The Endless War: Saudi Arabia Goes On The Offensive Against Iran
NWOTruth
August 27, 2012
Submitted by Felix Imonti of OilPrice.com,
Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Their involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long bloody conflict that will know no frontiers or limits.
Ongoing Disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February of 2011 have set off alarm bells in Riyadh. The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests and fear that the problems will spill over the twenty-five kilometer long COSWAY into oil rich Al-Qatif, where The bulk of the two million Shia in the kingdom are concentrated. So far, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations a serious as those in Bahrain, but success in the island kingdom could encourage the protestors to become more violent.
Protecting the oil is the first concern of the government. Oil is the sole source of the national wealth and it is managed by the state owned Saudi Aramco Corporation. The monopoly of political power by the members of the Saud family means that all of the wealth of the kingdom is their personal property. Saudi Arabia is a company country with the twenty-eight million citizens the responsibility of the Saud Family rulers.
The customary manner of dealing with a problem by the patriarchal regime is to bury it in money. King Abdullah announced at the height of the Arab Spring that he was increasing the national budget by 130 billion dollars to be spent over the coming five years. Government salaries and the minimum wage were raised. New housing and other benefits are to be provided. At the same time, he plans to expand the security forces by sixty thousand men.
While the Saudi king seeks to sooth the unrest among the general population by adding more government benefits, he will not grant any concessions to the eight percent of the population that is Shia. He takes seriously the warning by King Abdullah of Jordan back in 2004 of the danger of a Shia Crescent that would extend from the coast of Lebanon to Afghanistan. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and the Shia controlled government of Iraq form the links in the chain.
When the Arab Spring reached Syria, the leaders in Riyadh were given the weapon to break the chain. Appeals from tribal leaders under attack in Syria to kinsmen in the Gulf States for assistance could not be ignored. The various blinks between the Gulf States in several Syrian tribes means that Saudi Arabia and its close ally Qatar have connections that include at least three million people out of the Syrian populations of twenty-three million. To show how deep the bonds go, the leader of the Nijris Tribe in Syria is married to a woman from the Saud Family.
It is no wonder that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in February that arming the Syrian rebels was an “excellent idea.” He was supported by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani who said, “We should do whatever necessary to help [the Syrian opposition], including giving them weapons to defend themselves.” The intervention has the nature of a family and tribal issue that the prominent Saudi cleric Aidh al-Qarni has turned into a Sunni-Shia War by promoting Assad’s death.
The Saudis and their Qatar and United Arab Emirate allies have pledged one hundred million dollars to pay wages to the fighters. Many of the officers of the Free Syrian Army are from tribes connected to the Gulf. In effect, the payment of wages is paying members of associated tribes.
Here, the United States is not a welcomed partner, except as a supplier of arms. Saudi Arabia sees the role of the United States limited to being a wall of steel to protect the oil wealth of the Kingdom and the Gulf States from Iranian aggression. In February of 1945, President Roosevelt at a meeting in Egypt with Abdel Aziz bin Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, pledged to defend the kingdom in exchange for a steady flow of oil.
Since those long ago days when the U.S. was establishing Pax Americana, the Saudis have lost their trust in the wisdom or the reliability of American policy makers. The Saudis urged the U.S. not to invade Iraq in 2003 only to have them ignore Saudi interests in maintaining an Iraqi buffer zone against Iran. The Saudis had asked the U.S. not to leave a Shia dominated government in Baghdad that would threaten the Northern frontier of the Kingdom, only to have the last American soldiers depart in December 2011. With revolution sweeping across the Middle East, Washington abandoned President Mubarak of Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s favorite non royal leader in the region.
Worried by the possibility of Iranian sponsored insurrections among Shia in the Gulf States, the Saudis are asserting their power in the region while they have the advantage. For thirty years, they have been engaged in a proxy war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Syria is to be the next battlefield, but here, there is a critical difference from what were minor skirmishes in Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere. The Saudis with the aid of Qatar, and the UAE is striking at the core interests of Tehran; and they have through their tribal networks the advantage over an isolated Islamic Republic.
Tribal and kinship relations are being augmented by the infusion of the Salafi vision of Islam that is growing in the Gulf States. Money from the Gulf States has gone into the development of religious centers to spread the fundamentalist belief. A critical part of the ideology is to be anti-Shia.
Salafism in Saudi Arabia is promulgated by the Wahhabi School of Islam. The Wahhabi movement began in the eighteenth century and promoted a return to the fundamentalism of the early followers of the Faith.
The Sauds incorporated the religious movement into their leadership of the tribes. When the modern state of Saudi Arabia was formed, they were granted control of the educational system and much else in the society in exchange for the endorsement of the authoritarian rule.
When the Kingdom used its growing wealth in the 1970s to extend its interests far from the traditional territory in the battle against the atheistic Soviet Union, the Wahhabi clergy became missionaries in advancing their ideology through religious institutions to oppose the Soviets. More than two hundred thousand jihadists were sent into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet forces and succeeded in driving them out.
There is no longer a Soviet Union to confront. Today, the enemy is the Islamic Republic of Iran with what is described by the Wahhabis as a heretical form of Islam and its involvement in the Shia communities across the region. For thirteen centuries, the Shia have been kept under control. With the hand of Iran in the form of the Qud Force reaching into restless communities that number as many as one hundred and six million people in what is the heart of the Middle East, the Saudis see a desperate need to crush the foe before it has the means to pull down the privileged position of the Saud Family and the families of the other Gulf State rulers.
The war begins in Syria where we can expect that a successor government to Assad will be declared soon in the Saudi controlled tribal areas even before Assad is defeated. The territory is likely to adopt the more fundamentalist principals of the Salafists as it serves as a stepping stone to Iran Itself. It promises to be a bloody protracted war that will recognize no frontier and will know no limits by all of the participants.
[VIA zerohedge.com/fullrss2.xml]
Globalist Rag Gives “Two Cheers” for Terrorism
Foreign Policy plums new depths of own legendary depravity.
by Tony Cartalucci
August 24, 2012 – Foreign Policy published a recent article literally titled, “Two Cheers for Syrian Islamists.” In it, general editor of the Neo-Con Middle East Forum Gary Gambill concedes that the Syrian government “would not be in the trouble it’s in today were it not for the Islamists,” revealing what the West and its media houses have attempted but failed at obfuscating – that the violence in Syria is the work of sectarian extremists, not “pro-democracy activists.” The latter’s existence was amplified by the Western media specifically to provide cover and legitimacy for the violence and subversion of the former.
Image: Must be seen to believe – screenshot of FP’s article literally titled, “Two Cheers for Syrian Islamists.” The writer, Gary Gambill, comes from the Middle East Forum which regular features the warmongering rants of Neo-Cons like Daniel Pipes and Islamophobia-propagandist Robert Spencer.
Gambill continues his “two cheers” for terrorism in perhaps the most perverse statement found to-date in the Western press on the subject:
“Islamists — many of them hardened by years of fighting U.S. forces in Iraq — are simply more effective fighters than their secular counterparts. Assad has had extraordinary difficulty countering tactics perfected by his former jihadist allies, particularly suicide bombings and roadside bombs.”
Gambill is gushingly praising men who have killed Western troops, admiring their prowess on the battlefield through their use of indiscriminate terrorist tactics which have killed and maimed tens of thousands of civilians across the Arab World.
The Big Lie
Gambill continues by stating, “The Sunni Islamist surge may also be essential to inflicting a full-blown strategic defeat on Iran,” before concluding at length as to why the US should support terrorism in Syria:
“For the foreseeable future, however, Iran constitutes a far greater and more immediate threat to U.S. national interests. Whatever misfortunes Sunni Islamists may visit upon the Syrian people, any government they form will be strategically preferable to the Assad regime, for three reasons: A new government in Damascus will find continuing the alliance with Tehran unthinkable, it won’t have to distract Syrians from its minority status with foreign policy adventurism like the ancien régime, and it will be flush with petrodollars from Arab Gulf states (relatively) friendly to Washington.
So long as Syrian jihadis are committed to fighting Iran and its Arab proxies, we should quietly root for them — while keeping our distance from a conflict that is going to get very ugly before the smoke clears. There will be plenty of time to tame the beast after Iran’s regional hegemonic ambitions have gone down in flames. ” –Gary Gambill, “Two Cheers for Syrian Islamists,” (2012)
In this, Gambill divulges the true agenda behind destabilizing Syria – the isolation and undermining of Iran to the east, and Hezbollah in Lebanon to the West. Gambill also mentions the destruction of Syria as a means of realigning Iraq to US interests.
Gambill disingenuously claims that the US can do “little about” what he calls the “political ascendancy” of these sectarian extremists, portraying the rise of violence across the Levant and the miraculous resurrection of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Arab World as coincidentally aligned to American interests, and something that should be allowed, even encouraged, to run its course.
Gambill fails to mention, however, that this “political ascendancy” was planned, funded, armed, and organized by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia as far back as 2007, according to a detailed, 9-page report published by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker titled “The Redirection.”
In the report, it explicitly states:
“To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.” –Seymour Hersh, The Redirection (2007)
Hersh’s report would also include:
“the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.” –Seymour Hersh, The Redirection (2007)
In essence, Gambill’s gushing support for terrorism – and in particular, terrorists who have fought and killed Americans – is but the latest in an attempt to spin and repackage Al Qaeda and the fraudulent “War on Terror” as public awareness outgrows the fallacious “humanitarian pretenses” the operation has been couched within hitherto.
Gambill’s material support for terrorism echos a recent article titled, “Al-Qaeda’s Specter in Syria,” published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a premier Fortune 500-funded US think-tank, which stated:
“The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime’s superior weaponry and professional army. Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now.”
Why is Gambill Writing This?
Consider the audience of Foreign Policy. It is not propaganda fit for the masses. Rather it is for aspiring, as well as low to mid-level members of the global corporate-financier establishment. Western involvement in both Libya and Syria have undermined the governments, institutions, and organizations many of these people work for, and as public awareness (and anger) grows, it will be these low to mid-level members who bear the brunt of the system’s collapsing legitimacy. Many are already expressing doubts over the viability and nature of the West’s global agenda as it unfolds.
It must be remembered that the terrorists Gambill is “cheering” for had ensnared millions of Western troops for over a decade in the so-called “War on Terror.” It has killed thousands of troops, tens of thousands were maimed both physically and psychologically, and hundreds of thousands have forever lost time they could have spent at home with their loved ones. As public awareness grows of Western support for these very terrorists, it would be almost inconceivable that there would not be a profound, perhaps even violent backlash against people like Gambill and the establishment he represents.
Gambill’s cheerleading is designed to rally the lower ranks of the establishment around this new narrative as he and fellow warmongers attempt to flee forward through Syria and then into Iran. Eventually, the reckless promotion of terrorism Gambill and others are committed to will once again call US soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen into harms way – either to fight nations defending themselves against US-sponsored terrorism, or to liquidate US-supported terrorists when their services are longer needed.
Gambill by causally saying, “there will be plenty of time to tame the beast after Iran’s regional hegemonic ambitions have gone down in flames,” means specifically more US troops will be deployed, and will most certainly die, all in the pursuit of corporate-financier interests in the Middle East. Gambill specifically refers to “hegemonic ambitions,” not any conceivable threat to US defense, as the impetus for cheering on terrorism, a theme that is omnipresent throughout US policy papers on Iran.
Legendary US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler once said “war is a racket.” For an increasing number of people worldwide, they are beginning to understand why.
Resistance Girl from S Lebanon Explains the Fighting [video]
108morris108
August 26, 2012
The Jabal (33 seconds in) are the Alawites in Tripoli.
The whole Syrian conflict has been started to weaken Hezbollah
Everyone knows there will be another war in Israel
Her Twitter account is: http://twitter.com/Amani_Lebanon
Civilians Massacred in Daraya A Town Overrun By NATO’s FSA [video]
Syrian Girl
August 26, 2012
The NATO run mainstream media claims the Syrian military was responsible for a massacre in the town of Daraya, however the residents of Daraya have a different point of view.
For translation turn on annotations.
Syrian opposition admits British intelligence is assisting terrorist FSA along with U.S., Germany and Turkey [video included]
By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie
August 19, 2012
A Free Syrian Army fighter fires his sniper rifle in Aleppo, on August 14, 2012. (Image credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic)
It is no longer by any means secret that the Syrian opposition terrorist group known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is being supported by the governments of the United States, Turkey, Germany and Britain.
Recently, the United States government made it completely legal to donate money to the Syrian opposition. While you can’t go out and buy an AK-47 and mail it to the FSA, you can instead send the same terrorists the money to buy it.
Keep in mind, these are the same individuals who have shown no willingness to give up the chemical weapons belonging to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if they get their hands on them.
One might also want to take note of the fact that there have been multiple reports claiming that the Syrian military captured military officers from foreign nations and that even mainstream international news sources are now being forced to report the truth about Syria as you can see in the below video:
Now news agencies as large as the United Kingdom’s Sky News and Daily Mail along with the Australian Herald Sun are reporting on the fact that these opposition terrorists are receiving assistance from Western intelligence including the location and movements of regime troops along with their communications.
According to reports, both British and German spies are working to pass on critical information to the Syrian rebels and it appears that these intelligence agencies have absolutely no qualms about what they are doing.
“We can be proud of the significant contribution we are making to the fall of the Assad regime,” an official from Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service told Bild am Sonntag, according to the Herald Sun.
According to the German news outlet, German spies have been stationed both off the Syrian coast and at a NATO base in Turkey while the British Sunday Times stated that British intelligence was passing on information gathered from listening posts in Cyprus.
The reports state that the intelligence is passed through Turkey to the FSA which is hardly surprising given the fact that there have been reports in the past of cross-border incursions from Turkey into Syria.
“British intelligence is observing things closely from Cyprus,” an opposition official said to the Sunday Times, according to Sky News.
“It’s very useful because they find out a great deal,” continued the unnamed official. “The British are giving the information to the Turks and the Americans and we are getting it from the Turks.”
The mention of Americans is critical because recent reports have stated that the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been working to funnel weapons to the armed Syrian opposition.
“The British monitor communications about movements of the government army and we got information about reinforcements being on their way to Aleppo,” the official stated.
“We hit at the government troops in Idlib and Saraqib (southwest of Aleppo), with success,” said the official.
Now the Washington Post is reporting fighting in and around Aleppo with heavy clashes in Salahuddin, Ansari, Sabbagh, Sukkari, Sakhour and Hanano.
It appears that the British are attempting to maintain plausible deniability and remove themselves from being associated with directly putting guns in the hands of the Syrian rebels.
“One diplomat denied that the British were ‘facilitating’ the supply of heavy machineguns. But he said he could not rule out the possibility that private contractors financed by countries such as Qatar were involved in providing arms,” according to the Daily Mail.
“Wealthy families in Qatar and Saudi Arabia are understood to be providing substantial financial support to the rebel forces,” they added.
This would hardly be surprising given that we now know that Qatar was running operations on the ground for the Libyan rebels.
However, the Daily Mail reports, “Britain has officially ruled out giving any covert help to the rebels,” which is quite doubtful since Britain had troops on the ground in Libya giving covert help to the rebels.
It only makes sense that the British would deny any such activities to the ends of the Earth given that, “William Hague, the foreign secretary, has been advised that it would be illegal under international law for Britain to supply weapons directly to any group in Syria, which is covered by a European Union arms embargo,” as the Daily Mail reports.
Another issue of significant concern to many is the treatment of Christians in Syria. According to Sky News, Christians located in Damascus have been informing Tim Marshall, the foreign affairs editor for Sky, that they are fearful of the future as the bloodshed continues.
“The patriarch of a Greek Catholic church in the Syrian capital says some Christians fear they could be forced out of the country after a civil war, as has happened in other countries touched by Arab Spring unrest,” reports Sky.
The number of people killed in the bloodshed in Syria continues to rise with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – which is actually an anti-Assad opposition group run out of the United Kingdom by a man who hasn’t even been in Syria for over a decade – claiming that 23,000 people have died since March 2011 while the United Nations claims the number is around 17,000.
Both of these figures, however, are based on unverified, unsubstantiated reports from groups and individuals who are far from independent or disinterested.
Personally, I do not think that any figures are reliable since all sides of the conflict have good reason to skew the facts to their benefit. I encourage extreme skepticism when dealing with this issue.
Regardless of what the actual number is, it is undeniable that people have died in Syria and any loss of life is both tragic and unacceptable. I sincerely hope that the Western intelligence agencies will cease aiding terrorists and that this horrific situation will be resolved without further death and suffering.
Unfortunately, it appears that so long as Assad remains in power, the West will not give up and will continue to support the bloodshed in Syria.
Did I forget anything or miss any errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to contact me at admin@EndtheLie.com with your concerns, tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may strike your fancy.
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The Chabad and The Empire – Michael Hoffman [video]
108morris108
August 3, 2012
Chabad Lubavitch is an Organised Political Power
Saudi Arabia developing all-woman cities
NWO Truth
August 11, 2012
In a bid to offer more women career opportunities without running afowl of Sharia law, the Saudi Arabian government is putting together a group of all-women cities.
According to Russia Today, construction on the first new municipality, an industrial hub slated to be part of the city of Hafuf in the eastern part of the country, is slated to begin next year, under the direction of the Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon).
Officials say the new hub will focus on the textile industry and create about 5,000 jobs, with women figuring in in both managerial roles and working on production lines. (Read more…)
“I’m sure that women can demonstrate their efficiency in many aspects and clarify the industries that best suit their interests, their nature and their ability,” said Saleh Al-Rasheed, deputy director-general of Modon, adding that plans are already in the works for the second women-only city, with hopes to develop a network of them around the country. The first hub is expected to bring in 500 million riyals (about $133 million) in investments.
Sharia law traditionally allows women to be employed in a limited capacity, but with a 26.9 female unemployment rate – four times that of men – religious mores may be forced to give way to fiscal prudence.
“Economic realities and necessities will force the society to change its perception of working women, because the situation now is unsustainable,” a Saudi diplomat told the Financial Times this week.
The government had already begun phasing women into sales positions at foreign apparel stores this year, gradually replacing men in lingerie, cosmetics and perfume shops, despite clerics’ protestations that mingling with customers could lead to “immoral” behavior.
[File photo via Agence France-Presse]
[VIA The Raw Story]
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