This stalemate is compounded by escalation in the use of two extreme weapons of war. Since Dec. 12, the Syrian army has been firing home-made Scud missiles at rebel centers. The US and NATO have responded by stationing six Patriot batteries manned by 1,000 American, German and Dutch servicemen, on the Turkish-Syrian border to protect Turkey from Syrian attack. The inference here is that so long as the Scuds are confined to targets inside Syria, Western intervention will stop at the border.
Dec. 26, The Syrian army, under the command of Iranian officers, began shootingFateh A-110 high-precision, short-range surface missiles made in Iran. They were sent to Syria at top speed by an Iranian airlift flying over Iraq. Syria in fact manufactures a local version of the Fateh A-110, called M600. But Tehran decided to deliver the originals to show the world that Assad is not fighting alone and that Iran’s military support for his regime is solid – not just against the uprising, but also against NATO, its missiles and the units which have taken up position in Turkey.
In effect, both sides to the conflict appear to have resorted to a form of chemical warfare. Western and Middle East military sources report that, last week, Syrian forces loyal to Assad are thought to have used in the Homs battle of Dec. 23 grenades containing a gas that paralyzes lungs and causes extreme infirmity, or even death...these gas grenades were especially developed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps for use against the masses which demonstrated against the 2009 presidential elections. The grenades have now been distributed to pro-Assad Shabiha militias, the Syrian equivalent of Iran’s brutal al Qods Brigades.
Be that as may, both sides appear to be preparing the ground for chemical warfare. Yet no Western, or any other external power, including Russia, appears ready to intervene to put a stop to the latest horror raising its head in the Syrian conflict, the escalation to chemical warfare - any more than they prevented its descent to the bombardment of civilians by missiles.
Given the Syrian conflict’s sequential plunge into unspeakable atrocities, Israel cannot count on being exempt from a poison weapons attack - even before its Jan. 22 general election.
International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned Sunday the Syrian war was worsening "by the day", AFP reports.
The comments were made as Brahimi announced a peace plan
The situation in Syria "is very bad and getting worse by the day," Brahimi told reporters in Cairo, a day after warning in Moscow that Damascus faced a choice between "hell or the political process."
The comments were made as Brahimi announced a peace plan
The situation in Syria "is very bad and getting worse by the day," Brahimi told reporters in Cairo, a day after warning in Moscow that Damascus faced a choice between "hell or the political process."
Meanwhile, reported AFP, Moscow dispatched a third naval vessel to the eastern Mediterranean on Sunday in readiness for a possible evacuation of Russian nationals, many of them women who married Syrian men during the Cold War years of close relations.
The Tartus base is Russia's only remaining naval station outside the former Soviet Union and is seen as a major strategic asset for Moscow.
Russia has been accused of using the base to supply Assad's government with secret military shipments supplementing the official weapons sales that Moscow has made to Damascus since Soviet times.
Russia has been accused of using the base to supply Assad's government with secret military shipments supplementing the official weapons sales that Moscow has made to Damascus since Soviet times.
If Americans think of national security at all, its usually of Islamic terrorism or Iran, maybe North Korea.
Few are saying this, but what they should really be fearing is the growing Russia/China alliance.
Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, expressed congratulations for the successful holding of the meeting, which also took place Wednesday.
Xi said new CPC leaders will adhere to a friendly policy towards Russia and prioritize the development of China-Russia ties.
Stating that China considers Russia to be its most important strategic coordination partner, Xi said China would like to work with Russia to develop bilateral coordination and boost party-to-party exchanges and cooperation.
The dialogue mechanism between the CPC and the United Russia party was launched in June 2009. Its second meeting was held in Moscow in March 2010.
With the anti-Western Communist Party running China and the anti-Western “former” KGB effectively running Russia, who do you think this alliance is targeted at?
Radical Islam, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, are not separate threats. They are all controlled and influenced to some degree by the Russia/China alliance.
We need to focus on the head of the octopus… not its many arms.
A popular textbook used by institutions and teachers to teach English as a second language to students in the UK has been found to have a serious anti-Israel bias.
"I teach English as a foreign language in a further education college in Nottingham, England. I came across the attached map and couldn't believe my eyes!" Liz Wiseman told Israel Today.
The textbook in question is "Skills in English Writing Level 1", which includes a map of the Middle East on which Israel is nowhere to be found.
While Wiseman acknowledges she was not obligated to use this particular textbook, it is one of the more popular and mainstream English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks published by one of the more popular and mainstream ELT publishers, Garnet Education.
This is far from an isolated incident, which is motivation for drawing attention to this particular case. It is not only in the Middle East where students, both adults and children, are being taught that Israel has no right to exist. The more students around the world are fed this brand of propaganda, the more remote prospects for true peace become.
And below we see yet more on the rapid decline of America:
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