catholics.
Wahhabi's are the recipients of British mandate to rule Arabia, just as Israelis were recipients of British mandate to rule Palestine. Both owe the British for their establishment.
Both are Zionists and like the Evangelical, they are lightweights with poor historical awareness. They pretend to comprehend their scripture as charlatans.
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