Yusuf Kanli writes for the Turkish daily Hurriyet on the situation in Syria:

Will it be possible to achieve a cease-fire? Indications are that before Tuesday’s withdrawal of troops deadline, Damascus will undertake whatever possible to strengthen its position. The rebels, in the hope of getting foreign arms and war machinery assistance – if not direct intervention in the civil war – will most probably engage in all kinds of provocation to be able to tell the international community that the Baathist regime is cheating truce terms. Besides, the international media propaganda machine will likely work hard over the next few days to show that a truce can not be established, and even if it is established can not amount to much.
…
The international “coalition of the willing” on the other hand, has started trumpeting that the Syrian regime will cheat on the terms of the truce even if a cease-fire can be achieved. There is, of course, some degree of distrust towards the al-Assad regime because of its not-so-promising past record with regard to honoring its own words. But, there is also rampant prejudice fuelled by wild expectations of a post-Baathist Syria.

Kanli is right in his expectations that the usual "western" media will blame the Syrian government for not agreeing on its own immediate surrender in a one sided ceasefire and, as far as the ceasefire will take place, will blame the Syrian government when the rebels break it.

This is already appearing with the false claim that Syria has set "new conditions" on a ceasefire. The New York Times headlines today: Cease-Fire in Doubt as Syria Demands New Conditions:

The Syrian government put new conditions on any troop pullback on Sunday, casting new doubt on a truce that was scheduled to begin this week.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad said it now wanted “written guarantees” that rebels would stop fighting before it pulled back its troops under the cease-fire plan, which it accepted last week.

The demand for guarantees is not, as the New York Times and the Washington Post write, new. It was part of the Annan process and six-point proposal from the very beginning:

A key point of the proposal calls for Syria to "commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence by all parties.” As these actions are being taken, Annan "shall seek similar commitments from all other armed groups to cease violence under an effective United Nations supervision mechanism," it said.

In a letter to Annan, Syria said it is "keen to end violence," but insisted that armed opposition groups give up their weapons first. It also demanded that Annan halt the supply and financing of weapons to the opposition.

Syria has given a written committment to the ceasefire to Annan. The Annan proposal called for "similar commitments" from the opposition site. Syria is not demanding anything new. It simply demands that the Annan six-point plan is met by both sides. This has been expressed by Syria several times.

As the Associated Press reported on April 5:

[Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar] Ja’afari accused Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France and the United States of assisting the Free Syrian Army and said his government needs “a crystal cut commitment and a guarantee by Mr. Annan himself after he consults with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the others that once the government will observe and will respect the end of violence, the other parties will do the same and not fill the vacuum.”

There will be more false claims in the "western" media about the ceasefire when its implementation will start on April 10. Any soldier or policeman that will then still provide security for the population will be called a break of the ceasefire.

But what such false claims are in the end supposed to achieve is beyond me.

Three issues we follow here seem to come nearer to each other and may eventually join into a major conflagration.

The discussion in Germany about the Grass poem is raging on and on with many journalists, politicians and public commentators showing themselves as ridiculous idiots for attacking Grass personally instead of discussing the content of his poem. The normal people in the comment threads on various news sites, except for a few Hasbara preachers, don’t buy it. They seem to be widely supportive for Grass.

The Israel government is adding to the ridiculousness of the issue by declaring Günter Grass persona non grata in Israel:

“Grass’ poems are an attempt to guide the fire of hate toward the State of Israel and the Israeli people, and to advance the ideas of which he was a public partner in the past, when he wore the uniform of the SS,” [Interior Minister Eli ]Yishai said.

“Repent!”

Grass was seventeen when he was drafted into a Waffen SS unit a few month before the end of the war. He had no choice in what uniform to wear. This stupid step by the racist Israeli government will increase endorsement of the Grass poem and support for his position.

With regard to Iran Israel recently invented a “sphere of immunity” scheme to increase its loudmouth threat of attacking Iran. The “sphere of immunity” is allegedly reached for Iran when it puts its nuclear program out of reach of Israeli bombs. This would, according to Israel, happen when nuclear work at the Iran’s fortified Fordo site would start. The idiocy of this argument was immediately obvious as nuclear work under IAEA supervision was already taking place at Fordo when Israel came up with the new “sphere of immunity” buzzword.

But as usual the U.S. government follows the orders from Tel Aviv and is now demanding that Iran stop all work at Fordo and hand over its 20% enriched Uranium:

The Obama administration and its European allies plan to open new negotiations with Iran by demanding the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of a recently completed nuclear facility deep under a mountain, according to American and European diplomats.

“Disarm so we can shoot you easier!”

Setting such conditions only shows that the Obama administration is not serious about negotiating with Iran.

In Syria the Kofi Annan negotiations about a ceasefire are not in a better state. While The Syrian government has committed to start a partial withdrawal of military forces from the cities starting at April 10, the rebel site has not agreed to anything at all. It likely hopes to continue its destruction of state infrastructure and ethnic cleansing when the Syrian troops pull back. The Syrian government again demanded “written guarantees” from the rebels and the countries who support them. Despite what the media write this demand is not new at all. Such a guarantee was requested from Kofi Annan from the very beginning as for example the Syrian ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari explained (0:33, again at 0:44 again at 1:00 min) in a UN press conference several days ago.

The foreign paid rebels rejected to give any such guarantees:

Col. Riad Al-Asaad said Sunday that his group does not recognize President Bashar Assad’s regime and for that reason they will not give guarantees.
…
He said the government should withdraw its forces to bases and remove checkpoints from streets.

“Disarm so we can shoot you easier!”

Neither will Grass repent, nor will the governments of Syria and Iran commit suicide. The bullies will have issue more than empty threats.

News & views …

MoA provided a translation of Günter Grass' poem "What has to be said". The original poem was published in German by Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Part of Grass' poetry expression is through the use of line breaks and punctuation. I believe it is important to replicate them in a translation even when it may make the text at first a more awkward reading.

The Guardian has now provided a translation that not only does not stick to the punctuation, verse setting and even tenses of the original but severely distorts the central point of the poem in the fifth stanza.

Here the fifth stanza in the Guardian translation:

But now that my own country,
brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
is said to be the departure point,
(on what is merely business,
though easily declared an act of reparation)
for yet another submarine equipped
to transport nuclear warheads
to Israel, where not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, with fear alone
the only evidence, I'll say what must be said.

Whereto are the nuclear warheads transported in the Guardian's version of the poem? Where, in the Guardian's translation, has "no single atom bomb yet been proven to exists"?

From reading the Guardian's translation a reader would for both questions give "Israel" as the answer. But that is totally wrong.

The same sequence from my translation:

…
another submarine to Israel
shall be delivered, whose specialty
consists of, steering all-annihilating warheads
whereto, the existence
of a single bomb is unproven,
but as a fear shall be conclusiveness,
…

The German version:

…
ein weiteres U-Boot nach Israel
geliefert werden soll, dessen Spezialität
darin besteht, allesvernichtende Sprengköpfe
dorthin lenken zu können, wo die Existenz
einer einzigen Atombombe unbewiesen ist,
doch als Befürchtung von Beweiskraft sein will,
…

In my surely correct translation the submarine goes to Israel while the warheads go whereto (dorthin) "the existence of of even one bomb is unproven" which clearly implies not Israel but Iran.

I do not know if the Guardian's translation is intentional misleading. Their translator Breon Mitchel, who also translated Grass' Tin Drum, seems not to be a native German speaker and maybe just didn't get it.

Whatever the reason for that misleading translation is, it is embarrassing for Mitchel and the Guardian to provide such a lousy one.

Sy Hersh reports for The New Yorker:

It was here [in Nevada] that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K.
…
The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
…
In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.” He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration’s global war on terror. “The JSOC trainers were not front-line guys who had been in the field, but second- and third-tier guys—trainers and the like—and they started going off the reservation. ‘If we’re going to teach you tactics, let me show you some really sexy stuff…’ ”

Those MEK people trained by the U.S. are now allegedly working for the Israeli Mossad and are killing Iranian scientists. They still receive U.S. intelligence.

Most stuff in Hersh's story is well known. It was under Cheney and Rumsfeld that the MEK was trained for an attack on Iran. What is new is that the U.S. trained those people within the United States even while it officially maintained, and still does, that the MEK is a terrorist group.

That should raise some serious legal issues for those who arranged the training though it seems unlikely that an Obama administration will push for any consequences. Instead it is more likely that it uses those terrorists for its own purposes.

U.S. Sees Iran in Bids to Stir Unrest in Afghanistan

… according to American officials. … American officials have closely studied the episodes … according to interviews with more than a dozen government officials … One United States government official described … American officials say … Afghan and American officials said … but American officials see a pattern … American officials say … one United States official said. Intelligence analysts emphasize … prompted American and other intelligence agencies to renew … American officials say … according to American officials … One American intelligence analyst noted …

There is not a word in the piece on why the U.S. government may have an interest in badmouthing Iran or on how these allegations fit the facts. Obviously the piece was simply dictated by officials and written down by some lobotomized robots.

How those writers are still able to look into a mirror and to call themselves "journalists" is beyond me.

Today the German Süddeutsche Zeitung published a poem by Günter Grass about the conflict between Israel and Iran. The usual subjects immediately condemned the writer.

The following is my unauthorized (amateur) translation of the complete poem into English. I tried to stay as near as possible to the, sometimes seemingly awkward but certainly intended, original line breaks and punctuation.

What has to be said

Why am I silent, conceal too long,
what is obvious and in war games
has been trained, at whose end we as survivors
will at the most be footnotes.

It is the alleged right of first strike,
with which the Iranian people,
subjugated by a loudmouth
and steered towards organized elation,
could be snuffed out with,
because the building of a nuclear bomb
within its fiefdom is assumed.

But why do I prohibit myself,
to name that other country,
in which for years – though kept secret –
a growing capability exists
though out of control as
not open for audit?

The general concealment of this fact,
to which my silence subjugated,
feels for me like a burdoning lie
and a coercion, which promises punishment;
the verdict "antisemitism" is commonly used.

But now, because from my country,
which for its very own crimes,
which are incomparable,
is called up again and again and taken to task,
repeatedly and businesslike, though
by slippy lips declared as reparation,
another submarine to Israel
shall be delivered, whose specialty
consists of, steering all-annihilating warheads
whereto, the existence
of a single bomb is unproven,
but as a fear shall be conclusiveness,
I say, what has to be said.

But why my silence so far?
Because I though, my origin,
which has a not redeemable taint,
prohibited me, to strain,
with this fact as spoken truth,
the country Israel, to which I am
and want to stay beholden.

Why do I speak only now,
aged and with my last ink:
The nuclear power Israel endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because it has to be said,
what already tomorrow could be too late;
also because we – as Germans burdened enough –
could become supplier for a crime,
which is foreseeable, which is why our complicity
could not be redeemed
with the usual subterfuges.

And admittedly: I no longer remain silent,
because I am disgusted with
the hypocrisy of the west; additionally there is hope
that many may liberate themselves from their silence,
to request the originator of the discernible danger
to abstain from force
and also insist,
that unhindered and permanent control
of the Israeli capability
and the Iranian nuclear installations
through an international authority
shall be allowed by both countries governments.

Only this way can all, the Israelis and the Palestinians,
even more, all people who live in the delusion occupied region
near by near as enemies and in the end even us,
be helped.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

—

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.
Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Arrest

The same judges that can not read will likely find that a government demand that the people health insure themselves will be an infringement of personal rights.

This adds another reason why I will to not again visit the States.

Each spring the Taliban set and announce a preferred tactic and/or preferred targets for their summer fighting season. Two year ago there were more direct attacks on small western outpost and patrols. The last year was also mostly a fight against the foreign troops though seldom in direct attacks but through IEDs.  Additionally the last year saw some spectacular attacks on high profile targets in Kabul and other cities.

On Sunday Al Jazeerah published an interview in which a Taliban announced a new schwerpunkt for the coming fighting season:

Mullah Dowran, a regional Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan, has told Al Jazeera that the organisation is now targeting Afghan security forces.

“We announced we would forgive them many times. We showed them leniency many times in the fight. We tried to make American targets the priority, but the damage created by Afghan forces has become more and more every day. Now they are our priority,” Dowran said.

The usual western media have yet to pick up on this change from last year even though there is already proof that this new line is followed in various parts of Afghanistan.

Helmand: Afghanistan: Militants ‘kill police by poisoning food’

Militants killed four Afghan policemen and two civilians inside a police checkpoint by poisoning their yoghurt and launching an attack, officials say.

Bagakhshan: Insurgents kill 3 Afghan police, abduct 11 in attack on checkpoint in the north

Bagakhshan province spokesman Abdul Marouf Rasekh says the militants attacked the outpost Monday night in Wardoj district.

Uruzgan: At least nine Afghan police killed, infiltrator suspected

Nine Afghan police were killed in an insurgent attack that authorities said on Thursday was believed to have been facilitated by a fellow officer and suspected Taliban infiltrator.

This new line of targeting is an addition to another tactic we see in the series of “isolated incidents” (as ISAF likes to call them) in which men “in Afghan army uniform” kill their western mentors.

Combined these two variations of infiltration attacks will make the planned transfer of security tasks to Afghan forces nearly impossible. Attacked from the inside the Afghan security forces are likely to see increased desertion rates, new problems with recruiting and a general lack of moral.

As usual ISAF will be slow to react to this new problem. It is still planing for a much too centralized Afghanistan with a force that is far too large for the country and can not be sustained even when the west picks up a large part of the bill. The Taliban will always be able to wear such a force down.

A more sustainable strategy would be to decentralized the government, give more power for local leaders and to give the center in Kabul only a small force at hand that then could be used to whack this or that provincial warlord down if he would become too recalcitrant. This of course would have to be based on a political compromise with the Taliban.

It would be the way Afghanistan has been run for centuries and the way it is likely to revert to anyway.

One more thought on yesterday's news of material U.S. support for the mercenaries in Syria.

[Mrs. Clinton] also confirmed for the first time that the United States was providing satellite communications equipment to help those inside Syria “organize, evade attacks by the regime,” and stay in contact with the outside world. And according to the Syrian National Council, the American assistance will include night-vision goggles.

“We are discussing with our international partners how best to expand this support,” Mrs. Clinton said.

How does satellite communication equipment help to "evade attacks"? It can only do so when someone on the other end of the phone call tells that an attack is coming. How would that person on the other side know that? May that be by looking at a screen with a live picture transmitted from a drone or a satellite?

This "to evade attacks" remark is an indication that U.S. special forces will now direct the rebels. They will be able to listen to all the rebel communication, they will know where exactly those rebels are and they will be able to direct them around government roadblocks and towards their targets.

The Syrian military will probably need to ask for some additional equipment from Moscow to counter the satellite phone connections. Information from Iran on how to best counter those drones will also be welcome.

With regards to the violence in Syria Kofi Annan's six-point plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council, asks Syria to:

commit to stop the fighting and achieve urgently an effective United Nations supervised cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties to protect civilians and stabilize the country.

It then says the Syrian government should "cease troop movements" and "begin pullback of military concentrations". It adds:

Similar commitments would be sought by the Envoy from the opposition and all relevant elements to stop the fighting and work with him to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties […]

The Syrian government accepted the plan while the rebels and the exiles of the Syrian National Council rejected it. The Syrian government rightly sees the Annan plan as a. a commitment both sides have to make and b. not as an immediate demand to pull back all its troops.

So when the U.S. Secretary of State Clinton claims that Assad has ignored the plan she is trying to give that plan a different meaning than it has and outright lying. She also wants Kofi Annan to set out a timeline for the steps in his plan which would then of course be used to create and set ultimatums.

But no government can pull back its troops when the security situation does not allow for that. It would be irresponsible to leave the population without protection from rebels and foreign fighters which have dedicated brigades for torturing and beheading and are massively using indiscriminate IEDs. As long as the rebels are fighting and killing Syrian people the Syrian government will have to fight back.

As a not funny April joke the U.S. led "Friends of Syria" countries met today in Turkey. Despite the military defeat of the rebels and further splintering in the alleged representatives of the opposition they are doubling down towards their aim of destroying the current Syrian state. In their final statement they are creating several working groups within the exile Muslim Brotherhood controlled SNC to make plans for setting up a new one. Does anyone remember one Ahmed Chalabi who once was also engaged with such planing?

As far as we know there is no shortage of food or medicine in Syrian. But the U.S. announced that it will give more money for thus unneeded "humanitarian relief" in Syria. The Syrian SNC opposition promptly announced that it will now start to pay its rebels. That will certainly be some "humanitarian relief" for those terrorists. But was there ever a real revolution which needed to pay its revolutionaries?

The democracy hating absolute monarchies from the Gulf also announced more money to bribe soldiers and officers of the Syrian army into giving up their duty.

One delegate described the fund as a "pot of gold" to undermine Assad's army.

Additionally the U.S. said it will give the rebels military communication equipment and we can be sure that someone will take care to get them more weapons. That together will create a full fledged mercenary army paid for by foreign powers to overthrow the Syrian government.

Will that be successful? I don't think so. But it will guarantee more bad times for the Syrian people.