Egypt.......
Senator John McCain (R – AZ) was among the first to criticize continuing the aid, but has now been joined by Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D – MI),who urged the administration to suspend aid until the junta schedules its promised elections.
Al Qaeda flags adorn Morsi's image in Sinai
DEBKAfile Special Report Jul 11, 2013, 11:38 AM (IDT)
Israel Thursday July 11 approved a major Egyptian offensive for curbing mounting Islamist terrorist aggression in Sinai, the day after the commander of the offensive, Egypt’s Second Army chief, Maj.-Gen. Ahmad Wasfi - who took part in the July 3 coup in Cairo - escaped unhurt from an assassination attempt near El Arish. This was the first attempt by radical Islamists on the life of a high-ranking Egyptian general. Their prior knowledge of the military convoy’s movements raised suspicions of Islamist penetration of Egypt’s military apparatus in Sinai.
More>Obama Spars With Lawmakers on Egypt Aid
Plans to Keep Sending Warplanes to New Junta
by Jason Ditz, July 10, 2013
The Obama Administration’s decision to ignore last week’s Egyptian coup seems to be a lot harder to swallow for Congressmen as the new junta moves to escalate its arrest of political rivals.
Senator John McCain (R – AZ) was among the first to criticize continuing the aid, but has now been joined by Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D – MI),who urged the administration to suspend aid until the junta schedules its promised elections.
The White House has ruled out doing that, insisting that American “interests” are served best by keeping the aid flowing to the military irrespective of America’s own laws, which oblige the US to suspend aid in the event of a coup.
Instead, the administration says there are “no plans” to alter any of its substantial aid packages to Egypt’s military, and still intends to deliver four new F-16 fighter jets to the military in the next few weeks.
Syria.....trotting out chemical weapon bogeyman again
MI6 warning: ‘Catastrophe’ if chemical weapons fall into Al-Qaeda hands
Published time: July 11, 2013 10:18
If Syrian rebels gain access to the vast stockpile of chemical weapons, it would have ‘catastrophic consequences,’ MI6 has warned. There are concerns a regime fall may trigger the proliferation of “the deadliest nerve agent ever created.”
The head of UK spy agency MI6, Sir John Sawers, has voiced his serious concern over the escalating conflict in Syria. His words accompanied the release of an annual report by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, charged with overseeing the work of British intelligence agencies.
“There has to be a significant risk that some of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of those with links to terrorism, in Syria or elsewhere in the region. If this happens, the consequences could be catastrophic,” said the committee.
Moreover, the parliamentary committee said Syrian President Bashar Assad has “vast stockpiles” of chemical arms, including sarin, ricin, mustard gas and VX – branded as “the deadliest nerve agent ever created.”
“There has to be a significant risk that some of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of those with links to terrorism, in Syria or elsewhere in the region. If this happens, the consequences could be catastrophic,” said the committee.
Moreover, the parliamentary committee said Syrian President Bashar Assad has “vast stockpiles” of chemical arms, including sarin, ricin, mustard gas and VX – branded as “the deadliest nerve agent ever created.”
Echoing the statements of the British Prime Minister, who said last month there was evidence Al-Qaeda-linked rebels tried to acquire chemical weapons, the report classified extremist elements in Syria as "the most worrying emerging terrorist threat" to the UK and its allies.”
It noted the movement of “radicalized individuals” from the UK and other countries in the EU towards the conflict zone.
"They are likely to acquire expertise and experience which could significantly increase the threat posed when they return home.”
The UK has also alleged that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own population, something that the international community has been unable to agree on. France, UK and the US all claim to have found evidence of regime forces using chemical weapons, but Russia and China say they are unsubstantiated.
As yet the UN commission inquiry currently examining the situation in Syria has not found concrete evidence of any chemical weapons being used in the conflict.
It noted the movement of “radicalized individuals” from the UK and other countries in the EU towards the conflict zone.
"They are likely to acquire expertise and experience which could significantly increase the threat posed when they return home.”
The UK has also alleged that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons on its own population, something that the international community has been unable to agree on. France, UK and the US all claim to have found evidence of regime forces using chemical weapons, but Russia and China say they are unsubstantiated.
As yet the UN commission inquiry currently examining the situation in Syria has not found concrete evidence of any chemical weapons being used in the conflict.
Afghanistan....
The ‘Zero Option’ in Afghanistan
John Glaser, July 10, 2013
There are rumors that the Obama administration is considering a “zero option” in Afghanistan – that is, abandoning plans to leave a significant residual force there to train Afghans, perform special operations against the Taliban, and bolster the enfeebled Afghan state and instead withdrawing all U.S. troops sometime in 2014. According to reports, the zero option is being considered primarily because of the bitter disagreements and distrust between the Obama administration and President Hamid Karzai.
If it’s true that Obama is considering pulling out all U.S. troops, it seems highly unlikely to me that Karzai himself is the reason. Granted, Karzai has been corrupt, mercurial, and downright cheeky towards the Obama administration. But Karzai is scheduled to be out of office in just under a year in any case, and I doubt Obama would abandon one of his most consistent foreign policy schemes just to spite a guy who is expected to be at least nominally out of the picture in a matter of months.
Then there is the question of whether it’s true that the administration is considering a complete pullout. An obvious case in point is the complete withdrawal (excepting a hand full of forces as trainers) from Iraq, which nobody in the administration even considered as an option before the Iraqi government insisted on keeping to the prescriptions of the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement, which did in fact call for a full withdrawal. Yet, the administration did eventually succumb to the pressure to leave entirely.
Could this be happening again in Afghanistan? If so, it would probably be based on practical and strategic considerations instead of political ones. The Afghan war has been a sinkhole for U.S. lives and resources, and the American people largely want out. More than a decade of war trying for the same objective and we’ve seen nothing but failure. The main objectives have been to rid the country of al-Qaeda, eliminate the Taliban, build up a legitimate Afghan government and train an effective Afghan army. Al-Qaeda has left, less because of the U.S. military campaign than because of other “opportunities” al-Qaeda fighters perceive in other parts of the world. But every other objective has failed miserably: the Afghan state is neither stable or legitimate, the Taliban insurgency is as strong as ever, and the Afghan army couldn’t win a fight against an army of ants, never mind an armed insurgency determined to regain power.
I doubt the Obama administration is actually considering pulling out completely (after all, Washington and Kabul have already signed an agreement saying the U.S. military will be there in some capacity until 2024), but that is mere speculation on my part. What’s more interesting are the arguments floating around for staying inAfghanistan. Here’s Peter Bergen at CNN, who says “zeroing out U.S. troop levels in the post-2014 Afghanistan is a bad idea on its face”:
After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, something that was accomplished at the cost of more than a million Afghan lives and billions of dollars of U.S. aid, the United States closed its embassy in Afghanistan in 1989 during the George H.W. Bush administration and then zeroed out aid to one of the poorest countries in the world under the Clinton administration. It essentially turned its back on Afghans once they had served their purpose of dealing a deathblow to the Soviets.As a result, the United States had virtually no understanding of the subsequent vacuum in Afghanistan into which eventually stepped the Taliban, who rose to power in the mid-1990s. The Taliban granted shelter to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization from 1996 onward.After the overthrow of the Taliban, a form of this mistake was made again by the George W. Bush administration, which had an ideological disdain for nation building and was distracted by the Iraq War, so that in the first years after the fall of the Taliban, only a few thousand U.S. soldiers were stationed in Afghanistan.The relatively small number of American boots on the ground in Afghanistan helped to create a vacuum of security in the country, which the Taliban would deftly exploit, so that by 2007, they once again posed a significant military threat in Afghanistan.
This is an old argument. It holds that because America wasn’t constantly occupying Afghanistan and dominating their politics, the country grew as a threat.
In fact, U.S. meddling in Afghanistan is a large part of what has fueled the trouble. Washington helped bring the Afghan warlords to power in order to land a strategic defeat against the Soviet Union. That was our first mistake. It was the experience ousting the Soviets from Afghanistan that motivated Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda to try and bait the U.S. in there for a lengthy quagmire in the first place.
The reality – which Bergen and much of the rest of the establishment can’t seem to grasp – is that military occupation and nation-building is a barbaric and ineffectivepolicy prescription for a country like Afghanistan.
I can’t predict what will happen if a complete U.S. withdrawal led to the Taliban regaining power, but it’s entirely possible that the last decade of war has persuaded many in the Taliban’s leadership that it ain’t worth baiting military empires into Afghanistan for no reason. And it’s quite possible most of the lower-level Taliban fighters feel just the way this Taliban fighter, in a 2010 interview for PBS’s Frontline, said he feels:
Q: And what will happen if the Americans leave?Taliban: We will sit back and give up our weapons.
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Saudi Arabia
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4403605,00.html
Photos suggest Saudis targeting Iran, Israel with ballistic missiles
Daily Telegraph says analysts who examined satellite images from surface-to-surface missile base deep in Saudi desert spotted two launch pads with markings pointing north-west towards Tel Aviv and north-east towards Tehran
Satellite images indicate that Saudi Arabia has deployed ballistic missiles that are pointed towards Israel and Iran, the Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday evening.
According to the report, images analyzed by experts at IHS Jane's Intelligence Review have revealed an undisclosed surface-to-surface missile base deep in the Saudi desert, with capabilities for hitting both countries.
http://www.siasat.com/english/news/saudi-arabia-jails-seven-inciting-protests-facebook
Saudi Arabian court has reportedly sentenced seven men five to ten years in prison on charges of inciting protests by using Facebook. According to BBC, the men were arrested in September last year but their trial began this year in April and they were charged for posting online messages to encourage protests, although they were not accused of directly taking part in demonstrations. The report said that the men admitted contributing to Facebook pages supporting the leading Shia cleric Tawfiq al-Amer, who was held in February 2011 after calling for a constitutional monarchy and the maximum sentence of ten years in prison was given to an activist who set up two Facebook groups allegedly explaining the best protest techniques. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that the men were charged for inciting protests and harming public order adding that several of the defendants said that they had been tortured into signing confessions. The trial was heard in an anti-terrorism court which has barred the men from travelling for additional periods. HRW’s deputy Middle East director, Joe Stork said that sending people off to years in prison for peaceful Facebook posts sends a strong message that there''s no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks. The HRW has urged the European Union to condemn the latest convictions ahead of a meeting with the Gulf leaders, the report added. (ANI)
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