Reader’s links for February 22 – 2017

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

77 Replies to “Reader’s links for February 22 – 2017”

  1. Swedish police accused of inaction over Stockholm riot (RT, Feb 22, 2017)
    https://www.rt.com/news/378291-sweden-police-riot-rinkeby/

    “Swedish police have been criticized by locals for allegedly failing to adequately respond to riots in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby on Monday which resulted in several burnt-out cars, aggravated thefts and assaults. No-one has been arrested over the riots.

    Between 30-50 people were involved in the unrest which broke out at around 8pm on Monday following the arrest of a wanted person at a metro station in the area, according to police.

    Police fired several warning shots when people began setting cars on fire, throwing stones and looting local stores. A police officer and a journalist were injured in the clashes and taken to hospital.

    Authorities say the situation was brought under control shortly after midnight by an increased police presence in the area, with no further disturbances reported.

    However, residents have criticized the police for waiting too long before taking action against the rioters, reports Dagens Nyheter…”

  2. ‘It’s no paradise’: Switzerland funds Nigerian TV series to discourage migrants from coming (RT, Feb 22, 2017)
    https://www.rt.com/news/378334-switzerland-migrants-nigeria-television/

    “Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is spending $450,000 on filming a TV series with African actors showing the perils of living in Europe illegally, which will be shown on Nigerian television.

    “We have seen that a lack of information or false information is one of the main problems that leads to illegal migration,” SEM spokesman Lukas Rieder told The Local. “Human traffickers tell potential migrants that Switzerland is paradise, it’s El Dorado. But that’s not true. We want to provide objective information about the dangers of passage, and the dangers of living in Switzerland without a permit, for example.”

    The series, called Missing Steps, helmed by well-known Nigerian actor and director Charles Okafor, tells the story of a 20-something university-educated protagonist. He gets into debt and flees to the landlocked European state to solve his financial problems, with the help of traffickers.

    But he is denied asylum by the Swiss authorities, and deported to his own country – poor, isolated and unhappy.

    “He pays a high price,” summed up Okafor in an interview with national broadcaster Swissinfo.

    Okafor is convinced that the series – which has 13 episodes, lasting 45 minutes each and costs less than an episode of many Western-made soaps, not to mention big-budget hits like Game of Thrones – is good value for money, particularly if it can be shown across multiple African states.

    “Television globally is a very powerful medium, because it has the capacity to reach a vast mass – a critical mass of people… even hundreds of millions of viewers,” said Okafor.

    But experts have questioned how true-to-life and persuasive a drama with such a didactic and political purpose can be…”

  3. New Declassified CIA Memo Presents Blueprint for Syrian Regime Collapse

    A newly declassified CIA document explored multiple scenarios of Syrian regime collapse at a time when Hafez al-Assad’s government was embroiled in a covert “dirty war” with Israel and the West, and in the midst of a diplomatic crisis which marked an unprecedented level of isolation for Syria.

    The 24-page formerly classified memo entitled Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change was produced in July 1986, and had high level distribution within the Reagan administration and to agency directors, including presidential advisers, the National Security Council, and the US ambassador to Syria. The memo appears in the CIA’s latest CREST release (CIA Records Search Tool) of over 900,000 recently declassified documents.
    A “severely restricted” report

    The memo’s cover letter, drafted by the CIA’s Director of Global Issues (the report itself was prepared by the division’s Foreign Subversion and Instability Center), introduces the purpose of presenting “a number of possible scenarios that could lead to the ouster of President Assad or other dramatic change in Syria.”

    It further curiously warns that, “Because the analysis out of context is susceptible to misunderstanding, external distribution has been severely restricted.” The report’s narrowed distribution list (sent to specific named national security heads, not entire agencies) indicates that it was considered at the highest levels of the Reagan administration.
    The coming sectarian war for Syria

    The intelligence report’s contents contain some striking passages which seem remarkably consistent with events as they unfolded decades later at the start of the Syrian war in 2011:

    Although we judge that fear of reprisals and organizational problems make a second Sunni challenge unlikely, an excessive government reaction to minor outbreaks of Sunni dissidence might trigger large-scale unrest. In most instances the regime would have the resources to crush a Sunni opposition movement, but we believe widespread violence among the populace could stimulate large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or munity, setting the stage for civil war.

    The “second Sunni challenge” is a reference to the Syrian government’s prior long running war against a Muslim Brotherhood insurgency which culminated in the 1982 Hama Massacre. While downplaying the nationalist and pluralistic composition of the ruling Ba’ath party, the report envisions a renewal and exploitation of sectarian fault lines pitting Syria’s Sunni population against its Alawite leadership:

    Sunnis make up 60 percent of the Syrian officer corps but are concentrated in junior officer ranks; enlisted men are predominantly Sunni conscripts. We believe that a renewal of communal violence between Alawis and Sunnis could inspire Sunnis in the military to turn against the regime.

    Regime change and the Muslim Brotherhood

    The possibility of the Muslim Brotherhood spearheading another future armed insurgency leading to regime change is given extensive focus. While the document’s tone suggests this as a long term future scenario (especially considering the Brotherhood suffered overwhelming defeat and went completely underground in Syria by the mid-1980’s), it is considered one of the top three “most likely” drivers of regime change (the other scenarios include “Succession Power Struggle” and “Military Reverses Spark a Coup”).

    The potential for revival of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “militant faction” is introduced in the following:

    Although the Muslim Brotherhood’s suppression drastically reduced armed dissidence, we judge a significant potential still exists for another Sunni opposition movement. In part the Brotherhood’s role was to exploit and orchestrate opposition activity by other organized groups… These groups still exist, and under proper leadership they could coalesce into a large movement… …young professionals who formed the base of support for the militant faction of the Muslim Brotherhood; and remnants of the Brotherhood itself who could become leaders in a new Sunni opposition movement…

    The Brotherhood’s role is seen as escalating the potential for initially small Sunni protest movements to morph into violent sectarian civil war:

    Sunni dissidence has been minimal since Assad crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, but deep-seated tensions remain–keeping alive the potential for minor incidents to grow into major flareups of communal violence… Excessive government force in quelling such disturbances might be seen by Sunnis as evidence of a government vendetta against all Sunnis, precipitating even larger protests by other Sunni groups…

    Mistaking the new protests as a resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood, the government would step up its use of force and launch violent attacks on a broad spectrum of Sunni community leaders as well as on those engaged in protests. Regime efforts to restore order would founder if government violence against protestors inspired broad-based communal violence between Alawis and Sunnis. [pp.19-20]

    The CIA report describes the final phase of an evolving sectarian war which witnesses the influx of fighters and weapons from neighboring countries. Consistent with a 1983 secret report that called for a US covert operation to utilize then US-allied Iraq as a base of attack on Syria, the 1986 analysis says, “Iraq might supply them with sufficient weapons to launch a civil war”:

    A general campaign of Alawi violence against Sunnis might push even moderate Sunnis to join the opposition. Remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood–some returning from exile in Iraq–could provide a core of leadership for the movement. Although the regime has the resources to crush such a venture, we believe brutal attacks on Sunni civilians might prompt large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or stage mutinies in support of dissidents, and Iraq might supply them with sufficient weapons to launch a civil war. [pp.20-21]
    A Sunni regime serving Western economic interests

    While the document is primarily a theoretical exploration projecting scenarios of Syrian regime weakening and collapse (its purpose is analysis and not necessarily policy), the authors admit of its “purposefully provocative” nature (see PREFACE) and closes with a list desired outcomes. One provocative outcome describes a pliant “Sunni regime” serving US economic interests:

    • In our view, US interests would be best served by a Sunni regime controlled by business-oriented moderates. Business moderates would see a strong need for Western aid and investment to build Syria’s private economy, thus opening the way for stronger ties to Western governments. [pg. 24]

      Ironically, the Syrian government would accuse the United States and its allies of covert subversion within Syria after a string of domestic bombings created diplomatic tensions during the mid-1980’s.
      Dirty tricks and diplomacy in the 1980’s

      According to Patrick Seale’s landmark book, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East, 1986 was a year that marked Syria’s greatest isolation among world powers as multiple diplomatic crises and terror events put Syria more and more out in the cold.

      The year included “the Hindawi affair”—a Syrian intelligence sponsored attempt to hijack and bomb an El Al flight to Tel Aviv—and may or may not have involved Nezar Hindawi working as a double agent on behalf of Israel. The foiled plot brought down international condemnation on Syria and lives on as one of the more famous and bizarre terror conspiracies in history. Not only were Syria and Israel once again generally on the brink of war in 1986, but a string of “dirty tricks” tactics were being utilized by Syria and its regional enemies to shape diplomatic outcomes primarily in Lebanon and Jordan.

      In March and April of 1986 (months prior to the distribution of the CIA memo), a string of still largely unexplained car bombs rocked Damascus and at least 5 towns throughout Syria, leaving over 200 civilians dead in the most significant wave of attacks since the earlier ’79-’82 war with the Muslim Brotherhood (also see BBC News recount the attacks).

      Patrick Seale’s book speculates of the bombings that, “It may not have been unconnected that in late 1985 the NSC’s Colonel Oliver North and Amiram Nir, Peres’s counter-terrorism expert, set up a dirty tricks outfit to strike back at the alleged sponsors of Middle East terrorism.”*
      Consistency with future WikiLeaks files

      The casual reader of Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change will immediately recognize a strategic thinking on Syria that looks much the same as what is revealed in national security memos produced decades later in the run up to the current war in Syria.

      When US cables or intelligence papers talk regime change in Syria they usually strategize in terms of exploiting sectarian fault lines. In a sense, this is the US national security bureaucracy’s fall-back approach to Syria.

      One well-known example is contained in a December 2006 State Dept. cable sent from the US embassy in Syria (subsequently released by WikiLeaks). The cable’s stated purpose is to explore Syrian regime vulnerabilities and weaknesses to exploit (in similar fashion to the 1986 CIA memo):

      PLAY ON SUNNI FEARS OF IRANIAN INFLUENCE: There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business.

      Another section of the 2006 cable explains precisely the same scenario laid out in the 1986 memo in describing the increased “possibility of a self-defeating over-reaction” on the part of the regime.:

      ENCOURAGE RUMORS AND SIGNALS OF EXTERNAL PLOTTING: The regime is intensely sensitive to rumors about coup-plotting and restlessness in the security services and military. Regional allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be encouraged to meet with figures like [former Vice President Abdul Halim] Khaddam and [younger brother of Hafez] Rif’at Asad as a way of sending such signals, with appropriate leaking of the meetings afterwards. This again touches on this insular regime’s paranoia and increases the possibility of a self-defeating over-reaction.

      And ironically, Rif’at Asad and Khaddam are both mentioned extensively in the 1986 memo as key players during a speculative future “Succession Power Struggle.” [p.15]
      An Islamic State in Damascus?

      While the 1986 CIA report makes a case in its concluding paragraph for “a Sunni regime controlled by business-oriented moderates” in Syria, the authors acknowledge that the collapse of the Ba’ath state could actually usher in the worst of all possible outcomes for Washington and the region: “religious zealots” might seek to establish “an Islamic Republic”. The words take on a new and special importance now, after the rise of ISIS:

      Although Syria’s secular traditions would make it extremely difficult for religious zealots to establish an Islamic Republic, should they succeed they would likely deepen hostilities with Israel and provide support and sanctuary to terrorists groups. [pg.24]

      What continues to unfold in Syria has apparently surpassed even the worst case scenarios of intelligence planners in the 1980’s. Tinkering with regime change has proven itself to be the most dangerous of all games.

      https://www.libertarianinstitute.org/2017/02/cia-memo-scenarios-of-syrian-regime-collapse/

      • I have to spend some time on this.
        Might be time to break up the CIA. Too many crazy cowboys. Cull the herd, put a leash on whatever’s redeemable.

  4. DAILY MAIL – AUSTRIA – Family of nine Iraqi asylum seekers ‘gang-raped drunk woman in Austria for two hours as she pleaded “No, I don’t want this” after luring her from her friends on New Year’s Eve’

    The nine men are accused of raping a woman, 28, on New Year’s Eve 2015
    Only one of the men has admitted to being involved in the horrific attack
    The court heard the victim met four of the men while drinking in a bar in Vienna

    Nine asylum seekers from the same family have gone on trial in the Austrian capital Vienna accused of the New Year’s Eve 2015 gang rape of a 28-year-old German teacher.

    Prosecutors charged the Iraqi men with ‘abuse of a defenceless person and rape in a very humiliating and agonising way for the victim.’

    At the opening of the trial on Tuesday the court heard how the woman, identified only as Sabine K., was ‘blind drunk’ when she went with the men to an apartment.

    Most of the men deny the charges but DNA from six of them was found in or on her body.

    The court heard how the victim arrived in Vienna on December 28 2015 to spend the New Year with a female friend in the city.

    Shortly before midnight on December 31 they wandered into the city centre to join milling crowds celebrating the arrival of 2016 and at 2am were seen drinking in a bar-restaurant called Cactus.

    Shortly before 3am Sabine’s friend noticed she was no longer there and was told by another patron that the men she had been talking with had ‘taken her away.’

    The defendants, aged between 22 and 45, all arrived in Austria between May and December 2015 via the Balkan route.

    At the time of the attack, five of them had cemented their right to stay, the applications of the other four were still pending.

    Judge Petra Poschalko heard how the woman was taken by four of them to an apartment in Vienna’s Rustenschacher Allee, where five other men were waiting.

    Sabine later said she found herself naked on a double bed being assaulted by the men one after the other.

    Her lawyer Karina Fehringer. told the court that she was assaulted in the dark so she could not identify the men.

    After the attacks, which went on for several hours, the victim needed in-patient treatment at a trauma clinic and now is under psychiatric care for post traumatic stress disorder.

    She had another breakdown at the weekend and was too fragile to be in court to face her attackers.

    Only one man, Mohamed Al-A., 31, admitted his role in the rapes and he sobbed in court as he said he was ‘really drunk’ on vodka at the time.

    His Muslim faith may forbid him to drink alcoholic beverages, but on New Year’s Eve he said he made an exception and drank vodka. ‘I was really drunk,’ he said, and he further admitted; ‘this act is a crime in Iraq.’

    He was with co-defendants Nazar Al-J., Mohammed Al-T. und Alaa Al-J. in the Cactus bar, and the four men are alleged to have taken the victim back to the apartment.

    The other defendants – Hader Al-A., Mustafa Al-J., Nael Al-J., Marwan Al-J. und Sabah Al-J. – lay in wait for her there, the court was told.

    Medical experts testified she was raped multiple times and sodomised. The victim said she yelled at them, in German: ‘No, I don’t want this.’ Then in English: ‘Listen to me, just a little bit.’

    Her attackers conversed only in Arabic. Alaa Al-J. was said to be the rape ringleader. After it was over Mohammed Al-. escorted her to a toilet in the flat where he took a selfie with her on his mobile phone.

    Later he and Alaa Al-J. escorted her to a nearby tram stop where they tried to stem her sobbing by saying in English: ‘Don’t cry.’

    After she went to police, a tracking app on her mobile phone led officers to the rape scene. The app showed that her ordeal lasted from 4.20am to 6.20am on January 1 2016.

    The court heard that with the exception of the man who confessed, none of the others have shown remorse.

    Several denied rape even in the face of the DNA evidence. One man claimed that the woman had been ‘offered’ to them by relatives: another that she was a willing participant in whatever took place.

    Judge Poaschalko seemed visibly angered at the shifts in their stories throught Tuesday’s hearing. The court resumes again on Thursday and sentencing will be handed down on March 6. She has warned them they face up to 15 years each in jail.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4248492/Family-Iraqi-asylum-seekers-gang-raped-drunk-woman.html