The end of Force 13: Now those are supposed to be the US-trained "moderate Syrian rebels"

In US media the Force 13 is called "pro-Western".  Yesterday, it was defeated by Nusrah front and its US-supplied weapons and equipments were confiscated.  Here are the various militias which make up Force 13 (note the religious names):

مَن هي «الفرقة 13»
تشكلت «الفرقة 13» منتصف العام 2013 من اجتماع الفصائل التالية:
١ـ «لواء عباد الرحمن» بقيادة المقدم احمد السعود/ معرة النعمان وهو قائد «الفرقة» أيضاً.
٢ـ «لواء درع ادلب» بقيادة ايمن العباس/معصران.
٣ـ «لواء درع الشمال» بقيادة مهنا عمار الدين /خان السبل.
٤ـ «لواء فرسان الحق» بقيادة المقدم فارس البيوش / كفرنبل.
٥ـ «لواء ثوار الأحرار» بقيادة محمد المؤيد / معرشمشة.
٦ـ تجمع «كتائب درع خان شيخون» بقيادة الرائد مصطفى الكنج/ خان شيخون.
٧ـ «لواء أحرار 15 آذار» بقيادة الرائد موسى الخالد / كفرومة.
٨ـ «لواء الإمام البخاري» بقيادة النقيب علي السلوم / حيش.
٩ـ «لواء ذي قار» بقيادة المقدم حسن جاويش / حزانو.
١٠ـ «لواء الحسم» بقيادة عبد السلام الابراهيم / معرتحرمة.
١١ـ «لواء الحمزة» بقيادة محمد الاطرش / معرة النعمان
١٢ـ «لواء التوحيد» بقيادة وسام الزين/ ادلب.

training children: rebels of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and....US

"Photos released by social media accounts linked to the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a Chinese Uighur jihadist group that is part of al Qaeda’s international network, show the group training children in Syria." "In December, the Imam Bukhari Jamaat (also known as Katibat Imam Bukhari), an Uzbek group in Syria loyal to the Taliban, released an 18-minute video showing the group training dozens of children." "The popular Saudi cleric Abdullah al Muhaysini’s Jihad Callers Center also released a video last September showing native Syrian children training at a camp ran by the group. Muhaysini is closely tied to al Qaeda and the Al Nusrah Front."

US military bases around the world and their impact on the local population: rape, among other things

"Justin Castellanos, 24, of the U.S. Navy’s Camp Schwab in the prefecture, is suspected of raping a woman in her 40s at a hotel in Naha where they were both staying." "Crimes by U.S. military personnel have caused concern and protests in Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan." (thanks Amir)

Trudeau's Minister of Innovation, Science & Economic Development

@NavdeepSBains: An honour to meet Henry Kissinger at the @StateDept luncheon this afternoon

PR Journalism: AUB under a new president

This story is rather hilarious: the new president of AUB has been in office for some weeks and the writer of this piece declares him a great success story.  Worse than that, he attributes all the changes that were enacted at AUB before him (like tenure for the faculty) as his achievements.  But he also tells you why it is a good thing that AUB students are depressive of any political rights of expression: "Speaker’s Corner is once again on hiatus, and students said that faculty members tell them it’s better this way, since the young don’t yet have the “maturity” to discuss sensitive political matters." (thanks Basim)

By Emad Hajjaj

"The Girl from Beirut": this is a song from 1968 and is finally available on Youtube

News stories about North Korea

I don't believe any story about North Korea that originates in South Korea.  

Public Service Annoucement

You may find this Lebanese-style garlic paste at Whole Foods in California, Oregon, and Seattle.  You may order from the website (enlarge the picture).  It is delicious and vegan.

US government and courts shield the Saudi royal family from suits against them from survivors of Sep. 11 but it held Iran responsible

"Iran was ordered by a U.S. judge to pay more than $10.5 billion in damages to families of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to a group of insurers."

Israeli terrorists are free to roam on US college campuses: Israeli ex-soldier accused in assault on Columbia students

"Last Thursday afternoon, members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were taking down the mock apartheid wall their group had put up on the Columbia University campus as an educational tool during Israeli Apartheid Week.

As they were doing so they say they were assaulted by a fellow student, a former Israeli soldier, in an incident that has left them shaken and more concerned than ever over their ability to safely speak out on campus.

SJP had put up the wall, made of three wooden frames covered in fabric, on Low Plaza, a busy campus thoroughfare, from about 10am to 4pm each day that week. Their allies Jewish Voice for Peace also had a table nearby."

John Kerry makes it clear: US support for tyranny and terrorism in the Middle East will continue

@JohnKerry: Productive meeting with His Majesty King Salman earlier today. #SaudiArabia is an enduring, historic partner & ally.

Will Saudi regime finally get the Nobel Prize for cruelty from the White Man?

"Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said in a statement: "These reports are deeply worrying. January's mass execution included political protestors and juveniles - these prisoners weren't 'terrorists', but ordinary people who lost their lives for the so-called 'crime' of speaking out against the Saudi regime. "It would be appalling if the Saudis now executed three further juveniles who were brutally tortured into 'confessing'. The British government and others must look beyond the Saudi propaganda machine, and do all they can to prevent January's outrages from being repeated." "

Five years of Western war crimes in Libya

"Today, there can be no question that Libya is broken. There are three nominal governments, none of which holds much authority. The economy is flatlining. Refugees flood to the Mediterranean. And Isis has put down roots in Sirte and, increasingly, Tripoli. But Western powers, whose 2011 intervention to depose Muammar Gaddafi was critical in reshaping the country, have turned their back on the consequences."

U.S.-backed/Israeli backed murderers, torturers & rapists: Where is George Clooney to hear this?

"A new United Nations report accuses U.S.-backed South Sudanese forces of committing widespread and horrific war crimes against innocent civilians, including torture, rape of women and children and murder." (thanks Amir)

The new secretary-general of the Arab League

Hannah Allam (@HannahAllam)

3/12/16, 4:34 AM When new Arab League chief Aboul Gheit was FM I asked about MB crackdown. He turned off recorder & yelled:Do you want to wear hijab? DO YOU?

Saudi regime captures an arsenal of WMDs from dangerous terrorists

The title of the dangerous books from left to right is: "Act naturally"; "Body Language"; "Instant Neurological Programming".  

The new secretary-general of the Arab League

Western media never captures the texture and tenor of Arab public opinion, especially among the youth on social media. Take the appointment by the Saudi and Sisi regime of Mubarak's foreign minister, Ahmad Abu Al-Ghayt, as the new secretary-general of the Arab League. Now granted, the Arab League is the object of ridicule, and has been for many decades. But for the last few days there has been such an avalanche of ridicule of Abu Al-Ghayt and various images of him next to Livni of Israel has been circulated.  None of that would make it to the Israeli or Western media. 

the ill-informed anti-Communism of Henry Louis Gates Jr.

SO I was watching an episode of the PBS series, Finding Your Roots.  So Gates was investigating the ancestors of Dustin Hoffman in Russia, and he talked about the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution.  He ignorantly blamed the communists for the pogroms when the perpetrators where the anti-communist Cossacks who killed Jews because they blamed them for communism.  How could such ignorance pass on PBS?  Did Gates learn about communism from his college at Harvard, Richard Pipes?  

The brave Sophie Marceau protests the Legion d'Honneur for Muhammad bin Nayif, the torture chief of Saudi Arabia

"Voilà pourquoi j'ai refusé la Légion d'Honneur."

A new package of executions is about to happen in Saudi Arabia

It seems that the Saudi regime is about to launch another mass executions festival.  All signs from the kingdom point to that, and my sources tell me that a few Shi`ites will be thrown in for extra effect.

Huffington Post Arabic: doing what it does best, spreading sectarianism and hate

It is unbelievable what the Huffington Post Arabic puts out in terms of sectarianism and sexism on a daily basis. I can't believe that the mother Huffington Post organization does not feel that the Arabic version is tainting its message, which leads me to believe that the Qatari regime must have made a payment for the brand name.  This is a disgusting sectarian piece: something you find every day on the website.  It is rather funny: that the English website sends a liberal secular message while the Arabic Qatari regime website specializes in a sectarian Islamist message.

The Theory of US Retreat

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "Two Categories in the Theory of US Retreat".

Muhammad bin Nayif exposed

A French publication reveals that it was Muhammad bin Nayif who requested that he be awarded the Legion of Honor in order to enhance his international stature.  This revelation is an attempt by the lousy socialist president to deflect criticisms for his shameful act.  

Al-Manar TV in Dubai as of yesterday

Arab Democratic forces--with a GCC flavor

There is a new Syrian opposition group established by Saudi regime with its tribal ally, the polygamous, Ahmad Al-Jarba as its head. At the opening session, Hariri MP, `Uqab Saqr and Muhammad Dahlan were in attendance.

PS Let me guess: Western correspondents in Beirut would maintain that Al-Jarba represents a very feminist trend among the polygamous tribal allies of House of Saud.  Al-Jarba, of course, has only been elevated by Saudi regime because the last King, Abdullah, was married to two sisters of the same family and tribe--cousins of Ahmad.

Canadian prime minister

Everyone loves him but for no good reason.

Who is teaching Republican presidential candidates about Islam? Their anti-Sunni bias

They seem very anti-Sunni (with the exception of the King of Jordan who is loved by everyone from Bernie Sanders to Republican candidates), and they foolishly imply that Shi`ites are secular while Sunnis are fundamentalist.  They probably think that Iran is Sunni as well.

Coup in Algeria

Was there a silent French coup in Algeria? It looks likely.

You can't deny it: Arab and Muslim tyrants are pious

Please notice that Jordanian King of PlayStation with a beret.  

Haaretz and a poll of Israeli Arabs

Did people notice? Haaretz yesterday posted a story about a poll of Arabs in 1948 Palestine and their views of Hizbullah but then the story was removed.  

abuse of women in France

"Every year in France, 223,000 women are physically or psychologically abused by their partners, according to the ministry of family affairs and women rights. In 2014 alone, it said, 134 women died as a result of violence by their husbands or partners, and five women killed their husbands because of it. Murielle Salmona, a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma, said that the women usually reacted when they reached a “breaking point” after years or even decades of abuse."

The longest kiss: Saudi Crown Prince and Saudi Crown Prince of the Crown Prince

Muhammad bin Salman kisses the hand of Muhammad bin Nayif

The question that no one will ask is this: was it proven in court that Syria was behind the Amman bombing? Jordan government never claimed this

"A Portland attorney who sued Syria and that country’s military intelligence in connection with the 2005 bombings of three hotels in Jordan won a multimillion-dollar judgment Tuesday on behalf of the American victims."

By Mehammed Amadeus Mack: who was my student at UC, Berkeley and now is a professor at Smith

"The sexual demonization Daoud has reinforced has a still longer history. Borrowing from lingering Orientalist ideas about the Islamic sexual menace, this portrayal usually targets young male Arabs and Muslims and emphasizes a lack of civilization rooted in an inability to contain one’s primal urges. Medical historian Richard Keller amply documented this racialist view in his book on the Algiers school, a group of psychiatrists in colonial French Algeria that made the first “scientific” links between Islam and sexual delinquency. This portrayal is highly ambivalent in the way it presents Muslim men as both sexually conservative in their views of women and sexually aggressive in their frustrations about them. In contemporary times, researchers like Nacira Guénif-Souilamas have explained how this portrait of the young Arab as sexually unassimilated has given new life to what should by now have been a moot question: that of the integration of Muslims born in Europe, already several generations removed from their immigrant ancestors. In this way, the figure of the brown sexual menace has provoked feelings of sexual nationalism, and caused politicians who previously had sought to curtail the rights of women and homosexuals to suddenly come to their defense in the face of a common “foreign” enemy. The “black sexual menace” and the “black peril” are American tropes that we have, one hopes, critiqued to the point of their unacceptability: such rhetoric about black men’s violent designs upon white women have been exposed for their obvious racism. However, similar rhetoric appears about European Muslims today in a different form, not yet politically incorrect.These tropes shape women as well: the Arab woman mute and hidden away, and the white woman taught to be careful.

In response to fear-mongering about this menace, the Netherlands and the German state of Baden-Württemberg decided in the 2000s to create what Daoud euphemistically called “guides to good conduct” in his New York Times article. In reality, these were nothing other than citizenship tests designed to highlight Muslims’ supposed incompatibility with European sexual values; Germany’s test for instance was divided between questions about national security and questions of a sexual nature, implicitly asking whether it is appropriate to, for example, beat one’s wife, kick out one’s gay son, or oppose a daughter’s mixed marriage. These European sexual values find little consensus among European nations, who cannot agree on them even within EU frameworks."

Who is being armed in the Middle East?

"With the removal of sanctions, Iran is eager to modernize its military and keep pace with its regional rivals through purchases of foreign arms. Iran is surrounded by some of the world’s largest importers of advanced conventional weapons systems, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Pakistan. Iran is also faced with a heavy U.S. military footprint in the form of a network of military bases and deployments of air and naval assets that serve to contain and deter its actions. Given its security environment, it is no surprise why Iran has prioritized the modernization of its conventional military capabilities following the implementation of the JCPOA. " (thanks Pierre)

Learn from the New York Times how political bias for Israel is inserted in articles

Look how oddly editorializing and sarcasm are inserted in a reporting article. So uncharacteristic of the paper in other articles.  "but he also emphasized that some 200 Palestinians had been killed in recent months by the Israeli authorities. Mr. Abbas apparently did not mention that most of them were killed while they were carrying out attacks or were suspected of attempting attacks against Israelis."   So what the New York Times wanted to say is that the 200 Palestinians are all guilty, while the Israelis are innocent.

How ISIS came about: by my former student Neil Swidey of the Boston Globe

My student from 1990 at Tufts University interviewed me back in 2003 about the possible consequences of the US invasion of Iraq: "NOT LONG AFTER US TROOPS ROLLED INTO Baghdad in 2003, I wrote an article for the Globeexploring the unintended consequences of military occupations and the surprisingly small events on which they often pivot. The panicked reaction of a few Israeli soldiers during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 1983 had birthed a ferocious Shia resistance. The presence of US troops on sacred Muslim soil in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War had radicalized Osama bin Laden against the United States, the Saudi royal family, and his own family, which had won contracts to build those bases. My piece concluded with this quote from Middle East specialist As’ad AbuKhalil: “The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan gave us the Taliban. The American occupation of Saudi Arabia gave us bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The Israeli occupation of Lebanon gave us Hezbollah. Let us see what the American occupation of Iraq is going to give us.”  The suspense is over. We now know that the American occupation of Iraq gave us ISIS. (More on that later.) However, pinpointing when it became a doomed occupation is harder to determine.  AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, argues all occupations are fated to fail in the modern era. But he suggests the tipping point for this one came with the selection of Bremer. “They chose the best man to do the worst job,” he says. “They chose a very arrogant person with a very colonial attitude.”"

ISIS executes a poet

ISIS killers execute a Syrian secular free-thinking poet.  They learned their tricks from Saudi regime.

New York Times explains why the fact that half of Israel Jews want Arabs expelled from their home is not a big deal

"because the Pew question did not specify, for example, whether such transfers would be voluntary or compensated financially.".  So if the expulsion is voluntary it should not reflect negatively on those holding those views in Israel.

The left in Israel

"Eight percent of all Jews surveyed defined themselves as leftists." And by leftists they mean the racist pro-war types like Amos Oz.  

Harold Saunders

Harold Saunders was not an Arabist, by the way. His PhD is in American studies and he did not know Arabic.  But Saunders was like some US diplomats who would criticize Israel in private and praise it in public.  I heard him criticize Israel in private while in public he would say this: "Mr. Saunders later said that he had come to realize how difficult it would be for Israel to withdraw from the occupied West Bank."

This is the real Jimmy Carter and this is his legacy

"In 1980, after the United States voted to support a United Nations resolution condemning the establishment of Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River, Mayor Edward I. Koch of New York branded Mr. Saunders and four other American diplomats members of an Arabist “gang of five” who, Mr. Koch said, were “in a position to do great damage to Israel.”  Mr. Carter immediately repudiated the vote. (He said it had resulted from a miscommunication.)"

the 150 terrorists killed by US bombs in Somalia

"killing about 150 fighters who were assembled for what American officials believe was a graduation ceremony and prelude to an imminent attack against American troops and their allies in East Africa." Wait: so they were at a ceremony AND planning an imminent attack against US troops? Which is it? Or was the ceremony to plan attacks?  And if they were planning attacks, how did the US find out from the air? Did their facial expression show signs of an imminent attack?

Ortega and luxurious lifestyles

I always detested Ortega: I never liked him in his Marxist phase, and hated him more in his post-Marxist phase. But do you notice that New York Times and Western media never ever write stories about the luxurious lifestyles (on a much larger scale than Ortega) by Gulf potentates and their families?