More Washington insiders are coming to the conclusion that Israel’s leaders are planning to attack Iran before the U.S. election in November in the expectation that American forces will be drawn in. There is widespread recognition…
Category: France
On August 10, 2012, away from the headlines, thirteen French-speaking families arrived at the West Bank settlement of Eli (pronounced Ali, but I’ll stick to the conventional English transliteration) and made it their new home….
A NUN who has been superior at a Syrian monastery for the past 18 years has warned that media coverage of ongoing violence in that country has been “partial and untrue”. It is “a fake”,…
Turkey already has troops in Syria and has threatened military action to protect the site they guard. A 1921 agreement between Ottoman Turkey and France (the Treaty of Ankara), the latter at the time the colonial administrator of Syria, guaranteed Turkey the right to station military personnel at the mausoleum of Suleyman Shah (Süleyman Şah), the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman I (Osman Bey). Turkey considers the area adjacent to the tomb to be its, and not Syria’s, sovereign territory and late last month reinforced its 15-troop contingent there. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated the following in an interview televised on August 5: “The tomb of Süleyman Şah and the land surrounding it is our territory. We cannot ignore any unfavorable act against that monument, as it would be an attack on our territory, as well as an attack on NATO land. Everyone knows his duty, and will continue to do what is necessary.”
What “The Situation in Syria” Really Means: The 133 prostitutes who voted with the Empire On August 3rd of this year, something truly remarkable happened at the United Nations: the UNGA passed a resolution formally condemning…
The United States still believes that Iran is not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon and that Tehran has not made a decision to pursue one, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Their comments came after Israeli media reports claimed U.S. President Barack Obama had received a new National Intelligence Estimate saying Iran had made significant and surprising progress toward military nuclear capability. Later, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested that the new U.S. report, which he acknowledged might be something other than a National Intelligence Estimate, “transforms the Iranian situation into an even more urgent one.” But a White House National Security Council spokesman disputed the Israeli reports, saying the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear activities had not changed since intelligence officials delivered testimony to Congress on the issue earlier this year. “We believe that there is time and space to continue to pursue a diplomatic path, backed by growing international pressure on the Iranian government,” the spokesman said. “We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.”
PM was only in office since June 2012 – had been planning “defection” for at least as long based on battlefield before “Damascus Volcano” fizzled. Hailed by the Western press and its impressionable readers worldwide…
On Sunday 5 August a number of unidentified militants carried out an attack in the Egyptian Sinai in which several Egyptian soldiers were killed, and Israel’s border was penetrated. After Iftar as the Egyptian Muslims…
The bumper sticker on the beat-up pickup truck read: “Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.” The driver was obviously not affluent. Yet, despite all the news about mega-trillion dollar bankster bailouts, mega-million dollar bonuses for financial crooks, and unimaginable compensation packages for corporate CEOs who have moved middle class jobs out of America, something made the down-and-out pickup truck driver associate with the political party of the super-rich. As I wondered at this strange alliance of the dirt poor with the mega-rich, I remembered that in 2004 Thomas Frank wondered about how the Republicans had managed to convince the poor to vote against their best interests. Frank’s answer, or part of his answer, is that the Republicans use “social issues,” such as gay marriage and Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple to work up indignation over the threat to moral values posed by liberal Democrats.
BEIRUT, Lebanon – The Syrian Free Army has announced that if the Russians intend to supply weapons to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, it will attack the Russian base at Tartous, which is…