Jihadists Admit Defeat as Syrian Government Takes Effective Control of All Aleppo & Over 50,000 Civilians Evacuate East; Still No Evidence of Russian Interference in Election But Lots of Hot Air; Netherlands Likely to Thwart EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

1 Comment

People gather to leave Al-Salhen neighborhood in eastern Aleppo on Dec 8, 2016 (European Pressphoto Agency-EPA)

(People gather to leave Al-Salhen neighborhood in eastern Aleppo on Dec 8, 2016 (European Pressphoto Agency-EPA))

Starting around December 8th, approximately 50,000 civilians fled eastern Aleppo via humanitarian corridors set up by the Syrian and Russian government forces as over 1200 “rebel” fighters laid down arms.  RT reported what the representative of the Russian Defense Ministry stated on this, in addition to some comments in which the spokesman vented his spleen in response to recent criticisms by the EU foreign policy chief about the Syrian and Russian government operations in the country:

Over the past 48 hours, up to 50,000 people have been evacuated from eastern Aleppo, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov has reported. “More than 20,000 residents left eastern Aleppo in the first part of Saturday, and 1,217 militants laid down their weapons,” Konashenkov said.

“The Russian Center for Reconciliation, through humanitarian corridors near Karim El-Hun and Mahayar, has organized the evacuation of civilians from the eastern parts of Aleppo to the safe areas of the city,” Konashenkov added. “We warn terrorists and militants of the so-called ‘moderate opposition,’ and also their patrons: Do not attempt any provocations, especially attacks on civilians leaving through humanitarian corridors,” the Russian Defense Ministry statement says.

Konashenkov also addressed those who, over the past few months, have declared their readiness to send humanitarian aid to Aleppo. “Representatives of the US, UK, France, Canada, the European Union, and international organizations: Over the past two days, nearly 50,000 civilians have been evacuated by the Russian Reconciliation Center from the eastern parts of Aleppo. They are in need of the humanitarian assistance you promised. It is time to check the validity of your intentions.”

The statement added that the Syrian government now controls 93 percent of Aleppo, and the civilians who exited eastern Aleppo have been placed in special humanitarian centers where they are provided with hot food and medical help.

The Russian Reconciliation Center is monitoring the evacuation of civilians from the blocked districts round-the-clock with the use of drones.

Earlier this week, Moscow slammed a statement by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who said the EU was the only party providing aid to Syria. “It’s outrageous twisting of facts which ignores what Russia has been doing for a long time,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Thursday.

The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Russia, “unlike other international players, has been actively supplying thousands of tons of humanitarian aid to various regions across Syria, including the liberated areas in eastern Aleppo, at the risk of Russian military lives.

“If the high representative [Mogherini] means providing assistance to terrorists and extremists, then we don’t participate in this, indeed,” the statement added.

Further reports in the past 48 hours indicate that the jihadists are now confined to an area of eastern Aleppo that is less than a mile wide and are themselves admitting defeat.  Alexander Mercouris provides the following details:

Reports from the Jihadis themselves say that they are now confined to an area less than a mile wide between the River Aleppo and the Salaheddin district near the main sports stadium.  Even they now admit that their resistance is almost entirely at an end.  The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a monitoring group that has consistently sided with the Jihadis throughout the Syrian conflict, is reporting it in this way

“The battle of Aleppo has reached its end. It is just a matter of a small period of time . . . it’s a total collapse.”

If the Syrian authorities have indeed at this eleventh hour refused to let the Jihadis leave Aleppo, then this is a reflection of the bankruptcy of US diplomacy.  Earlier in the day Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov made the following withering statement about US diplomatic actions 

“The problem is very simple.  We say – let us first of all agree on what corridors will be provided to militants, given the previous experience when gunmen used any pause for regrouping, receiving replenishment from abroad and terrorising the civilian population even more furiously.

We can coordinate this with Americans very quickly. We undertake commitments to guarantee that these corridors won’t be attacked by Syrian armed forces, while Americans undertake commitments together with their regional allies to get militants’ consent to leave eastern Aleppo via these safe corridors.

….As the “Great Battle of Aleppo’ approaches its end – which will probably come tomorrow – there could not be a sharper contrast between the way in which the news of the Syrian army’s victory is being celebrated in Syria, and the gloom and anger with which it is being received in the West.

In Aleppo itself film shows joyful Syrians flooding onto the streets to celebrate the Syrian army’s victory and the coming end of the fighting in their city.  Here is one such video published by the Russian news agency Sputnik:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmS9c0AmL8Y

According to a report from the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) of yesterday, 3,000 more civilians fled eastern Aleppo:

ALEPPO – Three thousand civilians who had been besieged by terrorist organizations have got out from the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo city through humanitarian corridors set by the Syrian Army in cooperation with the Russian side. A SANA reporter in Aleppo said that the civilians’ exit started today at dawn and is continuous, adding that army units and concerned authorities are transferring them to makeshift centers in Jibrin and providing them with the requirements of residence in the centers.

….The statement clarified that since the beginning of the military operations, 110,000 civilians, including 44367 children, have been evacuated from the eastern neighborhoods, while more than 7000 people returned to their houses in the areas restored by the Army.

 **************
Hoopla about Russia interfering in the recent U.S. presidential election continues.  Robert Parry over at Consortium News clarifies what the media and Democratic Party operatives are really talking about when they accuse Russia of having interfered in our elections – it’s not having hacked voting machines or stuffed ballot boxes for Trump, it is the fact that information was released, via Wikileaks and others, that exposed Clinton’s dubious political and financial relationships, putting her at a supposed disadvantage to Trump .  He also points out the hypocrisy of those now jumping up and down about the election results after having jumped up and down when Trump said during a campaign debate that he would wait and see if he accepted the election results:

 

His [Trump’s] refusal to commit to accepting the results was front-page news for days with leading editorialists declaring that his failure to announce that he would abide by the outcome disqualified him from the presidency.

But now the defeated Democrats and some anti-Trump neoconservatives in the Republican Party are jumping up and down about how Russia supposedly tainted the election by revealing information about the Democrats and the Clinton campaign.

Though there appears to be no hard evidence that the Russians did any such thing, the Obama administration’s CIA has thrown its weight behind the suspicions, basing its conclusions on “circumstantial evidence,” according to a report in The New York Times.

The Times reported: “The C.I.A.’s conclusion does not appear to be the product of specific new intelligence obtained since the election, several American officials, including some who had read the agency’s briefing, said on Sunday. Rather, it was an analysis of what many believe is overwhelming circumstantial evidence — evidence that others feel does not support firm judgments — that the Russians put a thumb on the scale for Mr. Trump, and got their desired outcome.”

In other words, the CIA apparently lacks direct reporting from a source inside the Kremlin or an electronic intercept in which Russian President Vladimir Putin or another senior official orders Russian operatives to tilt the U.S. election in favor of Trump.

The absence of such hard evidence opens the door to what is called “confirmation bias” or analytical “group think” in which the CIA’s institutional animosity toward Russia and Trump could influence how analysts read otherwise innocent developments.

For instance, Russian news agencies RT or Sputnik reported critically at times about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, a complaint that has been raised repeatedly in U.S. press accounts arguing that Russia interfered in the U.S. election. But that charge assumes two things: that Clinton did not deserve critical coverage and that Americans – in any significant numbers – watch Russian networks.

Similarly, the yet-unproven charge that Russia organized the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails and the private email account of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta assumes that the Russian government was responsible and that it then selectively leaked the material to WikiLeaks while withholding damaging information from hacked Republican accounts.

Here the suspicions also seem to extend far beyond what the CIA actually knows. First, the Republican National Committee denies that its email accounts were hacked, and even if they were hacked, there’s no evidence that they contained any information that was particularly newsworthy. Nor is there any evidence that – if the GOP accounts were hacked – they were hacked by the same group that hacked the Democratic Party emails, i.e., that the two hacks were part of the same operation.

That suspicion assumes a tightly controlled operation at the highest levels of the Russian government, but the CIA – with its intensive electronic surveillance of the Russian government and human sources inside the Kremlin – appears to lack any evidence of such a top-down operation.

Second, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange directly denies that he received the Democratic leaked emails from the Russian government and one of his associates, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, told the U.K. Guardian that he knows who “leaked” the Democratic emails and that there never was a “hack,” i.e. an outside electronic penetration of an email account.

Murray said, “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.”

But even if Assange did get the data from the Russians, it’s important to remember that nothing in the material has been identified as false. It all appears to be truthful and none of it represented an egregious violation of privacy with some salacious or sensational angle.

The only reason the emails were newsworthy at all was that the documents revealed information that the DNC and the Clinton campaign were trying to keep secret from the American voters.

….So, how does giving the American people truthful and relevant information undermine American democracy, which is the claim that is reverberating throughout the mainstream media and across Official Washington?

Presumably, the thinking is that it would have been better for the American people to have been kept in the dark about these secret maneuverings by the DNC and the Clinton campaign and, by keeping the public ignorant, that would have ensured Clinton’s election, the preferred outcome of the major U.S. news media.

There’s another double standard here. For instance, when a hack of — or a leak from — a Panamanian law firm exposed the personal finances of thousands of clients, including political figures in Iceland, Ukraine, Russia and other nations, there was widespread applause across the Western media for this example of journalism at its best.

The applause was deafening despite the fact that at least one of the principal “news agencies” involved was partly funded by the U.S. government. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a USAID-backed non-governmental organization, also was earlier involved in efforts to destabilize and delegitimize the elected Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Read the complete article here

Glenn Greenwald contributed his own scathing analysis of what’s wrong with the Washington Post’s latest reporting of unsubstantiated claims by the CIA:

THE WASHINGTON POST late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.

These unnamed sources told the Post that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.” The anonymous officials also claim that “intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails” from both the DNC and John Podesta’s email account. Critically, none of the actual evidence for these claims is disclosed; indeed, the CIA’s “secret assessment” itself remains concealed.

A second leak from last night, this one given to the New York Times, cites other anonymous officials as asserting that “the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.” But that NYT story says that “it is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.”

Needless to say, Democrats — still eager to make sense of their election loss and to find causes for it other than themselves — immediately declared these anonymous claims about what the CIA believes to be true, and, with a somewhat sweet, religious-type faith, treated these anonymous assertions as proof of what they wanted to believe all along: that Vladimir Putin was rooting for Donald Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose and used nefarious means to ensure that outcome. That Democrats are now venerating unverified, anonymous CIA leaks as sacred is par for the course for them this year, but it’s also a good indication of how confused and lost U.S. political culture has become in the wake of Trump’s victory.

Given the obvious significance of this story — it is certain to shape how people understand the 2016 election and probably foreign policy debates for months if not years to come — it is critical to keep in mind some basic facts about what is known and, more importantly, what is not known:

Read the rest of Greenwald’s breakdown here

Moreover, it is being reported in more than one major outlet that both the office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all 17 intelligence agencies, and the FBI, have not endorsed the CIA’s assessment.  Additionally, VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) has now published its own memorandum challenging the reported claims of the CIA.  The VIPS memorandum is authored by, among others, William Binney who had served as the NSA’s technical director for years and is one of the foremost experts who could weigh in on this:

 

In what follows, we draw on decades of senior-level experience – with emphasis on cyber-intelligence and security – to cut through uninformed, largely partisan fog. Far from hiding behind anonymity, we are proud to speak out with the hope of gaining an audience appropriate to what we merit – given our long labors in government and other areas of technology. And corny though it may sound these days, our ethos as intelligence professionals remains, simply, to tell it like it is – without fear or favor.

We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child’s play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here’s the difference between leaking and hacking:

Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and gives it to some other person or organization, as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning did.

Hack: When someone in a remote location electronically penetrates operating systems, firewalls or any other cyber-protection system and then extracts data.

All signs point to leaking, not hacking. If hacking were involved, the National Security Agency would know it – and know both sender and recipient.

In short, since leaking requires physically removing data – on a thumb drive, for example – the only way such data can be copied and removed, with no electronic trace of what has left the server, is via a physical storage device.

Again, NSA is able to identify both the sender and recipient when hacking is involved. Thanks largely to the material released by Edward Snowden, we can provide a full picture of NSA’s extensive domestic data-collection network including Upstream programs like Fairview, Stormbrew and Blarney. These include at least 30 companies in the U.S. operating the fiber networks that carry the Public Switched Telephone Network as well as the World Wide Web. This gives NSA unparalleled access to data flowing within the U.S. and data going out to the rest of the world, as well as data transiting the U.S.

In other words, any data that is passed from the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) – or any other server in the U.S. – is collected by the NSA.  These data transfers carry destination addresses in what are called packets, which enable the transfer to be traced and followed through the network.

….The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any “hacked” emails from the DNC, HRC or any other servers were routed through the network. This process can sometimes require a closer look into the routing to sort out intermediate clients, but in the end sender and recipient can be traced across the network.

The various ways in which usually anonymous spokespeople for U.S. intelligence agencies are equivocating – saying things like “our best guess” or “our opinion” or “our estimate” etc. – shows that the emails alleged to have been “hacked” cannot be traced across the network. Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked.

The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods. Thus, we conclude that the emails were leaked by an insider – as was the case with Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Such an insider could be anyone in a government department or agency with access to NSA databases, or perhaps someone within the DNC.

************************

The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, is seeking assurances from the other EU members that Ukraine will not be granted EU membership or included in any security commitments, if he facilitates the override of the Dutch public vote against the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement earlier this year, through a parliamentary endorsement.  Reuters reports:

Rutte is trying to free himself from a political bind after Dutch voters, concerned about the costs, rejected the so-called association agreement in a referendum in April. If his demands are met, he plans to go back to his parliament to win an endorsement that would overwrite the negative vote.

The Dutch are therefore seeking a legally binding decision by the 28 EU leaders that the association agreement is “not a stepping stone” to EU membership for Kiev, one source said. This is not to the liking of Poland, a key supporter of Ukraine.

….A draft document for the EU leaders to approve, prepared by the Dutch and seen by Reuters, also rules out financial or security guarantees for Ukraine and spells out that Ukrainians are not being given the right to live and work in the bloc.

CCI: Détente Now: A New Call for Peace, Security, and Cooperation

Vladimir Putin and Jean-Claude Juncker

From the Center for Citizen Initiatives:

The Nation

Civic and religious leaders in Germany are spearheading a new initiative to avoid war between Russia and the West.

By Gilbert Doctorow, Ute Finckh-Krämer, Ludger Volmer, Rolf Ekéus and Noam Chomsky

A transatlantic appeal for a new policy of détente with Russia has been launched. The declaration’s authors invite the general public to join leading political figures and social activists who have publicly rallied to support the call.

The initiative was born in Berlin several months ago in the days of deepest gloom engendered by confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, the Baltic countries, and Syria, with major war exercises held around Russia’s borders and bellicose language from both sides that suggested imminent hot war. As German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank Walter Steinmeier (SPD) said in an interview with Bildnewspaper on October 8, present times are more dangerous even than during the Cold War that ended in 1990: “Previously, the world was divided, but Moscow and Washington knew each other’s red lines and respected them. In a world with many regional conflicts and dwindling influence of the great powers, the world becomes more unpredictable.”

The roll-out of the initiative called Détente Now aims at bringing civil society on two continents into play both to enforce and to support approaches to pursue dialogue and compromise with Russian counterparts, e.g., on confidence- and security-building measures between Russia and its neighbors. Détente Now will be a powerful voice for change of direction in foreign policy within Europe, and within Germany in particular….

….Starting this month, the declaration will be published on various homepages, and public collection of more signatures of support will start. A German version can be found here, with an English version here.

To read the rest of this post go here

 

Putin Calls on Erdogan to Back Down in Syria; Syrian Government Getting Close to Defeat of Jihadists in E. Aleppo as Russia Gives Them Ultimatum to Surrender; More Empty Promises from Washington; Ukrainian Fascists Prevent Yanukovich from Testifying About Maidan; WaPo Reports Pentagon Hid Study Showing $125B in Waste; Just When You Thought You’d Heard it All

4 Comments

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) meet in Rome, Italy on Dec 2, 2016 (Gregorio Borgia, Reuters)

(Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) meet in Rome, Italy on Dec 2, 2016 (Gregorio Borgia, Reuters))

At the end of November, Erdogan had a phone call with Putin concerning Syria in which it appears Erdogan never made any claims about seeking regime change in Syria.   However, according to Alexander Mercouris, the call was initiated by Erdogan and and its purpose was to complain about the alleged Syrian airstrike on Turkish troops that reportedly resulted in casualties.

It is in fact known that what happened was that Erdogan telephoned Putin to complain about the alleged Syrian air strike on Turkish troops north of Al-Bab, which the Turks say killed and wounded several Turkish soldiers. 

The terse Kremlin account of the conversation suggests that there was a furious row, with Putin reminding Erdogan that unlike Russian troops, who are in Syria legally at the invitation of Syria’s legitimate government, Turkish troops are present in Syria illegally and contrary to the wishes of Syria’s legitimate government, and that for this reason the Russians are not in a position to help them.

Mercouris goes on to explain that this angered Erdogan, which in turn, prompted his comments a couple of days later claiming that the purpose of the Turkish Operation Euphrates Shield was to overthrow Assad.

Erdogan’s comments about the Turkish troops being in Syria to overthrow President Assad were almost certainly provoked by this row with Putin.  It seems Erdogan came away smarting from his conversation with Putin and – as is his character – tried to save face by saying more than it was wise of him to say.

The result was another furious telephone conversation between Putin and Erdogan yesterday.

….However on this occasion we have more information about the call from Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov

“I can only say that a telephone conversation between our president and Erdogan took place yesterday, and the topic [of Turkey’s presence in Syria] was addressed. Yes, he [Erdogan] gave an explanation.”

Today Erdogan has made public what that “explanation” was.   Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reports him telling a meeting of village elders at his Presidential palace in Ankara

“The aim of the Euphrates Shield Operation is no country or person but only terror organisations. No one should doubt this issue that we have uttered over and over, and no one should comment on it in another fashion or try to [misrepresent its meaning].”

In other words Erdogan has backed down.  After his conversation with Putin he has now been forced to deny the truth of what he said just the day before yesterday: that he is seeking to overthrow President Assad. 

Erdogan continues with his mercurial shenanigans.  I’m sure there will be more to report on Turkey in the near future.

As for Syria, it is looking like the government has regained control of approximately 3/4 of the territory of eastern Aleppo that was once held by the jihadists, with reports of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra commanders negotiating surrender.  Many are predicting that Aleppo will be completely liberated by the end of this month.

As The Duran reports:

Further reports of Syrian army advances suggest that the fighting in Aleppo may be drawing to an end with Jihadi resistance in eastern Aleppo close to collapse.

It seems that over the course of the day Syrian troops have recaptured two more districts west of Aleppo airport – Karam al-Jazmati and Karam al-Tarab – bringing them within 2 km of the Aleppo citadel in the centre of the city, which throughout the Syrian conflict has remained in the possession of the Syrian army, as a salient of the western section of the city which has always been under the Syrian army’s control.

Following these latest advances it is now confirmed that the Syrian army now controls more than half of the former Al-Qaeda controlled pocket of eastern Aleppo. 

It seems that the Syrian army’s objective is to advance west from the districts it has just recaptured to the Aleppo citadel, slicing what is left of the Jihadi pocket once more in two. 

At that point the Jihadis in eastern Aleppo will be forced to withdraw even further into the southern areas of their former pocket, which would however become so diminished in size as to be rendered increasingly indefensible.

More details are provided by military analyst Moon of Alabama:

Since the start of the Syrian army offense on the Takfiri held east-Aleppo some 21,000+ civilians have left towards the government held areas in the western part. Several news accounts confirm that these civilians had been held hostages by the Takfiris and had to flee under fire:

“We were under pressure by all means, psychological and financial. The gunmen were trying to prevent us from leaving until the army came,” said 36-year-old Amina Rwein, who fled with her husband, seven daughters and three sons.”We came under fire from the gunmen as we were leaving and the army hit the minaret from where the sniper was shooting, and then we crossed,” she said.

About 500 fighters among those civilians gave themselves up to the Syrian army. 480 of them were locals and where led go after they pledged to end all fighting.

The remaining rebels want to stay in the city and continued fighting until the end. This sabotages plans by Secretary of State Kerry who tries to get another ceasefire in which some al-Qaeda fighters would leave but other Takfiris kept in control of east-Aleppo. Kerry was late anyway. That deal was no longer on the table. The EU has even worse ideas – it wants to bribe the Syrian government to keep some Jihadis alive and in power. What a joke! The Russian and Syrian forces will not leave any enemy fighter in the area alive or any inch of Aleppo city grounds occupied by them. Later the same will apply to all of Syria.

New controlled exits for civilians and fighters who want to leave will be set up soon. All the old exit areas in the northern parts are now completely under Syrian government control.

I doubt that there are many, if any civilians left. As my original estimated from October 15 said:

Based on the Daraya numbers and those of other sieges in Syria there are probably no more than 4-5,000 fighters and some 3-5 civilians per fighter, i.e. their immediate families, in east-Aleppo. The real total could easily be as low as 20,000.The UN Refugees Agency and UN officials told fairy tales of some 270,000 civilians under siege in east-Aleppo. Numbers every “western” media repeated without caveats. More than 60% of the areas have been liberated. The International Red Cross went there and they were empty. Where are all those hundred-thousands civilians the UN envisioned now?

As reported by TASS on December 5th, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov made it clear that, in discussions with Washington, no ceasefire will be agreed to until after all jihadists have agreed to withdraw.   There were initial signals made by Washington that it would agree to the removal of the jihadists from Aleppo.

MOSCOW, December 5. /TASS/. Those militants who refuse to leave Eastern Aleppo will be regarded as terrorists, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that US Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposal handed over to him in Rome concerned “coordination of specific routes and dates for the pullout of all militants without any exceptions from eastern Aleppo.”

“Those groups which refuse to leave eastern Aleppo will be treated as terrorists,” Lavrov said. “By refusing to walk out from eastern Aleppo they will in fact go ahead with armed struggle. We will treat them accordingly, as terrorists and extremists, and support the Syrian army in its operation against such armed gangs.”

“We proceed from the assumption the Americans, when they put forward their initiative for letting all militants leave eastern Aleppo, were well aware what steps they and their allies will have to take to influence the militants entrenched in that party of the city,” he added.

However, that proposal has now been rescinded by Washington (possibly due to the fact that Washington cannot force those jihadists to leave who have chosen to stay and go down with the ship as it were).

RT reported on Washington’s pullout from the agreement on the following day:

Just as the US and Russia were preparing to discuss a solution for Aleppo, which was to involve free passage for all rebels from the part of the city still under their control, Washington abruptly withdrew its own proposal, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

According to Lavrov, the Americans are currently working on an alternative plan for the city. He said the Wednesday consultations are canceled at this point.

“They have withdrawn their document and have a new one. Our initial impression is that this new document backtracks, and is an attempt to buy time for the militants, allow them to catch their breath and resupply,” Lavrov said.

The minister remarked that there would apparently be no serious discussion of the Syrian crisis with the administration of outgoing US President Barack Obama.

 

“The same thing happened with our agreement of September 9,” Lavrov explained. “The thing that the Americans offered on paper and what we backed is now somehow not OK for them. It’s difficult to understand who makes decisions there, but apparently there are plenty of those who want to undermine the authority and practical steps by John Kerry.”

********************

Ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich was scheduled to give evidence by video link to a court in Kiev last Friday (December 2nd) regarding the events on Maidan that led to the massacre of protesters and police and the subsequent coup.

However, his testimony was thwarted when, according to The London Times,

…a handful of camouflage-clad Ukrainian nationalists blockaded the detention centre holding the accused officers, preventing their arrival in court.

Mr Yanukovych was asked to return on Monday, but a nationalist spokesman suggested that a second prison blockade was likely.

“Personally, I think the video interrogation is an absolute disgrace,” Zorian Shkiryak, chief adviser to the internal affairs ministry, said.

*********************

The Pentagon January 2008.jpg

(The Pentagon in January 2008; https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon)

The Washington Post has published an article about a Pentagon report on waste that was commissioned and later buried by the DOD to avoid possible defense budget cuts:

The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post.

The report, issued in January 2015, identified “a clear path” for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy through attrition and early retirements, curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology.

The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel of corporate executives, and consultants from McKinsey and Company. Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management.

*******************

kissinger

(http://www.globalresearch.ca/kissinger-and-brzezinski-to-be-honoured-by-nobel-institute-and-oslo-university/5559764)

MSC 2014 Brzezinski Kleinschmidt MSC2014.jpg

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski)

And just when I thought I’d heard everything, it has been announced that Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski will be honored by the Nobel Institute and Oslo University on December 11th.  These two old buzzards will be asked to speak on — get this — “The United States and World Peace After The Presidential Election.”

As Jan Oberg, whose article made me aware of this, comments:

These two experts on warfare and interventionism will – Orwellian style – speak about “The United States and World Peace After The Presidential Election”.

This is the country that, since 1980, has intervened violently in Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosova/Serbia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, i.e. 14 Muslim countries. It has some 630 base facilities in 130+ countries. It has its US Special Forces (SOF) in 133 countries.

It has used nuclear weapons without apology and owns the second largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.

The US stands for about 40% of the world’s military expenditures, is the world’s leading arms exporter and has killed more people than anybody else since 1945. It’s the master of (imprecise) drone strikes. It presently supports Saudi Arabia’s bestial war on Yemen and conducts a military build-up in Asia and the Pacific planning, as it seems, for what looks like a future confrontation with China. And not with terribly positive results in its Middle East policies since 1945.

So with all these credentials, please tell us about world peace!

I wonder if barf bags will be included for the attendees at this soiree.

Reports of Syrian Government Re-taking 40% of E. Aleppo; Fidel Castro Passes; Ukraine – EU Approves Visa-Free Travel for Ukraine, Kiev Announces Missile Firing Exercise Over Crimea; WaPo Thinks Anyone Who Questions Washington’s Foreign Policy Narrative is Russia’s Useful Idiot

1 Comment

11

(SANA News Agency, 2016; http://sana.sy/en/?p=94571)

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been advancing for the past several days into Al-Nusra-occupied eastern Aleppo.  A recent statement by the Russian Defense Ministry says that 40% of eastern Aleppo has been liberated with thousands of civilians making their way to the government-controlled western part of the city through humanitarian corridors that have been opened for this purpose.   Food and medical aid are also being provided.   According to RT:

More than 3,000 civilians have left the eastern part of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo in the last 24 hours, the Russian Center for Reconciliation said. It later reported that about 40 percent of the militant-held part of the city has been liberated.

Some 3,179 people, including 1,519 children – among them 138 newborn babies – have left Eastern Aleppo through the ‘humanitarian corridors’ set up by Syrian government forces, Russian Reconciliation Center said on Monday.

The center reported that 12 neighborhoods, comprising roughly 40 percent of the territory previously controlled by the militants, have been cleared.

According to the Russian Center for Reconciliation, more than 80,000 people live in the newly liberated areas of the eastern part of the city. It added that more than 5,000 people fled from the southern districts of eastern Aleppo, which are still controlled by the militants, to the areas held by government forces.

Earlier on Monday, the center reported that to date 10 neighborhoods and more than 3,000 buildings have been cleared of Al-Nusra Front militants. The militants have also been pushed out of al-Qadisiyah, a key Aleppo district.

 Euronews provided the following additional details on the SAA capture of a key district of eastern Aleppo, al-Sakhour:

Rebel-held territory in eastern Aleppo has been split in two after Syrian government forces captured the key district of al-Sakhour.

….The Syrian military and their allies launched a major operation in the east of Syria’s second largest city in September. This weekend alone (November 26-27), heavy fighting forced thousands of civilians to flee, while hundreds of families within the besieged districts have been displaced.

Government forces are now said to be working to dismantle explosive devices and mines in the area.

The FARS News Agency, which is approved by the Iranian government,  has been reporting the taking of another major district of eastern Aleppo, Masaken Hanano, which would confirm the above report by Euronews that the jihadist-controlled east of the city has been split in two, cutting off the jihadists in the northern area from their comrades in the southern area.

It appears that things are moving fast and that the SAA’s hopes of retaking all of Aleppo before a new U.S. president is inaugurated are on track, barring a major unforeseen setback.

******************

Deena Stryker meets Fidel Castro

(Fidel Castro and American journalist, Deena Stryker; from Deena Stryker’s personal collection)

We’ve all heard the news by now that Fidel Castro, or “El Comandante” as he was known in Cuba, passed away peacefully this past Friday night at the age of 90.  It’s a fitting end to a man who, whether you loved him or hated him, took 60 years worth of what history’s most powerful empire threw at him (over 600 assassination attempts by some estimates, numerous coup attempts and economic blockades) and endured.

My retired journalist friend, Deena Stryker, interviewed Castro in 1964 (along with Raul Castro, Celia Sanchez and Che Guevara), which culminated in a compelling book discussing – from the horses’ mouths – what the revolution was all about, how they had pulled it off and what their future hopes were at the time.   Stryker wrote the following upon the news of Castro’s death:

In July, 1963, Fidel Castro knocked on my door at the Habana Libre. I had been scheduled to depart that very morning, having exhausted my funds in what seemed like a hopeless attempt to reach him with my request for a ‘portrait’ for the French weekly Paris Match. A last minute intervention by the foreign minister, then by the head of the propaganda department of the ruling party, changed what would have been the next 50 years of my life.

….Since the year Kennedy was killed, there has scarcely been a part of the world that has not been impacted by Fidel’s thirst for knowledge, his energy and his generosity. Meanwhile, the US”s protege, Haiti, located fifty miles across the Caribbean from Cuba, has still not recovered from an earthquake that struck six years ago, and the country that obsessively sought to silence him heads into the unknown.

Few countries have had leaders so determined to lift their people out of poverty (in the US, no one has come close to FDR) and those of us who witnessed his efforts, can only wonder how much longer it will be before the rest of the world’s South catches up to Cuba.

For those raised on the old Cold War shibboleths about socialism being evil and Castro being the worst dictator in Latin America, Stryker’s words may be hard to swallow.  But the fact is that Castro brought major advances in health and education to a deeply impoverished island nation whose chief export to the rest of the world became doctors.   Alexander Mercouris writes in Fidel Castro – Death of a Titan:

The death of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro has provoked the usual praise of him from some and condemnation of him from others.

What no one denies is the colossal impact he has had, not just on his own country but on the world.

This fact bears repeating because it is so remarkable.  Cuba – the country which Fidel Castro led – is small (its current population is 11 million) and relatively poor.  It has no great wealth of natural resources, and no great industries.  At the time Fidel Castro came to power its social services were primitive, its school and health systems hugely unbalanced and undeveloped, and much of its population was illiterate.

By no conceivable stretch of the imagination is Cuba a Great Power, and before Fidel Castro became its leader it occurred to no one to think of it as one.

That the leader of such a small country was able to have such an extraordinary impact on the world stage is little short of astonishing, and says a huge amount about Fidel Castro’s personality as incidentally it does about Cuba and about the revolution he led.

….There have been many other left wing and revolutionary leaders in the Caribbean and Latin America before and after Fidel Castro.  None of them – not even Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez – have ever come close to matching Fidel Castro’s political stature, or managed to make their countries the centre of superpower conflict in the same way.

The reason Fidel Castro succeeded in doing this was because he was prepared to do things in the Caribbean and Latin America – the US’s backyard – that no other Caribbean or Latin American leader has been prepared to do. Unlike them he carried out in the 1960s a genuine revolutionary transformation of Cuban society, something that no other Caribbean or Latin American leader has ever done.

What that means in practice is that there is no institutional continuity between pre-Castro Cuba and the Cuba today.

The army, police, state bureaucracy, media and judiciary, are completely different, the wealth – including the lands and factories – of the old Cuban oligarchy, has been subjected to a comprehensive revolutionary expropriation, and the economy, health and education systems have been entirely taken over and recreated in Fidel Castro’s own image.

To say that this was controversial would be a gigantic understatement.  In fact it remains the main charge and grievance against Fidel Castro of the people he displaced to this day, and explains the relentless quality of their hostility to him.

It is also the reason for the US embargo.

The revolutionary changes Fidel Castro carried out in Cuba in the 1960s made it impossible for his government and revolution to be reversed internally – the fate of every single other Caribbean and Latin American revolution before and since – because it deprived the US of the usual tools it uses to reverse such revolutions.

It is however important to say that Fidel Castro was able to do it because of the support of Cuban society.  The reason for that is in part because of a peculiar feature of the Cuban revolution, which is bound up with Cuba’s unusual relationship to the US.

….“The breakdown in relations between the United States and Cuba was the consequence of the Castro Revolution of 1959. This was a revolution launched from the countryside against a corrupt oligarchic elite based in Havana.

That elite in turn had extremely close connections with the United States. These extended back decades to Cuba’s liberation war against Spain in the 1890s. The United States intervened in that war in a manner that achieved for it a dominant position in Cuba right up to the point of Castro’s revolution in 1959. It would not be an exaggeration to say that throughout this period Cuba was essentially a protectorate of the United States.

….This US political and economic control went together with considerable corruption. Its status as a protectorate was incompatible with democracy and at no time before the Castro Revolution in 1959 was Cuba in any true sense one. At the time of the Revolution Cuba was actually a dictatorship led by a former staff Sergeant Fulgencio Batista.

….In fairness it was also a time of considerable cultural achievement, of the emergence in Havana of a substantial middle class and of the construction of a highway system of a sort unknown at this time in other Latin American states.

These intense connections between Cuba and the United States explain much about the subsequent period of protracted hostility.

For the Cubans many of their societal problems became explicable by reference to their subordinate position to the United States, which to a proud people was humiliating and exploitative. The Castro Revolution was in a sense Cuba’s declaration of independence from the United States.”

….Though the revolution has transformed Cuba – especially its formerly impoverished countryside – and has provided Cuba with what are by any standard exceptional health and education systems, the degree of political and social control Fidel Castro was forced to impose on Cuban society in order to safeguard his revolution has by all accounts been causing increasing frustration within Cuba itself, as an immeasurably better educated, healthier and far more self-confident generation of younger Cubans increasingly feels – whether rightly or wrongly – that the existing system does not give full scope to them to develop their abilities.

….Despite perennial Western criticisms of Cuba’s human rights record, Fidel Castro never carried out  the sort of Terror in Cuba that has been such a feature of other revolutions carried out elsewhere, and in a region where political repression continues to be common, and where life is still cheap, life in Cuba under Fidel Castro has been immeasurably safer and more secure for the vast majority of Cuba’s people than it has been in any of Cuba’s neighbours.

******************************

The EU has announced that they are finally going to allow visa-free travel for Ukrainians, part of what was promised with the EU Association Agreement that was rejected by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich in late 2013.  According to the BBC:

The announcement was made at a meeting of Ukrainian and EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

The visa-free scheme will allow Ukrainians with a biometric passport to enter the Schengen area – including some non-EU areas such as Switzerland and Iceland, but not the UK or Ireland – without a visa for up to 90 days.

Kiev was perhaps so emboldened by this announcement of visa-free travel that they decided to announce missile-firing exercises over Crimea:

Ukraine has made a unilateral decision to organize missile-firing exercises over Crimea, in the sovereign airspace of the Russian Federation, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsiya reported. Missiles will be fired in regions where civil and state aviation flights run.

Kiev’s move breaches a number of international laws and agreements, Rosaviatsiya said, adding that not only will the military exercise invade Russian territory, but the plans also had not been coordinated with Moscow.

On Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry voiced protests against Kiev’s intention to apply restrictions to airspace above the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula due to missile-launching training. The ministry summoned Ukraine’s military attache, to present him with an official diplomatic note.

What could possibly go wrong, right?  And, what is the point?   The utter stupidity of Kiev’s current crop of leaders never fails to amaze.

*************************

The Washington Post has provided a platform for claims by a shadowy group calling itself ProporNot which has compiled a list of alternative media sites and blogs they have determined to be either direct Russian agents or Moscow’s “useful idiots.”   Of course, a couple of alternative outlets I write for (Consortium News and OpedNews) were included on this illustrious list, which basically includes anyone who doesn’t further Washington’s narrative on the world.

Robert Parry of Consortium News responded to the list and the Washington Post’s foolish decision to publish this drivel  from an organization that has been in existence for 3 months, refuses to name its “experts” that are making these determinations, and where they are getting their funding from.

Read Parry’s piece here:

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/27/washington-posts-fake-news-guilt/

Glenn Greenwald over at The Intercept also does a good take-down of ProporNot and the Washington Post:

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/?comments=1#comments

 

Trump & Putin Talk on Phone, Agree to Future Meeting & Improvement of Relations; Russia Resumes Air Strikes with Idlib & Homs as Targets; SAA Begins Advance with Hezbollah in NE Aleppo; Russia’s Economic Minister Arrested & Fired Over Corruption Charges

(http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putin-trump-bromance-billboard-sunny-montenegro/ri17701)

On November 14th, Russian president Putin and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump spoke on the phone.  According to both the Kremlin’s official report of the call and Trump’s, the two leaders agreed to improve U.S.-Russia ties and to meet in the near future. However, no date for a meeting has yet been set.   Here is an excerpt from the Kremlin’s report of the call:

The Russian President once again congratulated the US President-elect on his victory in the presidential election, wished him success in implementing his election programme and said he was ready to develop a dialogue of partnership with the new administration on the principles of equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs.

During the conversation Mr Putin and Mr Trump not only agreed on the absolutely unsatisfactory state of bilateral relations but also expressed support for active joint efforts to normalise relations and pursue constructive cooperation on the broadest possible range of issues. They emphasised the importance of establishing a reliable foundation for bilateral ties by developing the trade and economic component.

**********************

In Syria, Russia has started airstrikes in the towns of Idlib and Homs, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in order to prevent jihadists from streaming out of Mosul (which is currently being targeted by the U.S. and its allies against ISIS) and into Syria.  As reported by RT on November 18th:

“Our aviation and the aviation of Syria work only in the provinces of Idlib and Homs in order to prevent the IS from crossing into Syria from Mosul,” Lavrov explained after meeting Secretary of State Kerry on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders week in Peru’s Lima.

While both diplomats regarded the talks, which touched on Syria, Yemen and Ukraine, as “productive” and “constructive,” Lavrov also alluded to the allegations made by US State Department that Russian jets were behind the reported bombings of 5 hospitals in Aleppo and Idlib. The Russian Defense Ministry repeatedly said that Russian jets have not been flying sorties in Aleppo during the last 30 days, while targets in Idlib and Homs, said to be terrorist arms factories and warehouses, are carefully selected.

Lavrov also commented on the incident at Wednesday’s State Department briefing, in which spokesman John Kirby dismissed RT’s Gayane Chichakyan request to provide details on the allegedly bombed hospitals on the grounds that RT was a “state-owned outlet,” saying it was “unacceptable.” However, Lavrov said he did not want to discuss the conduct of Kirby, who was not in Lima.

“We believe it is unacceptable, not reflecting the American proclaimed values and I hope that this was not the position of the State Department and this is certainly not the position of the Secretary of State … We are not going to start every day by condemning Mr. John Kirby but I believe he must be disciplined by his own superiors for what he is doing and how he is doing his job,” Lavrov said.

The State Department briefing being referenced by Foreign Minister Lavrov can be viewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFtNUxOW81A

 Meanwhile, The Duran reports that the Syrian Arab Army has begun a major push into northeastern Aleppo and is getting assistance from Hezbollah which has extensive experience with urban warfare:

Though the major weight of the Syrian army’s offensive is against the Jihadi forces still concentrated west of Aleppo, news reports are trickling in that the Syrian army has advanced further into the Jihadi controlled pocket in eastern Aleppo, seizing most of the district of Bostan al-Pasha.

There is a widespread misconception about the landscape of the Jihadi pocket in eastern Aleppo. It is generally assumed that this is a heavily built up urban area, and that its capture will require intense street fighting at which the Jihadis are supposed to excel.

This is only partly true. The fact that the total area of the Jihadi controlled districts of eastern Aleppo is roughly similar to that of government controlled western Aleppo, but that before the war what are now the Jihadi controlled districts of eastern Aleppo had a population of just 250,000 out of a total population for the city of over 2 million, shows that these are far less dense suburban districts, with apparently a significant number of relatively open areas with more built up areas interspersed between them.

It seems that eastern Aleppo is where many migrants from the Syrian countryside settled as they were drawn to Aleppo by job prospects there.  These migrants came from more conservative Sunni villages, which accounts for why some of them were willing to accept hardline Sunni Jihadis in their midst, making it possible for the Jihadis to embed themselves there. By contrast, the older and more urbanised districts of central and western Aleppo remained solidly loyal to the Syrian government.

….In Aleppo, because of the much closer proximity to Turkey – the Jihadis’ main backer and arms supplier – and the heavier predominance of Sunni villages in the surrounding countryside, the process is more difficult and is taking longer than in [urban] Damascus.

As the Syrian military advances deeper into the Jihadi controlled pocket of eastern Aleppo, the Jihadis are expected to retreat into the more densely built up districts at its centre. On the assumption that there is not a total collapse of Jihadi morale leading to the Jihadis finally agreeing to leave the city – as has actually happened in several of the Jihadi controlled districts of Damascus – fighting will get more bitter and more intense, and the progress of the Syrian army will slow.

Contrary to some claims, four years of intense fighting has provided the Syrian army with a significant amount of experience in urban warfare.  However, the Middle East’s acknowledged experts in this sort of fighting are the Syrian army’s allies of the Shiite Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

It is not therefore a coincidence that as the Syrian army advances deeper into the Jihadi controlled pocket of eastern Aleppo, there are reports of growing numbers of Hezbollah fighters being deployed to the city, and of one of Hezbollah’s senior commanders, Abu Ali Jawad – who is the son in law and head of the bodyguard of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – being spotted in the city.

******************

Russia’s economic minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, was arrested and detained last week on bribery charges relating to his alleged involvement in a bribe in connection with approving Rosneft’s purchase of a significant stake in the oil company Bashneft.   The arrest came after the FSB reportedly had tapped Ulyukayev’s phone for a lengthy period.  Shortly after the arrest, Putin officially sacked Ulyukayev from his post.  Euronews had the following details:

There could be more suspects in a criminal case, which has seen Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev detained on bribery charges.

A Moscow court has put him under house arrest, accused of extorting a 1.8 million euro bribe from Rosneft, the country’s biggest oil company.

President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Ulyukayev from his post.

“Of course this is a hard situation for those in power and for the government. What happened is beyond my understanding. I discussed this topic with the president of the country and he is of the same opinion,” said Dmitry Medvedev, Russian Prime Minister.

“Nevertheless, the most thorough investigation of what has happened should take place in the framework set by the current legislation.”

Russian newspapers are reporting that ministers and aides close to Medvedev could now be drawn into the same case, as they were allegedly also under surveillance. (emphasis mine – NB)

The Saker provided an interesting analysis and interpretation of Ulyukayev’s arrest and its possible significance at the Unz Review:

Russian official sources say that Uliukaev extorted a $2 million bribe for an assessment that led to the acquisition by Rosneft (a state run Russian oil giant) of a 50% stake in Bashneft (another oil giant). Apparently, Uliukaev tried to threaten Igor Sechin, the President of Rosneft and a person considered close to Vladimir Putin and the Russian security and intelligence services.

Yes, you read that right: according to the official version, a state-owned company gave a bribe to a member of the government. Does that make sense to you? How about a senior member of the government who had his telephone tapped and who has been under close surveillance by the Federal Security Service for over a year – does that make sense to you?

This makes no sense at all and the Russian authorities fully realize that. But that is the official version. So what is going on here? Do you think that there is a message from Putin here?

Of course there is!

Remember the corrupt Minister of Defense Anatolii Serdiukov? He was first fired from his position and only then arrested. But this time around, it is a member of the government which is arrested in the middle of the night. For a few hours, his subordinates could not even reach him – they had no idea what had happened to him. Was that a mistake? Hardly.

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.unz.com/tsaker/putin-is-finally-purging-the-medvedev-government/

Analysis & Book Reviews on U.S. Foreign Policy and Russia