As Syria descends into Western-induced chaos…

By Sharmine Narwani –english al-akhbar.com
Originally: Sun, 2012-07-08 23:47-

President Assad (l) sitting next to Gen. Tlass.

The departure of Brigadier General Manaf Tlass from Syria continues to make headlines around the world. But amidst the fanfare, the question of whether this latest development has lasting significance is not at all clear. There are several points to consider:

First, gaining the “defection” of important members of the Sunni community and senior commanders of the Syrian Army has been a central goal of the external opposition and their foreign backers since the onset of protests in 2011. This is the Assad-must-go-no-matter-what crowd, and splitting key pro-regime communities (major cities, secular Sunnis, business elite, government officials, armed forces and minority groups) has been their only strategy to provoke regime change, outside of foreign military assistance.

Second, the regime-changers have gone to great lengths to actively promote “cracks” in these communities. This includes widespread misinformation campaigns as outlined by Stratfor last December, and through carefully calibrated unconventional warfare tactics as explained in this article. A slew of current and former regime officials/confidantes have been approached by external parties this past year to – if necessary – manufacture these fissures. One former senior government official who is known to be dissatisfied with Assad’s performance has told me personally that he was offered a specific large sum of money by the US Congress – brokered by a third nation – just to show up at a critical “Friends of Syria” opposition meeting. Gaining key defections from Syria has become that important.

Third, Brigadier General Tlass is, frankly, not that important from either a military or political perspective.

Since the news of his departure broke a few days ago, Tlass has stayed quiet. It is unlikely that he has “defected” – that would suggest he is joining the opposition, and it is doubtful that any but the most opportunistic of them would embrace a figure so closely associated with the Assad history in Syria.

But here’s a tidbit that hasn’t made the rounds yet in this well-hyped story: until very recently, Tlass was telling members of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle that he wanted the post of Minister of Defense.

“He believed he could help push forth a reform agenda, as he had envisioned with his old friend Bassel (al-Assad),” says an acquaintance of Tlass’.

A well-informed source close to the Syrian government tells me that Tlass had tested those waters last Spring before Assad announced a new cabinet in April 2011, from which he was excluded. In the early months of unrest in Syria, he had attempted to stem the crisis by mediating between the government and its opponents in various towns and cities, but had by most accounts not succeeded. Part of the problem appears to be that the Assad establishment did not put its weight behind his efforts after they faltered, choosing to pursue another strategy altogether. By August, as armed clashes and crackdowns escalated, Tlass was effectively sidelined by a regime that refused to entrust in his vision and was mistrustful of his family’s opposition credentials. He then simply stopped working, cut-off many of his ties with close friends and reigned in his legendary social life.

How does one just not go to work one day? A source explains that “Tlass’ military uniform was only 10% of his life anyway. The rest of his time was spent on running around, his social life, some business dealings. He was a privileged son of an important regime figure – that was his life and he had a sense of entitlement as did many others like him.”

But still Tlass apparently did not count himself out – he tried again for the top defense post in the lead-up to the last cabinet reshuffle, and was passed over a second time when Assad announced the new line-up on June 23.

The headlines this week that claim the “defection” of a major Syrian Army commander and a member of Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle lack a great deal of the nuance unique to Manaf Tlass’ case.

Tlass’ father, a longtime close friend and confidante of Hafez al-Assad, was Syria’s Defense Minister between 1972 and 2002, finally relinquishing his post two years after Bashar al-Assad was named president. The details of whether he was politely ejected by the incoming “younger generation” or resigned after having ensured the transfer of power to Hafez’s son remain unclear, but reports suggest that there is some truth to both.

Tlass’ family are from Rastan, in the Province of Homs, a major hub for opposition activity and armed clashes this past year. Tlass and his father have been pretty much the only hold-outs in a family that has long since abandoned the regime. His widowed, Paris-based sister Nahed Tlass who was married to Akram Ojjeh, a wealthy Saudi arms dealer 35-years her senior, and their brother Firas who runs the family business from the UAE, have been harshly critical of Assad for some time.

More notable yet is his first cousin defected Lieutenant Abdul Razak Tlass, frontman for the notorious Saudi-backed Farouq Battalion operating in Homs, which has been accused by local opposition groups of targeting their members and pro-regime civilians for extrajudicial killings, and for deliberately provoking attacks by Syrian security forces.

The media stories on Manaf Tlass focus heavily on his very senior ranking in the Syrian armed forces and his closeness to the president. While the latter is true – Tlass is a close friend of the Assads – he is not a member of the president’s innermost political/military circle and his social interests were always much closer to Assad’s now-deceased brother Bassel, once heir-apparent to their father, Hafez.

Tlass’ military value within the Syrian Army is even more dubious. Contrary to media reports, he has not been a member of the Presidential Guards for more than two years and last served with a regular brigade. Tlass apparently felt snubbed by the president for not being promoted to Major General from his current status as Brigadier General, but importantly, is viewed within the army as a token regime appointment rather than a commander capable of leading his forces.

Is Tlass’ departure significant? Certainly, it has been useful for some perception-creating headlines. But he was neither a pivotal figure within the Syrian Army nor the political establishment. His importance was rather in relation to his father’s standing within the elder Assad’s coterie, and as a member of a leading Sunni family long associated with the regime.

The fact is, after almost a year of inactivity and relative isolation, Manaf was in political no-man’s land in Syria. Scorned by people in Rastan for his continued allegiance to Assad, and marginalized by the regime in both the political and military spheres, Tlass had nothing to gain or lose by sitting tight.

“I don’t blame him. He had to make a choice,” says a Syrian who knows Tlass. “Nobody stopped him from leaving and nobody worked on him to stay,” says another, who knows the elder Tlass well.

So he went to France. End of story. But that won’t stop the spin.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

From the archives: Articles you should have read the first time around but didn’t.

Seven Days in May, 2009

Homegrown fascist Dick Cheney: What does he really know?

The past week has seen a series of incidents that suggest a mounting crisis within the American state machine. It is not yet possible to provide a full explanation of these events, but they testify to the extraordinary degree of political tension in official Washington.

On Friday, May 8, the head of the White House Military Office, former secretary of the army Louis Caldera, tendered his resignation, after an uproar provoked by the still-unexplained decision to have one of the two Boeing 747 jets at the disposal of the White House fly low over Manhattan escorted by an Air Force fighter jet. 

By Patrick Martin, WSWS.ORG, [Originally 13 May 2009]

The official explanation of the incident—that lower-level federal officials wanted to replenish their stock of photos of Air Force One passing over US landmarks like the Statue of Liberty—is incredible on its face. It is equally implausible that no one in the chain of command up to Caldera gave any thought to what effect such a fly-by, evoking memories of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, would have on the population of New York City.

On Monday, May 11, the Pentagon announced that the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, had been replaced [See: “Pentagon changes Afghanistan commander as military’s crisis deepens“]. Whatever the disputes within the military hierarchy over the tactics and methods to be employed in escalating the war in Afghanistan, the summary dismissal of McKiernan is without recent precedent, and undoubtedly will spark bitter recriminations within the Pentagon.

The denunciations of the Obama administration by former vice president Dick Cheney, Sunday on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” and Tuesday on Fox News, are equally remarkable. 

In the four months since he and Bush left office, Cheney has dispensed with the usual norms of American political life, which call for the outgoing top officials of the executive branch to show deference to their successors. Instead, he has mounted a series of full-throated attacks on the incoming Obama administration’s policies, particularly in relation the use of torture and other anti-democratic methods employed by the Bush administration in the “war on terror.”

On Sunday, Cheney came close to accusing Obama of violating his oath of office and betraying the United States of America, denouncing the White House announcement that the Guantánamo Bay detention camp would be closed, and Obama’s release of Justice Department memos from 2002 and 2005 that provided legalistic justifications for torture.

Citing these decisions, Cheney said: “That whole complex of things is what I find deeply disturbing, and I think to the extent that those policies were responsible for saving lives, that the administration is now trying to cancel those policies or end them, terminate them, then I think it’s fair to argue—and I do argue—that that means in the future we’re not going to have the same safeguards we’ve had for the last eight years.”

Two questions should be posed here: What does Cheney know? And who does he speak for? 

The invocation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks became the all-purpose justification for the policies elaborated by Bush and Cheney in the name of the “war on terror”: wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the creation of a worldwide network of secret prisons and torture chambers; the establishment of a US concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay; and the systematic violation of the democratic rights of the American people, through the creation of a vast apparatus of domestic spying.

There has never been a serious investigation of the 9/11 attacks, nor in particular of the role played by US intelligence agencies, which had penetrated the Al Qaeda organization and were engaged in surveillance of many of the alleged participants at the time of the attacks. In harping on the dangers of a new 9/11, Cheney may well be speaking in the expectation—or with actual foreknowledge—of some new “terrorist” provocation being engineered by sections of the American state, with or without the knowledge of the Obama White House.

As for who Cheney speaks for, it is not the conservative “base” of the Republican Party, as the uncritical media coverage suggests. This is a man with the closest ties to the military-intelligence apparatus—former secretary of defense during the first Bush administration, de facto chief of the “war on terror” in the second.

It was Cheney who oversaw the Continuity of Government exercises after 9/11 that established a secret government in the proverbial “undisclosed, secure location” where he spent much of his time. His staff supervised the drafting of the infamous “torture memos” that Obama released last month under court order, and Cheney directly participated in and led the “principals” meetings where specific torture techniques were discussed and ratified by top US officials.

Cheney’s attacks on the Obama administration clearly demonstrate the contempt for the American people and their democratic rights which characterizes the American financial oligarchy. At one point in his appearance on CBS Sunday, he told interviewer Bob Schieffer, “What we’ve seen happen with respect to the Obama administration as they came to power is they have moved to take down a lot of those policies we put in place that kept the nation safe for nearly eight years from a follow-on terrorist attack like 9/11. Dealing with prisoner interrogation, for example, or the terrorist surveillance program. They campaigned against these policies across the country, and then they came in now, and they have tried, very hard, to undertake actions that I just fundamentally disagree with.” [Emphasis added.]

Cheney grossly exaggerates the actual change in policies by Obama. But it is noteworthy that he expresses particular bitterness over the fact that, to even a limited extent in the course of the 2008 presidential campaign, the American people sought to express their opposition to the anti-democratic policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.

The evident hostility of the former vice president to the American people having any influence over national security policy is symptomatic of the attitude that prevails within the entire military-intelligence apparatus, which regards American elections in the same light as elections held overseas: political events to be manipulated, disregarded or suppressed, depending on the worldwide interests of American imperialism.

One right-wing publication, National Review, perhaps inadvertently, called attention to the ominous implications of the Cheney campaign, in a column noting that “the whole presentation gives off a serious Seven Days in May vibe.”

Seven Days in May was a best-selling novel of 1962 on the theme of a military coup in the United States. Its authors were familiar with conflict between the Pentagon and the new administration of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated one year after the book’s publication.

Under conditions of global economic meltdown, two failed wars by American imperialism, and a deepening conflict within the American state, the stage is being set for new political provocations and eruptions of anti-democratic violence from the US military-intelligence apparatus.

Patrick Martin is a senior political analyst with WSWS.ORG., a socialist organization.

Let’s keep this award-winning site going!

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

By David Brown, WSWS.ORG
Thank you, WSWS.ORG

The mantra of the Obama administration and Democrat and Republican politicians about “supporting the troops,” is nothing but rank hypocrisy. The population at large, and veterans and soldiers in particular, should view Obama’s efforts to rehabilitate the Vietnam War in his Memorial Day speech as a dangerous warning.

Marine Maj. John Ruocco, pictured here with his family, was all smiles the day he returned from Iraq. In the three months afterward, though, he felt numb and depressed, lost weight, and suffered from insomnia and nightmares. He grew distracted and withdrawn. The morning after he promised his wife, Kim, he'd get help, the 40-year-old pilot based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., hanged himself in 2005. Kim Ruocco now directs suicide-prevention programs for the military-support organization Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. PHOTO: AP Photo/Ruocco Family

Among US forces on active duty, the suicide rate this year is the highest since the invasion of Afghanistan a decade ago, according to the Associated Press. In the first 155 days of this year, 154 active-duty troops took their own lives, an increase of 18 percent over the same period last year. At the rate of one suicide a day, fifty percent more US soldiers have taken their own lives this year than have been died in combat in Afghanistan. 

Every branch of the American military that sees combat is reporting a higher level of suicides than at the same point in 2009. The military suicide rate for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars previously peaked that year, but leveled off in 2010 and 2011, so the Pentagon had projected “only” 136.2 suicides by this point in 2012. 

In both absolute and relative terms, the US Army has the highest rate of suicide of any branch. While the Army makes up only 38 percent of the total military personnel, more than half the total of suicides, 80, have occurred there. Army suicides peaked at 160 in 2009 but at the current rate will reach 188 this year.

2008 was the first year since the Vietnam War era that saw the suicide rate in the Army exceeded that of the civilian population. As the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq drag on, it is no surprise that the soldiers in the most direct contact with the brutal reality of imperialist war suffer the most mental distress.

The surge in military suicides is no doubt connected to the character of the Afghanistan war in particular and its almost universal unpopularity. As the Karzai puppet regime loses all legitimacy and the naked colonial nature of the war becomes more and more evident, US soldiers have been confronted more directly and demoralizingly with the overall hostility of the Afghan population.
Public outrage over civilian deaths in night raids and drone strikes have found expression in public protests and also in increasing numbers of “green-on-blue” attacks, in which US and NATO troops are killed by Afghan forces. Currently, approximately one in seven NATO soldiers who die in Afghanistan, die in such attacks.

Soldiers face violence, not just from those opposing the occupation, but from other military personnel. According to the Department of Defense’s own estimates, nearly 20,000 service members were sexually assaulted last year.

A class action lawsuit brought by veterans against Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates for allowing the widespread assaults was thrown out last December by a district court. The defense attorneys argued, and the judge agreed, that “The alleged harms are incident to plaintiffs’ military service.” In other words, sexual assault is a predictable outcome of enlistment, on par with facing combat.

In general there is contempt among military leadership for the mental and social state of the enlisted. In a blog post last month, Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the 1st Armored Division, wrote, “I am personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess. Be an adult, act like an adult, and deal with your real-life problems like the rest of us.” Although he later retracted the statement, he did not apologize for it.

Moreover, the deteriorating economic situation facing the majority of Americans must find its reflection in the minds of soldiers. The official US poverty rate is 16 percent, and nearly half of the population is low-income. Just under half of American households are receiving some form of government aid, while at the same time, states are slashing funding for the programs that millions of Americans need to make ends meet. Given these numbers it would be shocking if many soldiers did not have family or close friends in dire straits.
When US soldiers finish their tours of duty, their prospects for employment are even worse than those of the population at large. While overall unemployment averaged 9 percent in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 12.1 percent of veterans who served since September 2001 were unemployed last year. Similarly, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans estimates that 1.5 million veterans are at risk of homelessness. On average, 18 veterans commit suicide each day.

The mantra of the Obama administration and Democrat and Republican politicians about “supporting the troops,” is nothing but rank hypocrisy. The population at large, and veterans and soldiers in particular, should view Obama’s efforts to rehabilitate the Vietnam War in his Memorial Day speech as a dangerous warning. By praising the bloody conflict that killed millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans, Obama is indicating his willingness to wage war regardless of the cost to workers across the globe, including his own nation’s enlisted.

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

By RAVI SOMAIYA and JOHN F. BURNS

Assange: By judicial harassment, technical blockages, banking boycotts, diplomatic coercion, intimidating supporters, and extra-legal procedures, the Empire has substantively weakened Wikileaks' ability to conduct business. But now they need to set an example.

Use PayPal via the button below.

THANK YOU.

//