Baby steps toward peace

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 1:42pm

America's primary ally in Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is preparing to negotiate with the Assad government of Syria.

The Syrian Democratic Council—the political wing of a largely Kurdish, U.S.-backed military alliance of Arabs and other sects known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—launched a three-day conference Monday in the northern Syrian town of Tabqa. The gathering revolved around the country's political future and reportedly included both Kurdish officials and members of Syria's political opposition not participating in the seven-year civil war between the government and insurgents.
"One of the meeting's aims is to create a platform to negotiate with the Syrian regime," a senior member of the Syrian Democratic Council, Hekmat Habib, told Agence France-Presse on Monday.

Roughly one-quarter of Syria under the control of the SDF. It has been neither enemies nor allies of the Assad government. In recent months it has discovered that the U.S. will not protect it from Turkey, so it has no choice but to find a better ally.
When the SDF come to an agreement with the Syrian government the U.S. will be forced out of Syria (except for the base at al-Tanf), which will leave only Turkish-backed rebel-controlled regions in Afrin, Idlib, and Aleppo to be settled.

Unfortunately, this progress could all be upset by Israel, which is rumored to be preparing to bomb Iraq. Militia forces in Iraq have threatened to attack U.S. forces if Israel carries out those raids.

Limited but promising progress towards peace is also happening in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials are meeting with former Taliban members amid intensifying efforts to wind down America's longest war, three of the militant group's commanders told NBC News.
The talks have occurred in Afghanistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Taliban sources.

One negotiator said Taliban delegations had been joined by "never more than five" Americans for a series of meetings in hotel suites in Doha, Qatar.

The Trump Administration had to force these talks to start, over the objections from the U.S. intelligence agencies and MIC. Grassroots peace movements in the region have also increased pressure on all sides.

The Afghan government is planning a second cease-fire with the Taliban, while the Taliban has made a symbolic promise.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location that the insurgents had been ordered to stop suicide attacks in cities that might cause civilian casualties.

Despite near universal opposition from the Pentagon, news media, and MIC, the peace process in North Korea is still moving ahead at a glacial pace.
The U.S. military has pulled back from Seoul, and in response North Korea plans to do the same.
Any and all credit for progress in these talks should be given to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who refuses to let the talks die.

The Blue House is likely to focus on confidence building between North Korea and the US by quickly arranging a declaration ending the Korean War even while continuing to work with the US on keeping sanctions in place until denuclearization. Declaring the end of the war is a political step that can be taken before reaching a peace agreement, as well as something that North Korea has strongly requested and that US President Donald Trump has also taken a positive stance about.
“Chung could have told the US about what North Korea strongly wants or is dissatisfied about,” a Blue House senior official said.

During his visit to Singapore on July 12, Moon said that “the goal of our government is declaring the end of the Korean War this year, which is the 65th anniversary of the ceasefire agreement, as we agreed during the Panmunjeom Declaration.”

It is entirely possible that actual peace could break out in Syria, Afghanistan, and Korea during the administration of the "mad man" Trump.

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Submitted by Azazello on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 1:54pm

The "White Helmets" are being evacuated

lest their nationalities be discovered.

—

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 4:30pm

Where they are going is not going over well

@Azazello

280 of them hold British passports and the U.K. wants to give them asylum.

‘They may be jihadists but they’re our jihadists’: White Helmets' UK resettlement policy attacked

Some 98 White Helmets members were rescued by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday night, as part of an evacuation mission that saw a total of 422 people collected from Syria and transferred across Northern Israel and into Jordan at three points, the Guardian reports.

The paper claims that the UK is prepared to offer asylum to up to 500 White Helmets members or relatives of the group, officially known as the Syria Civil Defence. The proposed resettlement of members of the group has divided opinion.

Resettling members of the White Helmets in the UK is akin to allowing murderers and other hardened criminals to freely walk the streets of British towns and cities. #WhiteHelmets #Syria

— Dr Marcus Papadopoulos (@DrMarcusP) July 22, 2018

Gee. What could go wrong?

Remember the Manchester suicide bombing last year when a known terrorist blew himself up at a concert in Manchester? The British police had no problem arresting anyone who was associated with the group.

The unsayable in Britain's general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy.

Critical questions - such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist "assets" in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst - remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal "review".

The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years.

The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organisation which seeks a "hardline Islamic state" in Libya and "is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida".

The "smoking gun" is that when Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in "battle": first to remove Mu'ammar Gaddafi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria.

BTW. It appears that the U.K. is also separating children from their parents and cracking down on allowing refugees into the country that have legitimate asylum requests. I'm looking forward to seeing what the citizens will do when they hear about the White Helmets terrorists being allowed into their country. The US is not letting any of them come here.

—

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Submitted by Azazello on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 5:08pm

The UK is notorious for the ease

@snoopydawg
with which it allows foreign jihadis to come and go. A lot of the "moderate rebels" in the ME pass through Britain and travel on British passports. I'll bet damn few, if any, of the "White Helmets" are Syrian.

#1 280 of them hold British passports and the U.K. wants to give them asylum. ‘They may be jihadists but they’re our jihadists’: White Helmets' UK resettlement policy attacked Some 98 White Helmets members were rescued by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday night, as part of an evacuation mission that saw a total of 422 people collected from Syria and transferred across Northern Israel and into Jordan at three points, the Guardian reports. The paper claims that the UK is prepared to offer asylum to up to 500 White Helmets members or relatives of the group, officially known as the Syria Civil Defence. The proposed resettlement of members of the group has divided opinion. Resettling members of the White Helmets in the UK is akin to allowing murderers and other hardened criminals to freely walk the streets of British towns and cities. #WhiteHelmets #Syria — Dr Marcus Papadopoulos (@DrMarcusP) July 22, 2018 Gee. What could go wrong? Remember the Manchester suicide bombing last year when a known terrorist blew himself up at a concert in Manchester? The British police had no problem arresting anyone who was associated with the group. The unsayable in Britain's general election campaign is this. The causes of the Manchester atrocity, in which 22 mostly young people were murdered by a jihadist, are being suppressed to protect the secrets of British foreign policy. Critical questions - such as why the security service MI5 maintained terrorist "assets" in Manchester and why the government did not warn the public of the threat in their midst - remain unanswered, deflected by the promise of an internal "review". The alleged suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was part of an extremist group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, that thrived in Manchester and was cultivated and used by MI5 for more than 20 years. The LIFG is proscribed by Britain as a terrorist organisation which seeks a "hardline Islamic state" in Libya and "is part of the wider global Islamist extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaida". The "smoking gun" is that when Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in "battle": first to remove Mu'ammar Gaddafi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria. BTW. It appears that the U.K. is also separating children from their parents and cracking down on allowing refugees into the country that have legitimate asylum requests. I'm looking forward to seeing what the citizens will do when they hear about the White Helmets terrorists being allowed into their country. The US is not letting any of them come here.

—

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 5:22pm

Evacuated to Jordan and Israel, apparently.

@Azazello

—

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 2:42pm

Slightly OT

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
~ Sagan
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
~ Hitchens
"We have to believe that Russia is attacking our democracy because the TV and the CIA told us to."
~ Russiagaters

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 22, 2018

Submitted by CB on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 3:21pm

Very good article from one of the few voices of reason

@gjohnsit

The Burden Of Proof Is On The Russiagaters

I saw a Twitter thread between two journalists the other day which completely summarized my experience of debating the establishment Russia narrative on online forums lately. Aaron Maté‏, who is in my opinion one of the clearest voices out there on American Russia hysteria, was approached with an argument by a journalist named Jonathan M Katz. Maté‏ engaged the argument by asking for evidence of the claims Katz was making, only to be given the runaround.
...
If you were to spend an entire day debating Russiagate online (and I am in no way suggesting that you should), it is highly unlikely that you would see anything from the proponents of the establishment Russia narrative other than the textbook fallacious debate tactics exhibited by Katz and Biddle in that thread. It had the entire spectrum:

Gish gallop – The tactic of providing a stack of individually weak arguments to create the illusion of one solid argument, illustrated when Katz cited unspecified “reams of evidence” resulting from “two years of reporting, grand jury indictments, reports from independent analysts, give agencies both American and foreign.” He even claimed he shouldn’t have to go through that evidence point-by-point because there’s too much of it, which is like a poor man’s Gish gallop fallacy.

Argumentum ad populum – The “it’s true because so many agree that it is true” argument that Katz attempted to imply in invoking all the “journalists, independent analysts and foreign governments” who assert that Russia interfered in a meaningful way in America’s 2016 elections and intends to interfere in the midterms.

Ad hominem – Biddle’s “inverse louise mensch”. You have no argument, so you insult the other party instead.

Attempting to shift the burden of proof – Biddle’s suggestion that Maté‏ needs to prove that someone else other than the Russian government did the things Russia is accused of doing. Biddle is implying that the establishment Russia narrative should be assumed true until somebody has proved it to be false, a tactic known as an appeal to ignorance.

I’d like to talk about this last one a bit, because it underpins the entire CIA/CNN Russia narrative.

[insert your quote here]
...
There is no good reason to play along with escalations between nuclear superpowers when their premise consists of nothing but narrative and assertions. It is right to demand that those escalations cease until the public who is affected by them has had a full, informed say. Until the burden of proof has been met, that has not even begun to happen.

Submitted by CB on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 4:30pm

The US deep state will find and/or manufacture

ways of scuttling any substantial peace overtures in this region. Outside of full-out war, the only way the US can attempt to block the Chinese BRI is to create chaos and instability. Unfortunately for the US, it is under these very conditions that gives China opportunities.

The Syria connection to Iran, Afghanistan and China

Pepe ESCOBAR

A crucial question has been consuming policymakers in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon: Does the Trump administration have a strategic plan for the Middle East or not?

Few are more apt to answer than Saadallah Zarei, dean of the Institute of Strategic Studies Andishe Sazan-e Noor in Tehran. Zarei, a soft-spoken, extremely discreet man I met in Mashhad a few days ago, happens to be not only one of Iran’s top strategic analysts but also a key brain behind the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani – the ultimate bête noire outside the Beltway.

So US strategists could do worse than paying attention to Zarei.
...
Zarei also notes that “America does not have a specific policy about the democracies of Turkey and Iran. There is not any specific strategy about democracy in Iraq and Lebanon too. America talks about democracy as an American value and tries to generalize it, but in this region, we see that the best friends of the US are countries where there is no election in their political systems.”

The bottom line, according to Zarei, is that “the US strategy is not coherent in the Middle East. I think this is the main reason for the failure of American policies in this region.”
...
And that leads us to the ultimate inter-connector: China.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Syrian colleague Walid Muallem have a very close relationship. President Xi Jinping is a firm supporter of the Astana peace process featuring Russia, Iran and Turkey. China announced last November that it would deploy special forces to Syria against all strands of Salafi-jihadism; the Chinese goal is to “neutralize” 5,000 Uyghur fighters who have acted as “moderate rebels”, because of concern about militants causing violence if they return to Xinjiang.
...

How China Is Winning Over the Middle East

China is making inroads into the Middle East — and being welcomed with open arms.

As President Xi Jinping impels China to take a more active role internationally, the Middle East is becoming one of its key staging grounds. At a gathering of 21 Arab nations in Beijing this month, Xi pledged billions pledged billions in loans and financial aid to support economic development in these countries. At this Arab Summit, well attended by foreign ministers from across the Arab speaking world, the Chinese government successfully elevated their relationship with the region to a “strategic partnership.” Also signaling the increased status of the Middle East’s role in Xi’s global strategy was his just-concluded visit to the Arab region — his first foreign trip since his re-election last March, and the first visit to the UAE by a Chinese head of state in almost 30 years.

Traditionally, China has looked to others – especially the United States – to act as the world’s policeman in political hot spots like the Middle East. But this is changing as China’s economic priorities are increasingly intertwined with its political interests. In announcing the visit, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that this is part of “China’s major diplomatic move to target developing countries against the backdrop of profound changes in the context of the international situation.” As the United States and the European Union pressure China on trade and investment, China is looking elsewhere for opportunities.
...
While it is no surprise that China’s political interests follow its global economic goals, it remains to be seen if its economic incentives result in the political ties that China seeks, particularly with the often fraught Middle East. For Xi, capturing the resource-rich Middle East is a core goal of the Belt and Road Initiative, so expect to see more developments in this new strategic partnership.

The US is now like a muscle bound wrestler who can only use brute force to fight it's adversaries. It is no match for the political jujitsu of Vladimir Putin nor the age old Sun Tzu strategies of Xi Jinping. All the US can do at this time is a vain and self-defeating attempt to continue to bulk-up to the detriment of it's own populace. It is now so muscle-bound it is no longer capable of any effective movement against it's agile rivals.

The neocons wet dream of global zero-sum Full Spectrum Dominance will eventually destroy the US from within if they continue to press for it. Fortunately, for the rest of the world, there are saner minds in Russia and China.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 07/23/2018 - 5:01pm

I've never understood why the US couldn't have

@CB

made deals like China does instead of wasting so much money and lives by invading countries to steal their resources when it would be much cheaper the other way. Of course the defense industry wouldn't get to make obscene profits if they did and banks wouldn't get to make theirs by funding both sides.

I can only imagine what this country would be like if it hadn't spent its entire existence warring with other countries.

Also it would have been nice if Smedley and Eisenhower had spoken up sooner in their careers. Both warned us about things that they had a hand in creating. Barn doors and horses comes to mind.

ways of scuttling any substantial peace overtures in this region. Outside of full-out war, the only way the US can attempt to block the Chinese BRI is to create chaos and instability. Unfortunately for the US, it is under these very conditions that gives China opportunities. The Syria connection to Iran, Afghanistan and China Pepe ESCOBAR A crucial question has been consuming policymakers in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon: Does the Trump administration have a strategic plan for the Middle East or not? Few are more apt to answer than Saadallah Zarei, dean of the Institute of Strategic Studies Andishe Sazan-e Noor in Tehran. Zarei, a soft-spoken, extremely discreet man I met in Mashhad a few days ago, happens to be not only one of Iran’s top strategic analysts but also a key brain behind the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani – the ultimate bête noire outside the Beltway. So US strategists could do worse than paying attention to Zarei. ... Zarei also notes that “America does not have a specific policy about the democracies of Turkey and Iran. There is not any specific strategy about democracy in Iraq and Lebanon too. America talks about democracy as an American value and tries to generalize it, but in this region, we see that the best friends of the US are countries where there is no election in their political systems.” The bottom line, according to Zarei, is that “the US strategy is not coherent in the Middle East. I think this is the main reason for the failure of American policies in this region.” ... And that leads us to the ultimate inter-connector: China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Syrian colleague Walid Muallem have a very close relationship. President Xi Jinping is a firm supporter of the Astana peace process featuring Russia, Iran and Turkey. China announced last November that it would deploy special forces to Syria against all strands of Salafi-jihadism; the Chinese goal is to “neutralize” 5,000 Uyghur fighters who have acted as “moderate rebels”, because of concern about militants causing violence if they return to Xinjiang. ... How China Is Winning Over the Middle East China is making inroads into the Middle East — and being welcomed with open arms. As President Xi Jinping impels China to take a more active role internationally, the Middle East is becoming one of its key staging grounds. At a gathering of 21 Arab nations in Beijing this month, Xi pledged billions pledged billions in loans and financial aid to support economic development in these countries. At this Arab Summit, well attended by foreign ministers from across the Arab speaking world, the Chinese government successfully elevated their relationship with the region to a “strategic partnership.” Also signaling the increased status of the Middle East’s role in Xi’s global strategy was his just-concluded visit to the Arab region — his first foreign trip since his re-election last March, and the first visit to the UAE by a Chinese head of state in almost 30 years. Traditionally, China has looked to others – especially the United States – to act as the world’s policeman in political hot spots like the Middle East. But this is changing as China’s economic priorities are increasingly intertwined with its political interests. In announcing the visit, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that this is part of “China’s major diplomatic move to target developing countries against the backdrop of profound changes in the context of the international situation.” As the United States and the European Union pressure China on trade and investment, China is looking elsewhere for opportunities. ... While it is no surprise that China’s political interests follow its global economic goals, it remains to be seen if its economic incentives result in the political ties that China seeks, particularly with the often fraught Middle East. For Xi, capturing the resource-rich Middle East is a core goal of the Belt and Road Initiative, so expect to see more developments in this new strategic partnership. The US is now like a muscle bound wrestler who can only use brute force to fight it's adversaries. It is no match for the political jujitsu of Vladimir Putin nor the age old Sun Tzu strategies of Xi Jinping. All the US can do at this time is a vain and self-defeating attempt to continue to bulk-up to the detriment of it's own populace. It is now so muscle-bound it is no longer capable of any effective movement against it's agile rivals. The neocons wet dream of global zero-sum Full Spectrum Dominance will eventually destroy the US from within if they continue to press for it. Fortunately, for the rest of the world, there are saner minds in Russia and China.