Erdogan raises the stakes in his not-to-covert war against the European Union

Turkey's President could have waited until after Monday's emergency summit with EU leaders to take over Zaman. That he didn't wait suggests he isn't only interested in extorting more billions from the Europeans on the matter of the refugee/migrant crisis. Whatever his precise motivation for the timing of the Zaman takover, he knows that the union's leadership can no longer avoid confronting the fact that he's working with Islamic State to undermine the European Union.   

The fact is now open knowledge -- so open that I don't think the U.S. military is bothering anymore to give Erdogan cover by denying it; it has its own cover to worry about. Last night Gregory Copley of Defense & Foreign Affairs gave John Batchelor's radio audience an earful. 

Yeah, the American public has unwittingly been paying to help Ankara and other players, including their own government, arm not only al Qaeda but also Islamic State. Copley recounted to Batchelor that when he asked senior Washington officials and military brass why they were helping avowed enemies of Americans, the reply was the chirping of crickets. 

Copley also mentioned that Erdogan's regime is using Islamic State personnel to facilitate the massive trafficking of desperate people into EU countries. So the EU public, for its part, was not only dragooned into helping arm Islamic State but also to help Erdogan undermine the Schengen Agreement -- the linchpin of the European Union. 

The agreement is now hanging by a frayed thread, which is the overriding reason for the emergency summit. See the Reuters report I linked to above for details.   

This suggests Erdogan has gone beyond trying to unseat Syria's Al-Assad and grab part of Iraq; it's beyond even his war against the Kurds. He is acting very directly against the European Union -- and clearly betting that the NATO leadership won't stop him. 

As to the EU leadership, he has them over a barrel. From the Reuters report:

"Extremely worried about latest developments on Zaman newspaper which jeopardizes progress made by Turkey in other areas," European Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said on Twitter.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz tweeted the takeover was "yet another blow to press freedom" and said he and Davutoglu would discuss it on Monday.

Critics have accused the European Union of turning a blind eye to Turkey's rights record because it needs Ankara's help curbing huge flows of refugees and migrants.

Turkey, which borders Syria, Iraq and Iran, will join EU leaders in Brussels at a crisis summit on Monday. Davutoglu said the "positive agenda will now be occupied and stained" with the issue of press freedom.

Since when does a diplomatic dust-up get aired on Twitter? Since officialdom would rather not haul a country's envoy on the carpet, although the EC did manage to scrape together an official response: 

"Any country, and in particular those negotiating EU accession, needs to guarantee fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, and due judicial process, in line with the European Convention on Human Rights," the European Commission said in a statement.

By all accounts Erdogan doesn't think Turkey has a chance to make it into the EU, which he's dismissively referred to as "the Christian club," at least not while he's in power, and he intends to use any means necessary to stay in power. So the threat from the EC is hot air.  

Next move? We'll find out next week, after the summit. In the meantime the following report from RT, which is only the latest on the same topic, indicates how well known is Anakara's continued support for designated terrorist groups. See the RT website for video of Russian air recon footage:

Turkey keeps shelling Kurds, backing terrorist groups in Syria – Russian MoD
5 Mar, 2016 - 03:51 [GMT]

RT

Turkey continues to shell Kurdish forces in Syria, hampering their operations against Al-Nusra terrorists [al Qaeda branch in Syria], and at the same time funneling supplies to the militant-controlled areas at the border, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported.

Ankara bears responsibility for the ongoing ceasefire violations in the Syrian provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, the head of the Russian ceasefire monitoring center Lt. Gen. Sergey Kuralenko told journalists at a briefing on March 4.

[Pundita note: Technically Turkey hasn't violated the "cessation of hostilities" agreement because it's not party to it.]

Militants continue to freely cross the Turkish-Syrian border, Kuralenko noted, presenting the latest reconnaissance video featuring a “large terrorist unit in a forested border area.”

Another video depicted Turkish artillery in a border garrison near the Yanankey settlement targeting Kurdish positions in Syria.

"Artillery shelling of Kurdish militia units, fighting against Nusra Front, continues from the territory of a Turkish border post near Yanankey," Kuralenko said.

Lt. Gen. also noted that in footage captured by an RT crew who traveled with the Kurdish YPG force in the area, Turkish trucks crossed the Turkish-Syrian border, according to Kuralenko. He said they are carrying supplies and arms exclusively to the territories controlled by Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar ash-Sham terrorist groups. [emphasis mine]

Turkish activities in the region are undermining the ceasefire and crippling the efforts aimed at launching the inter-Syrian dialogue and bringing peace to Syria, the defense ministry spokesman reiterated.

The ceasefire regime in Syria is being monitored and promoted via special centers set up in Moscow, Washington, Amman and Latakia and Geneva to collect and review information. The Russian center has registered 27 breaches of the ceasefire regime over the last 24 hours, with most of them – eight breaches – occurring in Aleppo, the Defense Ministry reported on Friday. The province of Idlib has seen a total of 7 violations, Damascus and Homs – 4 in each, Daraa – 3, Latakia – 1.

Besides Damascus, almost 100 various armed groups operating in Syria, alongside different regional and international interested parties, have agreed to take part in ceasefire, according to UN Syria special envoy Staffan de Mistura. The groups that don’t obey the ceasefire, including but not limited to ISIS and Al-Nusra, are considered terrorists.

Five more commanders of so-called Syria’s moderate opposition groups agreed to take part in the ceasefire along with the elders of two settlements in the province of Homs just recently, according to the ministry’s statement. Leaders of four other groups may soon join the agreement.

The nationwide ceasefire was implemented on February, 27 at midnight Damascus time. Outlined by the co-chairs of the ISSG (the International Syrian Support Group) US and Russia, it was supported by the United Nations Security Council and is abiding to all parties involved in the conflict. The exceptions are Islamic State group (IS, formely ISIS/ISIL), Al-Nusra, and“other terrorist organizations” as designated by the UN Security Council.

READ MORE: Syria ceasefire non-binding if threat to Turkey’s security – PM Davutoglu

[END REPORT]

    

Uh oh. Erdogan moves to muzzle Zaman newspaper and protests about muzzling UPDATED 7:50pm EST

UPDATE
I could've explained it better. By "the situation" I meant the police were clearing out the Zaman offices by the time I started watching the live feed. There wasn't any violence in the offices, just a lot of police, some in plain clothes, mulling around and what I guess were a few employees giving the police a piece of their mind but moving along as they were told. But toward the end, before the live feed broke off, what looked like a chief, in plain clothes, was waving the photographers back and looking as if he wanted to close a large door, shutting out the press.  

***
    
This is getting serious. RT's live taping of the police action, shown on the Spuptnik website and at YouTube, is now over or the government forces blocked further video-taping of the situation (it looked like things were headed that way toward the end of the taping) but here's the text report: 

Tear Gas, Water Cannon: Turkish Police Raid Zaman Newspaper in Istanbul

March 5, 2016 - 02:12 GMT

Sputnik

Late Friday, police entered the Zaman newspaper building in Istanbul, firing tear gas at protesters gathered outside. Zaman is closely linked to the Hizmet movement of the influential US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen.

Turkey has designated Hizmet a terrorist organization, claiming that the group aims to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Gulen, once an Erdogan ally, now calls for civil conflict against the President/

The attack on the Zaman newspaper protesters comes as the Turkish government falls under increased international criticism for its attempts to crack down on journalistic dissent.

Protests followed a court ruling on Friday that the high-circulation newspaper would be taken over by government-run administrators. The court’s decision came with no explanation.

The protesters denounced the state takeover of Zaman press. One protester carried a placard stating, “We will fight for a free press.” The peaceful protesters were quickly shot with a water cannon and tear gas by Turkish police in an attempt to force them to disperse.

In response to the country’s planned seizure of the media outlet, Zaman said that Turkey is going through its “darkest and gloomiest days in terms of freedom of press.” The editor-in-chief declared that the move by the Turkish government represented nothing short of “the practical end of media freedom in Turkey.”

The US State Department maintains that Turkey is a valued ally of the United States and a critical partner in the war against Daesh and other terrorist organizations. On Friday, however, a State Department spokesperson said the takeover is “the latest in a series of troubling judicial and law enforcement actions taken by the Turkish government.”

[END REPORT]

WARNING: Syria Direct site funded by U.S. Department of State

That according to a report today from VICE NEWS. Before I turn to VICE here is the "About Us" section from the Syria Direct website, which reports on the conflict in Syria:

About Us

Syria Direct is a non-profit journalism organization that produces timely, credible coverage of Syria while training a small group of highly talented, aspiring Syrian and American journalists in professional news-gathering and accurate, in-depth reporting. As a result of agenda-free funding, our focus is on providing credible, original, relevant and immediate news and analysis of the conflict.

From VICE NEWS [emphasis mine]:

The US State Department's Syria Hotline Staff May Not Speak Arabic — or Answer the PhoneBy Avi Asher-SchapiroMarch 4, 2016 - 7:15 am
VICE News

The US State Department has set up a hotline to help document reports of violence in Syria, but some of the operators working the phones don't speak fluent Arabic, and sometimes nobody answers the phone at all.

The problem was first revealed on Wednesday by reporters with the news site Syria Direct, which receives funding from the State Department. One of its reporters tried to call the hotline on February 27, hours after a "cessation of hostilities" — basically a limited truce — that was brokered by the US and Russia went into effect between many of the parties in Syria's ongoing civil war.

Syria Direct's newsroom in Amman, Jordan had been tracking shelling in several Syrian provinces, and had heard reports of continuing violence after the truce went into effect. But when one of the site's reporters, an American named Orion Wilcox, phoned in the potential violations to the State Department's hotline, the operator on the other end didn't seem to comprehend Wilcox's Arabic.

[...] 

Now why would Syria Direct bite the hand that feeds it? VICE doesn't say how it learned that the site is a propaganda outlet for the State Department but the word is obviously out about the website's funding. Perhaps the report critical of State's hotline is an attempt by the editor to save face with the site's Twitter followers -- Twitter being the place where the propaganda war against the Syrian government has been prosecuted most strongly.  There would be other guesses as well. 

In any case I quoted from the website once, in January, because I liked a map they provided. On a return visit to the site, it didn't pass muster with me so I didn't mention it again on my blog. Until today.

As to whether I consider VICE a reliable source -- how many times have I quoted a VICE report on the war? There's your answer. As to why I should accept their claim that Syria Direct is funded by State, they didn't write that the site is "reportedly" funded, which suggests they're prepared to source their claim. 

So that's what's out there. When you go to a site like Iran's FARS or Syria's SANA, or Russia's Sputnik for news on the war, you know that you're going to be getting government propaganda with the reporting, so you can learn to separate the chaff from the grain.  

But Syria Direct gives no such warning and it's obviously aimed at young, idealistic readers (as is VICE News) -- read 'credulous.'  

          

********

Now even a gopher can't violate Syria ceasefire without Russians knowing

"The complex is capable of detecting up to 70 firing positions in a minute, while tracking up to 12 targets."

God bless them, the Russians are very determined to make the Syrian "cessation of hostilities" agreement work. As to whether the installation or testing of these fancy electronic monitoring systems had anything to do with the massive electrical blackout yesterday in Syria, I have no idea how the systems work. All the Syrian government would say, paraphrasing here, was that they didn't know what caused the power outage in the grids they control but it would be fixed in a few hours. 

Moving along, from now on it will hard for any of the signatories to pull off a violation of the ceasefire agreement without being spotted. The same for the bad guys who aren't part of the agreement, including Turkey:

All Hands On Deck: Russian Military Sets Up High-Tech Radar System in Syria

March 4, 2016 - 19:40 GMT 

Sputnik

Russian military have set up electronic systems  that allow monitoring violations of the ceasefire in Syria.

Over the past three days three modern complexes with unmanned aerial vehicles and two radars detecting small targets have been deployed to Syria.

The Zoopark-1 missile and artillery ground reconnaissance complex is designed to automatically determine the coordinates of enemy artillery positions (mortars, field artillery, rocket volley fire systems and tactical missile launch positions) to provide target sighting information to its own countermeasure equipment, as well as to monitor its own firing results.

The design of the ‘Zoopark-1’ complex was started in the Soviet Union back in the 1980s as a replacement to APK-1 ‘Ris’ complex. The new complex is mounted on the chassis of a MTLB truck.

The Zoopark-1 intelligence and radar complex is completely autonomous and it takes about five minutes to deploy. The complex can conduct reconnaissance of positions of up to 17 kilometers and target artillery with a minimum bore size of 82-120 millimeters.

The gun’s caliber is 105-155 millimeters and has a distance of 12 kilometers. It has a multiple launch systems with ranges up to 22 kilometers and tactical missiles that can travel up to 45 kilometers.

The complex is capable of detecting up to 70 firing positions in a minute, while tracking up to 12 targets.

The cessation of hostilities in Syria came into force at the end of February [Feb 27]. Nearly a hundred opposition parties supported the truce. The groups that didn’t fall under the truce were Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorists [Pundita note: and other UN-designated groups, from reports].

[END REPORT]

Meanwhile the Russians were counting on their fingers and toes to keep up with the violations prior to Zoopark-1 going fully operational. From SANA today:

Moscow, SANA - Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that 41 breaches of the cessation of fighting acts by the terrorist organizations were observed during the last 48 hours.

“Turkey bears full responsibility for the continued fighting in Idleb and Aleppo,” the ministry said in a statement by the Russian Center for Coordinating and observing the cessation of fighting acts at Hmeimeem base.

The ministry added that the arms shipments arrive daily from Turkey to the terrorists of “Jabhat al-Nusra” and “Ahrar al-Sham Islamic Movement”.
The Russian Defense Ministry had registered 72 breaches of the cessation of hostilities by the terrorist organizations since the agreement took effect on February 27th till yesterday.

The cessation of hostilities agreement does not involve ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other organizations listed on the international terrorism list.

Manar al-Frieh/Manal

[END REPORT]
  

Almost a week on, the Syrian 'ceasefire' is still fragile and still holding

Syrian ceasefire holds, paves way to transition – Putin, European leaders

Published time: 4 Mar, 2016 - 17:31 GMT
RT

During a conference call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Italy all agreed the Syrian ceasefire is a milestone achievement creating favorable conditions for inter-Syrian dialogue.

President Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi held a conference call to discuss progress in the Syrian ceasefire. They are seeking to lead the country out of five years of hostilities, the Kremlin said.

“The ceasefire in Syria must be respected everywhere,” Francois Hollande said, after the conference call, according to Reuters.

The leaders praised the Russian-US agreement that was also supported by the UN Security Council, noting the ceasefire regime is being observed and, more importantly, it is creating opportunities for getting the dialogue between the Syrian government and opposition groups underway.

The roadmap for a peace process in Syria, unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council in December, also garnered support from the five heads of state.

“The political process must be initiated as soon as possible,” Angela Merkel said, summing up the results of the talks.

It was also discussed that there is a strong need for tighter cooperation in dealing with the humanitarian crisis afflicting Syria and to eradicate rampant terrorism in the country.

“Everybody on the call had a common interest in defeating Daesh [Arabic pejorative term for Islamic State] in Syria and tackling the Islamist threat, and therefore it is in all our interest to support a peace process in the country that can lead to a stable, inclusive government that has the support of all Syrians,” David Cameron’s spokeswoman said afterwards, according to the Guardian.

Putin, Merkel, Cameron, Hollande and Matteo Renzi promised staunch support for the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG), the UN Security Council and UN Syria special envoy Staffan de Mistura.

The ceasefire was implemented on February 27, in compliance with the joint statement of the United States and the Russian Federation, which are acting as co-chairs of the ISSG. Terrorist groups such as Islamic State and Al Nusra Front and others that rejected the negotiations are not subject to the ceasefire.

[END REPORT]

SouthFront: SAA forces take high ground near Palmyra City UPDATED 2:15pm EST

UPDATE
From RT's newswire today:

ISIS militants blow up ancient pillars in Palmyra, Syria – reports

Militants of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) have blown up a number of ancient Roman pillars in Palmyra, Syria, RIA Novosti reported on Friday, citing sources in Syrian militia. The Islamist group captured the town about a year ago. The IS fighters were reported earlier to have blown up the ancient temple, the triumphal arch and pillars in historic Palmyra.

Might have been revenge for the SAA's success yesterday -- revenge and a warning. All the government forces can do is advance as carefully as possible on Palmyra....

****

Video of SouthFront's March 4 report with animated maps showing the status of battlespaces under discussion. Here is the text of the video report:

ISIS militants have launched an advance on the Deir Ezzor Military Airport controlled by the government’s forces. On March 3 the ISIS force reached the southern gates of the airport following a successful firefight against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). However, ISIS militants were unable to break the SAA’s defenses. The clashes are ongoing.

The SAA’s 555th Brigade of the 4th Mechanized Division is advancing in northeast Hama. The Zakiyah Crossroad, located west of the border between the provinces of Al-Raqqa and Hama, remains the goal of the loyalist forces. On March 3 the SAA seized Point 4, Point 5, Khirbat Al-Bayda, and several small hilltops on the way to it. Clashes were also observed at the Zakiyah village located along the Salamiyah-Raqqa road.

Meanwhile, the SAA continued an advance towards the city of Palmyra securing the mountaintop of Jabal Jazal and its neighbouring oil fields. In South of Palmyra, the SAA moved to Wadi Al-Dhakara, seizing a part of the valley after a violent battle with ISIS.

We remember the pro-government group “Liwaa Suqour Al-Sahra” have deployed in the Palmyra front to strengthen the SAA’s force seeking to liberate the city.

On Mar.3, ISIS and al Nusra made an attempt to cut the Aleppo-Khanaser-Ithria road one more time. However, the SAA and its allies [repelled] this attack.

Since the Khanaser-Aleppo road is now free of danger, the pro-government forces, which have been concentrated in the area, are preparing for a large military operation in Southeastern Aleppo.

According to reports, the Syrian Army’s Central Command decided to deploy a significant force to the town of Ithriya. Ithriya is located in the Hama province’s Northeastern countryside. The town borders the Aleppo province to the North and it is situated 15 km West of Raqqa axis.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: southfront@list.ru or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

[END REPORT] 

Southern Raised Bluegrass - "He Came Looking for Me"

Angela Merkel: You call this bilgewater beer?

The past couple years have not been kind to Angela but this was the final insult. One of RT's Pictures of the Week, snapped by Kai Pfaffenbach for Reuters. No word on the beer brand or country of origin, just that the Chancellor tasted it during a "Christain Democratic Union (CDU) politial Ash Wednesday meeting in Volkmarsen, Germany. February 29." I hope the CDU wasn't trying to save money by serving German beer brewed in China.    

********

"Don't let Southfront starve to death. They are hard up."

That request is from Col. Pat Lang at Sic Semper Tyrannis, which he made yesterday. Today Southfront was hacked in the attempt to destroy its video section. From the site:

UPD Mar.3 17:11 CET: Dear friends, the website’s video section is restored. Thank you for all warm words and support during this complicated time.

UPD Mar.3, 9:20 CET: SF videos which have been uploaded till Feb.3, 2016 are now available. We are working to solve the problem with other videos.

UPD Mar.2, 17:46 CET: Temporarly, we use Youtube to upload new videos: https://www.youtube.com/SouthFrontTV

Dear friends, A few minutes ago, southfront.org faced a cyber attack which damaged video section of the website.

Old videos are not available at the moment.
SouthFront Team is working to solve this issue.

Info: You can find most of SF videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/SouthFrontTV

Sincerely yours,SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence Team

So I will add a fundraising plea to Pat Lang's. If you want better reporting on the Syrian war than you can find in the Western press, subscribe to SouthFront and/or send them a donation.   

While the site is based in Russia, unlike Russia's Sputnik or -- Iran's FARS and Syria's SANA -- it's not part of a state agency. Al-Masdar News ("AMN"), run by a Syrian (Leith Fadel), which also does good reporting on the war, is managing to hang on without doing fundraisers. But they could be receiving donations from Syrian expats who support Assad's government. 

More to the point, SouthFront daily posts quality videos that are expensive to produce, yet which provide the viewer with a quick understanding of complex battlefield situations in the war. They also produce their own sometimes lengthy English-language analyses taken from Russian-language journals. I doubt they're keeping up the translation pace purely on volunteer efforts.

Here is SST's latest analysis of the war, and which is based at least in part on SouthFront reporting. Lang starts by quoting from the site:

The ceasefire seems to be going well ...

"Over a hundred rebel unit commanders agreed to the ceasefire and signed a corresponding agreement. Over 1,000 militants laid down their arms in the Damascus province and have since been relocated from the battlefields.

Field commanders of Mujahideen Khora and El-Furqan formations which operated south of Damascus in the Kafar-Shams district likewise signed ceasefire documents, as did Maamum Shukru al-Habbusa, the leader of Burkan Khoran. This meant 600 more militants laid down their arms.

Two major formations in Deraa province, Armiya al-Ababil and Jaysh al-Yarmuk, agreed to the ceasefire and their leaders signed the declaration forms. This action took 2500 militants off the battlefield."  Southfront

-----------------

 Wall to wall, the R+6  are progressing in the task of running a marvelously successful  ANTICOIN campaign.  The Syrian government has declared an amnesty for non-jihadi rebels.  As you can read above that seems to be doing well.  It is better to work on re-integrating them than to kill them all which is the alternative policy choice.

Across the country the war goes on against the jihadis.  ground is being regained everywhere, ground that will be useful in the final battles needed to make Syria jihadi free.  The attritional battle is also going well.

Turkey appears to be stymied by the threat of Russian arms and the War Party hawks in the Borgist US government is "turning and burning" in frustration.  The post-Dempsey US Defense Department and JCS is now completely in the hands of the Borgist war party who obviously lust for a confrontation with Russia.  It would be tempting to attribute this "bloody mindedness" to male hormonal excesses but, unfortunately the worst of the worst are women.

IMO the war in western Syria will be largely ended in the next couple of months.  After that, the R+6 will make their contribution to the destruction of IS (the enemies of God).

The Iraqis?  We will see...  pl  

https://southfront.org/syria-battlefield-update-march-2/

PS  Don't let Southfront starve to death. They are hard up.  pl

[END]

The Naked American

Why, one may wonder while studying the story of the Syrian war, did Americans get themselves into the position of supporting governments that are big sponsors of Islamic terrorism?

One may ask how but not why. It amount to a Rorschach test to ask why it took Americans a half century to notice that we've been supporting the most dangerous interpretation of Islam and clear enemies of the USA  Thus, the limits of psychoanalysis. When the offense is egregious asking why it was committed is a waste of time for anyone but a board-certified psychologist or district attorney without much hard evidence to bring in a conviction.

Every American news report that discusses the Syrian war at any length inserts the sentence, "The Syrian government claims all rebel groups in the country are terrorists" or similar words. The government's outreach to rebel groups is now too well known to call the sentence anything but an outright lie. But learning why the lie is told wouldn't stop the lying.

Just so, knowing why the American public has for decades avoided delving into the conduct and doctrine of the Saudi rulers won't stop the avoidance behavior.

How, then, to stop the behavior?

When you're certain that people are deceiving themselves the best you can do is state what you see as the truth, in the manner of the child in The Emperor's New Clothes. Mass self-delusion depends on tacit cooperation by all the participants. Refusing to cooperate in the self-imposed delusion recalls to their senses those who don't have a vested interest in participation and are just following the crowd. If such followers are numerous enough, even those most committed to the illusion will drop their pretense.

For those who say they have been refusing to cooperate but the spell still isn't broken -- are they sure that's what they've been doing?  Or have they been stating what they believe is the reason for the delusion and criticizing this?

Yes indeed, the outcome would have been very different if instead of pointing out that the king was naked the child had announced, 'I know why the king isn't admitting he's naked.'

Can you imagine the reaction in today's USA? Within 15 minutes the king's spin doctors and statisticians would present evidence that the child didn't know what he was talking about. Opposition researchers would be activated to examine the child's mental state, his family life and record in school. Political partisans would jump to attack or defend the child's political position -- and by that hour it would be made into a political position. 

Then bloggers, press editorialists, and talk-show hosts would take over. By the time everyone was finished chewing over the issue the king could continue making public appearances unclothed, and with only the most dogged conspiracy theorists left to claim that he was in fact naked. 

********

YPG Sources: Turkish commandos in league with Islamic State sneak into Syria

Well, General Breedlove, what do you have to say for yourself? Or are you going to find a way to blame Russia for Turkey's alliance with Islamic State? 

General Philip Breedlove is Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander of the U.S. European Command. It seems his sole responsibility is terrorizing Germany's government into backing away from Russia.        
  
For the latest news on General Philip Breedlove's idea of high school with nukes, you can read this report from the Washington Times or listen to the podcast for Stephen Cohen's report on the John Batchelor Show on March 1. (War Parties on the March in Syrian Ceasefire; Stephen F Cohen, EastWestAccord.com, Professor Emeritus, NYU, Princeton.) 

Defense & Foreign Affairs Editor-in-Chief Gregory Copley's report at the John Batchelor Show, February 29. Here is the podcast of the discussion. Text summary of the discussion is from the JBS schedule page:

First-hand sources within Kurdish forces in northern Syria reported on February 29, 2016 that some 200 Turkish commando forces, believed to have been attached to the Turkish Second Army, broke the ceasefire in northern Syria on the morning of February 28, 2016, accompanied by approximately 400 fighters from DI’ISH (Islamic State ...), attacking the Syrian Kurdish town of Tell Abyad, on the Syria-Turkish border, in the al-Raqqah Governorate. 

This was the scene, in May-July 2015, of a major Syrian Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) military success known as the Tell Abyad offensive or Martyr Rubar Qamışlo operation.

The new combined Turkish Army/Islamic State attack on Tell Abyad and YPG positions began at 05.00 hrs local on February 28, 2016, and was supported by heavy artillery fire from 24 Turkish Army T-155 Fırtına (Storm) 155mm self-propelled howitzers.

Some 14 Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter aircraft were also reported to have been engaged since the ceasefire began and have taken down two Syrian military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during the ceasefire, and along the Turkish-Syrian border area. 

At least four Royal Saudi Air Force F-15S Strike Eagle fighters have also been deployed into the border zone from their new base at Incirlik, Turkey, where they have a support team with two RSAF C-30H Hercules transports.

It is not known to what extent the RSAF F-15s have been engaged in cross-border attacks on YPG positions, but there are no reports that they have engaged Islamic State positions.

It should be stressed that neither Turkey nor Islamic State — nor Saudi Arabia — are party to the ceasefire agreement which was drafted between Russia and the US, but each party was expected to bring its own allied forces under control.

The Syrian Kurdish sources said that conventional Turkish Army units were now “massing” along the border ...

******

The struggle to save civilization approaches its climax in Syria

"It seems that on the 12th February, the Russians were able to separate the White House from the neo-conservatives and liberal hawks [aka liberal interventionists] who support Turkey and the jihadists. Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to create two work groups, which they co-preside, which relegates the UNO to the role of simple clerk ... In other terms, Jeffrey Feltman, who has been using his functions as United Nations number 2 to sabotage all efforts for peace over the last three and a half years, has now been benched ... The result ? In only 10 days, Russia and the United States have been able to conclude the conditions for a cessation of hostilities which has been awaiting finalisation since 2012 ..."

***
Voltaire Network's Thierry Meyssan has finally cast off his tin-foil hat, at least long enough to piece together an accurate analysis of what has actually been happening regarding Syria.  

Before I get to the main event, however, quotes from reports today on the confusion that has befallen professional Syria Watchers, who didn't do their homework, unlike Pundita [fluttering her eyelashes], and on gnashing of teeth by agents of Mordor over the resilient "cessation of hostilities" agreement in Syria:

Here's why the partial truce in Syria has astounded even the experts; March 1, 5:15 PM EST; PRI

Just a week ago, aerial bombing runs in Syria were estimated to average around 100 sorties per day.

Now they're down to six.

That's according to Syria-watcher Joshua Landis, who was among the experts taken by surprise at the relative effectiveness of the partial two-week ceasefire agreement brokered by Moscow and Washington.

"It's astounding people," Landis says. "It shows how dependent all the actors are on the ground in Syria on their sponsors, the big nations that are feeding them with arms, money and diplomatic protection." ...

International Military Review: Mainstream Propaganda; March 1, Southfront

On Feb.29, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of the village of Al-Fadiyaya near the Marj Al-Sultan military airport in the East Ghouta region of Greater Damascus. Al-Nusra and Jaysh Al-Islam had operated in the area. Securing Al-Fadiyaya north of the Marj Al-Sultan Military Airport, the SAA is able to defend the air base’s helicopter airfields.

The East Ghouta has the highest concentration of Al-Nusra militants in Greater Damascus. Thus, the SAA’s actions can’t be recognized as a violation of the ceasefire which doesn’t expand on Al Nusra, ISIS and linked terrorist groups.

Mainstream media and think tanks have already started a propagandistic campaign aimed to clean up the public image of the so-called “moderate opposition” even if Al Nusra and linked units are the only power of these moderates on the ground. Diverse range of statements aimed to prove that the “regime” and Russians violate the ceasefire is a common part of this campaign. ...

For good measure I'll toss in a quote from Over 450 Terrorists Killed in Syrian Army Operations in Aleppo; March 1; FARS English

TEHRAN (FNA)- The ISIL terrorist group has sustained hundreds of casualties in the Syrian government forces' anti-terrorism operations in the Southeastern part of Aleppo in recent days, Arab media sources disclosed on Tuesday. ...

All right, that's enough setting the stage for Thierry. One point: Regarding his speculation that Erdogan could be assassinated or overthrown by an internal coup -- one never knows about such things but Erdogan is surely worried at this time that NATO -- and the EU -- have pretty much had it with him.     

Moscow, rampart against the jihadists
by Thierry Meyssan

February 29, 2016

Voltaire Network

(DAMASCUS, Syria) Since 2012, Moscow has been trying to rally the Western powers to its cause – to defend civilisation against jihadism, as the world was once united against Nazism. In order to do so, it first of all dissociated the White House from the combatants that the United States call « rebels », and whom Moscow regards as « jihadists ». Today, it is trying to isolate Turkey. Far from being a diplomatic epiphenomenon, the cessation of hostilities in Syria marks an about-face. Washington has just admitted that there are no « moderate » armed groups, or none left.

We are wrong to analyse Russian politics from the Arab or Western point of view. Russia has its own view of jihadists, with whom it is familiar since 1978, when they came to lend a helping hand to the Afghan Pashtuns against the Communist government in Kabul.

Vladimir Putin personally fought the jihadists from the Caucasus, in particular the Islamic Emirate of Itchkeria (the second Chechen war 1999-2000), and beat them. At the time, the Arabs claimed to support tbe Russian Muslims, although they did not understand what was happening there, while the West, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, applauded any group who attempted to pursue the movement of the dislocation of Russia. However, on the ground, there was no difference between yesterday’s Emirate and today’s Caliphate. The charia was still applied, and heads were chopped off in Grozny just as they are today in Rakka. [Raqqa]

Today, despite propaganda claiming that the war in Syria is a war against Islam, or that the Syrian Arab Republic is an « Alawite (sic) dictatorship (re-sic) » which massacres Sunnis, the facts remain – the Syrian Arab Army currently fighting the jihadists is composed of 70 % Sunnis.

In 2012, which is to say almost at the beginning of the war, at the moment when the United States DIA warned the White House against the force that was to become Daesh, Vladimir Putin declared that Syria had become a « Russian interior question ». Since then, he has been trying to create an international Coalition with the West against the jihadists.

Russia remembers how the world changed in the 1930’s. At that time, the King of England, Edward VIII, was a public supporter of Nazism. Montagu Norman, the governor of the Bank of England, financed Adolf Hitler’s accession to power with the Crown’s money [1]. The British thought that in this way, they were supporting a state capable of overthrowing the Soviet Union, which had eliminated Tsar Nicolas II, and was a threat to their capitalist interests. However, during the Second World War, they allied with Stalin and Mao against Hitler.

Vladimir Putin hopes to be able to overturn today’s alliances, as was the case in the period 1936-39. This is why, over the last few years, he has been working to treat the United States as « partners », even while Washington was stabbing him in the back, organising demonstrations in Moscow against his government (2011-12) and mounting a coup d’État in Ukraine (2013-14).

On the 10th February, Russian ambassador Vitali Tchourkine distributed to all the members of the Security Council an intelligence report concerning the activities of Turkey in support of the jihadists [2]. This two-page document presents ten indisputable facts. It attests to the fact that Turkey is a gangster-state which for many years has been deliberately violating a quantity of UN Resolutions. Each of these facts connects to networks and agents who once supported the Chechen jihadists. In those days, the Turkish state as such was not implicated, but the Welfare Party (Refah). Today, Refah has been disbanded and replaced by the AKP. Since the AKP is now in power, the Turkish state is now implicated [3].

Today, the resolute Russian bear is attempting to separate Turkey from NATO. The future of humanity depends on this operation. Either Turkey stays in the Atlantist Alliance, thus able to support the jihadists, not only in Syria, but also in Iraq and Libya, and, finally, all over the world. Or else NATO distances itself from Turkey, in which case the United States and Russia would effectively be allied to fight the jihadists efficiently, wherever they may be.

It seems that on the 12th February, the Russians were able to separate the White House from the neo-conservatives and liberal hawks [aka liberal interventionists] who support Turkey and the jihadists. Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to create two work groups, which they co-preside, which relegates the UNO to the role of simple clerk [4]. In other terms, Jeffrey Feltman, who has been using his functions as United Nations number 2 to sabotage all efforts for peace over the last three and a half years, has now been benched [5]. The result ? In only 10 days, Russia and the United States have been able to conclude the conditions for a cessation of hostilities which has been awaiting finalisation since 2012 [6].

This cessation of hostilities was firmly rejected by the « National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces », whose President, the Turco-Syrian Khaled Khoja, commented in a letter to the Security Council - « It is absolutely scandalous to conclude bilateral agreements with Russia on a "cessation of hostilities", when these agreements do not concern one of the main killers of civilians in Syria, the Russian Federation. It is high time for Russia to leave Syria and end the brutal war that it is waging against our fellow country-men » [7].

This agreement is in reality a trap aimed at destroying the whole system created by the neo-conservatives and the liberal hawks. Already, during the Genève 3 negotiations, Russia had patiently revealed the bad faith of the « opposition » supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. This opposition had already discredited itself without any help by its procrastination. The question is not so much the representativity of the opposition, but to show that it has no desire to improve the living conditions of the Syrian people, only to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic. The comment quoted above is convincing enough, since, contrary to M. Khoja’s allegations, the cessation of hostilities does in fact concern Russia, but not the groups listed as terrorists by the United Nations.

The cessation of hostilities is aimed at facing the armed groups with their responsibilities. All they had to do was sign up with Washington or Moscow to avoid being bombed by the Russians or the Syrians, but in this case, they would have been obliged to renounce their project for the overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic, and join a political process in favour of a secular, democratic Syria, in other words, to abandon the dream of an Islamic state. Only 97 Katibas of the thousand in existence would have dared to engage in a process which makes them « traitors » to the Turkish cause, and marks them as the next victims of their jihadist ex-comrades.

Moreover, the Western powers could not have dreamed of a better outcome. On the 15th December 2015, during a Senate hearing, General Didier Castres, responsible for French external operations assured that the total number of combatants susceptible of being moderates did not exceed 20,000 [8]. While in January 2016, a German intelligence report affirmed that the proportion of Syrian combatants participating in all the armed groups in Syria would not exceed 5 % [9].

This is exactly the result that Kerry and Lavrov were looking for when they spoke of a cessation of hostilities and not a cease-fire – the second expression being the only one with legal consequences.

This enables us to understand John Kerry’s answer to the question posed by a senator during a [congressional] hearing concerning an eventual « plan B » for use, if necessary, as a get-out clause. If the cessation of hostilities fails to work, there could be no partition of Syria, simply because the plan for the cessation of hostilities will have shown that the choice is not between Damascus and the « rebels », but between Damascus and the « jihadists ».

By the same logic, the Luxembourg Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jean Asselborn, declared to Der Spiegel that NATO would not allow itself to get dragged into a war started by Turkey against Russia [10]. Article 5 of the NATO Alliance provides for the support of a member state only when it is directly attacked, not when it initiates a conflict [11]. Comments confirmed by Germany to the Daily Mail [12].

As from now, the White House is preparing to sacrifice Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will probably be held responsible for everything that has gone wrong in the region. The Turkish President may be assassinated, like his predecessor Turgut Özal, in 1993, or else be overthrown by those close to him. Failing that, the war will be displaced from Syria to Turkey, and Vladimir Putin will have won his bet – to shift the front lines in such a way as to cause the Western powers to fight alongside him against the jihadists that they themselves created.

Keep in mind :

Russia did not go to war in Syria to defend economic interests or resuscitate a Cold War alliance, but to fight the jihadists.

Since 2012, Russia has been trying to split the Western powers from the jihadists, whom they created and have supported since 1978.

By concluding the Munich agreement, John Kerry has accepted to relegate Jeffrey Feltman, the leader of the neo-conservatives in the UNO, to a subordinate role. By proposing a cessation of hostilities, he has made it possible to separate the reasonable Syrian combatants from the jihadists.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation by Pete Kimberley

[1] “Anglo-American Money Owners Organized World War II”, by Valentin Katasonov, Strategic Culture Foundation (Russia) , Voltaire Network, 7 May 2015.

[2] “Russian intelligence report on Turkey’s current assistance to Daesh”,Voltaire Network, 18 February 2016.

[3] “How Turkey supports the jihadists”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 22 February 2016.

[4] “Statement of the International Syria Support Group”, Voltaire Network, 12 February 2016.

[5] “Germany and the UNO against Syria”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Al-Watan (Syria) , Voltaire Network, 28 January 2016.

[6] “Cessation of Hostilities in Syria”, Voltaire Network, 22 February 2016.

[7] « Letter dated the 18th February 2016, addressed by the representative of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces ». UNO Document S/2016/165.

[8] « Audition au Sénat du général Didier Castres sur Daesh », Réseau Voltaire, 15 décembre 2015.

[9] “Asian rebels in Aleppo, Western blind spot”, Christina Lin, Asia Times, February 8, 2016.

[10] « Syrienkonflikt: Warnung aus der Nato an die Türkei », Der Spiegel, 19. Februar 2016.

[11] « Traité de l’Atlantique Nord », Réseau Voltaire, 4 avril 1949.

[12] « NATO warns Turkey it can’t count on support in a conflict with Russia as tensions escalate », Gianluca Mezzofiore, Daily Mail, February 20, 2016.

[END]

Part 2 Haywire ki, haywire societies. Reversing the trend.

Part 1

Many people have come to rely hugely on intellectual and emotional intelligence. In doing so they not only neglect their primal (instinctive) intelligence, they unconsciously steal from it, redirecting much of its energy to the brain and heart centers.  

The trend continues to increase as societies around the world shift toward occupations that place big demands on brain-based intelligence, and as modern communications allow people to become aware of many situations they find very upsetting but can't influence.

This is creating societies that are greatly off balance because it's the instinctive energy that keeps a person balanced and protects him from overly emotional and intellectualized reactions to challenges. It manifests in what is known the world over in many languages as common sense. 

This balance is not only figurative it's also literal, according to practices that work directly with the subtle life force. Belief that such a force exists, and that it can be subject to the human will, was widespread in ancient times. From Wikipedia's article on qi (the Chinese version of the Japanese word ki):

Concepts similar to qi can be found in many cultures; for example, prana in the Hindu religion, chi in the Igbo religion, pneuma in ancient Greece, mana in Hawaiian culture, lüng in Tibetan Buddhism, ruah in Hebrew culture, and vital energy in Western philosophy.

In the West the most well-known demonstrations of this force are in Japanese and Chinese martial arts and health exercises such as QiGong and Tai Chi. Well into his 80s Morihei Ueshiba, the Japanese credited with establishing Aikido ("the way of unifying with life energy"), routinely gave public demonstrations of the power of the life force directed to personal self defense.

There are many 'schools' in East Asia that work with the life force as a self-defense and healing/exercise method or all three -- and there are so many schools in India connected with various yogas that I doubt they could be counted.

A huge body of doctrine has grown up around the various practices connected with the life force, which range from the religious/spiritual or mystical to medical and combat. The cross-pollination of ideas in the modern era has greatly expanded the number of doctrines and their interpretations.

Additionally the Western New Age movement is grounded in 'holistic' healing methods that synthesize the entire known range of practices and philosophies connected with the subtle life force -- from cutting edge medical technologies to visualization, breathing, physical exercises, etc., many of which taken from ancient healing practices and religious doctrines the world over, and from philosophies going back in the West at least as early as the Greek Pythagorean school.

In short, the entire topic of the subtle life force has become greatly intellectualized. Which is to say that today one can find as many haywire people in these various schools as anywhere else. When you consider that the whole point of working with ki is to restore and maintain balance among the most powerful centers in the human body -- brain, heart, intuition -- this is counterproductive.

And not only counterproductive if there is anything to this ki business, and obviously I believe there is. Bringing the action of ki in one's body under conscious control can be as harmful to a person's mental and physical health as bringing his breathing under his conscious control if he abuses his knowledge or isn't very skilled at the methods. 

Although working consciously with the ki (and the breath) is considered a kind of science or inner alchemy, fooling around with that particular science can be almost as dangerous as fooling around in a chemistry lab.

So for all but the most dedicated -- those willing to make it a serious study -- the idea is to find a means to restore the ki balance in one's psyche that doesn't depend on highly precise knowledge and methods. Given that Nature itself seems to be one big balancing act, and that human societies have been around a very long time and gone through countless upheavals, it's likely that many simple and intuitive means evolved to restore the energy balance in a person.

What would be a simple means? How about trying to keep physical balance? It doesn't get less complicated.

Study the Japanese woman in the following video of the 85th birthday celebration for the Senegalese drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose, which took place last year about three weeks before he died. He was a master of the sabar drum, native to Senegal, and sabar drumming, which combines hitting the drum head with the palm of one hand and a stick with the other.

The birthday celebration revolved around drumming, during which some of the celebrants gave brief dancing demonstrations in time to the drumming.

The dance the Japanese woman is doing is the highly improvisational one called simply Sabar, which came to be associated in Senegal with a celebration of female sexuality through dance -- until men got in the act in the modern era and worked out their own improvisations on the dance. But while her costume and a few gestures are nods to the female sexuality angle, she is doing an asexual version of the Sabar that could be called a rag-doll dance -- like an animated rag doll trying to keep on its feet.

It's as if she's trying to throw her body off balance to the point where she almost falls then keeps catching herself.

At one point she loses her nerve or flags -- what she's doing is very demanding physically and even emotionally because if there's one thing human adults hate it's falling down. N'Diaye Rose walks over to her to encourage her to keep going. Thus inspired, she battles it out with the force of gravity with a smile, but you can see her expression when it's over. It was like running the one-minute mile.    
          
Her dance starts at the 4 minute mark of the video.

She's kicking her legs out from under her; there's a lot of knee work -- deep bending at the knees -- and pitching forward then the arms pumping counter-clockwise to regain balance.

I didn't make a big project of watching videos of Sabar dance events, which are numerous at YouTube, but I reviewed videos to find other instances of this kind of Sabar dance. Not all involved strenuous moves. I saw one version that was graceful, almost languorous, but with the same basic moves used by the Japanese dancer.

Another of the dancers at the birthday celebration, an African man (or of African descent; the celebrants were an international crowd) works himself up to giving a demonstration, a vigorous one, of the rag-doll version of the Sabar -- although at one point he throws himself on the floor, either as part of his dance routine or to cover up that he was completely losing his balance. His dance starts at the 2:08 minute mark in the birthday video; he's wearing a blue T-shirt.

From all this, it's possible that the original Sabar was an exercise, set to drumming, to help young male adults learn to regain their balance when they're starting to fall. That would be a crucial survival skill when tribes depended on the hunt for food. If a hunter fell while running from a predator he was dead. So even to overcome fear of just that situation, a balancing exercise that mimics a stumble and near-fall would have been valuable.  

In any case the rag-doll dance would naturally direct more ki to the body's intuitive intelligence, which seems to have its corresponding physical locus in the solar plexus region. There are surely differing views on the topic; teachers of practices that work directly with the life force (e.g., Aikido, QiGong, Yoga) and even gymnastic teachers might put the point for balancing the body at the navel-abdomen region or in the entire region from the solar plexus to the abdomen.

Lu Zijian at some point past his 100th year

"Wisdom support without being overbearing"

But to get an idea of well-balanced ki in an individual, watch the video I featured in the first part of this writing. It's unclear from this description whether this was in 1985 or 1986 but in either year the Chinese martial arts and QiGong Grandmaster Lu Zijian, who was reportedly 92-93 years old at the time, participated in the Chinese National Championship of Chinese Martial Arts as a member of the Sichuan Province Team. He won a gold medal with his demonstration of 'forms' in the Baguazhang school, which according to Wikipedia:

... is one of the three main Chinese martial arts of the Wudang school, the other two being Taijiquan and Xingyiquan. It is more broadly grouped as an internal practice (or neijia gong). Bāguà zhǎng literally means "eight trigram palm," referring to the trigrams of the I Ching (Yijing), one of the canons of Taoism.

[...]  

The practice of circle walking, or "turning the circle", as it is sometimes called, is Baguazhang's characteristic method of stance and movement training. All forms of Baguazhang utilize circle walking prevalently as an integral part of training. Practitioners walk around the edge of the circle in various low stances, facing the center, and periodically change direction as they execute forms

So it's somewhat like figure skating, which traces the circle in various forms on ice.

By playing two videos at the same time, I superimposed a randomly (almost accidentally) chosen portion of music by N'Diaye Rose's drumming orchestra on Lu's demonstration. The uncanny result makes it seem that Lu was moving to the drumming rhythms. This raises the question of whether Doudou N'Diaye Rose, who was called a mathematician of music, could 'hear' the movement of ki as it interacts with different natural phenomena.

Maybe it was something like that. N'Diaye Rose was credited with developing 500 new rhythms -- rhythms not previously known to musicologists.

********