Special Report Panel on Intervention in Syria
8:02 AM, Nov 30, 2012
• By DANIEL HALPER
Steve Hayes, with A.B. Stoddard and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:
Video: How involved should US get in Syria?- 05:11
Read more: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/special-report-panel-intervention-syria_664228.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Friday, November 30, 2012
WORLD_ The Bigger Question about Libya
The Bigger Question about Libya
November 30, 2012
The ginned-up fury over what Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said about the Benghazi attack on TV shows obscures a bigger question, whether the U.S.-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi was smart policy. Libya remains a country in turmoil amid growing doubts about U.S. trustworthiness, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
By Paul R. Pillar
The political inanity about what was said or not said in the first hours and days after the incident in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens continues, and it continues to move farther away from anything of importance to U.S. policy and U.S. interests. With the fixation on minutiae about the editing of some preliminary talking points, it moves farther away even from anything that makes sense in terms of competitive politics.
Even if the Obama administration had wanted to manipulate a public version of the Libyan events to help re-elect the president, how would any manipulation on this matter have done that? When has the Obama administration ever contended that international terrorism is nota major security problem (bin Laden or no bin Laden)? Such a contention would only make it all the harder for the administration to justify and explain those drone strikes and how they have become increasingly frequent under Mr. Obama
.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was killed on Oct. 20, 2011, in Sirte, Libya.
It appears that preemptive opposition to a possible nominee for secretary of state is now part of what is sustaining the momentum of what began as a tactic in an election campaign. Please let us focus instead on how in terms of attributes and experience this person would or would not be qualified to be secretary of state, rather than how she handled her talking points on talk shows one Sunday.
Perhaps something else that helps to make this supposed issue credible is an underlying assumption that the foreign intervention that helped to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, and in which the United States participated, was a good thing and left something approaching a stable situation in Libya.
If that assumption were true, then maybe it would make sense to dwell a bit, when violence nonetheless occurs, on the relative influence of things such as Islamophobic films and the machinations of extremist groups.
But if instead what was left in Libya is a highly unstable and chronically violent situation in which the plans of terrorist groups, the uncontrolled activities of multiple militias, the inability of governing authorities to secure their own territory, and mass resentment against certain things associated with the United States all get mixed together in a constantly bubbling lethal brew, then any such dwelling is almost pointless.
It is the latter situation that in fact describes much of Libya, including Benghazi, today. As Kareem Fahim reports in the New York Times, Ambassador Stevens was only one of about three dozen public servants who have been killed in Benghazi alone over the last year and a half. The government is weaker than the militias, and even militias that have been relied upon as ersatz public security forces are unwilling to go after the likes of Ansar al-Shariah, a group accused of involvement in the attack that killed Stevens.
I have discussed before how one of the largest entries on the balance sheet of the intervention to overthrow Gaddafi is the disincentive it created for other regimes who otherwise might have been willing to reach agreements on weapons programs, terrorism, or other important issues but now are less likely to make a deal because they have a vivid demonstration of U.S. untrustworthiness.
Other parts of the balance sheet concern the instability of what was left behind in the country where the intervention occurred. Some in Washington who still believe the intervention in Libya was a good idea are hesitant to intervene in Syria because the United States avoided American casualties in Libya but maybe the same could not be said of an intervention in Syria.
Immediate American casualties are certainly a good reason for hesitation, but not the only reason. Sometimes what appears to be the avoidance of casualties is only the delaying of casualties. Christopher Stevens and the other Americans who died with him represent that.
Instead of all the business about preparation of talking points and demeanor on talk shows, the most important question about events in Libya is: was the intervention there worthwhile, and what are the implications for dealing with problem countries elsewhere in the Middle East?
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University for security studies. (This article first appeared as a blog post at The National Interest’s Web site. Reprinted with author’s permission.)
*** 2 Comments
Read more: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/30/the-bigger-question-about-libya/
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
November 30, 2012
The ginned-up fury over what Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said about the Benghazi attack on TV shows obscures a bigger question, whether the U.S.-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi was smart policy. Libya remains a country in turmoil amid growing doubts about U.S. trustworthiness, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
By Paul R. Pillar
The political inanity about what was said or not said in the first hours and days after the incident in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens continues, and it continues to move farther away from anything of importance to U.S. policy and U.S. interests. With the fixation on minutiae about the editing of some preliminary talking points, it moves farther away even from anything that makes sense in terms of competitive politics.
Even if the Obama administration had wanted to manipulate a public version of the Libyan events to help re-elect the president, how would any manipulation on this matter have done that? When has the Obama administration ever contended that international terrorism is nota major security problem (bin Laden or no bin Laden)? Such a contention would only make it all the harder for the administration to justify and explain those drone strikes and how they have become increasingly frequent under Mr. Obama
.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was killed on Oct. 20, 2011, in Sirte, Libya.
It appears that preemptive opposition to a possible nominee for secretary of state is now part of what is sustaining the momentum of what began as a tactic in an election campaign. Please let us focus instead on how in terms of attributes and experience this person would or would not be qualified to be secretary of state, rather than how she handled her talking points on talk shows one Sunday.
Perhaps something else that helps to make this supposed issue credible is an underlying assumption that the foreign intervention that helped to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, and in which the United States participated, was a good thing and left something approaching a stable situation in Libya.
If that assumption were true, then maybe it would make sense to dwell a bit, when violence nonetheless occurs, on the relative influence of things such as Islamophobic films and the machinations of extremist groups.
But if instead what was left in Libya is a highly unstable and chronically violent situation in which the plans of terrorist groups, the uncontrolled activities of multiple militias, the inability of governing authorities to secure their own territory, and mass resentment against certain things associated with the United States all get mixed together in a constantly bubbling lethal brew, then any such dwelling is almost pointless.
It is the latter situation that in fact describes much of Libya, including Benghazi, today. As Kareem Fahim reports in the New York Times, Ambassador Stevens was only one of about three dozen public servants who have been killed in Benghazi alone over the last year and a half. The government is weaker than the militias, and even militias that have been relied upon as ersatz public security forces are unwilling to go after the likes of Ansar al-Shariah, a group accused of involvement in the attack that killed Stevens.
I have discussed before how one of the largest entries on the balance sheet of the intervention to overthrow Gaddafi is the disincentive it created for other regimes who otherwise might have been willing to reach agreements on weapons programs, terrorism, or other important issues but now are less likely to make a deal because they have a vivid demonstration of U.S. untrustworthiness.
Other parts of the balance sheet concern the instability of what was left behind in the country where the intervention occurred. Some in Washington who still believe the intervention in Libya was a good idea are hesitant to intervene in Syria because the United States avoided American casualties in Libya but maybe the same could not be said of an intervention in Syria.
Immediate American casualties are certainly a good reason for hesitation, but not the only reason. Sometimes what appears to be the avoidance of casualties is only the delaying of casualties. Christopher Stevens and the other Americans who died with him represent that.
Instead of all the business about preparation of talking points and demeanor on talk shows, the most important question about events in Libya is: was the intervention there worthwhile, and what are the implications for dealing with problem countries elsewhere in the Middle East?
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts. He is now a visiting professor at Georgetown University for security studies. (This article first appeared as a blog post at The National Interest’s Web site. Reprinted with author’s permission.)
*** 2 Comments
Read more: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/30/the-bigger-question-about-libya/
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Global hacking network declares Internet war on Syria
Global hacking network declares Internet war on Syria
By Oliver Holmes | Reuters – 5 hrs ago
A general view of a building damaged by an air strike at a besieged area in Homs November 28, 2012. Picture taken November 28, 2012. REUTERS/Yazan Homsy (SYRIA - Tags: CONFLICT)
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Global hacking network Anonymous said it will shut down Syrian government websites around the world in response to a countrywide Internet blackout believed to be aimed at silencing the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria was plunged into communication darkness on Thursday when Internet connectivity stopped at midday. Land lines and mobile phones networks were also seriously disrupted.
The Syrian government said "terrorists" had attacked Internet lines but the opposition and human rights groups suspect it to be the work of the authorities.
Opposition activists have used the Internet extensively to further their cause by publishing footage of aerial strikes and graphic images of civilian casualties. In the absence of a free press, they have used social media to disseminate information during the uprising and communicate with journalists abroad.
Anonymous, a loose affiliation of hacking groups that opposes Internet censorship, said it will remove from the Internet all web assets belonging to Assad's government that are outside Syria, starting with embassies.
By 1000 GMT on Friday, the website for Syria's embassy in Belgium was down but the embassy in China - which Anonymous said it would target first - was operating. Most government ministry websites were down although this could be due to the blackout.
Several networking experts said that it was highly unlikely that the lines had been sabotaged by anti-Assad forces.
CloudFlare, a firm that helps accelerate Internet traffic, said on its blog that saboteurs would have had to simultaneously sever three undersea cables into the port city of Tartous and also an overland cable through Turkey in order to cut off the entire country's Internet access.
"That is unlikely to have happened," CloudFlare said.
The government has been accused of cutting communications in previous assaults on rebel-held areas. Anonymous said Assad's government had physically "pulled the plug out of the wall".
"As we discovered in Egypt, where the dictator (Hosni) Mubarak did something similar - this is not damage that can be easily or quickly repaired," it added, referring to an Internet outage during the early days of the 2011 uprising in Egypt.
French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said the communications cut was of a matter of "extreme concern".
"It is another demonstration of what the Damascus regime is doing to hold its people hostage. We call on the Damascus regime to reestablish communications without delay," he said.
Rebels have seized a series of army bases across Syria this month, exposing Assad's loss of control in northern and eastern regions and on Thursday fighting on the outskirts of the capital blocked access to the international airport.
More than 40,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011, according to opposition groups.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, said the Internet cut could signal that Assad is seeking to hide the truth of what is happening in the country from the outside world.
Syrian authorities have severely restricted non-state media from working in the country.
The hacker collective has staged cyber attacks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency. Earlier this month, The Israeli government said it logged more than 44 million hacking attempts in just a few days during its military assault on Gaza after Anonymous waged a similar campaign.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston, John Irish in Paris and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
*** 324 Comments
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/global-hacking-network-declares-internet-war-syria-142548644.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
By Oliver Holmes | Reuters – 5 hrs ago
A general view of a building damaged by an air strike at a besieged area in Homs November 28, 2012. Picture taken November 28, 2012. REUTERS/Yazan Homsy (SYRIA - Tags: CONFLICT)
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Global hacking network Anonymous said it will shut down Syrian government websites around the world in response to a countrywide Internet blackout believed to be aimed at silencing the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria was plunged into communication darkness on Thursday when Internet connectivity stopped at midday. Land lines and mobile phones networks were also seriously disrupted.
The Syrian government said "terrorists" had attacked Internet lines but the opposition and human rights groups suspect it to be the work of the authorities.
Opposition activists have used the Internet extensively to further their cause by publishing footage of aerial strikes and graphic images of civilian casualties. In the absence of a free press, they have used social media to disseminate information during the uprising and communicate with journalists abroad.
Anonymous, a loose affiliation of hacking groups that opposes Internet censorship, said it will remove from the Internet all web assets belonging to Assad's government that are outside Syria, starting with embassies.
By 1000 GMT on Friday, the website for Syria's embassy in Belgium was down but the embassy in China - which Anonymous said it would target first - was operating. Most government ministry websites were down although this could be due to the blackout.
Several networking experts said that it was highly unlikely that the lines had been sabotaged by anti-Assad forces.
CloudFlare, a firm that helps accelerate Internet traffic, said on its blog that saboteurs would have had to simultaneously sever three undersea cables into the port city of Tartous and also an overland cable through Turkey in order to cut off the entire country's Internet access.
"That is unlikely to have happened," CloudFlare said.
The government has been accused of cutting communications in previous assaults on rebel-held areas. Anonymous said Assad's government had physically "pulled the plug out of the wall".
"As we discovered in Egypt, where the dictator (Hosni) Mubarak did something similar - this is not damage that can be easily or quickly repaired," it added, referring to an Internet outage during the early days of the 2011 uprising in Egypt.
French foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said the communications cut was of a matter of "extreme concern".
"It is another demonstration of what the Damascus regime is doing to hold its people hostage. We call on the Damascus regime to reestablish communications without delay," he said.
Rebels have seized a series of army bases across Syria this month, exposing Assad's loss of control in northern and eastern regions and on Thursday fighting on the outskirts of the capital blocked access to the international airport.
More than 40,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011, according to opposition groups.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, said the Internet cut could signal that Assad is seeking to hide the truth of what is happening in the country from the outside world.
Syrian authorities have severely restricted non-state media from working in the country.
The hacker collective has staged cyber attacks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency. Earlier this month, The Israeli government said it logged more than 44 million hacking attempts in just a few days during its military assault on Gaza after Anonymous waged a similar campaign.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston, John Irish in Paris and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
*** 324 Comments
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/global-hacking-network-declares-internet-war-syria-142548644.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Reports: U.S. Moving Toward Recognizing Syrian Opposition As Legitimate Gov’t
Reports: U.S. Moving Toward Recognizing Syrian Opposition As Legitimate Gov’t
David Taintor
- 6:18 AM EST, Friday November 30, 2012
The United States is moving toward recognizing the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, the Associated Press and New York Times report. The announcement is expected to occur at a "Friends of Syria" conference in Morocco in mid-December, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to attend.
Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/reports-us-moving-toward-recognizing-syrian-opposition-as
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
David Taintor
- 6:18 AM EST, Friday November 30, 2012
The United States is moving toward recognizing the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, the Associated Press and New York Times report. The announcement is expected to occur at a "Friends of Syria" conference in Morocco in mid-December, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to attend.
Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/reports-us-moving-toward-recognizing-syrian-opposition-as
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Syria: Airport road reopens but Internet still cut
Syria: Airport road reopens but Internet still cut
By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press
Updated 6:54 a.m., Friday, November 30, 2012
In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke leaps the air from a building after a warplane attack in Homs, Syria, on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. Photo: Ugarit News Via AP Video / AP
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels battled regime troops south of Damascus Friday and Internet and most telephone lines were cut for a second day, but the government reopened the road to the capital's airport in a sign that the fighting could be calming, activists said.
President Bashar Assad's regime and opposition activists blamed each other for the blackout, which is the first to hit the whole country since Syria's 20-month-old uprising began.
Syrian authorities previously have cut Internet and telephones in areas ahead of military operations. On Friday, some land lines were working sporadically.
An AP reporter in the capital said Damascus was largely quiet, although there were sounds of fighting in the suburbs.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the main road to Damascus' airport reopened early Friday afternoon. There were intense clashes after midnight in villages and towns near the facility but the area was calm by the late morning, the group said. It said rebels were able to destroy several army vehicles near the airport.
The Observatory, which has a network of activists around Syria, reported fighting in other southern neighborhoods of Damascus, including Qaboun and Hajar Aswad. The Observatory said it was able to contact its sources who used satellite telephones.
Activists say Assad's regime pulled the plug on the Internet on Thursday, perhaps in preparation for a major offensive. Cellphone service also went out in Damascus and parts of central Syria, they said. The government blamed rebel fighters for the outages.
Thursday's violence appeared to be focused on southern suburbs near the airport, forcing the military to shut the road to the facility. The surrounding districts have been strongholds of rebel support since the uprising began.
Thursday's fighting wounded two Austrian soldiers assigned to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights when their convoy came under fire on the way to the airport, Austria Press Agency said.
The two were transferred to Israel for treatment Friday and their condition is not life-threatening, said David Ratner, a spokesman for Rambam Hospital in Haifa. He said the two soldiers suffered gunshot wounds — one to the chest and the other to the hand.
With pressure building against the regime on several fronts and government forces on their heels in the battle for the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, rebels have recently begun pushing back into Damascus after largely being driven out of the capital following a July offensive. One Damascus resident reported seeing rebel forces near a suburb of the city previously deemed to be safe from fighting.
The Internet outage, confirmed by two U.S.-based companies that monitor online connectivity, is unprecedented in Syria's uprising against Assad, which activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since the revolt began in March 2011.
Regime forces have suffered a string of tactical defeats in recent weeks, losing air bases and other strategic facilities. The government may be trying to blunt additional rebel offensives by hampering communications.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday condemned what she called the regime's "assault" on Syrians' ability to communicate with each other and express themselves. She said the move spoke to a desperate attempt by Assad to cling to power.
As the rebels and government vie for the upper hand in an increasingly bloody struggle, the conflict's toll on civilians is worsening.
The U.N. refugee agency said Friday it found desperate conditions in the Syrian city of Homs, where thousands of people are living in unheated shelters and a quarter of million people are displaced from their homes.
An assessment team visiting this week saw half of the city's hospitals shut down and "severe shortages of basic supplies ranging from medicine to blankets, winter clothes and children's shoes," the agency's spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said.
The violence on the ground, meanwhile, has overshadowed a slow diplomatic process.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy for Syria, said Thursday that divisions in the Security Council are blocking progress toward ending the violence in Syria, and any eventual cease-fire will require the presence of an international peacekeeping force.
Brahimi said he has the elements for a possible peace plan, but those elements "cannot be put together until the (Security) Council has come together and is ready to adopt a resolution that will be the basis for a political process."
World powers remain divided on how to stop Syria's crisis, with the U.S. and many Arab and European nations calling for Assad to step down, while Russia, China and Iran continue to back the regime. Moscow and Beijing have vetoed three Western-backed Security Council resolutions that would pressure Assad, including with the threat of sanctions, to halt the violence, and the U.N.'s most powerful body remains paralyzed.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/world/article/Syria-Airport-road-reopens-but-Internet-still-cut-4079573.php#ixzz2Di8EPYzi
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press
Updated 6:54 a.m., Friday, November 30, 2012
In this image taken from video obtained from the Ugarit News, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke leaps the air from a building after a warplane attack in Homs, Syria, on Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012. Photo: Ugarit News Via AP Video / AP
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels battled regime troops south of Damascus Friday and Internet and most telephone lines were cut for a second day, but the government reopened the road to the capital's airport in a sign that the fighting could be calming, activists said.
President Bashar Assad's regime and opposition activists blamed each other for the blackout, which is the first to hit the whole country since Syria's 20-month-old uprising began.
Syrian authorities previously have cut Internet and telephones in areas ahead of military operations. On Friday, some land lines were working sporadically.
An AP reporter in the capital said Damascus was largely quiet, although there were sounds of fighting in the suburbs.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the main road to Damascus' airport reopened early Friday afternoon. There were intense clashes after midnight in villages and towns near the facility but the area was calm by the late morning, the group said. It said rebels were able to destroy several army vehicles near the airport.
The Observatory, which has a network of activists around Syria, reported fighting in other southern neighborhoods of Damascus, including Qaboun and Hajar Aswad. The Observatory said it was able to contact its sources who used satellite telephones.
Activists say Assad's regime pulled the plug on the Internet on Thursday, perhaps in preparation for a major offensive. Cellphone service also went out in Damascus and parts of central Syria, they said. The government blamed rebel fighters for the outages.
Thursday's violence appeared to be focused on southern suburbs near the airport, forcing the military to shut the road to the facility. The surrounding districts have been strongholds of rebel support since the uprising began.
Thursday's fighting wounded two Austrian soldiers assigned to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights when their convoy came under fire on the way to the airport, Austria Press Agency said.
The two were transferred to Israel for treatment Friday and their condition is not life-threatening, said David Ratner, a spokesman for Rambam Hospital in Haifa. He said the two soldiers suffered gunshot wounds — one to the chest and the other to the hand.
With pressure building against the regime on several fronts and government forces on their heels in the battle for the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, rebels have recently begun pushing back into Damascus after largely being driven out of the capital following a July offensive. One Damascus resident reported seeing rebel forces near a suburb of the city previously deemed to be safe from fighting.
The Internet outage, confirmed by two U.S.-based companies that monitor online connectivity, is unprecedented in Syria's uprising against Assad, which activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since the revolt began in March 2011.
Regime forces have suffered a string of tactical defeats in recent weeks, losing air bases and other strategic facilities. The government may be trying to blunt additional rebel offensives by hampering communications.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday condemned what she called the regime's "assault" on Syrians' ability to communicate with each other and express themselves. She said the move spoke to a desperate attempt by Assad to cling to power.
As the rebels and government vie for the upper hand in an increasingly bloody struggle, the conflict's toll on civilians is worsening.
The U.N. refugee agency said Friday it found desperate conditions in the Syrian city of Homs, where thousands of people are living in unheated shelters and a quarter of million people are displaced from their homes.
An assessment team visiting this week saw half of the city's hospitals shut down and "severe shortages of basic supplies ranging from medicine to blankets, winter clothes and children's shoes," the agency's spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said.
The violence on the ground, meanwhile, has overshadowed a slow diplomatic process.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy for Syria, said Thursday that divisions in the Security Council are blocking progress toward ending the violence in Syria, and any eventual cease-fire will require the presence of an international peacekeeping force.
Brahimi said he has the elements for a possible peace plan, but those elements "cannot be put together until the (Security) Council has come together and is ready to adopt a resolution that will be the basis for a political process."
World powers remain divided on how to stop Syria's crisis, with the U.S. and many Arab and European nations calling for Assad to step down, while Russia, China and Iran continue to back the regime. Moscow and Beijing have vetoed three Western-backed Security Council resolutions that would pressure Assad, including with the threat of sanctions, to halt the violence, and the U.N.'s most powerful body remains paralyzed.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/world/article/Syria-Airport-road-reopens-but-Internet-still-cut-4079573.php#ixzz2Di8EPYzi
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
01122012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ Crime and cowardice of Russian diplomatic mission in Libya
Crime and cowardice of Russian diplomatic mission in Libya
30.11.2012 Lyuba Lulko Pravda.Ru
Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma on Monday sent a request to the Prosecutor General's Office, asking to check which of the Russian diplomats in Libya decided to bring to interrogations by rebels Alexander Shadrov and Vladimir Dolgov, who were later sentenced to life imprisonment and 10 years in prison, respectively "for cooperation with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi."
Russian citizens Dolgov and Shadrov were detained by Libyan rebel group Qaqaa on August 27, 2011 along with 23 citizens of Ukraine and Belarus. At the trial, rebels who were called as witnesses first called the "organizer" Shadrov "Gaddafi's military adviser," then a "sniper." As a result, the tribunal gave him the status of "a military expert who repaired tanks, and senior specialist of the group." On June 3rd he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The other accused were sentenced to very long terms as well.
Relatives of the sentenced Russians insist that the Russian Embassy actually gave their citizens to local insurgents. The Foreign Ministry disputed the statement, and even expressed bewilderment at this interpretation of the facts. As follows from the official statement from the office made on November 21, 2012, it was not the embassy that gave the Russians to rebels.
Foreign Ministry spokesman wrote on the ministry website that they were detained in Tripoli when fighting still continued in the Libyan capital and embassies of the U.S. and the European Union countries were closed for security reasons.
However, as soon as the Russian embassy in Libya was informed about the arrest of Russian citizens, the staff of the diplomatic mission traveled to the location of this formation to clarify the situation with the Russian citizens. On September 3, 2011, as a result of negotiations with representatives of the Battalion that lasted several days, they managed to gain permission to temporarily relocate Dolgov, Shadrov and his son and daughter in law (citizens of Ukraine) to the Russian Embassy.
The leadership of the group set the condition that at the first request, all four must be delivered to the place of deployment for questioning. At the request of the commander of the armed formation, he was provided with the letter of guarantee from the Embassy. On September 6, 2011, in accordance with the said agreement, the citizens of Russia and Ukraine were taken to the Battalion for investigation. Once the inquiry was over, the Libyan side suddenly (!) refused to return them to the Embassy, explaining that there were reasons for keeping these people in custody in connection with the revealed facts that point to the possible involvement of the Russians with the repair and modernization of military equipment for the forces loyal to Gaddafi. Further tough negotiations with the battalion have failed, and at the time authorities able to resolve the issue did not exist in Libya, the Ministry concluded.
The Ministry decided to provide an official explanation nearly six months after the verdict. Before that, the relatives of the sentenced citizens knocked on different doors in a vain attempt to find an explanation for the events. Only the intervention of the State Duma committee and personally MP Yan Zelinsky led to at least some clarity. But questions remain. The Russian Constitution prohibits extradition of its citizens to other countries. Article 61 of Chapter "Human rights and freedoms" explicitly states: "A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported from Russia or extradited to another state." Another law, Criminal Code (Article 13), specifies that this cannot happen even in the case of a Russian citizen committing a crime: "Citizens of Russia who have committed a crime in a foreign country shall not be extradited to that country." Staying in the Embassy in Tripoli, the Russians were on the territory of the Russian Federation, and sending them in for questioning was a direct violation of the law.
Likely, diplomats decided not to raise the issue of emergency evacuation of Dolgov and Shadrov at the highest level or feared for their lives. This fear is not ungrounded if you remember the sad fate of the American ambassador to Benghazi murdered by Islamists in the wake of the protests against the film "Innocent Muslims." But there is another point of view. For example, Zelinsky believes that a conspiracy might have taken place. "I sent a query (to the Prosecution Office) on Monday, with all the facts, and asked, first, to provide a legal assessment of the embassy staff in Libya, and, second, to justify the basis on which our citizens have been given to the illegitimate government. That is, I asked to check the facts and initiate criminal proceedings against those employees who gave the citizens away and who gave the command to do so. I think it was a betrayal, or a planned action, maybe something else ... The document was sent. A response can be expected in two weeks," said the deputy to Pravda.ru.
The Ministry is trying to save face and is asking not to interfere with their work on the liberation of the Russian citizens with provocative articles. Well, they have a good argument. Both Russians arrived in Libya without a visa in June of 2011 through a land border with Tunisia, where the oil and gas sector of the economy is not functioning. At the time, Russia has already released a recommendation to Russians to refrain from traveling to the affected areas. A representative of the Foreign Ministry also assured the newspaper Izvestia that the appeal against the sentence of Dolgov and Shadrov has been transferred and is now being investigated by higher military courts of the new Libyan authorities. Lyuba Lulko Pravda.Ru
Read more: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/30-11-2012/122986-russian_mission_libya-0
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
/
30.11.2012 Lyuba Lulko Pravda.Ru
Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma on Monday sent a request to the Prosecutor General's Office, asking to check which of the Russian diplomats in Libya decided to bring to interrogations by rebels Alexander Shadrov and Vladimir Dolgov, who were later sentenced to life imprisonment and 10 years in prison, respectively "for cooperation with the regime of Muammar Gaddafi."
Russian citizens Dolgov and Shadrov were detained by Libyan rebel group Qaqaa on August 27, 2011 along with 23 citizens of Ukraine and Belarus. At the trial, rebels who were called as witnesses first called the "organizer" Shadrov "Gaddafi's military adviser," then a "sniper." As a result, the tribunal gave him the status of "a military expert who repaired tanks, and senior specialist of the group." On June 3rd he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The other accused were sentenced to very long terms as well.
Relatives of the sentenced Russians insist that the Russian Embassy actually gave their citizens to local insurgents. The Foreign Ministry disputed the statement, and even expressed bewilderment at this interpretation of the facts. As follows from the official statement from the office made on November 21, 2012, it was not the embassy that gave the Russians to rebels.
Foreign Ministry spokesman wrote on the ministry website that they were detained in Tripoli when fighting still continued in the Libyan capital and embassies of the U.S. and the European Union countries were closed for security reasons.
However, as soon as the Russian embassy in Libya was informed about the arrest of Russian citizens, the staff of the diplomatic mission traveled to the location of this formation to clarify the situation with the Russian citizens. On September 3, 2011, as a result of negotiations with representatives of the Battalion that lasted several days, they managed to gain permission to temporarily relocate Dolgov, Shadrov and his son and daughter in law (citizens of Ukraine) to the Russian Embassy.
The leadership of the group set the condition that at the first request, all four must be delivered to the place of deployment for questioning. At the request of the commander of the armed formation, he was provided with the letter of guarantee from the Embassy. On September 6, 2011, in accordance with the said agreement, the citizens of Russia and Ukraine were taken to the Battalion for investigation. Once the inquiry was over, the Libyan side suddenly (!) refused to return them to the Embassy, explaining that there were reasons for keeping these people in custody in connection with the revealed facts that point to the possible involvement of the Russians with the repair and modernization of military equipment for the forces loyal to Gaddafi. Further tough negotiations with the battalion have failed, and at the time authorities able to resolve the issue did not exist in Libya, the Ministry concluded.
The Ministry decided to provide an official explanation nearly six months after the verdict. Before that, the relatives of the sentenced citizens knocked on different doors in a vain attempt to find an explanation for the events. Only the intervention of the State Duma committee and personally MP Yan Zelinsky led to at least some clarity. But questions remain. The Russian Constitution prohibits extradition of its citizens to other countries. Article 61 of Chapter "Human rights and freedoms" explicitly states: "A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported from Russia or extradited to another state." Another law, Criminal Code (Article 13), specifies that this cannot happen even in the case of a Russian citizen committing a crime: "Citizens of Russia who have committed a crime in a foreign country shall not be extradited to that country." Staying in the Embassy in Tripoli, the Russians were on the territory of the Russian Federation, and sending them in for questioning was a direct violation of the law.
Likely, diplomats decided not to raise the issue of emergency evacuation of Dolgov and Shadrov at the highest level or feared for their lives. This fear is not ungrounded if you remember the sad fate of the American ambassador to Benghazi murdered by Islamists in the wake of the protests against the film "Innocent Muslims." But there is another point of view. For example, Zelinsky believes that a conspiracy might have taken place. "I sent a query (to the Prosecution Office) on Monday, with all the facts, and asked, first, to provide a legal assessment of the embassy staff in Libya, and, second, to justify the basis on which our citizens have been given to the illegitimate government. That is, I asked to check the facts and initiate criminal proceedings against those employees who gave the citizens away and who gave the command to do so. I think it was a betrayal, or a planned action, maybe something else ... The document was sent. A response can be expected in two weeks," said the deputy to Pravda.ru.
The Ministry is trying to save face and is asking not to interfere with their work on the liberation of the Russian citizens with provocative articles. Well, they have a good argument. Both Russians arrived in Libya without a visa in June of 2011 through a land border with Tunisia, where the oil and gas sector of the economy is not functioning. At the time, Russia has already released a recommendation to Russians to refrain from traveling to the affected areas. A representative of the Foreign Ministry also assured the newspaper Izvestia that the appeal against the sentence of Dolgov and Shadrov has been transferred and is now being investigated by higher military courts of the new Libyan authorities. Lyuba Lulko Pravda.Ru
Read more: http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/30-11-2012/122986-russian_mission_libya-0
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
/
WORLD_ Direct hit downs Syrian helicopter in Aleppo
Direct hit downs Syrian helicopter in Aleppo
Amateur video from Syria appears to show a military helicopter being hit by a surface-to-air missile, reportedly in the war-torn Aleppo region.
The Telegraph
9:46AM GMT 30 Nov 2012
Two separate videos uploaded to the internet this week show what is said to be a Russian-made Syrian military helicopter being hit by a surface-to-air missile.
According to the uploaders, the incident occurred in western Aleppo, in the north of the country.
Initially the helicopter appeared to have somehow survived the direct hit. However, the second clip reveals that the aircraft eventually crash landed following the attack.
Rebels, who control vast swathes of northern Syria, have made significant gains in past days, including the shooting down of regime aircraft with surface-to-air missiles for the first time.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Syrian rebels have obtained up to 40 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, some from Qatar, citing Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials.
Related Articles
_ Fierce clashes by Damascus airport as Syria loses internet - 29 Nov 2012
_ Syria cuts off internet as fighting rages in Damascus - 29 Nov 2012
_ Syria using child soldiers as young as - 14 29 Nov 2012
_ US considering giving further help to Syrian rebels - 30 Nov 2012
_ Palestinians celebrate UN vote recognition - 30 Nov 2012
_ US: Palestine status 'counterproductive' - 30 Nov 2012
Analysts say the delivery marked a potential turning point in the prolonged war with President Assad's forces, in which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 40,000 people have perished since March 2011.
Read more: Video: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9713501/Direct-hit-downs-Syrian-helicopter-in-Aleppo.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Amateur video from Syria appears to show a military helicopter being hit by a surface-to-air missile, reportedly in the war-torn Aleppo region.
The Telegraph
9:46AM GMT 30 Nov 2012
Two separate videos uploaded to the internet this week show what is said to be a Russian-made Syrian military helicopter being hit by a surface-to-air missile.
According to the uploaders, the incident occurred in western Aleppo, in the north of the country.
Initially the helicopter appeared to have somehow survived the direct hit. However, the second clip reveals that the aircraft eventually crash landed following the attack.
Rebels, who control vast swathes of northern Syria, have made significant gains in past days, including the shooting down of regime aircraft with surface-to-air missiles for the first time.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Syrian rebels have obtained up to 40 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, some from Qatar, citing Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials.
Related Articles
_ Fierce clashes by Damascus airport as Syria loses internet - 29 Nov 2012
_ Syria cuts off internet as fighting rages in Damascus - 29 Nov 2012
_ Syria using child soldiers as young as - 14 29 Nov 2012
_ US considering giving further help to Syrian rebels - 30 Nov 2012
_ Palestinians celebrate UN vote recognition - 30 Nov 2012
_ US: Palestine status 'counterproductive' - 30 Nov 2012
Analysts say the delivery marked a potential turning point in the prolonged war with President Assad's forces, in which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 40,000 people have perished since March 2011.
Read more: Video: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9713501/Direct-hit-downs-Syrian-helicopter-in-Aleppo.html
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Thursday, November 29, 2012
WORLD_ A Crisis of Conscience in Benghazi
A Crisis of Conscience in Benghazi
Posted: 11/29/2012 4:40 pm
Joseph Loconte, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History, King's College in New York City
The deadly terrorist attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya represents not just a failure of intelligence. It symbolizes the failure to face unpleasant truths about the hatreds unleashed by corrupted religion. Like the failure of U.S. policies in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, it is made worse by a troubled conscience -- in this case the uneasy conscience of Susan Rice.
As the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Rice was dispatched by the White House on Sept. 16 to explain the Benghazi assault to the American people. On five separate news programs she delivered the same unambiguous, uncompromising message: the violence that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans was not an act of terrorism, but rather a "spontaneous" mob reaction to an anti-Islam video on YouTube.
It was a demonstrably false claim. First, the administration ignored pleas for greater security for its diplomats in Libya, following a string of terrorist attacks in the region. Second, CIA agents knew immediately that Islamist radicals planned the assault. "The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," a spokesman at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) told CBS News.
For weeks now, President Obama has insisted that the CIA -- on its own initiative and without the knowledge of the White House -- purged references to "al-Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the talking points given to Rice. Who deleted the references to terrorism? No one knows. Why would the CIA deliberately deceive the White House and the America people about a matter of national security? We are not told.
What explains this manifestly fictional narrative of events in Libya?
Although President Obama has pursued and killed a number of top-ranking terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, he has mostly ignored the indispensable role of religion in inspiring their atrocities. Instead, the administration has labored obsessively to avoid offending Muslim sensitivities. Nowhere in the National Security Strategy, for example, do we find the words "Islamic terrorism," "radical Islam" or "Islamic jihad." It's as though the terrorist threats facing the United States are the result of unemployment, poverty, global climate change or, for that matter, Justin Bieber.
Such dissembling informs the Obama administration's conclusion that its actions have "decimated" al Qaeda, when in fact al Qaeda and its affiliates are rushing to fill the power vacuums created by the Arab Spring. Exhibit A is Libya, where extremist elements, heavily armed, have taken advantage of the post-war confusion. Yet Libya has been touted as the primo example of Team Obama's foreign policy prowess: a tidy war that rescued a civilian population from a tyrant and ushered in the forces of democratic renewal.
No cynicism is required to understand that the White House had the strongest political motive to edit the CIA account of the Benghazi attack: to deflect criticism of its failed Libya policy just weeks before a tight presidential race.
Enter Susan Rice, the perfect political creature to promote this false narrative. When she was in the Clinton administration at the National Security Council, Rice stunned her colleagues during the 1994 Rwanda genocide by asking what the effect would be on the November (mid-term) election if the administration used the word "genocide" but failed to intervene. Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," and a special advisor to Barack Obama, has called Rice a bystander to the carnage.
That's putting it gently. Rice worked quietly with other members of the Clinton administration to manipulate public opinion by removing words such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" from official State Department and CIA memos. For Rice (and for Bill Clinton, the most poll-driven president in modern political history), the supreme concern was to shield themselves from any political fallout from the genocide -- not to stop it. In the end, the United States remained indifferent as 800,000 Tutsis, mostly civilians, were hacked to death.
"There was such a huge disconnect between the logic of each of the decisions we took along the way during the genocide," Rice later admitted, "and the moral consequences of the decisions taken collectively."
Here is the rationalizing voice of the craven political appointee, a voice that Rice has brought with her into the Libya crisis. Soon after the Libyan revolt, she became a fierce advocate for U.S. intervention to protect civilians and bring about regime change. As if to atone for her misdeeds over Rwanda, she remains committed to a narrative of success in Libya, no matter what the facts are on the ground.
It can be argued that a similar dynamic of denial afflicted the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq. In June 2005, more than two years after Saddam's regime was toppled, a growing insurgency of Sunni Muslims, radical jihadists and al Qaeda operatives were killing U.S.-led coalition forces. American troops were not being greeted as "liberators." Yet this was the storyline perpetuated by Vice President Dick Cheney, who served under Georg H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War and regretted leaving Saddam in power and allowing him to crush a Shiite uprising.
Despite massive evidence to the contrary, Cheney saw "major progress" in Iraq and a swift resolution of the conflict. "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." It was nonsense talk. In reality, the insurgency was gaining strength. Most analysts agree that Bush's decision to inject another 20,000 American troops into Iraq in 2007 prevented the country from descending into utter chaos. Like Team Obama, the Bush administration failed to reckon with the remorseless violence of a perverse religious ideology.
In the case of Susan Rice, the failures appear insurmountable. Although President Obama wants her confirmed as his next Secretary of State, even boosterish media such as the New York Times admit that a confirmation vote for her in the Senate would be "a toxic affair." The problem for Rice is not only that she has imbibed the administration's agnosticism about the bond between religious belief and terrorism. Her flawed narratives are compounded by a lingering sense of guilt. "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again," Rice said, "I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."
It seems likely that Rice will indeed go down in flames, in a tragedy of dramatic inaction, taking her political demons with her.
Joseph Loconte, Ph.D., teaches American foreign policy at the King's College in New York City and is the author of 'The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt' (Thomas Nelson, 2012).
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Posted: 11/29/2012 4:40 pm
Joseph Loconte, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History, King's College in New York City
The deadly terrorist attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya represents not just a failure of intelligence. It symbolizes the failure to face unpleasant truths about the hatreds unleashed by corrupted religion. Like the failure of U.S. policies in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, it is made worse by a troubled conscience -- in this case the uneasy conscience of Susan Rice.
As the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Rice was dispatched by the White House on Sept. 16 to explain the Benghazi assault to the American people. On five separate news programs she delivered the same unambiguous, uncompromising message: the violence that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans was not an act of terrorism, but rather a "spontaneous" mob reaction to an anti-Islam video on YouTube.
It was a demonstrably false claim. First, the administration ignored pleas for greater security for its diplomats in Libya, following a string of terrorist attacks in the region. Second, CIA agents knew immediately that Islamist radicals planned the assault. "The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," a spokesman at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) told CBS News.
For weeks now, President Obama has insisted that the CIA -- on its own initiative and without the knowledge of the White House -- purged references to "al-Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the talking points given to Rice. Who deleted the references to terrorism? No one knows. Why would the CIA deliberately deceive the White House and the America people about a matter of national security? We are not told.
What explains this manifestly fictional narrative of events in Libya?
Although President Obama has pursued and killed a number of top-ranking terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, he has mostly ignored the indispensable role of religion in inspiring their atrocities. Instead, the administration has labored obsessively to avoid offending Muslim sensitivities. Nowhere in the National Security Strategy, for example, do we find the words "Islamic terrorism," "radical Islam" or "Islamic jihad." It's as though the terrorist threats facing the United States are the result of unemployment, poverty, global climate change or, for that matter, Justin Bieber.
Such dissembling informs the Obama administration's conclusion that its actions have "decimated" al Qaeda, when in fact al Qaeda and its affiliates are rushing to fill the power vacuums created by the Arab Spring. Exhibit A is Libya, where extremist elements, heavily armed, have taken advantage of the post-war confusion. Yet Libya has been touted as the primo example of Team Obama's foreign policy prowess: a tidy war that rescued a civilian population from a tyrant and ushered in the forces of democratic renewal.
No cynicism is required to understand that the White House had the strongest political motive to edit the CIA account of the Benghazi attack: to deflect criticism of its failed Libya policy just weeks before a tight presidential race.
Enter Susan Rice, the perfect political creature to promote this false narrative. When she was in the Clinton administration at the National Security Council, Rice stunned her colleagues during the 1994 Rwanda genocide by asking what the effect would be on the November (mid-term) election if the administration used the word "genocide" but failed to intervene. Samantha Power, author of "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," and a special advisor to Barack Obama, has called Rice a bystander to the carnage.
That's putting it gently. Rice worked quietly with other members of the Clinton administration to manipulate public opinion by removing words such as "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" from official State Department and CIA memos. For Rice (and for Bill Clinton, the most poll-driven president in modern political history), the supreme concern was to shield themselves from any political fallout from the genocide -- not to stop it. In the end, the United States remained indifferent as 800,000 Tutsis, mostly civilians, were hacked to death.
"There was such a huge disconnect between the logic of each of the decisions we took along the way during the genocide," Rice later admitted, "and the moral consequences of the decisions taken collectively."
Here is the rationalizing voice of the craven political appointee, a voice that Rice has brought with her into the Libya crisis. Soon after the Libyan revolt, she became a fierce advocate for U.S. intervention to protect civilians and bring about regime change. As if to atone for her misdeeds over Rwanda, she remains committed to a narrative of success in Libya, no matter what the facts are on the ground.
It can be argued that a similar dynamic of denial afflicted the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq. In June 2005, more than two years after Saddam's regime was toppled, a growing insurgency of Sunni Muslims, radical jihadists and al Qaeda operatives were killing U.S.-led coalition forces. American troops were not being greeted as "liberators." Yet this was the storyline perpetuated by Vice President Dick Cheney, who served under Georg H.W. Bush during the first Gulf War and regretted leaving Saddam in power and allowing him to crush a Shiite uprising.
Despite massive evidence to the contrary, Cheney saw "major progress" in Iraq and a swift resolution of the conflict. "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." It was nonsense talk. In reality, the insurgency was gaining strength. Most analysts agree that Bush's decision to inject another 20,000 American troops into Iraq in 2007 prevented the country from descending into utter chaos. Like Team Obama, the Bush administration failed to reckon with the remorseless violence of a perverse religious ideology.
In the case of Susan Rice, the failures appear insurmountable. Although President Obama wants her confirmed as his next Secretary of State, even boosterish media such as the New York Times admit that a confirmation vote for her in the Senate would be "a toxic affair." The problem for Rice is not only that she has imbibed the administration's agnosticism about the bond between religious belief and terrorism. Her flawed narratives are compounded by a lingering sense of guilt. "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again," Rice said, "I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."
It seems likely that Rice will indeed go down in flames, in a tragedy of dramatic inaction, taking her political demons with her.
Joseph Loconte, Ph.D., teaches American foreign policy at the King's College in New York City and is the author of 'The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt' (Thomas Nelson, 2012).
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
WORLD_ SYRIA_ Fierce clashes by Damascus airport as Syria loses internet
Fierce clashes by Damascus airport as Syria loses internet
Syrian rebels launched a fierce offensive close to Damascus airport, as the country suffered a widespread information blackout, with internet and mobile services going down.
Free Syrian Army rebels Photo: AP
By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut
7:22PM GMT 29 Nov 2012
In an operation optimistically titled "Dawn on the Horizon", rebels fought in pitched battles with regime troops around three miles from the airport, capturing roads and briefly blocking the main airport highway activists said.
"They [rebels] have been inching closer to the airport for the last few days," said Louay Sakka, vice chair of the Syrian Support Group, who said he was in direct contact with some of the fighting brigades.
The fighting forced airlines, including EgyptAir and Emirates to cancel flights to Damascus, citing the "deteriorating situation" around the airport.
Two Austrian soldiers from a UN peacekeeping force were wounded when their convoy came under fire near the airport, the defence ministry said in Vienna.
Fighting centred in the towns of Babila and Hujaira southeast of the capital and in Harran al-Awamid, just east of the airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that army reinforcements had been sent to the area.
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Separate troops were sent back into largely rebel held districts of Eastern Ghouta and Douma, in a "cleansing operation" to subdue the insurgents.
A Syrian security source from the elite 4th Armoured Division said the army was aiming to completely cut off the suburbs – where rebels are in control – from the city centre.
Opposition member Mr Sakka said this was the start of a major showdown for control of the capital, but which was likely still to take several weeks.
"The Free Syrian Army are now killing about 50 to 70 shabiha [government paramilitaries] per day. So the regime called a national draft to ask people to join the army but they are only getting a small response".
As the fighting continued residents reported internet connections in the capital were down and mobile and land telephone lines working only sporadically in what appeared to be the worst disruption to communications in Syria since an uprising began 20 months ago.
Omran al-Zu'bi, the Syrian information minister, claimed armed terrorist groups had blown up a communication and internet cable which led to shutting down the internet and communication system in some Syrian areas. Activists accused the government of pulling the plug on the internet.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
Syrian rebels launched a fierce offensive close to Damascus airport, as the country suffered a widespread information blackout, with internet and mobile services going down.
Free Syrian Army rebels Photo: AP
By Ruth Sherlock, Beirut
7:22PM GMT 29 Nov 2012
In an operation optimistically titled "Dawn on the Horizon", rebels fought in pitched battles with regime troops around three miles from the airport, capturing roads and briefly blocking the main airport highway activists said.
"They [rebels] have been inching closer to the airport for the last few days," said Louay Sakka, vice chair of the Syrian Support Group, who said he was in direct contact with some of the fighting brigades.
The fighting forced airlines, including EgyptAir and Emirates to cancel flights to Damascus, citing the "deteriorating situation" around the airport.
Two Austrian soldiers from a UN peacekeeping force were wounded when their convoy came under fire near the airport, the defence ministry said in Vienna.
Fighting centred in the towns of Babila and Hujaira southeast of the capital and in Harran al-Awamid, just east of the airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that army reinforcements had been sent to the area.
Related Articles
_ Syria cuts off internet as fighting rages in Damascus - 29 Nov 2012
_ Syria using child soldiers as young as - 14 29 Nov 2012
_ Syrian Refugees in Jordan - 28 Nov 2012
_ 50 dead in Damascus car bombs - 28 Nov 2012
_ West could arm Syrian rebels within months after Britain wins diplomatic battle - 28 Nov 2012
_ Syria: the powder-keg next door - 28 Nov 2012
Separate troops were sent back into largely rebel held districts of Eastern Ghouta and Douma, in a "cleansing operation" to subdue the insurgents.
A Syrian security source from the elite 4th Armoured Division said the army was aiming to completely cut off the suburbs – where rebels are in control – from the city centre.
Opposition member Mr Sakka said this was the start of a major showdown for control of the capital, but which was likely still to take several weeks.
"The Free Syrian Army are now killing about 50 to 70 shabiha [government paramilitaries] per day. So the regime called a national draft to ask people to join the army but they are only getting a small response".
As the fighting continued residents reported internet connections in the capital were down and mobile and land telephone lines working only sporadically in what appeared to be the worst disruption to communications in Syria since an uprising began 20 months ago.
Omran al-Zu'bi, the Syrian information minister, claimed armed terrorist groups had blown up a communication and internet cable which led to shutting down the internet and communication system in some Syrian areas. Activists accused the government of pulling the plug on the internet.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog".
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
30112012
___________
Cộng sản Việt Nam là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
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