brian @1 – I hope they bring out a sub-titled version for English speakers – I would go and watch it.

Posted by: blowback | Dec 11 2013 12:18 utc | 4

bandar vs Putin
Bandar Carries a Revised Initiative about Syria…and Putin Rejects it.
The meeting last week in Moscow between Putin and Bandar was cloaked in media silence and nothing transpired to the rest of the world about it until Al Manar once again published “leaks” giving the details in the article attached. These again are “leaks” from a “close and reliable source” in Russia. It is quite obvious that after the abysmal failure of Bandar’s first visit to Putin back in August, and after his sheer disappointment that the U.S did not manage to strike Syria, he went to Russia again with a revised agenda in a desperate attempt to gain some face-saving scores in order to save him from utter humiliation both domestically and overseas.
The article is written by Daoud Rammal and covers basically these points:
Basically Bandar had the audacity to go back and tell Putin that he agrees that when Geneva II is convened Al Assad should remain as President during this interim period on condition that the administrative power is put in the hands of an interim government which shall represent all factions, loyalists and opposition, on condition that it is headed by the opposition. During this period Saudi Arabia wishes that the Russian leadership puts pressure on Assad in order that he does not call for Presidential elections in 2014 and that he stays in power during this interim period until a new Constitution is written and approved, after which general and Presidential elections can be held. He also said Saudi Arabia is prepared to take into consideration contributing to the cost of rebuilding Syria.
Putin’s answer to Bandar was:
* Syria is scoring a lot of victories and that the opposition that is armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey are facing defeat.
*The armed forces supported by Saudi Arabia have nothing to do with the opposition that wants democratic changes and, if anything, their intervention has destroyed that opposition.
*The armed forces that you refer to as opposition is in our view nothing more than terrorists and the true opposition is represented by civilians.
*Neither us nor the Syrians need Saudi Money to rebuild Syria.
*Allies of Syria whether it is ourselves, Iran or China have enough technical and financial prowess which enables them to rebuild Syria to be better than what it was.
*The Russian Federation and the United States have reached a stable and final understanding about the situation in Syria and the region, and the American side is equally as convinced as we are that Takfiri terrorism represents a danger to the American security as well as to Russian and global security.
*Europe has come very close to understanding the American position and voices are starting to get heard in fear of the terrorists returning to Europe after they have allowed them to leave to go to Syria.
*We advise you, as we advise all of those who are opposing the peaceful and political resolution in Syria to change your policies and stop sectarian instigations and supporting terrorism, because it is a double edged sword that will rebound inside Saudi Arabia and gather momentum in a manner that you will not be able to control.
*Your current position and your constitution do not put you in the right position to take a leading role in changing other nations regimes and establishing human rights for as long as your own people suffer from a lack of political, religious and information freedom and, women have not earned yet the most simple of their rights.
(Translated/Interpreted by Intibah and Ghassan)
http://www.almanar.com.lb/adetails.php?fromval=2&cid=171&frid=31&seccatid=171&eid=671889

Posted by: brian | Dec 11 2013 12:38 utc | 6

Matt is in a bit of trouble:
Matthew VanDyke · 350 followers
11 hours ago · Edited ·
If one more person on the revolution side posts those ridiculous lies about me, I quit. What’s wrong with people. And I’m not really even talking about the hilarious stuff the Syrian Electronic Army made up, I’m talking about the incredibly offensive lies being told by some on our own side about my speech in Canada. You are the type that are causing us to lose this war. You’re so treacherous and self-destructive that the shabiha are probably reading your posts and cheering you on.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10201785719258479&id=1046622659……see comments

Posted by: brian | Dec 11 2013 13:05 utc | 8

Keeping an eye on the news coming out of Kiev, I’ve been surprised at the forbearance of the police. If any capital city in the United States had experienced a similar type of occupation the National Guard would be mustered.
What happens when you have these rolling street battles is that people come out of their homes and pitch in — that looks like what happened on November 30. Unless the security forces have an overwhelming numerical advantage or they shoot to kill and just mow people down right and left like they did in Cairo, people will keep coming out of their apartments to join the fray.
They apparently are trying something a little different in Ukraine.

Posted by: Mike Maloney | Dec 11 2013 14:17 utc | 10

If something like this is happening in say Italy, Belgium, or any “first” world country Strategy of Tension would be employed. Meaning, some kind of terroristic act in supermarket or bomb on railway station would explode, sniper from the roof start to shooting people, etc. The goal is to scare hell of people.
Viktor Yanukovych is lost, and doesn’t know what to do with the power that he holds in its hands. It is surprising that Moscow is very ambivalent about Ukraine too.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Dec 11 2013 14:35 utc | 12

@2
“This article addresses a non-concept, or if you prefer, a purely ideological concept. There is no such thing as “democracy”. It is an ideological fiction.”
You really ought to re-consider your decision to catch up on philosophy Rowan. This is authoritarian nonsense. Or it is tautological.
The struggle towards co-operative self rule, an attempt to re-establish the oldest forms of social government, is all that the aspiration to democracy means.

Posted by: bevin | Dec 11 2013 14:53 utc | 14

More spin and mind twisting in world affairs: Pope Francis is Time’s Person of the Year.
Title is confusing, at least to me, “Person of the Year”. But where? In the world!? Time magazine is well aware that “Person of 2013” rein in countries where the Holy See and his handlers, has its ideological, cultural, reach is very limited; it is fraction of the planet earth.
That’s nothing is happening by accident telling us his latest message where he is “blasting” capitalism, diabolical mask is off. The subjects consolation and Saviour from its predicaments (Class War) is the God’s Emissary on the earth.
The high priest always is going to be the pawn. The show must go on.

Posted by: neretva’43 | Dec 11 2013 15:14 utc | 16

On Ukraine: Another shameless display, another attempt at color revolutions, another breach of the Westphalian principles of International Relations. The US State Department’s Victoria Nuland (the same one who was shrieking over Syria) has shown up at the protests in Kiev and is handing out cookies to the protesters. EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashdown is also in Kiev riling up the protesters.
My own pet theory on this situaton… revenge on Putin for his handling of Syria. If the West can’t take a country on Russians South flank they will take one on his Western flank. The hypocracy is breath-taking, no one denies that Yankovich is democratically elected. No one denies that the Police has have performed more honorably than the police at Occupy Wall St or London’s 2011 riots.
The latest acts by the protesters is spaying cold water hoses at the police standing guard outside government building in -10 degree weather and the police still are just holding the line. Of course it also bears mentioning that the protests have not spread. The Eastern part of Ukraine (with the most ties to Russia) is quiet and the protests are only in the capital Kiev. Yankovich must be asleep, he should do what was done during the Orange Revolution and bus people to Kiev from the East to stage a counter protest.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Dec 11 2013 16:02 utc | 18

On Syria: Interesting link @6 Putin seems confident, which is good news. Snow has started falling in Syria yesterday and today with more forecast. That could be to the SAA’s advantage, especially in the Qalamoun mountain range where the rebels are in the mountains and the Army holds alot of the towns in between the mountains. Will likely cause further problems for the rebel supply lines, alot of which are already cut off or dependent on back roads the Army doesn’t guard.
The Syrian Electronic Army, which hacked into Matt Van Dyke’s email account is claiming to have found a conversation between him and Brown Moses, about money Brown Moses received from the Syrian Support Group (A US State Department NGO).

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Dec 11 2013 16:05 utc | 20

What’s happening in the streets of Kiev, against the legitimate government, is a classic Fifth Column maneuver right out of the owner’s manual of 1930’s fascism.

Posted by: Copeland | Dec 11 2013 16:47 utc | 22

@17
“Since when is it the official position of the United States to support mob rule? …
“Mob rule is the great fear of the wealthy. It’s one of the major reasons they allow government to exist at all.”
You make an interesting point. It is undoubtedly true that the promotion of fake revolutions by the imperialists, which as Copeland says is straight out of the fascist “How To” manual, is a double edged sword.
This is a time of crisis and the ruling class is getting ever closer to throwing off the mask of liberalism and revealing its true, fascistic nature. It is also in evidence on the home front where under the general excuse of austerity, they are officially repudiating the binding promises made to pensioners, youth and society as a whole.
For the 99% this is of considerable interest. We too should be promoting the repudiation of binding promises, the National Debt being but one example, student loans another. The homeless should be ready to occupy vacant buildings and build on vacant land. And. as always, the thin veneer of faux “democracy”, like divine right or any other excuse for ruling, can legitimately be torn away in insurrection.
What is going on in Kiev is a Fifth Column. A revolution is, of its nature, indigenous: the bottom arising over the top. But this is a foreign implant, subsidised at every step by imperialist money, and, (I hope I am wrong) likely next to degenerate into provocative killings, snipers (freelance contractors to intelligence agencies) shooting at policemen. And into the crowd of “demonstrators.” The goal will be to escalate so that an R2P propaganda can be fired up for the warmongers.
All eyes turn to Putin to remind the idiots who play with fire in the EU and NATO that, in the final analysis, the Ukraine is part of Russia’s sphere of influence. And that it does not have the choice of joining EU/NATO.
Doing so would save everybody a great deal of trouble. And, if the Ukrainian people want otherwise they have the ability and the historical right to make a contrary decision.
What cannot be tolerated is for imperialism to bribe and brainwash and intimidate Ukrainians into ceding their notional sovereignty to Quislings and their puppet masters.

Posted by: bevin | Dec 11 2013 17:44 utc | 24

Sorry to change the subject but Emptywheel today is very interesting:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/12/11/will-shifting-loyalties-in-the-middle-east-and-fracking-bring-truth-about-911/#comments

Posted by: bevin | Dec 11 2013 18:07 utc | 26

Re #6, “Bandar Carries a Revised Initiative about Syria … and Putin Rejects it” by Daoud Rammal, Al-Manar (Translated/Interpreted by Intibah and Ghassan): Assuming this is accurate, I do not share Putin’s belief that the West is genuinely frightened of the Jihadis currently swarming through Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Putin, according to this, imagines that by paying for these Jihadis, Bandar is doing something against the will of the West. I disagree. In my opinion, Bandar’s Jihadis are a direct expression of the will of the West, though of course a deniable will, and one that the West does deny, because the West wants not only that these swarms of Jihadis should exist, and that they should overrun existing governments in the so-called Muslim World, but that it (the West) should be able to maintain publicly that they are a fearful menace, and should be able to impose draconian security measures at home and everywhere else, such as reading all electronic mail, such as assassination at will, and so forth.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Dec 11 2013 19:04 utc | 28

bevin, your confidence in primeval democracy doubtless does you much credit, but it is not based on anything except daydreams.

Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Dec 11 2013 19:15 utc | 30

@30
And yet I can cite a mass of empirical evidence while you merely repeat the racist stereotypes of progressivism. “We know that they could not have been democrats because they were illiterates who didn’t use knives and forks properly, to boot.”
That’s all.

Posted by: bevin | Dec 11 2013 19:25 utc | 32

i wish emptywheel would focus more on foreign policy and less on american affairs.. i generally love her insight but her obsession with the nsa the past few months means there are few articles i feel like reading on her site in spite of the fact i have supported the site financially. this latest article bevin points out is a nice change of pace.. as for the 9-11 connections back to saudi, that is very old news generally accepted by anyone paying attention.. i am always amazed at how the usa has such a talent for classifying anything that might educate their own people.. “….has been suppressed for 12 years because our relationship with the Saudis was deemed more important than our need to publicly understand…” indeed! like everything else in the usa. the dumbing down of the people is a top priority!
kerry – what a hypocrite – a real good representative for present day usa..

Posted by: james | Dec 11 2013 20:35 utc | 34

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Dec 11, 2013 11:02:02 AM | 18
this could be construed an act of war….but notice also here the imperialists use demonstrators..in Syria they use jihadis..4th generation warfare: turning a populace(complete with neonazis) to ones own advantage to initiate regime change

Posted by: brian | Dec 11 2013 20:44 utc | 36

Posted by: Mina | Dec 11, 2013 3:39:18 PM | 35
this is the same UN that orchestrated illegal UN res 1973, that sent NATO into libya in violation of UNs ow charter. these bureacrats have scuttled their own moral and legal authority

Posted by: brian | Dec 11 2013 20:49 utc | 38

“Pope Francis is Time’s Person of the Year”
What maneuvering will Webster Tarpley make about this? His narrative must pass between the Scylla and Charybdis of his arguments that Pope Francis is a force for good, and that anyone promoted by the mainstream media must be acting in the interest of the oligarchy.

Posted by: Levantine | Dec 11 2013 21:02 utc | 40

P.S. In one of his talks, Tarpley specifically said vis-a-vis Assange: if you’re a genuine opposition, you don’t get to the cover of “Time” as the “Person of the Year” 🙂

Posted by: Levantine | Dec 11 2013 21:07 utc | 42

Posted by: Levantine | Dec 11, 2013 4:02:45 PM | 40
you complain about Pope Francis? he is the pope,,hence the MSM is the one make the tricky manouvre between ‘Scylla and Charybdis’

Posted by: brian | Dec 11 2013 21:31 utc | 44

wow, those photos of Victoria Nuland passing out cakes in Kiev are hard to misunderstand.
what a circus! I know there are Ukrainians who do think they will do better when they can migrate west, and you can’t argue that some of them might not be correct, but…..
is cake from the US all it takes to motivate people to overthrow their government? are they thinking they all want “Obamacare”-style unaffordable insurance, privatized education, unaffordable housing, jobs at Walmart or in the army? do they think the US state dept comes out to pass out cakes in African-American neighborhoods every time the cops blow away yet another poor youth? (no, in fact, they cracked heads last night in Santa Rosa!) what can they be thinking?? or do they think Nuland is going to sign them up at the state dept? oh, wait, that’s what a lot of Iraqis thought, didn’t they…?
are these folks not a little suspicious that Nuland doesn’t have their best interests at heart?
seriously!!!

Posted by: anon | Dec 11 2013 22:05 utc | 46

For all the riots in Kiev, I’d be surprised to hear that the EU is ready to take Ukraine into its arms. The EU is getting very nationalist; they won’t want to accept another member, distant as Ukraine is. Associate membership will be very arms-length, a relationship not close.
Not worth the demonstrations taking place. They are living in dreamland.
This is why this may be a ‘colour revolution’, driven by the US.

Posted by: alexno | Dec 11 2013 22:18 utc | 48

6/11 Saudi have a problem, so does Russia. Very likely Putin and Bandar discuss cooperation concerning Jihadis returning from Syria plus North Caucasus. Saudi money does not translate into political or military power, they cannot survive without US backing. Bandar is very unlikely to confront Putin. The fact that he is traveling to Moscow speaks for itself.
This here is emptywheel on Bandar’s known style of operation.
I personally doubt Saudi Arabia are the only ones “running” Jihadis. Religion can be misused by any interested party (or secret service).

Posted by: somebody | Dec 11 2013 23:37 utc | 50

Let them eat cake! (Even if the brioche of the original quote — Qu’ils mangent de la brioche! — wasn’t exactly cake.)

Posted by: lysias | Dec 11 2013 23:55 utc | 52

I wonder…did Kerry express concern about the militarized US local cops who tore down Occupy Wall Street encampments and beat up and/or arrested Occupiers without good cause?
Oh, yeah. No way did he express anything about that ugliness
Only so much public expression of criticism of the Corporate rulers will be tolerated. Especially if it’s catching on with the less aware portions of the public….
The Dept. of Homeland Security and the White House intel agencies were all working together to toss out those daring to speak and act out against the Corporatocracy. They were furious that the phrases “One Percenters” and “99 Percent” made it into common parlance in the nation. Even now, just mentioning one or both of those gets grins and looks of agreement from just about any employee of the badly paid Big Bidness stores and restaurants.
So, for Kerry, it HAD to be all good, since he wanted that State Dept. role so very, very, very badly. No dissent is tolerated unless it serves the needs of the PTB.
Seriously, do none of our fine so-called journalists not see the hypocrisy of their work in spreading the propaganda of the Powers That Be? NONE of them? Except the occasional blogger and a few published in the foreign press?
This seems to be so much like the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird from the mid-20th Century. I guess if something works it will never be given up, and the modern journamalists* seem to be easier to get into a mode to con the public than back then, actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
Or just search for Operation Mockingbird.
*Is Lara Logan a prime example of such?

Posted by: jawbone | Dec 12 2013 0:47 utc | 54

@42 I do not get Obama’s foreign policy strategy in Iran or Syria at all.
I’ve written a series of posts about the Peace Train happening re Syria and Iran over at BooManTribune that describes some of the less noticed, though very positive, dynamics undergirding the unfoldment we are seeing.
“>http://www.boomantribune.com/user/kafkananda/diary> Go here. They start at the bottom and cover to ‘now’.

Posted by: kafkananda | Dec 12 2013 1:36 utc | 56

@41 Levantine
Hahaa…. having thrown so many loose ends out there, is it any surprise that Webster has finally tied himself into quite a knot?

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 12 2013 1:42 utc | 58

unlike most state media. US media has the appearance of being independent without being so.

Posted by: brian | Dec 12 2013 2:14 utc | 60

@61 I think that’s what he’s trying to find out.

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 12 2013 2:25 utc | 62

@26 bevin Potentially explosive. Thanks.
FBI informant lodged two of the hijackers? All too familiar.

Posted by: guest77 | Dec 12 2013 3:37 utc | 64

Ozawa 63
I agree. It is like these “studies” on this or that Arab country where you realize the author has never left the capital.
In a 80+ million inhabitant country like Egypt with more than half the population iliterate and probably 75 percent without a land phone but just cell phones, I really wonder how they pretend conduct a representative poll.
One should notice that what the army is doing in Egypt is exactly what Asad had tried in the first months of the manipulated protests. But strangely the MSM and Western governements have suddenly aligned themselves with KSA. (With Morsi incommunicado since five months!)
But the point is, and on that most people who know Egypt agree, that the “liberals” or “progressives” (not the same people) understand that the priority was to rescue the constitution. That is what they are doing now, under the “protection” of the army, pushing forward with the mention of “civil society”(dawla madaniya) and giving the same rights to men and women, and to the believers of each sect, and keeping al Azhar aside from politics. For the rest, the little “politics” game, they will resume later (and that’s not too far, because the elections are in the coming months).
The so-called majority of people who voted for Morsi can be divided in three very distinct groups with no common interest: 1) the Tahrir liberals who wanted to vote “anything but the Mubarak regime, i. e. Shafiq” (i. e. very romantic view, but gave horrible results); 2) people who are lured because of their ignorance into believing any rumours, i. e. “if you don’t vote Morsi, girls will be allowed to marry at any age without the consent of their fathers”; 3) genuine MB and their relatives (who know they will profit somehow).
Let’s hope for the next election the authorities understand that for a poll to be correct, you need to inform the locals (when are the elections, what are the programmes of the candidates, preferably with daily broadcast also on the local radios, providing free buses to go to polling stations -something they didn’t do last time because they were afraid of being accused of buying the voters, but their opponents had no such scrupules).

Posted by: Mina | Dec 12 2013 8:37 utc | 66

This here is a US summary of the situation

In a column Monday, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius describes a telephone interview with Idriss:
Idriss didn’t demand as a precondition that President Bashar Assad resign before negotiations begin.
Instead, he said, Assad’s departure should come “at the end of negotiations.” This position was echoed by Monzer Akbik, a spokesman for the Syrian opposition council, the moderate rebels’ political arm.
Idriss stressed the threat posed by the al-Qaeda affiliate known as the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” or ISIS. He said the group was “very dangerous for the future of Syria” and that after Assad’s departure, the Free Syrian Army would be ready to join the regular Syrian army in fighting them.
Rania Abouzeid, an acclaimed freelance journalist whose dispatches from Syria are closely followed by observers of the conflict, said at an appearance this week in DC that Idriss’s jihadist rivals already have seized on his remarks as evidence that the so-called Free Syrian Army lacks the will and strength to see the fight to the finish.
Hardline Islamist rebels reject the diplomatic track in Geneva as selling out the cause because it requires negotiation with regime delegates. And it’s unpopular, to say the least, for Idriss to suggest that he’d offer fighters to serve alongside the regime’s forces, which are now battering rebel positions in several areas.
And the remarks follow other recent setbacks, most notably the mass exodus of SMC-allied fighters to a new Islamist rebel bloc that rejects such U.S.-backed groups as Idriss’s rebel coalition or its civilian counterpart, the Syrian Opposition Coalition.
The takeaway: Idriss simply has no authority over the disparate rebel factions, is outperformed by the militant Islamist forces, and hasn’t received promised equipment from Western allies. His rapid descent leaves the United States with no reliable partner, whether civilian or military, in the Syrian conflict.
The State Department doesn’t seem deterred, however. Officials are still planning for the Geneva 2 peace summit next month and are courting Idriss’s support for the process. Here’s an exchange from Monday’s State Department briefing with spokeswoman Jen Psaki:
QUESTION: Finally, yesterday there was a report in the Telegraph, The London Telegraph, that says basically the Free Syrian Army now is becoming a group of warlords and accumulating money and gangs and so on and have no interest, really, in reaching a settlement. Is that your assessment, or are you still working very closely with General Idris?
MS. PSAKI: We are still working very closely with General Idris, we’re still working towards a Geneva conference in January, and we still believe there’s no military solution, as you know.

Posted by: somebody | Dec 12 2013 9:06 utc | 68