On Friday, Syrian troops shelled a suburb of Damascus, killing an estimated 125 civilians and 60 soldiers.

Dear Associated Press.

Did shelling by Syrian troops really kill "60 soldiers"?

Really?

There was noone else involved? Just "civilians" and "soldiers"?

Really?

Nine month ago the U.S. accused the Haqqani clan for some highly visible attack in Afghanistan and accused Pakistan of directly supporting the Haqqanis. I then suggested that such accusations and accompanying threats put war with Pakistan on auto mode:

Having accused Pakistan for direct influence on the Haqqani network the administration will have to again escalate after the next attack with a military strike now being the only option left. This is now an automatism the Obama administration needlessly created in its attempts to overtake the Republicans on the right.

Not surprisingly there were recently again some highly visible attacks in Afghanistan and the Obama administration has again claimed that the Haqqani group is responsible for them. It also again threatened Pakistan. But as I predicted it escalated further. From the two news items below we can reasonably conclude that U.S. attacks on Pakistan are now indeed happening.

The announcement of imminent attacks came on June 22: US Mulls New Covert Raids In Pakistan

U.S. military and intelligence officials are so frustrated with Pakistan’s failure to stop local militant groups from attacking Americans in neighboring Afghanistan that they have considered launching secret joint U.S.-Afghan commando raids into Pakistan to hunt them down, officials told The Associated Press.
…
The officials who were briefed told the AP that recent discussions of clandestine ground attacks have included Gen. John Allen, the senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan, as well as top CIA and special operations officials.
…
The officials say options that have been prepared for President Barack Obama’s review included raids that could be carried out by U.S. special operations forces together with Afghan commandos, ranging from air assaults that drop raiders deep inside tribal areas to hit top leaders to shorter dashes only a few miles into Pakistan territory.

Don’t get confused with that “have considered launching” stuff. Such official leaks to the press about “we have considered” stuff are done when the decision has already been taken. Only three days later, on June 25, the results were in: Taliban Kill 13 Soldiers in Pakistan Raid

A relatively rare cross-border raid into Pakistan by Afghan-based Taliban militants killed at least 13 Pakistani soldiers, the military said Monday.
…
A senior Pakistani military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that more than 100 Taliban militants armed with heavy weapons had crossed the border in the attack. After initially reporting six soldiers killed and 11 missing, the official later said that seven of the missing had been “reportedly killed and then beheaded.”
…
Residents of Dir said the militants were operating from a base just over three miles from the border, where there is no visible Afghan or NATO presence.

Gen. John R. Allen, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is scheduled to visit Pakistan on Wednesday, the Pakistani Army said on its Web site. He will meet with the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to focus on new border-coordination procedures, the statement said.

This weeks Allen-Kayani talks went well say some spokespersons, but a closer reading reveals that not even one issue on each sides agendas was solved. That why I expect to see those “rare” cross-border raid into Pakistan will become less so in future days and months.

The U.S. has lost the war in Afghanistan. The COINdinistas, who pushed the escalation of that war, are trying to rewrite history and to disclaim their responsibility for the mess. Someone else will have to blamed for the loss of the war and it seems that Pakistan will be made the culprit and therefore rightfully punished by the retreating U.S. forces.

While there can be differences in reporting the facts on current events as various people immediately try to spin those, it rather uncommon for serious journalists to falsely report well documented and settled facts of decade old public events.

But some journalists are simply not serious. Take for one the Guardian’s Simon Tisdall. This is the opening of a comment on Turkey published in today’s Guardian:

Funny how times change. When the Bush administration sought permission to transit its Iraq invasion troops through Turkish territory in early 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara’s soon-to-be installed prime minister and his Justice and Development party (AKP) bluntly refused. Their bold defiance of America’s will won plaudits around the Arab world, not least from Syria.

That is about as historically false as one can possibly make it. The AKP hierarchy and the then prime minister Gül were in favor of letting the U.S. forces through Turkish territory. It was the opposition and some rebel backbenchers of the AKP party who voted against it:

The AK party won a sweeping victory in the 2002 elections, which saw every party previously represented in the Grand National Assembly ejected from the chamber. In the process, it won a two-thirds majority of seats, becoming the first Turkish party in 11 years to win an outright majority. Erdoğan normally would have become prime minister, but was banned from holding any political office after a 1994 incident in which he read a poem deemed pro-Islamist by judges. As a result, Gül became prime minister. It survived the crisis over the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a massive back bench rebellion where over a hundred AK Party MPs joined those of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in parliament to prevent the government from allowing the United States to launch a Northern offensive in Iraq from Turkish territory.

The rest of Tisdall’s column is just as wrong as it started. There is chaos in Syria and the urgent need is to prevent that chaos. And therefore Turkey should invade Syria and take over its strategic (chemical) weapons. Or some nonsense like that.

As they Guardian is obviously lacking serious journalists couldn’t it at least afford some serious editors who to catch the most obvious factual mistakes?

In 1948 the CIA predecessor overthrew the government of Syria. Today we learn that another such attempt was planed in 1957:

Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria's pro-western neighbours, and then to "eliminate" the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.
…
The "preferred plan"adds: "Once a political decision is reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS [MI6] will attempt, to mount minor sabotage and coup de main incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals.
…
The report said that once the necessary degree of fear had been created, frontier incidents and border clashes would be staged to provide a pretext for Iraqi and Jordanian military intervention.
…
The plan called for funding of a "Free Syria Committee", and the arming of "political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities" within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

The planners envisaged replacing the Ba'ath/Communist regime with one that was firmly anti-Soviet, but they conceded that this would not be popular and "would probably need to rely first upon repressive measures and arbitrary exercise of power".

That all sounds very familiar when compared what is happening these days.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton's diplomats tried another stunt, claiming for the 11th or so time that Russia changed its opinion on Assad:

Russia and other big powers have agreed to back a proposal by UN envoy Kofi Annan for a national unity government to lead political change in Syria.

Western diplomats say the proposed cabinet could include members of the opposition and government, but no-one who would undermine its credibility.

It was obvious that this was wrong and a few hours later Lavrov's people said so:

Russia hasn’t signed up to United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for a transition of power in Syria and has made a different proposal as officials head to Geneva for crisis talks, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said.

Russia doesn’t agree with Annan’s approach and won’t support any imposed power handover, said the official, …

What the western media have mostly failed to notice is the fact that recent changes in the Syrian government already created a national unity government. Significant members of the (non-violent) opposition are now part of the new Syrian cabinet:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a decree on Saturday forming a new government, state television said, less than two months after controversial parliamentary elections boycotted by the opposition.
…
[A] national reconciliation portfolio was created for the first time by the regime, which has been suppressing a popular uprising for the past 15 months and labels protesters and armed rebels alike as “terrorists”.

Ali Haidar, a member of the Syria-based opposition tolerated by the regime, was given the post.

Qadri Jamil, another Syria-based opposition figure, was appointed deputy prime minister for economic affairs and minister of domestic trade and consumer protection, a portfolio that replaces the former ministry of provision and domestic trade.

What Syria needs is not a western designed unity government of expats but a real ceasefire. But assured of the western powers continued support the insurgency will not agree to any ceasefire unless it feels near an imminent defeat.

That is not yet the case but I suspect that the Syrian army will soon move for another big push that will revert the slight territorial gains the insurgence has made in some areas. But some significant defeats of the insurgency will likely also lead to a new push for an armed attack by western states. I find it difficult to foresee what would develop from an imminent threat of such an attack. Will the Russians be willing to, in that case, throw in some showstopper?

Over the next days I’ll amuse myself reading editorials and op-eds and lunatic comments about the “outrageous” and “antisemitic” German court decision that gives a child’s right to physical inviolability a higher legally standing than its parents’ right to freedom of religion.

The District Court of Cologne decided that ritual circumcision for boys is a criminal act. This of course incenses those who set their personal religious believes above universal individual rights.

The court judged against a doctor who had performed the procedure, which led to complications, an a four year old boy. Cue the outrage:

The head of the Central Committee of Jews, Dieter Graumann, said the ruling was “an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination”.

The judgement was an “outrageous and insensitive act. Circumcision of newborn boys is a fixed part of the Jewish religion and has been practiced worldwide for centuries,” added Graumann.

“This religious right is respected in every country in the world.”

Well Mr. Grauman, the right to burn witches was also once”a religious right respected in every country in the world”. Some even saw it as a religious duty. But opinions on human rights versus religious rights have, thankfully, changed over the centuries.

Thousands of young boys are circumcised every year in Germany, especially in the country’s large Jewish and Muslim communities.

And this judgement now criminalizes these child mutilation. That will of course not immediately end them but it is an important step towards that aim.

BTW: I find it funny how the Telegraph writes of “large Jewish and Muslim communities” in Germany when less than 200,000 Germans (0.25%) are of Jewish heritage while over 4 Million (5%) are of Muslim heritage.

The boy in the case the court judged was a Muslim child. Why then is there no Muslim voice in the Telegraph piece but only a quote from the speaker of the likudnik Central Committee of Jews?

Various religious groups in Germany, of all major faith, have condemned the judgement and have thereby proven their inherent backwardness. But reading through German online comments some 80% of the people agree with the court.

Like them I am delighted by this judgement. It shows that there still is some progress in the German society towards the implementation of basic universal rights.

Having lost its reconnaissance plane to the Syrian air defense on Saturday the Turkish government was first holding back. But after having been pushed by the British foreign minister, the French and likely also by the interventionists in Washington the tone of the Turkish government changed.

It demanded a NATO Article 4 consultation which was granted but ended today in a relatively calm statement. It even leaves open where the Turkish plane was hit, within Syrian national waters, as the Syrian government says, or over international waters as the Turks claim. There clearly is suspicion by some NATO countries that Turkey provoked this incident.

But the NATO statement wasn’t enough for the Turkish prime minister. This morning he spoke to the Turkish parliament and I have serious concern that some of his statements were in preparation of creating Turkish protected safe zones for the Syrian insurgents on Syrian ground:

“The rules of engagement of the Turkish Armed Forces have changed,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech. “Any military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria and poses a security risk and danger will be regarded as a threat and treated as a military target.”

What is the distance that is described with “approaches the Turkish boarder from Syria”? Is this a fifty meter no-go zone or a 100 miles deep buffer zone within which Turkey will go after any Syrian troop movement?

The insurgents currently dominate in some of the border areas to Turkey. The border-towns in Turkey is where their supplies are coming from. If the Syrian army moves against these insurgents on Syrian ground will that be “regarded as a threat and treated as a military target” by the Turkish government?

It seems that Erdogan plans to act against the Turkish public opinion and to order his military to use a generous interpretation of what “approaches the border” means and starts to attack Syrian troops on Syrian ground. This would be another provocation and likely an escalation on to a full fledged war on Syria.

As a sign of what might come this video and a picture, uploaded only a few hours ago, allegedly showing Turkish tank units deploying towards the Syrian border.

Only on thing to read today:

• Jimmy Carter on the United States and human rights: A Cruel and Unusual Record

Plus your news & views thread …

Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi wins Egyptian presidential vote

Egypt’s election commission has declared Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of Egypt’s first free elections by a narrow margin over Ahmed Shafiq, the last prime minister under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

The commission said Mr. Morsi won with 51.7 per cent of the vote versus 48.3 for Gen. Shafiq.
…
Voter turnout was at 51 per cent, the electoral commission said.

With only 26% of the full electorate backing Morsi his mandate to rule is likely too thin to enable him to attack the old guard’s and the military’s interests.

But a year from now when the Egyptian economy will still be in shambles and the blame is laid on him and the Brotherhood’s continuation of neo-liberal policies a conflict with the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces may become a political necessity and could escalate fast. 

When that escalation crystallizes in renewed street riots the question for the Egyptian people will come down to which side they can trust. There Morsi and the Brotherhood already lost out.

Feb 10, 2011: Muslim Brotherhood: ‘We are not seeking power’

Cairo, Egypt (CNN) — Keeping with the low-profile it has adopted in Egypt’s uprising, the Muslim Brotherhood said Wednesday it wants to promote democracy but does not intend to field a candidate for president.

“The Muslim Brotherhood are not seeking power,” Mohammed Morsi, a member of the group’s media office, said at a Cairo news conference. “We want to participate, not to dominate. We will not have a presidential candidate, we want to participate and help, we are not seeking power.”

Jun 22, 2011 Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood expels presidential hopeful

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has expelled a senior member for saying he would run for president in defiance of the group’s decision not to seek the post vacant since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
…
“The Shura Council (the group’s decision-making body) has decided to scrap the membership of Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh… because he announced he would run for the presidency,” the Brotherhood said in a statement posted on its website.

Dec 25, 2011 Muslim Brotherhood will not nominate a presidential candidate: spokesman

Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mohamed Ghozlan announces that his party’s “final, irrevocable” decision on whether to field a candidate for president in Egypt’s elections is negative.

Ghozlan, in a statement he gave to Saudi newspaper Al-Yawm, said the Brotherhood has not yet named the presidential candidate that it will be supporting in the elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood had previously stated that they would not field a candidate, but then seemed to rescind that decision recently when reports came out that they were toying with names.

The Turkish foreign minister Davutglu just gave a TV interview about the Turkish reconnaissance plane shot down by the Syrian air defense.

Mahir Zeynalov, a Turkish journalist with Today's Zaman, tweeted it live:

Cont. reading: Turkish FM Davutoglu On The Downed Plane Affair – Escalation?

This will create some very interesting reactions:

Turkey's military says it has lost contact with one of its military aircraft over the sea close to the border with Syria.

Turkish media said the plane had crashed into Syrian territorial waters.

However, eyewitnesses in the northern Syrian town of Latakia told BBC Arabic that Syrian air defences shot down an unidentified aircraft near the town of Ras al-Baseet.

Ras al-Baseet is in Syria about 10 miles from the Turkish border.

Most interesting will be how the Turkish people will react to that. So far a wide majority of Turks is against any intervention in Syria:

An opinion poll by the Ankara Social Research Center published this month has found that more than two-thirds of those polled opposed any intervention by Turkey in Syria. The poll also revealed that a majority, even those who support the Turkish prime minister's party, believed Ankara should not take sides in the conflict.

Erdogan is facing critic even inside his party for having miscalculated on Syria and having been overly eager to support the Syrian opposition.

I find it unlikely that the downed jet will change that.

There is a currently an ongoing Taliban attack against a hotel near Kabul. Pedro Ugarte (ugartep@twitter), Photo Director AFP Asia Pacific, informed us:

First ‪#AFP‬ ‪#photos‬ of the Taliban attack near ‪#Kabul‬ now in the wire – @Massoud151 at the site http://bit.ly/L9ZODC ‪#Afghanistan
9:22 PM – 21 Jun 12

This is one of the photos found here:

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Judging from its distinguished long silhouette the helicopter in the upper left seems to be a UH-60 Blackhawk used in Afghanistan by U.S. forces.

But the AFP distributes that photo with this caption:

AFGHANISTAN, Kabul : An Afghan National Army (ANA) helicopter flies near the site of an attack on a hotel near Qargha lake, outskirts of Kabul on June 22, 2012. Taliban militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons mounted a suicide attack on a hotel at a popular Kabul beauty spot on June 22, with reports saying the insurgents were holding numerous hostages. AFP PHOTO / Massoud HOSSAINI

The AFP capture identifies the helicopter as "Afghan National Army (ANA)". But the Afghan National Army does not fly Blackhawks. The few helicopters it has are all of Russian origin.

The AFP journalist who made those photos knows this. Massoud Hossaini (massoud151@twitter) correctly identified the helicopter:

Two nato helicopters are flying around ‪#Kabul‬ ‪#qargha‬ lake
6:11 PM – 21 Jun 12

Smoke comes up and helicopters were really close to the building in ‪#qargha‬ outskirts of ‪#Kabul‬ operation is going on
7:38 PM – 21 Jun 12

#Kabulattack‬: another huge explosion and now Nato helicopters are back to the field. Security personnel say 1 still is fighting
8:43 PM – 21 Jun 12

Other journalists also identify the helicopters as "ISAF chopper".

AFP has three photos of the helicopters above the hotel. The captions to all three of them misidentify the helicopters as "Afghan National Army (ANA)". Its reporter who made the photos correctly identified them as "NATO helicopters".

There is of course an ongoing ISAF propaganda campaign claiming that the Afghan National Security Forces are capable of everything and are leading most security task. There is even a Twitter hashtag for this – #ANSFCanDo – used by the ISAF spokesperson to spread "success" stories.

As a recent Afghan Analyst Network report about the death of an Afghan journalist states:

ISAF spokesmen have continued to try to spin the story – claiming even recently that the counter-attack had been ‘Afghan-led’, when in fact, no Afghans were involved in it at all.

What ISAF claims is of course military propaganda. But I find it very curious that a news agency like AFP, despite the correct identification its reporter gave, is distributing his photos with a caption that goes along the ISAF/NATO propaganda campaign instead of the truth.

Update (8:30am): AFP has now changed the captions to those pictures. Maybe noticing AFP of this post helped :-). The captions now read:

AFGHANISTAN, Kabul : A NATO US-made UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter flies near the site of an attack on a hotel near Qargha lake, outskirts of Kabul on June 22, 2012. Taliban militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons mounted a suicide attack on a hotel at a popular Kabul beauty spot on June 22, with reports saying the insurgents were holding numerous hostages. AFP PHOTO / Massoud HOSSAINI

The foreign supported rebels in Syria, armed by the CIA in consultation with the Muslim Brotherhood, do not only wage a war against the Syrian army and government.

They also wage a silent assassination campaign by death squadrons who, day by day, kill more or less prominent Syrian intellectuals and functionaries who support the Syrian government. That campaign has been going on for many months now without any western media reporting on it. A typical recent incident:

Brigadier Ghassan Abu al-Dahab, a doctor and the head of the Harasta clinic, was assassinated in front of his house in Damascus by the blast of an explosion device that was planted under his car, Syria's Arab News Agency SANA said.

The assassination came as part of a series of attempts made recently against senior army officers.

Another Syrian, Abdul-Qoudous Jbarah, was killed in his house in the Damascus suburb of Sayeda Zainab, said SANA, adding that terrorists broke into his house Wednesday and shot him and wounded his brother.

The Syrian news agency SANA calls this a campaign against "national and scientific expertise and intellectuals":

In the framework of targeting the national and scientific expertise and intellectuals, an armed terrorist group on Monday assassinated Doctor Adnan Tawfik al-Samitt in Daraa.

SANA reporter quoted a source at Daraa Province as saying that the armed terrorist group shoot dead Dr. al-Samitt with their machineguns near his house at al-Qusour Neighborhood in Daraa city.

Another example:

In the framework of targeting the national expertise, an armed terrorist group on Thursday detonated an explosive device in the car of the master of Jaber bin Hayyan school in Aleppo, Mohammad al-Freij, causing his martyrdom.

SANA reporter quoted a source in the province as saying that al-Freij was martyred when the explosive device went off as he was getting on his car in front of his house in Hanano area.

This modus operandi is well known to Syrians. Such an assassination campaign was also implemented during the six years of terror and insurgency the Muslim Brotherhood waged against the Syrian government between 1976 and 1982:

Islamist militants targeted prominent figures in the Ba'th Party and armed forces, particularly high-ranking 'Alawis. But through the 1970s, violence broadened to include assaults on government facilities and public symbols of Ba'thi rule, including district party offices, police stations and military encampments.
…
Armed struggle against the Ba'thi leadership in Syria peaked at the close of the decade, with the execution of eighty-three 'Alawi cadets at the military academy in Aleppo in June 1979, a cluster of mass demonstrations and boycotts in Aleppo, Hama and Homs in March 1980, and a failed attempt to assassinate President Hafiz al-Asad later that year.

Elder Syrians have seen a situation like today's one. A like insurgency by the same ideological forces was waged 35 years ago. I do not know, but suspect, that that insurgency also had foreign support.

But that insurgency ended after a decisive battle the government fought against insurgents occupying parts of a city:

Six years of armed struggle culminated in the February 1982 confrontation between the Muslim Brothers and the Ba'thi regime in the long-time Islamist stronghold of Hama. Militants proclaimed a popular uprising and seized control of several neighborhoods in the heart of the city. It took elite military and security forces two weeks to crush the revolt, during which time between 5,000 and 20,000 civilians were killed and the central business district and historic grand mosque were razed to the ground.

That campaign in Hama is today often cited as a mark for the "brutality" of the Baath regime. Never mentioned though is that the Hama "massacre" was the culmination of a six year long fight against a bloody terror campaign.

Considering that history I still believe that the Syrian government and population will show the same resilience against the current Muslim Brotherhood's terror campaign that it demonstrated some 30 years ago.

Some years ago I mentioned on this blog that I do like to build cranes. Lacking any serious equipment I prefer to make them from Lego.

Other engineers have better machine parks and can build bigger cranes, real ones. But they still have, like me, also fun playing with them.

They did so on the recent Liebherr customer day.

Here the biggest conventional crawler crane of the world, the LR 13000 with a maximum lift capacity of 3,000 metric tons, is lifting a LR 11350 (1,350 mt max cap.) which is lifting a LR 1350 (350 mt max cap.) which is lifting a LTR 1100 with (100 mt max cap.).

That is not all yet. That LTR 1100 is lifting a plate with a 1:50 model of an LG 1750 which lifts a 1:87 model of an LTM 1045.

Did I mention that engineers love to play?

The total weight of the six cranes assembly as shown, including all counterweights, is 5,000 metric tons and it is in perfect balance. Quite a mountain of high tension steel for a little playful show like this. By the way – 147 trucks are currently on their way to deliver the first sold 3,000 ton lifter for a refinery project in Whiting, Indiana (Here it is shown lifting its structural test load of 3,371 metric tons.)

More pictures of the six cranes lift are here, here and here. There are also a few videos showing the lift: here, a longer one here and another one.

Reuters UN bureau chief Lou Charbonneau is treating a rumor peddled by UK's prime minister Cameron as news even after it was proven to be false.

@lou_reuters
UK Prime Minister Cameron says #Russia's #Putin was explicit in saying he doesn't want #Assad – remaining in power in #Syria – @reuters
3:21 PM – 19 Jun 12

As there have been some ten or so news alerts over the last months, all proven wrong, that the Russian Federation changed its position on Syria, shouldn't a serious journalist first confirm what a lying shit like Cameron says before distributing it?

@lou_reuters
If confirmed, this is big news #Russia's #Putin no longer backs #Syria's #Assad UK's PM Cameron http://reut.rs/L2oeyV via @reuters
4:02 PM – 19 Jun 12

Yeah, if confirmed, otherwise it is nonsense. So why is Lou Charbonneau distributing it?

@lou_reuters
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says Cameron remark about #Putin wanting #Syria's Assad out doesn't correspond to reality @reuters
4:29 PM – 19 Jun 12

Which was of course obvious for anyone who has followed the issue. For example for Blake Hounshell, the editor of Foreign Policy

@blakehounshell
I'm old enough to remember the previous 10 times people have reported that Putin is ready to dump Assad.
5:21 PM – 19 Jun 12

So is this settled now and will Lou Charbonneau backpaddle on his false rumor spreading?

@lou_reuters
British PM #Cameron says #Putin no longer backs #Syria's #Assad http://tinyurl.com/cdoasda
6:05 PM – 19 Jun 12

Lou Charbonneau continues to spread Cameron's lies despite of his obvious knowledge of a clear denial from the Russian Federation. However you might call that, reporting it isn't. 

@lou_reuters
#Russia's Putin reiterates Syrians should decide whether Assad remains in power in #Syria http://tinyurl.com/cbuegbg
6:24 PM – 19 Jun 12

So after even Putin confirms what Lavrov said – no change in Russia's position, does Lou Charbonneau finally get that Cameron obviously lied?

@lou_reuters
Contradictory signals from G20: UK says #Russia turns on #Syria's #Assad Obama, Putin cast doubt on that http://reut.rs/L2C58n via @reuters
6:53 PM – 19 Jun 12

He didn't get it. Or more likely, he doesn't want to get it. These ain't contradictory signals. Cameron obviously lied about what Putin said. Putin says so as does Lavrov as does Obama.

So the real story here is that Cameron openly lied. But Reuters has nothing about that. Despite clear denials by the Russian president and the U.S. president Reuters' UN reporter Lou Charbonneau continues to spread the obvious false fact Cameron told.

We can now mark him, and his company, as just another partisan outlet with exactly zero information value.

Some things to read:

A bit of history of imperial interference in Iran. No wonder that the Iranians reject any further attempt: Why weren’t they grateful? – Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British Coup – Book review by Pankaj Mishra, LRB

Interesting for the historic background on the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and their terror campaign in the 1970s: Syria's Islamist Movement and the 2011-12 Uprising – Fred H. Lawson, Origins

COIN always includes terror campaigns: How To Kill A rational peasant – America's Dangerous Love Affair With Counterinsurgency – Adam Curtis, BBC

Egypt elects a new president. If the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces allows the Muslim Bortherhood candidate Morsi to win, they will issue an annex to the constitution that makes him powerless. If the former air force general and last prime minister Shafiq wins, the annex to the constitution may grant him some power.

But according to Google translate neither will matter.

Translated from English to Arabic:

Translating the last phrase back from Arabic to English:

We are pretty sure that – in this case – Google's translation is absolutly correct. It doesn't matter who wins because the military and SCAF will rule until the next phases of the revolution wash them away. Meanwhile some voters have sad fun spoiling their ballots.

Screenshots:

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A well regarded and qualified author of the prime German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported (in German) how the recent massacre in Houla, Syria, was perpetrated by Sunni rebel forces. I translated the piece to English. There was some push back against the piece and an anonymous rebuttal from Houla activists.

In a new piece (in German) the reporter, Rainer Hermann, extends on the first one and explains why his reporting is correct and why other reporting was terribly wrong.

What follows is my translation of the FAZ piece:

The Extermination

The Houla massacre was a turning point in the Syrian drama. There was great worldwide outrage when 108 people were killed there on May 25, among them 49 children. Calls for a military intervention to end the bloodshed became louder and the violence in Syria has since steadily escalated. Based on Arab news channel and the visit of UN observers on the following day, world opinion almost unanimously blamed the regular Syrian army and the Syrian regime's Shabiha militia for the massacre.

In the past week and based on reports from eyewitnesses the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put this version into question. It reported that the civilians killed were Alawites and Shiites. They were deliberately killed by armed Sunnis in Taldou, a town in the plains of Houla, while fierce fighting between the regular army and Free Syrian Army was taking place at checkpoints around the village. Our report was taken up by many media outlets worldwide and was rejected by many as implausible. We have therefore to ask four questions: Why did the world opinion so far followed a different version? Why does the context of the civil war makes the doubted version plausible? Why are the witnesses credible? What other facts support the report?

Cont. reading: New FAZ Piece On Houla Massacre: “The Extermination”

The parliamentary elections in Egypt gave a large majority to the Muslim Brotherhood the Salafi parties. That scared many of the liberals who had protested at Tahrir square as well as the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Behaving quite unprofessionally the various fractions in the parliament could not agree on a way to set up a constitutional assembly and on procedures on how to write a new constitution. But they agreed on a law banning former Musharaf government members from the presidency.

Then came the presidential elections. The most popular candidates were dismissed by a SCAF election court for this or that fudged reason. Then the first ballot round eliminated some others and left for the second round only the candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood Morsi and the candidate for the SCAF, Mubarak's last prime minister Shafiq.

Yesterday the military reinstated parts of the emergency law that allows arbitrary arrests by the military and state security forces.

Today the constitutional court ruled that the law to ban former government members from the presidential election is illegal. Mubarak clone Shafiq can thereby continue in the run-off and whoever will count the votes will make sure that he wins.

The court also ruled on the legitimacy of the parliament. With a fluffy interpretation of the law it found that a third of the parliament members, those directly elected instead of through party lists, were not legally elected. It dissolved the whole parliament.

Egypt now has no parliament, no constitution, no way to create a new constitution and a joke of a legal system.

Shafik, the SCAF puppet, will win Sunday's run-off vote. Today he already held a well prepared victory speech. Mubarak, currently in jail with a bad case of jail flue will then likely be freed and allowed to live in some luxury comfort where he can continue to pull the strings. Everything will be back to where it was before the Tahrir protest.

Or not. Whenever Islamist parties got cheated out of a democratic victory the troubles only began. The 1991 election in Algeria and the non-acceptance of the result by the military was followed by some great and brutal troubles. Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006 but was not allowed to rule. After a fight with Fatah Hamas took over Gaza and strife within the Palestinian people continues today.

It is therefore quite likely that the now completed counterrevolution by the military, in the bigger historic view, will only be seens as a phase in a longer and likely more violent process of re-balancing the Egyptian political system.

Hillary Clinton is making pointless propaganda:

A shipment of attack helicopters is "on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, heightening pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's staunchest international backer.

Russia denies this and even the Pentagon disagrees with Clinton:

Pentagon sources suggested that Mrs. Clinton, in her remarks at a Brookings Institution event, was referring to a Russian-made attack helicopter that Syria already owns but has not yet deployed to crack down on opposition forces. While these helicopters, known as Mi-24s, are flown by Syrian pilots, Russia supplies spare parts and provides maintenance for them.

The Syrian army already has some 70 attack helicopters but has so far hardly used them.

But that will now change. The rebels are getting serious anti-tank weapons:

The fierce government assaults from the air are partly a response to improved tactics and weaponry among the opposition forces, which have recently received more powerful antitank missiles from Turkey, with the financial support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to members of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, and other activists.
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Speaking in Istanbul, council members also described efforts to supply the opposition with arms, specifically antitank weaponry delivered by Turkish Army vehicles to the Syrian border, where it was then transferred to smugglers who took it into Syria.

The use of tanks in clearing cities and villages from rebels is difficult and costly as the rebels now have serious anti-armour stuff. The Syrian army will therefore have to use other weapons, artillery and helicopters, to clear rebel positions.

Two weeks ago I wrote It Is Getting Urgent For Assad To Act:

The right time for a full onslaught on the armed opposition may come the very next days.

Waiting too long with a decisive move will only let the problem of armed rebels fester and would, in the end, likely cost much more blood on all sides of the conflict.

It seems that the Syrian government is now following that advice and taking back the initiative:

As the Assad regime’s Syrian, Arab and Western enemies prepare to usher in a new stage in the bloody confrontation, the Syrian authorities have been mulling over their own plans for a comprehensive military showdown. The aim this time will not just be to prevent the creation of armed opposition concentrations or enclaves, but to “destroy all armed groups, irrespective of their nature or identity.”
…
In addition to pursuing the goal of clearing Homs and its hinterland of armed opposition enclaves and cells, action is being taken against concentrations of opposition fighters elsewhere, especially bases and training sites near the Turkish, Iraqi and Jordanian borders. The Syrian army appears to have embarked on a campaign described as “extremely harsh.” aimed at “exterminating entire groups” of rebels.
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Russia is not expected to stand in the way of the Syrian authorities as they embark on actions that could be of different order to what we have seen so far.

There are even rumors that Russia is preparing some of its own troops for an eventual deployment to Syria.

If the reports by the official Syrian news agency SANA are correct the new operations against the rebels already has some success but at relatively high costs.

Some UN people said that Syria is now in a civil war suggesting a somewhat even balance between the parties. I think that is hugely exaggerated. Western media claimed that the revolt in Syria was by all parts of the Syrian population and only now changes into a sectarian conflict. That is simply wrong. The fighting was from the very beginning sectarian with the rebels naming each Friday after this or that Sunni hero. These foreign supported, and partly foreign led, Sunni rebel groups will have huge difficulties to survive a real onslaught by the united Syrian army.

As long as Russia stands strongly behind the Syrian government, and there is no sign that the support will change, no foreign intervention will come to their help. There is simply no appetite for that. Today's bombing in Iraq with nearly a hundred people killed is a reminder of how "intervention" in such conflicts doesn't help at all.

Report: Iran designing nuclear submarine

Iran has begun to design its first nuclear submarine, the Islamic Republic's semiofficial news agency Fars reported on Tuesday.

The Fars report quotes deputy navy chief in charge of technical affairs, Rear Admiral Abbas Zamini, as saying that Iran has begun "initial stages" of designing the nuclear-powered craft.

Zamini added that Iran has developed "peaceful nuclear technology" and has both the capability and the right to build a submarine.

Translation:

Okay. So you are not willing to take up our offer to give up our 20% enriched fuel in exchange for taking back the unjust sanction you put upon us.

Let's review:

We asked for our NTP rights to peaceful nuclear energy but you said no and forbid the Germans to finish the paid-for reactor in Busheer.

We asked for IAEA support for our civil nuclear program but you said no and forbid the IAEA to help us.

We build a few centrifuges. We were willing to restrict the program to those. You said no and put up sanctions.

We build a lot of centrifuges.

We asked for 20% enriched fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor. You said no and put up more sanctions.

We made 20% fuel.

We asked to remove the sanctions for giving up that 20% fuel. You said no and you threaten even more sanctions.

We now up the ante.

Your nuclear submarines are running on 97% enriched Uranium. We will now also make such submarines. And those will require highly enriched Uranium. And we will make that ourselves. We will of course do all that under IAEA supervision. We will not divert any of it for non-peaceful use. We will thereby continue to be within our legitimate rights under the NPT and we will stick to the letter of that treaty.

So what are you gonna do now? Go to war and ruin your economy? Or will you finally sit down for honest negotiations? It's your choice.

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For the U.S the negotiations strategy it's always coercive diplomacy.  For Iran the strategy is to accumulate and enhance its bargaining chips. This will add a big one. But is it big enough to make the U.S. change course?